JACK KNAVE - MAN OF THE PEOPLE... SO HE SAYS

If you wanna know where all this madness in Syren Sea began for me, how I got to where I am, then we have to go back a little bit. I need to tell you about a charismatic slickster called Jack Knave who runs with a guy known as The Beast of Seven and Ten. Jack is a self-styled revolutionary with a lot of starry-eyed followers who'd kill their firstborn for him. The Beast of Seven and Ten… well, let’s just say he has more power than you could imagine and lives in the shadows.

It was about a year ago. I was laying languidly in my apartment. It was hotter than fresh-made sin outside. Summer was coming. I could feel it. I stayed inside until the night cooled the air, then I went out in search of answers to questions that kept whispering to me from my soul.

It might be a sea-sized oasis, but Syren Sea is still a desert city. And the desert is a strange creature. It's a alive; trust me. It's no different than a cobra or a bird. It's a being. It breathes and it thinks and it looks at we little humans as strange germs crawling around on its skin. If you weren’t born in a desert, you never really get used to it what it's like living in one unless you're three feet long to the tail and have green skin and scales-- even then it burns your rear. It's the way that oven heat blasts you, knocks you in the face like a hard slap, the way your eyes sting from the dust and your tongue gets dry.

So when it finally cooled down, I went out looking for the Angels of Probability. They were the only ones who’d have the answers. They’re my guardians; they point to the directions available and the options therein. And there was only one place to find them. The Syren Sea Racetrack.

The old racetrack had seen better days. They tried to spruce things up there by adding a casino next to it a few years ago. They could get away with that because part of it was on Tribal grounds, so you saw a lot of people running around who were supposed to be Indian, only they didn’t look too Indian to me.

That night I didn’t play the ponies. I knew that my answers would be found in the sacred calculations hidden in a deck of cards.

As I was driving up, I saw a crowd gathered near the casino. Some guy was on a soap box giving a speech. I would learn that his name was Jack Knave. I pulled my old truck over by the crowd and got out to see what was going on.

Jack was your quintessential modern-day pretty boy, the kind of smooth operator that all the girls fall for and all the boys follow like a messiah. To me he just looked like a prancing, preening little con man—not that I had anything against the guy.

Jack always dressed flashy, sometimes outrageously so. When I saw that day him he was wearing some kind of a cross between a preacher's robes and rock-and-roller's duster.

He was making one of his great speeches for the people. Something about revolution and democracy and rights of man. He was selling utopia and everyone was buying. His silky, Southern pronunciations apparently transfixed the crowd. I guess they thought he was a regular Thomas Paine—not that he had an ounce of ol' Tom's integrity.

I listened and analyzed, but I didn't hear anything real in his words other than sounds.

When his speech was finished, his followers applauded wildly. I stood silent.

He made his way through the crowd and he caught sight of me. I wasn’t reacting like his zombie followers. Charmers don’t like that. Most charmers want everyone to fall for them, and when you don't, their mask comes off and their inner beast shows.

"You ready to join, brother?" he asked me.

"Not ready to join and I'm not your brother," I answered.

He flashed a wan smile. "Well, we're all brothers. Why don't you take some of my literature and think on it? We have an office right here by the casino. Go on in. We'll see if we can't get you to come around. Our movement is about bringing a form of government that offers a fresh political rebirth to each and every one of us. What I speak about is bigger than just me. We can make a difference through what we teach and try. We can have a form of government that gives us all liberty again-- all of us together through this movement."

"No thanks, pal. I like thinking for myself. I'll pass," I answered.

I guess no one had talked to His Holiness like that before. His minions were aghast and began to gather around. I had to be on guard. It wasn't that I thought I couldn't handle his gang of prep school followers one-on-one, but the crazy look in their eyes and their numbers made me play it cool and careful. These people were plain creepy.

I started back toward my car, but me being me, I couldn't resist telling him and his zombie disciples what-for.

"I don't like being crowded, kids. And I don't like people trying to put the squeeze on me, but let me just tell you this, something a wise man wrote a couple of centuries ago: `Liberty is not in any form of government, it's in the heart of free man. He carries it with him everywhere.' And this free man is going to go his own way. Thanks. Now, twenty-three skiddoo, teenyboppers. I need to get to my car."

"This your car, huh?" One of the kiddies asked.

"What's it to ya?" I answered.

"You'll see... what it is to you," Jack answered cryptically and smiled.

I gave him a long, cold look and got back to my car. He and his cult followers departed for their headquarters. I drove the next few blocks to the casino. I needed to find those Angels. It wouldn't take long.