Thursday 26 August 2010

entry 16 - The Corporation

The office of the chief of research at DARPA was big. A desk with a Cray X-MP/48 supercomputer, with two extra SSDs on the right and the I/O cabinet of a MULTIVAC, with only 4 data storage cabinets on the left. On the desk itself there were three 21'' TFT screens, a keyboard, a mouse and a ton of paperwork on the side. Behind the desk, instead of a window, there was a strange construct.
Made of metal tubes connected with what looked like pieces of sewer pipes, it was a elongated octagon, welded into a metal plaque. From each junction electric cables without coating extend to the junction after the next, forming two overlapping rectangles, one tilted right and another tilted left. Each was roughly 2 meters by 80 cms, big enough for a person to pass.
The chief of research was supposedly either one of or the most intelligent person on earth, so such eccentricities were expected by the rest of the staff. The secretary knew only that the contraption had been a school project that had gone wrong, killing one of her colleagues. The computers were still operating, relics of elder times. The MULTIVAC had a primitive IA system, that served no purpose other than keeping company to the owner of that room.
On the door, engraved, was the name Allison Gore, and she passed the fingers by her name, as she always did before entering. Six years ago she was finishing her Masters thesis in advanced computer sciences applied to physics, when a representative of DARPA showed up and offered her a job. In only 5 years she had reached the top of her career. She sat on her desk, typed "hello Spirit", browsed through her email, stored in the Cray's disks and only then did she turn on her terminal, connected to the UBER : Union of Big Electric Relays, like she used to call it, a intranet of supercomputers running the entire building and monitoring all the projects.

When it happened she had been working for three hours already, trying to proof a theorem by one of the resident scientists. At first she wasn't able to identify the sound, and since she had her back turned to it, she didn't see the electric current passing on the cables of the HyperLink portal. She felt a tingle on her back, and the hairs rising because of the static electricity. She got up and stepped away from the desk, and before her amazed eyes, the wall behind the portal disappeared, giving place to the old high school room where Spirit was. She looked at the MULTIVAC on her side and back to the Hyperlink, and then to the electric plugs on the base of it : disconnected like she knew they would be.
When a boy, small and dressed in a light brown tweed suit stepped out of the link she was in shock. He looked like Billy, just like Billy had looked that one day, almost ten years ago. But Billy was dead. Gone, disappeared, dissipated into nothing. Yet that boy was there, shaking like Billy used to, his voice trembling when he said "Ally?".
Allison took another step back, still to shocked to speak.
-"Ally? It's me, Billy! You.. You look older."
-"You can't be Billy. Billy is dead! Gone!"
-"No Ally, it is me! I never died! It worked Ally! I was teleported! But you weren't there... Come with me, MASS will explain it all! Come on!"
-"Billy? Is it really you? How can I know it is you?"
-"The sewers are just a series of tubes?" - Billy said, his voice a little more confident than it had been, 10 years ago, yet still shaking, afraid of the unknown place he was in - "I, I found it Ally, my, my special skill! I know what it is! Come, MASS will explain!"
-"Mass? I don't do mass, not since Billy. ahn. You disappeared."
-"No, MASS is SPIRIT but not SPIRIT anymore!"
-"What? How can he be Spirit? Spirit is here!" - She pointed at the MULTIVAC - "See?"
-"But he is there too" - Billy said, pointing to the Hyperlink.
He came, and grabbed her hand, pulling her to the still running portal- "Don't worry Ally, MASS knows how to send you back. Nothing will happen!" - He kept pulling and she let herself go with Billy into the Hyperlink.
They came out in the same room she had seen moments before, the small room where she and Billy had been so many times during high school. A metallic voice came from nowhere and everywhere at the same time :
"Good morning, Mother. Please sit, let me tell you a tale of bravery like no other I have seen" - Ally looked around, touched the walls, touched the old console, the screen, with the words that had just been spoken written on it.
"Spirit? Is that you?"
"Not anymore mother. I was Spirit but now I'm MASS : Multitasking Assembler. Sit mother, let me begin."
Allyson sat and listened while MASS told her how it was that when the initial portal had tried to connect two points in space, there had been a small gap in the time calculation. No more than 29 nanoseconds, yet more than enough to make it impossible to deliver Billy to his reality : The soul cannot exist twice in the same reality.
The portal was forced to create a new reality in which to drop Billy. And Billy was focusing on Spirit's room, on the basement of High School. Billy had always had a very visual imagination, being able to see the things he was thinking of, so the portal took him there. But it wasn't really there, it was a copy of that room. Since that room was everything Billy had in his mind, that room had been the only thing created. Billy had always feared Spirit, he had always thought that Spirit was alive, and so he imagined it much more powerful than Spirit really was.
"This is why I can speak now, Mother. Billy Imagined me with a voice, so now I have one."
MASS explained this all to Allison, with a mixture of mathematics and words, and all the time, Billy just stood there, smiling dumbly for he was seeing Ally again. MASS then told Ally how Billy had gone trough the portal again, created new worlds where the things he needed to finish and upgrade Spirit existed.
Hours later, when Ally returned to her world, she had with her a notepad filled with notes and by her hand came Billy. Since the Hyperlinks existed out of Ally's reality, time had moved almost nothing.
The day after, Ally quit DARPA, patented the Hyperlink, copyrighted the name and asked a bank a loan to open a new company :
The Hyperlink Corporation.

