Chapter 350: The Guardian Angel's First Public, and 1000 Pubic, Appearances

Saturday, June 2, 2007 (Continued)

Saturday afternoon was saner for us, but not for some other people. TV showed us scenes at the main access routes into Corvallis, especially the highway bridges over the river. There were many hundreds of cars parked down the Corvallis-Lebanon Highway (the main road into Corvallis, to the east of the river) that had been prevented from getting any closer by the roadblocks. Consequently there were thousands of people yelling at the soldiers to demand that they be let in. Whether to add their worship to my feet or throw another log on the fire wasn't clear.

The two bridges over the river into downtown Corvallis are both long and one-way. The two-lane northern bridge is for traffic going into town, and the direction of the one-lane southern bridge you can probably work out for yourself. Both bridges had to have roadblocks erected to control traffic because several idiots had tried to use the southern, long, one-lane, one-way bridge to get into town, presumably trusting Jesus to keep them safe from head-on collisions. That was foolish of them because Jesus was busy keeping safe all the fully clothed idiots who'd abandoned their cars and were trying to cross the river the wet way, many of whom were as good at swimming in water as they were at walking on it. Considering how against ANY sexual exhibition in public Christians are, they were doing a great job of turning Corvallis into a fucking mess.

The unfortunate people who'd bought our Peoria Road property from us were doubtless wishing it was surrounded by the 75th Rangers again, because TV showed that thousands of religiously inspired souvenir hunters had found it and were in the process of ripping the house apart to get keepsakes of 'Saint Mark', or whatever the hell they thought I was. The owners should have put their property on an eBay auction for an immediate cash sale, as they probably could've gotten millions more than it was worth, assuming there'd be a religious organization rich and silly enough to pay that much, which I thought was a safe assumption.

Our original home had the same problem too, but to a much lesser extent because it was inside the cordon around the town, and (I guessed) because it'd never been on the news before. Of course, now that it was repeatedly pictured on the news with the name of the street being mentioned, that advantage was destroyed. [Mom and Dad had originally rented it out, but had sold it when they were convinced that our post-Binion's bank account values were real.]

The native population of Corvallis was relatively subdued. The city had a fairly small population, and a good chunk of that was students with exams starting in a week or so. Plus Benton County's previous claim to fame was having the lowest rate of per capita church attendance of any county in the country, so it clearly had a population of above-average intelligence. Despite those advantages, there were still a few thousand locals who got themselves worked up over my resurrection, plus there were the few thousand imported idiots who'd managed to get into town before the barricades were put up, and the thousands that'd arrived on foot or by swimming the river since then. The latter group were continually arriving, mostly wet and bedraggled, and out of sorts from having to walk through town to get to our hill.

The soldiers and cops maintaining the half-mile perimeter around our hill were being increasingly outnumbered. With increasing numbers, the crowd was getting increasingly stupid, and it looked like it was only a matter of time before they broke through the cordon.

The Governor appealed for calm. Just in case his appeal didn't work (do they ever?), he was also sending every military and police reinforcement that he could lay his hands on. By air preferably, because abandoned vehicles and accidents had made the roads impassable for several miles around Corvallis.

#3: <I wonder how much we can sell our toenail clippings for.>

#14: <I wonder how much the price would go up by after we turn white.>

#19: <A heck of a lot more, and not just for the racist reason either. Having the transformation visibly work is going to get some people very excited. I bet people start combing through our garbage looking for our Holy Used Toothpaste Tubes, or whatever.>

#23: <I wonder how they'd react to finding a used condom. A moral dilemma between The Holy Seed versus Unholy Sex.>

Judging by the quality of our thoughts, the intelligence-decreasing effect of large groups of people is contagious even by watching them on TV.

The TV networks were clamoring to interview me again. Not wishing to make the situation worse, we were refusing. Even telling them our reason didn't stop their desperate desire to get me on air again. Apparently the public's right to know outweighed the risk of turning Corvallis into something resembling downtown Baghdad.

