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.
Thursday 26 August 2010
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.
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.
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