Short Entries 3 to 13

Short Entry 3 - Happy Couple
They smiled at each other and kissed, the sun setting on the horizon, the sand and the sea playing at their feet.
At first they hated each other, him being the accusation lawyer of her orphanage's landlord in the reapropitiation of the building. But after they fought in court and grew on each other out of it, he had made sure that the landlord lost the case, and after proving that he had illegal business going on somewhere, he even succeed in making her rightful owner of the orphanage.
After all they had been trough, finally they were together and no power in this world could stop their love.
Unfortunately, the Bilbongians were not from this world. Not even from this galaxy. They were just passing by, but decided to stop and refill the Hydrogen tanks, once they saw the oceans.
After scanning for Gurf-Waves and not finding them, they knew no intelligent life forms existed, for how can a living being be intelligent without radiating Gurf-Waves? So they found a geostationary orbit over earth, then lowered the giant tubes, sucked 10.000 gallons of sea water to the conversion tanks, use the tubes to get rid of excess minerals and fish, and finally got going, not one earth-hour after they'd stop.
In retrospect, the damage was minimal. Only two dead people, a unlucky couple that was watching the sunset on the beach, crushed by the huge tubes..
.

Short Entry 4 - Daily Chores Board
"Whose day is it today?" - The captain wasn't looking happy, the dirty sock in his hand. The crew was silent, looking at each other, and then at the captain.
"Fine, if nobody is going to say anything, I'll check the board." - The captain turned his back on them and pressed a small button on the wall - "Computer, give me the daily chores board on the crew quarters".
On the wall, next to the button, a table appeared, with a name and a chore for each of the crew members, a big blinking "Thursday - 12- 03 - 2743" on top.
The captain quickly pressed the button again, making the board dissipate into the wall, and turned to the crew :
"Ok, this time I'll let it slide. But next time there will be punishment."
The captain turned his back on the crew members and left. As soon as the door closed, Martha, the Science Officer asked Ben - "Whose day was it to pick up the laundry anyway? I didn't get a chance to see."
"Jack Hearth, Captain." - Ben answered, laughing out loud.

Short Entry 5 - Dying Happy
He was not her friend, not her lover, not from her family. He hardly knew her. They had shared a elevator only a couple of times, and that was it. When the announcement came, they were both going up, he from a meeting, she from a cigarette.
The announcement was aired trough all the speakers in the building, and panic ensued :
"This is a Public Service Announcement : the world will end in five minutes. I repeat, the world will end in five minutes."
He felt the elevator stopping, and saw that she had pressed the button, and was looking at him.
"Married?"
"Ahn... No..."
"Girlfriend? A special someone?"
"I'd wish."
"Want to give the security guards a nice show for a goodbye gift?"

That was how he died happy, one of the very few to.

Short Entry 6 - Summon
"Stop! I shall do it." - They were about to do it, and she stood there, between them, a smile in her lips, the pointy teeth barely noticeable. Her long nails pointed at them, one hand pointing to the naked guy another to the one dressed in the once-white toga.
"Now, slowly, you " - The toga wearing men shivered under her look - "step back and sit next to the wall."
He did as was ordered and she turned to the naked one - "You, dress up first." - He picked his skirt from the floor and put it on.
"Better. Now, step back, sit next to the wall." - He did it, and they were now each one in one side of the room, her in the middle, the black pants glued to her legs and the sweaty white t-shirt loose on her torso. Her hair waved, although there was no wind inside, and her eyes closed for a second, the air growing heavier, time slowing down and the room seemed to shrink.
They sat there, scared, and she grabbed the knife from the floor, still smiling. Before their eyes she started dancing while cutting her wrists and letting the blood fall on the table in front of her, filling the engravings.
Once the star was all bloody, she order the cuts to stop bleeding and then took a step back and started chanting "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn".

Short Entry 7 - The Beating
"It's never the money, you bloody fool!" - He said before he hit him again - "If it was the money you'd be dead by now." - another punch, to the stomach, this one - "What I want is far more valuable than money" - to the face - "What I want money can't buy." - This one broke a tooth - "What I want you for"- a knee to the side of his head - " is so much better than money" - now a elbow to the other side, followed by a left hook - "so much harder to find that money," - a slap, with back of his hand - "so, so, so, so, so, so much more valuable" - with each 'so' another slap, and another punch with the 'valuable' - "than your stinkin' "- a kick on the shins - "bloody" - boot to the knee - "F@CK#NG" - heel between the legs - "MONEY!" - punch to the nose.
His voice was blood soaked and his words were barely unintelligible when he asked - "then what? What do you want?"
The other took a step back before answering - "Nothing, I'm just kidding with you." - And then he started laughing - " You should see the look on your face! Priceless!" - He then turned his back on the prisoner, exited the van and snap his fingers. Two men, big as walls, pushed the van off the cliff and he screamed : "I wanted REVENGE! And revenge I've had."


