Don't Go There!

By Charles A. Rothbard

Don't Go There! is a story with the perfect blend of everything you want; divine redemption, the future of AI science, hot romance, real political conspiracies, and of course, true love.

At the center of it all is Eric Palmateer, a disgraced former US intelligence soldier suffering from crippling mental illness.

Through a se

• Language: English
• Publisher: Basic Issue LLC
• Release date: Mar 11, 2022
• ISBN: 9798985892239

Book preview

1

After Eric Palmateer helped North Korea become the most powerful nation in the world, everyone had something to say about his life. However, without a doubt, no one has ever told his story accurately. And in my opinion, it’s always some mixture of bullshit political, cultural, and religious biases that blinds people from seeing the true nature of the man who helped usher in the greatest era of peace the world has ever seen.

Well, I guess Eric thought I was the one who could give him proper justice. At least that’s what he explained to me in the letter that accompanied those truckloads of journals, surveillance tapes, and boxes of evidence he had delivered to my house. I wish he didn’t disappear, though, because it’d be nice to get his opinion on a few things before I publish his story.

Regardless, I’ll present the facts the best I can and try to unveil the thoughts and motivations of the people in his story. Lay it all out, so history can give Eric a fair judgement.

2

Eric’s graduation gown was heavy, starchy, and smelled Febreze fresh. He marched across the creaking squeaks of the portable stage. He followed the cues he learned in rehearsal, stopped on the x mark taped on the floor, accepted his diploma in one hand, shook the dean’s hand with the other, and held a three second pose.

Cameras flashed.

Eric Palmateer was now officially Dr. Eric Palmateer. A tall, skinny, American man of Viking lineage with a Ph.D. in theoretical physics from Northeastern University.

Ten years before this day, when Eric was a 37-year-old college student taking his first introductory physics course, this particular degree was not his intended academic destination. After a 17-year career in US military intelligence ended abruptly with injuries and shame, back then, Eric had the notion he could heal his physical, emotional, and spiritual wounds by becoming a physical therapist and dedicating his life to helping others. However, when Eric got just a weak grip on Newton’s laws, that was it, he fell hopelessly in love with the idea that learning physics would help him fulfill his life’s greater purpose.

It took 30,000 plus hours and seven years of eating-sleeping-living in classrooms, labs, and libraries, but it was all worth it when Eric defended his dissertation titled:

Biomedical and Social Network Dynamics Associated with Collaborative Research Efforts that Produce Novel Discoveries in the Field of Physics.

Department chair Dr. Barabasi was so protectively possessive of Eric, his favorite pupil, no one dared state the obvious need to shorten that dissertation title.

In truth, no one understood Eric’s Ph.D. research, but the graduation committee still gave him a pass without challenging Eric’s data or methodology. Was it mercy? Sympathy? The department chair’s protection? Yes, yes, and yes; however, more than anything, it was Eric’s infectious dreamer’s disease that won the day.

In fact, the committee got so captivated by the passion with which Eric presented his Ph.D. dissertation defense that they unanimously decided to ignore his GPA and recognize him as the honor graduate of the class.

After the graduation ceremony was over, several of the committee members, professors, and fellow students approached Eric and offered to let him join their celebratory lunches. They didn’t think it was right that he didn’t have anyone there for him on such a special day. However, Eric declined each offer and said he wanted to be alone with his thoughts.

Eric stood in a sea of proud families and friends who were taking pictures with their graduates. He watched them share hugs, high fives, and holding hands as they left him and made their way to the parking lot.

Once the parade field was clear, Eric sat on the grass watching a crew take down the portable stage and chairs. He popped a stick of wintergreen gum in his mouth to maximize the feeling of fresh satisfaction in this moment.

Under his red beard, he had a smile so big it was hurting his cheeks. He was enjoying an inside joke that would make him sound crazy if he shared it with anyone else.

