Launfal / my_fiction (public) (License: Creative Commons BY-SA 4.0) (since 2018-06-24) (hash sha1)
Repository of my stories and books.
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List of commits:
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Add files via upload e78c032a2daaa4d06262f28bbeed4fd6f7733a03 Launfal 2017-12-24 17:18:18
Create temp 5aab79dd31d19737c1bfb8269b63968e1d496fff Launfal 2017-12-24 17:17:16
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Create temp e5952b7ef9fe2d076aae3c5cc4e00eadeb5fd67c Launfal 2017-12-24 17:15:33
Rename hump_day.pdf to hump_day/hump_day.pdf e5b84a2c2bdcaa65718a270ffff49712bed7d62a Launfal 2017-12-24 17:14:51
Delete .gitkeep 9833cadafeb14fcd2256103ef57faee4930c26c0 Launfal 2017-12-24 17:13:58
Rename hump_day.fold to hump_day/hump_day.fold e4ffdf2c840814fb6dd26177d28deb9e6a4bd2cd Launfal 2017-12-24 17:13:40
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Commit e78c032a2daaa4d06262f28bbeed4fd6f7733a03 - Add files via upload
Author: Launfal
Author date (UTC): 2017-12-24 17:18
Committer name: GitHub
Committer date (UTC): 2017-12-24 17:18
Parent(s): 5aab79dd31d19737c1bfb8269b63968e1d496fff
Signing key: 4AEE18F83AFDEB23
Tree: bd2ed9e5d8f1d8758602cbb9016d890df756d852
File Lines added Lines deleted
shorts/bear_and_bat.txt 76 0
shorts/carousel_redux.txt 39 0
shorts/death_of_kyle.txt 107 0
shorts/deleted_files.txt 41 0
shorts/hell_where_heart.txt 73 0
shorts/life_for_sale.txt 35 0
shorts/manufacturers_tag.txt 45 0
shorts/naked_truth.txt 91 0
shorts/over_the_rainbow.txt 42 0
shorts/ubw_pic_story000.txt 27 0
shorts/ubw_pic_story001.txt 17 0
shorts/ubw_pic_story002.txt 41 0
shorts/ubw_pic_story003.txt 45 0
shorts/ubw_pic_story005.txt 55 0
shorts/ubw_pic_story006.txt 56 0
shorts/ubw_pic_story007.txt 39 0
shorts/ubw_pic_story008.txt 35 0
File shorts/bear_and_bat.txt added (mode: 100644) (index 0000000..b31d6bf)
1 "Killing this one will be fun," she thought as she flashed through the ruins of Moscow’s southeast end. The moon was hidden behind the clouds unleashing the hells' own snowstorm, and the destitute residents of the slum were huddling together for the little warmth they could find. The glows of many carefully hidden fires throughout the bombed out buildings were plainly visible to her, but she spared them no more than glances; she would waste no time on cattle. It had been far too since long she had encountered a hunter worthy of the name, and none had been as good as THIS one. He was a master of the game, the ultimate predator. His file had told her as much, and thus far tonight he had proven his worth. All she had needed for her trap was the proper bait, and his nature had taken care of the rest. "You can lead a bear to honey and you CAN make him eat," she chortled into the wind as she floated on black gossamer deeper into Moscow’s no man’s land.
2
3 ******
4
5 Sergei Valkinov, code name The Bear, ran as if his life depended on it. In a way it did, since the thief he was chasing had somehow stolen the entire roster of Soviet assets currently in play in Western Europe. No alarms tripped, no intruder reports, no sign of a breakin except for the missing roster. It had been a fluke the dossier was even present in the dacha of Covert Two, and at its most vulnerable it had been stolen. The message recalling him to duty had been Priority One, Ultimate, Decrypt Self, and it had specified "all measures justified" to recover the roster. Moscow Center had launched its most potent weapon, and he now prowled the streets of the capitol, following the scent like a guided missile.
6
7 The Bear was only one of the latest generation of a recombinant genetics experiment, begun in the early seventies, designed to produce the ultimate soldier by grafting animal DNA to the human genome. In Valkinov’s case, the genetics used had come from the Kodiak bear. All five of his senses had been enhanced. He could see light from ultraviolet to infrared, hear frequencies well above ultrasonic, and smell traces in the single parts per million. Nervous system acceleration gave him reflexes faster than the eye could follow, and his training had made the best use of them. He was the most dangerous covert agent in the field today, with one possible exception. Upon receiving the communique, his first thought had been it was his American counterpart he pursued, but hurried inquiries had ruled out the possibility. Whoever his quarry tonight, he would only run until The Bear caught him.
8
9 *****
10
11 She ran lightly and surely through the ruins even without her pursuer's intimate knowledge of them. To compensate for her other advantages, she had chosen his home ground. As she ran, she thought of the lone survivor of the first generation experiments, an American reputed to be at least the equal of The Bear. When this night ended, she would travel overseas for another rendezvous with another hunter. For the present, though, her current game was more than enough to hold her attention. Given the quality of her opponent, one mistake could be her last. Almost certain of her superiority, the differences in their capabilities was small enough to prevent complacency, that small doubt only fueling her exhilaration as carefully laid the trail that would bring the hunter to the killing ground.
12
13 *****
14
15 He followed his quarry further south and east into parts of the slums where the police refused to go, a section of the glittering jewel that was Moscow ruled by the law of the jungle. Born and raised here, he had often returned after his recruitment, using the vast network of black marketeers to aid his investigations. Those who ruled here did so with an iron fist and were above the municipal law. They had a piece of all the action, from gambling to opium to prostitution, and his childhood ties had allowed him to keep track of the major underground players throughout all of Europe and most of Asia. A phone call from one of his contacts had started his chase. "Sergei, if you would, come home and see to this, please, as a favor to us who protected your family. People are afraid of the shadows, afraid of the wind, afraid of what is hiding in them. Perhaps, if you please, solving our problem solves your own as well. Hurry, Sergei. For the sake of the past." Upon reaching the ruins, he had quickly found the signs marking the trail, and following them further into the ghetto he had quickened his pace.
16
17 He passed sentries in each district he crossed, armed bandits muffled and masked, who in the ghetto were responsible for the security of their warlord’s territory. They all knew him here, and followed his progress without raising their weapons. Reports of the intruder had obviously made the rounds and had resulted in armed guards braving even this snowstorm in order to maintain their boundaries. Word must also have spread of his coming, and while the guards were armed and ready, they remained close to their bases. Their masters seemed more than content to let him handle the situation, secure in their knowledge of its ultimate outcome. The odds against the intruder were so prohibitive not even a ruble had been bet on his behalf.
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19 Past the decay of an old elementary school, the bombed out hulk gaping through huge black eyes at the misery of the human condition, he was silent as he glided through the rubble littering the street. His eyes constantly roamed the landscape, not in the least deterred by the knife-edged wind or the razor-sharp ice it bore. He was totally immersed in his environment, attuned to its sights and sounds, on the alert for anything out of its element. He was gaining on his quarry, but in the dark and the storm, it would take time and patience to make the final approach.
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21 Taking a shortcut through an alley stinking of urine and rotting meat, he stopped at the side of an old storefront. Climbing a rusted drainpipe he gained the roof and the advantage of the high ground. Moving cautiously to the edge facing the street, he slowly scanned the terrain from left to right and back again.
22
23 *****
24
25 She heard his ascent to the rooftop behind her, and she chuckled throatily as she watched him crouch in the shadows. She was hidden from him by the vestige of a brick wall that offered a perfect view of all possible approaches from the street. "He really is very good," she allowed magnanimously, and although he would soon learn his advantage was illusory, she had to credit him with his technique. "Time to give him a preview of the coming attraction," she decided as she rose to an adjoining rooftop. From there, she easily leapt the gap between the buildings to land lightly and silently behind him.
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27 She marvelled that as she approached him, he spun fast enough to see her, and she stopped mere feet from him. Frozen in a still life, each studied the other with the confidence of their own supremacy. She easily followed his train of thought, from amazement at her appearance, to confusion as to how she had managed it, to admiration of her form, to determination to kill her. His scent was carried to her by the wind, cut down by the broken chimneys to little more than a stiff breeze. She breathed deeply, taking the essence of him deep into her lungs, savoring it as a true connoisseur. She had to have a taste, just a small one, just something to whet her appetite for the main course to come. She stepped forward…
28
29 …and felt a hammer blow just below her sternum, hard enough to take her breath away. It was followed by a chop to her throat that left her gagging. Both would have been killing blows were she still mortal, but even so they hurt! She dropped down to one knee, momentarily stunned, but aware enough to block a savate kicked destined to cave in her skull. She caught the second attempt and flowing with the impact she threw him over her, hearing him land lightly in a roll that took him momentarily out of reach. Regaining her wind, she rose and faced him, more intent than ever to have that taste. Moving more forcefully now, she took him in her arms and drew him to her, easily overcoming his struggles as he resisted her. Pulling him in easily, she kissed him passionately on the lips, running her tongue hungrily inside of his mouth. She felt his resistance and ignored it, pressing him to her with enough force to crush the ribs of a lesser man, reveling in the tang of him, the artificial chemistry that made him unique.
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31 *****
32
33 He resisted her with all of his strength, but he was completely enveloped in her arms, powerless against her strength. He felt her tongue as it moved within his mouth, forcing its way in between his locked teeth. Enraged as he was, he found her aroma intoxicating, her flavor irresistible. He felt himself entranced, succumbing to a seduction he was unable to prevent and no longer wanted to. He was physically reacting to her, lowering his defenses, welcoming her into himself. He responded to her kiss, his tongue meeting hers now in a joining of equals. He heard her moan as the kiss deepened, and suddenly he had the use of his arms. He wrapped them around her, as tightly as he was able, and they fused in an embrace that seemed to last forever, each of them sampling the other, drinking deep from the well that was the opposite soul. Just as abruptly as it began, however, it ended and he was suddenly flying through the air, landing awkwardly on his back, shaking his head in shock and confusion. It took long moments to clear his head, and all the while he was vulnerable to a killing stroke.
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35 *****
36
37 She was shaking as she threw him from her, overpowered by her physical reaction to him. Passions she had long thought extinct flooded through her, and for a moment she was completely disoriented. She had never been so viscerally affected by a man since her crossing over, and the re-emergence of her human femininity took her completely unawares, unable to cope. She fought for primacy over her emotions, taking control of herself by sheer force of will. Her breathing slowed, the tingling of her breasts subsided, and the wetness between her thighs dried. Her eyes once again focusing correctly, she eyed him warily. This one was dangerous, not so much to her immortal existence but to her sense of self. Her momentary panic never reached her face, and she kept her eyes hooded to hide the fires still burning in them. As she stood there, outwardly calm but roiling inside, she realized she could remain here no longer. She needed distance and time to reconcile her feelings, but before she took her leave, she would leave a memento. Flashing over to his still prone form, she ran a nail down the left side of his neck, breaking the skin and drawing blood. Letting it flow across her fingers, she as quickly stepped back and escaped, leaving him dazed and bleeding where he lay.
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39 *****
40
41 He felt the sting of her nail, and he looked dumbly at the blood on his fingers. Even he had not seen her departure, and as he rose shakily to his feet, he tried to make sense of the encounter. He was unable to reconcile her ability to overpower him so effortlessly, to handle him as easily as if he were a child. He could still feel her resonance, a low-level hum that slowed his mind and underlaid his thoughts. He could still taste her in his mouth, and he inhaled shakily as the memory of her touch threatened to overwhelm him again. Shaking his head in another attempt to clear it, he turned slowly in place, looking for a sign of her passage but finding none. He still had a job to do, but for the first time in his career he doubted himself. A word kept occurring to him, beating like a drum with its desire to break through, but for a time he discounted it as the aftermath of their encounter. He searched for an explanation, considering and then discarding several, each more ridiculous than the last, until the truth could be denied no longer. Out of options, he whispered it to the winter wind, exhaled it in a cloud of mist: vampire.
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43 Unthinkable. Improbable. Real. As he examined the possibility, he eventually had to admit to it. He could feel the truth of it in the coldness in his gut, in the numbness of his mind. The folktales of his childhood, told in cracked whispers by ancient peasants around burning fires, fantastic stories from his earliest years had appeared to him, had presented themselves in the form of a femme fatale. He mined his memory, panned the myths as if for gold, sifted through the glitter of decadent Western movies for any nugget of truth. Did he have any weapon with which to fight, or was his enemy truly invincible? Could he kill her? Could he recover the roster without doing so? Could he break her, turn her, make her an asset to the workers' struggle as he was? With more questions than answers, he moved to the edge of the roof and slid down a frayed power line to the now deserted street.
