Undercover Cool: Agents of T.A.L.O.N.

Art and Fiction by Falstaffe

 

Lt. Dominique Merlin hit the release button on the para-glider’s harness and fell, boots-first, towards the pavement. The glider went through a slow aerial acrobatic ballet of re-folding itself into a neat package to be recovered later as Dominique hit the ground, rolled upright, snapped her riot gun into place, and pressed the stock firmly against her shoulder. One corner of her lips quirked in a smile—she’d managed to hit the narrowest of landing spots, her specialty. Had Merlin drifted left or right, she could have gotten tangled in the gardens of the Jardin de L’Infante. If she’d landed short, either the dark, rushing water of the Seine would have swallowed her up, or the paraglider’s lines would have gotten snarled by the metal framework of the pedestrian bridge, the Pont des Arts. And, if she’d overshot the landing, she would have smashed against the fortress-like walls of the Louvre. At the speed Dominique had been going, even her combat armor wouldn't have saved her from a messy demise.

 

“Next time I’ll take the Metro,” Dominique thought to herself, and scanned the museum’s grounds. She was the first pair of boots on the site, so it was her job was to clear the way for the other Talon agents who were still raining down like a murder of crows. But, the courtyard was empty. No targets lit up the light-intensifying “Owl’s-Eyes” goggles. There was nothing, anywhere, just starlight and silence.

 

“Damn!” She swore softly. That meant the "emergency" was either an elaborate hoax or that they were too late. Only one way to find out…she sprang up from her defensive crouch and bolted for the doors of the Louvre. She was about to reach for the heavy, brass handles when it swung open, and out stumbled one of the museum’s guards. His face was paler than the moon overhead, and covered in a cold sweat. Although his eyes were pointed at Dominique, it was clear that he didn’t really see her, and he kept trying to press a paper stub into her hand, “Here's your ticket," he cackled hysterically, "Welcome to the tombs! They're just public mausoleums; the living dead fill every room!”

 

Lt. Merlin pressed her way past the babbling man, ran through the vestibule and into the dark heart of the building. He wasn’t kidding. Around her, the galleries of the Louvre were filled with para-ghouls: shambling half-rotted corpses dressed in tattered rags. Some still had strands of gauzy, spider-web-like material around their shoulders, the remnants of their shrouds. Bony fingers scrabbled at the gilt-framed masterpieces on the walls. All the rowboats in the paintings looked as if they were trying to row away, the captains' worried faces contorted and staring at the waves.

 

Merlin bared her teeth and raised her riot gun, flicked the safety off, began to squeeze the trigger, then stopped suddenly. If she put one more ounce of pressure on the trigger…the bullets would shred the undead thieves…and pass right through the masterpieces! “Clever,” she thought, “The Nazi who’d thought up this little scheme deserved a medal—or a noose.” She eased her index finger off the trigger, re-engaged the safety.

 

A signal chirped in her ear—Lt. Spektor signalled that he was in position behind her. Reggie! He had enough firepower with him to level the building, and a notoriously itchy trigger finger. She sighed and thought, “That’s what T.A.L.O.N. gets for taking on Americans!” She didn’t dare let him advance, and backed out of the museum, stepping into the vestibule before returning his signal on her handheld radio.

 

“Hold position, Flight Gamma! I say again, hold position! I’m going to try something really stupid. With any luck, I’ll be the first thing you see leaving the building. Try not to shoot me.”

 

“Anything for you, dollface.”

 

Merlin ignored Spektor’s reply, checked her riot gun, hoisted it over her shoulder, slung it back into its holster. Cracking the interior door, she scanned the gallery. She watched the shuffling undead, waited for her opening. NOW! She darted for the first pair of double-columns that led deeper into the infestation. She pressed her back into the narrow gap between the columns, trying to make herself hard to spot, trying not to breathe the rank smell of the ghouls.

 

Time to arm her weapon: the Talon gauntlet held a launcher that shot an eight-inch long bolt of barbed steel. The device also had a reserve of high-tensile strength steel cable. She attached it to a bolt, and selected one of the weaker para-ghouls, a gaunt, whispy-haired creature, bent over from the weight of the painting it was trying to cart off. Perfect. She aimed, braced her arm against the pillars, fired. The bolt struck the ghoul on the right side of the head at the temple, its barbed end emerged wetly out of the left eye socket. It shrieked, and dropped Edvard Munch’s painting to the carpet.

