Showing posts with label competitions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label competitions. Show all posts
Friday, October 20, 2017
Short Story SmackDown Part 6!
Published this a couple weeks ago and forgot to mention it here. This one got me through to the next round. Follow me on Wattpad or Twitter, or just keep reading this blog, for my next submission.
Monday, October 9, 2017
I3
Another entry in the Short Story SmackDown.
Jan's fingers danced across the keyboard, transferring data from the array of collectors that dotted the ship's hull into the ship's main database. The work was boring, but it had to be done and since Jan was the ship's data officer, he was the one that had to do it. Everything about Jan's existence was boring. His life revolved around boredom. Tedious, monotonous, uninteresting, repetitious, mind-numbing boredom
Jan's daily cycle spanned twenty-four standard hours and was designed to mimic a twenty-four hour day back on Earth. For every ten hours that Jan spent entering data and performing analytics, he would spend eight hours sleeping and six hours performing maintenance on the ship, exercising, and pursuing his own interests. This was Jan's schedule and it never varied. There were no weekends. There were no holidays. Jan didn't get sick days and there was never any variation or excitement. To date, Jan had been through the cycle twelve thousand five hundred and eighty-seven times.
He pressed his thumbs into temples and worked them in tight circles in a vain attempt at alleviating the fatigue headache that he could feel coming on. Boredom gave Jan the most wretched of headaches.
As he dug his thumbs into his skull, the hatch to the data pod hissed open. Jan didn't bother looking over his shoulder to see who was coming in. There was only one other person on the crew of this ship.
"Hello, Dean," Jan said mechanically. Dean was the pilot of the ship. His cycle was offset to Jan's so that there was always someone awake to mind the ship, even though the ship was set to run itself with no human interaction. In fact, there was little that Jan nor Dean could do to interfere with the autonomy of the ship even if they wanted to.
"Jan," Dean grunted. The two men had lived in such close proximity to each other for so long that they had long ago said everything that needed to be said. Exchanges comprised of more than a dozen syllables were rare.
Dean plugged a diagnostics drive into the instrument panel near Jan, waited for a confirmation relay, then unplugged the drive and left.
Jan stopped massaging his head and went back to work. His fingers danced across the keyboard, transferring data from the array of collectors that dotted the ship's hull into the ship's main database. The work was tedious, but the work had to be done and it was Jan's job to do it. He glanced down at his analog watch. His work sub-cycle was ending soon. He finished his final entries and ran an audit to verify the accuracy of his input, then pushed himself away from his console and yawned. The audit wrapped up just as his work sub-cycle finished.
Jan glanced out the portal near his station, peering into the vast nothingness of space that the ship was rocketing through. The scenery hadn't changed in almost three standard decades. There was nothing to see but endless blackness dotted by twinkling dots of light. Jan sighed heavily. The boredom was crushing.
After he locked down his workstation, Jan retreated to his living-pod. The small cylindrical space doubled as his bedroom and, in the worst case scenario, an escape pod. The space outside the pod was a common area filled with books, board games, and two black and white terminals that accessed the ship's computer system. The common area was the largest habitable area of the ship. Even though the ship was massive, most of its volume was dedicated to hauling freight. The area in which Jan and Dead lived and worked would be considered a barely liveable shoebox apartment back on Earth.
In his living-pod, Jan changed into his recreational clothing. Changing clothing for each new sub-cycle was mandatory. When the mission had first started, Jan had thought the necessity of changing for each sub-cycle had seemed superfluous. But now, he understood the wisdom of forcing the crew to change. Changing clothes helped mediate the paralyzing fatigue of perpetual boredom.
Once Jan was dressed, the floated from the pod back into the common area. He floated through a maze of dog-eared books. When Jan had first seen the common area, he had been amazed at how well endowed its library was. But after a few thousand cycles, the library had quickly started to seem smaller and smaller. By now, Jan had read every book in the collection several dozen times. He could recite most of them by rote memory though he couldn't remember the last time he had actually taken one out and read it. After so many cycles, the books were no longer a source of entertainment. Now, they were simply a painful taunting reminder of the life that he and Dean had foolishly left behind.
He floated to a dark corner of the common area and pulled himself up to one of the two terminals. These terminals were connected to a part of the ship's system that allowed the crew an innocuous access to the ship's resources without the possibility of harming the ship's vital systems. Jan's fingers danced across the keyboard as he logged into the terminal and then typed in the same command that he had typed in tens of thousands of times before: python Minesweeper.py.
The black terminal screen flickered and then was filled with a matrix of lines with an open and closed bracket in the middle of the screen to indicate Jan's starting location.
Life on the ship was suffocatingly boring. The unrelenting monotony of each cycle and the repetitive, drone-like nature of Jan's work was soul crushing. Jan's only escape was this simple game. It was the only game on the ship's computer and for reasons that Jan couldn't quite understand, it was the only activity that kept him from ending it all by popping an airlock and letting himself be sucked out into the cold dead vacuum of space.
When Jan had enlisted to serve on the crew of an Icebreaker, he had been too young and naive to understand just what he was signing up for. The pitch sounded enticing enough; get off planet and have an adventure in space, help quench the system's ever-growing thirst, and be given a massive pension when the ship returned. Jan never could have imagined how excruciatingly boring life aboard an Icebreaker would turn out to be.
