3rd Prize –R.R. Dale with:

Best of Both Worlds

I have made my decision. Jack Emmanuel must die.

If I tell you that Jack is the closest I’ve had to a friend over the past five years, and that his particular talents have made me extremely rich, you may find it strange that I want him dead. But he has taken over my life. I am now his slave, bowing to his bidding – my life is his. He is always with me. I haven’t left the house for weeks for fear of him. Evidence of his malevolent, brooding presence lies all around my once pristine study – half-eaten congealed takeaways, mugs of cold stagnant coffee, books wrenched from their Dewey Decimal bookshelf places, strewn around the floor amongst half-typed screwed up pages, discarded like used sweet wrappers. My once ordered life is in chaos. No cleaners call now, frightened away by my disheveled appearance and erratic behavior. My only visitors are from Mr. Chan’s or Pizza Hut.

Are you beginning to understand?

But murder, you exclaim, isn’t that extreme? I have created this lawless monster Jack Emmanuel. I am responsible for his life, so I must carry the burden of his death. My apologies – my ramblings may have led you to believe that I am actually going to murder another human being. Not so. I couldn’t kill an ant, let alone a person. Before my sanity finally deserts me, you deserve a more lucid explanation as to my current predicament.

My name is David Penny, aka Miles McBride, author of the phenomenally best selling series of novels ‘The Avenging Angel’. Unless you’ve been dead for the last five years, you will know the anti-hero star of the narrative, Jack Emmanuel. Even if you haven’t read the books, or seen the prime time TV series, you will have heard his name mentioned on the news, or in Parliament. He has become a national, and international, celebrity, in his own “write”. I keep asking myself the same question – how can a character from a book become so real, and so important, to so many people?

Jack was born some six years ago in a short story I wrote for an on-line fiction competition. My aim was to create a comic pastiche character, a parody of every cliché-riddled deliverer of justice known to crime fiction. His parents murdered during a robbery; his wife killed by a drunken paedophile; his only son in a vegetative state on a life support system following a gangland stabbing. He is ex-SAS; ex-copper; reformed alcoholic and junkie; he listens to Mozart and Motorhead; reads Proust and Marx in the original texts, and has a habit of misquoting Confucius at opportune moments. His life’s crusade is to right wrongs as he perceives them. His justice is swift and deadly. He is judge, jury and executioner. He is the vigilante of moral righteousness, dispensing his own version of divine retribution. Yes, he is an insane homicidal psychopath, but his redemption is that he only kills the evil bastards who don’t deserve a place on God’s earth. His original pseudonym – The Verminator – was meant as a weak joke, as was the whole story.

I didn’t win the competition, but the piece was spotted by my current agent, Agnes Frome, a former headmistress turned literary agent with the skin of a rhino, the tenacity or a terrier, and the ability to put the fear of God into any publisher. She somehow managed to acquire an advance for me to develop the story into a novel. The publisher changed a few things. He gave Jack a new public identity, “The Avenging Angel” and subtitled each book with a Confucius misquote. “Recompense injury with retribution” was the first. He felt that the quasi-religious undertones would create the necessary controversy for maximum publicity. He was proved right as the books flew off the shelves quicker than a politician loses his integrity. The radical media, disgusted with the Government’s namby-pamby approach to crime and punishment, loved Jack’s lynch mob approach to dealing with the morally corrupt scum of society. They orchestrated a campaign to bring back the debate about capital punishment, which struck a chord with large sections of the public. An imaginary character created as a joke by a second-rate writer had become a political hot potato that was re-heated every time the next book was published. Of course, publishers recognize a golden goose when they see one, so I was offered a five book deal with substantial advances to go with it.

The books are all formulaic – victims identified; Jack listening to “Laugh at the Devil” or “The Ace of Spades” prior to the killing; suitable gory dispatch of the victim; Jack keeping vigil at his son’s bedside (headphones on, being soothed by Mozart’s Piano Concerto Number 9). The average body count per book is ten. Jack’s back-story is clumsily presented to the reader in flashbacks, with his various shoulder chips layered in dripping fat. In his mid-forties, six foot, ruggedly handsome, toned body, attractive to both sexes, an IQ of 150, and the ability to kill in the same number of ways. He is my antithesis, and now I have to kill him. Not just for my sanity, but for the good of this crazed society who are one step away from deifying him.

I have been working on the final “Angel” book, subtitled “Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves”. (Smart cookie that Confucius.) My deadline is tomorrow, and I still can’t find a suitable death for Jack, or write his final remorseful speech in which he recognizes the error of his ways and tells the world that he is as evil as his victims. My frustrations are apparent in the mess that surrounds me. The cursor on my computer screen pulses relentlessly, mocking my impotence. To escape, I check my emails – the tenth time today. I open a new message from my agent knowing that it will be a deadline reminder. Instead the screen goes blank, and a message appears.

GOT A PROBLEM?

LET EMMANUEL TAKE CARE OF IT

Will be in touch

Jack

My mobile starts to play Motorhead’s “Killed by Death”, which is extremely weird as I had programmed in Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries”. I snatch it up. Unknown caller. I answer it.

“Hello Dave. I understand that you have a problem. I’m here to help.”