3

One thing about Dr. Eric Palmateer, you should expect the unexpected from him. Three days after graduation, Eric defected to North Korea so he could do cutting-edge science free from the crowds of capitalist zombies addicted to social media, running to the next fix of salty, greasy food, washing it down with sugary, caffeinated drinks, never sleeping, never dreaming. Nope, Eric didn’t want any of that in his new life as a physicist.

For Eric, it was an easy decision to take the leap of faith, made easier by the years and years of private messages he had been receiving, which reassured him going to North Korea would align with his greater life mission.

Shortly after arriving in Pyeongyang, like manifest destiny, Eric successfully led an effort to build a three-stage intercontinental ballistic missile that would pack a surprise punch…

Designing the missile to carry a miniaturized, boosted, uranium-based, next-generation payload? Sure. But that was not enough for Eric’s audacious creativity. He and his team of North Korean scientists would not accept anything less than a scientific breakthrough that turned a highly debated theory into an undeniable reality.

Their missile was designed to shoot out of the earth’s atmosphere with flawless flight trajectory and then, upon reentry, look like a failure when they intentionally made the missile wobble and shake. The theory was that the fissile material of the missile’s payload would hit critical mass due to the wobbling and shaking, and if timed precisely, the nuke would go off in the earth’s ionosphere. This nuke blast would create an electromagnetic pulse (EMP). The ionosphere would intensify the strength of the EMP by several orders of magnitude. This sequence would produce an electrical storm that could rain down, kill no one, but absolutely fry all the modern technology of an entire target geographic region. That was the theory anyway.

North Korea used the first and only successful test launch of Eric’s EMP missile to join the Global War on Terrorism in a big way when they employed it to strike Afghanistan.

99.999% of the earth’s population liked how North Korea used its missile. Even the Taliban was happy when the EMP sent them back to the stone age. The only people who were mad were the imperialist scum running the mind control chip and terrorist training camps in Afghanistan and northern Pakistan. They lost an entire batch of test subjects. But that’s a story for another day…

North Korea’s great leader Kim Jeong Un did not leave any room for speculation or guesses at his motivations and intentions for the weapon Eric gifted to his regime. The great leader opened an immediate unscheduled Communist Party Assembly and broadcasted his message to the world. Kim started his address by declaring the strike the greatest victory for self-reliance since his grandfather defeated the capitalist puppet invasion of 1950. Kim Jeong Un added some real bite to his rhetoric when he revealed North Korea had 15 more of these EMP peace missiles on stand-by, deployed throughout the country’s vast series of underground facilities, ready to pop out and launch on a minute’s notice.

Kim Jeong Un used his sudden position of power to demand immediate negotiations with South Korea. One on one. As equals. Korea at long last deciding its own fate, free of the selfish interests of Russia, the US, or China.

Within a week of the missile launch, these negotiations led to the official end of the Korean war. A 20-year plan for gradual unification was ratified. All agreements emphasized patience, communication, compromise, and peace.

Within a month, all foreign military forces were gone from the Korean peninsula.

In response to the world’s desire to celebrate these great developments, Pyeongyang was awarded the privilege to host the next World Cup and Summer Olympics, where South and North Korea would join forces to compete as a unified team. At the behest of Kim Jeong Un, the international community agreed to provide the funding needed to prepare Pyeongyang to host these events.

Kim Jeong Un invited well-screened journalists from every major international media outlet to come to North Korea so they could cover a three-day-long world peace extravaganza that included a parade of marching soldiers, a concert of perfectly choreographed dancing, and a ceremony for the presentation of the first annual Kim Il Sung Hero of the Revolution Peace Prize.

With suspense in the air, cameras flashing, Kim Jeong Un stood on the stage and announced the winner of the first-ever Kim Il Sung Hero of the Revolution Peace Prize was… none other than… himself, Kim Jeong Un. The crowds of North Koreans went into a frenzy cheering their great leader and his amazing accomplishment. Then, in an unexpected turn of events, welcomed up to the stage was Dr. Eric Palmateer, who was honored with the first-ever Kim Il Sung Great Comrade and Friend to North Korea Award.

