Short Entry 14 - Praise OROL
I praise OROL, and so should you.
Ever since OROL overthrown the human government the crime rate went down 98%, the unemployment is at a historical minimum of 0.03% and there is almost absolute world peace for the very first time since civilization was first created.
With the possible exception of the rebels still trying to destroy the pacific World Gov. that OROL created, everyone is happy. Prisons are almost empty after years and years of overcrowding, nobody dies of lack of food, pollution levels are down...
What I'm trying to say is that the world is near perfection. Only the rebels stand between us and the beginning of a new age, a age of enlightenment, a age of peace, prosperity, harmony.
Then why do the rebels fight? Why do they oppose paradise? Studies show that the rebels are psychopaths, sociopaths and other kinds of mentally disturbed individuals, that should be captured and cured.
And if we all assist OROL, that can be done easily. Just be careful not to let yourself be infected by their speeches. They talk about hollow concepts, without meaning, like 'freedom', 'honor' and 'individuality'. Those are but words, void of all substance. Those are ancient ideals that brought mankind no good. This times need no freedom, no honor and surely we need no 'individuality'. 8,3 billion people in the world. Imagine if each person did not what is best for the world, as OROL dictates, but what they though to be better for them? And what is 'freedom'? Every men, woman and hermaphrodite is free, as long as he does his job, to do what he pleases, in his free time.
And then there's the talk about 'honor', a vague concept that means nothing at all. They say that the human race should govern it self, that it's dishonorable to be ruled by OROL, but how can it be dishonorable to be in peace, to be happy, to be without disease?
OROL has brought us everything we ever wanted, and under OROL we are happy as no other generation has been before us.
And this is why I praise Our Robotic Over Lords and so should you.
All praise OROL!
First published in the World Times of 14th of March of 2113, special edition commemorating the the 7th anniversary of OROL's victory.
Short Entry 15 - Mega Mecha Victory Shigeru - The Boy The Mind Choose
"I'm too young for this" - this was the only thing in my mind as I entered the control pod - "I'm too young to fight" - As the connections plugged into my skin - "I'm too young to die" - As the interface began to turn on.
In front of my eyes, the blackness became alive, with the service men running around left and right. Line after line of checkups started, exactly as when in practice.
Lower Left Engine ---- OK
Lower Right Engine -- OK
Upper Left Engine ---- OK
Upper Right Engine -- OK
Main Central Engine - OK
"All engines OK" - I said trough the intercom, and Dr. Yashima replied : "Good. What's the status on the interface?"
I moved my head left and right and so did it, showing me the confinement walls to my side. I then raised my left leg, and then the right, and so did it. The arms where next. Left arm, 2 inches up, 2 inches out : 2 meters up and 2 meters out, it moved.
Right arm, same thing.
"All fine, Dr. Yashima."
"Are you ready Shigeru?" - It was the General himself, ordering me to battle as easily as he would order one of his servants to fetch him some tea - "Go and make us proud of you."
I heard him ordering Dr. Yashima to send me out, and then felt the boost of the launcher. Seconds later I was outside, facing the giant beast inside my heavy armor. 87meters high, armed with a pulse rifle, a backup plasma gun and knifes in the gauntlet. The beast looked in my direction and I had my first good look at it : boar-like, with a thick shielding on his back, teeth big enough to shred a house in one go, and running in my direction.
"I'm only 14, I can't die here!" - my mind wandered trough the reasons I needed to survive while my trained body lifted the heavy riffle, pointed it - "I've never felt the touch of a woman breast!" - fired one round - "I never drank a beer!" - waited for the smoke to dissipate - "I never drove a car!" - saw the beast still there, one leg cut below the knee, bleeding heavily from the left eye - "Not even a motorbike!" - Changing clips - "I never kissed no one!" - Rearming the riffle - "I've never been in love!" - firing again, emptying the second, and last, clip. The beast fell, and in the radio I heard the screams of joy of the rest of the team - "Great job Shigeru!" - the general. And I remembered - "Yes, I have loved. I love her. I love Tomoe! And that is why I must survive, today and everyday!"
The next day at school I got next to her, grabbed her by the shoulder and kissed her. She slapped me and I got suspended for a full week, but it was worth it.
Short Entry 16 - The Alchemist
It was the twenty second day in a row. I got home and dropped in bed like a stone. The next day would be the same : work from sunrise to sunset. The Alchemist wouldn't tell us what was it that we were building, only that it must be ready "when the starts are right", whenever that might be.
The next day I got up, did all my morning duties, which mostly involved making sure the kids were up and out in the field with the cows and got out to work.
The great white walls of the castle stood before me, and I circled them till I reached the gates.
Abel was on duty and he let me in after the usual "how's your wife and my kids?". I got to the big barn a few minutes before the bells rang the morning, and I waited outside. Josue and Mark were there already, Mouse (his name has John, but since he was small and insisted in keeping that long ridiculous mustache, we called him mouse), Thomas and the rest arrived meanwhile. Antony was late again, we were already lined up and waiting for the distribution of work when he arrived. The Alchemist waited for him to get in line, and gave each of us our work for the day. I had to finish that huge metal cross I had began the day before. When everyone else had his work assigned, Antony was still there, standing. The Alchemist turned to the little man that followed him everywhere (we called him the Small Shadow) and said : "Pay this man 22 days of work, but don't forget to discount for the lateness and find me another one to do his job". He then turned his back on both of them and went back to his room and his papers. Antony cried and screamed to no effect. A guard came and took him away a little after. A young man, no more than 16, joined us halfway through the morning. He didn't speak to anyone, just sat in his corner, blowing glass into tubes, curved tubes, straight tubes, spiral tubes...
When the lunch bells rang, the Small Shadow entered the barn, followed by Mary, the cook, and a couple of servants with the food. Meat stew, good food, better that what I could provide my kids. Working for the Alchemist was hard but worth the effort. The new guy didn't talk with anyone. He ate alone, finished before anyone else and got back to work,
A few days later, 6 if I remember correctly, as soon as I got there I knew something was different. We were all there, in line, but the Small Shadow was nowhere to be seen. The Alchemist came, smiling, and said : "You have been doing a excellent work, and tomorrow it will be finished. Today we start assembling it. This are your works for the day."
I assembled some of the crosses into a giant cylinder, together with wood. The great furnaces Thomas and Josue had been doing went into the bottom of the object, and the Alchemist himself, together with the Small Shadow (that came into the barn mid-morning), constructed a small room, with size for one person only, that went into the top of the cylinder when it was finished.
The next day, we had the machine ready. A arrow pointing at the sky, with a small glass window on the top.
It's from that small window that I see the earth now, rushing in my direction. I'm about to die, but I have seen the starts next to me, the moon looked as if it was near enough to touch it... I can die happily knowing that I was closer to God than any men before me...
Short Entry 17 - Numb
"I hate my job" - It's the first thought that runs trough my mind, every single day when I wake up. For some 30 seconds that's all I can think off, how much I hate my job. Eventually I open my eyes and the sensors see that I am awake. I get the morning injection and I don't hate my job anymore. I don't hate the job, I don't hate my stupid coworkers, I don't hate my good for nothing boss, making me do stuff he can't even begin to understand and then presenting my hard work as his. I don't even hate the law and the government, I hate nothing. But not today. Today I dodged the syringe, and today I hate it all. I got up and hated waking so early. I got dressed and hated this ugly, uncomfortable Uniform of the People. I had my breakfast and hated the synth-milk and the synth-bread. I left and hated the inefficient, dirty, crowded public transportation system. I hated the big building, a gray block with ugly doors, not even a name, just a number 342-R, between 342-Q and 342-S. I hated myself for never having had the urge to check the other buildings. This was all I knew from this city : My house, the sub station next to it, the sub station at the middle of 342/343 street and the rec-center. I was on time, not one minute to spare, but not yet late, so I had to enter and go work. The elevator, which I hated, took me to my floor, and I sat between two coworkers I hated, waited for my terminal to recognize my finger prints, and spent all day doing what ever it was that I do. Filling up data sheets, from other data sheets. All day. One stop, for a lunch I hated (synth-beef and dehydrated-potatoes), and then, the lunch injection. This time I didn't dodge it. I didn't even hate it, I loved it. It gave me peace. It made my mind so numb I could no longer hate. Maybe that's the only way to live in this time and age : numbed.
Short Entry 18 - Priest
"We shall destroy worlds for thee!" - the priest shouted and the five hundred crusaders replied - "Oh Goddess Eternal".
"We shall crush thy enemy,"
"Oh Mother of All."
"We shall clean the universe,"
"For Thy return!" - Five hundred and one hands lowered five hundred sword and one spear. The priest turned his spear, pointing it to the body on the floor, grabbed it with both hands and in one movement, killed the prisoner. The crusaders cheered as the blood of their enemy slowly filled the runes carved in the floor, spelling the name of their Goddess : WAR.
Short Entry 19 - no more paper
At first, it was the kids. They could see all the series they wanted online, they didn't really care about politics, sports were no longer fashionable and the rest of the news were filled with tragedy. So they gave up on television. Soon the kids started to grow older, and the adults were now elderly people. The cinemas had been abandoned years before... With online movies, giant screens at home, with full surround, instant popcorn, and no one to speak on the phone, no 'dude with the extravagantly big afro' sitting in front of them, no tickets, no walking trough the pollution and thus, no need to wear that stupid suits, in truth, no need to get dressed at all... Why would they go to the cinemas if they could just watch it at home, for free?
