“I’ve got an idea.”
I rolled my eyes. With Stan, that was never a good start to a conversation.
“Let’s hear it then.”
“Alright. Do you remember when the cube broke down in the 1800s, and we sent ourselves the replacement part from the future?”
“Yeah?”
“Well, I’ve adapted that program to run automatically. The cube will go back a random amount of time into the past by itself, grab a random object, and bring it back.”
“Like the classic 1974 Doctor Who serial, ‘Invasion of the Dinosaurs’, you mean?”
Stan hates it when science fiction beats him to a good idea.
“Well, yeah. Except you know how you’re always telling me I need to be more spontaneous? I’ve got a plan for some pranks we could pull.”
“Stan, planning your pranks isn’t exactly being spontaneous. Just juvenile.”
“Nonono, see, the time period is random! So we have no idea what we’re going to get!”
“Stan, if I end up with a bitter brontosaur on my breakfast table-”
“Don’t be stupid. We’ll do it in the street.”
“-or a savage stegosaur on my street-”
“Or downtown.”
“-or a distraught diplodocus downtown-”
“Or, I don’t know. Anywhere.”
“-or an angry ankylosaur in my anywhere, which I have to somehow deal with...”
“Stop it.”
“...I will be one pissed pterodactyl.”
“And that doesn’t even alliterate properly!”
Stan plays his pranks. I play mine.
Fictitious Casual Fridays
10.11.11
6.11.11
Broken record
[You'll need to read this first.]
There’s a crackle in the air. Then-
“-don’t know what’s wrong, it’s like we hit some kind of brick wall. A brick wall made of time. Um.”
I looked around. We were in a crowded street. and while I’m not exactly what you’d call an expert on fashion, I could tell we’d arrived a bit earlier than we’d intended.
“Stan? I think we’ve screwed up.”
“Yeah. The dimensional quantum filter is completely fried, I’m going to have to build a new one.”
“I meant with the destination”
“What makes you say that?”
“Well, the hats and neckties for starters.”
Stan finally looked up from the cube, and into the faces of curious passersby.
“That... doesn’t make sense”
The looks weren’t getting any less strange. I decided we needed to get off our butts in the middle of the street. I looked around, and hauled Stan up.
“Come on. We’re going in here.”
I dragged him, protesting, into the nearest drinking establishment. Because if I learned one thing from spending my twenties broke in various countries, it’s that nobody asked questions in bars. I pushed my way through the crowd, and stuck Stan in an empty table up the back while I went for drinks.
“Two pints thanks, mate”
The barman looked skeptical.
“You’re not from ‘round here.”
“No. Just, uh, visiting.”
He kept polishing his glass. “You plannin’ to pay for those then?”
I dug through my pockets. First rule of time travel: carry antique currency.
“You take American Express?”
Blank look. Second rule of time travel: improvise. I dug a gimmicky plastic keychain out of my pocket.
“Look, can I open a tab? You can take this as, er, assurance or something”
“Never seen anythin’ like this before.”
My turn for a blank look. I have a mean blank stare.
“Right.”
--
I sat down next to Stan with the two pints. Unsurprisingly, he already has the cube wired in to his netbook. Sometimes I wonder if all that time travel fiction paid off at all. He certainly has no problems with flaunting his futuristic gear.
This coming from the guy who just paid for his drinks with a plastic keychain, mind.
Stan didn’t wait for me to ask what the problem was. He launched straight into one of his impenetrable explanations.
“We’re stuck. Specifically, we’re locked into a non-infinite causal temporal loop spanning a period of eighty-seven years, twenty four days, sixteen hours and twelve minutes. Give or take.”
Sometimes I swear he just makes this stuff up. I waited patiently for the metaphor. Stan’s metaphors are the stuff of legend.
“It’s like we’re on a scratched record. Actually, that’s not quite true. It’s like the cube is on a scratched record. It’s going to keep tracing the same eighty-seven years over and over again, until it hits the end of the loop pattern, in... about six thousand iterations time. Or until I fix it, which amounts to pretty much the same thing.”
“And how are you going to fix it?”
“Oh, it’s easy. Like I said before, I should be able to just swap out the dimensional quantum filter. It’s a thirty centimeter wide five-micron grille of technetium. There’s not even anything dynamic in there, it’s just a catalyst.”
“Great. So where do we get this techium stuff?”
“Oh, it’s pretty easy to synthesise. We should be out of here in a couple of weeks.”
“Synthesise?”
“Yeah, or salvage from spent nuclear fuel rods. I’m not fussy.”
“Fuel rods.”
“Yup.”
He looked absurdly pleased with himself.
“Stan? I don’t know how to tell you this... it’s probably going to be a while before you can get your stuff.”
“Nah, it’s easy. We’ve been synthesising it since the thirties-”
“Yeah.”
“Oh dear.”
“Yeah.”
I’d checked a newspaper by the door. It was 1856.
And then the air began to crackle. A small white sun exploded in front of us, followed closely by an unassuming brown cardboard box. On the side, in marker, was written TO: STAN AND JOE, NOVEMBER 6, 1856. We opened the box. Inside was a second time cube, a smallish metal flyswat-looking thing, two sets of clothes, and a book. Stan went straight for the cube. I went straight for the book.
“It’s the same cube! At different points in its own subjective timeframe. 87 years apart, so this point, right now, must be the other end of the loop...”
I tuned out, and flicked open the book. On the first page, in some very familiar handwriting, was a list:
THE RULES.
1. Always carry antique currency.
2. Be ready to improvise.
3. If in doubt, check the book.
4. Make sure you pay your bar tab.
5. Make sure you keep the book and send it back
6. Don’t let Stan try to break the loop.
7. Look out for-
“I think I can get out of the loop.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Why not? Look, I just cross these-”
A bolt of lightning exploded from the two cubes, knocking him to the floor.
7. Look out for the lightning.
I flicked through the rest of the book as Stan picked himself up. Every page, covered in scribbles, rules, notes, rants. A lifetime’s worth. I’d be willing to bet, eighty-seven years, twenty four days, sixteen hours and twelve minutes worth.
I flicked back to the inside cover. On a worn, faded slip of paper were a few simple equations, and four lines of text, this time in Stan’s writing. Before I could read it, Stan slid the same slip, 87 years younger across to me.
“This is bad.”
Technetium needed: 987g
Technetium present: 122g (12.3%)
Technetium first synthesised: 1936
This is iteration 97 of 466.
I slipped the paper inside the front of the book. It would be a long 87 years... and the next 87 didn’t look to be much different.
There’s a crackle in the air. Then-
“-don’t know what’s wrong, it’s like we hit some kind of brick wall. A brick wall made of time. Um.”
I looked around. We were in a crowded street. and while I’m not exactly what you’d call an expert on fashion, I could tell we’d arrived a bit earlier than we’d intended.
“Stan? I think we’ve screwed up.”
“Yeah. The dimensional quantum filter is completely fried, I’m going to have to build a new one.”
“I meant with the destination”
“What makes you say that?”
“Well, the hats and neckties for starters.”
Stan finally looked up from the cube, and into the faces of curious passersby.
“That... doesn’t make sense”
The looks weren’t getting any less strange. I decided we needed to get off our butts in the middle of the street. I looked around, and hauled Stan up.
“Come on. We’re going in here.”
I dragged him, protesting, into the nearest drinking establishment. Because if I learned one thing from spending my twenties broke in various countries, it’s that nobody asked questions in bars. I pushed my way through the crowd, and stuck Stan in an empty table up the back while I went for drinks.
“Two pints thanks, mate”
The barman looked skeptical.
“You’re not from ‘round here.”
“No. Just, uh, visiting.”
He kept polishing his glass. “You plannin’ to pay for those then?”
I dug through my pockets. First rule of time travel: carry antique currency.
“You take American Express?”
Blank look. Second rule of time travel: improvise. I dug a gimmicky plastic keychain out of my pocket.
“Look, can I open a tab? You can take this as, er, assurance or something”
“Never seen anythin’ like this before.”
My turn for a blank look. I have a mean blank stare.
“Right.”
--
I sat down next to Stan with the two pints. Unsurprisingly, he already has the cube wired in to his netbook. Sometimes I wonder if all that time travel fiction paid off at all. He certainly has no problems with flaunting his futuristic gear.
This coming from the guy who just paid for his drinks with a plastic keychain, mind.
Stan didn’t wait for me to ask what the problem was. He launched straight into one of his impenetrable explanations.
“We’re stuck. Specifically, we’re locked into a non-infinite causal temporal loop spanning a period of eighty-seven years, twenty four days, sixteen hours and twelve minutes. Give or take.”
Sometimes I swear he just makes this stuff up. I waited patiently for the metaphor. Stan’s metaphors are the stuff of legend.
“It’s like we’re on a scratched record. Actually, that’s not quite true. It’s like the cube is on a scratched record. It’s going to keep tracing the same eighty-seven years over and over again, until it hits the end of the loop pattern, in... about six thousand iterations time. Or until I fix it, which amounts to pretty much the same thing.”
“And how are you going to fix it?”
“Oh, it’s easy. Like I said before, I should be able to just swap out the dimensional quantum filter. It’s a thirty centimeter wide five-micron grille of technetium. There’s not even anything dynamic in there, it’s just a catalyst.”
“Great. So where do we get this techium stuff?”
“Oh, it’s pretty easy to synthesise. We should be out of here in a couple of weeks.”
“Synthesise?”
“Yeah, or salvage from spent nuclear fuel rods. I’m not fussy.”
“Fuel rods.”
“Yup.”
He looked absurdly pleased with himself.
“Stan? I don’t know how to tell you this... it’s probably going to be a while before you can get your stuff.”
“Nah, it’s easy. We’ve been synthesising it since the thirties-”
“Yeah.”
“Oh dear.”
“Yeah.”
I’d checked a newspaper by the door. It was 1856.
And then the air began to crackle. A small white sun exploded in front of us, followed closely by an unassuming brown cardboard box. On the side, in marker, was written TO: STAN AND JOE, NOVEMBER 6, 1856. We opened the box. Inside was a second time cube, a smallish metal flyswat-looking thing, two sets of clothes, and a book. Stan went straight for the cube. I went straight for the book.
“It’s the same cube! At different points in its own subjective timeframe. 87 years apart, so this point, right now, must be the other end of the loop...”
I tuned out, and flicked open the book. On the first page, in some very familiar handwriting, was a list:
THE RULES.
1. Always carry antique currency.
2. Be ready to improvise.
3. If in doubt, check the book.
4. Make sure you pay your bar tab.
5. Make sure you keep the book and send it back
6. Don’t let Stan try to break the loop.
7. Look out for-
“I think I can get out of the loop.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Why not? Look, I just cross these-”
A bolt of lightning exploded from the two cubes, knocking him to the floor.
7. Look out for the lightning.
I flicked through the rest of the book as Stan picked himself up. Every page, covered in scribbles, rules, notes, rants. A lifetime’s worth. I’d be willing to bet, eighty-seven years, twenty four days, sixteen hours and twelve minutes worth.
I flicked back to the inside cover. On a worn, faded slip of paper were a few simple equations, and four lines of text, this time in Stan’s writing. Before I could read it, Stan slid the same slip, 87 years younger across to me.
“This is bad.”
Technetium needed: 987g
Technetium present: 122g (12.3%)
Technetium first synthesised: 1936
This is iteration 97 of 466.
I slipped the paper inside the front of the book. It would be a long 87 years... and the next 87 didn’t look to be much different.
30.10.11
Eyes on the road.
We’re six and a half hours into a nine-hour car trip. It’s about two in the morning. I’m dying for a coffee, and our last pee break was two hours back. There are four of us in the car.
As far as I know, I’m the last one left alive.
Keep your eyes on the road.
It took Michael first. It can’t have been pretty. At first, I thought he was just dicking around. He wouldn’t pass the Cheetos. I think he may have broken his own arm. There was certainly a lot of snapping. And a lot of screaming.
Eyes on the road, Steven.
Ted followed pretty quick after that. About thirty seconds after, actually. Nice guy, Ted. Plays the guitar. Played the guitar. He was quicker to go than Mike. Hopefully that means it was less painful, although honestly I can’t see how anything involving that quantity of yelling could be entirely painless.
Keep driving. Just keep driving.
Tyler lasted a good hour more. We thought it might have gone, when he wasn’t next. It was during his hour that we thought it might be... well, an it. I mean, sure, Michael and Ted might have spontaneously done... that... to themselves. But I think we both felt it. I’d call it- no, not malevolence. Curiosity. The kind of detached, unethical curiosity which you’d imagine a mad scientist to have.
Focus. Eyes on the road.
As for what actually happened to Tyler, I can only speculate. After that hour or so, he just stopped talking. I knew better than to hope he’d gone to sleep. I kept theorising. What was it? What did it want? Why was it making us do the things we did?
And why couldn’t I bring myself to look?
Just keep your eyes on the road.
And now there’s just us. Me, and it. I think we have an understanding. I take it to where it wants to go. And it kills me. As arrangements go, it’s not the best. But it’s let me in on a few things. Some really interesting statistics about deaths on roads. And why you should never put antifreeze in your radiator in case you get stranded somewhere. Or maybe that’s my delusional mind.
Drive, Steven.
So I keep on driving-
I don’t have a shape.
I don’t ha- wait, what?
Shapes are too slow.
It’s- no, hold on. That’s not what I was thinking. What’s-
I’m just a thought.
Who’s just a thought?
I’m the reason you’re still driving.
I’m the reason who’s still driving?
I’m the reason you can’t look back.
I’m the reason I can’t look back?
Or down at your hands.
Or down at- at my- Oh Jesus Christ. What did I- It’s in my head, it must be-
Eyes on the road, Steven. Eyes on the road.
As far as I know, I’m the last one left alive.
Keep your eyes on the road.
It took Michael first. It can’t have been pretty. At first, I thought he was just dicking around. He wouldn’t pass the Cheetos. I think he may have broken his own arm. There was certainly a lot of snapping. And a lot of screaming.
Eyes on the road, Steven.
Ted followed pretty quick after that. About thirty seconds after, actually. Nice guy, Ted. Plays the guitar. Played the guitar. He was quicker to go than Mike. Hopefully that means it was less painful, although honestly I can’t see how anything involving that quantity of yelling could be entirely painless.
Keep driving. Just keep driving.
Tyler lasted a good hour more. We thought it might have gone, when he wasn’t next. It was during his hour that we thought it might be... well, an it. I mean, sure, Michael and Ted might have spontaneously done... that... to themselves. But I think we both felt it. I’d call it- no, not malevolence. Curiosity. The kind of detached, unethical curiosity which you’d imagine a mad scientist to have.
Focus. Eyes on the road.
As for what actually happened to Tyler, I can only speculate. After that hour or so, he just stopped talking. I knew better than to hope he’d gone to sleep. I kept theorising. What was it? What did it want? Why was it making us do the things we did?
And why couldn’t I bring myself to look?
Just keep your eyes on the road.
And now there’s just us. Me, and it. I think we have an understanding. I take it to where it wants to go. And it kills me. As arrangements go, it’s not the best. But it’s let me in on a few things. Some really interesting statistics about deaths on roads. And why you should never put antifreeze in your radiator in case you get stranded somewhere. Or maybe that’s my delusional mind.
Drive, Steven.
So I keep on driving-
I don’t have a shape.
I don’t ha- wait, what?
Shapes are too slow.
It’s- no, hold on. That’s not what I was thinking. What’s-
I’m just a thought.
Who’s just a thought?
I’m the reason you’re still driving.
I’m the reason who’s still driving?
I’m the reason you can’t look back.
I’m the reason I can’t look back?
Or down at your hands.
Or down at- at my- Oh Jesus Christ. What did I- It’s in my head, it must be-
Eyes on the road, Steven. Eyes on the road.
22.10.11
Pyramids
The tour bus clanked slowly to a stop, squeezing in between two massive American-owned monstrosities, and disgorged us unceremoniously into the stinking Cairo heat. And by ‘stinking Cairo heat’, I mean both stinking and Cairo literally. The pyramids aren’t nearly as far away as you think they are. There’s practically a KFC right next door.
As we trek up towards the vague triangular outlines in the smog, our cut-rate tour guide launches unenthusiastically into his spiel.
“Everyone has a different theory about who built the pyramids-”
Oh god, here we go.
“-and why. Many people feel that the pyramids have some kind of spiritual connection. Indeed, this is exactly what the ancient Egyptians felt. To them, the pyramid was like a beacon, pointing the way to the heavens...”
You know, I’m pretty sure most of the supposed “science” of Egyptology is made up. Most likely, on the spot. Anything to keep the paying tourists happy. And it’s not like we’ve got any way of fact-checking them-
I’m jolted out of my internal monologue by my sister’s elbow.
“Ow.”
“Pay attention, Louie, we’ve paid for this.”
“It’s all a load of crap”, I hissed back.
My sister’s a total sucker for all that mystical crap. That’s the reason I’m here against my will. I’m a marine biologist. I’m into science and rationality and so on and so forth, but more importantly, I’d rather be scuba diving on the Red sea right now. But no.
“...and maybe even extraterrestrial involvement.”
An appropriately impressed ‘ooh’, came up from the crowd, as if they hadn’t heard the ‘aliens built it’ trotted out a hundred times before.
We pushed our way past the hordes of locals trying to flog miniature plastic pyramids and prints of dubious-looking animal-headed gods. I tightened the straps on my backpack a little. It’s got a few hundred bucks worth of sensing equipment in it. Geiger counters, electric field detectors. A stethoscope. I borrowed most of it from mates. The plan is that when my sister inevitably ‘feels a presence’, I switch on all the sensing equipment, and make her prove it.
What? She has her fun, I have mine.
We finally got past the scalpers and hit the queue for the pyramids proper. The guide starts on some trivia dump about how they’re being ‘conserved’ (also known as ‘rebuilt using concrete blocks’). I’d long since stopped paying attention. As much as I hated the mystic bullshit, The question was a sticky one. Why would you build a massive geometrical stone structure for one dead guy? The nihilist in me put it down to trying to keep the masses employed and the economy moving. Like economic stimulus, but in a desert, miles from anywhere.
We hit the front of the queue surprisingly quickly. If there’s one thing the locals really were efficient about, it was pumping people through their ancient ruins as quickly as they possibly could. My sister giggled excitedly as we made our way, stooped all the way over.
“Ooh, Louis. Can’t you feel it?”
“Nope. Not a thing,” I said, squeezing against a wall to let a German couple past on their way back up.
“Well, you should try being more open minded.”
“You should try just occasionally looking at the abundance of evidence in front of you.”
“I’ve got evidence! I can feel... something.” she finished lamely.
“Right. And Newton went on ‘feelings’, did he?”
We bickered like this the rest of the way down into the chamber. Here’s something they don’t tell you about the Pyramids: there’s absolutely squat down there. No writing on the wall, no carvings, no nothing. Just an empty room and a big-ass coffin. A coffin my sister was now lying in. This was my chance.