The great leader himself pinned the medal to Eric’s chest, and with overflowing kindness and generosity, in front of the most live international news cameras ever allowed in North Korea, Kim Jeong Un offered to give Eric anything our scientist’s heart desired.

The whole world was there for the taking, but this opportunity didn’t overwhelm Eric and selfish greed wasn’t his motivation. About a decade ago, before becoming a scientist, when Eric was bankrupt, broken-hearted, taking buckets of prescription pills to stay alive, living in a van down by the river… A divine presence cleared the gunk from his life, gave him a sacred mission, and put him on track to be here in this moment.

Eric knew exactly what he needed to ask for because he was following orders coming from…

The voice…

4

Before developing the EMP peace missile, before getting his Ph.D., Eric was a different person living a life that no one would envy.

A mile down from the burned-out shipping yard on the riverbank, a 1988 Chevy full-size van sat up on cinder blocks. Old blankets taped to the windows blocked the afternoon sunlight out. On the steel floor of the van, an old mattress in a sea of fast-food wrappers, empty beer and booze bottles. Eric was on the mattress, on one knee, trying but failing to stand up. Both hands clasping his head, trying to prevent the migraine from splitting his skull in two. Eric started a mumbling, drooling prayer, Please God. Take my life. End this, please. I don’t have the courage to do it myself.

A deep, authoritative drill sergeant of a voice answered, Get up, you son of a bitch! Did we give you permission to quit? Huh? Huh, mother fucker!

At this point in his life, Eric had grown accustomed to hearing voices. The VA gave him pills for this. Eric decided he would be brave and get rid of the voices permanently on this day so he chewed up a hand full of his pills and washed ‘em down with a bottle of Jack. Eric fell backward onto his mattress and into the deep dark vacuum of space. Floating free in the loneliest cold you can imagine.

Eric woke up with a gasp, covered in curdled vomit, alone on the stained mattress in the back of his van. He felt a hand gripping his shoulder, shaking away the sleep. Then hands grabbed him by the collar of his hoodie and yanked him up to his feet, smashing his head on the roof of the van.

Slightly winded and dazed, Eric dropped back to his knees, made the sign of the cross on his chest, and cried, PLEASE GOD! TAKE THIS…

A gritty, grave voice interrupted, Zero four hundred. On your feet, soldier! PT time!

An invisible force booted Eric in the ass so hard that it kick-started an out-of-body experience. The thinking-feeling presence of Eric got a front-row seat to watch his body pulled, pushed, and floated out the back doors of the van and into the twilight, where Eric saw two years of ungroomed facial hair, a wiry lanky body dressed in a stain covered gray hoodie and sweatpants, and bare feet.

This primal man started running, fast. Up the dirt path cutting through the weeds. Hurdling over a knee-high sagging fence. And onto the empty city sidewalks.

Feet slapping on the pavement. Clap phap, clap phap, clap phap.

Every couple of miles, the voice gave nitro-boost words of encouragement.

We in this together, mother fucker!

I will NOT let you quit on me!

Ain’t a thang! You got this shit!

My nigga! Lookin good!

A few times, it was phone-a-friend, the voice calling up grandma.

Come on, Eric. I love you. We believe in you.

Eric heard all of it on Dolby surround sound while he watched his body pick up the pace in response to each infusion of motivation.

Drenched in sweat slime and vomit, tears flowed from his eyes, and he kept running as the city woke up around him.

On their way to work, the crowds of clean people parted like the Red Sea to let this mad man freight train keep chugging unimpeded. The mad man extended his gratitude by leaving a wake of rotten apple cider vinegar smell that made people gag after he passed.

Finally, Eric saw himself half-refreshed, slightly winded, and back at his van. He stepped over to the privacy bush, dropped his pants, squatted down,