The next chapter begins with John surprised that he isn’t dreaming. Generally, whenever a character says that they can hardly believe what is happening to them and that they must be dreaming, it is a sign that the author’s subconscious is telling him that his story is ludicrous. Rummel may wish to keep that in mind.
To calm himself down regarding his immense task ahead, John repeats the old saying that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Then he quips that perhaps in the New Universe, people will attribute that quote to him. Silly Rummel, that’s an old Chinese saying, known even then. But I suppose that Joy isn’t the only character with a huge ego.
All of a sudden John remembers that he’s a hundred years in the past, and so must replace his wristwatch with a pocketwatch appropriate for the age. So far Rummel has generally avoided the number one sign of bad writing— describing a character’s clothing in detail. Well, there is a first time for everything, and he starts now.
John claims that in 1906 people only bathed once or twice a week, if at all. I think somebody mixed up his time periods here; they’re in the 20th century, not the Middle Ages. By the time most people acquired indoor plumbing, they began to bathe more often. Of course, Joy takes this time to criticize John for his body odor, and the two of them engage in yet more pointless bickering.
Just after John gets properly dressed for the time period, disaster strikes. Three young men walk into the warehouse.
Our protagonists1 really should have known that this could happen. The warehouse which they selected as their base of operations is damaged from the fire and is unlocked, so anybody can just waltz in, especially after it has sat there unclaimed for months following the fire.
What I find amusing is that these three as-of-yet-unnamed young men from 1906 speak in a more modern way than some of the characters from the present:
“Hey,” he said when he was about ten feet away, “who are you? Whatcha doing in our building?”
Then one of the others pointed to the open door on the capsule, and exclaimed, “Look, he got it open. How’d he do that?” He turned a speculative eye on me. “We tried everything. Not even a sledge hammer would make a dent in it.” (page 168)
Before John can shoo them off his not-yet-officially-claimed property, guess who peeks out of the tent without getting properly dressed first? Oh, Joy.
In fact, she pretty much tries to seduce them, in order to lull them into a false sense of security while she kicks their asses. She should be really careful, since she can move faster than light;2 she could easily kill them. Not that she would care.
Wait just a second. She pretty much invited them into her tent. Her exact words were, and I quote, “Come on, boys. I’m yours. Who’s first?”3 She deceived them about her intentions in order to inflict bodily harm on three people she has not even known for three seconds. And we’re supposed to be rooting for her?
Quite understandably, after that performance one of the three calls Joy a bitch and goes after her with a knife. Finally, somebody is calling the Sue on her bullshit! Unfortunately, the Sue just knocks the knife out of his hands. Good morning, Sue-dometer, how are you?
While this is going on, John tries to save his @#$%-buddy himself, but just succeeds in making an ass of himself. This is pretty much the only time that Rummel will acknowledge that John isn’t as good at martial arts as Joy is, and that he has only received five weeks of training. When the time comes, the Sue-dometer will be going off for John as well. I should also point out that John calls what just occurred “entertainment”. Yes, he is entertained by the sight of Joy beating up three bystanders. I do believe he has acquired some of Joy’s psychopathy. And remember, he is Rummel’s Self-Insert.
Then, our soon-to-be-villain-protagonists-if-they-keep-this-up tie up the three unfortunate trespassers. For all John and Joy know, those three young men actually own the property. When one of them asks what is going to happen to them, John says that if they do not answer all of their questions to their liking, he and Joy will kill them, possibly after torturing them first. HOW ARE THEY ANY DIFFERENT FROM THE PEOPLE WHOM THEY ARE TRYING TO STOP?
Joy threatens one of them with castration, to which John says that she has as many sides to her as a diamond. Except, no. Joy has only two sides: whiny bitch and creepy psycho. This is no different.
So, the three newcomers are terrorized into revealing everything about themselves:
The one Joy had chopped in the groin seemed to be in less pain. He responded first. “I’m Dolphy Docker. I’ve been out of work since the fire. So many horses died that nobody needs a stableman anymore. My mother died from something she caught during the fire. I got no father. He left my mother when I was four years old.”
“Dolphy? What kind of name is that?”
“My friends call me that. I don’t like people using my first name.”
“Which is?” I prompted.
“Adolph,” he muttered.
“Where were your parents from?”
“Germany.”
“Sie sprechen Deutsch —you speak German?”
“Ja,” he responded in German, “my mother hardly knew any English.”
“What part of Germany?” I asked in German.
“Munich.”
“How old are you?”
“Neunzehn —Nineteen,” he replied.
