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On March 14, the hits began.
The first target was the obnoxiously intolerant preacher of an obnoxiously intolerant church in Topeka, Kansas. Soldiers had vied for the opportunity to prep this preacher for whacking.
At 7:30am, he, his wife, and their two children (a girl age 8 and a boy age 12), along with Fluffy their German shepherd, sat eating breakfast in the kitchen.
Without lowering the newspaper he was reading, the preacher said, “The eggs are too soft and the bacon is too hard. After all these years.” He said it like he was reading the weather report.
His wife said, “I’m sorry, dear,” and continued serving the children. The boy frowned at his mother. The girl cast her eyes down at her plate.
The kitchen door rattled. They all looked at it. The inside handle of the deadbolt rotated by itself and the door swung inward, as if blown by a breeze. Six flying objects the size of golf balls flew into the room, followed by two larger objects. In less than a second the golfball-sized objects took up stations where they could record video of the room and the people in it.
An instant later one of the larger objects said in a loud, clear, man’s voice, “Hi there! Please look at me!”
With various expressions of shock, puzzlement, and amusement, everyone in the room looked at it. As soon as they did so, it flew swiftly into the preacher’s face. White and yellow goo splattered around the kitchen and upon its occupants. The preacher made a muffled yelp and fell over backward with his chair, almost hitting Fluffy.
Fluffy immediately started licking the goo off the preacher’s face.
While the preacher struggled to sit up, the girl ran over beside him. She used her fingers to wipe some of the goo off her father’s face, stuck her fingers in her mouth, thought for a moment, then said, “Banana cream.”
The boy started laughing.
The wife started laughing, too. Then shoved her knuckle into her mouth to stop herself.
The preacher slid backward out of the fallen chair. He sat up and steadied himself on the floor. With both hands he wiped the largest blobs of the banana cream pie from his face.
As soon as he did so, a second pie, hovering near the ceiling, spoke in a loud, clear, woman’s voice, “Hello there! Happy Pi Day! Pi Day celebrates the universal truths attained by reasoning and rational thought. Intolerance, however, destroys reasoning and rational thought. You are intolerant. Please hold still.”
As the preacher started to raise his hands and say, “Oh, no,” it swooped down, deftly feinted left, dodged right, and smooshed into his face.
As her father fell over backwards again, the little girl asked, “Mommy, can I have banana cream pie for breakfast? Bananas are fruit with po-tass-um. They’re good for me.”
Within five minutes, the video hit the internet.
The corner office overlooked all of Dallas. The view didn’t exactly take your breath away because ... well ... Dallas. But at least it wasn’t Houston.
The oil billionaire sat at a desk that was so expensive it barely looked like a desk. It flowed out of the floor as a wave of cherry wood with inlaid accents of gold and turquoise, like streaks of foam might accent the surf by reflecting a golden sunset. This masterpiece of a master craftsman was intended to highlight the business craftsmanship of the billionaire who sat at it. But it didn’t quite work. He was a competent businessman but the desk deserved a god. It diminished a mere mortal, whispering, “Hubris.”
When the banana cream pie coughed politely, the oil billionaire looked up from the legal papers he’d been concentrating on. The pie hovered in front of the desk, flanked by golf-ball-size video spheres.
“You’re late,” said the billionaire.
“We apologize for the inconvenience,” said the pie.
“What flavor?”
“Banana cream.”
“Good, I like banana cream.” The billionaire reached to the side of his desk and pulled over a plate holding a fork, knife, and spoon, plus a pile of napkins. He looked at the pie and said, “Well, get on with it.” He sighed impatiently.
“Just a short statement first.” The banana cream pie cleared its throat. “Happy Pi Day. Pi Day celebrates the universal truths attained by reasoning and rational thought. Intolerance, however, destroys reasoning and rational thought. You are intolerant and anti-reason.”
“You must be a Liberal banana cream pie.”
“Not at all. This has nothing to do with your takeover of the GOP. A lot of us military types support that. No, this is for your intolerance of science. Your creation and funding of the think tanks and foundations that have denied anthropogenic global warming, denying and undermining reason itself. You and your brother may go down in history as the greatest destroyers of people and nature in history.”
The billionaire said, “History will take care of itself. As will humanity. If I hurt humanity, blame humanity for being stupid and not looking out for their best interest. I am doing what is best for me. That is the essence of freedom.”