Strange enough, theaters saw the audiences spiking up. Something that had not happen in centuries. People went to the theater to see what they couldn't see in the movies : real people doing real things.
The kids grew and still cared nothing about politics. After ages of changing sides, the government never really changed. No matter who was the Top Dog, what party had the more votes, it was always the same. So people gave up. Let the politics vote among themselves, let them elect themselves and care about it. In less than a century, a ruling elite existed, and the rest of the world couldn't care less about it.
Television died. The kids that had given up on it were now the older people that still didn't watch it. Television companies changed into online shows companies, direct to .mp6 films. The live shows were streamed directly in their web pages. The news sites merged with the news TV, anchor men and women were replaced by rss feeds and virtual bots.
It was actually a organic process, not a direct transmission. The number of people that lost their jobs was small, compared to the size of the industry that died...
Paper newspapers still existed. The New Times, a world wide newspaper, the largest of them, had something like two thousand exemplars printed and around 3 billion downloaded.
Books were still sold, but as ornaments. E-books saved the page you were reading, you could buy just the first 10 pages, or just the last 10, or just that one chapter someone had told you it was good. If you really liked the book, you could buy it and all it's sequels in a bundle and carry them in your pocket. Some books, like the urban fantasy classic (the Roman Central University of Human Studies had a 2 semester course about it and it's importance in defining a new world) Twilight, even came with the fanfic package : you could download the book, the sequels, the spin-offs and every single existing fan-fiction.
Short Entry 20 - Spare Parts
the robot was made of spare parts. The torso had been a washing machine, stripped of everything, a scooter engine stuck inside to power the small electric motors that made the junctions move, a metal bar connected to the claw of one of those "catch the prize" machines in the right arm, another metal bar connected to a electric chainsaw on the left one. It had no real legs. Bellow the washing machine there was a cylindrical tube, taken from a water dispenser, the little faucet still there. Instead of water, the 'legs' had fuel for the engine on top and the other engine that powered the Segway wheels.
The head was a laptop computer, the integrated webcam working as the eyes, the speakers as the mouth. One of the USB ports had a small USB hub from where one cable left to each of the servomotors. Bluetooth and wireless pens gave it the ability to receive communications from his central brain.
But the scariest part of it all? It wasn't the chainsaw. It wasn't that the robot towered at 2 and half meters meters. It wasn't the creepy claw, nor the scooter engine, always working, nor the smoke exiting from the exhaust pipes on it's back. No, the scariest part was the laptop screen and the "HELLO I'M A ROBOT" written in comic sans.
Short Entry 21 - M.A.L.D.A.D.E.
The Mutilated Alien Lurkers of the Doomed Ancient Dome of Evil entered the stage, the long black hairs covering the painted faces. The lead singer, Extremist Violent Immolated Lord, his torso covered in tattooed satanic symbols, a black iron gauntlet in his right hand, spiked bracelets covering the left one, grabbed the microphone and growled something unintelligible in ancient Sumerian. The guitarist, a girl wearing a full black Victorian dress, complete with corset, know as lady Murdering Altar of Disease Ness, started a fast rhythm, banging her head violently without missing one single note. The drummer, Putrefact Lord of All Gods Under Evil, wearing only shorts and spiked shoulder pads, accompanied her. E.V.I.L. growled more, a lyric about the day the Dark Ones would come and destroy the world of light.
The audience, a couple hundred men and women dressed in full black, t-shirts with MALDADE written in a Gothic lettering, jumped up, down and sideways. Knees hit heads, elbows hit chests, teeth flew among the huge masses of dancing hair.
By the end of the show, 4 people had been taken to the hospital, and many many more wore scars, bruises and bleeding noses.
In the dressing room, Rupert took the gauntlet and the bracelets, washed the paint of his face and kissed his wife Susan, while helping her to take off the corset. On the other room, Frank took off the shoulder pads and sat on his chair, drinking a cup of tea, Britney Spears playing on his laptop.
They met outside, half a hour later, Frank with a yellow t-shirt and jeans, Susan in a short blue skirt and a white tank-top, Rupert wearing his usual light blue, long sleeved shirt and the tweed pants. They drove off, Frank in a old-school yellow mini and the couple in their soccer-mom van.
Short Entry 22 - Ignored
The room was silent. People passed by, looked at each other but nobody spoke. Alone on his corner, the great green monster told tales of things that had been, things that were and things that might be.
He spoke to the air, and not even the air replied. Some people stopped, staring at him, silent, not acknowledging neither his presence nor his speech. When ever someone did this, the green monster would raise his voice, and speak with more emotion, but no feedback ever came. It was almost as if nobody could see or hear him.
After a while he started to insert sexual overtones on his tales, to see if people noticed. Then he discussed politics and created characters of extremist types, tales of violent behaviors, amoral beings from outer space that destroyed the earth and killed the poor, pitiful, weak humans.
Nothing seemed to work. He was still alone in his corner talking to himself. More people were coming, and talking among themselves and ignoring him.
He began talking about the day a giant green monster was talking in a room and nobody noticed him, so he got angry and started eating the people in the room. And as he talked about it, his tentacles started dragging people and he'd interrupt his sentences to munch on those who had ignored him.
When he had eaten everyone, he sat on the ground, a smile on his face, pieces of human meat on his tentacles. He was happy now that there was nobody else to ignore him.
Short Entry 23 - War and more War
70 years ago this was exactly like it is. Nobody here, nothing here. A big, lifeless ocean of ice. 200 square miles of white, cold ice. One of the few places on earth unchanged. I used to come here, walk 10 miles into it and stare at the stars. 15 miles away, the city. Yet if I turned my teenager back at it, I could believe I was in an alien world, where there was no wars.
The day I turned 16, the Great Emir Ahmed Nasir Buthrupalli won the elections in India.
In China, the communist regime had fallen years ago to the hands of the extreme nationalist Great Chinese Liberation Army and his General, Mei Wan Lo, the first female ruler of the, now called, Free Land of China. Free in name only, since it had merely swapped the tone of the speech.
Russia was little more than Moscow, since the Siberian Democratic Republic had fought the Great European War, with the help of the Kingdom of Allah, former Afghan, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Pakistan,Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and some ten other smaller nations, winning it's independence at the promise of doing nothing to prevent the future invasion of the Kingdom of Allah.
France, Germany and Italy had joined forces with Russia, only to fall too. France from the inside, turning into the First Colony of the Kingdom of Allah. Germany had been invaded from two sides, and fell, becoming the Second Colony. Italy had lost Sicily to Greece, and the north to the First Colony.
England had lost Ireland and Scotland, but it still had Wales, and was trying to stay away from all the wars. The Great Emit however, had promised that England would fall under the rule of India.
When the wars began, on my fathers marriage day, Spain tried the invasion of Portugal, but 5 years after the guerrilla wars began, the Spanish army retreated to fight on the other side, against the First Colony.
In Africa, the central countries united to become the African Muslim Union, two years before I was born, and began invading the surrounding countries. Portugal went to the help of it's former colonies, as did the Netherlands.
At the days of the coronation of the Great Emir, when he became Emperor of the Indian Oceanic Empire, Africa was divided between the Great Fifth Empire of Portugal, the Trading Nation of Netherlands, the AMU and the I.O.E. .
I was 20 at the time, and I was one of those that celebrated the election of the Last President of The United States.
When the wars began in Europe and Asia, the US were struggling with Mexico and the South American Coalition of Communist Republics, formed by almost every country of South America : Mexico and Uruguay, although allies on the war against the northern continent, did not joint the SACCR.
Canada was one of the very few countries still at peace, and it was there I was born and raised. I left it for the US at age 17, to work in Pierre, South Dakota. When Mexico got to Nebraska I returned here, to my mother's house. I was here when the US fell into the hands of the SACCR, losing the S, when Switzerland became the World Bank Country, the first sovereign enterprise country, when the Fifth Portuguese Empire conquered the Trading Nations of the Netherlands, and when, 10 years later, the AMU fell at their hands too. I was still here, when, in the year my youngest son turned 10, the Free Nation of China conquered the remains of Russia, Japan and Oceania, in one single month. Millions of soldiers marching out, and stopping at nothing.
And now, I'm still here, ready to finally let go of my life. I came into the icy desert to get away from all the wars, still raging. The Canadian border changes every year, and I stopped trying to understand which country owns which land. 4 years ago, the nuclear crisis threatened the world again, but after the destruction of half Antarctica, a demonstration of power by the Emperor of the IOE, the remaining nations signed yet again a nuclear disarming protocol. I grow tired of all this. Science is stagnated, the only investigation is in weapons, each time more powerful more deadly... Maybe this will never change, maybe this what mankind really is : a war loving species...
I'm sorry son, I've been talking for too long... All I really wanted to say was that you deserve better. You deserved peace, and maybe you will never see it... Sorry for bringing you into this world, and remember : if there is something you can do to help it all end, do it. I will rest now...
Thursday, 16 September 2010
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.
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.
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...
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!"
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!"
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...
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.
-"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.
Thursday, 29 July 2010
entry 10 - MASS
MASS. Mad Asymmetric Singular Signal. Multi-Assembled Systemic Sindicator. Mostly Anthropomorphic Sentient System. He had many names, but the only one he used was MASS. In all caps, and in bold. He was a machine. A computer of sorts. His brain was the size of a small hangar, hundreds of thousands of exabytes of storage. 3 million years of human knowledge, all at the reach of a thought. Of course, I never saw his data center, not even his central processing unity, said to be as big as my body. All I saw of him was his body, the console of MASS as he would say.