The Governor's reinforcements were arriving at about the same rate as more Idiots (they get a proper noun now, having achieved the non-critical mass required to form a new type of subhuman), which if all else had been equal, would've been enough to maintain the status quo, especially because many of the Idiots were too busy fighting each other. The trouble was that as the crowd got larger, its IQ got lower. At 4pm it had traveled the relatively short distance down to zero, and any faint semblance of rational thought disappeared. On the street that led to our gate, in front of the cameras (because they contribute significantly to reductions in IQs), a very large group of Idiots decided that orders from soldiers and policemen with guns could be ignored.

Because it was the main street to our home, there were a lot of soldiers and several policemen guarding it and trying to keep order, and there were several large vehicles parked across the street to form a substantial barricade. The crowd simply swarmed forward, not caring about any of that. This was the most strongly defended and largest barricade anywhere around our property, so the worst place for the crowd to make a push, but they didn't care about that either. They simply swarmed forward.

The soldiers and cops had to back out of the way. Those of them that had non-fatal ammunition - rubber or bean-bag bullets - could have fired into the crowd, but it was so large and so determined (in a mindless sort of way, i.e. religiously) that it was no longer controllable. It was a pity that the goodies couldn't open up with live ammunition, because it was an ideal opportunity to raise the nation's average IQ by several points.

The mob reached the barricade and from what we could see on TV, it looked like they simply "flowed over it." In reality, they each had to climb over the obstructions. Many of them were crushed against the sides of the vehicles, stumbled, slipped, or were even pulled back by following climbers blindly grabbing for whatever handhold they could reach for, even if it was the person ahead of them. Dozens were injured and trampled where they fell. The mob didn't care, mindlessly pressing on regardless. If they were lucky, the injured could roll under a vehicle. If not, they got trampled on a whole lot more.

Judging by their ability to swarm over the large trucks blocking the street, our wall wouldn't slow them down for long, and there was no way our security force could slow them down at all without a great deal of bloodshed. This was a necessary and ideal opportunity for the Guardian Angel to make its first public appearance ("first" because the tape of the doctor's examination hadn't been handed over yet, as that would've only made things worse).

My families were watching this on TV with me, and saying things like, "Uh oh," or "Oh dear," while our two guards - Tristan and Sanchez, as predicted - looked like they wanted to say, "Oh Fuck!"

I created the Guardian Angel. My families weren't fazed and Alexis had already walked bowlegged to her car and driven home, but Tristan and Sanchez were startled. I immediately told them, "Relax, it's the Guardian Angel. I imagine it was watching TV and saw what's coming our way." Our guards kept their hands on the butts of their guns, relaxing not at all.

My sitting in the Adults' House meant I was too far from the gates for the Guardian Angel to intercept the crowd there - it was a GREAT pity my 500-foot range hadn't doubled with every merge - so I created several NP-fingertips. A few of them grabbed my arms and lifted me off my seat so I could create an NP-seat under me as that's more comfortable than being carried by my arms. I also used fingertips to lightly push everyone in my families back in their seats, holding them there while the NP-seat started floating me slowly out of the room, led by the Guardian Angel.

Tristan and Sanchez were not happy with this development. Before they could do anything, I said, "The angel's job is to protect me, so I'm sure you don't have to worry. Staying here to guard everyone else would be best."

Tristan had another idea. He told Sanchez to stay, while Tristan followed me. He radioed, "Tristan in the Adults' living room: The TV is showing a thousand-plus people overwhelming the main barricade and heading for the gate. ETA three minutes. The Guardian Angel has picked up Ron and is carrying him out of the room. Ron's not in distress. Sanchez is staying in the living room with all the other principals; I'm following Ron. We're in the hallway heading east at walking speed. Ron's sitting on nothing three feet in the air, which is the weirdest thing I've ever seen."

A few seconds later he said, "Understood."

I told him, "I don't think you have to worry..."

"I'm paid to worry."

"You're earning your money today then."

"You got that right."