Jan's ship, the I3, was part of the initial fleet of Icebreakers that had been sent out in all directions to harvest the Oort Cloud. In the standard years since the I3 had set out, there had been dramatic advances in technology. Modern ships could haul loads fifty times as large as what the I3 could manage and didn't even need a crew. But the part that made Jan grind his teeth at night was the fact that a modern ship could make the trip to the Oort Cloud and back in a small fraction of the time that it had taken the I3 to make it as far as it had. Jan and Dean knew this because they received infrequent updates from relay stations and other ships that they crossed paths with. Their own ship lacked manual control, a measure taken by the designers to prevent crews from giving up before the mission had been completed and returning home. It also lacked the ability to dock with other ships and many other modern conveniences that had become common in the newer Icebreaker fleet. Jan and Dean were on an obsolete mission with no way to abort and go back home.
Jan shook his head. It was what it was. It was no good doting on all that. He and Dean had spent countless cycles trying to hack into the ship's navigation system to turn it back toward home and had never had any success. All they could do now was complete the mission, get back home, and enjoy their fat pension with all the conveniences of a world that by all appearances had changed almost beyond recognition.
He turned his mind back toward the terminal. "This is dangerous," Jan muttered to himself. The first move in Minesweeper was always a total crapshoot. There was no way to predict where there might be a bomb. The first step was a leap of faith. Jan felt his pulse increase. The anticipation and uncertainty of the first move was thrilling in a way that made Jan forget the boredom that had normally had a stranglehold on his mind. He took a deep breath and pressed the up arrow.
The screen flickered, revealing the number of bombs in the spaces around Jan's position. He let out a sigh of relief, then took in the information and analyzed it. Jan had spent tens of thousands of hours performing analytics on data. Analyzing data had become second nature to him, like breathing. Jan could open his mind and navigate data without getting shell-shocked the way someone else without a data background might. Jan had watched Dean play Minesweeper and it was pathetic. Data wasn't Dean's strong suit. The numbers made Dean's head rock. Jan chuckled to himself, recalling how poorly Dean played. For the uninitiated, Minesweeper was a dangerous game.
As Jan played, the minutes and hours melted away. Boredom, headaches, bitterness; it all faded into the background. Jan was in the zone, his mind as sharply honed as a scalpel. He moved quickly and decisively, navigating the minefield like a dancer pirouetting across a stage.
"Hello, Jan," Dean said, floating past the terminal where Jan was playing. The greeting shattered Jan's zen-like state. Jan pushed the left arrow key and stepped on a mine. His game was over.
"Dean," Jan said, grinding his teeth. He tore his eyes away from the screen and peered down at his watch. His recreation cycle was almost over. He terminated his session and pushed himself away from the terminal with an almost mechanical detachment. He floated slowly toward his living-pod, unbuttoning his recreation suit as he drifted through the common area. He needed to change into the appropriate suit for the next sub-cycle. It was time to sleep.
Jan's fingers danced across the keyboard, transferring data from the array of collectors that dotted the ship's hull into the ship's main database. The work was boring, but it had to be done and since Jan was the ship's data officer, he was the one that had to do it. Everything about Jan's existence was boring. His life revolved around boredom. Tedious, monotonous, uninteresting, repetitious, mind-numbing boredom
Jan's daily cycle spanned twenty-four standard hours and was designed to mimic a twenty-four hour day back on Earth. For every ten hours that Jan spent entering data and performing analytics, he would spend eight hours sleeping and six hours performing maintenance on the ship, exercising, and pursuing his own interests. This was Jan's schedule and it never varied. There were no weekends. There were no holidays. Jan didn't get sick days and there was never any variation or excitement. To date, Jan had been through the cycle twelve thousand five hundred and eighty-seven times.
He pressed his thumbs into temples and worked them in tight circles in a vain attempt at alleviating the fatigue headache that he could feel coming on. Boredom gave Jan the most wretched of headaches.
As he dug his thumbs into his skull, the hatch to the data pod hissed open. Jan didn't bother looking over his shoulder to see who was coming in. There was only one other person on the crew of this ship.
"Hello, Dean," Jan said mechanically. Dean was the pilot of the ship. His cycle was offset to Jan's so that there was always someone awake to mind the ship, even though the ship was set to run itself with no human interaction. In fact, there was little that Jan nor Dean could do to interfere with the autonomy of the ship even if they wanted to.
"Jan," Dean grunted. The two men had lived in such close proximity to each other for so long that they had long ago said everything that needed to be said. Exchanges comprised of more than a dozen syllables were rare.
Dean plugged a diagnostics drive into the instrument panel near Jan, waited for a confirmation relay, then unplugged the drive and left.
Jan stopped massaging his head and went back to work. His fingers danced across the keyboard, transferring data from the array of collectors that dotted the ship's hull into the ship's main database. The work was tedious, but the work had to be done and it was Jan's job to do it. He glanced down at his analog watch. His work sub-cycle was ending soon. He finished his final entries and ran an audit to verify the accuracy of his input, then pushed himself away from his console and yawned. The audit wrapped up just as his work sub-cycle finished.
Jan glanced out the portal near his station, peering into the vast nothingness of space that the ship was rocketing through. The scenery hadn't changed in almost three standard decades. There was nothing to see but endless blackness dotted by twinkling dots of light. Jan sighed heavily. The boredom was crushing.
After he locked down his workstation, Jan retreated to his living-pod. The small cylindrical space doubled as his bedroom and, in the worst case scenario, an escape pod. The space outside the pod was a common area filled with books, board games, and two black and white terminals that accessed the ship's computer system. The common area was the largest habitable area of the ship. Even though the ship was massive, most of its volume was dedicated to hauling freight. The area in which Jan and Dead lived and worked would be considered a barely liveable shoebox apartment back on Earth.