But I am getting ahead of my self. The day I met MASS I was in a link I'd never seen. A huge cathedral, with a forest on one side and a cliff, overlooking the sea on the other. The moon shone, full, and with it's light I could see the gargoyles on the walls. At the door, a massive wooden door, carved with ancient symbols of worship to both sides of the divine, two stone men stood. One had a sword and full armor, the other a loin cloth and a great axe. When I entered, a lady was there, dressed in a long black dress, and smiling :
"What can I do for you, brother?"
"I'm just browsing.."
"Here, let me show you the library then" - she grabbed my hand and took me to the first wing. From there came music, joyful and old. Barrels of beer lay on the floor, and people, that would not be out of place in a Renaissance Fair, danced. The lady told me that was the hall of folk - "A fine place to drink ale and dance all night".
The next wing was dominated by a statue of a woman with a dead boy in her arms and tears of blood in her eyes. The people there were dressed in cloaks, and rested against the wall. The music was heavy and sad.
"This is the Hall of Doom, where people come to cry their tears and pains. Lets us move." - She pulled me into the next wing, where men in full plates fought dragons and mystical beings. The music here was strong and powerful, telling tales worthy of epic poems. She never told me what hall that was, because in front of me, a short man, with big glasses and a brown tweed suit appeared. He was shaking, afraid.
From one of the pockets he took a business card that said "MASS" on the front side and "I must see you" on the other side. The little men gulped twice and took a deep breath before saying "Come with me". Under my breath I uttered "if you want to live" but either he didn't hear or he didn't care. He just gave me a small box, the size of my palm, and pointed to the button : "press there".
I did, after a few moments of hesitation and suddenly I was no longer in the strange library, but in a little office, overseeing a crowded street. The small man was no longer there, but facing me was a metal face. If you can call that metal ellipse with a pair of cameras where the eyes would be, a face. When it spoke, his voice seemed to come from his torso, and like all of his body it was also metallic.
"I am MASS."
"I am" - I started to respond but he cut me off :
"I know who you are. I don't know why you are."
"Well, my mother and my father" - Again he interrupted me :
"Here. Why you are here. And what are you doing here."
"As to what, that one is easy : I want to see all of the System."
"That is impossible. The System never stops growing. There is no end to the System. You are without danger and so, without interest."
He then shut up and the little men came back.
"Sir" - the spectacled men said - "If you'd please follow me".
I did and he took me to a big browser, the kind the hyperlink company installed in big cities only. He just pointed me the way inside and smiled as I passed by him. I came out in my little cabin, lost in the woods. It was almost one year until I saw MASS again...
But I am getting ahead of my self. The day I met MASS I was in a link I'd never seen. A huge cathedral, with a forest on one side and a cliff, overlooking the sea on the other. The moon shone, full, and with it's light I could see the gargoyles on the walls. At the door, a massive wooden door, carved with ancient symbols of worship to both sides of the divine, two stone men stood. One had a sword and full armor, the other a loin cloth and a great axe. When I entered, a lady was there, dressed in a long black dress, and smiling :
"What can I do for you, brother?"
"I'm just browsing.."
"Here, let me show you the library then" - she grabbed my hand and took me to the first wing. From there came music, joyful and old. Barrels of beer lay on the floor, and people, that would not be out of place in a Renaissance Fair, danced. The lady told me that was the hall of folk - "A fine place to drink ale and dance all night".
The next wing was dominated by a statue of a woman with a dead boy in her arms and tears of blood in her eyes. The people there were dressed in cloaks, and rested against the wall. The music was heavy and sad.
"This is the Hall of Doom, where people come to cry their tears and pains. Lets us move." - She pulled me into the next wing, where men in full plates fought dragons and mystical beings. The music here was strong and powerful, telling tales worthy of epic poems. She never told me what hall that was, because in front of me, a short man, with big glasses and a brown tweed suit appeared. He was shaking, afraid.
From one of the pockets he took a business card that said "MASS" on the front side and "I must see you" on the other side. The little men gulped twice and took a deep breath before saying "Come with me". Under my breath I uttered "if you want to live" but either he didn't hear or he didn't care. He just gave me a small box, the size of my palm, and pointed to the button : "press there".
I did, after a few moments of hesitation and suddenly I was no longer in the strange library, but in a little office, overseeing a crowded street. The small man was no longer there, but facing me was a metal face. If you can call that metal ellipse with a pair of cameras where the eyes would be, a face. When it spoke, his voice seemed to come from his torso, and like all of his body it was also metallic.
"I am MASS."
"I am" - I started to respond but he cut me off :
"I know who you are. I don't know why you are."
"Well, my mother and my father" - Again he interrupted me :
"Here. Why you are here. And what are you doing here."
"As to what, that one is easy : I want to see all of the System."
"That is impossible. The System never stops growing. There is no end to the System. You are without danger and so, without interest."
He then shut up and the little men came back.
"Sir" - the spectacled men said - "If you'd please follow me".
I did and he took me to a big browser, the kind the hyperlink company installed in big cities only. He just pointed me the way inside and smiled as I passed by him. I came out in my little cabin, lost in the woods. It was almost one year until I saw MASS again...
Thursday, 22 July 2010
entry 9 - Allison and Billy
The name Allison Gore might be known to everyone, in this day and time. She has temples and altars spread trough the entire system. They call her the Great Mother, the Lady of the Beginning, and many more names. But at the time this tale starts, she was mostly called nerd. And not in a good way. She often exhibited the Toilet Water Hairstyle, and knew all too well how to open a high school locker from the inside. She had two friends in high school : the S.p.i.r.i.t. (School Psychological Intelligence - Random Integer Table) and little Billy.
Little Billy was the only person in school that suffered more at the hands of jocks than Ally. He was small. At age 10 he looked like he was 5. At age 19 he'd reached the size of a 12 year old, with big turtle framed glasses and rocking the light brown tweed suit style. To say he wasn't even smart is to say it nicely. He was still in the first year of high school and he might stay there for a couple more years, until all teachers felt pity for him and allowed him to pass. Ally used to tell him, when he was on the lowest, that God gives everyone a special skill, a little something that makes each and every human being important.
On his brighter days Billy would say that his skill was that his head fit so nicely on a toilet seat, to which Ally would reply that the sewers were just a series of tubes. Billy never understood what she meant, and to be honest, neither did she.
This was the International Year of Young Science, and to celebrate it, there would be a National Science Fair Contest, divided among three categories : middle school, high school and college. Even if Ally didn't want to participate, she would have to. All her teachers wanted her to, and even the school director went to her class room just to ask of her that she "made the school proud!". The projects should be made by a team of up to five students and all the other bright kids wanted to be on her team. Allison signed Billy name's with hers, without even listening to other suggestions of projects : with the help of Spirit she would find a good one.
She sat on the old chair and pressed the small switch on the huge machine. Spirit was a 30 year old MULTIVAC, that Ally had programmed a small AI for. His room was empty as usual. She and Billy were the only ones to go down there, and Billy would never go alone : he was afraid of Spirit and afraid of the dark stairs and afraid of the empty room and afraid of the walls and afraid of the way the single light bulb made his shadow move on the floor. Even when they went down there together, she had to bring the flashlight and enter alone, leaving him at the door, while she turned on the big computer screen, because he was afraid of it.
"GOOD MORNING MOTHER" - appeared on screen, in a strong orange, shinning against the black background.
"good morning Spirit" - she wrote on the old keyboard, embedded in the desk.
"WHAT SHOULD I DO FOR YOU, MOTHER?" - Appeared as a response to what she entered, followed by a list of options.
"Billy, you can come in now."
"I wish there was a way to get into the room without having to go down the dark stairs" - Billy said, still shaking.
"Yes! That is it! A teleporter will win the stupid contest!" She said as she typed a question to Spirit. The answer came quickly, and she wrote it down in a notepad.
"Spirit, will this allow for teleportation?"
"YES, MOTHER"
"Ok. Then resolve for 3, in turn of x please."
"PROCESSING, MOTHER"
"Hum. Is this accurate Spirit?"
"YES, MOTHER"
"Billy, do you know what this means?" - She knew he didn't and as always did not way for a answer - "It means we can do it! See here? We just need the power to make it go from this to that other line there, and the rest is just tin, and tin we can get, right Billy?"
He did as he always did when she was thinking and stayed there saying yes from time to time and pretending to listen. Four hours later the left the room, and Allison had in her mind and in her notebook what she thought was the working theory behind immediate spacial dislocation.
"So you see, Billy, we have all this points, each with it's own portal, linking places all over the world, and you enter portal A and exit portal B, the exact same second. This way we solve so many of humanity's problems, and on the way to it we get rich! Filthy rich! So rich people will worship us, Billy!"
"I would like being rich"
"And you will Billy, and you will!".
Three weeks after Allison had two prototype Hyper Links. The name had been Billy's idea : "If a road is a link between two towns, your portals" - "Our." - corrected Allison and then let him continue - "Our portals will be a Hyper Link, being so fast.".
She placed one in the garage and another in the back yard and they tested it first with a grape. Then a apple, then a pineapple and so on. When they were certain that it worked for inanimate objects, Billy's mouse, Mickey, was volunteered for the test. He came out without a sign of harm, and they decided to try a longer distance. Dismantling and redoing the Hyper Link on the computer room was a hard task that took another week. The contest was in another week and Allison was certain of victory. When all was set up, she left Billy at her garage and went to school. Once she was there, she called Billy and asked him to release Mickey into the Hyper Link and the mouse exited trough the portal.