 

“Looks like I got a live one…” Merlin thought to herself, and then played the squealing ghoul like a master angler, jerking it to and fro. Its wails seemed to break the other zombie’s concentration. They turned away from Renoir and Cezanne and Matisse, and turned their attention towards Merlin.

 

“Lucky me,” she thought. Drawing her combat baton, Dominique shouted into the growing mass of dead flesh, “OK you maggots...time for lights out…and lock up! COME AND GET ME!”

 

The dark horde surged forward as one, and Dominique ran for the door…

 

(With apologies to Regina Spektor)

A Tale of Two Falstaffes (A True Story)

Once upon a time, thanks to the ineptitude of my local cable company, there were two of me. There was Me, and a guy who lived down the highway who happened to share the same name, but who was Not-Me. Now, the thought of someone out there who shares my name (and it's a goofy name at that) has always kind of fascinated me, and I've even entertained notions of creating a writing project where I would track down all of these people and see how their lives were the same or different. But then I had this run-in with the other me, and I dropped the whole idea.

As I said, Me and Not-Me, we don't live in the same town, we're miles apart. But, because there's only one, giant cable TV conglomerate that serves the entire region, we both ended up as their customers at roughly the same time, although they signed Me up first. How do I know? Because a few months later, they signed up "Not-Me,"  and gave him an email address that was staggeringly close to mine. How close? Well, MY inbox filled up very quickly with emails from HIS friends and family. I'm not sure, but I think Not-Me even gave out the wrong address.

In any case, it quickly went from amusing in a voyeuristic sort of way to tiresome, having to wade through stacks of letters. But, trying to be a nice guy, I replied politely and let them know that I was Me, and that they needed to phone up Not-Me, and get things straightened out. I was starting to make some headway, too, when I began receiving emails from his prayer-group. And one letter in particular...it made me stop dead and stare at the screen. I could not believe what I was reading.

 Now, I've always fancied myself to be kind of a spiritual person. As a kid, raised Catholic (read into that what you will.) In my college years I looked into some Eastern philosophies (but I also joined a Christian singing group, just to impress a girl. But, that's a whole 'nother story...) I was raised with 70's hippie Jesus, a cool guy who wanted us to be nice to one another. He was all about healing the sick and feeding the hungry, and not being judgmental. Seemed like a pretty decent guy, all "love" and "forgiveness" and so forth. If you slapped him in the face, he'd offer you the other side, saying, "There! Smack that one, too while you're at it!" That was James Dean and Humprey Bogart and a whole six-pack of Arthur Fonzarellis worth of cool. (Kids, that's like Robert Downey Jr's "Tony Stark.")

Like I said, I got a letter from someone in his prayer-group (after I had been alerting them to their mistake.) This letter--a very excited letter-- told the following story: the author's sister lived in another state where her husband, a construction worker, had suffered a fall from a great height, the kind of drop that should have killed him instantly, but instead left his body shattered. He was in a coma. If he ever regained consciousness, he would find that his body was paralyzed, having severed his spinal cord. Yes, this was a tragic and compelling story, and moved me to feel sorry for this guy I didn't know, half a continent away. He was a father, too,  and probably used to enjoying all the perks that come from having a strong body, now taken away by this horrible accident. But, despite this awful, tragic tale, there was something else in the letter made me even sadder. And that was the letter's tone.

It wasn't sad, or pleading or asking for prayers. It was gleeful. Giddy. Filled with barely-bridled joy. She was happy, happy beyond belief! Yes!!! The exclamation points proclaimed! Why was she happy? How could she be happy? Was this sister an evil person? Had she wronged her sibling? Stolen a boyfriend or been addicted to crack or kicked her dog? No, no and no. But...she had always "been on the fence with her faith," a lukewarm believer. And this terrible tragedy was a miracle! Now, the sister would return to the fold and be closer to God. Glory be!