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45 Searching carefully, he could find no trail to follow from the broad plaza that had been a major thoroughfare during the Cold War. Even with the wind howling down its length, there should have been faint imprints to guide him in the proper direction, but there were no marks in the now virgin snow. Expanding his search radius, he saw pieces of paper fluttering on the side of the building across the street, the remains of the old precinct station, pitiful in its impotence. Crossing the street, he pulled the papers down and read them. It was the agent roster nailed to the brick building like a welcome mat. She was waiting for him inside, and this was his invitation. He could refuse the invitation, take the roster and leave, mission accomplished. He could save himself the encounter he was no longer sure he could survive, live to fight the workers' fight another day. He could but would not. Everything in him rebelled against retreat, against surrender. He would never refuse, and she knew it. The perfect snare, using the perfect bait. He had done the same many times himself, but now he was the fly walking the spider’s web. Removing a brick from the crumbling facade, he hid the roster and replaced the brick, chalking a coded mark and his callsign in Russian on the wall. Removing the 9mm Yarygin from its holster, he ducked down and moved fast through the gaping doorway.
46
47 *****
48
49 She could hear him, as quiet as he was, gliding through the rubble of the station. She had tasted his blood, bringing it to her lips and drawing it along her tongue. The taste was ambrosia, obviously a byproduct of his unique chemistry. She could feel the alien hormones in it coursing through her veins, intoxicating her like fine wine, freeing her mind and lowering her inhibitions, an almost narcotic effect. She admired his animal instinct, his sure and compact movements as he made his silent progress towards her. Her pulse quickened as she watched him, more enamored with his fluid grace with each passing moment. Finally, she could take no more, could maintain her distance no longer. "Time for dinner," she decided as she glided lazily to the floor and waited for him to round a pile of loose stones.
50
51 *****
52
53 He sensed her before he saw her, and as he rounded the rock pile, his pistol was raised and cocked, a round chambered. He fired at his first sight of her, scoring four quick hits to her center of mass, rolling fast to another firing position, emptying the clip into her face, throat and chest. Seventeen rounds, all direct hits, blood flying from the exit wounds in crimson bursts, and still she stood there, silently watching him, not even registering the bullets’ impacts. He never bothered to reload as he allowed his arm to limply fall back to his side, nerveless fingers releasing the pistol. He was deaf to the pistol’s metallic clang as it hit the floor, unaware that he had risen to his feet. He stared into her onyx eyes and studied his reflection in them, the coldness of the assassin flooding through him, calming his mind and readying his body. He shut down his conscious mind, preparing himself for the speed of his autonomous systems, relying on enhanced reflex and native viciousness as his last defenses. He widened his feet, redistributed his weight, and slightly bent his knees, preparing himself as best he could. Reconciling himself, he waited for her imminent attack.
54
55 *****
56
57 She smiled as she watched his preparations. She was only vaguely aware of the pain from the passage of the soft-nosed bullets, was beyond awareness of anything but the exquisite agony in her loins. He would fight her if he could, but she was not going to allow him to hurt himself before she was ready. One moment she was silently watching him, the next she was an arrow, intending to spear him and drive him to the ground. As fast as she was, he still managed to turn and crouch, and he caught her cleanly at the knees, unbalancing her and sending her over him. Even as she landed she felt him shift and when she hit the ground he was on top of her, trying to pin her to the gritty cement floor. She rolled him, but he used her momentum to regain the advantage. Several more rolls brought them to a low brick wall, and they stopped with her on top and her right hand on his chin, threatening to break his neck. He stopped his struggles as she increased the pressure. She took advantage of the moment to regain her breath and her wits.
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59 He was magnificent! No one before had been able to match her, and the speed with which he moved! For the first time, she questioned her need to kill him, the possibility of bringing him across as her perfect mate. For long moments she indulged herself in a fantasy of global conquest, of ascendancy through the ranks of the Consortium as they removed obstacles to ultimate power among the immortal. His skills combined with her ambition, and they would be the irresistible force overwhelming the immovable object. Nothing could stand against them, and he would complete her, make her whole, give her the love she had thought forever denied her.
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61 "Will you join me?" she asked him aloud, her first spoken words to him since the chase had begun. "Will you rule the world at my side?" She released his head and allowed him to see her, watching him intently as she stared into his eyes. She could see him considering, considering the angles, tempted by the prospect of eternal youth and strength. She saw his attraction to her, saw his appraisal of her, felt his physical reaction to her. She felt the stirring of his manhood beneath her, heard the rasping of his quickened breath, saw and smelled his sweat as it poured from him. Tabling her question for later, she separated from him long enough to rip open his shirt, baring his chest. In another movement his pants were in tatters, and just as quickly she stripped herself.
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63 By the time she had lowered herself to him again, he had shed the remains of his clothing and was reaching for her. Their lips met again, tongues again eeling around and over each other. She felt his hands roughly grabbing her, reaching around to fold her into his arms. She melted against him and they sank prone to the floor, each exploring the other with reckless abandon. Breaking the clinch, she inhaled deeply, his aroma subtly changed with the power of his arousal. She ran her hands down his body, exalting in the hardness of his muscles and the perfection of his form. She ran her tongue along his face, down his neck and across his chest, savoring the tang of his sweat on her tongue. She felt his hands on her breasts, felt her nipples harden under his palms. Then he pulled her up sharply and rose to face her.
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65 *****
66
67 He rolled her over and climbed on top, burying his face in her breasts. Tonguing rapid circles around her left nipple, he sucked it suddenly into his mouth, teasing it with his teeth as he heard her moan. Biting down, he pulled up sharply and held it firmly as he flicked it with his tongue. She was writhing under him now, the movement of her hips threatening to dislodge him. He repeated his attentions to her right breast, breathing deeply through his nose. The musk of her need, thick and pungent, struck him like a physical blow. He moved quickly down her body, past her stomach and straight to the thick hair between her thighs. She was growling now, animal sounds completely divorced from anything human as he took her into his mouth, awash in her wetness, tonguing her center fiercely as her back arched sharply and her thighs locked around him. Her first climax exploded around him as she keened in an inhuman wail that could have come from no mortal throat. The next thing he knew, he was on his back with her sitting astride him.
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69 *****
70
71 She impaled herself on him in one motion, oblivious to everything except the urgency of her need. She rode him mindlessly, driving herself downwards to meet his upward thrusts, heedless of his hands on her haunches pulling her to him. He had risen up to suckle her, and she wrapped her arms around him as she moved, finding her rhythm, quickening her movements as her passion rose. She gave herself to the moment, allowing herself complete release to her reclaimed erotic humanity. Her next climax rocked her to her core, and then she exploded in a series of them, each one hammering her like a piston, pounding her in relentless waves of unendurable ecstasy. In the midst of her passion, she lowered her face to his neck and sank in her fangs, taking his blood in torrents, feeling it flood into her mouth and down her throat in a delicious river. She felt him release himself with the force of a shotgun blast, and still she drank. She felt the weakening of his thrusts within her, and still she drank. She felt the slowing of his pulse and the laboring of his breath, and still she drank. As she climaxed one last time, she drew the last of him into her, and only then did she finally raise her face from his throat. Trembling violently, unable to stand, she rolled to her back and lay next to him, aware only of the earthquakes still shaking her loins. Ever so slowly, the aftershocks died to tremors, and then to quivers. When her muscles would once again obey her, she rose unsteadily to her feet and looked down upon her now dead lover.
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73 "Of all those whom I have taken, you are now first. I was as a virgin again with you, and I will always love you best. You will be immortal, in your way, my desperate love, as I will carry you with me forever. Rest well from your labors, my dear one, and may the God you spurned in life take you to his breast in death. Farewell." She never noticed the single tear that fell upon his chest as she turned away to gather her clothing. Halleya Enrije would be on a plane westward for an appointment in America.
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75 Finis
76
File shorts/carousel_redux.txt added (mode: 100644) (index 0000000..a0b9d74)
1 Carousel: Redux
2
3 This is my last trip on the merry-go-round. They promised, damn it, and this time they had better mean it. Not that I can do anything about it if they welch again, but if I have to do this one more time, I'll skip the middle step and go straight to Hell. With any luck, I'll take some of them with me. I don't say that out loud, since the bastards have no sense of humor.
4
5 It's not like I've led a bad life, just that I haven't lived one quite good enough. I've been a fish, a dog, and one time I was even a dragon. I'd have stuck with that if I'd had a choice, but ever since they sucked me up, they've called the shots. I bought my ticket and I have to ride, but enough is enough.
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7 I get to be a man this trip, my final exam before I go before the board. They say if I get this right, I'm in like Flynn. My record's been pretty good lately, and they're even willing to forget that minor trouble in the garden I caused some time back. They still blame me for that, like I was the one who put the only apple in a million miles within an arm's length of the only ones who could reach it. I told her not to, but did she listen?
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9 About as well as they have ever since. I suppose THAT'S my fault, too.
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11 Anyway, this time is for all the marbles. All I have to do is go into this neighborhood and stop some whackjob from giving a .41 caliber injection to somebody who's supposed to be important. They didn't give me many details, but I've seen the guy, so this should be an easy gig. I stop him, they stop my ride. Doesn't get any easier than that.
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13 The only problem was the timing. They dropped me off at 9:45, giving me less than half an hour. No time to scour the streets trying to catch him before he showed, but that was all right. I'm used to working on a deadline.
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15 I went inside and let my eyes adjust to the gloom. People were milling about, wearing formal gowns and tailored black suits. The top hats were a little much, but they did lend an elegance that you just don't see anymore. I'd have to score one for myself when this was finally over.
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17 Small gaslights were guttering here and there, throwing wierd shadows around like a flock of ravens were flying just overhead. Just past the door, to my right was where it would all go down. I ran my hand along the gleaming raised platform that rose to just over my head. Turning the corner at the far end, I went through the small back door and looked around. A dank, narrow, smelly alley dead-ending on my left and circling back to the main street on my right. Ducking back inside, I retraced my steps, hiding in the shadows in the back of the room. No way he gets in without my seeing him.
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19 Unless he was already here.
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21 The curtain before me rose as bright lights came up. Closing my left eye to preserve my night vision, I caught movement in my right. Looking up, I saw a man climbing from a higher section, jerking unsteadily as if on a ship during a storm. As Asa and Flo went at it up front, I ran to the wall and scaled its irregularities until I reached a balcony. Swinging my leg over, I was greeted with astonished gasps and wide eyes, several men in uniform standing to bar my path. Out of time, I climbed onto the ledge and jumped as high and as far as I could.
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23 I had him dead to rights. I was going to take him shoulder high and drive him backwards away from his target. No way I could miss. Easy street, here I come.
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25 Then the bastard tripped. He fell to one knee, grabbing the nearest seat to keep from sprawling forward, and I sailed over his head to land in an unceremonious heap in the carpeted aisle. Sneezing and wheezing at the cloud of dust, I scrambled up and whirled in time to watch my failure.
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27 He extended his arm and fired one shot, point blank into the back of another man's head. Several quick steps and he leapt down from the box, landing awkwardly in a tumble. Regaining his feet, he limped to the back door and disappeared into the night as a packed house sat stunned.
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29 Then the scene unfroze into chaos. Several pairs of rough hands clamped onto me, but I didn't even notice, my eyes still fixed on that damn back door. Once again I was screwed through no fault of my own, and I knew what my excuses would get me. I was dragged up the aisle amid shrieks, the cries of "The President's been shot!" and entreaties for a doctor. None of it mattered in the least to me. I'd be having my own troubles soon.
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31 They hung me that night, as a conspirator to assassination, never bothering with the formalities of learning my name. The rope snapped tight around my throat, and even as I jerked and thrashed, I cursed their clumsiness. Since my neck didn't break, it would be a long several minutes before it all went black.
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33 When I awoke, I felt sluggish, my thoughts far slower than I was accustomed to. Maybe they'd drugged me, or taken their boots to my head while I lay unconscious. As I struggled to rise, I heard footsteps beside me, then the rattle and clank of keys in a lock. Soft leather shoes scraped the cold hard floor as they stopped beside my head. They must have been running as fast as they moved. The voice from above talked too fast to follow its words, but I caught the general idea. Eventually.