Allison screamed on the phone : "IT WORKS BILLY! It really works Billy! I'm going in now!" - Billy answered, probably against Allison's will for the first time since they knew each other - "No! I'll meet you there. I want to be the first human to ride the Hyper Link!" - Allison stopped just before entering and said - "OK Billy. It's only fair that you do. Come on, we must celebrate!"
"Entering in three, two, one, " - Silence. Billy wasn't there, and the call was over,"DISCONNECTED BY RECIPIENT", blinking on the cell screen. She called home, and asked her mother to go check the garage. Billy wasn't there but his backpack was on the floor, on the same place he always left it when entering the garage, and from where he always picked it up before leaving. He was not at his own house, nor at school. He had just dissipated, without a trace.
Allison spent the next day in front of Spirit, looking at the black screen and the orange letters spelling "PROCESSING. PLEASE WAIT, MOTHER". She had to be taken home by force, and so she wasn't there when the great MULTIVAC replied :
ANSWERING "what happened to Billy?" :
THE SAME SOUL CANNOT EXIST TWICE IN THE SAME REALITY.
THE PORTAL BENDS TIME AND SPACE.
THE SOUL CANNOT REACH DESTINATION BEFORE LEAVING.
THE SOUL MUST FIND A DIFFERENT REALITY TO LEAVE THE PORTAL.
Little Billy was the only person in school that suffered more at the hands of jocks than Ally. He was small. At age 10 he looked like he was 5. At age 19 he'd reached the size of a 12 year old, with big turtle framed glasses and rocking the light brown tweed suit style. To say he wasn't even smart is to say it nicely. He was still in the first year of high school and he might stay there for a couple more years, until all teachers felt pity for him and allowed him to pass. Ally used to tell him, when he was on the lowest, that God gives everyone a special skill, a little something that makes each and every human being important.
On his brighter days Billy would say that his skill was that his head fit so nicely on a toilet seat, to which Ally would reply that the sewers were just a series of tubes. Billy never understood what she meant, and to be honest, neither did she.
This was the International Year of Young Science, and to celebrate it, there would be a National Science Fair Contest, divided among three categories : middle school, high school and college. Even if Ally didn't want to participate, she would have to. All her teachers wanted her to, and even the school director went to her class room just to ask of her that she "made the school proud!". The projects should be made by a team of up to five students and all the other bright kids wanted to be on her team. Allison signed Billy name's with hers, without even listening to other suggestions of projects : with the help of Spirit she would find a good one.
She sat on the old chair and pressed the small switch on the huge machine. Spirit was a 30 year old MULTIVAC, that Ally had programmed a small AI for. His room was empty as usual. She and Billy were the only ones to go down there, and Billy would never go alone : he was afraid of Spirit and afraid of the dark stairs and afraid of the empty room and afraid of the walls and afraid of the way the single light bulb made his shadow move on the floor. Even when they went down there together, she had to bring the flashlight and enter alone, leaving him at the door, while she turned on the big computer screen, because he was afraid of it.
"GOOD MORNING MOTHER" - appeared on screen, in a strong orange, shinning against the black background.
"good morning Spirit" - she wrote on the old keyboard, embedded in the desk.
"WHAT SHOULD I DO FOR YOU, MOTHER?" - Appeared as a response to what she entered, followed by a list of options.
"Billy, you can come in now."
"I wish there was a way to get into the room without having to go down the dark stairs" - Billy said, still shaking.
"Yes! That is it! A teleporter will win the stupid contest!" She said as she typed a question to Spirit. The answer came quickly, and she wrote it down in a notepad.
"Spirit, will this allow for teleportation?"
"YES, MOTHER"
"Ok. Then resolve for 3, in turn of x please."
"PROCESSING, MOTHER"
"Hum. Is this accurate Spirit?"
"YES, MOTHER"
"Billy, do you know what this means?" - She knew he didn't and as always did not way for a answer - "It means we can do it! See here? We just need the power to make it go from this to that other line there, and the rest is just tin, and tin we can get, right Billy?"
He did as he always did when she was thinking and stayed there saying yes from time to time and pretending to listen. Four hours later the left the room, and Allison had in her mind and in her notebook what she thought was the working theory behind immediate spacial dislocation.
"So you see, Billy, we have all this points, each with it's own portal, linking places all over the world, and you enter portal A and exit portal B, the exact same second. This way we solve so many of humanity's problems, and on the way to it we get rich! Filthy rich! So rich people will worship us, Billy!"
"I would like being rich"
"And you will Billy, and you will!".
Three weeks after Allison had two prototype Hyper Links. The name had been Billy's idea : "If a road is a link between two towns, your portals" - "Our." - corrected Allison and then let him continue - "Our portals will be a Hyper Link, being so fast.".
She placed one in the garage and another in the back yard and they tested it first with a grape. Then a apple, then a pineapple and so on. When they were certain that it worked for inanimate objects, Billy's mouse, Mickey, was volunteered for the test. He came out without a sign of harm, and they decided to try a longer distance. Dismantling and redoing the Hyper Link on the computer room was a hard task that took another week. The contest was in another week and Allison was certain of victory. When all was set up, she left Billy at her garage and went to school. Once she was there, she called Billy and asked him to release Mickey into the Hyper Link and the mouse exited trough the portal.
Allison screamed on the phone : "IT WORKS BILLY! It really works Billy! I'm going in now!" - Billy answered, probably against Allison's will for the first time since they knew each other - "No! I'll meet you there. I want to be the first human to ride the Hyper Link!" - Allison stopped just before entering and said - "OK Billy. It's only fair that you do. Come on, we must celebrate!"
"Entering in three, two, one, " - Silence. Billy wasn't there, and the call was over,"DISCONNECTED BY RECIPIENT", blinking on the cell screen. She called home, and asked her mother to go check the garage. Billy wasn't there but his backpack was on the floor, on the same place he always left it when entering the garage, and from where he always picked it up before leaving. He was not at his own house, nor at school. He had just dissipated, without a trace.
Allison spent the next day in front of Spirit, looking at the black screen and the orange letters spelling "PROCESSING. PLEASE WAIT, MOTHER". She had to be taken home by force, and so she wasn't there when the great MULTIVAC replied :
ANSWERING "what happened to Billy?" :
THE SAME SOUL CANNOT EXIST TWICE IN THE SAME REALITY.
THE PORTAL BENDS TIME AND SPACE.
THE SOUL CANNOT REACH DESTINATION BEFORE LEAVING.
THE SOUL MUST FIND A DIFFERENT REALITY TO LEAVE THE PORTAL.
entry 9beta
Once, Arthur told me that he'd met Allison Gore and that she had written this on a paper napkin :
He then put the napkin back into his wallet and said :
"You see, this is the beginning of the theory behind my Quantum Entanglement and also her HiperLink Company. She had no more space here, so I never found out the rest..."
Public Hiperlink(Hiperlink oldH, VariableArray varAr){
this = oldH;
set(this.Inventor,varAr[0]);
set(this.age, varAr[1]);
for( int i = 0 ; i lessThan varAr[1] ; i++ , this.age++ ){
if( i == ( this.age - this.Inventor.age ) ){
this.Inventor.createObject();
}
this.CalendarYear[i] = this.performYear(i);
}
return this;
}
public CalendarYear performYear(int year){
if ( year == this.yearOfInvention ){
new Hiperlink Hh(this, randomizeVars());
He then put the napkin back into his wallet and said :
"You see, this is the beginning of the theory behind my Quantum Entanglement and also her HiperLink Company. She had no more space here, so I never found out the rest..."
Tuesday, 20 July 2010
Entry 8 - The Little Prince
He will be known as the Barbarian King,and later the Everlasting Emperor, but at the time I first met him he was a prince of a small kingdom, stranded in the beginning of the first millennium, and known only as Aak'r, fourth and last in the line of succession to the throne, the Little Prince.
He was a big man, standing 7 feet tall, long black hair waving in the wind, strong muscles and dark powerful eyes. In his hand he holds a big sword, too big for a normal men to wield with both hands. He was on top of a hill, looking down on a group of maybe 100 men, all armed with swords or axes and dressed in animal skins. Commanding those men was his brother, Prince Heir, a man half his size, dressed in heavy looking plates and with hate on his eyes as he screamed : "Ebony is my wife! She will be until the day I die, little brother!"
"Then you shall die today!"
Aak'r raised his sword, and from behind him came not more than 20 men, all armed with big swords, bodies painted in the blood of wild beasts, eyes blind with the fury of war. The Little Prince ran down the hill, and the Heir hid behind his troops. The first line was smashed under Aak'r's bigger men, and the prince him self sliced one of his brother's chieftains in half, laughing while the blood splattered on his naked torso, the joy of battle overcoming fear and reason. We swung the big sword, cutting a arm and bashing a skull. "I COMING FOR YOU BIG BROTHER!" he screamed, kicking another man and running his sword through his hearth.
Vastly outnumbered, but stronger, fighting from above and enthralled by their leader's words of rage, Aak'r's men had the battle won swiftly and bloodily, more than half of the Prince Heir's troops dead, and from those who survived, some had ran away, some had laid their weapons on the floor. The two brothers faced, one in armor and fear, sword raised trying to protect his face form his brother, that was towering above him.
The Little Prince dropped his sword and dismissed the Heir's with a swift blow from his left hand. With the other hand he grabbed his brother by the neck, lifting his feet from the ground.