In his living-pod, Jan changed into his recreational clothing. Changing clothing for each new sub-cycle was mandatory. When the mission had first started, Jan had thought the necessity of changing for each sub-cycle had seemed superfluous. But now, he understood the wisdom of forcing the crew to change. Changing clothes helped mediate the paralyzing fatigue of perpetual boredom.
Once Jan was dressed, the floated from the pod back into the common area. He floated through a maze of dog-eared books. When Jan had first seen the common area, he had been amazed at how well endowed its library was. But after a few thousand cycles, the library had quickly started to seem smaller and smaller. By now, Jan had read every book in the collection several dozen times. He could recite most of them by rote memory though he couldn't remember the last time he had actually taken one out and read it. After so many cycles, the books were no longer a source of entertainment. Now, they were simply a painful taunting reminder of the life that he and Dean had foolishly left behind.
He floated to a dark corner of the common area and pulled himself up to one of the two terminals. These terminals were connected to a part of the ship's system that allowed the crew an innocuous access to the ship's resources without the possibility of harming the ship's vital systems. Jan's fingers danced across the keyboard as he logged into the terminal and then typed in the same command that he had typed in tens of thousands of times before: python Minesweeper.py.
The black terminal screen flickered and then was filled with a matrix of lines with an open and closed bracket in the middle of the screen to indicate Jan's starting location.
Life on the ship was suffocatingly boring. The unrelenting monotony of each cycle and the repetitive, drone-like nature of Jan's work was soul crushing. Jan's only escape was this simple game. It was the only game on the ship's computer and for reasons that Jan couldn't quite understand, it was the only activity that kept him from ending it all by popping an airlock and letting himself be sucked out into the cold dead vacuum of space.
When Jan had enlisted to serve on the crew of an Icebreaker, he had been too young and naive to understand just what he was signing up for. The pitch sounded enticing enough; get off planet and have an adventure in space, help quench the system's ever-growing thirst, and be given a massive pension when the ship returned. Jan never could have imagined how excruciatingly boring life aboard an Icebreaker would turn out to be.
Jan's ship, the I3, was part of the initial fleet of Icebreakers that had been sent out in all directions to harvest the Oort Cloud. In the standard years since the I3 had set out, there had been dramatic advances in technology. Modern ships could haul loads fifty times as large as what the I3 could manage and didn't even need a crew. But the part that made Jan grind his teeth at night was the fact that a modern ship could make the trip to the Oort Cloud and back in a small fraction of the time that it had taken the I3 to make it as far as it had. Jan and Dean knew this because they received infrequent updates from relay stations and other ships that they crossed paths with. Their own ship lacked manual control, a measure taken by the designers to prevent crews from giving up before the mission had been completed and returning home. It also lacked the ability to dock with other ships and many other modern conveniences that had become common in the newer Icebreaker fleet. Jan and Dean were on an obsolete mission with no way to abort and go back home.
Jan shook his head. It was what it was. It was no good doting on all that. He and Dean had spent countless cycles trying to hack into the ship's navigation system to turn it back toward home and had never had any success. All they could do now was complete the mission, get back home, and enjoy their fat pension with all the conveniences of a world that by all appearances had changed almost beyond recognition.
He turned his mind back toward the terminal. "This is dangerous," Jan muttered to himself. The first move in Minesweeper was always a total crapshoot. There was no way to predict where there might be a bomb. The first step was a leap of faith. Jan felt his pulse increase. The anticipation and uncertainty of the first move was thrilling in a way that made Jan forget the boredom that had normally had a stranglehold on his mind. He took a deep breath and pressed the up arrow.
The screen flickered, revealing the number of bombs in the spaces around Jan's position. He let out a sigh of relief, then took in the information and analyzed it. Jan had spent tens of thousands of hours performing analytics on data. Analyzing data had become second nature to him, like breathing. Jan could open his mind and navigate data without getting shell-shocked the way someone else without a data background might. Jan had watched Dean play Minesweeper and it was pathetic. Data wasn't Dean's strong suit. The numbers made Dean's head rock. Jan chuckled to himself, recalling how poorly Dean played. For the uninitiated, Minesweeper was a dangerous game.
As Jan played, the minutes and hours melted away. Boredom, headaches, bitterness; it all faded into the background. Jan was in the zone, his mind as sharply honed as a scalpel. He moved quickly and decisively, navigating the minefield like a dancer pirouetting across a stage.
"Hello, Jan," Dean said, floating past the terminal where Jan was playing. The greeting shattered Jan's zen-like state. Jan pushed the left arrow key and stepped on a mine. His game was over.
"Dean," Jan said, grinding his teeth. He tore his eyes away from the screen and peered down at his watch. His recreation cycle was almost over. He terminated his session and pushed himself away from the terminal with an almost mechanical detachment. He floated slowly toward his living-pod, unbuttoning his recreation suit as he drifted through the common area. He needed to change into the appropriate suit for the next sub-cycle. It was time to sleep.
Sunday, September 10, 2017
Uinfax
I haven't mentioned this on the blog, but I made it into Round 2 of the Short Story SmackDown being put on by Wattpad ScienceFiction. From all the challengers, I'm part of the final 13. All the writers in this round are really good, so it'll be interesting to see how it plays out. To read my Round 2 entry, click here (or just read it below)
The dreadnaught shivered and groaned as its shields absorbed the impact of a thermonuclear explosion on the port side. Paul watched through his gunner port as the hull of the insurgent flagship splintered and broke apart. Parts of the ship had already started to re-enter the planet's atmosphere and disintegrate. Some of the insurgent swarm ships and fighters attempted to dart through the coalition blockade, but most continued to press the futile attack on the coalition ships, even though their own fleet had been all but wiped out.