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35 "You've failed us again, as we knew that you would, but we've been lenient, and will keep our word. Because of your efforts, we are giving you your wish. Because of your results, we are giving you your due. Henceforth your life will proceed at a pace more in accordance with your abilities. Fare thee well, and know that this parting will be our last."
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37 Sons of bitches have a sense of humor after all. Well, I'd asked for a simpler, more sedate life, and to be fair, they did fill the bill.
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39 I wonder how long it would take to cross this field moving at a snail's pace.
File shorts/death_of_kyle.txt added (mode: 100644) (index 0000000..e9d828a)
1 Darkest night, broken only by the faintest of aurae from the billions of stars far overhead. Some shone steadily with a bright, clear light, others guttered fitfully as they appeared and vanished, often in the space of a heartbeat. He gazed upward, momentarily at rest, an onyx statue emblazoned with a gray Templar cross, listening to the background hum composed of the billions of dreams melting together. He could feel in his bones the beat of The Heart, strong, steady, a metronome measuring time that did not pass here, beating not for him, never for him, but still a guide to the work he did.
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3 One night, shortly after his transition, he had visited Miranda in a dream. A bittersweet reunion, but by night's end, she had understood if not accepted the reasons for what he had done, what he had become.
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5 "You are the only man I have ever loved," she had said, cheeks wet and eyes red.
6 "A child's love for a man unworthy. Now a woman, you will find another. Better, far better, and the life you build will be a testament to the woman you have become."
7 "Mom and Dad miss you. Everyone misses you. I miss you! Why did you have to go away?" she had wailed.
8 "To destroy the evil that threatened you. It will not return while I still stand. The Knight of the Shadows still walks the wall, even as he did while he lived."
9 "Will I ever see you again?"
10 "Mayhap, dear heart. Mayhap. But for now, you must move on, as all must do. My love to your family, and keep the rest for yourself. Fear not the dark, for thou art the light, and in the shadow thou casts I wait and watch. Live well, and be as proud of you as I am. Farewell, Milady, and if it please you, remember me fondly."
11
12 Brianna had rebuilt her life, taking classes at the local college on a track scholarship. He had visited her once as well, with the predictable result.
13
14 "Well, well, well, if it ain't the big, bad wolf."
15 "Be nice or I'll blow your house in."
16 "Yeah, yeah. This is me terrified. So what you doin' here, besides creepin' on young women while they asleep?"
17 "Memory problems, girl? You called for me."
18 "Took you long enough. You been gone a year."
19 "Time flies. People to see, things to do."
20 "Yeah, well, I never got a chance to thank you for what you done, then I find out I made it back alone. You know they never did find your body, and that some people still thinking you comin' back?"
21 "They're right, just not in the way they think."
22 "I see that. Just don't get too cocky. I can still kick your ass even in that tin can."
23 "Humility, thy name is woman. Be free, and if you ever need me...fuck off."
24 "If I ever need you, I'll be more fucked than I know. Now fuck off yourself. I got class in the morning."
25 "You're welcome."
26
27 So many stars, so many dreams; he was master of all he surveyed, the bringer of justice, the law where none existed, the last resort of the weak against the strong. He was Vision. He was Justice. He was The Shadow Knight.
28
29 Tonight, he was Bored.
30
31 He had his work, and he would do it, but he needed a diversion, something different to pique his interest. Gazing upward, scanning the sky, he noted the appearance of a new star, dim, blinking rapidly, cycling from red to blue and back again. He waited for it to disappear, but it continued blinking, changing colors, brightening momentarily before dimming, over and over. This was indeed something different, and it indeed caught his interest.
32
33 Suddenly, he felt The Pull, that irresistible force that called him to his duty. Odd that he heard no cries for deliverance nor calls for aid. He smelled none of the putrescence that signaled the presence of evil, nor could he see any sign of the evil at work. But he was bound, and duty called, so, unsheathing his sword, he leaped into the air, great black wings expanding to beat powerfully as he ascended. As he rose, he was presented with a vision, the reason for his involvement, and he smiled. This night he would be the bringer not of justice, but of truth. He pierced the star's outer shell...
34
35 ...and landed unsteadily on cement. A loading dock of some kind, a powered lift to his right with ramps that raised and lowered. Two sets of double doors faced him, and he went to the set on the right. With a wave of his hand, he summoned a mirror, and in the glass he saw a tall, bald man, going slightly to fat. Nodding, he banished the mirror and stepped through the double doors.
36
37 A large work area, with palettes of boxes scattered about. Canvas and plastic carts held even more boxes, and all around him people were bustling from place to place. Stepping forward, he noticed men and women dressed in blue, sorting mail into slots labeled with addresses. Nodding, he turned right and found a small room with a refrigerator, microwave, and several vending machines. A young man sat at one of the tables, Keith? No, Kyle, that was it, Kyle, and at his entrance, Kyle looked up.
38
39 "Wayne, what are you doing here?"
40
41 Gabriel shrugged, standing motionless for a beat, then two, before taking a seat opposite the young man.
42
43 "You know you're not supposed to be here. How did you even get here? Have you been drinking?"
44 "Just a bracer with the morning coffee. You know how it is," Wayne said.
45 "Yeah, I know. So what ARE you doing here?"
46 "I just got this feeling, you know, that I had to come here and see you, and here I am."
47 "Well, I got this feeling you have to go. Come on," Kyle said, rounding the table and taking Wayne's arm.
48
49 They walked together to the other set of swinging doors, Kyle pushing Wayne ahead of him. They went through the doors, one step onto the dock into daylight, the next into...
50
51 ...a dimly-lit basement, a single, naked bulb screwed into the ceiling the only source of light. No doors or windows, and the only furniture was a heavy, wooden chair with arms that ended in large knobs. Kyle sat in the chair, looking around, blinking in the sudden change of light. It took a moment before he found Gabriel.
52
53 "Wait, who the fuck are you? What did you do to Wayne?"
54
55 Gabriel smiled, opening his black duster, a pair of silver knives glinting in the meager light. Dropping his hands, he tugged two drawstrings at his thighs, revealing two rows of throwing knives. Flicking his wrists, he flipped first two, then four of the knives up in front of him, juggling them easily as he looked at Kyle.
56
57 "What the fuck is this? Where am I?"
58 "This, my young friend, is a classroom, and I am your teacher. It would seem that my current employer has grown tired of your constant insistence on a story including several rather inane elements that belong in no literature with which he is presently aware."
59 "Who is your employer? Who the fuck are you?"
60 "I can see the cause of his annoyance. Your repetition does get tiresome."
61 "I'm supposed to be at work! What are you going to do to me? People are going to miss me!"
62 "First of all, no you're not. Second of all, you'll see soon enough. Lastly, I seriously doubt it."
63
64 All the while, the knives flew, tumbling and arcing through the air, gray streaks connecting them in complex patterns that shifted with the movements of the blades. Catching them all and sheathing them in a movement too quick to follow, he folded his arms across his chest and looked at Kyle looking at him. He waved his hand, and a wooden table appeared. He stepped to it and looked back at Kyle.
65
66 "As I said, this is a classroom. Today, we're going to learn about botany, and maybe something about tribal lore. But first, to set the stage."
67
68 On the table appeared a large bowl of grass seed, a phonograph player, and a portable seismometer. He turned back to Kyle and smiled.
69
70 "It seems that the elements you requested are going to make it into a story after all. Perhaps not in the way you intended, but beggars can't be choosers."
71
72 Grabbing the bowl of grass seed, he rounded the table and stood in front of Kyle, who had been struggling to break free of bonds he could not see. Watching him a moment, he waited for him to quiet and look back up at him.
73
74 "Seeing your interest in scientific study, I thought I would indulge your taste for such inquiry. We're going to test the premise of these researchers using methods, that while suitably reproducible, may, for reasons that will become apparent, may NOT be fit for publication. Shall we begin? Yes? Then open wide."
75
76 Kyle just sat there staring, so Gabriel lifted his head with a hand under his chin and squeezed. When Kyle's mouth opened, Gabriel emptied the bowl down his throat. A smack under the chin closed his mouth again hard enough to clack his teeth together.
77
78 "Very good. Now, we'll proceed to Step Two," Gabriel said, moving back to the table and turning on the phonograph.
79
80 A steady, persistent beat of heavy drums vibrated the concrete walls of the room, causing dust to drift down from the cobwebbed ceiling. After several moments, with no discernible effect, Gabriel turned off the music and went back to Kyle.
81
82 "Hmm, I must have missed something somewhere. Now let me think...aah, I have it. Sometimes I can be quite the absent-minded one," he said, snapping his fingers.
83
84 An instant, ice-cold deluge poured over Kyle's head, heavy enough to drive up his nose and down his throat. Kyle coughed and thrashed until Gabriel snapped his fingers again. Water ran down Kyle's nose and bubbled from his mouth as he sputtered and gagged trying to breathe around the water in his lungs and throat.
85
86 "What...the...fuc..."
87 "You can't grow grass without watering it, a fact I momentarily overlooked. NOW maybe we'll get somewhere."
88
89 Gabriel returned to the table and resumed the music. After a few moments, grass began sprouting out of Kyle's ears and mouth, and his eyes took on a definite green cast. His stomach distended, and soon more grass pushed its way out from under his fingernails. Gabriel nodded, then scowled.
90
91 "Dandelions? Really? I was sure they told me that this seed was pure Kentucky Bluegrass. I'll have to get a refund. But something is still...aha, that's right. The last part of the experiment," he said as he stomped his foot.
92
93 The room started shaking vigorously, and he turned on the seismometer. 2.6, 3.4, 4.2, 5.9...When the reading hit 9.7, he held it steady for a moment, turning his head to look at Kyle, who was riding his chair like it was a mechanical bull as it rose in the air to fall heavily back to the floor hard enough to slam his head against the wooden slats behind him. At one point, he spit out his tongue, having bitten through it during a most violent collision. The grass was growing furiously now, growing from his head to replace his hair, covering his face in a verdant beard, and covering his skin in a verdant pelt. Kyle's stomach continued to grow, expanding exponentially to fill that entire half of the room. Nodding, Gabriel clapped his hands and the earthquake ceased.
94
95 "Well, it would seem that those researchers knew their business. I'll have to include that tidbit in the report to my employer. But, we'd better do something about this overgrowth before the city gives me a citation."
96
97 Ringing like silver bells, his belt-knives were free, flowing in graceful arcs over the grass that was now a foot long. Back and forth he swept his hands, tufts of grass flying in all directions, accompanied in places by bits of skin, and in one enthusiastic sweep, an ear. Kyle screamed as free-flowing blood combined with free-floating grass to create a viscous rain that fell in wet clumps in his lap.
98
99 "Very nice. And now for a shave. Can't have you looking like some homeless wreck, now can we?" Gabriel asked.
100
101 Again the knives did their work, up one cheek and down the other, peeling skin and muscle in long rolls. Flipping his wrists, he worked up and down Kyle's neck, carefully avoiding the carotids. After several seconds, he stepped back to survey his work.
102
103 "Very nice. You'll never have a closer shave. I missed my calling as a barber. But you do seem to have gained a bit of weight. That won't do, what with the danger of heart disease and all. We'll have to do something about...uh-oh, too late."
104
105 Gabriel waved his hand and the table disappeared, and he walked across the empty space to the opposite wall. Turning back to Kyle, he watched as his stomach extended still further, pulsing and rippling. Then, with a loud bang, it exploded in all directions, scattering grass and acid in torrents to all corners of the room. Gabriel's shield appeared in his outstretched hand, and he crouched down as gore and grass pounded against it in solid clods. When it was over, he stood and walked over to the chair, gazing down on the few scraps of hair and skin that were all that remained of Kyle.
106
107 "I would call that a rousing success. Score one for the scientific method," Gabriel said as he stepped through the wall and disappeared.
File shorts/deleted_files.txt added (mode: 100644) (index 0000000..ca38546)
1 "We have a major problem in here!"
2
3 They always had a major problem in there. Every time someone turned around, some ham-fisted Luddite was signaling the end of the computer age. A plugged-in mouse, a closed window, or a turned on monitor usually averted a return to the Stone Age.