I returned to English. “What are you doing in our warehouse?”
He looked surprised. “You own this?”
“Yes,” I said. It was only a partial lie, since we would be buying the
building.
“We live here.” (page 171)
This makes me sympathize with Dolphy and his friends even more. The kid lost his job and has to live in an abandoned warehouse, only to be viciously attacked by two people who shouldn’t even be there. Dolphy is my age; now I don’t want to go anywhere near Rummel. Also, giving him the first name Adolph was definitely Rummel’s attempt at irony. It’s too obvious to work, though.
The second young man, the largest of the group, calls Joy a chink. This kind of casual racism was common at that time period; to Rummel’s credit, he does not tolerate this sort of thing and so has John sternly reprimand Dolphy’s friend Alex Reeves. However, racism actually is a very minor part of this book, which is more than a little unrealistic since John and Joy ostensibly want to create a better world.
It turns out that Alex, who will be called by his nickname “Hands” for the rest of the novel,4 ran away from abusive parents and played minor league baseball until he broke his arm. Since he doesn’t have any real job skills or work experience, he’s pretty much doomed to poverty at this point. He is twenty-two years old. We also learn the ironic fact that, despite Hands’s culturally expected racism, he himself is part Cherokee. (Why are they always Cherokee? There are other Native American tribes you know, writers!)
The last young man is a twenty-year-old of Mexican descent, Sal Garcia. He lives with his uncle because his mother was a prostitute, and naturally he never knew his father. He was supposedly born on U.S. soil in a cardboard box—knowing what I do of Rummel’s political views, I am honestly surprised that he didn’t insert a diatribe here about “anchor babies”. He was the one who attacked Joy with the knife—that’s a little cliché, isn’t it?
After learning about their stereotypical impoverished backstories, John tells them to relax while he speaks with Joy. Dude, they’re tied up and begging you not to kill them horribly. How do you expect them to relax? This is more evidence that Rummel did not reread his work after writing it.
Why hello, line break. It’s been a while since I’ve seen you, hasn’t it?
John tells Joy that they can either kill the three young men, frighten them into silence, or hire them to work at their front company. In an attempt by Rummel to show that his Self-Insert has morals, John persuades Joy to take the third option. Since we know that Rummel wouldn’t bother giving detailed backstories for three characters who serve only to get killed, we know from the beginning that Joy agrees. It turns out that the only thing that sates a Sue’s bloodlust is a Self-Insert. My Sue-dometer just went off again.
Oh, but they won’t trust their three new hires. Trust is an emotion beneath paranoid Mary Sues. So they add psychological torment on top of the physical beating that Dolphy, Hands and Sal have already received. Joy injects the three of them with a harmless saline solution, which John tells them is actually a slow-acting poison. If they run away or reveal anything about the company, they will die. The only way to avoid this is to receive the “antidote” (actually a multivitamin) which only John and Joy can administer. You read right. They threaten their employees with death because they are paranoid. I’m sure that if the three young men had not been frightened into submission, they would have called the police. Two suspicious people who appeared from nowhere, one of whom is of a hated minority, would attract quite a bit of police attention, would they not? But Rummel doesn’t want his Sues to face any real setbacks in their mission.
One pointless line break later, John puts his new marks—I mean recruits—through Training From Hell. He has them do jumping jacks until they are gasping for breath, and then does the old carrot-on-a-stick trick. John takes out a counterfeit $100 bill, and tells them whoever can take it from him may keep it. However, this is just an excuse for him to beat them up:
At that moment, all three of the guys lunged for the bill between my feet. The training Joy had given me immediately kicked in. Time slowed down. It was almost as though I were play-acting as I kicked Dolphy in the groin, causing him to double up, and almost simultaneously ducked inside Sal’s reaching arm, grabbed his shirt with one hand and yanked him to me while stepping to the right to trip him; he fell headfirst away from me as Hands, who had hung back until he saw me occupied with the other two, threw himself headlong at the money, as though he was sliding into home base; and I kicked back with the foot I’d used to trip Sal and connected with Hand’s outstretched right arm, knocking it away, and he twisted and landed on his shoulder. I grabbed his outflung left arm with both hands and twisted it behind his back and up. I held it there for a minute, and then released it, pushing Hands away. With a flourish I couldn’t help, I reached underneath my foot for the bill.
I waved the bill at the three sprawled on the floor, and warned, “I could have killed each of you, but I went lightly so as not to injure you. Do you now understand what I mean when I say I’m your boss?”