“I can feel the energy,” her voice echoed from across the room.
“Oh yeah? What kind of energy? Kinetic or potential?”
“Shut up.”
And then, at the back of my head, something clicked. Stupid brain, thinking in metaphors-
Then something clicked again.
Hold on a sec. That was an actual physical click. I unslung my bag from my shoulder and scuffled around, coming up with my borrowed antique of a geiger counter.
Click.
Huh.
I started waving it around the room. The closer I got to the giant sarcophagus, the stronger and more frequent the clicks. I did a quick survey of the room. The coffin was the only thing in here. On a hunch, I threw the counter into the coffin.
“Ouch! What the hell is this?” My sister stood up, holding the counter, which was now emitting a dull roar.
“You need to get out of there. Now.”
“What?”
“I mean. Um. I’m claustrophobic. Can we go?”
She sighed, and swung her leg over the side of the coffin. I breathed a sigh of relief. Whatever had been kept in that coffin was spitting out vast quantities of ionising radiation. I wanted out.
I headed back up the shaft as quickly as I damn well could, ignoring the sighs and eye rolls from behind me. My mind was fizzing as much as my geiger counter had a few minutes ago. What on earth could cause that sort of a reaction in an ancient monument? I was baffled, and more than a bit scared. I spent the rest of the site tour in a bit of a stupor, flicking back through the readings, over and over, wondering if they had been real, and if they were... why?
It wasn’t until we were back on the bus that it clicked. A metaphorical click this time. And the worst part was how much sense it made. A giant imposing structure. Hidden entrance. Thousands of tonnes of stone. In the middle of the desert.
Imposing. Secure. Shielded. Remote.
Which left me with an impossible question in response to my impossible conclusion:
Why the hell would the Ancient Egyptians have needed to store nuclear waste?
As we trek up towards the vague triangular outlines in the smog, our cut-rate tour guide launches unenthusiastically into his spiel.
“Everyone has a different theory about who built the pyramids-”
Oh god, here we go.
“-and why. Many people feel that the pyramids have some kind of spiritual connection. Indeed, this is exactly what the ancient Egyptians felt. To them, the pyramid was like a beacon, pointing the way to the heavens...”
You know, I’m pretty sure most of the supposed “science” of Egyptology is made up. Most likely, on the spot. Anything to keep the paying tourists happy. And it’s not like we’ve got any way of fact-checking them-
I’m jolted out of my internal monologue by my sister’s elbow.
“Ow.”
“Pay attention, Louie, we’ve paid for this.”
“It’s all a load of crap”, I hissed back.
My sister’s a total sucker for all that mystical crap. That’s the reason I’m here against my will. I’m a marine biologist. I’m into science and rationality and so on and so forth, but more importantly, I’d rather be scuba diving on the Red sea right now. But no.
“...and maybe even extraterrestrial involvement.”
An appropriately impressed ‘ooh’, came up from the crowd, as if they hadn’t heard the ‘aliens built it’ trotted out a hundred times before.
We pushed our way past the hordes of locals trying to flog miniature plastic pyramids and prints of dubious-looking animal-headed gods. I tightened the straps on my backpack a little. It’s got a few hundred bucks worth of sensing equipment in it. Geiger counters, electric field detectors. A stethoscope. I borrowed most of it from mates. The plan is that when my sister inevitably ‘feels a presence’, I switch on all the sensing equipment, and make her prove it.
What? She has her fun, I have mine.
We finally got past the scalpers and hit the queue for the pyramids proper. The guide starts on some trivia dump about how they’re being ‘conserved’ (also known as ‘rebuilt using concrete blocks’). I’d long since stopped paying attention. As much as I hated the mystic bullshit, The question was a sticky one. Why would you build a massive geometrical stone structure for one dead guy? The nihilist in me put it down to trying to keep the masses employed and the economy moving. Like economic stimulus, but in a desert, miles from anywhere.
We hit the front of the queue surprisingly quickly. If there’s one thing the locals really were efficient about, it was pumping people through their ancient ruins as quickly as they possibly could. My sister giggled excitedly as we made our way, stooped all the way over.
“Ooh, Louis. Can’t you feel it?”
“Nope. Not a thing,” I said, squeezing against a wall to let a German couple past on their way back up.
“Well, you should try being more open minded.”
“You should try just occasionally looking at the abundance of evidence in front of you.”
“I’ve got evidence! I can feel... something.” she finished lamely.
“Right. And Newton went on ‘feelings’, did he?”
We bickered like this the rest of the way down into the chamber. Here’s something they don’t tell you about the Pyramids: there’s absolutely squat down there. No writing on the wall, no carvings, no nothing. Just an empty room and a big-ass coffin. A coffin my sister was now lying in. This was my chance.
“I can feel the energy,” her voice echoed from across the room.
“Oh yeah? What kind of energy? Kinetic or potential?”
“Shut up.”
And then, at the back of my head, something clicked. Stupid brain, thinking in metaphors-
Then something clicked again.
Hold on a sec. That was an actual physical click. I unslung my bag from my shoulder and scuffled around, coming up with my borrowed antique of a geiger counter.
Click.
Huh.
I started waving it around the room. The closer I got to the giant sarcophagus, the stronger and more frequent the clicks. I did a quick survey of the room. The coffin was the only thing in here. On a hunch, I threw the counter into the coffin.
“Ouch! What the hell is this?” My sister stood up, holding the counter, which was now emitting a dull roar.
“You need to get out of there. Now.”
“What?”
“I mean. Um. I’m claustrophobic. Can we go?”
She sighed, and swung her leg over the side of the coffin. I breathed a sigh of relief. Whatever had been kept in that coffin was spitting out vast quantities of ionising radiation. I wanted out.
I headed back up the shaft as quickly as I damn well could, ignoring the sighs and eye rolls from behind me. My mind was fizzing as much as my geiger counter had a few minutes ago. What on earth could cause that sort of a reaction in an ancient monument? I was baffled, and more than a bit scared. I spent the rest of the site tour in a bit of a stupor, flicking back through the readings, over and over, wondering if they had been real, and if they were... why?
It wasn’t until we were back on the bus that it clicked. A metaphorical click this time. And the worst part was how much sense it made. A giant imposing structure. Hidden entrance. Thousands of tonnes of stone. In the middle of the desert.
Imposing. Secure. Shielded. Remote.
Which left me with an impossible question in response to my impossible conclusion:
Why the hell would the Ancient Egyptians have needed to store nuclear waste?
17.10.11
Sorry.
I've been a bit bogged down with assignments, and my first shift at a new job, and blah blah blah.
I therefore play this card:
With accompanying Sci-Fai-Ku:
I therefore play this card:
With accompanying Sci-Fai-Ku:
As the last leaf falls
Ten thousand flaming needles
Leap towards the stars
See you next week.
9.10.11
Rite of Passage
or; Maximillian J. Caliver, Reluctant Thief.
I slammed the vault door behind me, and stomped angrily though the passageway out of the bank. Charges, check. Fingerprints done. Security footage wiped. I casually flicked the switch on a remote detonator as I strode out of the building’s revolving door, and asked myself not for the first time how the hell I got myself into this line of work.
Oh yeah, that’s right. I didn’t.
--
Fourteen years earlier.
“Happy Birthday, Max!”
The whole family was there, even Nanna. I was excited. I mean, hey. Who wouldn’t be? Balloons, streamers, silly hats... the whole deal.
I hurriedly blew out the candles on my towering chocolate monstrosity of a cake, and grabbed for my first present.
“This one’s an extra special one, Max. It belonged to your great-grandfather”
So not a Transformer then. I kept tearing, a little less enthusiastically. Jeez, did this thing have a lot of paper. At the bottom of a small nest of the stuff rested a wooden case, about four inches long. I opened it carefully, and stared. Sixteen bright metal lockpicks stared back. I looked up quizzically at the assembled family members. They seemed to have got a lot more out of this than I had.
“Cool. Thanks”. I reached for the next present, only to feel my Nanna’s talon-like fingers grasp my wrist.
“‘Cool’? You get handed a thousand years of heritage and you say ‘cool’? Why, in my day-”
“Calm down, Esme. Nobody’s explained any of that to him yet”
“Noone- Noone’s explained? You are a shame to this family! You-”
Needless to say it all went downhill from there.
We stood around the kitchen bench ten minutes later, having sat Nanna on the sofa with a cup of tea, into which I’m sure she slipped any number of stronger concoctions of your own. My dad got down on his knees, and looked at me.
“Max, what do you want to be when you grow up?”
I knew this one.
“An accountant.”
Dad gave a wry smile. Last week it was a real-estate agent, or something equally asinine.
“What if there was something more exciting, which you could do with all of us?”
I looked confused. “What, like, start a cor-por-ay-shun?” That was my new favourite word. I’d learned it yesterday, though where exactly escapes me.
Dad looked at mum. This clearly wasn’t going to plan.
“Um, sure. A family corporation.”
I looked even more confused.
“Look, Maxie. You know how sometimes people expect you to do what your parents did, and what their parents did?”
“Yeah?”
He took a deep breath. “Well, the deCaliver family has one of those. We’re theives. We always have been. The lockpicks on the tenth birthday, the locked chest on the twelfth, the passageway on the fifteenth and the mask on the twentieth.” He recited it like a chant. “Come on, Max, you’ve seen your cousins do it all. Don’t you want to join in?”
Even as a ten year old, I picked up that I wasn’t really being offered a choice here, and that if I persisted with my current weekly dream of accountancy, there would be Consequences.
“Awright. Can we have cake already?”
--
That’s how I ended up here, I thought to myself as detonation charges blew the sides out of a skyscraper behind me. A ten-year-old who wanted cake, and a twelve-year-old being heckled that even his Nanna could pick locks faster than that, and a fifteen year old not knowing whether to rebel against his family or the rest of the world, and a twenty year old with no other life skills, sunk too deep in to do anything about it now.
I dusted explosive residue off my hands and threw the takings into the getaway car, driven my my cousin Stefan, the best getaway driver in the business, who would take them to my Uncle Nate, who could flog anything to anyone.
I got my cake. I kept my Nanna happy. I was upholding tradition. And I was making a killing doing it. And if that meant postponing my dreams of cost-analysis accountancy, well, so be it.
I slammed the vault door behind me, and stomped angrily though the passageway out of the bank. Charges, check. Fingerprints done. Security footage wiped. I casually flicked the switch on a remote detonator as I strode out of the building’s revolving door, and asked myself not for the first time how the hell I got myself into this line of work.
Oh yeah, that’s right. I didn’t.
--
Fourteen years earlier.
“Happy Birthday, Max!”
The whole family was there, even Nanna. I was excited. I mean, hey. Who wouldn’t be? Balloons, streamers, silly hats... the whole deal.
I hurriedly blew out the candles on my towering chocolate monstrosity of a cake, and grabbed for my first present.
“This one’s an extra special one, Max. It belonged to your great-grandfather”
So not a Transformer then. I kept tearing, a little less enthusiastically. Jeez, did this thing have a lot of paper. At the bottom of a small nest of the stuff rested a wooden case, about four inches long. I opened it carefully, and stared. Sixteen bright metal lockpicks stared back. I looked up quizzically at the assembled family members. They seemed to have got a lot more out of this than I had.
“Cool. Thanks”. I reached for the next present, only to feel my Nanna’s talon-like fingers grasp my wrist.
“‘Cool’? You get handed a thousand years of heritage and you say ‘cool’? Why, in my day-”
“Calm down, Esme. Nobody’s explained any of that to him yet”
“Noone- Noone’s explained? You are a shame to this family! You-”
Needless to say it all went downhill from there.
We stood around the kitchen bench ten minutes later, having sat Nanna on the sofa with a cup of tea, into which I’m sure she slipped any number of stronger concoctions of your own. My dad got down on his knees, and looked at me.
“Max, what do you want to be when you grow up?”
I knew this one.
“An accountant.”
Dad gave a wry smile. Last week it was a real-estate agent, or something equally asinine.
“What if there was something more exciting, which you could do with all of us?”
I looked confused. “What, like, start a cor-por-ay-shun?” That was my new favourite word. I’d learned it yesterday, though where exactly escapes me.
Dad looked at mum. This clearly wasn’t going to plan.
“Um, sure. A family corporation.”
I looked even more confused.
“Look, Maxie. You know how sometimes people expect you to do what your parents did, and what their parents did?”
“Yeah?”
He took a deep breath. “Well, the deCaliver family has one of those. We’re theives. We always have been. The lockpicks on the tenth birthday, the locked chest on the twelfth, the passageway on the fifteenth and the mask on the twentieth.” He recited it like a chant. “Come on, Max, you’ve seen your cousins do it all. Don’t you want to join in?”
Even as a ten year old, I picked up that I wasn’t really being offered a choice here, and that if I persisted with my current weekly dream of accountancy, there would be Consequences.
“Awright. Can we have cake already?”
--
That’s how I ended up here, I thought to myself as detonation charges blew the sides out of a skyscraper behind me. A ten-year-old who wanted cake, and a twelve-year-old being heckled that even his Nanna could pick locks faster than that, and a fifteen year old not knowing whether to rebel against his family or the rest of the world, and a twenty year old with no other life skills, sunk too deep in to do anything about it now.
I dusted explosive residue off my hands and threw the takings into the getaway car, driven my my cousin Stefan, the best getaway driver in the business, who would take them to my Uncle Nate, who could flog anything to anyone.
I got my cake. I kept my Nanna happy. I was upholding tradition. And I was making a killing doing it. And if that meant postponing my dreams of cost-analysis accountancy, well, so be it.
1.10.11
Radio Silence
Silence.
Then, a crackle of static, the whistles and pops of an unstoppable signal hitting an immovable jamming field.
Then a jingle-
“You’re listening to Radio Silence, the galaxy’s number one and number only pirate radio station. I’m your host, Disposable Dave, this is my co-host, Recyclable Rob-”
“Morning, Dave.”
“-and we are live on subwave station nineteen thousand!”
Somewhere deep in the Imperial capitol, an alert flashes across the screen.
“And it looks like we’ve got our first caller: ‘Mary’, from the Vega system. Hello Mary?”
“Hi Dave! I’ve got some Imperial troop movements and a song request for you.”
“Excellent, Mary! What can I play for you?”
“Bohemian Rhapsody, by Queen.”
“Ah, a classic. Stay on the line, Mary, I’ll grab that data off you”
The alert crosses some kind of threshold, and, in an instant, every military installation within a hundred lightyears is activated.
“What a classic. Our next caller is ‘Al’, from orbit around Ares two. And you’ve got a joke for us, Al?”
“Yeah. Yeah, what do you get, uh, when you cross an Imperial trooper with a chicken?”
“I don’t know, Al. What do you get?”
“Nothing- they’re the same thing!”
Sixteen high gain antennae flick into triangulation mode. Within a second, they pinpoint the station, an abandoned nickel mining facility inside an asteroid.
“-So I burst through the door, with a bottle opener in my hand, and said ‘Hands up, or I shoot!’”
“Jeez! So what did he do?”
“He keeled right over with his hands behind his head and surrendered! Easiest thousand credits I ever made!”
“Awesome! Guys, phone in with your stories-”
The closest unit is the Himalaya, a J-class troop transport. Imperial command pings the onboard computer, rerouting it to the asteroid and starting the defrost on four dozen highly-trained commandos.
“-and that’s this week in civil disobedience.”
“Cheers, Beth!”
“You know, Dave, I never knew you could jury-rig a subspace rift anomaliser to explode using nothing but citrus fruit.”
“And, dear listeners, there’s one of those in every imperial stardrive.”
“In other news, grapefruit sales are through the roof-”
With a lunge like a predatory cat, the Himalaya springs out of stardrive, bearing straight for the asteroid. In the hold, forty-eight gauss rifles are loaded, forty-eight wrist-mounted deflectors are charged, and forty eight sets of combat boots tightened.
“Rob and I headed down to Altaria Prime to catch a demonstration a couple weeks back, Rob, what did you think?”
“Look, I tell you what Dave, there were a lot of beautiful women at those protests-”
“Rob. Seriously. Focus here.”
“Right, yeah. Massive turnout guys, and for all you guys who are still on unlisted prison planets, massive shout out, hang in there guys!”
The cutting beams fire up with a whir, and a boarding clamp latches on to the side of the asteroid. Within seconds the airlock is off, and imperial marines are methodically clearing every inch of the mining tunnels.
“Whoa, Dave, is that a proximity alarm?”
“Sure is, Rob! You know what that means, right?”
“Yup!”
“WAGER TIME?”
“WAGER TIME!”
“So, new listeners. Here’s how this works-”
Marines clear the next tunnel, and the next, boring deeper into the labyrinthine mines as surely as the mining droids which had stripped the rock of its valuable minerals.
“You guys text in how long you reckon it’ll take them to find us.”
“And, whoever’s closest, wins a Radio Silence merch bag.”
“Or, you know, they would if they existed.”
There’s one door left. There’s a signal from the squad leader, and a rushed countdown, and fifteen seconds of sustained gauss fire reduce the inch-thick plating to dust.
“Looks like time’s up, guys!”
“We’ll see you tomorrow morning- same time, different place-”
“This has been Recyclable Rob and Disposable Dave! ”
“Radio Silence, signing off.”
There’s one door left, and it splinters under military boots. Behind it, two, regular looking guys, with a stack of high-powered subwave radio equipment disk-shredding itself behind them.
“Looks like you got us.”
“Or not. Better luck next time, sucke-”
He’s reduced to dust before he can finish.
Silence.
A trillion kilometres away, there’s a hiss, followed by a slow gurgle. As the subwave emitters spin up, a coffee pot slowly starts to fill itself. Behind it, two stasis pods flash-defrost, and two hands simultaneously stretch and reach for the coffee pot.
“You know what Dave?”
“Yeah, Rob?”
“There’s nothing like that minty-fresh new-clone smell.”
Click.
“Good morning, Andromeda! This is Radio Silence, live from station nineteen thousand and one...”
Then, a crackle of static, the whistles and pops of an unstoppable signal hitting an immovable jamming field.
Then a jingle-
“You’re listening to Radio Silence, the galaxy’s number one and number only pirate radio station. I’m your host, Disposable Dave, this is my co-host, Recyclable Rob-”
“Morning, Dave.”
“-and we are live on subwave station nineteen thousand!”
Somewhere deep in the Imperial capitol, an alert flashes across the screen.
“And it looks like we’ve got our first caller: ‘Mary’, from the Vega system. Hello Mary?”
“Hi Dave! I’ve got some Imperial troop movements and a song request for you.”
“Excellent, Mary! What can I play for you?”
“Bohemian Rhapsody, by Queen.”
“Ah, a classic. Stay on the line, Mary, I’ll grab that data off you”
The alert crosses some kind of threshold, and, in an instant, every military installation within a hundred lightyears is activated.