4
5 In no real hurry, Rick walked into the computer center, arriving at a terminal with a pretty good crowd gathered around it. Ignoring the moaning, wailing and gnashing of teeth, he elbowed his way to a position directly behind the sobbing typist.
6
7 "They're gone! All gone! All I did was press a key and all my files are gone!"
8
9 "They're not gone," Rick said, rolling his eyes. "You just closed the program that was accessing them. Again."
10
11 "No! It's still on my screen! Look!" she said, smearing the screen with a finger coated in hand lotion, chocolate and sweat. "I'm going to be fired! I just know it!"
12
13 Rick sighed, turning to the others.
14
15 "Can I get a little room here? This isn't an accident scene! You'd think someone was dying the way you vultures are circling!" To the typist, he added, "Get up."
16
17 They switched places and Rick hammered the keyboard, navigating a maze of access violations, broken symlinks, and file-block errors. Just another day at the office stuff, for about ten minutes. Then things got interesting.
18
19 They were gone. Every database, every index, every spreadsheet. Gone as if they'd never been. The folders were there, the icons were there, but the files were gone.
20
21 "What in the hells did you do?" he snarled over his shoulder.
22
23 The only response he got was a banshee wail that receded as the girl ran for the bathroom.
24
25 Gritting his teeth, he went to work. Dropping to the command prompt, he dropped below the graphical system to directly access the drive. The files had to be here. All he had to do was reform the references that told the system where they were. As long as nothing had written to the empty space, the files could be recovered.
26
27 Except they were nowhere. They hadn't been overwritten. They were gone. Well, that's why they invented backups.
28
29 After restoring from the backup, he went back to the graphical system. Still gone. Dropping back to the command prompt, same result. A quick file-search of the remaining backups gave the same story. The files were gone.
30
31 It wasn't possible. There were enough redundancies in the system that this couldn't happen. Except it had. The question was how.
32
33 By the end of the day, he still had nothing. He had determined that the typist had begun a search for a specific record in order to correct it in her database. The system had errored out and come to a screeching halt. Rebooting had restored the system, but not the files. For the first time in his career, he was at a loss. Well, he'd figure it out tomorrow.
34
35 The next day, he found himself in the middle of another crowd, this one running around and babbling. A secretary grabbed him by the arm and pulled him further inside. "The files are back! All of them. Stan verified that the backups are complete, too!"
36
37 Growling, Rick let himself be towed into the tumultuous scene until he saw its source. He stopped so suddenly that the secretary lost her grip on his arm.
38
39 Socks. Green socks, blue socks, white socks. Tall socks, short socks, socks with holes and socks with runs. Knee deep on the floor, covering everything, hanging from fixtures. He'd never seen so many socks in his life. And not a one of them had a mate.
40
41 "I'll be damned," he said, collapsing into a sock-padded chair.
File shorts/hell_where_heart.txt added (mode: 100644) (index 0000000..523a17c)
1 They say the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. I always intended to stay the hell out, if you get my meaning, which means that I essentially paved my own road here. How's that for irony?
2
3 You probably don't get it, and that's fine. I don't either most of the time, and the docs say that's pretty normal, to expect that sometimes. Since the war that wasn't a war to anybody except the poor stiffs they sent over to not fight in it, I don't think like other people, something about all the biochems and nanobots swimming around in my body messing with my brain. Docs can't do anything about that, since apparently their guys are smarter than our guys, and nobody can figure out what they did and they ain't talking. Nobody knows what all those chemicals are doing to me, and I lit out before they brought out the big knives to cut me open.
4
5 Besides, chemicals I got. What I need is a soul.
6
7 I used to have one. I used to have a life like other people. I used to have a lot of stuff, like a wife and kids, complete with a dog, in a little white house that even had a picket fence. But that's all gone now. They're gone, long gone, down a different road than the one I took.
8
9 Theirs is paved with yellow bricks. Mine is dark, gritty, dead-end, and not paved with anything that will hold my weight.
10
11 Hell is supposed to be bright and hot, with a bunch of screaming people being torn to shreds from the inside out, everything they ever wanted tormenting them from just beyond their reach, now and forever, amen.
12
13 Let me tell you, Hell is what you make of it, and the beauty of it is that you can take it with you anywhere.
14
15 I mean, who would have thought that you could reach it by a dingy, cracked, filthy flight of concrete stairs leading to an abandoned garage right in the heart of town? Nobody, that's who. By the time you stop to wonder how you got here, it's already too late.
16
17 I should report to my PO, but to hell with that, if you'll pardon the pun. Dumb broad thinks she can save the world, one con at a time. I don't want to be saved, don't deserve it. If I did, I wouldn't be here. I'd have followed the harps and singing, the golden neon sign pointing to Heaven, not the gang-scrawled arrow pointing down to the smoke and the blood.
18
19 Sometimes, some wannabe Napoleon tries to take over down here. He gets himself a crew that's as raggedy as he is, and because they're the strongest thing going, they start shaking people down for the little they got, breaking some bones for no better reason than they can, trying to build an empire. They're too stupid to know that you can't build an empire on nothing, too stupid to know what real evil is, trying to build their own road, an easier road on the backs of those they grind under their boots.
20
21 Then they hit a speed bump. They meet me. War may be its own kind of hell, but its lessons last a lifetime. No one misses them when they're gone.
22
23 I'm no hero. I don't bring light and justice into the dark. I like the dark the way it is, living in the shadows, making my own way. The laws of God and Man no longer apply to me. The suits call me a sociopath, but they're wrong. I've simply risen above all the crap that they say a society needs to function. None of it matters, none of it can reach me here. I take no responsibility for anyone but me, so why get involved? Why bother to balance the scales at all?
24
25 I hate bullies. Sometimes, life is just that simple.
26
27 Now that I think of it, there was this one strange bird that showed up one day out of nowhere. I could tell right away that he didn't belong, even though he wore the same torn and ratty clothes the rest of us did it was clear he wasn't one of us. At first I took him for a cop, but the way he talked and carried himself put that to bed right away. I never did pin down exactly what he was or what he wanted because after one bad incident, he disappeared, and nobody I talked to later could tell me where he came from or where he went.
28
29 All I know is that after knowing him, nothing has been the same for me since.
30
31 Some time ago, no idea how long ago since time stops down here, one of the scroungers tripped over a girl, maybe thirteen, on one of his rambling searches for food or stuff to trade for food. You could tell right away that something was really wrong from the racket he made, and when I found him, he was screaming and dancing and pointing to the ground where she lay all crumpled up and bloody.
32
33 Her pink dress had been torn to ribbons, and whatever had shredded it up had dug all the way through to her bones. There wasn't enough left of her face to recognize as a person, and the blood stains between her thighs were even bigger than the ones on her torso. Not much blood on the ground around her, so she'd been done somewhere else and dumped here. That wasn't surprising in itself, since we've long been the garbage dump of the outside world, and frankly, she wasn't the first we'd found who'd been thrown away like garbage after somebody stronger was done with them. The long, jagged tears weren't the worst of it, though. I thought then and still do that some of those wounds were teeth marks, like somebody had carved her up and eaten her.
34
35 We may have made our Hell down here, but from the looks of that poor girl, there was still plenty to go around up there.
36
37 I asked around, and maybe I got a little rough now and then, but from what I could tell, none of us had anything to do with it. Like I said, I ain't no hero, but there was no way that I would have left a freak like that living free among us. Some of the others have families, wives and kids who are in the same sinking boat together, and their lives are hard enough without having to worry about some rabid pervert on the prowl among them. Anyway, I would have left it lie there, since I'd learned what I needed to know, except for that guy I mentioned before. He showed up a couple days later, after we'd cleaned up the mess and laid her to rest the best we could. I figured the whole sad thing was over until then.
38
39 He kept to himself at first, and I remember thinking that maybe it was the guy, slumming around to enjoy the kick of what he'd done, but that didn't feel right. Like I said, it was obvious he didn't belong here, and besides, he didn't strike me as the type. I got a feel for people, can tell when they're going to be trouble, and his feel was all wrong. As it turned out, I was wrong, too, since he was trouble with a capital T, just not the kind I originally pegged him for.
40
41 He walked around and talked to people, his voice to soft to hear what he was saying from too far away, and the people he talked to seemed better for having him around. Nothing I've ever been able to put a finger on, but he had a way of making you look at things from a different side, kind of like he tossed everything you ever knew up in the air and let you see how it all fell out differently, made you ask questions that had never mattered to anybody before. Questions that shook you up only a little less than the answers did.
42
43 Anyway, eventually it was my turn, and I got my first real good look at him. Like I'd said, his clothes were a mess, but the rest of him could have come from a magazine cover. Eyes all bright, fingernails all even and pink, straight white teeth gleaming when he smiled, gold rimmed glasses catching even the faint light from guttering candles and flickering flourescents and scattering it around him like a rainbow. He had a way of making you listen to him, whether you wanted to or not, and it wasn't long before I was caught up in the voodoo he was selling. The whole time I was telling myself it was all BS, but if I'd died on the spot, I bet I'd have still heard him in the afterlife.
44
45 He had that kind of power. I just hope he uses it for good wherever he is now.
46
47 His shtick was all weird stuff, all about fighting evil and other worlds and living in what he called The Light, his tone of voice supplying the capital letters. None of it made much sense, just crazy talk. Maybe the guy was a drunk or a junkie, but he sure didn't sound like one, and his eyes didn't have that mad dog look in them. Just listening to him talk made me want to be better, do things to make a difference in the world, but at the same time it made me angry. What could I do to make a difference? I'm nobody, nothing, not even a blip on anybody's radar. He talked about all these big ideas and hope for the human race, but what he didn't give me was any way to help the people here. I asked him about that, and he slid around that with some snake oil about free will and making our own choices.
48
49 What it all seemed to boil down to was "You found your way here, now find your way out."
50
51 I tried to blow him off, tell myself that he was full of it and that nothing he said mattered, nothing could change a damn thing about my life down here, but a little voice inside of me started asking questions, wondering how things could be, dared to hope that maybe there was something better than hiding in a stinking hole underground. I used to have a life like other men, used to believe that the world was a good place. What changed my mind? When did I lose my drive to fight the good fight, to stand for what was right? Was it the war? Was it the mess I came home to, my country and my family both in tatters? Did I leave my heart back on that battlefield? Could I get it back?
52
53 Listening to him, for the first time in more years than I could count, the answer seemed to be yes.
54
55 He disappeared shortly after that, but the damage had been done. I was no longer content to just kill time while the world above passed me by. I was in no shape to rejoin that world, but maybe I could help build one here, carve out some kind of haven for those who had nowhere else to go, no one else to turn to. Crazy ideas, real pie in the sky stuff, but the more I thought, the more restless I got. I had to do something, change something for the better, and I thought I knew where I could start.
56
57 On the sly, I chatted up a drifter I called Squinty because of the weird way he had of looking at people. He said he used to be a PI before it all fell apart, and talking to him gave me the start of a plan. He gave me some names and places, people to look up and where to find them, and one night, without telling anybody, I took those concrete stairs up and back to the world of the living.
58
59 It was when I shoved my hands into the pockets of my old army coat that I found the envelope. Ducking into a doorway, I opened it and found a few hundred dollars in small bills. I stood there a long time, looking at that money like it came from another planet, wondering where it had come from. It had to have been the crazy guy, but how had he done it? The envelope hadn't been there before; I'd have known it if it had. I thought long and hard about what I could do now that I had a stake, how far I could get before it ran out. Then I remembered what had brought me out of my hole to begin with, and shoving the cash back into my coat, I went back out into the wind and cold rain.
60
61 Hitting a discount store, I grabbed a razor, a toothbrush, and a set of better clothes, and finding a flophouse that took cash without asking questions, I showered and shaved. Looking back at me from the mirror was a guy I barely recognized, the guy I could have been had things gone different. Jaw set and eyes sparking, he looked like a guy who had somewhere to be and something to do when he got there. It had been too long since I'd seen that guy, and I hoped that he'd stick around a while.
62
63 Long story short, I used the contacts Squinty gave me, using the cash to buy the information I needed, and in the wee small hours of the morning, I found the guy who had done the girl. No need to go into what I did to him, but suffice it to say that he won't be preying on any more small girls, stealing the childhoods from any more innocents, destroying the hopes and dreams of any more families.