"Keep firing, dammit!" Paul's commanding officer barked over the comm-link.
Paul swiveled in his gunner pod, locking on an insurgent drone nexus. He squeezed the triggers, his one hand aching from the hours of battle while his cybernetic prosthesis continued to function tirelessly. The plasma-shells tore through the paper-thin bilge of the insurgent ship and within seconds the reactor core detonated, blowing the ship into tiny pieces. Almost immediately, the drones under its control faltered and then went idle, floating harmlessly in whatever direction they had been traveling in a moment before. Paul cracked the knuckles of his natural fingers, and then went back to firing.
Everywhere that Paul could see through his gunner port, similar scenes were playing out. With no more capital ships to provide cover for the rest of the fleet, the coalition was tearing through the insurgent fleet effortlessly. Paul wondered how much longer the insurgent forces would continue to fight this hopeless fight. Better to be taken as a coalition POW than die in the cold vacuum of space for a lost cause, Paul thought.
Almost as soon as the idea passed through Paul's mind, the battle stopped and the space visible through Paul's gunner port became completely still. Paul's gunner pod locked, rotating around so that it was docked in travel position. Paul hit the call switch.
"Hey, what gives?" he asked the operator.
"Can it, Kobashigawa," came the reply from his commanding officer. "The Supreme Commander will be on the line any moment,"
Paul flipped the call switch and slumped in his chair. If he'd learned nothing else from being a gunner in the navy, it was to be patient. As he waited, Paul craned his neck to look out the porthole in the back of his gunner pod. The dreadnaught had turned on its axis so that Paul's back was now facing toward the planet. Through the opening, he could see clouds stretching out over the horizon toward a moonrise. From this angle, it was as if the battle that he had just been fighting had never happened. "All you've got to do is look at things from a different direction," Paul whispered to himself.
"The War is over," came the Supreme Commander's rich baritone over the encrypted comm-link. "The remaining insurgent forces have submitted articles of surrender. We've won, boys. We're going home." The comm-link hissed for a moment and then went silent.
"That's it?" Paul asked incredulously. The Insurgent War had only been going for a little over a dozen months, but this abrupt ending still felt anti-climactic. Wasn't there supposed to be some epic final battle? Wasn't there supposed to be a final showdown? A few hours ago, the insurgent fleets had been the bane of this system. But now, after the Second Fleet had more or less caught the insurgent fleets gathered with their collective pants down, the insurgency had been crushed and tossed into the junk pile of history.
The hatch to Paul's gunner pod popped open with a metallic clank and he climbed out. Up and down the ship, other gunners were climbing from their pods as well.
"Hey! Kobashigawa! Can you believe it? We got 'em!" called one of Paul's shipmates.
Paul shrugged his shoulders. "I can't believe it. I mean... It was all so fast."
"Yeah, we really stuck it to those bastards," whooped another gunner. "Good thing, too. I'm getting space sick up here. I'm ready to go home."
Paul thought about that for a moment. He had assumed the Commander's words were hyperbole.
"I don't know, Tom," Paul said. "You really think we're going right home?"
"Hell yeah," Tom laughed. "You know how expensive it is to keep the fleet in orbit. The government is going to discharge us as soon as technically possible. You watch, we'll get our walking papers within the next twenty-four hours. I bet they've had admin processing everything since the moment the admiralty realized that there was a slim chance we'd crush the insurgents. They'll dump our sorry asses the minute we dock."
Seventeen hours later, Paul Kobashigawa found himself on a transport ship back to his hometown. On the short ride home, he felt a nervousness bubbling up in his guts. He hadn't been home in months and he hadn't left on the best of terms with his parents. Would they be happy to see him back? He checked his navy-issue watch. At this rate, he figured he'd be home just in time for everyone else to be waking up.
By the time the transport reached the transit center, the sun was just beginning to peek up over the horizon. He looked out the window of the transport ship, marveling at how much things looked the same, and yet how much they had changed. The change was most evident in all the fortifications. Heavy mechs and ion cannons dotted the streets in key locations. Paul shook his head again as he thought about how quickly the insurgency had gone from a global threat to a fading memory... not that anyone in this town knew it yet, unless they had woken early and heard the news.
The shuttle landed with a heavy thud. Paul disembarked, shouldering his navy-issue duffle bag and cut through the sparse crowd toward the exit. Outside the station, a heavy mech scanned Paul's face with a green sensor, its gatling cannon trained on Paul's torso. Once it was satisfied he wasn't a threat, it stomped off down the road, scanning other people leaving the station.
Paul's parents lived only a few blocks from the transit station, so he seized the opportunity for a brisk morning walk. All the time he'd spent in orbit, cooped up in a navy ship, had left him longing for fresh air and the reassuring press of a planet's gravity. But even so, by the time he reached his parent's house, he was winded. The air here wasn't as oxygen rich as the air on the ship. And his body wasn't used to being pulled downward with such a consistent force.
"Christ," Paul huffed, checking his watch. It had taken him twenty minutes to walk such a short distance. He leaned against the front door the catch his breath, but as he did so, the door opened and he nearly fell over as he tumbled into the house.
A pair of strong hands caught Paul under his armpits and hoisted him back upright. "I wondered when you'd be home," said a familiar voice.
Paul turned to see his father giving him a disapproving look. This was more or less the lukewarm reception Paul had expected.
"Hey Dad," Paul said awkwardly. "Have you heard?"
"War's over," Paul's father said flatly. "No thanks to you."
Paul couldn't help but grimace. "What do you mean, Dad? I was up there fighting the insurgents. I was at the last battle. I did my part."