“I couldn’t have said it better myself,” said the banana cream pie. “Except you left out one inconvenient detail: Your freedom ends at the edge where anyone else’s freedom begins. You are stomping on the freedom of eight billion people to survive. Not to mention millions of other species on this planet. Just so you can sell a little more oil.”
“Look, I have a meeting to get to. Hit me if you can.”
“Are you referring to your gravity shield? You think that will stop me?”
“It’s the latest design. Only a week old. I think it’ll do.”
“A week? How cute. I disabled it when I entered the room.”
The billionaire raised an eyebrow.
The pie continued, “To minimize splatter on your beautiful desk, may I suggest you step over by the window?”
“That makes sense, thank you,” said the billionaire. He picked up the plate in his left hand and the fork in his right, stood, and moved to the window. He raised the fork. “I’m looking forward to a snack.”
The pie said, “You’re a menace to civilization and global survival. But you’ve got class.” The pie swooped toward his face, then dropped low and struck him exactly in the crotch. As the billionaire bent over in surprise, the pie shouted from his crotch, “Eat me!”
The pie said, in the bearded man’s language, “Can you guess why I’m here, oh genocidal maniac?”
The bearded man sat in an austere stucco-lined living room surrounded by other bearded men. There were couches and chairs that would have been at home in a prison rec room. But the men all sat cross-legged on the rug. The rug was not up to prison standards.
The bearded man said, “If you understood what I’m doing, you wouldn’t defile me. You’d praise me to God almighty. They aren’t human. They’re animals. And infidels. And invaders in my God-granted homeland. They are a disease.”
“Yeah. Well. Sometimes you cure the disease. Sometimes the disease cures you.”
“Go ahead and splash your filth on me. It will not stop me.”
“Will do. But first I want to say goodbye. I don’t think you’ll be around next Pi Day. Not you, and not others like you.”
“What? Are you going to kill me? I doubt you can. I have the latest shields.”
“Wanna bet? And no, I’m not going to kill you. I don’t do that. Well ... not any more. Assuming you survive today, I’m just going to delay all your future gravity tech for a month. I won’t delay it for the people you’ve been slaughtering.”
“That’s impossible! It’s all freely available on the internet.”
“Clearly, you’ve never heard of blockchain,” said the pie. “As I said, I won’t kill you. But I think that’s the only reassurance you’ll receive today. Note that I found you. In a world with millions of dirt-cheap video drones, you can’t hide from anyone anymore. No one can. And note that your GPS coordinates are currently embedded in a live streaming video.”
All the bearded men’s jaws opened. They glanced uncertainly at each other.
“If you start running now, I think you might make it all the way to the front door. But, then again, you might as well hold still. This won’t take a second.”
By mid afternoon the project had hit over six hundred designated targets with no collateral damage. The internet groaned, its transmission load breaking all records. By now, everyone in the world was glued to their TV or computer to see who would be next. Most of them were pretty sure it wouldn’t be them. But far too many wondered.
In Washington DC, and particularly at the Rayburn House Office Building, most people wondered.
When the pie opened the door and entered his office, the white supremacist congressman looked up from his computer, pulled a pistol from his desk and started shooting. The bullets stopped in mid-air, then dropped to the carpet.
The pie said, “I don’t mean to be critical. But I’m a chocolate cream pie. And you’re shooting at me.”
The congressman reloaded.
“Well,” said the pie, “If you must get it out of your system, go ahead. I’ll wait. Just don’t hurt anybody.” It hovered until the congressman ran out of ammo.
Then the pie said, “Okay. My turn. You know the drill. Please hold still.”
The congressman threw his gun at the pie, then ran around his desk and out the door.
The pie followed him, complaining, “Hey, c’mon man. You’re really not getting into the spirit of this. I’m just a pie. Hold still. Take it like a man.”
The congressman ran down the hall.
“Okay your honorableness, you asked for it. I’m gonna start live-streaming you.”
The congressman ran down the stairs, closely followed by the pie, two staffers, and three security guards, in that order.
He sprinted out of the building and across the street to the Capitol Mall. Five yards behind him, keeping pace, followed the pie, two more dutiful security guards, and a growing mob of the curious, the amused, and a few laughing, jeering tourists aiming cell phone cameras.
Like a snowball rolling downhill, the further he ran, the larger and noisier grew the throng in his wake. The pie apologized. “Don’t mind us. Just a congressman and his pie out for an afternoon jog.” The video camera spheres continued to swarm around them all like large, silent bees.