64
65 It was just before dawn when I found my way back to the hole, and as the sun's first rays lit up the horizon, I stood at the top of the stairs and watched the start of the day, a normal day for those of this world, a minor miracle long forgotten by those who lived in mine. No one saw me descend the stairs, to reclaim the darkness that had been my companion for so many long, unnumbered years. I didn't answer many questions other than to say that nobody had to be afraid anymore. I gave Squints a respectful nod which he answered with a wink. After that, life went back to its normal routine.
66
67 Well, almost. Somehow, word got out that there was a place where one could find peace and justice, and our numbers have been slowly growing ever since. The garage is big enough to hold any number of them, and as we've grown, we've found a way to make our own way. We may not be able to see the light, but I think we've found a way to live in The Light. A hard life, but it's ours, and we'll do what we need to to keep it.
68
69 I'm still no hero. I don't have a white horse and a shiny suit of armor, but people look to me to solve their problems, so I do what I can to have the answers to their questions.
70
71 So here I am, and here we are, and in the world above people are living their lives with no idea that we grow just under their feet. Not that they'd care if they did know, but as long as we keep to ourselves and stay true to what we believe, their ignorance can be their bliss.
72
73 Until they pave their own road here. When they do, they'll find us waiting.
File shorts/life_for_sale.txt added (mode: 100644) (index 0000000..5db84c0)
1 The young man stopped when he saw the tattered sign, tape yellowed, sticking to the grimy window.
2
3 "Tired of your old, drab existence? Come inside and talk to a certified life-experiant to start your exciting career as a whole new you."
4
5 He was tired of being himself. The same boring routines, the same stupid conversations. He was to the point of hiding when he heard the knock at his door or the chime of his wrist-comm. He'd had a girl who thought that screwing a writer was exotic until she saw the size of his royalty checks. Even the weather never changed now that the new met-sats were online and debugged. He needed a change; any change would do. He just couldn't do the same old thing anymore.
6
7 He found the address on the sign and walked in. Carpeted floors, overstuffed furniture and abstract statues all artfully coexisted in the spacious lobby. With his frayed hems and scuffed shoes, he felt out of place in the midst of all that elegance.
8
9 The redhead at the desk looked up with a dazzling smile. "May I help you, Sir?" she asked in a voice as gentle as a wind-chime.
10
11 "I saw your ad, and um, well, you know..." His sentence died in a sea of wordless mumbles.
12
13 "I understand perfectly," she said, pressing some keys on her phone. "If you'll wait just a moment, someone will come and speak to you."
14
15 True to her word, a short young man in a blue pinstripe and red tie appeared as if by magic. They were soon sitting in his plush office, on opposite sides of a massive mahogany desk.
16
17 "So what is it that we can do for you? A life of adventure, romance, travel? Maybe ruling an empire from a palace of gold? You name it, we frame it. Just say the word and its yours."
18
19 "That's just it. I don't really know what I want. All I'm really sure of is that I want out of this rut I'm stuck in."
20
21 "Not a problem. No problem at all," said the guide, punching some keys on his desk. A hologram appeared of a pretty woman with eyes that glowed neon-bright.
22
23 He didn't so much hear as feel the ensuing interview, images rushing past him too fast to process. It ended as suddenly as it began. Blinking rapidly to clear his vision, he was surprised to see the office as it had been. The images had been real enough that he'd thought he was physically transported.
24
25 "Done, and done," the guide said, sliding a set of documents across the gleaming desktop. "Just read through these and you're in like Flynn. Or your version of it, at any rate."
26
27 He barely skimmed the papers before he signed them with a shaky hand. "When do we start?" he asked past a tight throat.
28
29 "You already have, and congratulations." The office blurred then dissolved in a blue mist.
30
31 When he was again conscious of himself, he was sitting in a hard wooden chair in front of a small table. A guttering candle was to his left, and in front of him sat a large calfskin book. A quill and an inkpot were at his right elbow.
32
33 A round man in a brown robe, bald except for a fringe of gray hair that circled his head entered the room with an armload of books.
34
35 "The abbot said that we just got an order for another ten copies of The Complete Shakespeare. Finish that one and then start on the next. They need to be ready before winter."
File shorts/manufacturers_tag.txt added (mode: 100644) (index 0000000..a5e06e7)
1 Extracted from the wreckage, it still lived. Their job was to keep it that way.
2
3 Vital signs had been broadcast the entire way to the lab. On its arrival, a full surgical team was ready and waiting. Experts from every biological specialty were gowned and masked awaiting their opportunity to make history. The national security guys had tried to horn in but were brusquely rebuffed, joining Army brass in an observation suite to mutter dire threats to each other, all eyes riveted on the scene before and beneath them.
4
5 "I've seen sausage in better shape," a surgeon muttered. "I can't tell its insides from its outsides."
6 "Figure it out. Every reading we've got is nosediving."
7 "How can we tell? The monitors are going haywire!"
8 "Only one way. Curtain's up, people. Showtime."
9
10 Once committed, the team moved in rhythmic ballet, each step performed precisely. Bone saws ripped through an ossified carapace to reveal a labyrinth of vessels, some only visible with the aid of the microscope's projection on the far wall, connecting to pulsing organs that none could identify. Having gained access to the victim's interior structure, the team stood open-mouthed and sweating.
11
12 "What now?"
13 "Retractor! We've got a leaker!"
14 "How can you tell? It's a swimming pool in here!"
15 "We've got a ticker! Something's hot in there!"
16
17 The Geiger counter quietly registered the slight rise in radioactivity.
18
19 "We're good. Not much over background."
20 "Good, hells! What's causing it?"
21 "Let's find out. Suction!"
22
23 They cleared the large central cavity to provide room to work. They located the broken vessel and applied a hurried patch to prevent further seepage. Trained nurses specifically chosen for their steady hands and nerves blotted sweat from the surgeons' faces.
24
25 "What's that, just under those protrusions?"
26 "Can't tell. Scope it."
27 "More light. Can't make it out."
28 "Let's tie this off. Suture!"
29
30 Having cleared the immediate area, the surgeons gathered around the incision, more like a hole, staring down at a small, silver, flashing globe in the midst of organic matter that varied in color from green to brown.
31
32 "That's the clicker! What is it? A heart?"
33 "Anyone else feeling heat? Give me a reading!"
34 "Sure enough. Take it or leave it?"
35 "Take it. We can't afford damage to the rest of the structure."
36 "We might kill it!"
37 "It's already dead for all we know! Cutter!"
38
39 The globe was deftly removed with no discernible detrimental effects. Set on a metal table, the globe flashed more quickly, cycling through the entire visible spectrum in a matter of seconds to repeat in a kaleidoscopic pattern. Then, suddenly, it stopped.
40
41 A hologram appeared over the globe with the number ten glowing in large numbers. The team looked at each other as the display showed nine, then eight. The Geiger counter went crazy with the radiation spike.
42
43 Another hologram appeared over the countdown that explained everything. The lead surgeon closed his eyes after he read its display.
44
45 "This device may not be removed under penalty of law except by the consumer."
File shorts/naked_truth.txt added (mode: 100644) (index 0000000..7df2c59)
1 She was on her way back from the kitchen when the phone rang, and without thinking, she answered it.
2
3 "Hey, baby, what'cha doin'?" came a familiar voice over the line.
4
5 "Nothing really," she replied, "just sitting around. How have you been?"
6
7 "Actually, that's why I called. Any chance I could come over? I'm in town."
8
9 "Um, sure, I guess. Where are you right now?"
10
11 "Just off the main drag. I can be there in about 20 minutes."
12
13 "That would be great. I'll be ready. See you then." In somewhat of a flutter, she went over to the computer that was still running and typed into the chat window, "I've got a hottie coming over. Gotta run, all. Bye!" and logged out of the system. In her haste to get to the shower, it never occurred to her to question how his call had made it through with the line busy.
14
15 A quick shower, light makeup and a change of clothes later, she was standing in front of her bathroom mirror. "Not so bad for a librarian. Not so bad at all." A refresh on her drink, and then quickly around the apartment to straighten things up. She gave a thought to logging back onto the chat system to kill time until he arrived, but she changed her mind and settled on the couch to wait. Before too much longer, her bell rang, and she rose to open the door.
16
17 What she found standing outside wasn't exactly what she had anticipated. While the figure vaguely resembled the man she knew, his wild, unkempt hair, lined and drawn down mouth and dull, lifeless eyes gave lie to his age of 25. If she hadn't known better, she'd have sworn he was 80. "Um, hey there," she hesitantly said. "Come on in and take a rest. You look like you could use it."
18
19 "I need more than a rest," was his sardonic reply as he practically limped into the apartment and over to the couch, where he didn't so much sit as collapse. "If you only knew how these years have gone..."
20
21 "Years? I only saw you 6 months ago," she replied, confused.
22
23 "Oh, right, months. That's what I meant. Months," he mumbled.
24
25 "Are you all right? You look terrible. Is there something I can get you?"
26
27 "Naw, not right now. Just let me catch my breath here and then I'll figure out what's what."
28
29 "What's what?"
30
31 "Right. That's what I need to figure out. I'm in a helluva fix."
32
33 "You're not sick, or anything? Your family is ok?"
34
35 "Oh, yeah, everyone's fine. Everything's fine. Nothing could be finer...than a day in Carolina...in the morning..."
36
37 "What in the hell is the matter with you? And what are you doing?!"
38
39 Her last question was the result of his taking off his clothes. She was now staring, open mouthed, at his naked body, and her stupifaction wasn't so much at his member standing at stiff attention, although she had never seen one that big and wasn't sure that it was even natural, but at his gaunt and wasted look, horribly underweight and appearing to be little more than ribs and joints. Come to think of it, she mused, his color doesn't look all that good, and why is his skin so wrinkled?
40
41 "What? Oh, this? I just relax better without clothes. Don't worry, I won't hurt you. Although I wouldn't mind..."
42
43 "Stop right there!" she said emphatically. "That monstrosity isn't coming, no pun intended, anywhere near me. You just keep that thing leashed if you don't want it cut off."
44
45 "Right, right, no problem." If he was the least bit perturbed at her rebuff, he didn't show it. "I think I'll just crash here for a minute. I'm awfully tired. You don't mind?" Without waiting for her reply, he threw himself back onto the couch and within seconds was asleep. Now more than a little rattled, she logged back onto the chat system. "You guys have to help me," she typed. "I have a naked guy on my couch and I can't go to sleep. You have to keep me up."
46
47 "Woo-hoo (!)" came back one reply. "You go, girl!" came another.
48
49 "No, no, you don't understand. This is really freakin' me out."
50
51 "That he fell asleep, or that he fell asleep BEFORE doing it?" asked Launfal, the chat room's resident smart ass.
52
53 "No, no, you don't understand!" she typed frantically. "This guy is major league freaky!" And so for the next half hour, the chatroom denizens tried to occupy her mind, each to his or her own fashion. At the end of that time, her bell rang again. "Who in the hell is THAT?" she wondered as she again went to the door. As she passed the couch, she noticed that her visitor hadn't even stirred.
54
55 Opening the door, she found two young men in white suits with pleasant smiles on their faces. "Who are you and what do you want?" She asked.
56
57 "Um, well, er, we're very sorry for the interuption, as we know how late it is, but we're under the impression that you've recently had a visitor? Perhaps this evening?"
58
59 "Well, yes I have, but I don't see..."
60
61 "Well, I realize that this is going to be a little confusing, but we need to take him back."
62
63 "Take him back? To where?"
64
65 "Well, ma'am, not so much to where as to when."
66
67 "When what?
68
69 "No, ma'am, not when what, when where."
70
71 "I have no idea what you're talking about."
72
73 "It's all very simple to explain. May we please come in? Here is our card." Taking the card, she read WHITE and WHITE, Temporal Recovery and Salvage.
74
75 "Um, sure, please come in," she said, now in a daze. "Won't you please sit down?"
76
77 "Thank you. Now, ma'am, as you can see, we specialize in the recovery and salvage of people and things that have, oh, how can I best explain this, misplaced themselves in the flow of time. People are the worst, you see, and the elderly just can't seem to control themselves. They end up flying all over the when, if you get my meaning."
78
79 "Elderly? He's only 25!"