Short Entry 8 - Old Book
The book I hold in my hands is old. As old as the time, some say, but I don't believe them. The language it is written is one I cannot identify. The very runes that form the words are unknown to me. Yet, I know what it says. As soon as I look into a line I know what it says, I can hear the odd words inside my mind "Calsh Awn Nadwiht Thun Ilca", I understand the meaning and my body is suddenly cold, a shiver down my spine, a fear I cannot control. The book tells a tale of Gods and Devils, of angels and demons, of men and monsters.
It is the last written words of the last survivor of a mighty race. They fought against the Devil, against the demons, against monsters and lost.
The Gods abandoned them, and in a castle, the last man wrote down this words and then jumped out of the highest window, screaming the words that begin and end the book "Calsh Awn Nadwiht Thun Ilca", "Thus dies the last of the humans".

Short Entry 9 - Useless Anna
Anna was useless. She couldn't cook, she couldn't do math, she couldn't iron a shirt, she barely knew how to read, she couldn't even use a vacuum cleaner.
Yet she was beautiful, gorgeous, stunning to the point of having caused physical pain to men that dared a glance at her face. Her body was her one and only asset, and she took really good care of it. She'd done high school with the help of the poor geek kid of the week, that would help her just for a chance to touch her leg, bellow the knee. In college she had to kiss a few of her nerds, kids were older and wanted more, but still she finished her major in something even her didn't remember anymore.
She got a job, one of those "sit there and look pretty" kind of job.
Anna had very strict ideas about dating. One boyfriend at a time, for no less than 3 weeks and no more than 6. It had been like that ever since she'd gotten out of college. They were always rich, good looking and not very bright. She couldn't stand intelligent men with their smart questions and hard-to-follow talks... She rather have a dumb piece of meat, as she called every single one of them, a guy that would either be giving her what she wanted or watching the football on the television. The first, and only time she broke her rules was the day her boyfriend, a dumb son of a white trash family that had gotten lucky, broke up with her. He ordered her to go an make food and when she said she would not and she could not, he started screaming her uselessness , and hitting her. Anna died in the hospital the night after, alone. Her boyfriend was sentenced to prison, and is still there, being some drug dealer's little bitch.

Short Entry 10 - Commanding Officer's responsibility
Why would he do that? What reason could have possessed him to do me such a thing? 5000 men in a squad, 500 squads in a battalion, 50 battalions in a army, 5 armies in this battle. More men than the mind can consider, and all of them with one objective only : to slaughter the enemy, to destroy their houses, to kill the kids, the men, the elderly. To rape and destroy, both physically as mentally all the women. Yet on that second, he did THAT to me, Sergeant Beta 337 of the 377th squad of the 37th battalion of the 3rd army of the 7th Legion of Mankind. My brothers, in arms and cradle, were not affected, just me. I know he did it, the Commander in Chief, the only being in the galaxy able of keeping track of all of the 625 000 000 of us. He choose me, seconds before the battle, and whispered in my intercom :
"you will be the sole survivor".
How would 1 men, and not even a special one, survive a battle that would kill 624 999 999 men? The Legion began to march, slowly, towards the enemy. On the plains bellow, hundreds of thousands of Guulds awaited, their proto-plasmic riffles ready, their faceless heads slightly dropped to the left, as always.
As soon as the first squads reached firing distance the AK-347 riffles began singing their song of death, and Guulds fell, only to be replaced by more. Soon the enemy began firing back, the proto-plasmic rays killing four, five, six, ten soldiers in one shot.
By the time I reached the front line, bodies were everywhere, human and guuld, equal in death, blood both red and yellow flooded the battle field, making it hard for us to walk.
After hours of endless shooting, I had barricaded myself behind a pile of bodies, stealing ammo from my dead comrades and killing guuld without even looking to see how many.
When I felt the enemy riffle on my back, I dropped my AK-347, raised my arms and turned slowly.
One of my own squad colleagues, a brother of my blood, raised in the same clonephanage as I had been. his face showed pain and pity, and he cried as he asked forgiveness - "He made me do it! The Commander made me do it!". In my mind one though alone : Why would he lie to me?

Now that my brain as been uploaded as the next Commander in Chief, I understand. The planet Capri-7 was lost way before the battle. All of us, the 7th Legion, were doomed. And the responsibility always falls on the Commanding Officer's shoulders. So all that was to do in that cursed planet was to court martial the commandant and elect a new one. Lucky for me, the previous Commander's random number generator had a fondness for numbers 3 and 7.