A few seconds later, Tristan told his mic, "We're waiting for the Adults' elevator. The call button came on by itself. The doors are opening. The Guardian Angel and Ron are going in. I'm following."

The angel preceded me into the elevator, and was kind enough to turn me around so I faced the door again. Tristan entered and the "Down" button went on all by itself. Just after the doors closed, the Guardian Angel resumed its position in front of me by moving straight through my body, giving Tristan a heck of a surprise. (I had moved it so quickly that Tristan hadn't had time to think about drawing and shooting it. By the time he started going for his gun, it was already hovering motionless in front of me.)

I gave a small jerk to show a lesser surprise, then said, "That was weird. I never felt a thing." I waved my hand through the blob, scaring Tristan again. I added, "I thought so. It doesn't have a body. You can forget about trying to shoot it."

Tristan activated his radio to describe the angel's passing through me and its apparently having no body. He ended with, "Ron's hand passed straight through it. If it does something I don't like, I don't think I can restrain it or shoot it. I can't touch it with anything. Anyone got any idea on how to manage it?"

By his body language it was clear that no one had a clue. Most of them were probably busy getting ready for the arrival of the thousands-strong mob.

Every vehicle on the property had already been put away, except for the tractor used to collect cuffed intruders, the fire truck just inside the gate, and a few dirt bikes positioned around the property in case the security force needed to relocate quickly (keys NOT in the ignition, so intruders couldn't use them). The Guardian Angel led us to an SUV, opened the back door and deposited me inside far enough to make room for Tristan.

The door remained open. I invited Tristan, "You coming in?"

He climbed in, saying, "No choice. I don't know where you're going."

^-- He keyed his mic, reporting the recent development, then suddenly added, "Christ! The whole SUV just lifted of the ground. It's flying down the tunnel now with the angel flying a few feet in front. We're heading out."

Partway down the main tunnel out we encountered two incredulous looking staff wives walking into the hill on the walkway on the side of the big tunnel. They normally live with their husbands in the Senior Staff's Quarters, and I guessed were now being evacuated to the much safer Adults' House. They didn't have radio earpieces so they had no idea of what the explanation was for the bright yellow light and flying SUV. I waved reassuringly to them as we floated past.

There was a pressure pad on the "Out" lane to get the tunnel's big doors to open. I NP-pressed that as we 'drove' up to it. That didn't work, presumably because the property was on lockdown. I used a sight blob to find the door-opening switch in the Security Room and toggled it, using NP to hold the surprised guards back from immediately switching it back.

The SUV flew out the mouth of the tunnel, then slowed to a stop horizontally. It rose several feet, moved backward and sideways a few yards, then it parked itself on the slope of the hill facing the gate. The car's gearbox was in "Park" and the parking brake was on already, so nothing else was required.

I said, "We've got a grandstand view out the front gate. I've a feeling the Guardian Angel wants us to see what's about to happen." That was my excuse for having to reposition myself within range of the gate. We were now about a hundred feet from it. The SUV had tinted windows, we were in the backseat looking around the front seats' headrests, and were far enough away that no one in the crowd would be able to make out my face. I had my chin resting on the front passenger seat's back, on the side away from Tristan so the headrest was stopping him seeing that my eyes were closed. Proximity would tell me if he moved enough to get a look at my face.

I hadn't decided what to do yet. In particular, the issue of how rough to get with the Idiots was still open. I had to be somewhat rough, otherwise the Idiots would probably feel honored that the Guardian Angel had interacted with them. On the other hand, ripping a few thousand heads off would be terribly excessive, even if tempting. Somewhere between the two extremes seemed best, but that covered a large number of possibilities.

A high radio blob looking down on the approaching mob was definitely moving my thoughts toward the uglier extreme. There was a very large number of them, and they looked very unreasonable. I decided on a middling level of ugliness; something to teach the Idiots a lesson they wouldn't soon forget.

