Chapter 8

Welcome Wastelanders to the Post-Apocalyptic Joe in a Cinematic Wasteland Audiobook Podcast! My name is Joe Gillis, and I’m the writer and narrator of this Serial Fiction Series. We’re diving into Chapter 8 this week, but there’s a new chapter every Friday, so be sure to subscribe.

If you stay until the very end, you’ll get a peek behind the page with a quick tidbit about this chapter.

Well, let’s get into it…

The story so far…

The Board appointed Martin Connolly as the CEO and Joe as the President of SI Tech, but that wasn’t the worst of it. Leaked footage showed the military using the MECHA IR torture scenarios as “enhanced interrogation techniques” on an “enemy combatant.” Joe publicly opposed their company selling the torture scenarios while trying to get the Board to oust Martin. Problem was, Joe had signed a non-disparagement agreement, and the Board backed Martin’s removal of Joe from SI Tech.

Now let’s get into, and see what Joe is up to…

Chapter 8

Effectively retired, I turned my attention to my missile complex. I don’t know why I wanted to own a missile silo, but it was always something that I dreamt about owning. When I finally reached a point in life where I could waste a whole lot of money on one, I did just that. Actually, in the grand scheme of things, missile silos are quite cheap. You can easily find them for less than a modest middle-class home in the suburbs of California. The real serious money usually came from the costs of retrofitting the place. As luck would have it, I could afford more, so I bought an old Titan One missile complex for around four and a half million dollars. Everyone I talked to thought that sounded like a lot of money, but the U.S. government spent around $170 million to build the place in the ’60s–and that’s in 1960s dollars, so I really got it for a steal at only a fraction of what it cost to build.

My Titan One facility was amazing. There were three missile silos; each one around 158 feet deep and 40 feet in diameter, which included the two heavy blast doors. Tunnels interconnected all of the other buildings to the silos, and each of those buildings were nice-sized, too, with three 6,000 square foot equipment terminal buildings that had four stories each, a couple of 3,000 square foot six-story antenna silos, a 100-foot diameter control dome building, and a 130-foot power dome building. All of this helped the facility to operate with its own power, air filtration, sewer, and water. The U.S. government was even kind enough to make sure there were high-capacity water wells on the site. Of course, it wouldn’t be complete without a kitchen, bathrooms, and sleeping quarters, giving me 19 acres of underground awesomeness!

The military pretty much hadn’t done any upkeep on these things after they tore out the various stuff they wanted to keep, or didn’t want to fall into the wrong hands, so the first thing I did was retrofit the old power, air filtration, sewer, and water systems from the ’60s with new, state-of-art equipment from today. Then I began converting one of the missile silos into the ultimate luxury living space by breaking it up into fourteen stories. It was going to have everything I ever wanted: a movie theater, arcade, library, exercise facility, pool, hydroponic food and aquaculture levels, and multiple living quarters that would be topped off by my underground penthouse.

There was a lot of work that still needed to be done, so I guess it was good this project had my full attention now, even though I’d love to still be working at the company I had helped start. Since I no longer had to work, I decided to move onsite by converting one of the modular buildings that served as construction HQ into my temporary living space.

There were hundreds of people working around the clock on reconstructing my new underground city. As I sat there watching this gigantic undertaking with cranes and other massive machines working away, I wondered how Batman could have built his Batcave without a crew like this. I mean, Bruce Wayne couldn’t have hired a bunch of guys and then offed them since that was against everything he stood for. I know the cave supposedly already existed, but the Batcave was pretty elaborate with a ton of concrete work that could handle multiple vehicles like the Batmobile and Batplane. So where did all that concrete come from? Bruce and Alfred weren’t down there mixing bags of concrete in wheelbarrows, right?

“ALFINA, how much concrete would you need to handle the weight of a car or plane?”

I really wanted to go over and ask my structural engineer that question, but that’s the type of conversation I’d have to wait for the right moment to show itself.

“A car lift would need to be 4 inches thick.” ALFINA answered in her choppy robotic voice. It wasn’t her default setting; I just never wanted to lose sight of the fact that she was not actually human—which was something so many other people had done. I mean, in all fairness to Maya and her team, they created something that blurred the lines so well between human and AI that it was easy to forget that she (it) wasn’t human. That’s why I made darn sure my ALFINA sounded way more robotic than the way other people had theirs set.

“As for the plane, it would be helpful to know what size were you thinking?”

“The size of the Batplane,” I answered.

“Based on several variables on the web, I would speculate that you would need roughly 6 inches to hold the distributed weight load of the Batplane. Do you plan on adding that to your Titan One complex?”

“No, I’m just trying to figure out how hard it would have been for Bruce Wayne and Alfred to have built the Batcave.”

“Based on the images from the comic books, animation, television show, and movies, I would say it would have been quite difficult to have done it themselves.”

“Me too. I mean, how does a billionaire have enough time to just go down and do that anyway?”

“Yes, but you forget he had two jobs: Wayne Enterprises and Batman.”

“True. Well, I guess if he has time to fight crime, he must have had way more time on his hands than I ever did running my company.”