“What a classic. Our next caller is ‘Al’, from orbit around Ares two. And you’ve got a joke for us, Al?”
“Yeah. Yeah, what do you get, uh, when you cross an Imperial trooper with a chicken?”
“I don’t know, Al. What do you get?”
“Nothing- they’re the same thing!”
Sixteen high gain antennae flick into triangulation mode. Within a second, they pinpoint the station, an abandoned nickel mining facility inside an asteroid.
“-So I burst through the door, with a bottle opener in my hand, and said ‘Hands up, or I shoot!’”
“Jeez! So what did he do?”
“He keeled right over with his hands behind his head and surrendered! Easiest thousand credits I ever made!”
“Awesome! Guys, phone in with your stories-”
The closest unit is the Himalaya, a J-class troop transport. Imperial command pings the onboard computer, rerouting it to the asteroid and starting the defrost on four dozen highly-trained commandos.
“-and that’s this week in civil disobedience.”
“Cheers, Beth!”
“You know, Dave, I never knew you could jury-rig a subspace rift anomaliser to explode using nothing but citrus fruit.”
“And, dear listeners, there’s one of those in every imperial stardrive.”
“In other news, grapefruit sales are through the roof-”
With a lunge like a predatory cat, the Himalaya springs out of stardrive, bearing straight for the asteroid. In the hold, forty-eight gauss rifles are loaded, forty-eight wrist-mounted deflectors are charged, and forty eight sets of combat boots tightened.
“Rob and I headed down to Altaria Prime to catch a demonstration a couple weeks back, Rob, what did you think?”
“Look, I tell you what Dave, there were a lot of beautiful women at those protests-”
“Rob. Seriously. Focus here.”
“Right, yeah. Massive turnout guys, and for all you guys who are still on unlisted prison planets, massive shout out, hang in there guys!”
The cutting beams fire up with a whir, and a boarding clamp latches on to the side of the asteroid. Within seconds the airlock is off, and imperial marines are methodically clearing every inch of the mining tunnels.
“Whoa, Dave, is that a proximity alarm?”
“Sure is, Rob! You know what that means, right?”
“Yup!”
“WAGER TIME?”
“WAGER TIME!”
“So, new listeners. Here’s how this works-”
Marines clear the next tunnel, and the next, boring deeper into the labyrinthine mines as surely as the mining droids which had stripped the rock of its valuable minerals.
“You guys text in how long you reckon it’ll take them to find us.”
“And, whoever’s closest, wins a Radio Silence merch bag.”
“Or, you know, they would if they existed.”
There’s one door left. There’s a signal from the squad leader, and a rushed countdown, and fifteen seconds of sustained gauss fire reduce the inch-thick plating to dust.
“Looks like time’s up, guys!”
“We’ll see you tomorrow morning- same time, different place-”
“This has been Recyclable Rob and Disposable Dave! ”
“Radio Silence, signing off.”
There’s one door left, and it splinters under military boots. Behind it, two, regular looking guys, with a stack of high-powered subwave radio equipment disk-shredding itself behind them.
“Looks like you got us.”
“Or not. Better luck next time, sucke-”
He’s reduced to dust before he can finish.
Silence.
A trillion kilometres away, there’s a hiss, followed by a slow gurgle. As the subwave emitters spin up, a coffee pot slowly starts to fill itself. Behind it, two stasis pods flash-defrost, and two hands simultaneously stretch and reach for the coffee pot.
“You know what Dave?”
“Yeah, Rob?”
“There’s nothing like that minty-fresh new-clone smell.”
Click.
“Good morning, Andromeda! This is Radio Silence, live from station nineteen thousand and one...”
23.9.11
Library
My name’s Stanley. I’m a research assistant. Which basically means I find books for absent-minded academics.
“Parachutes on, everybody. Stand by for library insertion in five.”
Of course, that’s a lot more complex than it sounds.
“Okay, retinoids online.”
I winced as the heads-up display flickered to life on my contact lens, and then set about switching all the useless widgets which had popped up. Tactical map, ammo counter, ultrasonics, targeting systems. Useless distractions. Contrary to the opinion of every retrieval team I’ve ever worked with. Then again, my job is a bit more difficult than theirs. I have to navigate the shelves, retrieve and seal the book, and plant the decoy, as quickly as possible. All they have to do is keep the Denizens away while I do it
Hmm. Maybe their job was the more difficult of the two.
“Weapons check. Jump in two.”
The hatch burst open and the domes of the Library stretched out below us, like a rotting prison hulk sprawled across a river. And then we jumped, the ancient ceilings splintering beneath us, leaving us standing, after a few terrifying moments, in a pool of parachute cloth and dusty sunlight in an ancient foyer. Or at least I was. The retrieval team was already setting up a perimeter, for all the good it would do them. I pulled up the scans of the map on my retinoid.
“We need to keep moving. The volume we’re looking for is in the north corridor. It’s red, and about an inch thick. And for god’s sake, don’t touch anything.”
That last one got me a few eye rolls, but I’d seen too many expeditions fail- lost good men and better books - just because some retrieval private couldn’t keep his damn hands to himself. The Denizens didn’t like it when you touched the books. Really, really didn’t like it.
(Hence, the body armour and crossbows.)
“Right. Let’s go.”
A decade of experience kicked in, replacing the nerves with procedure. First step: Location.
We headed out of the foyer and into one of the dusty corridors, each step taking us deeper into the bowels of the library. A pair of massive double doors loomed ahead, with a peeling sign above them reading “THE STACKS”. I signaled to stop.
“Wait here,” I murmured into my comms mike, and ducked into a side room. The door behind me swung shut with a soft flump as I booted up one of the archaic database terminals. I punched in my search parameters, and flicked rapidly through the results. This was taking far too long-
A rustle from above interrupted my internal monologue. I froze. Very, very slowly, very, very quietly, I looked up.
Suspended from the rafters, sleeping, was a pair of Denizens. Or at least, they had been sleeping until the fleeping of the search terminal and my muttering had woken them. They started to twitch, drawing themselves out of a hundred-year hibernation. I had to get out, and quietly. I took a step back, and without taking my eyes of the stirring figures in the rafters, smacked the print key on the terminal.
This, it turned out, was a mistake. The massive laser printer in the opposite corner ground to life, each clunk making me wince. After what seemed like an age, the printer hummed back into silence, spitting out a single sheet of paper as it did so. I started to walk towards it, then run, as the ultrasonic screeches of the Denizens echoed from above. I snatched the page. There was a swoop above my head, then another. I sprinted across the room, loosing my crossbow over my shoulder, not caring whether or not it hit, and dived through the door.
The retrieval team sprung into action, drawing silenced rifles and compound crossbows. The first Denizen to burst through the door was almost liquefied under the weight of ammunition whistling towards it, the second marginally more intact, but still resembling a pincushion.
I gasped for breath, and dragged myself off the dusty floorboards to my feet. I plastered a macabre grin on my face.
“That was close!”
Yeah, good one Stanley. Joke about the fact that you were almost killed by a pair of batlike mutated librarian descendants. Smooth.
I looked around at the crew. The fear was starting to set in, flashlights were going off and retinoids flicked to night vision. When everyone was ready, I took a deep lungful of musty air, and pushed open the doors. The Stacks towered above us, draped with dust, cobwebs, and the occasional errant vine. Shafts of sunlight shone down through the dusty air, leaving pools of light between the titanic shelves. And above? The Hives. Two Denizens was one matter. Two hundred? Two thousand? We’d be lucky to survive two seconds if they noticed we were here.
Trying in vain to shut out the constant fluttering from above, I unfolded my laser-printed treasure map. “826.3 is the call number we’re looking for,” I whispered into my collar mike. I scanned the shelf closest to me, and cursed softly. We were in the low 700s still. “We’re looking at a nine hundred metre run to the shelves, then another three hundred to the next exit.” I didn’t look, but I knew the expressions of terror would be intensifying. “If anyone wants to turn back, now is the time.”
Nobody did, I thought as we skulked along the shelves. Nobody ever did. Not straight away, at any rate. It’s a well known fact that retrieval teams have a minuscule survival rate, so professional mercenaries avoid them like the plague. So this team was probably made of insane thrill-seekers, desperate brokes, and criminals. Comforting.
The numbers inched past 800. We weren’t going fast enough. Every second we stay here was another second the Denizens had to notice us-
There was a deafening scream from the back of the squad, which whipped higher and higher into the air, and then down again. There was a sickening crunch, followed by a single panicked shout and the thud-thud-thud of silenced weapons. That was how they hunted. Swoop in at high speed, grab you, then climb until their momentum ran out. Gravity did the rest. Gruesome to watch. We needed to get moving, before others noticed the fresh meat.
“Keep it down!,” I hissed. The ignored me, continuing to fire uselessly at the swooping Denizen. I tried again. “No really, shut up. They see by ultrasonics. You need to stay totally silent. Crossbows only. Zero radio chatter. And if they take you, for gods sake, don’t scream.”
Good one Stanley. “Don’t scream.” As if they have a choice.
That calmed them down, or maybe just scared them silent. Either way was fine with me. I motioned to move ahead, at double pace, checking every row of shelving before we passed it.
821, 822... 826.
Stay here. Defensive perimeter, I motioned to the crew. They seemed to have some semblance of professionalism back, and set about changing crossbow bolts and deploying riot shields. Not that they’d do much good against a horde of angry mega-bats, but they worked wonders for morale. I treaded cautiously down the row, checking numbers off in my head.
.08, .19, .47-
I looked up. .3 would be on the top shelf, about twenty metres off the floor. This complicated things. I could get it, but it would make a hell of a noise, and with the Denizens this active... I whispered into my mike.
“Forget that. We’re going to have to grab and run. On my count, run for the exit.”
Nods from the team. I unstrapped the my collapsible grappling-cannon from my leg, and carefully fitted a gas canister. I’d only get one shot from it, but then again, I’d only get one shot anyway. I pointed the gun at the top of the shelf, adjusted my sights against the projected arc on my retinoid, and fired.
ktssssssssSSSSSWHUMPclang.
The fluttering from above intensified. The Denizens were awake. I’d never moved so fast in my life, not even horizontally. I half-sprinted, half-climbed up the creaking bookshelf and flicked my fingers across the spines of countless books.
826.3...
And I saw it. Red spine, an inch thick, and about half a metre outside my grasp. I swore under my breath, unhooked the rope, and edged out along the rotting shelf. I reached out and pulled the book from its place, just as the shelf below me disintegrated. I fell, the Denizens swooping in a funnel around me, my arms spread eagled, every shelf which I grabbed to slow myself crumbling like matchsticks, and showering an ever-growing cascade of books down the the library floor. I had no time to think. This was it. I was going to die. A Denizen swung overhead, and another one, and, unthinking, I grabbed it.
The creature let out a screech like nothing I’d ever heard before. It couldn’t lift me, it couldn’t shake me - I doubt it even knew what was going on. Usually it was the one doing the grabbing. We plummeted towards the floor, and, a split second before impact, I let go, landing in a roll and coming up with what felt like a sprained ankle. The Denizen wasn’t so lucky. It ploughed at full speed into the floor, the delicate bones in its wing membranes snapping like twigs.
It let out a howl, and was cut short by a crossbow bolt to the head- as much to stop it attracting more as to put it out of its misery. I winced, and turned hobbling back to the end of the aisle, where the retrieval team was fighting of at least a dozen of the enraged bat-creatures. We needed to go. All attempt at silence abandoned, I yelled.
“Run! 300 metres, and to the right. Fire escape, goes straight outside. Evac, are you hearing this? We’re coming out hot.”
I stabbed a thimble-sized painkiller shot into my ankle, and started to run, the retrieval squad around me, for the shattered green exit sign ahead. Behind me, a swish and a scream. Another man down. They were catching up. I crammed the book tighter under my arm and ran faster, loosing the last of my crossbow bolts over my shoulder into the seething winged tornado tearing up the stacks towards us. The first squad member reached the door, and pushed.
It was locked. Panicking, he slapped a detonation charge on the door, and started to run back towards the rest of the group. And then, from nowhere, a pair of talons hooked on to his combat vest. There was a look of terror in his eyes, for just a fleeting instant, and he started to jerk into the air-
The charges blew, blasting him, the Denizen, and the door into dust. The rest of the cloud recoiled, stunned by the shockwave, and we sprinted out into the courtyard. As the creatures began to stream through the door, sixteen ropes unfurled from the sky, the evac copter’s rotors thundering overhead. We grabbed onto the lifelines and held on for dear life-
Then I felt a something grab me around the chest. I was being pulled into the air. The other survivors were pulling away from me... it wasn’t the helicopter. I shut my eyes, and swung the book over my head, feeling the thud as it smacked into the Denizen’s head. Whether in shock or on purpose, its grip on me loosened, and I swung free, through the air on the end of my evac rope. I reached the high point of my swing, pivoted around, doing my own circular swoop, and, legs out, I slammed back into the creature which had held me seconds before. Pain shot up my leg- it was probably broken- but it had worked. The thing lost whatever balance had held it in the air, and, with a screech, tumbled back to the ground.
The Denizens were reaching their limit for tolerance of the outside world. Screeching, they began to funnel back in through the shattered fire exit. I strapped myself into the helicopter and, wincing, pulled the boot over my broken foot. I took my first breath of fresh, dust-free air for what felt like a lifetime, and, turning the now slightly battered book over in my hands, let out a sigh of relief.
“Spend all my life in libraries. I should really get out more.”, I joked.
“What kind of freak enjoys this kind of thing enough to crack wise about it?”, the medic mumbled.
“That would be me.” I replied.
The team looked at me like I was insane. Which, possibly, I am.
Good one, Stanley.
“Parachutes on, everybody. Stand by for library insertion in five.”
Of course, that’s a lot more complex than it sounds.
“Okay, retinoids online.”
I winced as the heads-up display flickered to life on my contact lens, and then set about switching all the useless widgets which had popped up. Tactical map, ammo counter, ultrasonics, targeting systems. Useless distractions. Contrary to the opinion of every retrieval team I’ve ever worked with. Then again, my job is a bit more difficult than theirs. I have to navigate the shelves, retrieve and seal the book, and plant the decoy, as quickly as possible. All they have to do is keep the Denizens away while I do it
Hmm. Maybe their job was the more difficult of the two.
“Weapons check. Jump in two.”
The hatch burst open and the domes of the Library stretched out below us, like a rotting prison hulk sprawled across a river. And then we jumped, the ancient ceilings splintering beneath us, leaving us standing, after a few terrifying moments, in a pool of parachute cloth and dusty sunlight in an ancient foyer. Or at least I was. The retrieval team was already setting up a perimeter, for all the good it would do them. I pulled up the scans of the map on my retinoid.
“We need to keep moving. The volume we’re looking for is in the north corridor. It’s red, and about an inch thick. And for god’s sake, don’t touch anything.”
That last one got me a few eye rolls, but I’d seen too many expeditions fail- lost good men and better books - just because some retrieval private couldn’t keep his damn hands to himself. The Denizens didn’t like it when you touched the books. Really, really didn’t like it.
(Hence, the body armour and crossbows.)
“Right. Let’s go.”
A decade of experience kicked in, replacing the nerves with procedure. First step: Location.
We headed out of the foyer and into one of the dusty corridors, each step taking us deeper into the bowels of the library. A pair of massive double doors loomed ahead, with a peeling sign above them reading “THE STACKS”. I signaled to stop.
“Wait here,” I murmured into my comms mike, and ducked into a side room. The door behind me swung shut with a soft flump as I booted up one of the archaic database terminals. I punched in my search parameters, and flicked rapidly through the results. This was taking far too long-
A rustle from above interrupted my internal monologue. I froze. Very, very slowly, very, very quietly, I looked up.
Suspended from the rafters, sleeping, was a pair of Denizens. Or at least, they had been sleeping until the fleeping of the search terminal and my muttering had woken them. They started to twitch, drawing themselves out of a hundred-year hibernation. I had to get out, and quietly. I took a step back, and without taking my eyes of the stirring figures in the rafters, smacked the print key on the terminal.
This, it turned out, was a mistake. The massive laser printer in the opposite corner ground to life, each clunk making me wince. After what seemed like an age, the printer hummed back into silence, spitting out a single sheet of paper as it did so. I started to walk towards it, then run, as the ultrasonic screeches of the Denizens echoed from above. I snatched the page. There was a swoop above my head, then another. I sprinted across the room, loosing my crossbow over my shoulder, not caring whether or not it hit, and dived through the door.
The retrieval team sprung into action, drawing silenced rifles and compound crossbows. The first Denizen to burst through the door was almost liquefied under the weight of ammunition whistling towards it, the second marginally more intact, but still resembling a pincushion.
I gasped for breath, and dragged myself off the dusty floorboards to my feet. I plastered a macabre grin on my face.
“That was close!”
Yeah, good one Stanley. Joke about the fact that you were almost killed by a pair of batlike mutated librarian descendants. Smooth.
I looked around at the crew. The fear was starting to set in, flashlights were going off and retinoids flicked to night vision. When everyone was ready, I took a deep lungful of musty air, and pushed open the doors. The Stacks towered above us, draped with dust, cobwebs, and the occasional errant vine. Shafts of sunlight shone down through the dusty air, leaving pools of light between the titanic shelves. And above? The Hives. Two Denizens was one matter. Two hundred? Two thousand? We’d be lucky to survive two seconds if they noticed we were here.
Trying in vain to shut out the constant fluttering from above, I unfolded my laser-printed treasure map. “826.3 is the call number we’re looking for,” I whispered into my collar mike. I scanned the shelf closest to me, and cursed softly. We were in the low 700s still. “We’re looking at a nine hundred metre run to the shelves, then another three hundred to the next exit.” I didn’t look, but I knew the expressions of terror would be intensifying. “If anyone wants to turn back, now is the time.”
Nobody did, I thought as we skulked along the shelves. Nobody ever did. Not straight away, at any rate. It’s a well known fact that retrieval teams have a minuscule survival rate, so professional mercenaries avoid them like the plague. So this team was probably made of insane thrill-seekers, desperate brokes, and criminals. Comforting.
The numbers inched past 800. We weren’t going fast enough. Every second we stay here was another second the Denizens had to notice us-
There was a deafening scream from the back of the squad, which whipped higher and higher into the air, and then down again. There was a sickening crunch, followed by a single panicked shout and the thud-thud-thud of silenced weapons. That was how they hunted. Swoop in at high speed, grab you, then climb until their momentum ran out. Gravity did the rest. Gruesome to watch. We needed to get moving, before others noticed the fresh meat.
“Keep it down!,” I hissed. The ignored me, continuing to fire uselessly at the swooping Denizen. I tried again. “No really, shut up. They see by ultrasonics. You need to stay totally silent. Crossbows only. Zero radio chatter. And if they take you, for gods sake, don’t scream.”
Good one Stanley. “Don’t scream.” As if they have a choice.