80
81 "Well, ma'am, the man you know is 25, and I'm sure he's just fine and running about, cavorting as those young Marines will. But this is the man 60 years later, lost in an eddy of time that brought him back quite a ways. He was a real pain to find, let me tell you. Sometimes when they go wandering off like this, it can take minutes to find them."
82
83 "Um, you're kidding, right?"
84
85 "Oh, no, ma'am, we do this all the time. So if you'll just let us get him dressed, we'll be out of your hair in no time." And with that, the two men took the sleeping figure from the couch, deftly dressed and fastened him, and without another word they were gone in a flash of light accompanied by a faint POP. Stunned, she watched as the last of the mist faded away, and like a zombie she went back to the computer.
86
87 "Um, he's gone, everyone. Thanks for keeping me up tonight. And do me a favor, huh? Let's not talk about this? It's been pretty weird, and he does come in here sometimes. Love you all. Goodnight." Numbly, she logged off and went to bed. "There is no way I'm ever going to be able to explain this to anyone. They'll never believe it. For that matter, I don't believe it."
88
89 And with that final, bewildered thought, she went to her room and fell into a well-deserved and exhausted sleep.
90
91 Finis
File shorts/over_the_rainbow.txt added (mode: 100644) (index 0000000..e8d9baa)
1 Over the Rainbow by Rob Houglan
2 Licensed Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported
3
4 She was a walking rainbow, and like any rainbow, she only appeared after a storm.
5
6 It was another day at the office. Readings scrolled on terminals, printers spewed reams of data, and video screens showed scientists hard at work. Another day of chaos. Controlled to be sure, but chaos nonetheless.
7
8 She grabbed a cup of what used to be coffee from the dispenser in the corner, grimacing as molten tar slid down her throat. She nodded and smiled as she walked the corridors, easily avoiding collisions and distractions as she reached her corner office. Shutting out the activity by shutting the door, she sat at her desk, turning her chair to take in the panoramic view.
9
10 Colored bands raced up and down her arms, bathing her face in a cascading rainbow that accentuated her high cheekbones and dark coloring. She could tell what kind of day it was by how fast the rainbow danced. Today, it was an almost solid chromatic blur.
11
12 Today was going to be a bad one.
13
14 Sighing, she faced her desk and pulled up abstracts written by the night crews. Undeniable statistics pointing to inarguable conclusions. No way around, over or through them. They'd been predicting this for years. Years had become months, which had whittled to weeks. The time for planning was over. When this day ended, maybe there'd be another to follow. Or maybe there wouldn't.
15
16 The smart money was on wouldn't.
17
18 But she knew something they didn't know, could do things that they couldn't imagine. Today, her secret would come out. A fair price to pay to insure that there were still people around to spread it.
19
20 "As long as they don't call me Goddess," she said to the air. She chuckled softly at a picture of a line of techs snaking around the building, laying sacrifices of electronic gadgets before her desk. With another sigh, she left her office and went to the elevators.
21
22 On the roof of the complex, cleared per her previous order, she took another look at the city around her. Slate blue met slate gray in a gradient texture that blurred them into one.
23
24 "The thing a girl does to earn a paycheck," she said as she undressed and spread her arms, face turned to the sky.
25
26 Soon it would end, one way or the other.
27
28 Breathing deeply, she closed her eyes. Her heartbeat slowed, her temperature dropped. The colors dancing on her arms shifted, separated, and slowed. Reds became blues before deepening to violets, dulling and sharpening at the same time. Violets darkened, expanded, turned black, expanding to cover her skin. In moments, she was night at the height of day.
29
30 "A shadow of my former self." The thought came unbidden and was as quickly banished.
31
32 At the appointed time, the solar flare struck, the largest ever recorded, the world killer. She quivered at the first onslaught, a mere tickle of what was to come. She focused inward, in total harmony with herself and the universe. She was night, the death of light.
33
34 Today she would be a new sun.
35
36 She absorbed the flare, its rays bending to find her from around the globe, all of its fury directed on one point, on her. She took it in, greedily devouring the radioactive maelstrom, waves of heat shimmering around her as she reached for more, cried out for more, demanded more.
37
38 Finally, it was over. The flare died, but she lived, and through her, the world lived as well.
39
40 Calmly dressing, she left the roof, rainbow bands shining brightly in a slow dance over her arms.
41
42 Today was going to be a good one.
File shorts/ubw_pic_story000.txt added (mode: 100644) (index 0000000..a2a532c)
1 Death came to his forest, borne on whirring blades.
2
3 Even without the pack's warning, he had heard the choppers bringing the hunters. They had created him, trained him, then tried to use him. He had escaped, and for over a decade he had lived free. Once again they had found him and would take him back if they could. He had fought them to a bloody standstill, with the understanding that if they stopped hunting him, he would stop killing them.
4
5 Some lessons needed retaught. Today, the hunters would be the prey.
6
7 Some of the pack were to the north, and through their eyes he saw the choppers land, their passengers hitting the ground running on booted feet. A full platoon this time, heavily armed, fanning out by squads in classic assault formations. In less time than it took to take it in, the choppers went light on their skids and retook to the air, their deep-throated roars absorbed by the thick foliage overhead. They wouldn't risk their aircraft anymore, as they were too valuable.
8
9 Some lessons only needed taught once. His creators had wrought far more than they knew.
10
11 Through its eyes he saw the pack grow, smaller groups meeting to reform the whole. He felt its rage build, let it resonate within him, let it sing with the blood in his veins. Its heart was his heart, its home was his home. Pack law was elegant in its simplicity.
12
13 Live free or die hard. Today, it would be the hunters who died.
14
15 Tactics came to him unbidden, and he sent out instructions to the pack. No headlong rush into a hail of bullets, no last battle atop a blood-soaked hill. They were pack. They were wise. They were ready.
16
17 The platoon had split into squads, and the pack had split to meet them. He ran to the nearest, knives in his hand, to find their hiding place. He could hear them crashing through the undergrowth, cursing as their equipment tangled in the densely packed trees. A few more steps, a few more moments.
18
19 "Leave me one," he sent. "The rest you can have, but leave me one."
20
21 The song in his blood reached its crescendo. When it did, he turned loose the pack and lead it in its charge.
22
23 Training and discipline melted in a heartbeat. The first in line fell, hamstrung by the teeth and claws that reached them first, throats ripped out by those who followed. Scooping up a rifle without breaking stride, he fired using quick, controlled bursts. In less than a minute, all that remained was bloody meat spilling out of shredded rags.
24
25 The gunfire had brought the hunters in, ignoring their orders as they came in tightly-packed clumps. The pack was everywhere and nowhere, and to face it from one direction was to fall to it from another. Erratic gunfire and incoherent orders, and then silence.
26
27 He found the survivor, and into a face grimy with tears and dust, he said, "Tell them what you saw today. Tell them that next time, we take their war to them."
File shorts/ubw_pic_story001.txt added (mode: 100644) (index 0000000..02ba928)
1 This once was a house of God. Hell has since foreclosed.
2
3 The church in the wood had been nearly eradicated from the inbound rockets. Huge, gaping wounds in the earth still festered years later. The living refused to enter the clearing; the dead to be buried beneath it. The shadows under the forbidding trees withstood the sun's best attempts to pierce them, casting everything in eternal gloom. Late at night, when all was still, faint rustlings and moanings could be heard on the wind, if any could hear over the thudding of their hearts.
4
5 As horrific was the scene above the ground, true terror ruled far beneath the roots of the gnarled and twisted oaks. Black water seeped into caverns ripped wholesale from the earth, permeating them with a rancid stench. Cramped tunnels connected these chambers that were lit with an unearthly green light that gave no warmth. In the deepest, darkest, most dimly lit of these an abomination was born.
6
7 Strapped to a stone altar was a great gray wolf, torn and bleeding from various wounds. He had been brought here snarling and snapping until having finally surrendered to his exhaustion and terror. Circling the altar were ten forms, shapeless in black cloaks, colorless but for the green runes that danced over them as if alive. The forms chanted in a language never before heard, a language that glorified death and despair, in a rite that would solidify their ascendence here, at the expense of all that lived.
8
9 The wolf breathed his last in a feeble growl, his spirit rising above the altar for its journey to the realm of dreams. The chanting rose to a thundering roar, and the shimmering form, was arrested in mid-flight. It's light was extinguished, absorbed by the dark, twisted and perverted into a churning miasma, black and obscene. With a final incantation that rent the altar asunder, the spirit was returned to the body of the wolf.
10
11 The wolf jerked and shuddered as if in rejection of the perversion that it now was, but in the end it rose. With clear brown eyes now turned green, it shook its great head, spittle from its mouth burning holes in the ground. For a moment, then two, silence reigned, the rite now ended, its aim achieved.
12
13 With a roar that could come from no earthly throat, the wolf thrashed itself free of the altar's wreckage. Those in the circle made no move to retreat, having no fear of their creation. It served them, now, completely and without question, with no thought to what it once had been.
14
15 They would send it out into the world of the living, to kill, to feed, to spread its depravity, deathless, eternal and entirely ruthless. Without mercy, without fear, without even a soul, it would never stop, never surrender and never retreat. Where now was one, soon would be many, stealing the light so as to feed in darkness.
16
17 From the storm that was coming, there would be no shelter.
File shorts/ubw_pic_story002.txt added (mode: 100644) (index 0000000..d6eb8f8)
1 He was almost too late.
2
3 By the time he arrived at the parade stop, the crowd was overflowing the sidewalk. And the children, carried on shoulders, cradled in arms, everywhere he looked, the damned screechy, pouty, teary children. Of course, they were smiling now, laughing even, as their parents cooed, tickled, bounced, and swayed. Laughing at him, at his dreams, at his hopes for a better future. He hated them all and wanted them dead.
4
5 The crowd's good cheer leeched his strength even as it hardened his resolve. Soon, they wouldn't be laughing anymore.
6
7 He had to be careful. If he was recognized, they would stop him, hold him until it was too late to act. He had to move with deliberate haste, blend into the crowd without joining it, use it to hide his movement.
8
9 It wouldn't be long, now. His tongue darted to his upper lip, tasting salt. Steady now, take it easy. Exert control. His breathing slowed as his runaway thoughts once more focused on his mission.
10
11 A step here, a turn there. Slowly, invisibly, he moved through the throng, ducking his head at an accidental jar, flashing a fake smile at a meeting of eyes, never seeing the faces around him, never acknowledging them as individuals. There were obstacles to be overcome. Invisible was invincible. Every beat of his thudding heart was another second he wouldn't get back. He resisted the urge to throw himself forward, to erupt from the crowd with his flaming sword to put everything to rights. Time enough. There was still time enough.
12
13 It shouldn't have come to this. Parades like this should have been for him. He had devoted his life to serving humanity, to ending fear and violence, heartbreak and despair. He had struggled mightily to prevent mankind from reaping the wages of its sin. He had fought death to a standstill.
14
15 Instead, he'd been stripped, broken, ridiculed by his peers and damned with no more process than a Salem witch trial. Then, in the ultimate betrayal, they had taken the work for which he'd been condemned and twisted it, perverted it beyond all that was proper for their own use. Today, he would deliver the message. Today, he would be the messenger of the righteously angry gods.
16
17 Today, he would balance the scales.
18
19 He was only halfway to the front of the crowd when its mood changed. Over the ambient noise of those around him, he could hear the sound of an approaching car. Too soon! He wasn't ready! Heads turned as the roar increased, as the first car eased around the nearest corner. Calm, stay calm. It's not too late. There's still time. Still a chance. Don't waste it. There'll be only one.
20
21 The crowd's pitch intensified, its volume increased as the car crawled forward. Signs waved, shouts went up, and music blared. Flashing lights strobed the crowd, bathing it in blues and reds, transforming flying confetti into a pastel blizzard. In an instant, he was at the eye of a human hurricane, the solitary constant in a confusing, shifting, kaleidoscope of lights and sound. For an almost fatal instant of sensory overload, he had completely frozen.
22
23 He shook his head, blinking furiously, rage at his lapse, at the mindless, sniveling fools that stood in his way spurring him to action. As the police escort passed, he stepped to his left, towards the street corner. He was more insistent, more forceful, more urgent. The time for subtlety had passed. A lowered shoulder here, a jabbing elbow there and he made quicker progress, ignoring the stares and curses he elicited. A little further. A few more seconds.
