Honestly, can you really say you have never tried?
Never?
Not even once?
Nope.
Weird.
It isn't really.
It so is. Everybody does it.
I don't.
But it's so easy. I almost do it on accident sometimes.
I don't want to.
Come on, please?
It's a waste of time.
But it's fun!
Sure, and so are other things, like reading.
Yeah, but you can do that any old time.
And I am. Right now.
Just do it once.
It's juvenile.
It's awesome, you just don't think you can do it.
It's not hard, just dumb.
So everyone is dumb.
Guess so.
What if I take your book away?
Then I whack you on the head, get it back, and keep reading.
But what if I hide it?
You won't get far enough to hide it.
Throw it out the window then.
I toss you out to fetch it, simple.
It's two stories down though!
Eh, you could limp back up, just don't land on your head.
Fine, fine.
. . .
Please?
No, go away, you're distracting me.
I'll stop if you do it.
No.
So I keep distracting you then?
Beware of my vengeance if you do?
You'll throw me out the window?
Only if you take my book.
Then what?
I'm not telling, it will be a surprise.
Not even a hint?
Nope.
You're bluffing.
Might be, or I might have a devious plan cooked up for this very situation, now shush.
No, you gotta do it. This is for your own good as a person.
. . .
Really, it's like, a facet of our generation.
. . .
Defines us as a culture these days.
. . .
Stop ignoring me, and being stubborn and stuff.
. . .
You are no fun at all.
. . .
I can see that smile, it doesn't mean you won.
. . .
Yeah, whatever, I'll go play on my own. Worst big sister ever.
Toodles.
. . .
Books are so much better than that silly virtual reality thing he's got going anyway, annoying little brat.
I heard that!
. . .
. . .
Wednesday, November 13, 2013
Friday, November 8, 2013
Space Krakken for the Space Ships.
Parking a squid is hard, doubly so if the station is not prepared in the slightest to accommodate it. He liked to wrap tentacles around the place, sticking to the windows and polished siding while waiting for me to get back. It's not as if he'd go anywhere on his own, it just freaks out the authorities enough that you come back to a "situation" as they tend to call it. It was my second time at this particular space station though, so I hoped that things would go smoother than normal. I eased off on the gravity well I'd been using to make him fall towards the station, reducing speed a bit with one positioned behind us. We came in mouth first so I had to rely on cameras. Only jostled it a bit though. He grabbed out with his tentacles, better than normal docking clamps, as I unstrapped and floated down to the hatch down at his mouth. The walls were getting a bit dryer, less wet than they had been at the start of the voyage so I put water on my list of chores as I made my way to the airlock. It was fastened into place with the station, so I didn't have to suit up to get through, just go through two sets: mine and theirs. Aupaula station was a spindle. It wasn't like the giant donut types that spun around with a stationary dock at the center, and it wasn't a sphere that relied on internal gravitation fields to create a livable surface. It was a long, thin needle that had docks on the outer shell and a second layer inside for the working and living quarters. It orbited a moon, small and on edge of most normal trade routes. This area had been colonized a while back because of a big gallium deposit that they found, back when those things were valuable. It gets along half on the black market and half on the local resources of the moons in the area, but not enough that there is a full-time crew. As a non-artificial gravity location, it couldn't act as a habitat anyway, crew having to rotate every few months anyway. I didn't recognize the man in the suit that was pulling himself down the hall towards me, so I guessed I hadn't run into any of the same crew that was here 3 years back.
"Sir, I'm going to have to ask you to explain your vessel."
"It's a techno-organic space vessel."
He doesn't seem to register what I said, either because he heard it before or doesn't understand what I meant. I'd bet on the later. "Once again, I'd like you to explain your vessel, and why it is latched onto my hull."
"If you go back through the reccords, I came here with it three years back. . ."
"That was before the reformation of the trade regulations, before the ship classification requirements for systems." He was referring to the stipulations that popped up from the new political power recently. Trade Proctorate.
"Well, if we're getting into the very technical applications, I and my large friend came here in a semi-assisted suit-less flight which under regulations means. . ."
"That we are obligated to receive you in and offer medical assistance if possible with limited risk to my crew. Fine. Prove to me you're limited risk."
"As I said before, the records. . ."
"Were wiped sometime last year in a magnetic storm. Barely managed to keep the base from crashing into the moon."