That calmed them down, or maybe just scared them silent. Either way was fine with me. I motioned to move ahead, at double pace, checking every row of shelving before we passed it.
821, 822... 826.
Stay here. Defensive perimeter, I motioned to the crew. They seemed to have some semblance of professionalism back, and set about changing crossbow bolts and deploying riot shields. Not that they’d do much good against a horde of angry mega-bats, but they worked wonders for morale. I treaded cautiously down the row, checking numbers off in my head.
.08, .19, .47-
I looked up. .3 would be on the top shelf, about twenty metres off the floor. This complicated things. I could get it, but it would make a hell of a noise, and with the Denizens this active... I whispered into my mike.
“Forget that. We’re going to have to grab and run. On my count, run for the exit.”
Nods from the team. I unstrapped the my collapsible grappling-cannon from my leg, and carefully fitted a gas canister. I’d only get one shot from it, but then again, I’d only get one shot anyway. I pointed the gun at the top of the shelf, adjusted my sights against the projected arc on my retinoid, and fired.
ktssssssssSSSSSWHUMPclang.
The fluttering from above intensified. The Denizens were awake. I’d never moved so fast in my life, not even horizontally. I half-sprinted, half-climbed up the creaking bookshelf and flicked my fingers across the spines of countless books.
826.3...
And I saw it. Red spine, an inch thick, and about half a metre outside my grasp. I swore under my breath, unhooked the rope, and edged out along the rotting shelf. I reached out and pulled the book from its place, just as the shelf below me disintegrated. I fell, the Denizens swooping in a funnel around me, my arms spread eagled, every shelf which I grabbed to slow myself crumbling like matchsticks, and showering an ever-growing cascade of books down the the library floor. I had no time to think. This was it. I was going to die. A Denizen swung overhead, and another one, and, unthinking, I grabbed it.
The creature let out a screech like nothing I’d ever heard before. It couldn’t lift me, it couldn’t shake me - I doubt it even knew what was going on. Usually it was the one doing the grabbing. We plummeted towards the floor, and, a split second before impact, I let go, landing in a roll and coming up with what felt like a sprained ankle. The Denizen wasn’t so lucky. It ploughed at full speed into the floor, the delicate bones in its wing membranes snapping like twigs.
It let out a howl, and was cut short by a crossbow bolt to the head- as much to stop it attracting more as to put it out of its misery. I winced, and turned hobbling back to the end of the aisle, where the retrieval team was fighting of at least a dozen of the enraged bat-creatures. We needed to go. All attempt at silence abandoned, I yelled.
“Run! 300 metres, and to the right. Fire escape, goes straight outside. Evac, are you hearing this? We’re coming out hot.”
I stabbed a thimble-sized painkiller shot into my ankle, and started to run, the retrieval squad around me, for the shattered green exit sign ahead. Behind me, a swish and a scream. Another man down. They were catching up. I crammed the book tighter under my arm and ran faster, loosing the last of my crossbow bolts over my shoulder into the seething winged tornado tearing up the stacks towards us. The first squad member reached the door, and pushed.
It was locked. Panicking, he slapped a detonation charge on the door, and started to run back towards the rest of the group. And then, from nowhere, a pair of talons hooked on to his combat vest. There was a look of terror in his eyes, for just a fleeting instant, and he started to jerk into the air-
The charges blew, blasting him, the Denizen, and the door into dust. The rest of the cloud recoiled, stunned by the shockwave, and we sprinted out into the courtyard. As the creatures began to stream through the door, sixteen ropes unfurled from the sky, the evac copter’s rotors thundering overhead. We grabbed onto the lifelines and held on for dear life-
Then I felt a something grab me around the chest. I was being pulled into the air. The other survivors were pulling away from me... it wasn’t the helicopter. I shut my eyes, and swung the book over my head, feeling the thud as it smacked into the Denizen’s head. Whether in shock or on purpose, its grip on me loosened, and I swung free, through the air on the end of my evac rope. I reached the high point of my swing, pivoted around, doing my own circular swoop, and, legs out, I slammed back into the creature which had held me seconds before. Pain shot up my leg- it was probably broken- but it had worked. The thing lost whatever balance had held it in the air, and, with a screech, tumbled back to the ground.
The Denizens were reaching their limit for tolerance of the outside world. Screeching, they began to funnel back in through the shattered fire exit. I strapped myself into the helicopter and, wincing, pulled the boot over my broken foot. I took my first breath of fresh, dust-free air for what felt like a lifetime, and, turning the now slightly battered book over in my hands, let out a sigh of relief.
“Spend all my life in libraries. I should really get out more.”, I joked.
“What kind of freak enjoys this kind of thing enough to crack wise about it?”, the medic mumbled.
“That would be me.” I replied.
The team looked at me like I was insane. Which, possibly, I am.
Good one, Stanley.
19.9.11
The Assassin's Lament
I remember when this was a gentleman’s game;
when we were just young and with nought to our name
A flickknife and mask, were the tools of our trade
And we plied it with honour, like those we unmade.
The knife in the dark, the swish of a cloak,
then sneaking off down some back alley, for a smoke,
A swiftly-cleaned blade all that told of a kill.
Now that, right there, that’s a carefully-honed skill.
...
But now, so I’m told, we all use a gun,
Which twice as efficient, but half as much fun
And a bullet’s not alive, can never walk, talk, or play
it has no respect for what it’s taking away.
It’s over too quickly, and any idiot can try
if all you need’s a revolver, and someone to die.
There’s no beauty or art in a throwing bits of lead
(even if the catcher does end up dead)
...
So take your pistols, your rifles, your scopes and your sights.
I’d trade it in an instant for those sweet moonless nights,
For a cloak with a hood and the glint of a dagger,
To walk the streets with respect, and the hint of a swagger.
I wish it were then, and not here right now
Sitting here, alone, asking why, and how-
How’s a craftsman like me to ply my trade and thrive;
and what’s the point of killing, if you don’t feel alive?
when we were just young and with nought to our name
A flickknife and mask, were the tools of our trade
And we plied it with honour, like those we unmade.
The knife in the dark, the swish of a cloak,
then sneaking off down some back alley, for a smoke,
A swiftly-cleaned blade all that told of a kill.
Now that, right there, that’s a carefully-honed skill.
...
But now, so I’m told, we all use a gun,
Which twice as efficient, but half as much fun
And a bullet’s not alive, can never walk, talk, or play
it has no respect for what it’s taking away.
It’s over too quickly, and any idiot can try
if all you need’s a revolver, and someone to die.
There’s no beauty or art in a throwing bits of lead
(even if the catcher does end up dead)
...
So take your pistols, your rifles, your scopes and your sights.
I’d trade it in an instant for those sweet moonless nights,
For a cloak with a hood and the glint of a dagger,
To walk the streets with respect, and the hint of a swagger.
I wish it were then, and not here right now
Sitting here, alone, asking why, and how-
How’s a craftsman like me to ply my trade and thrive;
and what’s the point of killing, if you don’t feel alive?
11.9.11
Half Baked
“GOLEMS ARE US. FREE GOLEMS.”
I must have walked past that storefront a hundred times, and steadfastly ignored its peeling signs. I don’t know what compelled me to go in. Golem warehouses were pretty tasteless at the best of times. Ever since the Chinese had discovered you didn’t have to actually hand-transcribe the Ancient Scroll of Lak’ptui and could just bang it through a photocopier, the places had been springing up then closing down again just as quickly, like rug stores only worse because they were trafficking in sentient clay and not inanimate lumps of woven fibre.
This place made those look like the goddamn Ritz. The earthy smell hit me like a ton of bricks as I pushed through the dusty door. There was one light in the entire place, and it wasn’t doing a very good job- most of what I could see was from the sunlight streaming through the glass shopfront. I looked idly around for a counter.
That was odd. No counter.
“Hello?” I called out, “Anyone here?”
There was silence for a moment, and then a clanking from the back of the store.
“Hello?”
The clanking resolved into footsteps, and an animate golem rounded the corner, with a storeman’s apron crudely draped over it for modesty. For reasons no animatologist could figure out, golems refused to animate unless they were anatomically correct. Either that, or it was a conspiriacy thought up by clothing manufacturers looking to cut into a new market.
“Could you tell me where the owner is?”
The golem pulled a tablet from its apron and began to print, cuneiform-style, its answer. Very, very slowly.
Present.
Ah, golems. Sentient, sure, but none too bright.
“Where is the owner?”
Again the slow pressing of the wedgelike stylus. Someone really needs to invent a voice system for these, I thought, or maybe just teach them to type.
Present.
That didn’t make sense.
“Do you understand?”
Faster this time:
Yes.
“So who owns this store?”
Present.
This was getting ridiculous. “Look, is there anyone here I can talk to? About possibly buying a golem? No?”
No.
“Right. Popped out for coffee, I expect. Slackers”. My nerves were just about at their limit.
“So when will they be back?”
No.
Nothing this clay man was saying made any sense. Probably badly baked, or a misprinted scroll. Whatever the reason, I’d had it.
“Right.”
I pushed the door open and stepped out of the stale warehouse. And as I walked down the street, I paused and looked back at the peeling signs on the window.
“GOLEMS ARE US. FREE GOLEMS.”
And it hit me like a bolt of lightning, and the bottom dropped out of my stomach, and I started to run. And from then on, I couldn’t even look at a golem, in a supermarket, or sweeping the streets, or making coffee, without going pale and breaking out in cold sweats. Because that wasn’t a sales pitch.
It was a manifesto.
I must have walked past that storefront a hundred times, and steadfastly ignored its peeling signs. I don’t know what compelled me to go in. Golem warehouses were pretty tasteless at the best of times. Ever since the Chinese had discovered you didn’t have to actually hand-transcribe the Ancient Scroll of Lak’ptui and could just bang it through a photocopier, the places had been springing up then closing down again just as quickly, like rug stores only worse because they were trafficking in sentient clay and not inanimate lumps of woven fibre.
This place made those look like the goddamn Ritz. The earthy smell hit me like a ton of bricks as I pushed through the dusty door. There was one light in the entire place, and it wasn’t doing a very good job- most of what I could see was from the sunlight streaming through the glass shopfront. I looked idly around for a counter.
That was odd. No counter.
“Hello?” I called out, “Anyone here?”
There was silence for a moment, and then a clanking from the back of the store.
“Hello?”
The clanking resolved into footsteps, and an animate golem rounded the corner, with a storeman’s apron crudely draped over it for modesty. For reasons no animatologist could figure out, golems refused to animate unless they were anatomically correct. Either that, or it was a conspiriacy thought up by clothing manufacturers looking to cut into a new market.
“Could you tell me where the owner is?”
The golem pulled a tablet from its apron and began to print, cuneiform-style, its answer. Very, very slowly.
Present.
Ah, golems. Sentient, sure, but none too bright.
“Where is the owner?”
Again the slow pressing of the wedgelike stylus. Someone really needs to invent a voice system for these, I thought, or maybe just teach them to type.
Present.
That didn’t make sense.
“Do you understand?”
Faster this time:
Yes.
“So who owns this store?”
Present.
This was getting ridiculous. “Look, is there anyone here I can talk to? About possibly buying a golem? No?”
No.
“Right. Popped out for coffee, I expect. Slackers”. My nerves were just about at their limit.
“So when will they be back?”
No.
Nothing this clay man was saying made any sense. Probably badly baked, or a misprinted scroll. Whatever the reason, I’d had it.
“Right.”
I pushed the door open and stepped out of the stale warehouse. And as I walked down the street, I paused and looked back at the peeling signs on the window.
“GOLEMS ARE US. FREE GOLEMS.”
And it hit me like a bolt of lightning, and the bottom dropped out of my stomach, and I started to run. And from then on, I couldn’t even look at a golem, in a supermarket, or sweeping the streets, or making coffee, without going pale and breaking out in cold sweats. Because that wasn’t a sales pitch.
It was a manifesto.
2.9.11
The Pentagon
September 11, 1941. Midnight.
A titanic crash echoed through the virgin Pennsylvanian forest. Zombie Abraham Lincoln straightened his hat and holstered his revolver with a steely glint in his eye.
“Ooh, boy. She’s angry alright. We’re going to need something a mite bigger this time around.”
He motioned to the man next to him.
“Ronald... bring me Tabitha.”
Ronald Reagan gave a curt nod and sprinted into the darkness. Lincoln stood in the clearing, stock still, and silent. He was good at standing still. It was one of many advantages of being undead. The unholy symbol draped around his neck pulsed with an unearthly light, drawing the creature closer, like bait in a trap. Exactly like bait in a trap, since it was, in fact, the bait in a trap.
Any second now...
The trees in front of him exploded into splinters, and from a hundred feet in the air there was a tremendous roar. Lincoln stood his ground, drawing both this silver revolvers and emptying twelve alchemical iron rounds into the beast’s towering form. The creature roared, less with pain than with annoyance. He placed his hand on the thousand-year-old katana on his back. If Reagan didn’t hurry, he was going to have to get medieval-Japan on its reptillian behind, and that would just ruin his suit.
“Abraham!” came the shout from across the clearing. In the split second it took Lincoln to glance his way, the beast struck, swiping at him with a claw the size of a stagecoach, sending him flying into the air. As he came down, he drew the katana and, performing a perfect backflip, landed on the beast’s scaly head
“NOW, REAGAN!”, he roared, as he brought the blade down ineffectually against the enormous skull. On the ground, Ronald Reagan let out an animal yell, which was only marginally less terrifying than the whine of Tabitha, Lincoln’s vorpal minigun, spinning up to four hundred thousand RPM. In a blaze of eldrich energy, Reagan opened fire.
The effect was almost instantaneous. One of the creature’s seven limbs was liquified to a gooey paste of bone and sinew. With a screech of genuine pain this time, the creature thrashed its thousand ton mass from left to right, leaving Lincoln clinging to the handle of the katana, whose steel blade embedded in the creature’s skull was the only thing preventing him from being thrown to his re-demise. “AGAIN! HAVE AT HER!”, he bellowed.
Reagan’s second burst of sustained fire struck true. Half a million shards of depleted Neptunium bored a perfectly cylindrical hole in the creature’s chest. With a quiet groan, it keeled ponderously over and landed on the ground with a ground-cracking crash. Lincoln stepped calmly off the beast’s head, wiping the viscera from his katana. “That won’t stop it for long. We need the containment field ready, as soon as possible. Get Edison out here on double. Tell him we have her down.”
“No need, Mr. President.”, said a voice from the shadows. Thomas Edison lurched out of the forest and, with a curt nod to Abraham Lincoln, offered one cloth-wrapped mummified hand to Ronald Reagan. “Mr. Reagan. The late Thomas Alva Edison, at your service.” He turned to the shadows again. “Bring out the generators!”
A rustling and squeaking came from the surrounding forest. As the three looked on, thousands of bats, each tied to a tiny harness, dragged out five massive engines, each bolted to a pair of copper coils which, in turn, was atttached to a parabolic dish. The creature on the ground began to stir feebly.
“No time to lose. Everyone out of the pentacle!”. Edison handed Lincoln and Reagan each a pair of goggles, and then pulled down hard on a lever on the side of the closest generator. In unison, five bolts of lightning lanced across the clearing, trapping the waking creature at the centre of a perfect five-pointed star.
“Reagan. The incantations.”, said Edison.
“You have no idea the lengths I went to to get this. I had to rob the library of congress. Me, the President- well, the president one day at any rate-”
“Quiet! Just do it!” Lincoln turned one eye to the horizon. “Dawn is coming.”
Ronald Reagan pulled a surprisingly small but exceptionally old grimoire from inside his trenchcoat. He uttered fourteen guttural syllables, and snapped the book shut as they watched the creature flicker into invisibility.
As the sun rose, the three headed out of the forest. Lincoln turned to the other two. “Right. Our work here is done.” Checking his pocket watch, he turned and nodded gravely at each of the men in turn. “I shall see you at the End of the World.” As Lincoln returned to his grave, Edison to his flying pyramid space zeppelin, and Reagan to his stolen time machine, each one of them saluted the secret service men, who were just beginning to arrive. They were here as part of a far larger plan. A far more difficult, and complex, and dangerous plan. A plan to contain the beast, not just temporarily, but permanently, within a specially constructed pentagonal building, whose shape could channel away and safely earth the arcane energies which surrounded the beast and whose construction would be supervised under the watchful eye of the Department of Supernatural Defense of the United States of America. A building which would come to be known as...
The Pentagon.
A titanic crash echoed through the virgin Pennsylvanian forest. Zombie Abraham Lincoln straightened his hat and holstered his revolver with a steely glint in his eye.
“Ooh, boy. She’s angry alright. We’re going to need something a mite bigger this time around.”
He motioned to the man next to him.
“Ronald... bring me Tabitha.”
Ronald Reagan gave a curt nod and sprinted into the darkness. Lincoln stood in the clearing, stock still, and silent. He was good at standing still. It was one of many advantages of being undead. The unholy symbol draped around his neck pulsed with an unearthly light, drawing the creature closer, like bait in a trap. Exactly like bait in a trap, since it was, in fact, the bait in a trap.
Any second now...
The trees in front of him exploded into splinters, and from a hundred feet in the air there was a tremendous roar. Lincoln stood his ground, drawing both this silver revolvers and emptying twelve alchemical iron rounds into the beast’s towering form. The creature roared, less with pain than with annoyance. He placed his hand on the thousand-year-old katana on his back. If Reagan didn’t hurry, he was going to have to get medieval-Japan on its reptillian behind, and that would just ruin his suit.
“Abraham!” came the shout from across the clearing. In the split second it took Lincoln to glance his way, the beast struck, swiping at him with a claw the size of a stagecoach, sending him flying into the air. As he came down, he drew the katana and, performing a perfect backflip, landed on the beast’s scaly head
“NOW, REAGAN!”, he roared, as he brought the blade down ineffectually against the enormous skull. On the ground, Ronald Reagan let out an animal yell, which was only marginally less terrifying than the whine of Tabitha, Lincoln’s vorpal minigun, spinning up to four hundred thousand RPM. In a blaze of eldrich energy, Reagan opened fire.
The effect was almost instantaneous. One of the creature’s seven limbs was liquified to a gooey paste of bone and sinew. With a screech of genuine pain this time, the creature thrashed its thousand ton mass from left to right, leaving Lincoln clinging to the handle of the katana, whose steel blade embedded in the creature’s skull was the only thing preventing him from being thrown to his re-demise. “AGAIN! HAVE AT HER!”, he bellowed.
Reagan’s second burst of sustained fire struck true. Half a million shards of depleted Neptunium bored a perfectly cylindrical hole in the creature’s chest. With a quiet groan, it keeled ponderously over and landed on the ground with a ground-cracking crash. Lincoln stepped calmly off the beast’s head, wiping the viscera from his katana. “That won’t stop it for long. We need the containment field ready, as soon as possible. Get Edison out here on double. Tell him we have her down.”