24
25 The time of reckoning was at hand.
26
27 The crowd cheered each passing car, its roar increasing by the second. He had finally reached the outer edge, nudged into the sidestreet from an incidental shove. His path was clear, and with everyone's attention focused on the festive caravan, he would never have a better opportunity. His plan would work. It had to work. He had no other.
28
29 The crowd's roar reached a crescendo at the appearance of a long, pink Caddillac convertible with its top down. A man and woman, smiling idiotically, were waving with the synchronized rhythm of a windup toy, their heads moving side to side in perfect unison as they scanned the crowd from end to end. Their absolute physical perfection, their elegantly crafted clothing, their obvious contentment with their mindless servility disgusted him. The bile in his throat threatened to drown him, its acidic bite deep in his chest threatened to dissolve his heart. His rage broke beyond all control, rose within him in a crimson torrent, carried him forward without conscious thought.
30
31 He was to the car before anyone noticed him, clambering over the passenger side door and falling clumsily to the space between the front and rear seats. As he rose, he drew his revolver, holding it in the two-handed grip he had seen on television. The man and woman turned slowly to face him, smiles evaporating, and the ice in their pale blue eyes should have frozen him in place. But the heat of his rage melted the ice, creating the flood that swept fear away. He pulled the trigger once, twice, three times, blood and bone and brain erupting around them, the reports making his ears ring. Without thinking he emptied his gun into the other face, erasing it in a sea of red and gray.
32
33 It's done. It's over. He could take his rest.
34
35 Hands grabbed him, threw him out of the now-stopped car, impact with concrete crushing the air from his lungs. His arms were wrenched up and back, and the cruel bite of steel stabbed at his wrists. He was jerked upright and dragged away, his toes barely scraping the pavement. It was then that he saw the crowd, looked for the first time at those around him, and the sight brought a wail from his throat. His screams echoed behind him long after he was gone.
36
37 As one, the crowd turned its face to follow his journey. The same face, in every detail, over and over as far as the eye could see. When he was gone, workers descended on the car. The bodies inside were quickly removed, the car's interior efficiently cleaned. No wasted movement, no change in expression. For all the emotion displayed, they could have been changing a tire.
38
39 Two others from the crowd climbed into the backseat, and within moments the engine roared back to life and the caravan resumed its crawl.
40
41 Signs waved, shouts went up, and music blared. Flashing lights strobed the crowd, bathing it in blues and reds, transforming flying confetti into a pastel blizzard...
File shorts/ubw_pic_story003.txt added (mode: 100644) (index 0000000..a5e06e7)
1 Extracted from the wreckage, it still lived. Their job was to keep it that way.
2
3 Vital signs had been broadcast the entire way to the lab. On its arrival, a full surgical team was ready and waiting. Experts from every biological specialty were gowned and masked awaiting their opportunity to make history. The national security guys had tried to horn in but were brusquely rebuffed, joining Army brass in an observation suite to mutter dire threats to each other, all eyes riveted on the scene before and beneath them.
4
5 "I've seen sausage in better shape," a surgeon muttered. "I can't tell its insides from its outsides."
6 "Figure it out. Every reading we've got is nosediving."
7 "How can we tell? The monitors are going haywire!"
8 "Only one way. Curtain's up, people. Showtime."
9
10 Once committed, the team moved in rhythmic ballet, each step performed precisely. Bone saws ripped through an ossified carapace to reveal a labyrinth of vessels, some only visible with the aid of the microscope's projection on the far wall, connecting to pulsing organs that none could identify. Having gained access to the victim's interior structure, the team stood open-mouthed and sweating.
11
12 "What now?"
13 "Retractor! We've got a leaker!"
14 "How can you tell? It's a swimming pool in here!"
15 "We've got a ticker! Something's hot in there!"
16
17 The Geiger counter quietly registered the slight rise in radioactivity.
18
19 "We're good. Not much over background."
20 "Good, hells! What's causing it?"
21 "Let's find out. Suction!"
22
23 They cleared the large central cavity to provide room to work. They located the broken vessel and applied a hurried patch to prevent further seepage. Trained nurses specifically chosen for their steady hands and nerves blotted sweat from the surgeons' faces.
24
25 "What's that, just under those protrusions?"
26 "Can't tell. Scope it."
27 "More light. Can't make it out."
28 "Let's tie this off. Suture!"
29
30 Having cleared the immediate area, the surgeons gathered around the incision, more like a hole, staring down at a small, silver, flashing globe in the midst of organic matter that varied in color from green to brown.
31
32 "That's the clicker! What is it? A heart?"
33 "Anyone else feeling heat? Give me a reading!"
34 "Sure enough. Take it or leave it?"
35 "Take it. We can't afford damage to the rest of the structure."
36 "We might kill it!"
37 "It's already dead for all we know! Cutter!"
38
39 The globe was deftly removed with no discernible detrimental effects. Set on a metal table, the globe flashed more quickly, cycling through the entire visible spectrum in a matter of seconds to repeat in a kaleidoscopic pattern. Then, suddenly, it stopped.
40
41 A hologram appeared over the globe with the number ten glowing in large numbers. The team looked at each other as the display showed nine, then eight. The Geiger counter went crazy with the radiation spike.
42
43 Another hologram appeared over the countdown that explained everything. The lead surgeon closed his eyes after he read its display.
44
45 "This device may not be removed under penalty of law except by the consumer."
File shorts/ubw_pic_story005.txt added (mode: 100644) (index 0000000..fe6c336)
1 Nobody chases the dragon anymore, and everybody knows it.
2
3 Just like nobody steals anymore, or kills, or rapes. The social engineering of the last century has seen to all of that. Everybody knows it, so nobody talks about it. It would be like talking about the weather, which hasn't changed for a generation. They engineered that, too. Everything's perfect, nothing's out of place. Heaven on Earth, if you believe all the news-comm chatter. We've all attained Nirvana together, one big, happy, global family.
4
5 A shame that it's all just pollyanna bullshit.
6
7 We were looking at proof of that in a small, dingy, filthy shithole that somehow fell through the cracks when the world achieved perfection. Places like this don't make the travel brochures, the lists of things to see and do. On a torn mattress stained with hells knew what, lay what used to be a pretty woman. Couldn't have been more than twenty, didn't look older than sixty. Her arms and legs had more tracks than a railroad station, and an anatomy class could have a field day without ever touching a scalpel.
8
9 Bad thing about chasing the dragon: sometimes you catch it. That only ever ends one way.
10
11 My partner is a product of his times, a company man. He does what he's told because he believes what they tell him, and he doesn't scratch too far beneath the surface. Everything at face value, that's his motto. Strange, considering our line of work.
12
13 You might be asking why they need cops in a world without crime. Good question deserves a good answer. Simply put, in a perfect world, bad things don't happen. No one drowns, falls out a window, gets cancer and dies. Those are all things of the past. Everybody knows that.
14
15 Everybody but her, apparently.
16
17 "What the heck happened here?" my partner asked, using what passes for profanity in an enlightened society.
18
19 "The fuck does it look like happened?" I replied, using real profanity from when society was less enlightened but more interesting.
20
21 I'm an atavist, a throwback. I've been accused of being a mutant, a result of my genes spending time with the wrong crowd. They used to talk about my need for realignment until I realigned one of the more vocal proponents. Now he talks in whispers, and his buddies got the point.
22
23 They suffer me because I do the job nobody else wants. I slog through the muck they deny exists and keep the monsters living there from tracking up their carpets. I help them live in their perfect home in their perfect neighborhoods on their perfect planet. I help them pretend that nothing goes bump in the night.
24
25 I keep the dragon from their doorsteps.
26
27 "It looks like what I've read about in history class," my partner said, "but this doesn't happen anymore. There hasn't been a case like this..."
28
29 "...in a week," I finished for him, ignoring his widened eyes as I slowly walked the room.
30
31 There wasn't much to see. Her clothes piled pitifully on the floor in a huddle of filthy and shredded rags next to the bed. A scarred and charred table with a needle and spoon wobbled on legs of uneven length. Vinegar stung my nose as the open window did nothing to stir the air in what felt like a sauna. No purse, no possessions. Nothing to prove that she ever existed.
32
33 If they have their way, she never did.
34
35 Dead awhile. The hand I picked up was cold, pale, almost blue from the veins showing through her almost translucent skin. I wiped down a spotted waterglass and pressed her fingers around it, then wrapped it in what was left of her shirt. Sticking it in my pocket, I met my partner's raised eyebrows.
36
37 "She lived, and somebody, somewhere cared about that. I find out who she was, I find them. They'll want to know."
38
39 "She was nobody. A piece of trash that someone threw away. Probably failed the pysche evals and went underground. Who cares about someone like that?"
40
41 I used to wonder how people knew when I got angry even when I didn't speak. One day, somebody told me when I get angry enough, my eyes turn green. I've never seen it, but apparently, green means go. Go somewhere safe. He backed up against the wall and wouldn't meet my eyes.
42
43 "Maybe there's people would say the same about you," I said. "Maybe nobody would give a shit if I shredded you and flushed you town the toilet. Maybe I'd be doing the world a favor. Or maybe, there's somebody out there somewhere that even cares about a pathetic asshole like you. Maybe somebody who would want to know if that was you," I finished with a jerk of my head.
44
45 He turned red in the face, his mouth working as if he had something thoughtful to say, then realized he never would and ran from the room like death was contagious. I forgot him before his shadow left the doorway, my attention back on the girl.
46
47 She had been somebody's sister, daughter, maybe mother, and now she was a Jane Doe in a city full of them. Nameless, rootless, and all too soon lifeless, they drifted in the undercurrents, looking for what the rest of the world had fall in its lap and that they somehow missed out on. They lived on the scraps, the leftovers, the dregs that drifted to them on air almost unbreathable, flowed to them on water made toxic. Every day a fight for what everybody else took for granted.
48
49 With nowhere to go and nobody to turn to, they had only one option left, one source for what it is that everybody's looking for.
50
51 To flee the demons, they chase the dragon, hoping that its strength will give them some of their own.
52
53 The late-morning sun set my eyes to watering as they fought to adjust.
54
55 Bad thing about catching the dragon. It only ever ends one way.
File shorts/ubw_pic_story006.txt added (mode: 100644) (index 0000000..adea2a2)
1 On the charts, it's called Gamma-12-Sigma-Epsilon. Don't ask me why. Onboard ship, it's The Swamp. Terrestrial planet orbiting an F8 star. Hot and muggy with a slightly higher gravity, it was the ideal vacation spot for the guy who's been everywhere.
2
3 If Hell is in your travel plans, that is.
4
5 The three of us had made the trip in cryosleep, so the fifty years it had taken to get here passed in a single night's dream. We were slow to rouse after the systems woke us, the effects of such a long suspension playing hell with our autonomics. Nothing that a few cups of joe and a few smokes couldn't cure, and in a couple hours we were standing almost in uniform watching readings scroll down our screens.
6
7 The probes had been sent out first. They'd achieved orbit and mindlessly spat out their findings ever since. There was a ton of data to sift through, but we focused on the highlights. Our mission was simple and had been driven into us with iron bureaucratic spikes.
8
9 Get here, get a survey, get home. Leave it the way you find it. No interference, no tampering. No indigenous samples. We scan, they plan. We show the guts, they get the glory. It's the story of our lives, but they pay well for the privilege.
10
11 "Life signs are high, but energy levels are low," Parker said. "Pre-industrial?"
12 "Must be," Samuels replied. "Pre-sentient, maybe. Might not be anything higher-evolved than snakes for all we know."
13 "Not according to this," I said, reading from another screen. "Sat-photos are showing what could be buildings and roads."
14 "Indicative. Not definitive," Samuels said, pursing his lips.
15 "One way to know. We got to go," Parker said, dropping his cigarette butt into the dregs of his coffee. "Let's hit it and get it. Time is money."
16 "Our time, their money," I said to a round of snorts.
17
18 With a collective snort, we input the figures for the final approach. We'd be eating lunch dirt-side if all went right.
19
20 It did, and we touched down as lightly as a lover's goodnight kiss in a small clearing ringed by trees that dwarfed anything back home. We waited on the shipboard systems to give the go/no-go as we outfitted for an extended stay. When the lights all went green, we strapped on our weapons and popped the hatch.
21
22 It was like breathing through gauze. The air was heavy enough to stir with a spoon, and the higher temp and gravity didn't help at all. We'd be taking it slow and easy until we adjusted, but at least we didn't need to carry extra oxygen.