"Ebony wishes to be with ME!"
The sound of broken bones, as Aak'r crushed the neck echoed trough the stale, blood filled air. Among the defeated men cries of horror joined the sound of the Little Prince cutting open his brother's dead body and ripping the heart out. He sliced through the heart with his teeth and with blood running down his face he laughed, loud. Around him his men join in the laughter as they got rid of the defeated army.
Later this would be known as the beginning of a rise to power that would sweep the Secret System from link to link and bring war to all the towns in the world, but at the time it was no more than a brother taking back his toy from another...
He was a big man, standing 7 feet tall, long black hair waving in the wind, strong muscles and dark powerful eyes. In his hand he holds a big sword, too big for a normal men to wield with both hands. He was on top of a hill, looking down on a group of maybe 100 men, all armed with swords or axes and dressed in animal skins. Commanding those men was his brother, Prince Heir, a man half his size, dressed in heavy looking plates and with hate on his eyes as he screamed : "Ebony is my wife! She will be until the day I die, little brother!"
"Then you shall die today!"
Aak'r raised his sword, and from behind him came not more than 20 men, all armed with big swords, bodies painted in the blood of wild beasts, eyes blind with the fury of war. The Little Prince ran down the hill, and the Heir hid behind his troops. The first line was smashed under Aak'r's bigger men, and the prince him self sliced one of his brother's chieftains in half, laughing while the blood splattered on his naked torso, the joy of battle overcoming fear and reason. We swung the big sword, cutting a arm and bashing a skull. "I COMING FOR YOU BIG BROTHER!" he screamed, kicking another man and running his sword through his hearth.
Vastly outnumbered, but stronger, fighting from above and enthralled by their leader's words of rage, Aak'r's men had the battle won swiftly and bloodily, more than half of the Prince Heir's troops dead, and from those who survived, some had ran away, some had laid their weapons on the floor. The two brothers faced, one in armor and fear, sword raised trying to protect his face form his brother, that was towering above him.
The Little Prince dropped his sword and dismissed the Heir's with a swift blow from his left hand. With the other hand he grabbed his brother by the neck, lifting his feet from the ground.
"Ebony wishes to be with ME!"
The sound of broken bones, as Aak'r crushed the neck echoed trough the stale, blood filled air. Among the defeated men cries of horror joined the sound of the Little Prince cutting open his brother's dead body and ripping the heart out. He sliced through the heart with his teeth and with blood running down his face he laughed, loud. Around him his men join in the laughter as they got rid of the defeated army.
Later this would be known as the beginning of a rise to power that would sweep the Secret System from link to link and bring war to all the towns in the world, but at the time it was no more than a brother taking back his toy from another...
Monday, 19 July 2010
Entry 7 - Dark city
It was a cold night, and the wind kept trying to steal my hat. I had one hand over it, pressing hard, as I walked up the street. This was my first time in the city in many years, but noting seemed to change. The little coffee at the corner was still there, empty but for the police inspector and the waitress, on their eternal game of attraction. Her face had couple new wrinkles, his hair a few more whites, but they were there just like they were when I first met Her.
It was a night just like this one. I had just arrived and I was sitting on the corner table, a bottle of vintage Brandy next to me, a glass in my hand. I was smoking a cigarette, and unsure of what to do next when she entered. She wore a short dress, firehouse red like her lips. The long blond hair fell on her back, slightly curly at the tips. My eyes caught hers, pale blue eyes like a clean sky, and her lips twisted with half a smile as she walked towards me.
She sat, silent, took one of my cigarettes form the pack on the table and waited for me to light it. I fumbled taking the metal lighter from my pocket and my hand shook while she inhaled, making the tip turn as red as her dress. She smoke half of it and stretched for the ashtray. What do you do with a cigarette after you've finished it? Do you put it out? Kill it? Mutilate it? What she did was love with it. And then she threw it away into the ashtray, not ever to see it again. At that moment I knew I'd be in love with her for the rest of my life.
She grabbed my glass, drank it, and walked to the door. From the door she looked at me and said, in a voice angels could only dream to have "I'll see you again next week" and left me there, alone with the bottle and my cigarettes once again. Hours or days or maybe years later, the waitress asked me to leave. I walked the streets until I found a motel. I got myself a room, paid for a full week and spent it looking at the ceiling.
That week went by slow. I found things to do by day, working for food and money for a bottle at the coffee by night. I'd be there everyday from 9pm until the waitress signaled me it was time to go. The police inspector was always there too, having his scotch. He'd sip it slowly and make it last all night.
One nigh, a full week and two days after the day I first saw her, the inspector wasn't there when I arrived. The waitress was less friendly, and almost broke the bottle after serving my first glass of the night. I paid and was left alone, waiting.
She came that night, wearing a black party dress, lips of a deep blood red, the color of the jewel in her black pearl necklace. Once again she came to my table, took one of the cigarettes and smoke it. She then smiled and said : "Let's go dance".
She moved like a cat, and we danced for hours, in the little ballroom down the street until it closed, and we stepped outside into the rain, still dancing. We watched the sun rising on the sea shore, my coat on her shoulders, my arm around her waist, her arm on my shoulder, her mouth on my mouth.
That's my last recollection of the night. Next day the sun shines down on my eyes, head aching with pain, and I am on my motel room alone. On the night stand, I see a paper shred with a lipstick kiss on it, that I carry on my wallet to this day.
I went to the coffee again that night. The Police inspector was back, telling the waitress of a case he had to attend the night before. The owner of a jewelery shop called the police after waking up on the floor. He had seen a stunning blond woman wearing black walk in. She asked for the Heart Of The Night, a necklace with four tiers of extremely rare natural Black Pearls, and two gold hands holding a ruby the size and shape of a newborn baby's heart. The shop owner gave it to her and all went black. When he came back to his senses, both the lady and the Heart Of The Night were gone.
I knew who had the necklace, she told me it was a family heirloom, a memory of her mother, "the last one I have" she said, "I've had since she died".
She never showed up again, and the Police Inspector never found out what happened to the necklace. A few days after I left that town, swearing never to return.
Last week I saw a old lady, a duchess of somewhere, wearing a necklace with four tiers of black pearls, and a pair of golden hands holding a heart of ruby, and I came back, looking for Her.
It was a night just like this one. I had just arrived and I was sitting on the corner table, a bottle of vintage Brandy next to me, a glass in my hand. I was smoking a cigarette, and unsure of what to do next when she entered. She wore a short dress, firehouse red like her lips. The long blond hair fell on her back, slightly curly at the tips. My eyes caught hers, pale blue eyes like a clean sky, and her lips twisted with half a smile as she walked towards me.
She sat, silent, took one of my cigarettes form the pack on the table and waited for me to light it. I fumbled taking the metal lighter from my pocket and my hand shook while she inhaled, making the tip turn as red as her dress. She smoke half of it and stretched for the ashtray. What do you do with a cigarette after you've finished it? Do you put it out? Kill it? Mutilate it? What she did was love with it. And then she threw it away into the ashtray, not ever to see it again. At that moment I knew I'd be in love with her for the rest of my life.
She grabbed my glass, drank it, and walked to the door. From the door she looked at me and said, in a voice angels could only dream to have "I'll see you again next week" and left me there, alone with the bottle and my cigarettes once again. Hours or days or maybe years later, the waitress asked me to leave. I walked the streets until I found a motel. I got myself a room, paid for a full week and spent it looking at the ceiling.
That week went by slow. I found things to do by day, working for food and money for a bottle at the coffee by night. I'd be there everyday from 9pm until the waitress signaled me it was time to go. The police inspector was always there too, having his scotch. He'd sip it slowly and make it last all night.
One nigh, a full week and two days after the day I first saw her, the inspector wasn't there when I arrived. The waitress was less friendly, and almost broke the bottle after serving my first glass of the night. I paid and was left alone, waiting.
She came that night, wearing a black party dress, lips of a deep blood red, the color of the jewel in her black pearl necklace. Once again she came to my table, took one of the cigarettes and smoke it. She then smiled and said : "Let's go dance".
She moved like a cat, and we danced for hours, in the little ballroom down the street until it closed, and we stepped outside into the rain, still dancing. We watched the sun rising on the sea shore, my coat on her shoulders, my arm around her waist, her arm on my shoulder, her mouth on my mouth.
That's my last recollection of the night. Next day the sun shines down on my eyes, head aching with pain, and I am on my motel room alone. On the night stand, I see a paper shred with a lipstick kiss on it, that I carry on my wallet to this day.
I went to the coffee again that night. The Police inspector was back, telling the waitress of a case he had to attend the night before. The owner of a jewelery shop called the police after waking up on the floor. He had seen a stunning blond woman wearing black walk in. She asked for the Heart Of The Night, a necklace with four tiers of extremely rare natural Black Pearls, and two gold hands holding a ruby the size and shape of a newborn baby's heart. The shop owner gave it to her and all went black. When he came back to his senses, both the lady and the Heart Of The Night were gone.
I knew who had the necklace, she told me it was a family heirloom, a memory of her mother, "the last one I have" she said, "I've had since she died".
She never showed up again, and the Police Inspector never found out what happened to the necklace. A few days after I left that town, swearing never to return.
Last week I saw a old lady, a duchess of somewhere, wearing a necklace with four tiers of black pearls, and a pair of golden hands holding a heart of ruby, and I came back, looking for Her.