Gripping or rubbing their painful spots, they grimaced and glowered, but nodded. (pages 176-177)
I am, quite frankly, disgusted by John’s behavior. He’s picking on those who are weaker than he is. And it’s strange that three young adults who lived a good portion of their lives on the street are less skilled at fighting than a former college professor who has only trained in martial arts for a little over a month. Besides, he is outnumbered. My Sue-dometer is complaining even louder.
After this atrocious display, John puts the trio to work. Apparently, their first task is to comment on how John and Joy look in their new, period-appropriate outfits.5 John claims that “the afterglow of laughter”6 was still on their faces. I have no clue what that means. Are they literally glowing? Also, Joy flirts with the new hires. John is not happy.
At least this next line break has a reason to be here: there’s an actual scene change, for once. As soon as they leave the warehouse, they notice that San Francisco in 1906 is, frankly, a pigsty. There is manure on the street and flies buzzing everywhere. Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t people have indoor plumbing by then? Flush toilets were around since the 1890s. Rummel might be making the past worse than it was.
John then makes the following sexist comment to Joy:
“Look, no women around. Must all be in their place at home.” (page 180)
Look at how politically correct our hero is!
And with the entire import and export company stepping into a buggy, the chapter ends. At least this one is longer than a lot of the previous were.
Footnotes
1 There are only so many different ways I can say “our so-called heroes”.
2 Remember the laser incident?
3 page 169
4 That’s kind of an unfortunate nickname, if you know what I mean…
5 After a whole page of John and Joy getting dressed privately, while teasing each other.
6 page 179
Fireshark on 22 January 2013, 19:30 said:
Originally I was reading ahead, but the “heroes’” actions got so assholeish that you’re catching up to me.
By this point I despise John, in addition to Joy.
Taku on 22 January 2013, 21:47 said:
What is this. What. I—
There isn’t a single thing that isn’t wrong with that fight scene. Tactically, technically, physiologically… Just wrong.
I think he meant horse manure. But motor cars were in common usage, and historical footage shows Market Street in 1906 to be clean, bustling and largely manure-free even despite the horses. It could just be Rummel’s modern biases showing, though. Being used to historically unprecedented cleanliness (so dramatic that it is affecting children’s immune systems) can make even a single plop of horse manure in the street magnify in significance out of all proportion.
swenson on 22 January 2013, 22:19 said:
Regarding the three young men incident, that does seem like a rather… extreme reaction. The guys were suspicious, but couldn’t John have at least tried to fasttalk them into leaving? And quite frankly, after treatment like that, why on earth would they agree to work for them?
Re: Hands being Cherokee: because if you need a mysterious, slightly spiritual Native American past, you’re always Cherokee. Sioux and Nez Perce and Apache tribes apparently have no mystical warrior priests who spew wisdom or anything.
…well, I mean they don’t, but my point is that if you’re going to use the Magical Indian trope, at least be equal about it.
Regarding manure on the streets, that’s possible. One of the biggest problems facing city planners before cars became common was pollution—specifically, the disposal of literally tons of manure from all of the horses. However, if he’s implying human waste (aka sewage) was on the streets… that is all sorts of fail right there. And it’s not like they didn’t have street cleaners. I’ve been to Mackinac Island, where horses are all over the place (there’s no motor vehicles allowed on the island, with the exception of emergency vehicles), and it’s simply not THAT disgusting. Although it’s quite small compared to San Francisco of the early 1900s, it’s got to at least be comparable to a quiet back street in San Francisco. And it’s not like it’s on the sidewalks or anything.
Anyway, these guys are not heroes. At all. Being a hero, in my book, isn’t just about beating the even worse guy. It’s your whole attitude and sense of morals. A hero is the sort of person who is willing to risk their mission because they don’t want to beat up a bunch of teenagers. An antihero is the sort of person who beats them up, ties them up, threatens them with “poisons”, and forces them to work for him. A likable antihero is the sort of person who does all that, except the reader snickers the entire time and still likes them. John and Joy do not fall into this category.
Master Chief on 22 January 2013, 23:13 said:
Line=crossed
Epke on 22 January 2013, 23:27 said:
I wonder if Rummel knows that many facets are used to cover up imperfections… hm… I’d liken Joy a little bit more to a cracked mirror: it shows things, but they’re all skewed and broken.
This may just be nitpicking, but I have to call Rummel out on it: Adolph, with a “ph” is the ENGLISH spelling of Adolf – if the young man’s family was indeed from Germany, and so new to the U.S that his mother doesn’t speak much English, they wouldn’t use the English spelling. Sure, it doesn’t make a difference in pronunciation, but it’s these little things that make me so annoyed.