"Well, do you have a connection down surface-side? I think it was Major Phillips who was in charge at the time?" He put a hand up to his ear when I said that, mumbled something into a fairly well hidden communicator. I caught the word verify, but little else. Lip reading might be useful to pick up.
"We should have an answer back shortly. Major Phillips is stationed at landing zone Alpha groundside. Got put in charge there a while back." I wasn't sure if it was a promotion or not, so I kept my mouth shut on the matter. I just smiled a little, not too much though.
"He says you're about as far from harmless as you can get out in space." That would be Major Phillips for you, why had I thought of him first? "He also said to send you down to the land-side port because you and he need to have a little chat. Says to put in in Granite Lake and he'll take a car out to pick you up." Well, not a total loss then.
"Thank you for your time, sir."
"It's my job, civilian. Now get off my station."
"Sir, I'm going to have to ask you to explain your vessel."
"It's a techno-organic space vessel."
He doesn't seem to register what I said, either because he heard it before or doesn't understand what I meant. I'd bet on the later. "Once again, I'd like you to explain your vessel, and why it is latched onto my hull."
"If you go back through the reccords, I came here with it three years back. . ."
"That was before the reformation of the trade regulations, before the ship classification requirements for systems." He was referring to the stipulations that popped up from the new political power recently. Trade Proctorate.
"Well, if we're getting into the very technical applications, I and my large friend came here in a semi-assisted suit-less flight which under regulations means. . ."
"That we are obligated to receive you in and offer medical assistance if possible with limited risk to my crew. Fine. Prove to me you're limited risk."
"As I said before, the records. . ."
"Were wiped sometime last year in a magnetic storm. Barely managed to keep the base from crashing into the moon."
"Well, do you have a connection down surface-side? I think it was Major Phillips who was in charge at the time?" He put a hand up to his ear when I said that, mumbled something into a fairly well hidden communicator. I caught the word verify, but little else. Lip reading might be useful to pick up.
"We should have an answer back shortly. Major Phillips is stationed at landing zone Alpha groundside. Got put in charge there a while back." I wasn't sure if it was a promotion or not, so I kept my mouth shut on the matter. I just smiled a little, not too much though.
"He says you're about as far from harmless as you can get out in space." That would be Major Phillips for you, why had I thought of him first? "He also said to send you down to the land-side port because you and he need to have a little chat. Says to put in in Granite Lake and he'll take a car out to pick you up." Well, not a total loss then.
"Thank you for your time, sir."
"It's my job, civilian. Now get off my station."
Wednesday, November 6, 2013
Protocol
Listen to the blast. Two, three, four, boom. Way down the street behind a few corners, still going at a semi-steady pace. It's like a microwave with popcorn in it, just more intense. Honestly, it's about as everyday as a microwave. Hard to see tech like that coming into being without being used. Especially when the only people who can't afford a jammer are too poor to really get a voice. Just enough time to get a scream out before they pop. Sickening if you see it the first time. Second time you think you've seen it, then you really watch, really take in the details of how the blood seeps out through the eyeholes. You never get over it, just learn how to stifle the reflex once it starts, faster, earlier, more firmly.
In some sense I'm even glad the perp is leaving a trail like this. makes it easy to track if they leave a dotted trail right to them. He's not even getting picked up and put down for this, it was for something trivial, poaching might be, I don't care enough to check. All I need to know he's heading deeper in, down to the darker parts of the crater-city. down to the parts where electricity starts becoming a commodity again. Maybe he lives, or lived down there. Made a break and got a little power, but still thinks of it as home. Too bad for me I have to follow in. Even without some of the sensors picking up the heat signatures I can see, I know there are a few watching, more coming. Still, I've got enough stuff on me to wipe out a city block, so it's not as if it's dangerous for me. Just painful to go in there and see it all, see the dotted line he's leaving. A jog then, more than the stealthy stroll that I''d been making up to the edges of the place. Catching him off guard would be fast, but if I had to spend two hours sneaking up on him before a three second kill, it would still be longer than a ten minute match-off after a thirty minute chase.
The explosions peter off. A bit in and the house walls started loosing their siding, revealing the pipes and wires underneath. Half of them were dry and empty, but the splatters were harder to pick up on the uneven surfaces, especially with the grime. Then they stopped. Maybe the guy got tipped off, maybe he got bored. Now I had to switch to real tracking. Flip a switch on the visor, moving it from visible light and heat to x-ray and auto-scan. Too many and it got a bit hard to visualize what was going on unless you were really good with them. Some people ran with all eleven filters running, but I liked to keep it simple.