The morning's activities had resulted in a lot of damage to trees around the outside of our property, as people had pulled off branches to use them to help get over the wall (sometimes a dozen or more people had swung on tree limbs to get them to break off; a lot of branches couldn't bear that sort of weight). Thus there was plenty of raw material for clubs. That was good, because I was planning to use a lot of clubs.

I decided the average club probably weighed a few pounds, easily less than ten. Call it six or seven at most. I needed the clubs to be able to be quick and nimble around the crowd, and be able to bash heads pretty effectively, so at least 10 g's of acceleration would be good. Assuming my minds created the maximum number of fingertips, then each would have 7.2 kilograms of force (nearly 16 pounds). To get 10 g's on a 7 pound club would require 70 pounds of force, which was five fingertips worth. Call it six to play safe. With thirty two fingertips per mind, I could wield five clubs per mind, which would be too many for each mind to coordinate because I wanted to bash the Idiots' heads with some precision and care. I decided on two clubs per mind, which gave me far more force per club. That let me create fewer fingertips per mind as fewer would be easier to control and their individual maximum forces would automatically be greater.

At two clubs per mind, I needed about sixty clubs. I sent the two radio blobs left and right from the gate, looking for suitable weapons. I found several immediately usable clubs, and some longer limbs that I could break into pieces, which increased my arsenal considerably.

I'd gotten over thirty clubs when I remembered that our guards had truncheons. I checked the gate area. Paul had set up a layered defense again. Just inside the gate were Paul (currently talking into a cellphone), five other grim-faced guards, two senior cops (the most senior holding a megaphone), and three firemen holding their hose ready. There were quad bikes and the flatbed truck parked a few yards behind them, pointing back into the property and I could see that the vehicles were idling. Fifty feet farther into the property were another half a dozen guards, spread out widely so they formed a line about a hundred feet wide. They were armed with tasers and rifles, and looked very unhappy. There was no sign of all the wall-hoppers that'd previously been chained to a stake just inside the front gate while the police processed them [they'd been relocated to one of the several rooms off the main tunnel].

Paul was evidently still concerned with people accessing the property from directions other than through the front gate because there were still pairs of guards and spotters positioned around the property. They were all pulled back to be located much closer to the Adults' House than the exterior wall, presumably so they couldn't be cut off by the mob if we had to flee to the panic rooms.

I'd had a foolish image of Paul standing outside our gate in a glorious attempt to single-handedly deflect the mob, but that was obviously stupid (clearly the result of too much TV in my impressionable childhoods). It looked like he and the cops were prepared to use waterpower initially, and if that failed, then tasers - several of my minds had fun imagining how tasers would work when people were drenched and standing in huge puddles - and then to use firepower. Thousands of Idiots rampaging through our property couldn't be allowed. My families could hide in the panic rooms easily and safely, and we could get some of our staff in with us, but quite a few of the staff might get cut off and could be at great risk, and the houses would be wrecked. It'd be better to shoot several of the attackers in the legs (which is what I guess Paul would order), and hope that the rest regained some intelligence and decided to run away.

[[The plan was different than I'd expected. Paul and the Police Chief were going to attempt to stall the crowd at the wall by using the fire hose and rifle shots into the air. A large Army chopper was on its way and expected momentarily, to hover only feet over the crowd to have its considerable downdraft and intimidating size further discourage the mob. The first chopper was empty because there hadn't been any troops available, but later choppers would bring reinforcements into our property, provided the previous tactics could stall the crowd long enough. Only if the crowd rampaged onto the property would harsher action be necessary, but that was thought unlikely. The decision whether to fire live rounds at anyone had yet to be made; that'd be the Police Chief's unenviable decision.]]

Even though I very much wanted to see multiple tasers put to use while the fire hose was spraying the crowd, I liked my idea better. I'd been waiting for an opportunity for the Guardian Angel to make an entrance, and this would do that very nicely indeed. I could hear a couple of helicopters coming too, probably news-choppers who'd been unable to resist entering the no-fly zone because the imminent clash was going to be Great TV.