"Don't feed me that bullcrap, Paul," his father snapped. "The Agency for Central Investigations sent a couple agents over last week. They've got your number, Paul. You're a deserter and a thief. You thought you could fool us all by running off to the navy and then cutting out when the going got too tough. Well, now you're going to have to pay the consequences."
"What the hell are you talking about, Dad?" Paul asked. "I literally just got off a transport. I walked here from the station."
"What's going on out there?" came a voice from within the house.
"Paul's home," his father said, "but he's leaving."
"Paul?" his mother cried out. She ran to the doorway, nudging Paul's father out of the way. "Oh, my little boy! I'm so happy you've come back to us!"
"He's leaving, Betty," Paul's father said again.
"Oh, stop that, Yoshindo," Betty said. "Don't listen to your father, Paul. Come in, come in."
"Goddamit, Betty, you let him in and we're harboring a criminal! He made his own bed, let him sleep in it."
"Hold on," Paul said. "Just hold on! What is all this you're saying about me being a criminal, Dad? I just got home. I was in the War! How can I possibly be a criminal? Look, I've got my discharge data right here." Paul pulled out a datasheet and handed it to his father.
Yoshindo snatched the datasheet from his son and scanned the information. "Hmmm," he hummed thoughtfully. Paul's father had been a cryptologist before he retired. Authenticating government issued datasheets had been his specialty.
"This looks authentic," he said at last. "There," Betty said, reaching out and taking Paul's hands. He could feel her squeezing on his natural hand tightly while she barely put any pressure on his prosthesis. She'd always been careful with his cybernetic hand, ever since he'd gotten it as a boy, even though it was all but indestructible. "I knew there had just been some sort of misunderstanding."
Yoshindo said nothing, turning and going back into the house. He had always been a distant father, but as he aged, he had also become conspiratorial and suspicious.
"Come in," Betty said warmly. "Come in! I've been so worried about you. Come in and eat, eat, eat! You're as thin as a rail."
Once Paul had taken a seat at the breakfast table, he didn't waste a moment asking what was going on. "What do you mean when you say that there were some ACI men here looking for me, Dad?" he asked.
"Oh, that was just nothing," Betty said quickly.
"It wasn't nothing, Betty," Yoshindo snapped. "They were looking for you, Paul. It was serious. Seems you've been running a racket. Insurance fraud. Credit fraud. Tax fraud. Not to mention deserting your post. They had a long list of offenses. They had datasheets. They had photos. Seems you've been a busy boy."
"That's impossible," Paul said. "I've been in orbit."
"So your datasheet says," his father said skeptically.
"This makes no sense. There must have been a mixup," Paul said. "I don't get it at all."
"Oh, let's not talk about this right now," Betty said. "Let's just enjoy our first family breakfast in far, far too long. I'm making your favorite, Paul!"
"I'll just have coffee," Yoshindo grumbled. "And the news."
At his insistence, the wall of the kitchen erupted in a collage of news networks.
"Kitsune," he told the wall. At once, one network filled the entire wall.
"This is all he does, now that he's retired," Betty whispered to Paul as she poured him a glass of soy milk. "It's Kitsune News, all day every day. I get sick of listening to it, but he won't turn it off and I don't want to argue."
"I can hear you, Betty. I'm not deaf," Yoshindo said.
Paul hadn't watched or listened to any news networks since he'd gone into orbit. Any broadcasts that might affect the morale of the troops was strictly prohibited, and this meant all news and pop-culture. Having been away from the media for so long, seeing it now felt like watching something exotic or even alien.
"... and now for this breaking news," the newscaster said. Paul didn't recognize the blonde life-sized Barbie lookalike. Maybe she was new? Pretty much all the women on Kitsune looked the same. That was one of the selling points of the network.
"Turn it up," Yoshindo barked at the wall.
"We've just learned of a massive data breach at one of the planet's most sensitive rating agencies," the newscaster said. "Officials from the genetic rating agency Unifax have confirmed that the records of more than 50% of the planet have been compromised over the course of the last twelve months in what authorities are calling the largest and most unsettling hack in history."
"Insurgents, that's who did that," Yoshindo said, sipping his coffee. "I'll bet you my pension on that one." "For more on this incredible breaking story, we've brought in data security expert Dr. Andrew Hayes." The newscaster nodded toward a gray man in a gray suit that looked not unlike Paul's father.
"Turn that nonsense off," Betty told her husband. "Can't we have a moment of peace in this house?"
"Let's leave it on, just for a moment, is that okay Mom?" Paul asked. Something about this story made Paul feel unsettled.
"Oh, alright," Betty said, patting Paul on the shoulder. "But after this, let's have some quiet time."
"Thanks, Mom," Paul said, turning his attention back to the news.
"Dr. Hayes, what does this data breach mean for the average citizen?" the newscaster asked.
"This is... Let me put it frankly. It's bad," Dr. Hayes said. "With this breach, hackers are now in control of the genetic data of billions of people. With this information they could easily forge biometric signatures, impersonate individuals to commit crimes and fraudulent activities, and even clone individuals. We're looking at a doomsday scenario, here, and there's not much we can do to stop it. The genie is out of the bottle. It's bad."
"Holy smokes," Paul said to himself. He turned to his father. "Dad, you said the ACI guys had photos of me? Datasheets? Are you sure it was me? Did they give you a good look?"
"I verified the datasheets," his father said. "They had your signature, your profile."
"And I saw the photos," Betty said. "They were convincing pictures. Even I would have been fooled."
"Christ," Paul said. "Do you think my genetic data was stolen in the hack?" His question hang in the air for a few moments.
A loud banging on the front door broke the tension in the room.