I couldn't believe what I was reading. It was pathological, monstrous. This woman's faith had engendered in her a callous disregard for the well-being of others so powerful that it even blinded her to one of the worst situations that her own family, her own sister, might ever have to endure.

Now, I've got a bunch of siblings. Growing up, we didn't always treat each other right. And I know that even as an adult, I am myself far from perfect, and capable of self-centered and petty behavior. HOWEVER, I could not ever conceive of being so happy, so maniacally gleeful and joyous in the face of such sadness and misery, were it to fall on MY sister.

Like I said, I'm kind of wishy-washy spiritual, "on the fence" so to speak. I try to be a good person, and do the right thing, although I sometimes I fail. I don't know all the answers to life's questions, and don't entirely trust those who say they do.

But I do know this: if there is a hell, I hope there's a spot reserved for this woman, and folks like her, who become blinded to misery and suffering--even when it happens to family. The kind of glassy-eyed belief that causes people to protest soldier's funerals, shoot doctors, and strap bombs to their chest.  I hope those people burn in--

What?

What's that, hippie Jesus?

Really?

You gotta be kidding.

Sigh.

Ok, HJ...

Doctor Who Episode Review: The Impossible Astronaut & Day of the Moon

11-Layer Doctor Sandwich

Post #1!

For starters,  my reaction to Doctor Who's two-part season 6 opener. Oh, and since I'm jumping into the middle of the series, remember that my present might your past or future. In other words...

>>>Spoiler Alert<<<

Still here?

Great!

I should explain where I stand on things Doctor Who:

This is a fun, funny, exciting, suspenseful, witty show full of great ideas, and the newest incarnation of it almost, alllllmost fulfills every possible square millimeter of greatness of it. The producers have raised Doctor Who, from "campy, guilty-pleasure sci-fi" to "literate, adult, meaningful work of awesomeness." A lot of that has to do with the complex and engaging scripts, courtesy of "Sherlock" mastermind Steven Moffat, who just may be as smart as the characters he writes about (which is to say brilliant beyond belief. By the way, speaking of his other show, does anyone else think that one inspiration for Doctor Who might be "Sherlock Holmes in Space?" Maybe it's just Benedict Cumberbach's interpretation of the role that leads me into thinking that way, but I digress.)

"Forget about it. I'm too cool for this shit."

Like River Song, my relationship with Doctor Who is complicated. While the actors are engaging, and the f/x are up to snuff, and Moffat & Co. are some of the best writers with a pen and pulse, they are still locked, like Davros to his wheelchair, to those aweful cookie-cutter plots.

Spoiler Alert: regardless of whatever's going on for the first half of the show, the big plot twist in Doctor Who is always: it's an alien invasion!

Really?

Consider the voyages and adventures of Star Trek's Enterprise, in all versions combined, and let's throw in Moya, Serenity and Galactica--all of these vessels combined have only the merest fraction of the milage of the Doctor's Tardis, but look at the rich diversity of story types shared among them. With all of space and time to investigate, "it's an alien invasion!" is all you can come up with?

*sigh*

But, on to this episode. Or rather, pair of episodes. Series 6 had the distinction of being one of the first to be shot here in the States, and the opener certainly tries to highlight this: the story begins in the desert southwest, hops to Washington, DC and then to Cape Canaveral. It's 1969, and on the eve of Apollo 11's historic voyage to the moon, the Doctor uncovers...well, you know the rest.

"We're going to America-wheeeeee! River, you get a gun!
Doctor, you get a hat! Rory and Amy, you get clothes from Dickey Bubb!"

 But, it's not the destination that matters with this episode, so much as the scenery along the way. The setting of America in the late 60's is used to good advantage--Nixon could easily have been a caricature, the equivilant of Spaceball's Dark Helmet, but he's handled as a real person, and the way the episode explains his obsession with taping conversations? Genius.

Nixon, the Doctor and "Canton Everett Delaware III" (played by Mark Sheppard)
looking for a name that's less typically American than "Canton Everett Delaware III."

Curiously, one wonders why the production crew relied so heavily on Brits to fill roles like the LEGENDARY Morgan Sheppard and his son, Mark Sheppard, playing the same character at different ages. Great actors, but still, one wonders why they couldn't have gotten a pair of Americans for this role.