“No need, Mr. President.”, said a voice from the shadows. Thomas Edison lurched out of the forest and, with a curt nod to Abraham Lincoln, offered one cloth-wrapped mummified hand to Ronald Reagan. “Mr. Reagan. The late Thomas Alva Edison, at your service.” He turned to the shadows again. “Bring out the generators!”
A rustling and squeaking came from the surrounding forest. As the three looked on, thousands of bats, each tied to a tiny harness, dragged out five massive engines, each bolted to a pair of copper coils which, in turn, was atttached to a parabolic dish. The creature on the ground began to stir feebly.
“No time to lose. Everyone out of the pentacle!”. Edison handed Lincoln and Reagan each a pair of goggles, and then pulled down hard on a lever on the side of the closest generator. In unison, five bolts of lightning lanced across the clearing, trapping the waking creature at the centre of a perfect five-pointed star.
“Reagan. The incantations.”, said Edison.
“You have no idea the lengths I went to to get this. I had to rob the library of congress. Me, the President- well, the president one day at any rate-”
“Quiet! Just do it!” Lincoln turned one eye to the horizon. “Dawn is coming.”
Ronald Reagan pulled a surprisingly small but exceptionally old grimoire from inside his trenchcoat. He uttered fourteen guttural syllables, and snapped the book shut as they watched the creature flicker into invisibility.
As the sun rose, the three headed out of the forest. Lincoln turned to the other two. “Right. Our work here is done.” Checking his pocket watch, he turned and nodded gravely at each of the men in turn. “I shall see you at the End of the World.” As Lincoln returned to his grave, Edison to his flying pyramid space zeppelin, and Reagan to his stolen time machine, each one of them saluted the secret service men, who were just beginning to arrive. They were here as part of a far larger plan. A far more difficult, and complex, and dangerous plan. A plan to contain the beast, not just temporarily, but permanently, within a specially constructed pentagonal building, whose shape could channel away and safely earth the arcane energies which surrounded the beast and whose construction would be supervised under the watchful eye of the Department of Supernatural Defense of the United States of America. A building which would come to be known as...
The Pentagon.
28.8.11
Reflection
In the beginning, they say, God invented the universe.
On the first day, he invented light,
and then dirt the next day,
and then animals,
and so on.
This isn’t, strictly speaking, correct.
What actually happened, was that he got as far as light
and then spent six days trying to get the physics right
and eventually gave up
and threw together a quick work-around
which was much more efficient but used much more space
(which wasn’t really a problem in an infinite universe)
and moved on to doing the interesting stuff like life in the remaining four hours before his deadline.
And this is the story of that work-around.
For all intents and purposes,
I’m you.
I look like you,
I dress like you,
I talk like you,
I act like you.
I don’t think like you, though.
(but we’ll get to that later.)
You probably see me every day.
(Why this doesn’t freak you the hell out is beyond me,
but apparently it doesn’t.)
I’m the person behind the mirror.
Hi.
Reflections,
it turns out,
are pretty damn hard to simulate properly.
So I exist-
not just me, my entire universe
-to make your mirrors work.
It’s a simple enough concept.
First,
take a copy of your universe.
Rotate the whole thing through a higher spatial dimension,
and run it next door to your original.
Then,
Anywhere that should be reflective,
slap a big ol’ window
(obviously not an actual window,
we’re talking meta-meta-meta-physical equivalents here.)
tweak your transparencies and tints,
and voila.
Mirror.
Run it a few quintillionths of a second behind,
and you’ve got your speed-of-light delay.
Allow the dimensional membrane to curve,
and you’ve got your funhouse mirrors.
And make it porous enough,
and you’ve got your perfectly elastic subatomic particles.
Like I said, simple.
(Much simpler than all that vector calculus stuff anyway.
Who has time for that kind of crap?)
There’s just one problem:
Us.
The simulation
(in point of fact)
is purely physical.
And while this shouldn’t be a problem from a reductionist perspective,
it turns out that actually,
there actually is some element of consciousness,
of ‘mind’, if you like,
which is non-physical.
The practical upshot of which is that you end up with an entire universe full of people trapped in someone else’s body,
with no control over who they are
or what they look like
or wear
or say
or do.
As far as I can ascertain,
(from my own thought experiments at any rate-
it’s not like I can do any other kind,
and who would I confer with when all my words are yours?)
nobody in your universe is even aware of ours.
Why should you be?
It’s a testament to how seamless the effect is-
mirrors work the way they should.
Why would you question something as simple as that?
All I ask,
Literally,
all I ask,
is that,
should this message get through,
should you ever look in a mirror,
and wonder,
Who is that person on the other side of the glass?
is that you think of us.
Spare a thought,
for the countless minds trapped in your bodies.
Live the best life you can,
if not for you,
then for us.
(And for God’s sake,
don’t wear the aqua tie with the salmon shirt.)
On the first day, he invented light,
and then dirt the next day,
and then animals,
and so on.
This isn’t, strictly speaking, correct.
What actually happened, was that he got as far as light
and then spent six days trying to get the physics right
and eventually gave up
and threw together a quick work-around
which was much more efficient but used much more space
(which wasn’t really a problem in an infinite universe)
and moved on to doing the interesting stuff like life in the remaining four hours before his deadline.
And this is the story of that work-around.
For all intents and purposes,
I’m you.
I look like you,
I dress like you,
I talk like you,
I act like you.
I don’t think like you, though.
(but we’ll get to that later.)
You probably see me every day.
(Why this doesn’t freak you the hell out is beyond me,
but apparently it doesn’t.)
I’m the person behind the mirror.
Hi.
Reflections,
it turns out,
are pretty damn hard to simulate properly.
So I exist-
not just me, my entire universe
-to make your mirrors work.
It’s a simple enough concept.
First,
take a copy of your universe.
Rotate the whole thing through a higher spatial dimension,
and run it next door to your original.
Then,
Anywhere that should be reflective,
slap a big ol’ window
(obviously not an actual window,
we’re talking meta-meta-meta-physical equivalents here.)
tweak your transparencies and tints,
and voila.
Mirror.
Run it a few quintillionths of a second behind,
and you’ve got your speed-of-light delay.
Allow the dimensional membrane to curve,
and you’ve got your funhouse mirrors.
And make it porous enough,
and you’ve got your perfectly elastic subatomic particles.
Like I said, simple.
(Much simpler than all that vector calculus stuff anyway.
Who has time for that kind of crap?)
There’s just one problem:
Us.
The simulation
(in point of fact)
is purely physical.
And while this shouldn’t be a problem from a reductionist perspective,
it turns out that actually,
there actually is some element of consciousness,
of ‘mind’, if you like,
which is non-physical.
The practical upshot of which is that you end up with an entire universe full of people trapped in someone else’s body,
with no control over who they are
or what they look like
or wear
or say
or do.
As far as I can ascertain,
(from my own thought experiments at any rate-
it’s not like I can do any other kind,
and who would I confer with when all my words are yours?)
nobody in your universe is even aware of ours.
Why should you be?
It’s a testament to how seamless the effect is-
mirrors work the way they should.
Why would you question something as simple as that?
All I ask,
Literally,
all I ask,
is that,
should this message get through,
should you ever look in a mirror,
and wonder,
Who is that person on the other side of the glass?
is that you think of us.
Spare a thought,
for the countless minds trapped in your bodies.
Live the best life you can,
if not for you,
then for us.
(And for God’s sake,
don’t wear the aqua tie with the salmon shirt.)
20.8.11
My Landlord Is A Wizard
I think my landlord might be a wizard.
I’m actually serious. Not, like, a magician. An actual, honest-to-god wizard.
At first I thought he was just weird. He’d show up for rent inspections wearing a purple dressing gown and apparently without any visible form of transport. Animals were allowed, as long as they were cats, and as long as he could interview them first. He told we could leave the books in the library, or box them and store them in the attic, but either way we weren’t to open them.
But the rent was cheap and the house was clean. Who cares if the guy’s a little weird.
Then we found the hat.
We were taking him up on his suggestion, moving the books to the attic, when Steve found it under some boxes. Steve’s my roommate, or he would be if he was ever home. But hey, he helps pay the rent.
“Hey, look at this,” Steve said.
“It’s a hat.”
“Yeah... but not just any hat. Check it out.” He flapped it through the air like an overenthusiastic bullfighter. It was the dustiest sombrero I’d ever seen.
“Here,” he said, “You take one too.” He tossed me something which looked like it had come straight out of The Three Musketeers: It was wide and floppy and had a massive moth-eaten feather in it. I chucked it aside.
“Can we concentrate on shifting these books already?”
“Aw, why so serious?” he said in his best Jack Nicholson voice, and jammed the hat over my head, flipping the sombrero on at the same time.
“Very funny,” I said as I wrestled the hat off from over my eyes. Steve was standing next to me, slack-jawed and staring into the distance. I waved a hand in front of him, keeping my oversized feather out of my eyes with the other. “Steve? Oi, earth to Steve...”
I turned around and the staring made a bit more sense. The attic had changed, quite significantly. A few modest piles of junk had been replaced with an infinite plane of the stuff. I blinked a few times.
“Um.”
Steve just made a strangled-sounding noise.
I pulled off the hat. The regular attic snapped back into place instantly. I put it back on; and the surreal landscape of junk reappeared. It was the hats for sure then. Interesting.
Steve was starting to drool on the floor, so I tugged the sombrero off his head. That seemed to snap him out of it a bit.
“Far out.”
He went straight for the stairs.
“Where are you going?”, I asked.
“Well, don’t you want to see what the rest of the house looks like with this thing on?” He paused for a second. “Also, I’d quite like to be sick.”
--
The rest of the house also expanded, or at least changed, under the influence of the hats, though not always in the way you’d expect. The bathroom, for example - once Steve had finished throwing up - turned into a lagoon full of cascading waterfalls and tropical birds. We spent a whole hour wandering around the master bedroom, which (as near as I can tell) became an exact replica of the palace at Versailles. The weirdest by far, though, was the library. Hatland’s (Steve’s idea.) library was exactly the same as the ordinary one, but with one addition: in the centre of the room, there was a seven-foot-high obsidian archway.
“Steve?”
“Yeah?”
“I don’t think we should touch this one.”
“Yeah.”
We went and had lunch instead. At the food court, since the Hatland kitchen was apparently a cross between a biomedical lab and a medieval torture chamber and neither of us really felt like eating out of it any more.
“Sho what do we doo?” said Steve through a mouthful of cheap curry.
“Well,” I pondered, “I reckon we’ve got two choices. Either we admit that we’ve probably gone crazy and turn ourselves over to the asylum, or we call up the landlord and ask exactly what’s going on.”
Steve swallowed. “I like the second one more.”
“Me too. Thing is, he never left a number, just a postal address to forward his mail to. I guess we could send him a postcard.”
“Oh yeah, that’d look good. ‘Dear Mr. Landlord, We found your bonkers hats in your crazy house, please tell us what the hell is going on, much love, Your Devoted Tenants.’”
I shrugged. “Eh. It’s all we’ve got.”
We spent the next week or so testing the boundaries of Hatland. The attic seemed to be the only infinite one (If you went far enough in one direction and then took off the hat you’d end up in someone else’s attic, which was awkward). The rest were just very large. On the downside, our food budget was way up (seriously, the Hatkitchen was freaky), but on the upside, our water bill was way down, since both of us preferred the tropical waterfalls to the grimy old bathroom. I was coming out of there one evening trying to pick the leaves from my hair when Steve came up to me. He looked even more screwed up than when we’d first found the hats.
“Are you alright?”
He shook his head. “I was in the library... and I tripped and touched that archway... and now it’s sort of glowing and... and whispering. And when I took my hat off, it didn’t... It didn’t stop.”
This could definitely not be good.
We stood at the door to the library. The arch was indeed glowing. Purple- but not regular purple. Black-light purple. And pulsing slightly. And yes, whispering. I took a few steps towards it. Steve grabbed my arm.
“I really don’t think you should.”
“I just want to have a bit of a closer look.”
And I took another step.
The archway didn’t like that at all. It crackled. Tiny strings of lightning arced across it and the hairs on my arm started to stand on end. I stepped back. It didn’t stop. Something which looked like a crack was forming in the air down the middle of the arch.
“Steve.”
“Yeah?”
“I think we should go.”
“Yeah.”
We turned and ran, slamming the door behind us just as something black and formless started to force its way through the widening crack. We sprinted down the vaulted marble corridor which was the Hat-house’s version of a hallway. The real hallway is shorter, I realised, and pulled the hat off my head. The end of the hall sprung forwards as the marble columns shimmered out of existence.
“Steve! Take the hat off!”
Steve appeared beside me.
“That saved a lot of time. Do you think-” he paused- “-whatever that was, can get us without the hats on?”
“I don’t freaking know! I just want to get as far away as possible.”
We turned and grabbed the front doorknob at the same time, only to have it yanked away from us. On the doorstep stood the landlord, complete with purple bathrobe, nightcap and bunny slippers.
“Uh. Hi. You got our postcard?” Steve started.
I pushed Steve out the door in front of me. “Sorry, urgent, um, appointment. We have to-”
The landlord looked quizzically at us. “Postcard? What the hell are you on about? I’m here for the rent inspection.”
“Yeah, like I said, there’s a thing we have to do-”
The landlord grabbed the hats from each of our hands and put them on our heads. Several things happened at once.
Firstly, it got a lot darker. It had gone from a reasonably sunny day to the blackest storm I‘ve ever seen, and apparently centered over the house. Three guesses as to what might be causing that.
Secondly, the landlord. His sleepwear had flipped itself somehow into a billowing violet cloak, pointed boots, and a big ol‘ stereotypical wizard hat which added a good foot and a half to his height.
Steve and I just stared.
“I said, I’m here to rebind the ancient seals,” said the landlord.
“No you didn’t. You said rent inspection.”
The landlord looked at me like I was stupid. Then, wordlessly, he pointed at the hats.
Then he kicked the door down.
Or at least he tried to, if at least a hundred massive tentacles hadn’t got there first from the other side. The three of us were thrown bodily into the street as every opening in the house erupted with waving appendages, some tentacles, some eye-stalks, some things which I couldn’t describe even if I wanted to. The landlord drew himself to his feet, eyes literally blazing with light, and started booming words in an ancient tongue which burned my ears when he spoke. A gust of wind caught the hats-
The landlord stood in the middle of the sunny street, eyes faintly glazed over, wearing bunny slippers and reciting softly to himself, “Eggs, milk, tuna- no wait, I got tuna yesterday- Bread, sausages-”
I put the hat back on.
We were standing in the middle of what looked like a rapidly forming active volcano. Glowing cracks criss-crossed the street, and the ground shook with every word the landlord spoke. The thing- whatever it was- was too tall to see the top of now, growing upwards like a tree and branching outwards to cover the entire sky. Oh god, I can’t take it-
A single cloud drifted lazily across the sky. A pair of birds twittered to each other in the trees. The man down the street started his lawnmower, and started filling the air with the intertwined scents of fresh-mown grass, two-stroke engine fuel and impending hay fever-
The landlord was throwing bolts of lightning like a discus-thrower, one end impaling the tentacle-tower and the other slamming into the ground. With each one, he pulled the writhing mass closer to the earth, forcing it, inch by inch, back through the gap it had forced its way through. After what seemed like hours of bellowing and tossing of lightning, something seemed to give, and the- thing - collapsed under apparently the sheer weight of lightning bolts pulling it to the ground. The landlord lazily flicked his wrist, and with a sound like a massive vacuum cleaner, every trace of the creature was slurped back to where it came from, leaving just the wreckage of the Hat-house, looking as if it had been peeled like a banana. The landlord turned to both of us, rolling his eyes.
Steve cleared his throat.
“I don’t suppose we’ll be getting our bond back then.”
I’m actually serious. Not, like, a magician. An actual, honest-to-god wizard.
At first I thought he was just weird. He’d show up for rent inspections wearing a purple dressing gown and apparently without any visible form of transport. Animals were allowed, as long as they were cats, and as long as he could interview them first. He told we could leave the books in the library, or box them and store them in the attic, but either way we weren’t to open them.
But the rent was cheap and the house was clean. Who cares if the guy’s a little weird.
Then we found the hat.
We were taking him up on his suggestion, moving the books to the attic, when Steve found it under some boxes. Steve’s my roommate, or he would be if he was ever home. But hey, he helps pay the rent.
“Hey, look at this,” Steve said.
“It’s a hat.”
“Yeah... but not just any hat. Check it out.” He flapped it through the air like an overenthusiastic bullfighter. It was the dustiest sombrero I’d ever seen.
“Here,” he said, “You take one too.” He tossed me something which looked like it had come straight out of The Three Musketeers: It was wide and floppy and had a massive moth-eaten feather in it. I chucked it aside.
“Can we concentrate on shifting these books already?”
“Aw, why so serious?” he said in his best Jack Nicholson voice, and jammed the hat over my head, flipping the sombrero on at the same time.
“Very funny,” I said as I wrestled the hat off from over my eyes. Steve was standing next to me, slack-jawed and staring into the distance. I waved a hand in front of him, keeping my oversized feather out of my eyes with the other. “Steve? Oi, earth to Steve...”
I turned around and the staring made a bit more sense. The attic had changed, quite significantly. A few modest piles of junk had been replaced with an infinite plane of the stuff. I blinked a few times.
“Um.”
Steve just made a strangled-sounding noise.
I pulled off the hat. The regular attic snapped back into place instantly. I put it back on; and the surreal landscape of junk reappeared. It was the hats for sure then. Interesting.
Steve was starting to drool on the floor, so I tugged the sombrero off his head. That seemed to snap him out of it a bit.
“Far out.”
He went straight for the stairs.
“Where are you going?”, I asked.
“Well, don’t you want to see what the rest of the house looks like with this thing on?” He paused for a second. “Also, I’d quite like to be sick.”
--
The rest of the house also expanded, or at least changed, under the influence of the hats, though not always in the way you’d expect. The bathroom, for example - once Steve had finished throwing up - turned into a lagoon full of cascading waterfalls and tropical birds. We spent a whole hour wandering around the master bedroom, which (as near as I can tell) became an exact replica of the palace at Versailles. The weirdest by far, though, was the library. Hatland’s (Steve’s idea.) library was exactly the same as the ordinary one, but with one addition: in the centre of the room, there was a seven-foot-high obsidian archway.
“Steve?”
“Yeah?”
“I don’t think we should touch this one.”
“Yeah.”
We went and had lunch instead. At the food court, since the Hatland kitchen was apparently a cross between a biomedical lab and a medieval torture chamber and neither of us really felt like eating out of it any more.
“Sho what do we doo?” said Steve through a mouthful of cheap curry.
“Well,” I pondered, “I reckon we’ve got two choices. Either we admit that we’ve probably gone crazy and turn ourselves over to the asylum, or we call up the landlord and ask exactly what’s going on.”