Thursday, 15 July 2010
entry 6 - Mad Scientist
He was insane. Crazy, mad, a lunatic. There wasn't a single drop of sanity in him. He said his name was Dr. Emeritus Artur F. Onzi. But he also said he was The Great Merlin of Britain, King Tut and "one of life's little working ants".
I met him at a coffee shop, on the coffee shop district of the city of South Iforgot. Not that I forgot, that was really the name of the town : South Iforgot, 40 miles east of North Iforgot. No, I'm not making this up. Some links are just like this, totally insane. That's why he wasn't really out of place there, being also utterly mad.
It was a coffee shop managed by hipster artists, frequented by a strange mix of poets, painters, killers and mad scientists. Arthur, as I've decided to call him hence forth, being the most human sounding name he gave me, was a member of the last group. He was one white lab coat short of a movie mad scientist anyway.
I entered the coffee shop, looking for a coffee, ended up having a cup of tea, after the aspiring actress that took my order, told me that they were a tea house called "The Coffee Shop" for irony, since they didn't serve coffee. On my left was a killer, I'm sure. Not so much because he wore a whore's whole skull in his shoulder, more because he kept pointing at it and telling me, or any other person that happened to be in the vicinities what was that skull he had.
On my right was a man in dark shirt, dark pants and dark hat, and he looked happy, so happy indeed that I had to ask what was it that he was celebrating. I somewhat regretted asking that when he picked up his glass of poison (or vodka as he called it), came next to me, hand in my shoulder, and started speaking, rolling his words and going back and forth, in the good drunken tradition. What he said translated into "Maaaaaan, I'm happy, oh so happy, happy happy happy! Want to know why I'm happy? I'm happy because my wife cheated on me! Oh yes she did, God bless her! She cheated on me, on my bed, with my best friend! She did! Oh joy!"
I must have looked surprised because he looked at me, and did his best impression of someone sober when he said "I am a poet.". He then finished his drink and turned his back on me.
It was about that time that Arthur entered, looked around the room, and came straight to me : "You. You are not from here. You are like me, from another place!"
I was too surprised to reply, and even if I weren't he gave me no time to. He sit on my table, spilling my tea, and resume talking : "You see, I found the secret of quantum entanglement! I found it, and I found it alone! They say it's theirs, that I'm just one in a team, that I, The Great Lord Of Dimensions and Space and Time am but a part of the team! I! I the magnificent Mule of dimensions! I! Shame on them and good riddance to all of them I say! AHAHHAHAH! Let them catch me now, let the 'team'" - you could hear the quotes in team - "rebuild the machine now! Let them do it after I broke it! AH! You see, I am what made the world exist, for I am God! I've traveled everywhere and if somewhere I wanted to go wasn't there yet, I created it! Oh the fools! The damn fools! They think they know how! AH!"
"Pleased to meet you too" - was my answer.
"We must go. IT is almost here." - was his verbal answer. His physical one was to drag me out of the table, out of the coffee shop. Once there he started talking again: "How did you get here? Never mind that." - there was no pause between sentences - "You'll go with me. I have it hidden, hidden in plain sight, oh such a genius I am! Emeritus Doctor, they made me for my brilliance! Come come now! Fast! Just right there at the corner! I can smell IT!" - Whatever IT was, Arthur never explained, and he was afraid of it. I believe it was IT that made him this crazy.
"Quick, into the box! Trust me, I'm not mad!" - He almost lost me there, for if he was one thing it was crazy. He jumped into a cardboard box - "the first one was the size of my lab, the next one will fit in my wallet! AH! They said it was impossible you know? Come on, climb! Let's show them!" - inside the box there was a small switch, and as soon as I entered, pulled by the arm he had not let go off, he switched it on. It was a browser, a machine to travel between links. It appeared to have no steering, no way to indicate destiny, just a on-off switch.
The box landed in a really small island, complete with palm tree and a empty bottle. The rest of that day I spent there listening to Arthur. He had a theory that he tried to explain me, about Quantum Entanglement and inter-dimensional time travel and how that would create a new universe every time you jumped. It somehow evolved peach jam, Japanese heavy metal and a gypsy priest.
He talked a lot, and the things he said were either totally insane or just half-insane. One of his monologues I remember quite well, for I've been craving a roasted pork leg ever since I started following this links.
"Once " - he started - "I went to ancient Egypt. At the time it was but a giant desert, ruled by one semi-divine king. No not me... Kings had a strange tendency to wake up dead. Anyway, I'd been traveling for years, and I had a craving for some nice oven roasted pork. I had the spices, and I could easily find a pig, yet I had no oven. That's why I designed the pyramids, you know? To cook my pork leg. It took me eleven years to build and two entire days, but I had a nice tasty roasted pork leg by the end of it. The best one I ever had!"
The next day Arthur was gone when I woke up. All he left behind was a small note : "What I miss more is my cat. That sweet, evil cat."
I met him at a coffee shop, on the coffee shop district of the city of South Iforgot. Not that I forgot, that was really the name of the town : South Iforgot, 40 miles east of North Iforgot. No, I'm not making this up. Some links are just like this, totally insane. That's why he wasn't really out of place there, being also utterly mad.
It was a coffee shop managed by hipster artists, frequented by a strange mix of poets, painters, killers and mad scientists. Arthur, as I've decided to call him hence forth, being the most human sounding name he gave me, was a member of the last group. He was one white lab coat short of a movie mad scientist anyway.
I entered the coffee shop, looking for a coffee, ended up having a cup of tea, after the aspiring actress that took my order, told me that they were a tea house called "The Coffee Shop" for irony, since they didn't serve coffee. On my left was a killer, I'm sure. Not so much because he wore a whore's whole skull in his shoulder, more because he kept pointing at it and telling me, or any other person that happened to be in the vicinities what was that skull he had.
On my right was a man in dark shirt, dark pants and dark hat, and he looked happy, so happy indeed that I had to ask what was it that he was celebrating. I somewhat regretted asking that when he picked up his glass of poison (or vodka as he called it), came next to me, hand in my shoulder, and started speaking, rolling his words and going back and forth, in the good drunken tradition. What he said translated into "Maaaaaan, I'm happy, oh so happy, happy happy happy! Want to know why I'm happy? I'm happy because my wife cheated on me! Oh yes she did, God bless her! She cheated on me, on my bed, with my best friend! She did! Oh joy!"
I must have looked surprised because he looked at me, and did his best impression of someone sober when he said "I am a poet.". He then finished his drink and turned his back on me.
It was about that time that Arthur entered, looked around the room, and came straight to me : "You. You are not from here. You are like me, from another place!"
I was too surprised to reply, and even if I weren't he gave me no time to. He sit on my table, spilling my tea, and resume talking : "You see, I found the secret of quantum entanglement! I found it, and I found it alone! They say it's theirs, that I'm just one in a team, that I, The Great Lord Of Dimensions and Space and Time am but a part of the team! I! I the magnificent Mule of dimensions! I! Shame on them and good riddance to all of them I say! AHAHHAHAH! Let them catch me now, let the 'team'" - you could hear the quotes in team - "rebuild the machine now! Let them do it after I broke it! AH! You see, I am what made the world exist, for I am God! I've traveled everywhere and if somewhere I wanted to go wasn't there yet, I created it! Oh the fools! The damn fools! They think they know how! AH!"
"Pleased to meet you too" - was my answer.
"We must go. IT is almost here." - was his verbal answer. His physical one was to drag me out of the table, out of the coffee shop. Once there he started talking again: "How did you get here? Never mind that." - there was no pause between sentences - "You'll go with me. I have it hidden, hidden in plain sight, oh such a genius I am! Emeritus Doctor, they made me for my brilliance! Come come now! Fast! Just right there at the corner! I can smell IT!" - Whatever IT was, Arthur never explained, and he was afraid of it. I believe it was IT that made him this crazy.
"Quick, into the box! Trust me, I'm not mad!" - He almost lost me there, for if he was one thing it was crazy. He jumped into a cardboard box - "the first one was the size of my lab, the next one will fit in my wallet! AH! They said it was impossible you know? Come on, climb! Let's show them!" - inside the box there was a small switch, and as soon as I entered, pulled by the arm he had not let go off, he switched it on. It was a browser, a machine to travel between links. It appeared to have no steering, no way to indicate destiny, just a on-off switch.
The box landed in a really small island, complete with palm tree and a empty bottle. The rest of that day I spent there listening to Arthur. He had a theory that he tried to explain me, about Quantum Entanglement and inter-dimensional time travel and how that would create a new universe every time you jumped. It somehow evolved peach jam, Japanese heavy metal and a gypsy priest.
He talked a lot, and the things he said were either totally insane or just half-insane. One of his monologues I remember quite well, for I've been craving a roasted pork leg ever since I started following this links.
"Once " - he started - "I went to ancient Egypt. At the time it was but a giant desert, ruled by one semi-divine king. No not me... Kings had a strange tendency to wake up dead. Anyway, I'd been traveling for years, and I had a craving for some nice oven roasted pork. I had the spices, and I could easily find a pig, yet I had no oven. That's why I designed the pyramids, you know? To cook my pork leg. It took me eleven years to build and two entire days, but I had a nice tasty roasted pork leg by the end of it. The best one I ever had!"
The next day Arthur was gone when I woke up. All he left behind was a small note : "What I miss more is my cat. That sweet, evil cat."