Tracks led left, through a back alley and up a roof-access. Gave me a little warning before my jammer beeped in my ear. Rooftops, right. He was making it easy on me then. No cat an mouse once he realized. When I got a fix on his skeleton up at the top, three floors up, I could see his mouth move, likely to swear by the body posture. I grinned a bit; swearers were entertaining, especially if it were only from his stolen tech not working. I could hear him as I hurtled upwards toward the roof, relying on the strength of the tech snuggled around my legs and arms to get me a safe landing. I hadn't practiced anything like this much, but I'd seen some of the more veteran jump and draw taking down four or five people with a few shots in the air before landing, but I figured that would be just a bit too showy. Plus I wasn't so great at the quick-draw that I'd risk dropping my gun three stories.
His face was crumpled into that angry expression people get when they know that somebody is about to do them a wrong turn. Blames it on me. He knows he's not living through this. Tries to fire off the device at me again, hear him pull the trigger with a click at the same time my jammer beeps again. I sigh as I draw, watching him drop the piece and rush me. He bowls me off the rooftop, out into the open air, but I get the gun dug in where his heart is and pet out a shot, straight up. Gonna have blood on the suit; gonna get yelled at and have to clean it when I get back. Hitting the ground barely registers as I go over in my head what I have to file this as. Easy to push him up and off me as I stand.
In one of my pockets there's the standard issue marble. Small, no external sources of propulsion, runs entirely on gravity. It sticks when I drop it on his torso, then raises him up like some brutal marionette of a ballerina arching her, his, back. I took the stairs this time, letting the body float in the street until I went to get it. It lay where he dropped it, a long sleek chrome wand. interfaced directly with the nerves, no buttons on the surface. It went in a pocket and I hopped down, landing on my feet this time. Now all that was left was the slow walk back to the base. The easy part was done, now he had to figure out how to talk his way out of being the research team on this guys motives. Damn shame protocol demanded instant execution if possible.
In some sense I'm even glad the perp is leaving a trail like this. makes it easy to track if they leave a dotted trail right to them. He's not even getting picked up and put down for this, it was for something trivial, poaching might be, I don't care enough to check. All I need to know he's heading deeper in, down to the darker parts of the crater-city. down to the parts where electricity starts becoming a commodity again. Maybe he lives, or lived down there. Made a break and got a little power, but still thinks of it as home. Too bad for me I have to follow in. Even without some of the sensors picking up the heat signatures I can see, I know there are a few watching, more coming. Still, I've got enough stuff on me to wipe out a city block, so it's not as if it's dangerous for me. Just painful to go in there and see it all, see the dotted line he's leaving. A jog then, more than the stealthy stroll that I''d been making up to the edges of the place. Catching him off guard would be fast, but if I had to spend two hours sneaking up on him before a three second kill, it would still be longer than a ten minute match-off after a thirty minute chase.
The explosions peter off. A bit in and the house walls started loosing their siding, revealing the pipes and wires underneath. Half of them were dry and empty, but the splatters were harder to pick up on the uneven surfaces, especially with the grime. Then they stopped. Maybe the guy got tipped off, maybe he got bored. Now I had to switch to real tracking. Flip a switch on the visor, moving it from visible light and heat to x-ray and auto-scan. Too many and it got a bit hard to visualize what was going on unless you were really good with them. Some people ran with all eleven filters running, but I liked to keep it simple.
Tracks led left, through a back alley and up a roof-access. Gave me a little warning before my jammer beeped in my ear. Rooftops, right. He was making it easy on me then. No cat an mouse once he realized. When I got a fix on his skeleton up at the top, three floors up, I could see his mouth move, likely to swear by the body posture. I grinned a bit; swearers were entertaining, especially if it were only from his stolen tech not working. I could hear him as I hurtled upwards toward the roof, relying on the strength of the tech snuggled around my legs and arms to get me a safe landing. I hadn't practiced anything like this much, but I'd seen some of the more veteran jump and draw taking down four or five people with a few shots in the air before landing, but I figured that would be just a bit too showy. Plus I wasn't so great at the quick-draw that I'd risk dropping my gun three stories.