Steve swallowed. “I like the second one more.”
“Me too. Thing is, he never left a number, just a postal address to forward his mail to. I guess we could send him a postcard.”
“Oh yeah, that’d look good. ‘Dear Mr. Landlord, We found your bonkers hats in your crazy house, please tell us what the hell is going on, much love, Your Devoted Tenants.’”
I shrugged. “Eh. It’s all we’ve got.”
We spent the next week or so testing the boundaries of Hatland. The attic seemed to be the only infinite one (If you went far enough in one direction and then took off the hat you’d end up in someone else’s attic, which was awkward). The rest were just very large. On the downside, our food budget was way up (seriously, the Hatkitchen was freaky), but on the upside, our water bill was way down, since both of us preferred the tropical waterfalls to the grimy old bathroom. I was coming out of there one evening trying to pick the leaves from my hair when Steve came up to me. He looked even more screwed up than when we’d first found the hats.
“Are you alright?”
He shook his head. “I was in the library... and I tripped and touched that archway... and now it’s sort of glowing and... and whispering. And when I took my hat off, it didn’t... It didn’t stop.”
This could definitely not be good.
We stood at the door to the library. The arch was indeed glowing. Purple- but not regular purple. Black-light purple. And pulsing slightly. And yes, whispering. I took a few steps towards it. Steve grabbed my arm.
“I really don’t think you should.”
“I just want to have a bit of a closer look.”
And I took another step.
The archway didn’t like that at all. It crackled. Tiny strings of lightning arced across it and the hairs on my arm started to stand on end. I stepped back. It didn’t stop. Something which looked like a crack was forming in the air down the middle of the arch.
“Steve.”
“Yeah?”
“I think we should go.”
“Yeah.”
We turned and ran, slamming the door behind us just as something black and formless started to force its way through the widening crack. We sprinted down the vaulted marble corridor which was the Hat-house’s version of a hallway. The real hallway is shorter, I realised, and pulled the hat off my head. The end of the hall sprung forwards as the marble columns shimmered out of existence.
“Steve! Take the hat off!”
Steve appeared beside me.
“That saved a lot of time. Do you think-” he paused- “-whatever that was, can get us without the hats on?”
“I don’t freaking know! I just want to get as far away as possible.”
We turned and grabbed the front doorknob at the same time, only to have it yanked away from us. On the doorstep stood the landlord, complete with purple bathrobe, nightcap and bunny slippers.
“Uh. Hi. You got our postcard?” Steve started.
I pushed Steve out the door in front of me. “Sorry, urgent, um, appointment. We have to-”
The landlord looked quizzically at us. “Postcard? What the hell are you on about? I’m here for the rent inspection.”
“Yeah, like I said, there’s a thing we have to do-”
The landlord grabbed the hats from each of our hands and put them on our heads. Several things happened at once.
Firstly, it got a lot darker. It had gone from a reasonably sunny day to the blackest storm I‘ve ever seen, and apparently centered over the house. Three guesses as to what might be causing that.
Secondly, the landlord. His sleepwear had flipped itself somehow into a billowing violet cloak, pointed boots, and a big ol‘ stereotypical wizard hat which added a good foot and a half to his height.
Steve and I just stared.
“I said, I’m here to rebind the ancient seals,” said the landlord.
“No you didn’t. You said rent inspection.”
The landlord looked at me like I was stupid. Then, wordlessly, he pointed at the hats.
Then he kicked the door down.
Or at least he tried to, if at least a hundred massive tentacles hadn’t got there first from the other side. The three of us were thrown bodily into the street as every opening in the house erupted with waving appendages, some tentacles, some eye-stalks, some things which I couldn’t describe even if I wanted to. The landlord drew himself to his feet, eyes literally blazing with light, and started booming words in an ancient tongue which burned my ears when he spoke. A gust of wind caught the hats-
The landlord stood in the middle of the sunny street, eyes faintly glazed over, wearing bunny slippers and reciting softly to himself, “Eggs, milk, tuna- no wait, I got tuna yesterday- Bread, sausages-”
I put the hat back on.
We were standing in the middle of what looked like a rapidly forming active volcano. Glowing cracks criss-crossed the street, and the ground shook with every word the landlord spoke. The thing- whatever it was- was too tall to see the top of now, growing upwards like a tree and branching outwards to cover the entire sky. Oh god, I can’t take it-
A single cloud drifted lazily across the sky. A pair of birds twittered to each other in the trees. The man down the street started his lawnmower, and started filling the air with the intertwined scents of fresh-mown grass, two-stroke engine fuel and impending hay fever-
The landlord was throwing bolts of lightning like a discus-thrower, one end impaling the tentacle-tower and the other slamming into the ground. With each one, he pulled the writhing mass closer to the earth, forcing it, inch by inch, back through the gap it had forced its way through. After what seemed like hours of bellowing and tossing of lightning, something seemed to give, and the- thing - collapsed under apparently the sheer weight of lightning bolts pulling it to the ground. The landlord lazily flicked his wrist, and with a sound like a massive vacuum cleaner, every trace of the creature was slurped back to where it came from, leaving just the wreckage of the Hat-house, looking as if it had been peeled like a banana. The landlord turned to both of us, rolling his eyes.
Steve cleared his throat.
“I don’t suppose we’ll be getting our bond back then.”
13.8.11
Origin Story
“Urhhh.”
I open my eyes. Bright. Blurry. Makes me feel even more sick. I shut them again.
“Are you okay?”
Voices. Go away, voices. They shake me. Goddamn it.
“He’s got a pulse... thank goodness, we’d be in trouble if we’d killed him”
Killed... what? Something...
“Wh...”
“I think he’s regaining consciousness...”
Try eyes again. Better. There are faces. Why are there faces? I need to get up, I’ll need to... need to...
“Whoa there, take it easy. Just stay lying down. We’ve put you through quite a shock there.”
...need to... get out of bed, but... This isn’t my bed. It’s too hard-
Everything comes back. I sit bolt upright, and almost pass out from the wave of dizziness which blasts through my head. I phrased my question carefully, choosing my words well, picking a tone which I hope sounds accusatory but ends up just sounding hungover.
“What the hell?”
--
Ten minutes later, and I was properly conscious, with a bag of ice pressed against my head. I’ll be honest, things still weren’t making a lot of sense. Like, I wasn’t in the first aid post, or the break room. I was in one of the medical labs. Why? Someone presses a glass of water into my hand. I almost choke on it when I try to drink. I decide this is a good time to ask another question.
“No really, what happened?”
Everyone’s avoiding eye contact.
“Somebody tell me, what just happened?”
There’s a quick scuffle, like an impromptu conference crossed with a fistfight. Then a lab-coated scientist type (obviously against his will) is pushed forwards.
“Er. Congratulations?”
I stare blankly. “On what?”
He looks pleadingly behind him for some kind of support, but none is forthcoming.
“Um. Okay. So tell me everything you remember.”
“My name’s Roy.” I start off sarcastically. “I’m a cleaner. I work in a university, apparently with a bunch of people who have as little idea of what’s going on as I do.”
He looks a bit taken aback.
“Yes. Right. Well. Actually we do know what happened, because we sort of set it up.”
I just look at him.
“Er. Yeah. We’ve been looking for a suitable test chamber for weeks, and we realised the broom closet was just the right size, so we, er, used it. We didn’t even think- well, obviously, we wouldn’t pick you... human trials are a while off anyway... not that... uhh...” He trailed off.
A second lab-coat type steps up. He’s obviously realised that whatever this guy is meant to be telling me, he’s totally screwing it up. Nothing new there.
“The cleaning supply closet on this floor was the correct dimensions for a test-firing of an experiment of ours. Unfortunately somebody-” He gestures at the previous speaker- “-forgot to put a sign on the door to warn you.”
“Or tell me. Or even just lock the door.”
He’s getting flustered now. Academics, bless their souls. Not a practical bone in their bodies.
“Quite, yes. In any event, you were unintentionally caught in the test-firing of an infinity bolt-”
An uproar breaks out behind him.
“Who told you you could name it? I thought we were calling it the entropy siphon-”
“-load of crap, I voted for universal anode-”
“-clearly should be quantum vault, since that’s what it does-”
“-rubbish, it’s relativity loop or nothing, I say-”
“-eternity lock is much-
“-decay transferance matrix-”
“-I still think we should work dark energy in there somewhere-”
Again, this is fairly typical. You’d think the squabbles at a research institiution would be about massive scientific breakthroughs, or as-yet-undiscovered theories. But no, those are accepted without question. But when you want to give something a name, oh boy do the knives come out. Normally I’d find this quite entertaining, but in this particular case, what they seem to be arguing about is pointed at me, so I’d like a few more answers.
I clear my throat. Silence.
“Yes. As I was saying, the purpose of an infinity bolt-” He glares at the others, daring them to bring up his choice of name again. “-is to quantum-entangle two masses, and then, using relativity, to slow down the passage of time for one mass while allowing the other to exist in real-time, thus drastically reducing the effect of entropy on the the target. Which in this case, is you.”
The research assistant from earlier gestures at two white mice in a cage behind me. “Er. It was, um, supposed to be Jesse and James over there. I guess we’ll have to give them back to the biology department now.”
“So what’s the practical result of all this?”
He looks at me as if I’m an idiot. Which I’m not. I just don’t have a physics degree, which is the same thing in their book.
“The subject is, essentially, preserved in perpetuity in its current state, from the passage of time.”
This takes a moment to sink in. He obviously thinks I haven’t understood, because he feels the need to clarify.
“Thus, the congratulations are in order, because you are now essentially ageless.”
“Yeah, I got that bit.” Nope. Still hasn’t sunk in.
“Can you, y’know, turn it off”
“Well, no. Not as such. Slowing down the acceleration mass would result in the annihilation of both masses, as would any damage to the device.”
“I see. And is there... a time limit on this?”
“At the current relativistic velocity, the acceleration mass will be totally decayed in about forty thousand years, at which point both systems will disentangle and revert to their pre-linking state.”
“I see.”
I grab my key ring from my pocket, walk over to the nearest supply closet, and grab a broom. I turn around and wave at them casually.
“Well, it’s been lovely, but I should be off. Loads to do. Call me next time you make a mess, okay?”
It’s going to be a long forty thousand years.
I open my eyes. Bright. Blurry. Makes me feel even more sick. I shut them again.
“Are you okay?”
Voices. Go away, voices. They shake me. Goddamn it.
“He’s got a pulse... thank goodness, we’d be in trouble if we’d killed him”
Killed... what? Something...
“Wh...”
“I think he’s regaining consciousness...”
Try eyes again. Better. There are faces. Why are there faces? I need to get up, I’ll need to... need to...
“Whoa there, take it easy. Just stay lying down. We’ve put you through quite a shock there.”
...need to... get out of bed, but... This isn’t my bed. It’s too hard-
Everything comes back. I sit bolt upright, and almost pass out from the wave of dizziness which blasts through my head. I phrased my question carefully, choosing my words well, picking a tone which I hope sounds accusatory but ends up just sounding hungover.
“What the hell?”
--
Ten minutes later, and I was properly conscious, with a bag of ice pressed against my head. I’ll be honest, things still weren’t making a lot of sense. Like, I wasn’t in the first aid post, or the break room. I was in one of the medical labs. Why? Someone presses a glass of water into my hand. I almost choke on it when I try to drink. I decide this is a good time to ask another question.
“No really, what happened?”
Everyone’s avoiding eye contact.
“Somebody tell me, what just happened?”
There’s a quick scuffle, like an impromptu conference crossed with a fistfight. Then a lab-coated scientist type (obviously against his will) is pushed forwards.
“Er. Congratulations?”
I stare blankly. “On what?”
He looks pleadingly behind him for some kind of support, but none is forthcoming.
“Um. Okay. So tell me everything you remember.”
“My name’s Roy.” I start off sarcastically. “I’m a cleaner. I work in a university, apparently with a bunch of people who have as little idea of what’s going on as I do.”
He looks a bit taken aback.
“Yes. Right. Well. Actually we do know what happened, because we sort of set it up.”
I just look at him.
“Er. Yeah. We’ve been looking for a suitable test chamber for weeks, and we realised the broom closet was just the right size, so we, er, used it. We didn’t even think- well, obviously, we wouldn’t pick you... human trials are a while off anyway... not that... uhh...” He trailed off.
A second lab-coat type steps up. He’s obviously realised that whatever this guy is meant to be telling me, he’s totally screwing it up. Nothing new there.
“The cleaning supply closet on this floor was the correct dimensions for a test-firing of an experiment of ours. Unfortunately somebody-” He gestures at the previous speaker- “-forgot to put a sign on the door to warn you.”
“Or tell me. Or even just lock the door.”
He’s getting flustered now. Academics, bless their souls. Not a practical bone in their bodies.
“Quite, yes. In any event, you were unintentionally caught in the test-firing of an infinity bolt-”
An uproar breaks out behind him.
“Who told you you could name it? I thought we were calling it the entropy siphon-”
“-load of crap, I voted for universal anode-”
“-clearly should be quantum vault, since that’s what it does-”
“-rubbish, it’s relativity loop or nothing, I say-”
“-eternity lock is much-
“-decay transferance matrix-”
“-I still think we should work dark energy in there somewhere-”
Again, this is fairly typical. You’d think the squabbles at a research institiution would be about massive scientific breakthroughs, or as-yet-undiscovered theories. But no, those are accepted without question. But when you want to give something a name, oh boy do the knives come out. Normally I’d find this quite entertaining, but in this particular case, what they seem to be arguing about is pointed at me, so I’d like a few more answers.
I clear my throat. Silence.
“Yes. As I was saying, the purpose of an infinity bolt-” He glares at the others, daring them to bring up his choice of name again. “-is to quantum-entangle two masses, and then, using relativity, to slow down the passage of time for one mass while allowing the other to exist in real-time, thus drastically reducing the effect of entropy on the the target. Which in this case, is you.”
The research assistant from earlier gestures at two white mice in a cage behind me. “Er. It was, um, supposed to be Jesse and James over there. I guess we’ll have to give them back to the biology department now.”
“So what’s the practical result of all this?”
He looks at me as if I’m an idiot. Which I’m not. I just don’t have a physics degree, which is the same thing in their book.
“The subject is, essentially, preserved in perpetuity in its current state, from the passage of time.”
This takes a moment to sink in. He obviously thinks I haven’t understood, because he feels the need to clarify.
“Thus, the congratulations are in order, because you are now essentially ageless.”
“Yeah, I got that bit.” Nope. Still hasn’t sunk in.
“Can you, y’know, turn it off”
“Well, no. Not as such. Slowing down the acceleration mass would result in the annihilation of both masses, as would any damage to the device.”
“I see. And is there... a time limit on this?”
“At the current relativistic velocity, the acceleration mass will be totally decayed in about forty thousand years, at which point both systems will disentangle and revert to their pre-linking state.”
“I see.”
I grab my key ring from my pocket, walk over to the nearest supply closet, and grab a broom. I turn around and wave at them casually.
“Well, it’s been lovely, but I should be off. Loads to do. Call me next time you make a mess, okay?”
It’s going to be a long forty thousand years.
6.8.11
Paddy's
2am. Starport City, Arcadia-3, The Dionysus System.
(Five minutes down the street from Paddy Fitzgerald’s Irish Pub.)
Two figures stumble down the street beneath the bluish glow of the energy lamps.
“Aww, crap. I think I left my keys on the bar.”
“Seriously? You pick now to remember? We’re like two minutes away from mine, you can crash there tonight. Paddy’ll keep ’em safe for you, I’m sure”
“Nah, my wife’ll kill me if I forget them again. I’m already in enough hot water about tonight-”
“Clearly she doesn’t appreciate the awesomeness which is one of my par-tays de bachelor”
“Yeah, you got that one right. Look, I’ll see you tomorrow, alright?”
“Yeah, alright.”
He turns around. Like he said, Paddy’s is still close, and it’s better to remember his keys now than to face another bout of wifely wrath. The air is quiet as he half-jogs back the way he came.
As he approaches the corner, he sees light coming from probably about where Paddy’s is. That’s weird. All the lights had been turned off when they left. That was mostly the reason they’d left, actually- two stragglers left in the bar after everyone else was long-gone were hardly a thriving crowd, so Paddy had turfed them out. Maybe turning the lights off was just for show, or maybe he’d forgotten something too.
He rounds the corner. He was right, the light was coming from Paddy’s. That’s good, it means he’s still up. Less awkward explanations about why he was bashing at the door of a closed pub at two in the morning. There’s something weird about the light, though. Paddy’s has energy lamps, and they don’t flicker like that...
A thought shoots across his sluggish mind. Could it be fire? Someone had been breathing fire at the party (showoff), could it have caught in the ceiling and be burning? He breaks into a run, and stumbles panting to a stop in front of the massive wooden door to the bar. He starts knocking.
“PADDY! PADDY? PATRICK? ARE YOU IN THERE? ARE YOU OKA-”
The door creaks open, just a fraction. An Irish-accented voice replies.
“Yes?”
“Oh, Paddy, sorry. It’s me, I just left my keys, and I-”
“You should probably come back tomorrow.”
“Well, I wanted to get them before tomorrow, it’s my wife see, ‘cause I lose things all the time”
“I think you should come back tomorrow instead.”
“No really, it’ll just take a moment, and I think you might have a fire or something in the roof because there was this weird flickering before but it seems to have stopped-”
As he says this, he pushes through the door. It takes him a few steps to notice that what he has walked into is not Paddy Fitzgerald’s Irish Pub. Paddy’s is all wood paneling and leather sofas and poster prints. This is dark, and cold, and chromed.
“Whoa, Paddy... what’s going on here?”
“You need to leave.”
“Nah, I gotta... gotta get my keys... Paddy, what is this?”
He spots his keys on what half an hour ago was a worn teak bar. Now it’s a benchtop, made from some unidentifiable, apparently frictionless metal. He grabs his keys and turns around. Paddy’s face is right in front of him. He looks odd, kind of stiff, and there’s a terrifying light in his eyes.
“Leave.” It’s almost a gasp, with odd harmonics sliding up and down somewhere deep in his throat.
“I... are you sure... I think I might... just... go...”
He turns and runs out the door, bursting onto the street. He sprints halfway to the corner before he even dares to look over his shoulder. As he does, the flickering light starts to build again, to an incredible intensity.
He runs the rest of the way home, and doesn’t look back again.
--
It’s on the newscast the next morning. Everyone at work is talking about it. His mate swings by his desk, with a look of awe on his face.
“Can ya believe it? Gone! Paddy’s! Like it was never there, the newscast said. And get this- they looked him up in the colony databank. Turns out there never was a Patrick Fitzgerald, never on the whole planet. There weren’t even any Irish settlers on the colony ship! And I reckon, I reckon you must’ve just about been the last one ever to see him, when you went back to get your keys last night.”
He shoots an curious look down his nose.