Only if he’s sleeping on the job.
Careful, John, that ego of yours will soon develop it’s own gravitational centre (like Joy’s).
It would make more sense if John and Joy turned out to doing the same things the dictators did, in their attempt to stop them. Say they bumped off Stalin, yet for the sake of a unified Soviet against an increasingly dangerous West, they need to set an example that will frighten their opponents… so they look to Siberia. It’d be like history, or time itself, will not allow for greater deviations of its course: what has happened has happened. Using this line of thought, John and Joy would become the villains they sought to pre-empt all along (let’s face it, they’ve got the egos, the sadistic tendencies and paranoia to make it).
goldedge on 23 January 2013, 00:26 said:
You could try “Quote-Unquote ‘heroes’”
Mingnon on 23 January 2013, 00:36 said:
Where’s your hesitation about killing dictators now?
goldedge on 23 January 2013, 00:50 said:
Flurrin on 23 January 2013, 00:52 said:
Actually bathing was very popular in the Middle Ages, right up until the mid-14th century. I just read about this the other day. Soap was a huuuuge thing back then and people bathed communally.
Sorry, just had to mention that. It’s a common misconception.
swenson on 23 January 2013, 01:02 said:
@Flurrin – if you got it from the same place I did (the Cracked article?), it also mentioned that they eventually DID stop bathing so much… but only after the Black Death, when people began to believe that the reason it’d spread so quickly was because they’d bathed too much and opened up their pores.
Regardless, people in ye olden days (I’m talking the late 1800s, early 1900s) at the very least would probably take a full bath once a week (Saturday night, before Sunday?), but that didn’t mean they weren’t washing themselves throughout the week. It just meant that was the only time they stripped down completely. The bits under their clothes weren’t washed as much, but their arms and faces would have been cleaned regularly. At that time, bathtubs may still have been rare, but most people certainly would have had a faucet in the house and good soap.
Brendan Rizzo on 23 January 2013, 12:37 said:
I knew this, but didn’t point it out because it’s quite likely that Dolphy would have Anglicized his name upon immigration.
I’m confused. Was that directed at me, or the characters?
Mingnon on 23 January 2013, 22:45 said:
The characters, namely John.
Epke on 23 January 2013, 23:56 said:
Yes. Though obviously not as intelligent or well-written.
Hm… maaaaybe. I’m on the fence here.
Prince O' Tea on 24 January 2013, 20:26 said:
Sociopath sues, don’t you just love them? Next Joy will be declaring herself the Queen of Maradonia and John will be setting fire to people on the street with Defender.
Taku on 24 January 2013, 23:00 said:
I’m not terrible good at history, but why would someone be ashamed of the name “Adolph” about 30 years before Hitler? Sure, maybe they could be ashamed about being a German person in America about 8 years before WW1 was concluded, but the name “Adolph”? In any case, it might have been better for him to take on an American/English name like Alfred or Ben or Don, instead of the obviously-suspicious “Dolphy”.
Apep on 24 January 2013, 23:11 said:
Even then I doubt he’d have any real reason to be ashamed, especially in comparison to any number of other possible cultural backgrounds like, say, Italian, Ukranian, Polish, or Irish. Germans would have been the “right” kind of European immigrant – namely Western and Protestant. Germans only really got cast as the “bad guys” of Europe durring WWI.
So let’s just count this as another instance of Rummel not knowing anything about the period he’s sent his Self-Insert and his Sue girlfriend to.
Tim on 25 January 2013, 01:24 said:
Eight years before WW1 was concluded would be four years before it started. 1906 here is six years before, so aside from seeing him as one of those warmongering dumbass Europeans I don’t see why he’d have any issues with a German name.
Tim on 25 January 2013, 01:26 said:
1906 is eight years before, rather. Too many eights and sixes.
swenson on 25 January 2013, 10:05 said:
Before anyone knew about the concentration camps, Americans had quite a favorable opinion of Germans. During World War I, there was a significant portion of the population (including German-Americans) who wanted neutrality or even allying with Germany. Of course, we ended up going to war with Germany, but still—at this point, being German was certainly nothing to be ashamed of.
Brendan Rizzo on 25 January 2013, 11:29 said:
Furthermore, I have done the math. Had Dolphy been a real person, he would have been two years older than Hitler. Hitler was a teenager in 1906, so absolutely nobody would have associated the name with him, and Rummel fails even harder.