I zipped the Guardian Angel from the front of my SUV in a very rapid arc up and over the intervening guards, descending to the middle of our driveway, between the gate and Paul's first rank of defenders.

I gave them a couple of seconds to get used to its appearance. Our guards had all heard Tristan's comments, and the firemen and cops were getting quick explanations from the nearest guards. I picked up all the 'fall back' vehicles, moving them from just behind Paul's group to just behind the second rank of defenders. Everyone watched the movement in amazement.

After I'd put the vehicles down, I gently picked up all the front rank guys and the fire truck, and moved them fifty feet farther inward, putting them down on the driveway just behind what had been the second line of defenders. Just before I released their arms, I borrowed their batons. I thought about borrowing the batons from the guys in the second line, but they were holding rifles and I didn't want to scare any of them into pulling a trigger by mistake. They should've been far too professional to react that way, but it'd be best to play safe. I had forty one batons and clubs now, which should be enough. I flew the tree branch clubs over the wall onto our side of it, then toward the gate, sending the batons to join the clubs. They were hovering halfway up the wall, just to either side of the gate so out of sight of the imminent mob. Paul and everyone else could see the hovering clubs, and it was pretty obvious what they were going to be doing very soon.

Tristan was occasionally talking to me, asking me what I thought the Guardian Angel was doing, or just making comments. I gave him fairly obvious answers. I've left that out as it was only a distraction (for you; I can easily talk to someone while my other thirty one minds are concentrating on doing several other things).

Seconds before the front of the mob arrived at the gate, the first of the choppers arrived overhead. I spared a moment to look up at them. They weren't the media choppers I'd guessed them to be. The first one was police and the other one that I could see coming was an Army transport helicopter. The police chopper came close and a loudspeaker ordered the crowd to go back the way they'd come. The crowd didn't do as ordered, presumably because they were feeling either far too religiously inspired or moronic - those two moods being extremely difficult to distinguish.

Ignoring the police chopper the same way they'd ignored the police at the roadblock, the mob kept advancing toward the gate. They reached it a few seconds later. Some people started fanning out to either side, but others braced themselves against the gate and in several cases, started trying to climb over it.

I could see that Paul and the policemen were about to do something. I didn't know what, but it was time for me to act anyway as I didn't want the mob to fan out much wider than the street. I put one sight blob just above the gate looking into the mob, and another sight blob nearly a hundred feet farther down the street, also only about ten feet above the mob's heads and looking back toward the gate.

Then the clubs and batons (I'll collectively call them clubs from now on) flew up over the walls and divided themselves into three groups: a quarter of the clubs for the right flank of the mob nearest our wall, a quarter for the left flank nearest our wall, and the remaining half for the back of the mob; those being the areas where I had the best vision for clubbing. There wasn't a "back of the mob" yet, just a long line of people that stretched back hundreds of yards. There'd be a back soon though, because when I started clubbing people below the far sight blob, people slightly farther away would run away. I'd let them, but I wouldn't let anyone closer run away. I was going to use NP to hold the front hundred feet of the mob in place while I clubbed them ALL, with the exception of the several kids. Who brings kids to a riot? Obviously morons who trust in Jesus' protection WAY too much.

Seeing the crowd up close, I thought of an improvement to my tactical plan. I had a lot of unused minds with spare NP force and I just thought of a good use for it. I needed only 9 minds' worth of force to wield the clubs, leaving 22 minds available. 22 minds times 32 fingertips at 15.8 pounds each was 11,100 pounds, about 5.5 tons. I'd allocate about 2.1 tons to each of the long sides of the mob, and the remaining 1.3 tons to hold the back of my 'net' closed. That would imprison the Idiots very nicely. I wasn't going to create a continuous wall around whole group. A static barrier wouldn't scare them enough and they'd start to try to get over or under it. I was mostly going to use sudden body blows to push them over and back into the group, probably in bulk rather than individually. I'd suddenly and strongly bulldoze a 20-foot width of one flank inward, and while they were recovering from that, I could use the NP-fingertips to bulldoze another section. I'd be doing that on both sides and at the rear, and it'd freak the shit out of all of them. I'd probably also need to use some fingertips for other purposes, such as pulling the kids out and moving them to the side safely, gathering back any individuals who managed to make a run for it, and little tasks like that, but they'd be minor.