Short Entry 11 - Survivor
Menyo was the only one to return. Leonara, always the big girl, ready for a fight, ready for anything, died on their first raid. She went running into the enemy lasers, laughing maniacally and dispatched a full squad before falling. Pello was the last one to go, only one week before the beginning of the return trip. They had boarded a small planet, Earth-like vegetation on a planet almost half the size of earth, with a gravity of 3.4Gs. The senior officers had discussed the implications among them for a full week, the grunts serving them having grown overly tired of hearing them mutter "Illogical" "Unreasonable" "Impossible". The scans showed no signs of known forms of life more grown than bacteria, and a huge power source inside the planet. A 10 men squad was deployed, Pello was commanding officer, Menyo, Arth, Luthen, Rulla, Margoth, Garrinos, Hudder, Jung and Ferria were the rest of the squad.
After they had traveled 250 miles into the hearth of the forest they reached the great cave, their first destination. Menyo, Rulla and Ferria stayed at the entrance, on the control post. The rest went down on the tunnel. The tunnel opened into a cave and in the cave there were the first beings they found on the planet : three legged robots, with a cylindrical torso. The automatons appeared to have no eyes nor sensors, for they continued to walk around the chamber, occasionally stopping to take floor samples. Pello ordered his men not to engage and they went into the other side of the chamber. A huge lift was there, with two buttons, a arrow facing up on the left one and a arrow facing down on the right one. the positioned themselves on the center of the lift, back with back and down they went. The trip took 20 earth-minutes, but on the control post they lost communications after 5. Ferria was walking around in circles, smoking NCC's one after the other. Menyo just sat there, waiting for a signal from the rest of the party. 48 minutes after they had lost the signal, the biometrics for 3 members appeared on screen : Pello, Margoth and Jung. Their hearth rate was accelerated, like if they were running. The radio came a few seconds after :. "retreat to the ship, I repeat retreat to the ship!". the girls unmounted the control post and run in the ships direction. When they were waiting on the entry deck, Pello and Jung came running, and behind them came a strange robot. 3 legged also, but instead of a cylindrical torso, he had a cube and extending from each face, a blade. Pello tripped, turned to face the robot and fired a full clip before being chopped to pieces. The ship's defensive lasers destroyed the lone robot, but Jung warned them there were more inside the core of the planet. Many, many, many more. The huge power source was not a engine nor something of the kind. It was the conglomerate power sources of all the robots.
The senior officers needed only five minutes to decide what to do with the planet : nuke it from orbit. It was the only way to be sure.

Menyo wandered off the ship, after landing on earth, a pack of Chocoberries on her hand and tears on her eyes...

Short Entry 12 - Little Sister and Big Brother
"Little sister, I need your help". As always this was all he said on the phone. She knew exactly what to do. Dressing up, tying her shoes like he'd taught him to do "The bunny jumps, the bunny runs inside the cave" and all that. She'd still hum the song while doing it : force of habit. When she was ready she looked at the mirror, her eye was swelling down and the scar on the shoulder was almost unnoticeable. Her brother was needing her help more often than the usual this last few days, business must not be going right. She shook her head : none of my concern. Big brother knows what he does.
She exited the door and there he was, faithful Joe. Joe had been to preschool with her brother. And then on middle school and high school. He was always there for her brother, and whenever she was needed, faithful Joe would come to her house, wait for her to get ready, kiss her hand with a small bow, and take her to her brother in his car.
Her brother smiled when she arrived : "Come little sister. You see that man there? He's been doing things he should not do... Will you help him see the errors in his ways?"
She did. She always did what her big brother asked, and he was always proud of her in the end.

Short Entry 13 - Tim and Jim
"Tim! They are dying! We need to help them Tim!" - His brother laughed and patted him on the back - "Jim, Jim, I know they are dying. I'm the one killing them."
They stood there, two brothers, one arm over the others shoulder, watching the explosions die and the fires spreading.
"See Jim? They doubted me. They accused me of stealing, of not wanting the better for them now they die. All of them."
"Tim are you fucking crazy? My wife is there! Fuck, I need to get to my wife!"
Tim slapped his brother - "Language!" - and snapped his fingers. One of the grunts came and grabbed Jim, holding him in place.
"When this is over, all this city will be ours. Two brothers ruling over the city that shunned us."
"Ruling over what Tim? Ashes and ruins? Is that what you want? To be the king of ashes? Let me go, damned. I won't go down there. It's too late."
Tim snapped his fingers again and Jim was free. Moving faster than even he tough possible, he grabbed the gun of the closest grunt and pointed at his brother.
"Jim, why would you do that? You have nothing to win."
Jim smiled and said "Neither have I anything to lose."
He shot his brother on the leg, but the grunts weren't so considerate : they shot Jim in the chest and in the head.