"Oh, who could that be at this time in the morning?" Betty asked.
"I'll get it, Mom," Paul said, pushing himself away from the breakfast table.
He opened the front door to two large, serious-looking men in dark suits.
"Paul Kobashigawa?" one of the men asked.
"I'm Paul," Paul answered.
"You're under arrest," the other man said, flashing an ACI badge.
"For what?" Paul asked. "What the heck is going on here?"
The first agent showed Paul a photo of a masked man in a dark suit and tie holding a rifle in his cybernetic hand. "Is this you?" the agent asked Paul.
"No," Paul said, his eyes lingering on the prosthesis. "I just got back from a deployment. I've been in orbit."
"That's not what our datasheets say," the other agent said in a monotone.
"This is crazy," Paul said, stepping back into the house. "There's been some sort of mixup. Have you guys heard about the Unifax data breach? Someone must have gotten hold of my genetic data."
"Look, Mr. Kobashigawa, you can come quietly or we can make a scene. It's up to you," the agent droned.
Paul felt his father's hand on his shoulder. "It'll be alright, Son," he said uncharacteristically.
"No, no, I'm not going," Paul said. "I haven't done anything wrong here. I just got home less than an hour ago. I've been in orbit. I'm in the navy. I've been fighting in the War."
One of the agents lunged for Paul, snapping a cuff around his cybernetic prosthesis. A jolt ran through his arm and the prosthesis went limp. The other agent rushed in, slamming Paul to the ground. Paul made an effort to fight back, but his muscles were weak from having been away from the planet's gravity for so long. He was being crushed under the weight of the agent.
"Gahh," Paul cried. "Get off me, I haven't done anything wrong!"
He was vaguely aware of his mother screaming in the background while his father swore at the agents, but all of this faded into the background as he struggled to breathe under the press of the agent's body. He struggled for another moment before everything went black.
The dreadnaught shivered and groaned as its shields absorbed the impact of a thermonuclear explosion on the port side. Paul watched through his gunner port as the hull of the insurgent flagship splintered and broke apart. Parts of the ship had already started to re-enter the planet's atmosphere and disintegrate. Some of the insurgent swarm ships and fighters attempted to dart through the coalition blockade, but most continued to press the futile attack on the coalition ships, even though their own fleet had been all but wiped out.
"Keep firing, dammit!" Paul's commanding officer barked over the comm-link.
Paul swiveled in his gunner pod, locking on an insurgent drone nexus. He squeezed the triggers, his one hand aching from the hours of battle while his cybernetic prosthesis continued to function tirelessly. The plasma-shells tore through the paper-thin bilge of the insurgent ship and within seconds the reactor core detonated, blowing the ship into tiny pieces. Almost immediately, the drones under its control faltered and then went idle, floating harmlessly in whatever direction they had been traveling in a moment before. Paul cracked the knuckles of his natural fingers, and then went back to firing.
Everywhere that Paul could see through his gunner port, similar scenes were playing out. With no more capital ships to provide cover for the rest of the fleet, the coalition was tearing through the insurgent fleet effortlessly. Paul wondered how much longer the insurgent forces would continue to fight this hopeless fight. Better to be taken as a coalition POW than die in the cold vacuum of space for a lost cause, Paul thought.
Almost as soon as the idea passed through Paul's mind, the battle stopped and the space visible through Paul's gunner port became completely still. Paul's gunner pod locked, rotating around so that it was docked in travel position. Paul hit the call switch.
"Hey, what gives?" he asked the operator.
"Can it, Kobashigawa," came the reply from his commanding officer. "The Supreme Commander will be on the line any moment,"
Paul flipped the call switch and slumped in his chair. If he'd learned nothing else from being a gunner in the navy, it was to be patient. As he waited, Paul craned his neck to look out the porthole in the back of his gunner pod. The dreadnaught had turned on its axis so that Paul's back was now facing toward the planet. Through the opening, he could see clouds stretching out over the horizon toward a moonrise. From this angle, it was as if the battle that he had just been fighting had never happened. "All you've got to do is look at things from a different direction," Paul whispered to himself.
"The War is over," came the Supreme Commander's rich baritone over the encrypted comm-link. "The remaining insurgent forces have submitted articles of surrender. We've won, boys. We're going home." The comm-link hissed for a moment and then went silent.
"That's it?" Paul asked incredulously. The Insurgent War had only been going for a little over a dozen months, but this abrupt ending still felt anti-climactic. Wasn't there supposed to be some epic final battle? Wasn't there supposed to be a final showdown? A few hours ago, the insurgent fleets had been the bane of this system. But now, after the Second Fleet had more or less caught the insurgent fleets gathered with their collective pants down, the insurgency had been crushed and tossed into the junk pile of history.
The hatch to Paul's gunner pod popped open with a metallic clank and he climbed out. Up and down the ship, other gunners were climbing from their pods as well.
"Hey! Kobashigawa! Can you believe it? We got 'em!" called one of Paul's shipmates.
Paul shrugged his shoulders. "I can't believe it. I mean... It was all so fast."
"Yeah, we really stuck it to those bastards," whooped another gunner. "Good thing, too. I'm getting space sick up here. I'm ready to go home."
Paul thought about that for a moment. He had assumed the Commander's words were hyperbole.
"I don't know, Tom," Paul said. "You really think we're going right home?"
"Hell yeah," Tom laughed. "You know how expensive it is to keep the fleet in orbit. The government is going to discharge us as soon as technically possible. You watch, we'll get our walking papers within the next twenty-four hours. I bet they've had admin processing everything since the moment the admiralty realized that there was a slim chance we'd crush the insurgents. They'll dump our sorry asses the minute we dock."