His face was crumpled into that angry expression people get when they know that somebody is about to do them a wrong turn. Blames it on me. He knows he's not living through this. Tries to fire off the device at me again, hear him pull the trigger with a click at the same time my jammer beeps again. I sigh as I draw, watching him drop the piece and rush me. He bowls me off the rooftop, out into the open air, but I get the gun dug in where his heart is and pet out a shot, straight up. Gonna have blood on the suit; gonna get yelled at and have to clean it when I get back. Hitting the ground barely registers as I go over in my head what I have to file this as. Easy to push him up and off me as I stand.
In one of my pockets there's the standard issue marble. Small, no external sources of propulsion, runs entirely on gravity. It sticks when I drop it on his torso, then raises him up like some brutal marionette of a ballerina arching her, his, back. I took the stairs this time, letting the body float in the street until I went to get it. It lay where he dropped it, a long sleek chrome wand. interfaced directly with the nerves, no buttons on the surface. It went in a pocket and I hopped down, landing on my feet this time. Now all that was left was the slow walk back to the base. The easy part was done, now he had to figure out how to talk his way out of being the research team on this guys motives. Damn shame protocol demanded instant execution if possible.
Saturday, November 2, 2013
Ellucid Dreaming
I slip under, feeling the hazy half-real fever dreams when your body just needs some time to protest your current activity. It's black in here, real black, but fuzzy, kind of.
Hey.
That's new.
Hey you.
It's like a ball of bright white light streaking around inside here. Looks like the lightning from before.
I ~am~ the lightning from before, and you will address me by my full name.
Usually my mind only summons up the occasional conscience. I talk to myself enough, but this is different.
Stop ignoring me. I'm not you. Of course I'm not you. Do I look like some lowly two-legged creature?
Well, no. It, I mean you. . .
You may call me His great and terrible Conqueror of the western skies and all that fall below; Terror of the inland sea and. . .
Anything shorter?
. . .scourge of the great nation of Kwai; Magnificent Serpent of. . .
I'm going to call you Ning.
. . .the expansive ceiling-ocea-what no!
I'm not going to say that whole thing. Plus, you look like lightning.
I ~am~ lightning, or lightning is a lesser form of what I am. Don't just casually undermine my status as. . .
Come on, lighten up. It's just a nickname.
I am not "nicknamed" by mere mortals.
What are you, then, and why are you in my head?
Weren't you listening to my titles? I'm the great and terrible. . .
A short version oh your eminence?
Stop interrupting me mortal! This is the short version. Now let me finish. I have to start over now. I am the great. . .
He's a sky dragon.
It's coming from behind me, I thought, but when I turn I don't see anything.
No, down here.
Stop. Interrupting. Me.
My arm is on fire again, and a form is squeezing itself out through black crevasses in the charcoaled skin. It's orange and flame colored, flickering a little. Not like anything I'd ever seen fire do before.
Of course not, flame spirits are quite different. But anyway, that glowering thing is what you humans have been calling sky dragons.
Such a noble being as I could not take so small a name or so simple a title.
Like the legend of the prince and the seven seals and how he goes to restore the beauty of the land?
Hmph, I should have eaten that one when he showed up with the silly talking donkey of his.
That is one instance, yes.
Stop ignoring me, mortals!
The children's fairy tale.
I mean it! I shall smite thee both to dust!
You are talking to a flame spirit and a prideful ball of lightning in your dreams.
Point taken.
I'm going to do it, I really am.
Oh come off it cloud-breath, you're insubstantial in here, nothing really happens.
Not until I eat him and take over his body.
Until you what? Until he what?
Don't worry, the beast is overestimating his capabilities. We would not make a good snack for him.
I think you will both be delicious and a good three hundred and thirty fifth paragraph for my title.
You seem to be forgetting that eating a human from the inside is not the same as eating a mage.
Mages don't exist anymore.
Just like your kind, cloud breath?
A mage?
Yes, a wielder of high sorceries.
But I'm not a. . .
Yes, well, you show some of the signs.
He most certainly isn't one. I would have seen the aura before I jumped inside to eat him.
How do you explain me, then?
A figment, the boy has obviously imagined you in order to dissuade me from eating him.
Care to test that?
Gladly.
Ning leaps forward and the fire expands out into a huge mass of flame between me and him, perched on my arm. Lightning meets fire and the two spark back and forth at each other. Heat building up that I can feel, unlike the fire. Err, flame spirit. It takes a while, but the two eventually split apart.