Character actor Morgan Sheppard in many guises. Most recently,
he was the dickish head of the Vulcan Science Academy in 2009's Star Trek.

The alien menace this time 'round are certainly frightening enough: "The Silence," a race of scary ET's who resemble the character from Edvard Munch's famous painting "The Scream." Easily in the same league as "The Weeping Angels" in terms of fear-factor, The Silence similarly rely on a gimmicky (yet effective) device: the minute you turn away, you forget you've seen them. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

But fear not, the Doctor never travels alone. Up for this adventure are Rory, Amy Pond and River Song, and the script entertainingly milks every bit of interpersonal drama from this group and their relationship with the Doctor. First up: River Song, the Doctor's (wife? lover? killer? all of the above?) She is ALSO a time-traveller. However, their travels are in opposite directions: his past is her future, and vice versa. There's some real pathos and bitterness as she realizes that time is no longer her friend, and that the best moments that she shared with the Doctor are now past, and a bitter and painful resolution to their relationship is all that's left. Alex Kingston's portrayal of River continues to amaze as she flirts, shoots aliens, pilots the Tardis, or contemplates a future--her future--without the Doctor.

I don't even want to think about what she keeps in her nightstand...

And the Rory/Amy/Doctor "love triangle" is up to full power, as well: Amy's pregnant--is it the Doctor's? OK, ok, it's not the most original plot hook, but the actors sell it really, really well. Rory's pathos when he overhears Amy professing her love for the Doctor is truly heartbreaking, thanks to Arthur Darvill's sympathetic performance. (However, the show missed an opportunity to wring every last drop from this soap-opera cliche. At one point, Amy shoots a mysterious spaceman, who is revealled to be just a little girl. Amy's daughter?!? Nah, it's someone else.)

"Please stop writing naughty fanfiction about me..."

Finally, there's the Doctor himself. While Matt Smith isn't my favorite (yet,) this episode stretches him in new ways, playing differnet versions of himself: older, younger and (my favorite) "grizzled Guantanamo Doctor." There's an occaisional note of cluelessness to this Doctor that's very appealing, a window of vulnerability that makes him more...well, human and interesting.

Scary aliens, tasty character stuff. What's not to like about this episode?

"Look Rory--everyone's got cool clothes but us!"

Well...laid on top of this rather straightforward plot is a another, more convoluted one: the characters are all gathered together by a mysterious summons from the Doctor--although as it turns out, a future version of himself. Mysterious stuff happens connected to this plot that looks cool and interesting, but never really adds up nor makes any real sense, in much the same way as another TV series: Lost. Like this ultimatlye meaningless exercise in flash over substance storytelling, this episode spins its wheels without over getting anywhere. The most egregious example of this is "Day of The Moon's" opening, which has the characters seperated and on the run, each covered in strange tattoos (for no good reason) being chased, hunted down and executed by friends (for no good reason,) in a JJ Abrams-style intro that's quickly revealled to be an empty, meaningless, time-wasting farce.

This plot never really satisfactorily wraps up or manages to make a sufficient amount of sense and the *actual* main plot (the alien youknowwhatsis) gets short shrift, being solved in a less-satisfying manner. More plot threads are left hanging than are resolved. This is a somewhat annoying trend as I fear that a device that was used once to lend complexity to the show has now decended into gimmickry.

JJ Abrams-style gimmickry.

BLECH!

But, now that I've got that out of my system...did I like it? Yes. Overall, a very strong pair of episodes, with genuine thrills and a high creep-factor. Great character stuff. Just don't begin here if you're a newbie to Doctor Who; instead, start with the Chris Eccleston's version of the Doctor from 2005. He's got this very earthy interpretation of the character, more grounded and "real" than any other. And, his episodes are at the beginning of the show's rebirth.

For you see, if you're new to Doctor Who, then your future should be my past....

Steve Bruns is Falstaffe

And who am I?

The labels are endless: nerd, gamer, writer, reader, artist, filmfan, teacher, liberal...

Falstaffe's Tavern will be a place for me to post my thoughts on movies, tv, games as well as publish snippets of my own artwork, games, fiction and miscellaneous ramblings.