Seventeen hours later, Paul Kobashigawa found himself on a transport ship back to his hometown. On the short ride home, he felt a nervousness bubbling up in his guts. He hadn't been home in months and he hadn't left on the best of terms with his parents. Would they be happy to see him back? He checked his navy-issue watch. At this rate, he figured he'd be home just in time for everyone else to be waking up.
By the time the transport reached the transit center, the sun was just beginning to peek up over the horizon. He looked out the window of the transport ship, marveling at how much things looked the same, and yet how much they had changed. The change was most evident in all the fortifications. Heavy mechs and ion cannons dotted the streets in key locations. Paul shook his head again as he thought about how quickly the insurgency had gone from a global threat to a fading memory... not that anyone in this town knew it yet, unless they had woken early and heard the news.
The shuttle landed with a heavy thud. Paul disembarked, shouldering his navy-issue duffle bag and cut through the sparse crowd toward the exit. Outside the station, a heavy mech scanned Paul's face with a green sensor, its gatling cannon trained on Paul's torso. Once it was satisfied he wasn't a threat, it stomped off down the road, scanning other people leaving the station.
Paul's parents lived only a few blocks from the transit station, so he seized the opportunity for a brisk morning walk. All the time he'd spent in orbit, cooped up in a navy ship, had left him longing for fresh air and the reassuring press of a planet's gravity. But even so, by the time he reached his parent's house, he was winded. The air here wasn't as oxygen rich as the air on the ship. And his body wasn't used to being pulled downward with such a consistent force.
"Christ," Paul huffed, checking his watch. It had taken him twenty minutes to walk such a short distance. He leaned against the front door the catch his breath, but as he did so, the door opened and he nearly fell over as he tumbled into the house.
A pair of strong hands caught Paul under his armpits and hoisted him back upright. "I wondered when you'd be home," said a familiar voice.
Paul turned to see his father giving him a disapproving look. This was more or less the lukewarm reception Paul had expected.
"Hey Dad," Paul said awkwardly. "Have you heard?"
"War's over," Paul's father said flatly. "No thanks to you."
Paul couldn't help but grimace. "What do you mean, Dad? I was up there fighting the insurgents. I was at the last battle. I did my part."
"Don't feed me that bullcrap, Paul," his father snapped. "The Agency for Central Investigations sent a couple agents over last week. They've got your number, Paul. You're a deserter and a thief. You thought you could fool us all by running off to the navy and then cutting out when the going got too tough. Well, now you're going to have to pay the consequences."
"What the hell are you talking about, Dad?" Paul asked. "I literally just got off a transport. I walked here from the station."
"What's going on out there?" came a voice from within the house.
"Paul's home," his father said, "but he's leaving."
"Paul?" his mother cried out. She ran to the doorway, nudging Paul's father out of the way. "Oh, my little boy! I'm so happy you've come back to us!"
"He's leaving, Betty," Paul's father said again.
"Oh, stop that, Yoshindo," Betty said. "Don't listen to your father, Paul. Come in, come in."
"Goddamit, Betty, you let him in and we're harboring a criminal! He made his own bed, let him sleep in it."
"Hold on," Paul said. "Just hold on! What is all this you're saying about me being a criminal, Dad? I just got home. I was in the War! How can I possibly be a criminal? Look, I've got my discharge data right here." Paul pulled out a datasheet and handed it to his father.
Yoshindo snatched the datasheet from his son and scanned the information. "Hmmm," he hummed thoughtfully. Paul's father had been a cryptologist before he retired. Authenticating government issued datasheets had been his specialty.
"This looks authentic," he said at last. "There," Betty said, reaching out and taking Paul's hands. He could feel her squeezing on his natural hand tightly while she barely put any pressure on his prosthesis. She'd always been careful with his cybernetic hand, ever since he'd gotten it as a boy, even though it was all but indestructible. "I knew there had just been some sort of misunderstanding."
Yoshindo said nothing, turning and going back into the house. He had always been a distant father, but as he aged, he had also become conspiratorial and suspicious.
"Come in," Betty said warmly. "Come in! I've been so worried about you. Come in and eat, eat, eat! You're as thin as a rail."
Once Paul had taken a seat at the breakfast table, he didn't waste a moment asking what was going on. "What do you mean when you say that there were some ACI men here looking for me, Dad?" he asked.
"Oh, that was just nothing," Betty said quickly.
"It wasn't nothing, Betty," Yoshindo snapped. "They were looking for you, Paul. It was serious. Seems you've been running a racket. Insurance fraud. Credit fraud. Tax fraud. Not to mention deserting your post. They had a long list of offenses. They had datasheets. They had photos. Seems you've been a busy boy."
"That's impossible," Paul said. "I've been in orbit."
"So your datasheet says," his father said skeptically.
"This makes no sense. There must have been a mixup," Paul said. "I don't get it at all."
"Oh, let's not talk about this right now," Betty said. "Let's just enjoy our first family breakfast in far, far too long. I'm making your favorite, Paul!"
"I'll just have coffee," Yoshindo grumbled. "And the news."
At his insistence, the wall of the kitchen erupted in a collage of news networks.
"Kitsune," he told the wall. At once, one network filled the entire wall.
"This is all he does, now that he's retired," Betty whispered to Paul as she poured him a glass of soy milk. "It's Kitsune News, all day every day. I get sick of listening to it, but he won't turn it off and I don't want to argue."
"I can hear you, Betty. I'm not deaf," Yoshindo said.