“Hey, you didn’t happen to see anything didja?”
“Nope. Not a damn thing.”
(Five minutes down the street from Paddy Fitzgerald’s Irish Pub.)
Two figures stumble down the street beneath the bluish glow of the energy lamps.
“Aww, crap. I think I left my keys on the bar.”
“Seriously? You pick now to remember? We’re like two minutes away from mine, you can crash there tonight. Paddy’ll keep ’em safe for you, I’m sure”
“Nah, my wife’ll kill me if I forget them again. I’m already in enough hot water about tonight-”
“Clearly she doesn’t appreciate the awesomeness which is one of my par-tays de bachelor”
“Yeah, you got that one right. Look, I’ll see you tomorrow, alright?”
“Yeah, alright.”
He turns around. Like he said, Paddy’s is still close, and it’s better to remember his keys now than to face another bout of wifely wrath. The air is quiet as he half-jogs back the way he came.
As he approaches the corner, he sees light coming from probably about where Paddy’s is. That’s weird. All the lights had been turned off when they left. That was mostly the reason they’d left, actually- two stragglers left in the bar after everyone else was long-gone were hardly a thriving crowd, so Paddy had turfed them out. Maybe turning the lights off was just for show, or maybe he’d forgotten something too.
He rounds the corner. He was right, the light was coming from Paddy’s. That’s good, it means he’s still up. Less awkward explanations about why he was bashing at the door of a closed pub at two in the morning. There’s something weird about the light, though. Paddy’s has energy lamps, and they don’t flicker like that...
A thought shoots across his sluggish mind. Could it be fire? Someone had been breathing fire at the party (showoff), could it have caught in the ceiling and be burning? He breaks into a run, and stumbles panting to a stop in front of the massive wooden door to the bar. He starts knocking.
“PADDY! PADDY? PATRICK? ARE YOU IN THERE? ARE YOU OKA-”
The door creaks open, just a fraction. An Irish-accented voice replies.
“Yes?”
“Oh, Paddy, sorry. It’s me, I just left my keys, and I-”
“You should probably come back tomorrow.”
“Well, I wanted to get them before tomorrow, it’s my wife see, ‘cause I lose things all the time”
“I think you should come back tomorrow instead.”
“No really, it’ll just take a moment, and I think you might have a fire or something in the roof because there was this weird flickering before but it seems to have stopped-”
As he says this, he pushes through the door. It takes him a few steps to notice that what he has walked into is not Paddy Fitzgerald’s Irish Pub. Paddy’s is all wood paneling and leather sofas and poster prints. This is dark, and cold, and chromed.
“Whoa, Paddy... what’s going on here?”
“You need to leave.”
“Nah, I gotta... gotta get my keys... Paddy, what is this?”
He spots his keys on what half an hour ago was a worn teak bar. Now it’s a benchtop, made from some unidentifiable, apparently frictionless metal. He grabs his keys and turns around. Paddy’s face is right in front of him. He looks odd, kind of stiff, and there’s a terrifying light in his eyes.
“Leave.” It’s almost a gasp, with odd harmonics sliding up and down somewhere deep in his throat.
“I... are you sure... I think I might... just... go...”
He turns and runs out the door, bursting onto the street. He sprints halfway to the corner before he even dares to look over his shoulder. As he does, the flickering light starts to build again, to an incredible intensity.
He runs the rest of the way home, and doesn’t look back again.
--
It’s on the newscast the next morning. Everyone at work is talking about it. His mate swings by his desk, with a look of awe on his face.
“Can ya believe it? Gone! Paddy’s! Like it was never there, the newscast said. And get this- they looked him up in the colony databank. Turns out there never was a Patrick Fitzgerald, never on the whole planet. There weren’t even any Irish settlers on the colony ship! And I reckon, I reckon you must’ve just about been the last one ever to see him, when you went back to get your keys last night.”
He shoots an curious look down his nose.
“Hey, you didn’t happen to see anything didja?”
“Nope. Not a damn thing.”
29.7.11
Astro-Franklining
Rivulets of acid etch their way along the ground as I scrabble to the top of the scarp. The view is astonishing - a canyon ripples over the horizon, winding between mountains that look more like waves than cliffs. The sun is dipping low on the horizon, illuminating massive spires of mustard-coloured cloud from behind.
But we’re not here for the view.
My partner’s head pokes up over the edge of the hill. With a quick nod, we get to work, securing lines, sinking metre-long spikes into the impacted earth, and securing harnesses. Somewhere in our suit systems an alarm sounds. It’s the Mount Maxwell automated transponder, broadcasting on all frequencies, telling anyone in their right mind to get out of here. Of course, we’re not in our right mind, so we shut it off. For us, it’s a cue. Guy ropes down, lightning rod up.
The storm front’s closing now. It’s moving faster than you could believe, ploughing across the force and colour of a supercharged bulldozer. Lightning sparks in its depths, and the thunder grows from the occasional crackle to an incessant roar. If our hair was exposed to the air it’d be whipping past our faces right now. The howl of the wind permeates our suits- even if we were in the habit of talking, I’d be hard pressed to hear even the sound of my own voice right now. Drops of sulphrous rain start to spatter across our faceplates.
And then the storm hits. The deadly golden rain pours in torrents, it takes all our strength just to stay standing against the wind. The windspeed indicator inches towards the red as bolts of lightning start to blast craters in the soil. Something snaps somewhere, reinforced nanoropes start to creak under the force, and the needle on the windspeed indicator hits the maximum-
“NOW”
I can’t tell if my partner’s released or not. Could he hear over the wind? Is the canopy still intact? Is he even alive? Then something wrenches my arms almost from their sockets. The kite leaps into the air like a wild animal and tears into the cloud layer. I fight it every inch of the way, reeling it in and playing it out, watching the remote altimiter spin even faster than the wind meter.
The force eases off slightly - still enough to drag me bodily into the air were I not literally nailed to the floor, but definitely less fierce somehow. The kite dips in and out of the lowest cloud layer, like a fish. A flying fish, upside down. I pull some loops and some swoops, and take a crack at a dive, but nothing too risky. Even on Venus, a storm like this only comes along once in a decade, and a crashed kite means game over, time’s up- there’s no relaunching in conditions like this.
Something blinks above, once, then again. Then, out of the yellow, a brilliant arc of blue lightning smashes into the delicate foil structure of the kite, and courses down the string leaving trails of St. Elmo’s Fire across the control lines. A thousand tiny aurorae cascade off my suit as the bolt sizzles its way down into the earthing coil linked to my boots. The kite is hit again, and again- sixteen strikes, in total, each one leaving more blazing lines across my vision. The last few strikes almost have me letting go of the kite to cover my eyes, but I fly blind instead, trusting in experience to keep me airborne.
And then for the first time in forty minutes, the dials start to fall. The driving rain peters off the the standard Venusian drizzle, and as we watch, our kite starts to drift lazily down to the ground against the backdrop of the receding thunderhead.
“So now what?”, I ask my launch buddy.
“Well, I hear Neptune’s lovely this time of year...”
And that, my friend, is how you Astro-Franklin.
But we’re not here for the view.
My partner’s head pokes up over the edge of the hill. With a quick nod, we get to work, securing lines, sinking metre-long spikes into the impacted earth, and securing harnesses. Somewhere in our suit systems an alarm sounds. It’s the Mount Maxwell automated transponder, broadcasting on all frequencies, telling anyone in their right mind to get out of here. Of course, we’re not in our right mind, so we shut it off. For us, it’s a cue. Guy ropes down, lightning rod up.
The storm front’s closing now. It’s moving faster than you could believe, ploughing across the force and colour of a supercharged bulldozer. Lightning sparks in its depths, and the thunder grows from the occasional crackle to an incessant roar. If our hair was exposed to the air it’d be whipping past our faces right now. The howl of the wind permeates our suits- even if we were in the habit of talking, I’d be hard pressed to hear even the sound of my own voice right now. Drops of sulphrous rain start to spatter across our faceplates.
And then the storm hits. The deadly golden rain pours in torrents, it takes all our strength just to stay standing against the wind. The windspeed indicator inches towards the red as bolts of lightning start to blast craters in the soil. Something snaps somewhere, reinforced nanoropes start to creak under the force, and the needle on the windspeed indicator hits the maximum-
“NOW”
I can’t tell if my partner’s released or not. Could he hear over the wind? Is the canopy still intact? Is he even alive? Then something wrenches my arms almost from their sockets. The kite leaps into the air like a wild animal and tears into the cloud layer. I fight it every inch of the way, reeling it in and playing it out, watching the remote altimiter spin even faster than the wind meter.
The force eases off slightly - still enough to drag me bodily into the air were I not literally nailed to the floor, but definitely less fierce somehow. The kite dips in and out of the lowest cloud layer, like a fish. A flying fish, upside down. I pull some loops and some swoops, and take a crack at a dive, but nothing too risky. Even on Venus, a storm like this only comes along once in a decade, and a crashed kite means game over, time’s up- there’s no relaunching in conditions like this.
Something blinks above, once, then again. Then, out of the yellow, a brilliant arc of blue lightning smashes into the delicate foil structure of the kite, and courses down the string leaving trails of St. Elmo’s Fire across the control lines. A thousand tiny aurorae cascade off my suit as the bolt sizzles its way down into the earthing coil linked to my boots. The kite is hit again, and again- sixteen strikes, in total, each one leaving more blazing lines across my vision. The last few strikes almost have me letting go of the kite to cover my eyes, but I fly blind instead, trusting in experience to keep me airborne.
And then for the first time in forty minutes, the dials start to fall. The driving rain peters off the the standard Venusian drizzle, and as we watch, our kite starts to drift lazily down to the ground against the backdrop of the receding thunderhead.
“So now what?”, I ask my launch buddy.
“Well, I hear Neptune’s lovely this time of year...”
And that, my friend, is how you Astro-Franklin.
22.7.11
Razor, Part 2: The Heist
[Previously]
Rebeka stood in front of the reception desk, with the blueprints rolled up under her arm. The receptionist was having an animated phone conversation with someone else. Rebeka cleared her throat and tried to look impatient, not that it required much pretense. This woman had kept her waiting for almost five minutes now. Oh, how she was going to enjoy stealing from these-
“Can I help you?”, the receptionist asked looking exasperated.
“Yes, I’m here from Arthur and Arthur Architects, you have a building inspection-”
“Just go through”. She slapped a clearance badge on the counter.
Rude and sloppy. It’s almost like these people wanted to be stolen from, thought Rebeka as she stepped into the elevator. She pulled an earbud and collar-mike from her top pocket and put them on.
“I am in. They did not even check the maintenance calendar, or my identification. Is the diversion ready?”
Tim’s voice sounded tinny through the earpiece. “Yep. On your mark.”
The elevator pinged. Rebeka sighed. Another receptionist’s desk. Rebeka assumed a worried expression and hurried up to the desk. “First batch in thirty seconds”, she said into the mike.
“I need to speak to the board. Now.”
The receptionist looked quizzical. “And why would that be”
Rebeka flashed her ID. “I’m from the company which built this building. We’ve found some problems with your foundations-”
Right on cue, there was a rumble up through the building. Rebeka saw a look of panic flash across the receptionist’s face and had to stop a grin crossing her own.
“You’d better go straight on through.”
Rebeka turned towards the board room. “Second group in sixty seconds.”, she muttered, and stepped through the door. Everyone in the room turned to face her.
“Ah- you’re already here?”, said the man Rebeka recognised as the CEO.
“Yes, certainly.” lied Rebeka smoothly. She turned and hissed into her mike. “What does he mean?”
“Hold on.” An excruciating second passed. Then: “He called the firm. Emergency building inspection. You’ll need to be fast. Distraction coming up.”
The building shook again. Rebeka seized her chance.
“Yes, I was just on my way up to warn you about some... inconsistencies in your building’s foundations. It is imperative that you evacuate the upper levels of the building-”
“Say whole building. Clear the vault level too” buzzed Tim’s voice in her ear.
“-first, followed by the rest of the building, as quickly as possible.”
“Of- of course.” The CEO ushered the rest of the board out the door, pushing past Rebeka as he did so. “All of you, leave at once. I’ll head to the security desk and alert the building.”
“Kill the lifts, now!” Rebeka muttered into her collar, standing in the corner of the rapidly emptying boardroom.
“Why?”
“He will not go to the security desk. He will attempt to lock down the vault. If you lock the lift he will have to take the stairs, which will give me time to empty it first.”
“Done.”
Rebeka grabbed a glass from the table, and ran for the stairs. She burst through the fire door in the stairwell, and spotted the members of the board already three floors down.
“Down one floor, then take the lift. Faster.” said Tim in her ear.
She grabbed the next exit and raced through an empty floor towards a pair of open elevator doors.
“Hold on.”
There was a thunk, and the lift was falling down the shaft. Rebeka held on to the handrail and swore loudly in Russian, and shut her eyes until she heard the telltale screech of the lift shaft’s emergency brakes. She brushed the hair away from her face.
“Next time you do this, I murder you in your sleep.”, she yelled, and pulled the headphone out of her ear.
The doors slid open. The vault door stood imposingly in front of her, and she grinned. This vault was clearly just for show. Laughing to herself softly, she swiped the CEO’s identity card, which she had pocketed back in the boardroom when he had pushed past her. The more selfish they were, the easier they were to con. She pressed the smudgy, print-covered glass up against the fingerprint scanner, which lit up green instantly, and punched in an eight-digit code into the keypad. She smiled again. The vault, Tim had informed her, had not only been connected to the company network, and thus, the internet, but had also not had its default keypad algorithm changed- the manufacturer’s birthday followed by the current date. Too easy, Tim had said. She was going to have to keep an eye on that one, he was good...
The vault door rolled back. Rebeka knew exactly what she was looking for. She went straight for a cabinet in the corner of the room. Fishing some lockpicks from her pocket, she opened it and pulled out her reason for robbing the place.
Six weeks ago, Asclepius Industries (the world’s leading manufacturer of scalpels and razor blades) had inadvertently manufactured the world’s largest artificial diamond while experimenting with diamond-tipped scalpels. Unsure of exactly what to do with something like this, they had opted to put it on display in their lobby, and, while the display case was being arranged, they had obviously decided the company vault (normally used for securing documents) was adequate, seeing as nobody but them knew the diamond existed. Well, nobody but them and the cabinetmaker, who owed a certain debt to the mob and found Russian accents very intimidating...
Rebeka threw the protective cover away and slid the diamond into a secure pocket strapped to her ankle. One down. She moved back to the center of the room and flicked the power on 'BACKUP STATION SIX’ and went to rifle through some documents in a nearby filing cabinet while it booted up. She would have Tim’s ‘files’ in thirty seconds flat, she thought.
The elevator pinged.
Rebeka almost panicked. She shoved the file back, and checked the computer. A progress bar was still sliding across the screen. She could hear the keypad being activated from outside. She wrenched the side off the computer and pulled out the hard drive, and slid an identical, but damaged in it’s place. Hopefully, they would think it had just crashed. Tim really had thought of everything, she realised, except the one thing she needed- another way out. The door hinges clunked and began to open. Looking around frantically for an exit, something popped into Rebeka’s head, something from the blueprints... She looked down.
The CEO stepped through the vault door. His eyes fell immediately on the open cabinet in the corner, and a look of panic crossed his face. “The diamond!” He pulled out his phone. “Get security down here now. And the police. And call the insurance company”, he said, then added as an afterthought, “And my lawyers. The shareholders are going to be angry...”
The floor plate slid back into place, leaving a black figure outlined against a deeper black. A much smellier black.
Squelch.
The figure screwed her earbud back in. “I do not even want to think about what I just landed in, Tim. Now tell me how I get out of here.”
--
Rebeka locked the warehouse door behind her. “I have it.” she said.
“And the files?”
She waved the Asclepius Industries hard disk in the air. “What is on this that you were wanting, Timothy? Is it more valuable than my diamond?” She smirked.
“Could be. It’s the schematics for all Asclepius’ razor blades. Their razors only take their own blades. Got a total monopoly on the razor market. I could sell these for millions on the black market. Or...”
He pulled up a file-sharing site on his laptop.
“I could put a little competition in their market.”
Rebeka looked incredulous. “Pirate razor blades? This is your big payoff?”
“Got all the money I need. This?” He gestured at the hard drive, and for the first time since they’d met two days ago, Rebeka saw him smile.
“This is just for the lulz.”
Rebeka stood in front of the reception desk, with the blueprints rolled up under her arm. The receptionist was having an animated phone conversation with someone else. Rebeka cleared her throat and tried to look impatient, not that it required much pretense. This woman had kept her waiting for almost five minutes now. Oh, how she was going to enjoy stealing from these-
“Can I help you?”, the receptionist asked looking exasperated.
“Yes, I’m here from Arthur and Arthur Architects, you have a building inspection-”
“Just go through”. She slapped a clearance badge on the counter.
Rude and sloppy. It’s almost like these people wanted to be stolen from, thought Rebeka as she stepped into the elevator. She pulled an earbud and collar-mike from her top pocket and put them on.
“I am in. They did not even check the maintenance calendar, or my identification. Is the diversion ready?”
Tim’s voice sounded tinny through the earpiece. “Yep. On your mark.”
The elevator pinged. Rebeka sighed. Another receptionist’s desk. Rebeka assumed a worried expression and hurried up to the desk. “First batch in thirty seconds”, she said into the mike.
“I need to speak to the board. Now.”
The receptionist looked quizzical. “And why would that be”
Rebeka flashed her ID. “I’m from the company which built this building. We’ve found some problems with your foundations-”
Right on cue, there was a rumble up through the building. Rebeka saw a look of panic flash across the receptionist’s face and had to stop a grin crossing her own.
“You’d better go straight on through.”
Rebeka turned towards the board room. “Second group in sixty seconds.”, she muttered, and stepped through the door. Everyone in the room turned to face her.
“Ah- you’re already here?”, said the man Rebeka recognised as the CEO.
“Yes, certainly.” lied Rebeka smoothly. She turned and hissed into her mike. “What does he mean?”
“Hold on.” An excruciating second passed. Then: “He called the firm. Emergency building inspection. You’ll need to be fast. Distraction coming up.”
The building shook again. Rebeka seized her chance.
“Yes, I was just on my way up to warn you about some... inconsistencies in your building’s foundations. It is imperative that you evacuate the upper levels of the building-”
“Say whole building. Clear the vault level too” buzzed Tim’s voice in her ear.
“-first, followed by the rest of the building, as quickly as possible.”
“Of- of course.” The CEO ushered the rest of the board out the door, pushing past Rebeka as he did so. “All of you, leave at once. I’ll head to the security desk and alert the building.”
“Kill the lifts, now!” Rebeka muttered into her collar, standing in the corner of the rapidly emptying boardroom.
“Why?”
“He will not go to the security desk. He will attempt to lock down the vault. If you lock the lift he will have to take the stairs, which will give me time to empty it first.”