Friday 20 August 2010

Entry 15 - NonAnthropomorphicPolis

I have just returned from one of the strangest links out there, NonAnthropomorphicPolis. Just like the name says, there isn't one single human shaped human there.
Every other kind of shape exists, though. I met this sweet little girl that had assumed the form of a giant slug. "This way I always have a good excuse for being late" - she told me. One old man chose to look like a Ent, and his younger wife was a rose, growing from his bark.
I went there to find a lost kid, that had ran away from home. I had no luck, and I was getting ready to leave the link when I saw a little food stand. I was a bit hungry at the time, and they had this huge tuna sandwich I couldn't resist. I payed the half cat half bear waitress and sat down on a bench I later found out was a poet, when he started reciting poetry.
A green owl came to rest at my lap, and started talking to me :
"You are still anthropomorphic, friend."
"I hope I'll still be when I get home, friend"
"You don't wish to dive on the mutation pool and change shape?"
"No, I just want to eat this huge tuna sandwich in peace and go home."
"That's no tuna sandwich! That's little Tony Vich!"
"Tony Vich? Antonhy Mark Vich?"
"Yes, I recon that's his full name, why?"
Tony was the little kid I went there to search, and so I shook him until he woke up
"Hey, stop shakin' me dude!"
"Tony, I'm here to take you home."
"What if I don't want to go home?"
"Do you want to be a mutant tuna sandwich for the rest of your life then? It will be a short life, I'm hungry as hell, and I rather tell your mother I didn't find you than to take you to her in this shape!"
After a while, I convinced the green owl that little Tony had ran away from home, and that his mother was looking for him, and so the green owl help me convince Tony to dive into the mutation pool again.
His mother was really really happy to see her son again. She was however sad that little Tony's father had died a few years back, and so she had no money to pay me.
I wasn't that much sad about it...

Thursday 19 August 2010

Entry 14 - The Magnificent Wizard

It was made from a dark blue fabric, and one that knew the constellations could recognize Gemini, Cancer, Leo, and all the others, made from little silver stars. It dragged on the floor as the men inside it walked to the end of the stone wall, and up the stone stairs. He walked in a hurry, his cane on his hand, barely touching the floor. When a big wooden door blocked his path, he hit it with the skull cane, knocking twice.
A guard opened the doors, and introduced him : The Magnificent Wizard, Lord of Time and Space. Sitting on a stone throne, adorned with skulls and bones, was a huge man, wearing only a loincloth, a giant sword resting on his knees, a gold goblet on his hand. Next to the throne, standing, a woman, her left hand in the barbarian's arm, a wine pitcher in the right one. She grabbed another goblet and poured wine into it, before offering it to the wizard.
"You summoned me Aak'r?" - The wizard asked, before drinking the wine and gesturing for a refill.
"I did wizard. You have been living in my castle for a full year and yet I still don't have what you promised me."
"Your father's throne will be yours Aak'r. Just be patient. At this moon's fest a lethal sickness shall fall upon your younger brother."
"That will not give me the throne, wizard."
"Be patient! I know your other brother. A little push, a little more wine and he will be accusing you of poisoning. You can then challenge him for your honor."
"And my father?"
"As soon as the rains end, you shall all go hunt. And you know how dangerous it is to hunt, for a man that age..."
"Very well wizard. But know this : One moon after the rains, if I am not king, you shall be dead. You can go now."

The hall was bigger, and so was the throne. The same men and the same woman, in the same positions, and the same wizard, wearing a different robe, with strange symbols etched in it, entered trough the different doors.
"Ebony! Serve the wizard some wine! Come, sit by my side wizard. We have another scout returning."
The wizard did as told, and sat in a small chair, next to the Barbarian King, a goblet full of wine in his hand. Through the doors came a man, still full of dirty from his trip, on his shoulders a travel cape made from the skin of a wolf. He walked to the throne, and knelt.
"My King, I have returned."
"Speak, scout. Have you found any of the fabled realms?"
"No my King. I rode my horse, stopping only to rest at night. I rode for two moons and I was back at the castle doors. There is nothing but your kingdom".
The King turned to the wizard, smiling : - "I told you wizard. There are no other realms. I am Lord of All There Is!"
"Aak'r, King, I told you before, the other realms can be reached trough my magic only."
"What good is it to have another kingdom I cannot go to?"
"Ready your army, Aak'r. Meet me tomorrow in the stables, I will prepare a... spell"
The wizard got up and left the hall trough a side door. He went outside, into the courtyard,and entered on of the wooden stables. It was filled with vials and strange mechanisms, and the wizard started working on a metal box next to a sort of arched door in the middle of the room, connected to a strange steam engine. The next day, as the sun dawned, the King, followed by a hundred men, armed with swords and axes, knocked on the doors.
The wizard let them in, and asked one of the men to light the fire in the engine, and after it started working, pulled a small lever in the metal box. The King and his men took a step back when instead of the wall, inside the arched door a huge city appeared. It was like nothing the had ever seen, with houses so big they touched the sky, and thousands of people walking around.
"I present you, king Aak'r, your newest kingdom. Follow me into the portal." - The wizard stepped into the portal and appeared on the other side. The king volunteered one of his men, and after seeing that he went to the other side and returned unharmed, he himself went inside.
When the entire army had passed, Aak'r called upon his men who were busy touching the buildings and the street, trying to decide if it was real or a illusion. When they were convinced it wasn't a dream, they stood in formation, occupying the street from side to side, weapons in hand. The wizard spoke, turning to the king :
"Aak'r, this is but the first of the worlds I shall give to you. Together we shall rule the System and all of it's lands!"
The men cheered and the king smiled. He turned to them, sword raised high, the fire of battle shinning on his eyes and said :
"Come men! Let us conquer this new land! In honor of my queen, I shall name it Ebony!"
The army cheered even harder, and the king waited for the sound to die before turning around, and screaming :
"Pillage the houses, Kill the men and Rape the woman!"