23
24 Parker took point and I brought up the rear, scanners whirring. We took pictures, analyzed soil, listened for broadcast signals, the works. We followed the book, went by the numbers. There is no room for error this far from home, no such thing as a slight risk.
25
26 We'd gone maybe a couple clicks before we climbed a hill and overlooked a river that made the Amazon look like a drainpipe. It had cut a huge valley amongst several taller hills and ran as far as we could see in front of us. Idyllic as you could ask for, and a long way down.
27
28 The air grew even thicker the further we descended and a wet mist threatened to clog our noses and throats. Wrapping bandannas around our faces, we took a rest on the right bank of the river beneath a green canopy so thick that it seemed like evening. We switched on our lights when we resumed our journey.
29
30 A few hours later we reached another clearing, larger and more bare. At its center was a large wooden hut, intricately carved with symbols that we had no frame of reference to decipher.
31
32 "That look familiar to you?" Parker asked, pointing to the top of the hut.
33
34 It sure did. If I didn't know better, I'd say it was the head of a huge alligator, complete with beady eyes. I had the creepy feeling that those eyes followed me as I moved.
35
36 "Maybe their god or something?" Samuels' guess was as good as mine. I shrugged.
37
38 "I don't see anybody around. Maybe it's abandoned," Parker said. I shrugged again.
39
40 "Let's split up and meet on the backside," Samuels said. My third shrug was met with a pair of grimaces.
41
42 What do I know? They say split up, I say fine. They say stay put, I say fine. The book covers both scenarios, so I say what difference does it make?
43
44 We spread out and approached the clearing in a rough triangle. As we neared the hut, I lost sight of the other two, but everything was quiet, so I didn't worry. It wasn't that far to the rendevous point behind the hut.
45
46 Then all the hells broke loose. Parker and Samuels both screamed bloody murder. In the time it took me to whirl and get a bearing, they went silent. Some loud thrashing and rustling was all I heard as I reversed my course and rounded the hut.
47
48 Nothing and no one. At first glance, nothing was amiss other than nothing was there. Parker and Samuels were gone. On closer examination, I found some blood splatters and a few scales. I drew my weapon and completed my circle of the hut.
49
50 I made another full circle without finding anything that told me where the others were. Halfway around, I found a door that hadn't been there on my last circuit. Dark as pitch inside and silent as a tomb. Two hands on my weapon, I went through.
51
52 Sitting on a mammoth wooden throne was a replica of the beast on the top of the hut. As I entered, it rose to a height of ten or twelve feet. It's long mouth opened showing me rows of sharp teeth in what could have been a smile on a face less monstrous. Flicking its tongue, it took a couple of steps forward and my eyes dropped to its feet. Staring back at me were the lifeless faces of Parker on his left foot and Samuels on his right. Bile rose in my throat as I closed my eyes to the hideous sight.
53
54 The beast shuffled a few steps closer, and my eyes opened of their own accord. Lifting one of his large, clawed feet, he spoke in a guttural snarl that was only slightly less unmanning than what it was he said.
55
56 "Like my new boots?"
File shorts/ubw_pic_story007.txt added (mode: 100644) (index 0000000..6102772)
1 I'll be damned if they didn't pull it off. Staring at their own extinction, they pulled themselves back from the brink and now they're rolling in dough. Others are looking at how they can catch lightning in a bottle and pull off the same trick. Good luck to them. People are smarter now.
2
3 I was there when it happened, on the ground floor, at point zero, when they saved the day. I could have stopped it, I guess, if I had known they really had a chance. But the idea was so radical, so obvious and at its core so simple that I figured it never had a prayer.
4
5 That will teach me to overestimate the intelligence of my fellow man.
6
7 The history books will say that it was the intrepid boldness of a small band of adventurers, huddled together in the dark of night to claw their salvation from the jaws of destitution. History is written by the victors, so I have no doubt as to how it will read. Well, I can tell you, the history books are horseshit, but people do love its smell in the morning.
8
9 The truth of the matter is that a group of five clowns, myself included, met in what was left of a shabby conference room in some rathole hotel that was so decrepit that the looters had left it be in the last set of riots. The entire city goes up in flames, and the only standing monument is the one building that should have imploded under its own weight, like the one house on a street untouched by a tornado. Go figure.
10
11 Anyway, these clowns are sitting around this water-warped veneer table in secretary chairs that were missing wheels, clutching dog-eared and torn file folders like they were the maps to El Dorado. Mismatched, ill-fitting clothes that made them look like skid-row bums even without the dirty scraggle coloring cheeks and necks. All we needed was a couple of paper bags with bottles in them and we could have been extras in one of those docu-dramas about the crazy, homeless people who moved into the old city buildings claiming to be the new government.
12
13 Those wackos would have been better than what we have now. Some more truthful grist for the historical mill, if anyone ever cares.
14
15 Anyway, these guys are sitting around this table, and the two ad guys that they had dug up from some asylum or prison somewhere start gibbering in what goes for corp speak nowadays. Talking about upward mobility of product consumption, correspondent maximization of production facilities and universal saturation of local communication networks. I think they even mentioned something about sufficient leverage of financial force. They went on, then on some more, then even when you thought they had to be out of hyphenated words, on a little more. I could have slept through some of it and never known the difference.
16
17 The rest of the guys were eating it up, beady little eyes lighting up like those halloween toys with the little bulbs that make their eyes wierd colors. I swear that a couple of them were even drooling, but whether from their excitement or from a natural proclivity I never could figure. Knowing them, a little bit of both.
18
19 So the meeting finally breaks up with all the alacrity of a war council taking a battlefield, and I pretty much blew off the whole thing. I have trouble remembering why I was even there, to tell the truth, and I certainly never believed that anything would ever come of it. Crazy people have crazy ideas all the time. Who knew that sometimes crazy trumps smart?
20
21 Well, nothing happened for so long I figured everybody had forgotten the whole thing, then the vans started showing up. Starting in the poorer neighborhoods, they prowled the slums like a band of pedophiles in their ugly purple vans with their loudspeakers blaring cartoon Christmas carols. At first, people just ignored them. They were loud and obnoxious, but they seemed harmless enough, so nobody made much of a fuss.
22
23 Then the kids got involved.
24
25 At first in pairs, then in small groups, kids started trailing those vans like hunters after big game. In the beginning, the vans never stopped. They just kept patrolling the neighborhoods in ever-widening circles, making themselves part of the scenery. Then one day, it all changed. I guess, looking back, it really was inevitable, all things considered.
26
27 The riots had not only taken out most of the government, they had put a serious dent in the food distribution networks. The soup kitchens could no longer make a dent in the hordes of those needing their help, so hunger and lawlessness were constant companions on streets no one dared walk alone even in daylight.
28
29 Miraculously, the vans were safe. Nobody ever screwed with them. Maybe nobody figured it was worth the trouble.
30
31 One day, the vans began stopping, and tribes of dirty little children swarmed them looking for what they could get. They always left happy, no matter how many there were or how long it took. Some days they looked like ants swarming a picnic, what with their climbing, scrabbling, pushing and shoving. Day after day, week after week, the same scene, repeated over and over all over town. From there it was only a matter of time.
32
33 It took a while, but they started raking in money hand over fist. Not from the vans, no way. That was just what the vultures called a loss leader. It was from all those poor kids needing their help afterward. Business started booming, and before you know, there was one of them on every corner. It started with the kids, but by the time it was done, everyone was hooked. If it had been drugs, I could have understood.
34
35 But this, I still shake my head when I think about it.
36
37 So looking back, those dentists had the right idea. From the abyss to the heights in one easy step. Oh, and what was so special about those vans?
38
39 Spray-painted on the side in sloppy letters were the words, "Free Candy".
File shorts/ubw_pic_story008.txt added (mode: 100644) (index 0000000..7c3591e)
1 Carousel
2
3 The planet killer rode high in the sky, a second moon growing larger by the hour. 1983-Delta, first spotted two years ago, was on a collision course. No mathematical wizardry, no technological miracles. Nothing short of divine intervention would alter the course of an object the size of Russia bearing down on what was now an orbiting madhouse. Those so inclined had been praying feverishly for months, seeking a stay of execution.
4
5 All they got for their trouble was God's busy signal. Time had run out. The earth was doomed.
6
7 When the story's ending first became apparent, the eggheads had gone to work, at first with the full faith and funding of their respective governments. As time grew shorter, increasing public panic had strained resources, diverting them from research to internal control, and vital government systems had demanded their due. The irony of those demands had completely sublimated to the bureaucratic instinct for self-preservation. Not surprisingly, after a year on an ever accelerating treadmill, official patience wore out, and any semblance of international cooperation evaporated, ending in the dissolution of the United Nations, finally ending the sham of its existence. Too many nations wanted too badly for their flag to fly on the instrument of Earth's survival. That flag would then fly over what was left of the world.
8
9 Few lamented its passing, and those few soon had more pressing concerns.
10
11 Finally, desperately, a small group of scientists had convened at a mountain resort in the Andes. Specialists in physics, astronomy, quantum theory and electronics came together, on their own with no official sanction, to take it on themselves to save the world. They had a plan, hastily worked out in notebooks, on napkins, and scrawled in marker on sheets and curtains. Every surface that would hold and imprint was pressed into service, and as the earth exhibited its first signs of the meteor's influence, the blueprints and equations were given life.
12
13 Today was the day; they would have one chance. The good news was that if they failed, no one would ever know. One turn of the card, one flip of a coin. Nothing certain, nothing guaranteed. Odds and percentages and probability were all they had left, such inadequate tools with which to save a planet.
14
15 Time enough to roll the dice, one time, for it all.
16
17 The idea had been to return to the time of the object's first appearance, the time when direct action would have availed them most, and remove the threat once and for all. A small chamber, a large laser, and a steady hand would combine to save a world that some of them thought undeserving of deliverance. It had been suggested to sit by and do nothing, to let the universe render its judgment for the sins of the race. Suggested, debated, then discarded.
18
19 They would act in the place of the indifferent gods, becoming gods themselves.
20
21 He took his seat in the chamber, final calibrations and adjustments registering on the screens before him. Numbers produced by castoff equipment, equations and assumptions patched together by dreams and prayers. A shaky foundation upon which to rest the hopes of a world.
22
23 He looked around the room through the clear plastic cuppola, meeting the eyes of everyone present. One after another, they straightened, came to attention and solemnly nodded. They had done their best, the best anyone could, and if their efforts fell short, they would die with the honor of having tried.
24
25 He answered their nods with one of his own, then pressed the activation button. The fabrics of space and time shredded around him, leaving him alone in a maelstrom of forces never meant to wed. Lights flickered, dials spun, monitors screeched and howled for attention. He was the constant in a universe gone wild, a primordal event of man's creation. At the appointed time, he flipped a switch, and order sprang from the chaos.
26
27 He was directly in front of the Delta, well within the range of his weapon. A quick scan showed the optimum target for a directed strike, a faultline running perpendicular to the equator. With the energy at his disposal, he would split the meteor like an egg, driving its halves far enough apart to glide harmlessly wide of their mark, saving his home and everyone on it. With a dry mouth and wet hands, he cycled up the laser.
28
29 His aim was true. Huge cracks appeared on the screens before him, widening as the process he had started took its course. Debris the size of cars slammed into the corona surrounding his equipment, obliterated by the forces warping around him. The two halves separated, and a quick check of their trajectory confirmed his success. The danger had passed, and he would have a home to go back to.
30
31 Heart pounding, fighting the tremors that racked his body, he again pressed the activation button. Programmed to return to its original state, his chariot would return him to the point of its departure, only moments later. The forces around him twisted and gnarled, fighting to regain their natural forms. He was again surrounded by a cacophany, a triumphant symphony, its crescendo rising to take him home on a wave of pride and exhultation. They had won, not just for themselves, but for those who could now come after.
32
33 The room reappeared before him, a short line of red-eyed men standing at attention before him. As he waved and shouted in his soundproof enclosure, he watched in horror as they straightened. One after another they gave a solemn nod, trusting him with their last desperate hope for survival. His elated cries were strangled by horrified gasps as he manically scanned the screens and dials before him, numbed by what they said.
34
35 The planet killer rode high in the sky, a second moon growing larger by the hour. 1984-Delta, first spotted two years ago was on a collision course...
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