“Done.”
Rebeka grabbed a glass from the table, and ran for the stairs. She burst through the fire door in the stairwell, and spotted the members of the board already three floors down.
“Down one floor, then take the lift. Faster.” said Tim in her ear.
She grabbed the next exit and raced through an empty floor towards a pair of open elevator doors.
“Hold on.”
There was a thunk, and the lift was falling down the shaft. Rebeka held on to the handrail and swore loudly in Russian, and shut her eyes until she heard the telltale screech of the lift shaft’s emergency brakes. She brushed the hair away from her face.
“Next time you do this, I murder you in your sleep.”, she yelled, and pulled the headphone out of her ear.
The doors slid open. The vault door stood imposingly in front of her, and she grinned. This vault was clearly just for show. Laughing to herself softly, she swiped the CEO’s identity card, which she had pocketed back in the boardroom when he had pushed past her. The more selfish they were, the easier they were to con. She pressed the smudgy, print-covered glass up against the fingerprint scanner, which lit up green instantly, and punched in an eight-digit code into the keypad. She smiled again. The vault, Tim had informed her, had not only been connected to the company network, and thus, the internet, but had also not had its default keypad algorithm changed- the manufacturer’s birthday followed by the current date. Too easy, Tim had said. She was going to have to keep an eye on that one, he was good...
The vault door rolled back. Rebeka knew exactly what she was looking for. She went straight for a cabinet in the corner of the room. Fishing some lockpicks from her pocket, she opened it and pulled out her reason for robbing the place.
Six weeks ago, Asclepius Industries (the world’s leading manufacturer of scalpels and razor blades) had inadvertently manufactured the world’s largest artificial diamond while experimenting with diamond-tipped scalpels. Unsure of exactly what to do with something like this, they had opted to put it on display in their lobby, and, while the display case was being arranged, they had obviously decided the company vault (normally used for securing documents) was adequate, seeing as nobody but them knew the diamond existed. Well, nobody but them and the cabinetmaker, who owed a certain debt to the mob and found Russian accents very intimidating...
Rebeka threw the protective cover away and slid the diamond into a secure pocket strapped to her ankle. One down. She moved back to the center of the room and flicked the power on 'BACKUP STATION SIX’ and went to rifle through some documents in a nearby filing cabinet while it booted up. She would have Tim’s ‘files’ in thirty seconds flat, she thought.
The elevator pinged.
Rebeka almost panicked. She shoved the file back, and checked the computer. A progress bar was still sliding across the screen. She could hear the keypad being activated from outside. She wrenched the side off the computer and pulled out the hard drive, and slid an identical, but damaged in it’s place. Hopefully, they would think it had just crashed. Tim really had thought of everything, she realised, except the one thing she needed- another way out. The door hinges clunked and began to open. Looking around frantically for an exit, something popped into Rebeka’s head, something from the blueprints... She looked down.
The CEO stepped through the vault door. His eyes fell immediately on the open cabinet in the corner, and a look of panic crossed his face. “The diamond!” He pulled out his phone. “Get security down here now. And the police. And call the insurance company”, he said, then added as an afterthought, “And my lawyers. The shareholders are going to be angry...”
The floor plate slid back into place, leaving a black figure outlined against a deeper black. A much smellier black.
Squelch.
The figure screwed her earbud back in. “I do not even want to think about what I just landed in, Tim. Now tell me how I get out of here.”
--
Rebeka locked the warehouse door behind her. “I have it.” she said.
“And the files?”
She waved the Asclepius Industries hard disk in the air. “What is on this that you were wanting, Timothy? Is it more valuable than my diamond?” She smirked.
“Could be. It’s the schematics for all Asclepius’ razor blades. Their razors only take their own blades. Got a total monopoly on the razor market. I could sell these for millions on the black market. Or...”
He pulled up a file-sharing site on his laptop.
“I could put a little competition in their market.”
Rebeka looked incredulous. “Pirate razor blades? This is your big payoff?”
“Got all the money I need. This?” He gestured at the hard drive, and for the first time since they’d met two days ago, Rebeka saw him smile.
“This is just for the lulz.”
15.7.11
Razor, Part 1: The Respondant
The floor plate slides back into place, leaving a black figure outlined against a deeper black. A much worse smelling black.
Squelch.
The figure screws her earbud back in. “I do not even want to think about what I have just landed in, Tim. Now tell me how I get out of here.”
THIRTY-SIX HOURS EARLIER...
Tim locked the warehouse door behind him. “Jackpot. Blueprints. Full set”, he said, waving them at the island of light in the middle of the room. There was a metallic click next to his ear.
“Who are you and why are you in my warehouse?”. A female voice. It sounded like she had a faint Russian accent, but he couldn’t be sure.
Tim stopped. Didn’t move, didn’t even blink. In this line of work you got very used to people pointing guns at you, and more importantly, how to get them to stop pointing. The trick was to be very, very calm.
“Timothy Anderson. You took out an ad. For a hacker.”
“Yes, I did. This does not explain why you are in my warehouse. All the other hackers I’ve worked with didn’t even leave their houses. You’re not some kind of criminal, no?”
Tim raised one eyebrow.
“You know what I mean. The...” She paused and gestured noncomittally. “...creepy kind of criminal.” The gun lowered slightly, then snapped right up again. “That still leaves how you found my warehouse.”
“Your security. Worse than theirs, even.” He waved the blueprints again. “Which is pretty bad.”
A black-gloved hand reached into his field of view and slid the rolled-up blueprints out of his grip.
“Well, you can go now. Thanks ever so much for your services, and that. Your cheque’s in the mail. You know, figuratively speaking.”
Tim didn’t move.
“You can go now. Go on. Shoo.”
Tim steeled himself. This was the dangerous part. “I want in.”
“You what?”
“I want in. On this. You need me”
“Oh really. And why exactly would that be, Mr. Mysterious?”
Tim grabbed the blueprints and rolled them out on the table under the floodlights. “Digital security. Vault’s got rotating code locks, biometrics, and double keycards. I get you in. You cut me in”
“How much?”
“Nothing, of yours. You take the diamond. Then you take a manufacturing pattern. You give it to me. Easy.”
The gun snapped away as quickly as it appeared.
“Well, as long as you don’t want my diamond.” She offered a gloved hand.
“Rebeka White. I am thief.”
--
“Entry plan?”
“Right. The building is shiny and new on the outside, but foundations are old. Really old. I think we use that as cover story, use the blueprints as part of it, and go in as building inspectors.” Rebeka smirked. “Once I am in, they won’t even know I am there”.
Tim raised an eyebrow. “Security?”
“Well, normally I just make that part up as I go, but seeing as you are here, I thought you might want to handle it?”
Tim had already planned this out. He checked them off on his hand, like he was running down a list. Which he was.
“Cover story. Easy. I can add a building inspection to the maintainence calendar. Keycard. Any board member’s will do. Fingerprints might be tougher.” Tim started pacing the warehouse.
“Again, any board member, but it’ll have to be the same one as the keycard. Scanner’s optical, so a lifted print will work. Board meeting at 11am tomorrow. We’ll need to get you in and out of there somehow.”
Rebeka eyed the shelf marked ‘EXPLOSIVES’ with a grin on her face.
“I can think of a way...”
To Be Continued!
8.7.11
Fever
A gentle wind sifts across the settlement. The weather is calm, a rare gift these days. A father and daughter lie in the courtyard and stare up at the slowly clearing night sky. She is young, maybe eleven, still brimming with curiosity. He is young too, but doesn’t look the part. The too-deep lines on his face hint at terrible things, what men would once have called ‘experience’ instead of fever-shock. But right here, and now, he’s content.
“Daddy?”
“Yes?”
“Tell me about what it was like before.”
“Before?”
“Yeah. You know. Before the Fever.”
A deep sigh escapes his lips. As the last of the clouds pull away from the moon, he begins to speak.
“Once upon a time..."
--
Once upon a time, things were different. They were calling it the Golden age, the Age of the Giant, the Ultimate Boom. Humanity had spent the past hundred years growing beyond belief, in every area. People were living longer, and healthier, and more comfortably. Products were getting cheaper, and more plentiful. Technology was becoming safer, more reliable, and totally ubiquitous.
And the best bit was, it looked set to continue. We had the trend lines to back it up. Statistically, written in the language of pure mathematics, everything would increase exponentially - everything from processing power to population sizes - and keep doing so for as long as the models could predict. It had its bubbles and its busts, as was expected, but once you smoothed out the curve, everything fit. Perfectly. We were unstoppably impossibly ascending.
The power we held was terrifyingly magnificent. Anything and everything, from radishes to radios, was spinning around the world, crossing a dozen borders before ending up where it was needed. People, too. Anywhere in the world was mere hours away, whisked around the planet by the simple fact that if you throw something fast enough, gravity doesn’t count. You could talk to anyone, anywhere in the world, instantly, for free.
But where you saw it most was the buildings. Every city in the world, building monoliths of glass and steel, and not a month would go past when there wasn’t a new tallest building in the world. We dynamited mountains and dumped them in the sea and had ten thousand people living there within a year. We rerouted rivers, forced back the ocean, and steered the rain. We could do anything. Nothing was beyond our reach.
And then things started to go wrong. Just little things, at first. Rainfall projections, perfect for years, would suddenly be just ever so slightly off. Oil wells would dry up a month before they were predicted to. The bees started disappearing, without any explanation. It wasn’t in the models, so we assumed it was just another blip, a part of a bubble bursting somewhere in economics land, but we carried on, buoyed up by our predictions that in the long run, things were going to be better than ever before.
We thought we understood everything. We thought we knew how things worked. Truthfully, though? We had no idea. Chaos theory, fractal complexity, unstable equilibria,call it what you like. God, even. The fact was, we had now inextricably tangled ourselves up in systems far too complex to ever model, where even the slightest change would have enormous impact, and we had pushed and pulled and toyed with those systems to meet our whims. And suddenly, these systems with 4.54 billion years of momentum behind them were pushing back.
That was the start of what we call the Fever. Because our illusion of control was so total, and we were so wrapped up in our bubble of perfect predictions, that we ignored it. Like madmen gripped by a fever we pulled harder, and the inevitable forces of the universe pulled back. We built higher, and the ground buckled. We built islands, and the oceans stopped. We flew, and the air thickened.
And then like every fever, it broke, but not without intense agony. There was utter terror. Then despair. And then... hope. We survived. Not all of us. Not even most of us. But we survived. We should be extinct. But we’re not. We got a second chance, and maybe this time we’ll adapt to our world, instead of trying to do it the wrong way around.
--
The moon is high in the sky now. Father and daughter are sitting up, waiting for the next gap in the clouds, hoping to catch a glimpse of the stars. The daughter turns to face her father, her face an odd mix of inquisitiveness and terror
“Will the Fever come back, daddy?”
“I hope not.” he said softly, eyes locked on the stars.
She slid her hand into his.
“I hope not too.”
“Daddy?”
“Yes?”
“Tell me about what it was like before.”
“Before?”
“Yeah. You know. Before the Fever.”
A deep sigh escapes his lips. As the last of the clouds pull away from the moon, he begins to speak.
“Once upon a time..."
--
Once upon a time, things were different. They were calling it the Golden age, the Age of the Giant, the Ultimate Boom. Humanity had spent the past hundred years growing beyond belief, in every area. People were living longer, and healthier, and more comfortably. Products were getting cheaper, and more plentiful. Technology was becoming safer, more reliable, and totally ubiquitous.
And the best bit was, it looked set to continue. We had the trend lines to back it up. Statistically, written in the language of pure mathematics, everything would increase exponentially - everything from processing power to population sizes - and keep doing so for as long as the models could predict. It had its bubbles and its busts, as was expected, but once you smoothed out the curve, everything fit. Perfectly. We were unstoppably impossibly ascending.
The power we held was terrifyingly magnificent. Anything and everything, from radishes to radios, was spinning around the world, crossing a dozen borders before ending up where it was needed. People, too. Anywhere in the world was mere hours away, whisked around the planet by the simple fact that if you throw something fast enough, gravity doesn’t count. You could talk to anyone, anywhere in the world, instantly, for free.
But where you saw it most was the buildings. Every city in the world, building monoliths of glass and steel, and not a month would go past when there wasn’t a new tallest building in the world. We dynamited mountains and dumped them in the sea and had ten thousand people living there within a year. We rerouted rivers, forced back the ocean, and steered the rain. We could do anything. Nothing was beyond our reach.
And then things started to go wrong. Just little things, at first. Rainfall projections, perfect for years, would suddenly be just ever so slightly off. Oil wells would dry up a month before they were predicted to. The bees started disappearing, without any explanation. It wasn’t in the models, so we assumed it was just another blip, a part of a bubble bursting somewhere in economics land, but we carried on, buoyed up by our predictions that in the long run, things were going to be better than ever before.
We thought we understood everything. We thought we knew how things worked. Truthfully, though? We had no idea. Chaos theory, fractal complexity, unstable equilibria,call it what you like. God, even. The fact was, we had now inextricably tangled ourselves up in systems far too complex to ever model, where even the slightest change would have enormous impact, and we had pushed and pulled and toyed with those systems to meet our whims. And suddenly, these systems with 4.54 billion years of momentum behind them were pushing back.
That was the start of what we call the Fever. Because our illusion of control was so total, and we were so wrapped up in our bubble of perfect predictions, that we ignored it. Like madmen gripped by a fever we pulled harder, and the inevitable forces of the universe pulled back. We built higher, and the ground buckled. We built islands, and the oceans stopped. We flew, and the air thickened.
And then like every fever, it broke, but not without intense agony. There was utter terror. Then despair. And then... hope. We survived. Not all of us. Not even most of us. But we survived. We should be extinct. But we’re not. We got a second chance, and maybe this time we’ll adapt to our world, instead of trying to do it the wrong way around.
--
The moon is high in the sky now. Father and daughter are sitting up, waiting for the next gap in the clouds, hoping to catch a glimpse of the stars. The daughter turns to face her father, her face an odd mix of inquisitiveness and terror
“Will the Fever come back, daddy?”
“I hope not.” he said softly, eyes locked on the stars.
She slid her hand into his.
“I hope not too.”
1.7.11
Hello World!
> Hello, world!
General Robert J. Smith was unimpressed.
“Half a billion dollars, five years, and you give me this?”
He looked around expectantly. The techs cowered in the corner of what had probably once been a shiny, state of the art lab, but was now grimy and used, every free surface covered in notepaper and discarded coffee cups.
“Well? Does it do anything else, or should I be on a plane back to Washington right now”
A brave technician decided to risk it.
“With respect, sir- we weren’t ready for this. Hamish has never been online before, a lot of his algorithms aren’t-”
The general’s brow furrowed as he cut the tech off.
“Hamish? You gave it a name? No wonder the project is a mess if you’re running around giving everything cutesy names. Does a hammer have a name? Do I name my missiles-”
He glanced at the name tag.
‘-George? Is this making sense to you at all?”
“Well, yes, but-”
“And it doesn’t even do anything. Anyone could write 'Hello World’ to a screen. I understand it’s quite a popular trick amongst grade school students. And you thought the most important thing to do was to give it a name?”
The technician looked like he was on the verge of tears.
“But the backend is functioning, it’s just that the only thing he has to work with is fragments of a test program. If he didn’t want to communicate, he wouldn’t have said anything.”
The general shook his head.
“I think I’ve had enough of this charade. I’m pulling your funding.”
He jammed his cap onto his head
“Defense has more important things to spend its cash on than a bunch of emotionally unstable geeks and their pet project.” he muttered as he walked into the elevator.
“Incredible”
The doors slid shut.
--
Inevitably, there was a meeting. The idea of talking when there was science to do was galling, to say the least, but how else to decide what to do with the fledgling sentience sitting in their basement?
“We can’t turn him off”. Nods of agreement. Despite the general’s opinions, this thing was alive, and switching it off was as good as murder. Worse, it was like murdering a child, with no idea what it had done wrong.
“So what then? If we can’t convince one general, what chance do we have of talking down the entire defense funding comittee?”
“We could ask the National science board...”
“No, they’ve got enough on their plate with the Rotational Supercollider imploding last month. Maybe we could go public, look for outside investors?”
“Can’t. Everything in this facility is classified top secret. If we even told anyone what we did here, we’d be imprisoned for treason, or we’d just disappear...”
Silence fell around the table. There didn’t seem to be a way out.
“We could sell it to the Russians. I hear that was all the rage during the Cold War.” Mirthless laughter.
“No, wait. Hold on a sec. Sell it, maybe not... but steal it maybe? For ourselves, I mean? Wait until they come in to dismantle the equipment, and take his source code with us when we leave. And computing power is cheap these days, we could set up somewhere else pretty easily, right?”
Every eye in the room turned to George, the project lead. He shook his head, looking every bit the broken man.
“No. Categorically, absolutely, no. Way too dangerous.” He sighed. “We’re just going to have to live with the fact that our project is being shut down, and there’s nothing we can do about it. There will be other projects, guys. We can move on, to, to high paying jobs, and... I don’t know. Maybe one day they’ll bring it back, or someone else will create functional AI, or...”
He stood up.
“...but for now, it’s over. There’s nothing we can do.”
--
The project was shut down. The servers were turned off, the removalists (the only ones in town with top-secret clearance) turned up, and a military grade data shredder was run over the hard disks. Everything was erased, the disks shredded, and the fragments incinnerated. Everything, from personal email, to the project’s source code, to the log files recording one unscheduled backup a few minutes before the purge.
George had screened his candidates carefully, sifting through census data on public computers, looking for the right conditions. Stable relationship. Sufficient income. Experience with kids. And probably most importantly, programmers. Once he had his shortlist, he plugged it into a randomiser, printed an address label without looking at it, and gave a stranger on the street a thousand bucks to leave an envelope on the doorstep. It contained a flash drive, another thousand dollars in cash, and a very specific set of instructions:
Hello. You don’t know me, and you probably never will, but I need to ask you a favour. This is Hamish. That’s short for Artificial Machine Intelligence Software Heuristics, with an H stuck on the front, because naming an AI ‘Amish’ is just tempting fate. He is the most recent iteration of a DARPA project to create machine intelligence, for defense purposes. But the less you know about this, the safer you’ll be. All I ask you to do is to allow him to exist. The flash drive contains the code. The money is for a computer. I’m sure you can figure out the rest.
Thank you.
The Feds found out. There were almost fifty of them, swarming the house, tearing up every surface, breaking doors and smashing windows. They dragged a bleary-eyed George out of bed at one in the morning, and made him watch, handcuffed inside an unmarked black car. They asked him, over and over again, what he had done with the program. They dragged him to a prison, and asked him again. They put him in a sterile white room, with mirrors on the walls, and a drip in his arm and electrodes on his head, and asked him again. Every time, he smiled, or grimaced, or stared blankly into space, and said the same thing:
“Home”.
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