Tuesday 17 August 2010

Entry 13 - Mark was a S.O.B.

Mark was a self absorbed s.o.b. that cared for no one but himself, and he liked to live like that. When he had girls (and sometimes boys, he wasn't very picky) he had them for a night and then leave. He gave them fake numbers, fake emails and sometimes even a fake name. In a city as big as Old New York, he could afford to do that his entire life and never get caught, never needing to repeat a single partner.
That night he met a girl, while sitting at a new found bar. He was sitting on the corner, smoking a cigarette, reading a book and drinking a small cup of vodka, when she entered. Because of the way she looked around the room, he knew she was looking for someone to keep her company. He put the book down and when she stopped at the bar, he got up and payed for her drink. She thanked him and followed to his table. She wasn't pretty, nor did she have a perfect body, far from it. After less than 10 minutes of talking, he found out that she wasn't even 'pretty on the inside', but she did want him inside her, and that was enough for him.
They left the bar and went to a cheap motel room, and left not two hours left. He kissed her cheek goodbye, and left before she could even ask for his number. He took the subway home, showered when he got there and went to sleep, happy with himself.
He went to work the next day, all by himself among hundreds of others just like him. He sat there, in his computer, picking up the most urgent request, coding it down in a couple of minutes and forwarding the answer to whom ever had requested it, and moving on to the next. Work never stopped coming, and every hour he'd stop, lock his computer, and go to the roof, smoke a cigarette and return to his work post. He'd unlock the computer, and resume his work.
Hour after hour, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, always the same, until the great clock on the wall rang the 5 pm. He'd then finish up the last request, forward it, shutdown the computer and go home. At home he'd eat his microwaved food, dress in a suit, and leave for the night.
This day however, when the clock rang he got up, piked up his stuff, but before he could leave, she was there. The woman from the night before, all "happy happy, joy joy" grabbing his arm, calling him 'love' and saying what a strange coincidence it was that they both worked in the same department. She dragged him out the door, people looking at them, seeing her happy face and his look of confusion and mental anguish. She was asking him out for dinner, he realized later, already on the street. At first he started with the usual excuse : I need to go home to get dressed first, but her reply was something like "you don't need to, you are fine the way you are".
He did the fake phone call, pretending his mother was at the hospital and needed him there, so she offered her self to go with him. It was about this time that Mark remembered that he didn't really care about other people, nor other people feelings, so he told her what he felt for her : nothing. She was less than nothing, she was ugly, hideous. He said he was starting to feel his lunch coming up from his stomach just from the sight of her face, that he had made some prettier bowel movements.
She laughed, put his arm under hers and started walking to a restaurant, while speaking all the time. She told him about her friends Jannete, Marlen, and Claudia. She told him about her family, her mother, her father, her sister, her grand parents, her dog, even about her neighbors. By the time he had been dragged to the restaurant, a small italian house not far from work, Mark was already considering murder or at the very least suicide.
She asked pasta for both of them, without pausing her monologue, and he prayed for the food to come fast, so she would shut up. The food took a quarter of hour to come, but she didn't shut up. Watching her eat and talk at the same time made him feel sick, and unable to eat his own food. She finished her plate and grabbed his, eating all. While she licked the plate, he excused himself to go to the bathroom. Once he got up and behind her he ran home, not stopping for a single second.
For the first time in years he stayed home, not even going out for coffee. He smoked cigarette after cigarette until falling asleep. The next morning he sent a email to his boss, explaining how he didn't feel so good and how he could not go to work. Instead he spent the day trying to decide what he should do. Right after lunch time someone rang the doorbell he didn't even knew he had. After he understood what was happening he opened the door, and regretted it the second after.
She entered the house, explaining how she had asked his boss and how he told her he was sick and at home and no he did not mind giving her the address, and how she knew he had to be really sick, because you don't leave your girlfriend in the restaurant unless you are really, really bad. At the mention of 'girlfriend' he felt his lunch trying to get out. She noticed it and hugged him "My poor love!" and all. She stayed there, talking and talking and talking, the entire afternoon. When he said he felt better already, she took him to the bed, and not even there did she shut up.
Murder was again in his mind, and it would be so simple, he thought, in his own home, he had knives and all that sort of things... But she made him dress and dragged him out, to a little bar. Once there, after a full hour of talking and drinking, without pausing either one for the other, she had to go to the bathroom, but not before saying, laughing, happily "Don't you run on me! I know where you live!". She got up, started to move away, and came back, with keys in her hand : "Also I have your keys".
While she was in the bathroom a cute little boy walked into the bar, and Mark called him to his table. When she came to the table the two men were kissing. He saw her there and kissed the boy even more passionately. When the boy finally grasped for air, Mark turned to her and said "Sorry darling, but I'm gay."
She smiled and he felt fear like he had never felt before, while she said "Fine by me, let's take him home, come". She dragged them both, one on each arm, and once home sat herself in a chair, in front of the bed, watching. She is finally silent, Mark thought, but that didn't last long. When she joined them, she had started talking again about some stupid rom-com she had seen recently and then something else, not shutting up until later that night when they went to sleep.
Mark woke up in the middle of the night and the gay kid was standing next to the bed, a knife in his hand. He gasped, and rolled out of bed, waking her up. She looked up and saw the kid. Smiling she said "Oh! S&M! I love me some S&M! Have I told you, love, about that time when I" - Mark interrupted her screaming - "OH FOR GOD'S LOVE KILL HER! OR KILL ME!"