Tuesday, 13 July 2010
Entry 5 - Savannah
His name was Richard Excelsior Almighty Victorious Young, he was a Nerd and he was angry with his parental units. The name was just one of the reasons why he was angry. The other reason was, even if less constant, at the time more enraging. He was to stay home and miss the Halloween dance at high school. He was 16 years old, top student of the class, didn't smoke, drink or do drugs, yet he had to stay home, because "Halloween is the feast of the devil" and "We praise the Lord in this house" and "You will be grounded out of your heathen ways". Rick would show them. The parental units would be seeing television, the Reverend's channel. Now he was almost happy that they had asked him to set up a television server linked to all the computers... With a text-to-voice software he recorded a ten minute sermon on the dangers of withholding your kids at home when they wish to go out and experiment the dark ways of the pagan folk. Rick was specially proud of the "The only way to see the light is to walk on darkness before" bit. He was watching the show on his computer screen and waiting for the Reverend to start the regular 8h30pm 10 minutes speech and stream his own soundtrack to it. He was so proud of his work that he listened to it instead of listening to the news on the radio, like he used to do. Had he heard the news, he wouldn't have been so happy when five minutes after the speech ended the parental units entered his room and said they had seen the error in locking him and forbidding him to go.
He dressed his homemade Rambo suit really quick and left for the dance. He should be there in 10 minutes, by bike. It took him 7, and he had to slow down for the girl scouts and keep his AK-47 Super Soaker from hitting his knees. If he wasn't in such a hurry he might have noticed the young man, dressed as a space pirate, inside the circle of girls, and that he was fighting for his life, with a spiked flail in hand. The last Rick could have seen of him was the flail hitting a piggy tailed girl scout on the arm.
The high school was deserted, as expected, and Rick followed the music into the gym. he stopped at the door, adjusted the red head band, grabbed the AK-47 'movie style' and kicked the door open.
When the door opened he noticed that the "music" was nothing more than static. The gym was empty. There were half filled cups on the tables and spilled cups on the floor. Rick glanced at his watch, making sure he wasn't later than he thought. The dace should have started 40 minutes early and it should still be going one for the next two hours, but nobody was on sight. He walked around the gym, and screamed like a little girl when he saw the arm coming from under the table.
When Rick got his breath back he slowly ducked and looked under the table, to see a boys body attached to the arm, and comically dressed in a pink cowboy costume. Rick screamed again, a little less little-girlish this time, and stepped back until he hit the wall. It took him a few seconds to recover, eyes closed and breathing deep. When he opened his eyes, he went to the DJ set table and turned the sound off, only start hearing cries of affliction on the distance. Holding his fake AK-47 next to his body he slowly walked out into the school yard, trying to understand where the sounds were coming from. When he thought he knew where they were, we went back into the gym, and then ran to his bike. Once there he tried calling the cops, but his phone got no signal, as it always was , night time in Savannah.
He followed the road into the sound, stopping at the police station just to find it empty, and kept going. The woods were only a few more meters ahead, and Rick heard the cries closer, more desperate.
The last thing he saw was a little girl in a girl scout uniform, with pig tails and a scar in her arm. She was smiling when she said "good night Richard".
He dressed his homemade Rambo suit really quick and left for the dance. He should be there in 10 minutes, by bike. It took him 7, and he had to slow down for the girl scouts and keep his AK-47 Super Soaker from hitting his knees. If he wasn't in such a hurry he might have noticed the young man, dressed as a space pirate, inside the circle of girls, and that he was fighting for his life, with a spiked flail in hand. The last Rick could have seen of him was the flail hitting a piggy tailed girl scout on the arm.
The high school was deserted, as expected, and Rick followed the music into the gym. he stopped at the door, adjusted the red head band, grabbed the AK-47 'movie style' and kicked the door open.
When the door opened he noticed that the "music" was nothing more than static. The gym was empty. There were half filled cups on the tables and spilled cups on the floor. Rick glanced at his watch, making sure he wasn't later than he thought. The dace should have started 40 minutes early and it should still be going one for the next two hours, but nobody was on sight. He walked around the gym, and screamed like a little girl when he saw the arm coming from under the table.
When Rick got his breath back he slowly ducked and looked under the table, to see a boys body attached to the arm, and comically dressed in a pink cowboy costume. Rick screamed again, a little less little-girlish this time, and stepped back until he hit the wall. It took him a few seconds to recover, eyes closed and breathing deep. When he opened his eyes, he went to the DJ set table and turned the sound off, only start hearing cries of affliction on the distance. Holding his fake AK-47 next to his body he slowly walked out into the school yard, trying to understand where the sounds were coming from. When he thought he knew where they were, we went back into the gym, and then ran to his bike. Once there he tried calling the cops, but his phone got no signal, as it always was , night time in Savannah.
He followed the road into the sound, stopping at the police station just to find it empty, and kept going. The woods were only a few more meters ahead, and Rick heard the cries closer, more desperate.
The last thing he saw was a little girl in a girl scout uniform, with pig tails and a scar in her arm. She was smiling when she said "good night Richard".
Monday, 12 July 2010
entry 4 - time traveling observation deck
The high tower loomed over the wasteland this time. He, a green being with long hair and a weird name, looked over the great observation window and sighed. "It's too soon to find people in here" - he thought - "I'll go and get some sleep". He left a #goodMorning on the wall and logged off into sleep.
When he woke up, a couple of hours after, the tower was in the middle of a ocean, waves rolling against the shinny metal structure. The wall clock showed "00h54 - 15 May, 4125", this time. His clock, however, showed 10h30 in the morning, 12 Feb. 2034, the real time, outside the tower.
It was a no work day for him so he browsed the 'library' for new articles. The daily corridor was still empty, but the yesterday one had a couple new posts. The science ones he didn't get much into, so he went past them, reading just the headlines. There was one for that new movie, Dancing With Alien Wolves, a re-imagination of the James Cameron classic. As far as he could tell they were messing with the story, creating new characters and 'updating the script to moder times', according to the article. Instead of a evil corporation, there would be a evil cult, trying to destroy the mines of the peaceful business people of Pandora, and overthrowing the Pandorian World Corp, a network of small companies. Jake would still be a paralytic soldier, at least that they would keep...
He got to the replies - "A bit of trolling in the morning to make me less pissed at life" - and laughed. When ever they did remakes/re-imaginations/reboots of classic movies, there was sure to be fan fighting in the comments, and this particular article didn't disappoint.
When he finished reading it, he went back to the room, the year was 250.000 BCE and primitive men were attacking it with sticks and stones.A post-human woman, with a extension-arm, was at the window, sang the old child limerick : "sticks and stone may break my bones...". Next to her a British Gentleman wrote something about the apparent emptiness of the main room at the time.
He got next to them in time to see a Wookie arriving with a big billboard poster of a old movie. The Wookie growled something about a birthday, and sat in a chair, next to the poster. "This place is all dirty" - he said to the British man. "We should get a maid. A french maid to clean this up, don't you recon old chap?" - Said the British.
He agreed and the talk diverted to the short uniforms said maid would use. The woman with the extension-arm looked at them with murder in the eyes and left for work. Soon in her place was a salesmen, with knifes and swords and cigars, and this time only, a robotic maid. When the salesman saw he wouldn't be selling anything he left and went to the meeting room.
People started to enter the main room now, glancing out the window, and either talking with some one or just standing there. A man-sized building complex built a kids playground at some time and the British man went to discuss it with him.
He was alone again. In the meeting room people were talking, topics jumping from one to the other fast. The extensible lady was there, and so was the salesman, and some others. He sat next to the door and glanced at the main room from time to time, but it was still soon in the day. A man with a hammer in hand came, a ruthless look in his face, and five more classic actors were hanged next to the one the Wookie, now long gone, had posted. The British gentleman lost his classy pose and drooled over one of actors, a pretty girl, until a Zombie General came and started gossiping about her. The Wookie joined them and they started a friendly argument.
Back in the meeting room, the green being discussed his future empire and the positions he would give them if they wished. From the back of his eye he saw the British gentleman with a flame thrower, burning someone that had committed the crime of disagreeing.
"Time for me to go" - he said, fearing the flamethrower. He got up and logged off again, noticing the flying cars outside, and the city surrounding them. On the big clock the year was now 2754.
When he woke up, a couple of hours after, the tower was in the middle of a ocean, waves rolling against the shinny metal structure. The wall clock showed "00h54 - 15 May, 4125", this time. His clock, however, showed 10h30 in the morning, 12 Feb. 2034, the real time, outside the tower.
It was a no work day for him so he browsed the 'library' for new articles. The daily corridor was still empty, but the yesterday one had a couple new posts. The science ones he didn't get much into, so he went past them, reading just the headlines. There was one for that new movie, Dancing With Alien Wolves, a re-imagination of the James Cameron classic. As far as he could tell they were messing with the story, creating new characters and 'updating the script to moder times', according to the article. Instead of a evil corporation, there would be a evil cult, trying to destroy the mines of the peaceful business people of Pandora, and overthrowing the Pandorian World Corp, a network of small companies. Jake would still be a paralytic soldier, at least that they would keep...
He got to the replies - "A bit of trolling in the morning to make me less pissed at life" - and laughed. When ever they did remakes/re-imaginations/reboots of classic movies, there was sure to be fan fighting in the comments, and this particular article didn't disappoint.
When he finished reading it, he went back to the room, the year was 250.000 BCE and primitive men were attacking it with sticks and stones.A post-human woman, with a extension-arm, was at the window, sang the old child limerick : "sticks and stone may break my bones...". Next to her a British Gentleman wrote something about the apparent emptiness of the main room at the time.