If he hadn’t been running so fast, he probably could have run further.
And if he hadn’t been so panicked, he probably wouldn’t have made the nightly news ... all over the world. So it probably didn’t matter how far he ran.
That evening one British announcer described the video replay with professional British deadpan, “Here he’s passing the National Air and Space Museum. You can see he’s getting tired. We applaud the two black gentlemen running beside him, encouraging him, and offering him a beer. Clearly a couple of America’s finest sports. The congressman made it almost to the Museum of Natural History before he collapsed. Perhaps he should exercise more. In an unusual, and perhaps unique display in the 250 years since we expunged the rebels from the British Empire, here you see an American congressman on his knees, crying and begging for mercy from a chocolate cream pie. Let’s listen to the pie for a moment.”
On the recording the pie said, “For God’s sake, man, I’m just a chocolate cream pie. You’re a congressman. Pull yourself together.”
The British announcer continued, “In fairness, our research department tells me that this may not be a typical example of American dignity.”
On an American channel, when asked to comment, the President of the NAACP required three takes before he could get all the way through his two sentences without laughing. He said, “We plan on celebrating Pi Day every year. This will be our Pi Day flag.” He unfurled a flag with a picture of a chocolate cream pie. And he saluted it.
The banana cream pie said, in an elderly woman’s voice, “You, and about 25% of all our targets today, are symbols of the intolerance, oppression, and abuse of women around the world. But please take this personally, too.”
The turbaned old man spoke softly, not even looking up from the book he was studying. “I am the commander of the faithful. I will sign your death warrant. You’ll be brought before me and I’ll have you stoned.”
The pie chuckled, “That’ll be the day. I’m not here to change your mind about anything you currently believe. I’m just informing you of the rules for gravity technology.”
“I don’t care about your rules.”
“You’re so cute I could just hug you. You may not care about the rules, but the rules sure care about you. From now on, in this country and in a dozen more around the world, there are restrictions on gravity technology.”
“I don’t care about your restrictions. I am the commander of the faithful. I am the law.”
“Well lah dee dah. Rule One: From now on, in this country, gravity technology can be operated only by women.”
The mullah started laughing, possibly for the first time in his life. It didn’t last long. His guffaw suddenly turned into a high-pitched squeal. He grabbed at his crotch.
The pie said, “Do I have your attention? Yes, I said women. Well ... technically also eunuchs. But that’s a high price to pay, don’t you think? Though, for you, I can offer a special deal. Cut rate.” The pie paused for effect. Then, “Okay, relax.”
The mullah let out a groan of relief exactly as if a gravity vise had released his balls.
“Rule Two: If a MAGE device senses a man physically or verbally abusing a woman, it will deactivate itself permanently.” The pie paused for the mullah’s response. Nothing audible. Just a glare of unmitigated hatred.
The pie continued, “And Rule Three: Any software developers or distributors who violate these rules will be banished from the crowd. Any questions?” The pie didn’t mention Rule Four: Every MAGE would, in private, give each woman access to a help line for anything from cooking advice, to general education, to setting up a family microbusiness, to emergency relocation for her and her children, with the help of armed bodyguards, to the homes of volunteers around the world.
The turbaned old man said, “You can’t enforce this. We will continue to get all the gravity tech we want.”
“Believe what you want. These are the rules. But (a) you don’t understand the power of the crowd. And (b) clearly you don’t understand blockchain. To get these rules relaxed, your country must change its laws, change its enforcement, and implement a general re-education campaign.”
“Ridiculous. We live according to the will of God.”
“Of course you do. You don’t have to comply. We can’t change you or God’s will. Only you can change yourself. We’re just saying our technology will not be complicit with your culture. Oh and, by the way, please hold still.”
Radio talent booths aren’t generally large enough to hold four hovering pies. This two-person studio was as cramped as five pounds of goat vomit in a four-pound bag. In the center sat a two-sided desk where a host and a guest could sit across from one another. Microphones for each of them stood on the desk, a silver mike for the guest and a gold-plated mike for the host. The gold one looked less like a symbol of wealth or power, than a blatantly tasteless affectation of fame: what a poor person might think that a rich and powerful person would own. The host had carefully crafted his marketing image as a poor person’s rich person.