“Or he was just more efficient.”

“You got me there, ALFINA,” I chuckled.

AI or not, you got to love that sense of humor.

“Joe, it’s nearly time for your meet up with Maya.”

“Thank you, ALFINA.”

The nice thing about not doing the concrete work myself was it left time for me, Maya, and Sanjay to meet up. Sometimes they’d come over and hang out or watch a movie, but that was rare because of how far away I lived. Most of the time we met up in one of the many MECHA IR environments, usually at a virtual theater where we would watch movies together and talk. Tonight, Maya had a surprise for me. She even virtually covered my eyes to reveal it.

“Are your eyes closed still?”

“Yes. You know I feel pretty silly having my eyes closed in a virtual environment.”

“It’s worth it, my friend.”

“Hey Sanjay, I didn’t know you were here.”

“I wanted to see your reaction for myself.”

“My reaction to what?”

“To this…” Maya said as she removed her hands.

“Holy cow, you guys. This place is freakin’ awesome!!!” There I was, standing in the middle of a virtual Titan One missile complex, where the details were so realistic that it was almost indistinguishable from the real thing. “So you finished building the mission?”

“Yep,” Maya said with a smile.

“And you guys did this all in your spare time?”

Maya didn’t answer at first, or should I say, she didn’t answer with words. She took a deep breath, rolled her eyes, and then just glared at me. Like a really deep stare, too.

Sanjay had the same dumbfounded look, except his mouth was dangling open.

She must have felt I didn’t understand what she was saying with her body language—which I totally did—because she finally answered with some words.

"Do you really think this would have taken us all these years to do if it wasn’t for the fact that we were doing this on the side?”

“No, no, of course not. Well, either way, you guys nailed this place.”

“It helps that we were able to see it in real life,” Maya said, beaming.

Sanjay chimed in. “That and the scans came in handy.”

“Wow. I’m sitting above ground right now, but I’m down in my Batcave.”

“Batcave?” Sanjay spoke with a hint of confusion in his voice, seeking further explanation.

“It’s because he’s a billionaire with a secret underground lair—you know, he thinks he’s Batman,” joked Maya.

“If the shoe fits.”

“I don’t see you out there fighting crime,” Maya pointed out.

“I was kicked out of our company for fighting a crime.”

“Oh, I guess I missed the issue of Batman where Bruce got fired by the Board for fighting a crime.” There was a hint of sarcasm in Maya’s voice.

“It sort of happened in the aftermath of the Joker War.” I grinned, knowing that I had her there.

She shook her head as she frowned before letting out a big sigh.

“Okay, ‘Bruce,’” she said, adding finger quotes to the name. “I’ll give you that one.”

“Hey, my story isn’t over yet. You’re my Lucius Fox.”

“Because I’m black?”

“No, because you’re my inside man—uh, I mean inside woman,” she didn’t seem to like either of those, so I added, “Inside connection?”

“Better, but shouldn’t Sanjay be Lucius Fox since he’s the hardware guy?”

“True, true, I guess you’re both my amalgamation of Lucius Fox. Well, either way, I still own a huge chunk of our company, so I’m better off than Bruce Wayne was, and I’m richer, too.”

“Rub it in, why don’t you,” Maya said, knocking me off my pedestal.

“Hey, both of you are richer than Batman, too, so you shouldn’t complain.”

“We should become real life superheroes, my friends. I mean, think about it, money is Batman’s only superpower, right?” Sanjay reasoned.

“Yes, but the only one of us that knows how to fight is Maya,” I joked.

“Well, you wrestled, right?” Sanjay recalled.

“True—” But before I could finish what I was saying, Maya cut me off.

“I’m not sure fighting to not get pinned really counts as wrestling.”

“Oooh… Dang, she got you there,” Sanjay was enjoying this a little too much. “Dude, that’s got to hurt.”

“Hey, ya know I don’t make the news, I just report it,” Maya said with a smirk. “Don’t be so sad, Joe. I know it wasn’t the type of wrestling you wanted to do anyhow.”

“Turns out High School wrestling is a little different than what I watched on TV.”

“I bet. But you know what was dead on to the movies?”

I wasn’t sure what she was getting at, so I answered in the only way I knew how: “Huh?”

“Karate. Ya know, you both could have stuck it out and gotten your black belt like me.”

“Turns out that Karate Kid was more fun to watch than do,” I replied.

Maya went to say something but then stopped, like she didn’t know how she was going to put whatever the heck she was going to say. “Ummm…” She took a deep breath. “For a guy who watches waaay too many movies—”

I interrupted. "I don’t know if there is such a thing, but go on.”

“Uh, yes Joe, there is.”

"I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree.”

“Whatever. What I was gonna say, is that for a guy who watches waaay too many movies, you sure are blind to the obvious. I mean, ya know, like the fact that Daniel-San complained an awful lot while Mr. Miyagi was teaching him. That should have been your first clue that it wasn’t going to be all fun and games learning karate.”

Sanjay took a deep breath while crossing his arms, and then he turned to me. “She’s right, you know?”

“Yeah…” I shrugged, and then it hit me. “You know what we need to do? We need to develop something where you can just upload all the training like in The Matrix.”

