A Crackpot Book
Editor-publisher: Lynn Lockhart
Proofed by
Dust Cover
A novel of 2048
Principal Warrant Officer Bersten Dessalines has graduated top of his class from the Portland Social Justice Academy just in time for the final act in the War against Privilege. He has been assigned as crew for Justice Server #42 four of the most decorated Social Justice Servants for the drive against The Last Redoubt of hateful fanaticism in the Uinta Mountains of Utah. As a Civil Server, however, Dessalines is disturbed, for his crew flagrantly demonstrate uncompassioned behavior, have renamed their vehicle “Ghost Snatcher” and, most disturbing of all, stridently insist that they are that which is fundamentally incompatible with both Social Justice and Civil Service: heroes.
Author’s Notes
All of the characters in this science-fiction story are based on real people known to the author and cast into the pitiless shadow of his sourly predictive imagination. Apologies have been considered, found wanting, reconsidered and discarded.
The original night of writing has netted just over 2200 words, with a table of contents spread indicating that Ghost Snatcher should run to about 96 pages and 13,000 words.
I will be posting the front matter, including the unrealized table of contents and the character sketches of the crew, in six installments in these final days of 2019 to stand as a promotional tag at jameslafond.com. This novelette should be published in book form by September 2020. Like most of my spontaneous fiction, this book was conceived and will be executed as I recover from bronchitis—low oxygen apparently my strange creative boon companion.
-James LaFond, 8:44 AM, Friday, December 20 2019
For Banjo Cain, man of an easy nature, friend of hard stature
Contents
Author’s Notes 4
Remote Debriefing Notes 9
In the Company of Heroes 11
Oldschool Johnson 14
Crankshaft Witherspoon 17
Acetylene Jackson 22
Mainline Watson 24
The Red Rock Warrant 28
The Baltimore Warrant 30
The Jersey Warrant 32
The Chicago Warrant 34
The Pittsburg Warrant 36
The Portland Warrant 38
Estes Park R & R 40
The Last Redoubt 42
Bloody Kamas 44
The Upper Setting 46
The Soap Stone Shit Show 48
Mushroom Meadow 50
On Top of the World 52