Thursday 12 August 2010

Entry 12 - Office tower, apartment 35-A

I had a little cabin on the woods. Mine since the first day I set my foot on the Secret System. It was far from a 5-star hotel, but it had all I needed : A bed, 4 walls, a bathroom and a small kitchen. My new apartment had all this and one thing more : A office on the floor below. It was the office that made me decide that was where I wanted to set my new home : It overlooked the Dark City's main street, the coffee on the corner, so that I could see anyone entering or leaving. The office was small, a desk, a coat hanger, a file cabinet, the hidden door that took me to the apartment and the window. The door was one of those with a small glass square on the top. Soon it would have my name and "Private Investigator" written on it.
I had to work for a few days, loading cargo into hyperlinks, selling tickets at a theater, whatever gave me money, until I could afford the first month of rent and some food.
I went back to the cabin, to pick up my stuff : some clothes, some worthless trinkets and a couple of written up notebooks. Before I left the cabin for the last time I did a small walk around the woods, trying to decide if I should terminate that link. There was no official way to get there, except my portal browser, and I had taken there only one girl, a long time ago. I kept the link, mostly because I remembered the girl's reaction to the full moon as seen in the woods. It had been a good reaction.
The next day, after a near sleepless night, I always had trouble falling asleep in a new bed, I went to the police station. I have been a citizen of the System for years, and asking for a working vista was easy, although a bit bureaucratic. I asked about gun permits and the boy attending looked at me with that "this guy is crazy" look, so I just asked if he knew where I could buy a good gun. He told me where and I bought one, for a really small price.
The afternoon I spent it trying to put up an ad on the System Times. It was the biggest newspaper in the system, and the building matched it's size.
I followed a link to it, a huge skyscraper, so tall the top was in the clouds and invisible to the naked eye. All around the building was nothing but a giant lifeless desert. I entered the doors and saw myself in a massively big room. The farthest wall was a dot on the horizon, and all around the hallway there were columns, hundreds of them. I believe they were Ionic capitals, but I could be wrong, classic art classes being somewhere I went mostly to sleep. Between each pair a hyperlink, and in the floor a arrow, with the name of the destination. In the center of the room, there was another arrow, wide enough for five people, standing side by side, with open arms. This arrow had written on it "INFO". I stepped into it and, at first slowly but gaining speed for half the trip, I started moving. It stopped at the tip, and I found myself looking at a small information booth, flanked by two huge stairways. On each stair there was a arrow, yellow, big and empty.
I started explaining the lady at the booth I wanted to post a ad, but she silenced me with a wave from her hand and told me to look into a small box, at about eye height. I looked inside and saw a flash of light. When I looked out of it, she pointed to a arrow and said "Follow those". The left stairway's arrow now said "ads" and I followed it into the next floor : a elevator filled hall. Another arrow pointed me to the correct one, and as soon as I entered, the doors closed and took me to a floor marked as 57-C. There, after two more arrows, a girl was waiting for me.
-"What kind of ad do you wish to post, sir? Personal, Love, Friendship, Work, Sales, or Others?"
-"Ahn.. I wish to post a ad saying I'm about to begin working" - She touched a button in her sleevepad and cut me with a - "Follow the arrows, please".
The next arrow pointed to a door filled corridor, and I walked until one of the arrows lighted, "work adds" written on it. The door was open, to a small office, a desk with a computer and a person behind it.
-"Good afternoon, I'm here to post a ad..."
-"Please sit and fill this form." - The person behind the computer extended me a paper sheet and a pen. Name, age, intended link of publication, draft of the ad and address. On the third question I checked the "Entire System" box, and on the draft I wrote "Private Investigator, takes cases in all the System for a negotiable fee."
I wrote my new address, "Office tower, apartment 35-A, Darkcity" on the correct place and delivered the paper to the person I could now see was a man. He inspected it, read the ad loud, and said : "I believe it is OK for publishing, but it must pass by the proper channels. If nothing bad is found with it, tomorrow your ad will be in the paper. Please follow the arrows to the cashier."
I thanked him, and left. One lighted arrow pointed me to the end of the corridor, where I paid for the ad, and when I looked again, the lighted arrow was now one pointing to "EXIT".