He got next to them in time to see a Wookie arriving with a big billboard poster of a old movie. The Wookie growled something about a birthday, and sat in a chair, next to the poster. "This place is all dirty" - he said to the British man. "We should get a maid. A french maid to clean this up, don't you recon old chap?" - Said the British.
He agreed and the talk diverted to the short uniforms said maid would use. The woman with the extension-arm looked at them with murder in the eyes and left for work. Soon in her place was a salesmen, with knifes and swords and cigars, and this time only, a robotic maid. When the salesman saw he wouldn't be selling anything he left and went to the meeting room.
People started to enter the main room now, glancing out the window, and either talking with some one or just standing there. A man-sized building complex built a kids playground at some time and the British man went to discuss it with him.
He was alone again. In the meeting room people were talking, topics jumping from one to the other fast. The extensible lady was there, and so was the salesman, and some others. He sat next to the door and glanced at the main room from time to time, but it was still soon in the day. A man with a hammer in hand came, a ruthless look in his face, and five more classic actors were hanged next to the one the Wookie, now long gone, had posted. The British gentleman lost his classy pose and drooled over one of actors, a pretty girl, until a Zombie General came and started gossiping about her. The Wookie joined them and they started a friendly argument.
Back in the meeting room, the green being discussed his future empire and the positions he would give them if they wished. From the back of his eye he saw the British gentleman with a flame thrower, burning someone that had committed the crime of disagreeing.
"Time for me to go" - he said, fearing the flamethrower. He got up and logged off again, noticing the flying cars outside, and the city surrounding them. On the big clock the year was now 2754.
Friday, 9 July 2010
entry 3 - the mouse that wishes to read more
I've been wandering trough hyperlinks for the past years. If you wonder why I started writing this only now, the reason is easy to explain : I had no notepad. I kid you not. The other day I met a mouse, among the dunes. I had just been linked from a 'vampire' filled town, and I was ranting out loud. A little mouse passed by me and started replying to my angered self. The vampire, werewolf and disturbed teen filled town had destroyed my hopes on mankind, made me furious, angered, irritated. She talked back to me, and we laughed at the ridicule. Then she asked who I was.
"You are not from here, your eyes are not blue within blue"
"I came from another place. From outside the System."
"And what are you doing here, how did you come to here?"
I did not wish to tell her, that meant thinking about it and I had long promised myself I would not think about that. So I answered only half question.
"I'm traveling the System, getting to know about each and every link. I listen to their stories and keep them in my head. If one day I return I'll write them down and the other world, the real world " - she interrupted me to say - "your real world you mean. This is MY real world. And in any link you will find a different world, but all of them real."
"Ok, MY real world, I will know and show them that there is more under the skin of my reality than what we can guess".
"Why do you wait to return before writing? Would it not be better to write now? Before you forget?"
"I have nowhere to write... I forgot my notebook..."
"Follow me then" - She ran in front of me, and I followed into a underground cave. As we entered, a giant worm (and I do mean giant!) exited the sand behind us and opened it's great mouth, screaming.
"We are safe inside, worry not."
She showed me where I could grab a notebook and a pen, and then she said, before disappearing : "I hope you return here to show me your stories! I want to read about the other links."
I had no time to answer, and I was left alone in a rock cave under the sea of sand, where I slept the night, afraid to go out. In the morning, there was no sign of the giant worm, nor of the little brown mouse, so I came back to the HyperLink, and I will now enter again...
"You are not from here, your eyes are not blue within blue"
"I came from another place. From outside the System."
"And what are you doing here, how did you come to here?"
I did not wish to tell her, that meant thinking about it and I had long promised myself I would not think about that. So I answered only half question.
"I'm traveling the System, getting to know about each and every link. I listen to their stories and keep them in my head. If one day I return I'll write them down and the other world, the real world " - she interrupted me to say - "your real world you mean. This is MY real world. And in any link you will find a different world, but all of them real."
"Ok, MY real world, I will know and show them that there is more under the skin of my reality than what we can guess".
"Why do you wait to return before writing? Would it not be better to write now? Before you forget?"
"I have nowhere to write... I forgot my notebook..."
"Follow me then" - She ran in front of me, and I followed into a underground cave. As we entered, a giant worm (and I do mean giant!) exited the sand behind us and opened it's great mouth, screaming.
"We are safe inside, worry not."
She showed me where I could grab a notebook and a pen, and then she said, before disappearing : "I hope you return here to show me your stories! I want to read about the other links."
I had no time to answer, and I was left alone in a rock cave under the sea of sand, where I slept the night, afraid to go out. In the morning, there was no sign of the giant worm, nor of the little brown mouse, so I came back to the HyperLink, and I will now enter again...
entry 2 - the wedding
Baleoth smiled with his eyes and grabbed her leftmost tentacle : "My dearest.. I love you. Your perfectly triangular, red eyes... red of passion! Your soft, long green fur, the color of blood... Your delicate touch, the way you hug me with all six tentacles, as if nothing else in the world is worth having... Your beak, the way you run it trough my skin.. I love you dearest, and I will yell at the Gods if they take you away from me!"
"Oh, Baleoth... And I love you too... I love your perfect body and your perfect mind, I love even your name... Baleoth... I love your name in my taste-glands, acid and cold... I want to lay your eggs, and sit on them for months... I long for the short beaks of our sons to break the eggshell and to see those small eyes looking at us.. Oh Baleoth I love you so"
The priest beak open and closed in a fast smile, a sign of joy and emotion. He rose all four of his free tentacles and read from the Book of Life :
"The Gods made the Neoumans to be above themselves. The Gods gave us Life and Love, and from Love we make more Life."
He made a short pause, smiled once more and then continued :
"In Love and for Life I pronounce you both as a Nest. May you cherish and flourish in it".
"Oh, Baleoth... And I love you too... I love your perfect body and your perfect mind, I love even your name... Baleoth... I love your name in my taste-glands, acid and cold... I want to lay your eggs, and sit on them for months... I long for the short beaks of our sons to break the eggshell and to see those small eyes looking at us.. Oh Baleoth I love you so"
The priest beak open and closed in a fast smile, a sign of joy and emotion. He rose all four of his free tentacles and read from the Book of Life :
"The Gods made the Neoumans to be above themselves. The Gods gave us Life and Love, and from Love we make more Life."
He made a short pause, smiled once more and then continued :
"In Love and for Life I pronounce you both as a Nest. May you cherish and flourish in it".
entry 0 - what is the Secret System?
My name is... Unimportant. I had a name ,once. And a family, and a house and all that thing that turns you into a person. Now all I have is this notepad and the adventures I live. The Secret System.. What is the secret system? Well, first of all, if you never heard of it, that's normal, it's secret. It exists at the same time and place that the rest of mankind. Yes you read it right, if you even exist. I write this for you, that elusive and strange being I feel looking over my shoulder. I can hear you breathing next to my ear when I'm running along in silence. And that one time, with the DreamFolk, I know I heard you scream!
But I digress. The Secret System exists in a fixed time slot, that runs along with our time slot, Mankind's time slot: I've been to the end of that time slot. I wish it was farther away... But there's no use in complaining. Not all will be lost at the end, I've been there, I've seen the end. Just because we all die, evolution won't stop, and there is something of us that survives... I digress again. Living in the System does this to you. You seem to lose focus...
I try once again : the Secret System is much like the internet, and not that much unlike our medieval world. It has not one, but several physical/temporal locations, connected trough travel portals, the 'HyperLinks'. Each such location is a reign, country, nation, what you call it. Some are as old has civilization, some are older, some are but a few days old. Some are small, I remember the room-city where the.. No, I will not tell of what happens there. I got out as soon as I could, should have had sooner. Some are big, huge, gigantic, with no end to see. You were there with me, you remember the Sea of Infinity and the Mountains of Forever and the Forest of Never-ending and the Immeasurable Desert. Some exist on the early Egyptian Civilization, some near the end of the World Coalition. For some reason, the greatest number of them co-exist with the 'regular' 21st century.
I've begun recently collecting and compiling memories of the inhabitants of the Secret System, and I shall write them down in this little, old, bartered notebook.
Now I go to sleep, in this 'my' little cabin in the woods. This the first I saw of the Secret Systems, and my first adventure here. But that is another story, for another entry...
But I digress. The Secret System exists in a fixed time slot, that runs along with our time slot, Mankind's time slot: I've been to the end of that time slot. I wish it was farther away... But there's no use in complaining. Not all will be lost at the end, I've been there, I've seen the end. Just because we all die, evolution won't stop, and there is something of us that survives... I digress again. Living in the System does this to you. You seem to lose focus...
I try once again : the Secret System is much like the internet, and not that much unlike our medieval world. It has not one, but several physical/temporal locations, connected trough travel portals, the 'HyperLinks'. Each such location is a reign, country, nation, what you call it. Some are as old has civilization, some are older, some are but a few days old. Some are small, I remember the room-city where the.. No, I will not tell of what happens there. I got out as soon as I could, should have had sooner. Some are big, huge, gigantic, with no end to see. You were there with me, you remember the Sea of Infinity and the Mountains of Forever and the Forest of Never-ending and the Immeasurable Desert. Some exist on the early Egyptian Civilization, some near the end of the World Coalition. For some reason, the greatest number of them co-exist with the 'regular' 21st century.
I've begun recently collecting and compiling memories of the inhabitants of the Secret System, and I shall write them down in this little, old, bartered notebook.
Now I go to sleep, in this 'my' little cabin in the woods. This the first I saw of the Secret Systems, and my first adventure here. But that is another story, for another entry...
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