The New York bankers attacked at dawn, their skiffs and barges silently bumping against the Chicago docks as wharf rats scurried for cover.
They were led by an unemployed stockbroker named Sunday Benbow, who sported a mane of dirty blonde hair and a scarred leather breastplate.
She commanded some 30,000 urban warriers, refugees from the Climate Change eastcoast floods, known as the "Clamato" floods, (paid sponsor).
She had studied Napoleonic tactics in business school at Wharton, in the guise of learning more effective cold-calling telephone techniques.
Her troops: desperate ex-tellers, laid-off investment advisors, fat Vice Presidents of Office Supply Procurement offered early retirement.
They swarmed up urban canyons, the sadly out-of-shape among them flagging down cabs that saw a windfall financial bonanza in increased tips.
This day, historians said, had to come. America's two great cities at war, the War of 2012, driven by rogue out-of-towners, the Financials.
Methane Man drifting far above, dodging weather balloons and low-flying satellites, saw the insurgents advance toward the heart of the city.
In Joy Motel, Kindred was flipping channels. The morning rush hour news had it all live, breathless reporters stunned by the developments.
They threw together flashy graphics calling the conflict, unimaginatively, Cities at War. Cabbies renamed it NooYawkBastids, which stuck.
Kindred felt a familiar stirring in his loins. No, not that kind of stirring. It was a call to battle, his experience in Vietnam awakening.
He went outside and saw several hundred men armed with baseball bats and garden rakes marching past, angry Chicagoans, ready to rumble.
Kindred fell in and began to organize them from within, a group here, a cell there. By the time they got downtown, he was their leader.
He sent squadrons down sidestreets to work their way around and strike from the rear. He put archers in office towers, claiming high ground.
Those with handguns, assault rifles, mortars, grenades, tripwire, plastic explosives, bazookas, sniper gear, ammo, he moved as chesspieces.
It soon became apparent, after initial clashes by the NooYawkBastids were easily rebuffed, that Kindred knew his stuff. A summit was called.
Sunday Benbow met Kindred for dinner 'n drinks at a swanky eaterie, an intimate soiree led to hankypanky, Do Not Disturb on the doorknob.
They hashed out their conflict between the sheets, Kindred taking a very firm position, Sunday Benbow most receptive, even moistly pliant.
The maid thought she heard moaning, even groaning, perhaps someone was injured in there, or worse, but no, it wasn't that, it was pleasure.
A deal was struck, Kindred withdrew, the troops stood down and a holiday was named: the first Sunday in June became known as Sunday Benbow.
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A twitter novel
The Boston Phoenix says: "Joy Motel is a microblogging book worth scrolling upward for."
Joy Motel is an unconventional sci-fi narrative that was written in real time in 140 character bursts on Twitter, the Internet's fastest-growing social networking platform.
It takes its freeform, disconnected style from the randomness of the Twitterstream itself.
This is a novel for the 21st century, captured in quick bytes by a 5-time Bram Stoker Award Finalist and a Gold Award winning adman, who are transcribing the 'brainstream' flowing inside the neural net of its lead character, Kindred.
He has unknowingly purchased an untested, corrupt brainstream from a black market uploader, which has become an uneraseable part of Kindred's persona as he grapples with an ever-shifting sense of reality, dreams that twist into nightmares, and unreliable perceptions of time and space.
At the center of his struggle, a psychiatrist he calls Psychdaddy is attempting to resolve Kindred's repressed childhood memories of the 1945 Trinity nuclear blast in New Mexico and decode his father's role in a radical collective of bomb-worshippers called the 12 Disciples.
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