Would you stop your narration, mortal, it is becoming annoying to my divine perception.
It ~is~ a bit silly.
I can't help it, this is the weirdest dream I've ever had, I have to think through it like this!
Must you though? Can you not talk just like the rest of us?
Ning rubs his singed nose with his tail. Ah, sorry, see? I can't help it!
This will doubtless work much better when you are awake.
But then you two dream figments will be gone.
. . .
. . .
Right?
Things have just gotten a bit more complicated for you, I'm afraid.
No they haven't, as my divine and me-given right, I will eat him. Not complicated at all.
Hey.
That's new.
Hey you.
It's like a ball of bright white light streaking around inside here. Looks like the lightning from before.
I ~am~ the lightning from before, and you will address me by my full name.
Usually my mind only summons up the occasional conscience. I talk to myself enough, but this is different.
Stop ignoring me. I'm not you. Of course I'm not you. Do I look like some lowly two-legged creature?
Well, no. It, I mean you. . .
You may call me His great and terrible Conqueror of the western skies and all that fall below; Terror of the inland sea and. . .
Anything shorter?
. . .scourge of the great nation of Kwai; Magnificent Serpent of. . .
I'm going to call you Ning.
. . .the expansive ceiling-ocea-what no!
I'm not going to say that whole thing. Plus, you look like lightning.
I ~am~ lightning, or lightning is a lesser form of what I am. Don't just casually undermine my status as. . .
Come on, lighten up. It's just a nickname.
I am not "nicknamed" by mere mortals.
What are you, then, and why are you in my head?
Weren't you listening to my titles? I'm the great and terrible. . .
A short version oh your eminence?
Stop interrupting me mortal! This is the short version. Now let me finish. I have to start over now. I am the great. . .
He's a sky dragon.
It's coming from behind me, I thought, but when I turn I don't see anything.
No, down here.
Stop. Interrupting. Me.
My arm is on fire again, and a form is squeezing itself out through black crevasses in the charcoaled skin. It's orange and flame colored, flickering a little. Not like anything I'd ever seen fire do before.
Of course not, flame spirits are quite different. But anyway, that glowering thing is what you humans have been calling sky dragons.
Such a noble being as I could not take so small a name or so simple a title.
Like the legend of the prince and the seven seals and how he goes to restore the beauty of the land?
Hmph, I should have eaten that one when he showed up with the silly talking donkey of his.
That is one instance, yes.
Stop ignoring me, mortals!
The children's fairy tale.
I mean it! I shall smite thee both to dust!
You are talking to a flame spirit and a prideful ball of lightning in your dreams.
Point taken.
I'm going to do it, I really am.
Oh come off it cloud-breath, you're insubstantial in here, nothing really happens.
Not until I eat him and take over his body.
Until you what? Until he what?
Don't worry, the beast is overestimating his capabilities. We would not make a good snack for him.
I think you will both be delicious and a good three hundred and thirty fifth paragraph for my title.
You seem to be forgetting that eating a human from the inside is not the same as eating a mage.
Mages don't exist anymore.
Just like your kind, cloud breath?
A mage?
Yes, a wielder of high sorceries.
But I'm not a. . .
Yes, well, you show some of the signs.
He most certainly isn't one. I would have seen the aura before I jumped inside to eat him.
How do you explain me, then?
A figment, the boy has obviously imagined you in order to dissuade me from eating him.
Care to test that?
Gladly.
Ning leaps forward and the fire expands out into a huge mass of flame between me and him, perched on my arm. Lightning meets fire and the two spark back and forth at each other. Heat building up that I can feel, unlike the fire. Err, flame spirit. It takes a while, but the two eventually split apart.
Would you stop your narration, mortal, it is becoming annoying to my divine perception.
It ~is~ a bit silly.
I can't help it, this is the weirdest dream I've ever had, I have to think through it like this!
Must you though? Can you not talk just like the rest of us?
Ning rubs his singed nose with his tail. Ah, sorry, see? I can't help it!
This will doubtless work much better when you are awake.
But then you two dream figments will be gone.
. . .
. . .
Right?
Things have just gotten a bit more complicated for you, I'm afraid.
No they haven't, as my divine and me-given right, I will eat him. Not complicated at all.
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