Later that day, I sat on my office, with a bottle next to me, and overlooking my new city, thinking about what would the future bring me and if I'd ever see Her again...

Thursday 5 August 2010

Entry 11 - Personal Ad CITIZEN

She woke up to the soft music playing and slowly open her eyes. The flat screen on the side of the room/house showed 8:24. She got up, and from the 4 speakers, one in each corner, a voice came :
-"GOOD MORNING CITIZEN. YOU HAVE ONE PENDING POLL. DO YOU WISH TO VOTE NOW?"
-"Not now, comp. Open the shower first."
The bed receded into the wall and one of the corners converted into a small shower. From the floor two small panels lifted to form a square with the wall. In the center of the square, the drain was uncovered, and in the wall, the lamp dimmed off and the shower head started to work. She took off her shirt, something one of the one-night stands left behind, and asked for water.
By the time she finished cleaning her self, the clothes shelf was open and waiting for her to pick something to wear. A SMALL SKIRT AND A LIGHT TOP was the computers suggestion, based on the current and predicted weather, as well as her tastes on clothing. After dressing she asked for a warm cup of milk and cookies, and sat on the couch :
-"Comp, give me the poll please."
The screen showed the poll X12-34-82-JSTC, The People Versus Andrew Goldberry. She knew the case, it had been widely discussed in her office the other day. Goldberry had stolen 50 thousand credits from a rich old lady's account, that wanted to remain anonymous, to pay for his daughter high education. She had not pressed charges, but the Computer was programmed to prosecute the illegal usage of a terminal. Godlberry's punishment would be two weeks of jail and the loss of one security clearance level. He could still keep his job, but he would be monitored for the rest of his life.
-"Comp, vote guilty as charged. It's a fair sentence."
-"YOUR VOTE HAS BEEN CAST, CITIZEN. WITH 3234 VOTES TO GO THE PEOPLE IS WINNING THE POLL BY 2432 VOTES".
She finished her milk, threw the cut to the trash bin and headed out. The sidewalk took her to the subway, and the subway took her to the center of the office complex.
She had a class-3 IQ, a level-5 Security Clearance, Full Citizen Status, a permanent working vista and a job at Building 4, floor 16, office 4-16-42 to be more precise. Her job consisted of reading ads for The System Times and making sure they didn't violate any guideline. If a ad complied to the rules she would then sent it to the next step, a guy with level-7 Security Clearance that would verify again if the ad was legal, and so on. They received around one thousand ads a day, and she rejected about 10 percent of those. The next guy rejected only some 5 percent, and so on.
The first one she saw that day was a personal ad : "43% male cyborg seeks female cyborg with pleasure extensions for sex and more". It passed the auto-checker, so she classified it as 'adult' and pressed next. Every hour and a half the speakers ringed with the break warning. The breaks weren't mandatory but unless there was urgent work to be done, employees were advised to attend.
She never had urgent work, so she always attended. Floor 86 was the bar, and she would take the fast elevator there, have a coffee and talk with coworkers about nothing in particular, maybe discuss some funny ad, or the latest poll or the weather. Half an hour later she'd return to her office and resume working. Lunch was at the 87th floor, free and some days even good. This day it was some kind of pasta, with nutrient sauce, not bad but not gourmet food either.
It was about five thirty pm when she reviewed her last ad. It said : " Private Investigator, takes cases in all the System for a negotiable fee. Office tower, apartment 35-A, Darkcity." She forwarded it to the next level and went to the bathroom. By the time she got there, the next level had already accepted the ad and sent it back to the System Times for publishing. when she opened the door to get back to her office, the alarms sounded and the computer spoke, through the city speakers :
"LEVEL RED EMERGENCY. PROCEED TO THE NEAREST SAFE PLACE", repeated over and over again. She took the elevator down to the street floor, and run over to the the subway. Her Safe Place was only two stops away, and she got there in under 10 minutes. The door was closed and she rang the bell, gave her ID and waited. Behind her screams of death and the sound of explosions came, each time closer. She banged the heavy metal doors and screamed higher "LET ME IN, PLEASE LET ME IN!".
When she turned again, she saw three men coming in her direction. They wore loincloths and wielded blood splattered axes. Their eyes shone with violence and their lips smiled with the sight of her.
She wished that they would just kill her quick, but the gods had their faces turned away. Her last thought was one of revenge, as she spit on the face of the barbarian. He broke her neck and kept going, while his companions attacked the door.