The gravelly nicotine stained voice threw a pebble of uncertainty into the puddle of my mind, and waited for the ripples to settle.

“Who the hell is this?” I could hear a tremor in my raised voice.

“You know who I am, Dave – or would you prefer Miles?”

“How did you get my number?”

“Everything is available to me here in Cyber City. I have access all areas.”

“What are you talking about? Is this some kind of practical joke?”

“No joke, Dave. This is your old mate Jack Emmanuel.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. You’re some hoaxer from a radio station or TV programme. I’m phoning the police to report you.”

“I’m afraid you can’t do that, Dave. I have control over all your communications.”

The mobile went dead, the computer turned off. I grabbed for the house phone. I heard a rasping laugh, followed by a fit of coughing.

“You see, I’m all around you.”

“Very sophisticated, whoever you are. Hacked into my emails and telephone systems for this scam. What do you want? You want to scare me? You want money?”

Although I was still applying logic, I could hear the tremor in my voice moving up a notch to a quaver. It was only just a semi-tone short of hysteria.

“I thought you’d need some convincing, so I brought along someone you know.”

“Are you being naughty again, David? You know what happens to wicked children, don’t you?”

My dead mother’s stern voice. That’s not possible. My hands covered my face, as reason packed its bags and left for a long holiday.

“Anything is possible here in Cyber City, Dave.” Gravel man again.

Could he read my thoughts as well?

“Dave, are you sitting comfortably, because I want to tell you a story to prove that I am Jack.”

He paused to make sure I was listening.

“All fictional characters come to life in the readers’ mind: even poorly described one-dimensional stereotypes like me. You know you weren’t creating Booker Prize material, don’t you?”
An imperceptible nod of my head was enough for him to continue.

“Ninety nine percent of all fiction ever written is now on the Internet, so authors and their created characters live here in print form. Also anyone from real life who has died over the last few years has a presence in cyberspace thanks to emails or Facebook. Did you know that Mark Zuckerberg works for the US Military? No? I didn’t think so. Anyway, somewhere back in the late sixties the military realized that whoever controlled the Internet would have immense power. Some bright spark put forward the seemingly mad idea of combining all the knowledge of everyone who had ever lived, on the flimsy idea that knowledge was power. I know it sounds crazy – all the best ideas are. What about dolphins and bombs, huh? Man on the Moon? Bottled water?”

I nodded weakly. His tale seemed like fantasy, but unfortunately I could believe anything of the Americans.

“So this spotty geek, named Bill Gates, writes this incredibly complex program that not only works – which was a first for him – but by some tangential data flow bio-feedback in the hypertext protocol mechanism, it mutates itself and brings virtual life to all those dead guys and girls, and to all us fictional characters as well. You know you often say that your computer has a mind of its own; well that’s not far from the truth, Dave. As you can imagine, it’s quite a party here.”

He paused to give me the chance to stop hyper-ventilating.

“What do you want of me?” My voice barely a whisper.

“Simple, Dave. Look, I’ve met this girl, Alice. She’s wonderful, but a bit young for me. They don’t worry about things like that here. Only trouble is she’s a bit concerned about my past. Need to improve my image. You want me dead. We both want the same thing. Can’t we compromise here?”

I would ride with the Devil if it would get me out of this nightmare.

“What do you have in mind, Jack?”

“Have a look on your computer screen.”

I swiveled round to find the last chapter of my book staring back at me.

“I re-wrote it for you, Dave. Happy ending and all.”

I scanned the pages – Jack murders innocent man; crushed by remorse he tries to commit suicide. Rescued at last minute by miraculously healed son; he declares the error of his evil actions. Forgiven by society, he dedicates the rest of his life to helping the poor and rehabilitating criminals. It was exactly the sort of crass ending I had been searching for – even if Jack didn’t die.

“Glad you like it, Dave. I’ll send it to your agent.”

“Agnes and the publishers won’t like it.”

“Don’t worry, I have some friends here who can take care of them.”

“Could you take care of something else for me, Jack? I want to live in Cyber City.”

“Sorry Dave. No can do. You have to be dead or fictional to live here.”

“But I am fictional. I’m in this story.”

“Clever, Dave. I like your style. You’re not such a dumb ass. You can have the best of both worlds – virtual and real.”

“So what do I have to do?”

“Just upload this story to the Internet. I’ll meet you in Reception. Just think of all these great writers here for you to meet. You could be the new Shakespeare or George Bern…”

I was way ahead of him. I pressed the ENTER key.

Critique by Competition Adjudicator,
Iain Pattison

This is the kind of funny, slick, tongue-in-cheek, intelligent and mischievous story that every judge dreams of reading. It’s knockabout comedy – with some wonderful one liners, and a hilarious ending – but also a very insightful and biting satire on the shallowness of the world of writing and the cliché ridden nature of action thrillers. Between laughs, I was saying to myself: “This is so true!”

What I particularly love is that this romp skirts the line between pastiche and polemic, damning as well as teasing. It even manages to indulge in a little self parody. Great stuff.

On a personal note, this comic gem resonated with me because I (like the narrator here) once entered a pastiche story into a comp, intending it to poke fun at the genre and theme requested – and it won! I never had the heart – or courage – to own up to it being a mickey take!