I figured there were about a thousand people in the area I was about to clobber. If my forty one clubs could take fifteen people down a second, then it'd take only a minute to get them all. That was overly optimistic as I was going to err on the side of hitting too lightly. I'd start by hitting even lighter than I thought I should and see how many didn't stay down, and adjust my force appropriately. All I wanted was to take the fight out of them. Unconscious was fine, but just stunned was okay too. Especially because if they woke up and tried to run, I'd simply clobber them again.

Clubbing them all might take two minutes, I guessed. Not long, but they'll be EXTREMELY frightening minutes for the mob, if not outright terrifying. It should teach everybody, including the non-participants, a very good lesson. One reason I was using clubs was because even the people watching on TV would be easily able to imagine how painful it'd be to be on the receiving end, which should encourage everyone to stay away. There was a cameraman and reporter flanking the mob, so the film would certainly get out. It wouldn't be as impressive as a top-down filming would be, but side-on would still do the job very nicely.

The next thing I did was extract every kid that I'd noticed. My definition of "kid" was anyone that looked too young to be clubbed on the head. People were looking at the glowing light above the gate (the Guardian Angel, although they had no idea of that yet), and they'd just got a scare by seeing all the clubs flying up and over the wall toward them, when fourteen kids shot up into the air. That added greatly to their surprise and concern. Especially for the kids' parents. Some of those were quick enough to grab at Little Johnny or Suzy, but invisible stomach punches easily distracted the would-be grabbers.

The tree branches quickly caught up in the race to be the most surprising development, because they started attacking people! My first few blows didn't deck anyone, so I upped my forcefulness, careful to hit the females somewhat less forcefully.

I was rapidly flying the kids off to the side. They were screaming for their parents; their parents were screaming for them, the people I was hitting with clubs were just screaming, and the mob in general was doing a great deal of yelling too. An already noisy mob was rapidly getting even noisier. I flew the Guardian Angel light blob low over their heads to be an additional distraction, to be Good TV, and to reinforce my lesson. I kept clubbing.

I placed the kids on the ground about a hundred feet to the side of the mob on the same side as the film crew; in a clear, easily filmed location. The damned kids immediately started running back to join the mob, thereby proving that they were Christian children. I was glad the kids had been in the riot group, as my careful treatment of them would be very good press for the Guardian Angel, but they were a damned nuisance because I had to divert a sight blob away from clubbing to look after them. I picked them up again and started flying them into our property. I'd place them among our security guards, but for now I turned my attention back to the mob. I'd look back at the kids in about twenty seconds, when they'd be in about the right place.

The mob tried to scatter of course, but they were very easily contained by very sudden, chest-high, 20-foot long barriers that not only stopped their rush, but pushed back so quickly and forcefully that everyone in the area fell over backward on top of each other, taking many seconds to stand up and get themselves ready to try again. I had three such barriers operating, only taking a second or two to push over a group, and virtually zero time to relocate to a new area to repeat the action. I also had several fingertips doing individual actions, so none of the thousand corralled people had a chance to escape. Pushing a group of people over with my forceful barriers and clubbing a few of the people on top of the heap considerably slowed down the recovery of those underneath. A few nimble people did manage to break free, but I simple picked them up and dropped them into the middle of the mess, where their nimbleness was ruined, especially if they were clubbed as well - that needed one of my clubbing minds seeing them as a good target as they flew by.

The lucky people just behind my hundred-foot cutoff point saw the people immediately ahead of them get attacked by twenty clubs. They ran like the Devil was after them, very quickly creating a wide gap between themselves and the imprisoned mob, making containing my victims even easier.