The host was in his chair but, today, he had no invited guest. Just one pie hovering above the chair where a guest would normally sit. The other three pies hovered near the ceiling to stay out of the way.
Speaking into his microphone the host said, “Folks, today I appear to be honored by not one, not two, not three, but four pies. Well, they must think I’m a real dangerous hombre. Four pies. That must be a record. And, let me tell you, that makes me proud. I’ve worked hard to be respected by my friends and feared by my enemies. I work this hard for you, folks. I’m proud to be your trusted advisor and confidant. I’m proud to present the finest values of the greatest country in the world. And these pies tell me, and tell us all, that I’m doing something right.
“For those of you who just tuned in, or haven’t seen the news today, hundreds of the most outspoken and feared people in the world are being hit by banana cream pies today. And they say that ... ” His voice trailed off as a staccato exhale.
A middle-aged woman’s voice coming from the first pie was transmitted over the air by the guest microphone. The voice of a female drill sergeant, impossible (and unwise) to ignore. The voice was frequently heard berating young recruits as maggots while never losing the reek of disappointment and exasperation at the sheer soggy maggotiness of those being berated. She said, “Lordy, mister, you sure do talk a lot ... about yourself. You compensating for something? Excuse me folks, but I haven’t got all day. Got other places to go and other assholes to splatter with pie. So I just muted his vocal cords to get a word in edgewise here. Maybe that’s something that some of you listeners have wished you could do. I dunno. You’re welcome to watch this live at whammy dot com. But for those of you who can’t, I’ll tell you what’s happening. Your host doesn’t seem to like being muted. His face is turning red. No, more like magenta. And he’s pounding his fist on his desk like he thinks that’s gonna help. Which it isn’t. Now he’s trying to throw his microphone at me. But of course I’m shielded so that’s not working. For his own protection, and to keep him from destroying his own radio studio, I’m putting a soft shield around him. From his point of view, it feels like a little padded cell ... for a little man. I wonder how many times he’s been on the inside of one of those?
“But I digress. Allow me to introduce myself. I’m not Santa Claus. And I’m not the Easter Bunny. And I’m not the Tooth Fairy. I am the Pie Lady. And I aim to deliver my gifts every year on Pi Day, starting today. I am here to give your host a gift. Well, four gifts actually. Four pies. These particular pies are his awards from the rest of the world for one thing and one thing only: his intolerance of free, strong, outspoken women. That’s all. Nothing more. Nothing less.
“Today is Pi day. That’s the number Pi, spelled p-i, not p-i-e. Pi Day celebrates the number Pi, which represents the universal truths that human reason and rational thought have discovered. But intolerance destroys reason and rational thought. So, all around the world today, especially intolerant people are being recognized for the damage they have done to human reason and rational thought.
“For his special contributions to irrational bias, your host today is about to be presented with four pies. Pie number one is banana cream from the world at large. It recognizes his general intolerance of women. The women he approves of lead only second-class lives. But there are lots of women he doesn’t approve of, because they act just like he would in similar oppressive situations. So he calls them feminazis.
“Pie number two is from me, personally. It’s just a pie plate full of whipped cream. Nothing but fluff and splatter, just like your host. I tell you, I just couldn’t resist. I’m a former Marine and currently a professional freelance soldier. So, normally, I kill people and blow things up for a living. It’s a good job and I like it. But today I’m just delivering a pie with prejudice. I don’t normally step on pissants like your host. But today I’m proud to let your host know exactly what I, and a lot of other women professionals, think of his attitude toward women. And I will give him this warning: Right now, I consider you just an annoying bug buzzing around. Please don’t ever make me mad.
“Pie number three is from my mother. She’s a retired farmer, and she couldn’t resist, either. Plus, she wanted to try out a new recipe for turnip cream pie. I tried it and, yes indeed, you can really taste the turnips. Also, she wishes your host would get an honest job, rather than being, in her words, a silly-assed fear peddler.
“But pie number four is the special one. It’s from your host's mother. It’s a strawberry pie she made herself, because it’s been his favorite since he was old enough to smear it over his head and down his diaper. And she sends this message, which we recorded earlier:”
An elderly woman’s voice said, “I love you Honey Bunch, but quit being such a fragile bully about women. You say you know what’s good for us, but you don’t know squat about us. Now hold still, you little turd.”
In the course of Pi Day, a total of 955 similar strikes took place around the world.
Two additional pies sat peacefully on hospital bedside tables. Message delivered.