“Duuuuude...” Sanjay’s eyes were wide as he bobbed his head vigorously with a massive smile before finally finishing. “I’d be down for that!”

“Or you guys could just not be lazy and learn it the good ol’ fashion way by spending the time needed to learn it.”

“No way; beaming it into our minds is so much better,” I asserted.

“Sorry, Maya; I’m with Joe on this one.”

“How did we ever build a company with two of the three founders being lame at finishing things?”

“That’s why we have you,” I added, nudging Maya with my elbow. We all laughed, and then I continued. “And besides, the ‘S’ does stand for Slacker, so there’s that.”

“How did I allow you to talk me into naming our company Slacker Technology?”

“Well, technically it’s Slacker Interactive Technology Enterprises,” Sanjay reminded her.

“You’re not helping his case, Sanjay.”

“Has old Martin figured out that he’s CEO of SIT Enterprises yet?” I joked, totally not reading the room, or more importantly, Maya.

“No, because it’s SI Tech Enterprises. And how can you be making fun of your own company anyway?”

“I’m not. I’m making fun of Martin. I mean, come on, you know I love the name. Heck, I just wanted to call it Slacker Technology, but I get that it’s better to bury the ‘S’ word from investors. They’d think it’s the dictionary meaning of the word, not the Richard Linklater meaning of the word. But seriously, we should figure out a way to download skills directly to our brain, you know. I mean, how cool would that be? Technically, right now we can train someone to do something in a MECHA IR environment, right? So why not figure out a way to speed up the process? I mean, we already have a direct interface to the brain; how much harder can it be?”

“That might work for some things, but we’re still not sure how muscle memory comes into play in the Immersive Realities.” Sanjay continued, “My guys have been studying that end of things for training for both the military and sports. There could be huge money on the sports end if we could keep the players game ready during rehabilitation.”

Maya nodded her head in agreement. “Okay, it’s not the stupidest idea you two have ever had.”

“Look at the ‘retired’ guy giving you guys all sorts of awesome ideas.” I air quoted the whole retired part since it wasn’t by choice. “You know, like the Immersive Reality movies. Hey, by the way, where are we at on those?”

“Licensing is working with the studios to make that happen. Who knew there would be so much red tape with people’s rights and all? While Legal and Licensing are dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s, we’re reworking a bunch of public domain movies you’ll love—you know, like Night of the Living Dead.”

“They’re coming to get you, Barbara,” I mimicked Johnny’s creepy voice from the movie.

“Exactly. You’ll be able to experience it from various characters’ points of view—well, actually that’s one of the kinks we’re still trying to work out. How do you bounce around from different perspectives since there are points where Barbara is out or not there—”

“Like the daughter in the basement.”

“Yeah, it can be a little jarring. One moment you’re Barbara, the next you’re Ben, then you’re the mom—which is pretty scary to be her at the point of her death. I know you’re going to dig them, but they’re going to lose one of the reasons you love watching movies.”

“What’s that?”

“The ability to just check your mind out and enjoy the movie.”

“I could see that, but I’ll still have that option, too, so I’m still super excited to try it out.”

“We are working on a more voyeuristic way of viewing movies that is more like 3D,” Sanjay reminded Maya.

“You know I love me some 3D,” I was getting excited just thinking about it.

“We know.” They responded simultaneously.

“So when do I get to try that out?”

“Soon.”

“Nice!”

“Until then, you have this to play around in,” she said while gesturing around the hallway of the missile complex.

Just then an alarm triggered because of motion around me, revealing my HUD, and then a window showing my natural vision popped up in the corner revealing the construction night crew rushing out of my facility with a sense of urgency.

“Guys, something weird is going on.”

This concludes Chapter 8 of Post-Apocalyptic Joe in a Cinematic Wasteland. Written by Joe Gillis and read by Joe Gillis.

Well, well, well, it appears as though things might be going terribly wrong in Joe’s Batcave. Do you think Joe’s underground wonderland might be all crashing down? Or is it something else? Stay tuned until next week to find out.

Now I told you about how Maya was based on a couple of friends of mine. I also said that I wouldn’t tell you about the other friend until later. Well, today is that day.

So Maya being the one who knew martial arts was something that came from my childhood friend, Dee-Dee. She was the other inspiration for Maya. She was the toughest person I knew in my elementary school. She had told me she knew martial arts, but I’m not sure that I realized how awesome that was until she had to use them one day while we were walking home. Man, she whooped the dude who tried to mess with us.

Much like Joe, me and my friends wanted to do karate after watching the Karate Kid. However, the closest I ever came to taking any martial arts was much like Daniel before Mr. Miyagi began teaching him, you know, from a book. The part about me wrestling was real. I wrestled on my Junior Varsity team my freshman year of high school—and yes, I was pretty much as bad as Maya joked.

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Thanks for joining me on this crazy journey! See you on the flip side!

Post-Apocalyptic Joe in a Cinematic Wasteland copyright 2023, Joe Gillis, All rights reserved. This is a Jowagi Production and is distributed by Slacker Entertainment.