Paul hadn't watched or listened to any news networks since he'd gone into orbit. Any broadcasts that might affect the morale of the troops was strictly prohibited, and this meant all news and pop-culture. Having been away from the media for so long, seeing it now felt like watching something exotic or even alien.
"... and now for this breaking news," the newscaster said. Paul didn't recognize the blonde life-sized Barbie lookalike. Maybe she was new? Pretty much all the women on Kitsune looked the same. That was one of the selling points of the network.
"Turn it up," Yoshindo barked at the wall.
"We've just learned of a massive data breach at one of the planet's most sensitive rating agencies," the newscaster said. "Officials from the genetic rating agency Unifax have confirmed that the records of more than 50% of the planet have been compromised over the course of the last twelve months in what authorities are calling the largest and most unsettling hack in history."
"Insurgents, that's who did that," Yoshindo said, sipping his coffee. "I'll bet you my pension on that one." "For more on this incredible breaking story, we've brought in data security expert Dr. Andrew Hayes." The newscaster nodded toward a gray man in a gray suit that looked not unlike Paul's father.
"Turn that nonsense off," Betty told her husband. "Can't we have a moment of peace in this house?"
"Let's leave it on, just for a moment, is that okay Mom?" Paul asked. Something about this story made Paul feel unsettled.
"Oh, alright," Betty said, patting Paul on the shoulder. "But after this, let's have some quiet time."
"Thanks, Mom," Paul said, turning his attention back to the news.
"Dr. Hayes, what does this data breach mean for the average citizen?" the newscaster asked.
"This is... Let me put it frankly. It's bad," Dr. Hayes said. "With this breach, hackers are now in control of the genetic data of billions of people. With this information they could easily forge biometric signatures, impersonate individuals to commit crimes and fraudulent activities, and even clone individuals. We're looking at a doomsday scenario, here, and there's not much we can do to stop it. The genie is out of the bottle. It's bad."
"Holy smokes," Paul said to himself. He turned to his father. "Dad, you said the ACI guys had photos of me? Datasheets? Are you sure it was me? Did they give you a good look?"
"I verified the datasheets," his father said. "They had your signature, your profile."
"And I saw the photos," Betty said. "They were convincing pictures. Even I would have been fooled."
"Christ," Paul said. "Do you think my genetic data was stolen in the hack?" His question hang in the air for a few moments.
A loud banging on the front door broke the tension in the room.
"Oh, who could that be at this time in the morning?" Betty asked.
"I'll get it, Mom," Paul said, pushing himself away from the breakfast table.
He opened the front door to two large, serious-looking men in dark suits.
"Paul Kobashigawa?" one of the men asked.
"I'm Paul," Paul answered.
"You're under arrest," the other man said, flashing an ACI badge.
"For what?" Paul asked. "What the heck is going on here?"
The first agent showed Paul a photo of a masked man in a dark suit and tie holding a rifle in his cybernetic hand. "Is this you?" the agent asked Paul.
"No," Paul said, his eyes lingering on the prosthesis. "I just got back from a deployment. I've been in orbit."
"That's not what our datasheets say," the other agent said in a monotone.
"This is crazy," Paul said, stepping back into the house. "There's been some sort of mixup. Have you guys heard about the Unifax data breach? Someone must have gotten hold of my genetic data."
"Look, Mr. Kobashigawa, you can come quietly or we can make a scene. It's up to you," the agent droned.
Paul felt his father's hand on his shoulder. "It'll be alright, Son," he said uncharacteristically.
"No, no, I'm not going," Paul said. "I haven't done anything wrong here. I just got home less than an hour ago. I've been in orbit. I'm in the navy. I've been fighting in the War."
One of the agents lunged for Paul, snapping a cuff around his cybernetic prosthesis. A jolt ran through his arm and the prosthesis went limp. The other agent rushed in, slamming Paul to the ground. Paul made an effort to fight back, but his muscles were weak from having been away from the planet's gravity for so long. He was being crushed under the weight of the agent.
"Gahh," Paul cried. "Get off me, I haven't done anything wrong!"
He was vaguely aware of his mother screaming in the background while his father swore at the agents, but all of this faded into the background as he struggled to breathe under the press of the agent's body. He struggled for another moment before everything went black.
Wednesday, August 23, 2017
Vanguard Earth
Here's part four of my entries into the Short Story SmackDown. Once you've read my submission (which you can read through the link or just read down below), I highly recommend browsing through the entries of some of the other authors. There's some really great writing going on, and it's free to read!
"QUASARS WON'T REPLACE US! QUASARS WON'T REPLACE US! QUASARS WON'T REPLACE US!"
The chanting had been going on for over an hour. Jackbooted men in pink polo shirts, their hair meticulously coiffed, were marching through the streets in tight military formations. They carried large sticks and shields emblazoned with the symbolism of Vanguard Earth, the Earth First Sapiens-Globalist movement that had been gaining in political influence over the past eighteen months. For Apollo, it was the most interesting thing that he had ever seen.
Apollo was a refugee - a Quasar as the Earth First people pejoratively called him and his kind. His family had settled on Earth when Apollo was a youngling, fleeing from an interstellar conflict that had displaced billions of sentient beings. Amid growing isolationism and an ebbing political tide, Earth had reluctantly accepted a tiny fraction of those refugees. Apollo's father had told him the stories of the family's perilous escape, of the painfully delicate bureaucratic hurdles that they had needed to overcome, and of the difficulty of settling on an alien planet... but Apollo didn't remember any of what had happened. So far as he was concerned, he was an earthling. He had lived here his entire life. This was his planet. This was his culture. This was home.
Apollo watched with interest as the men in pink shirts pushed their way past counter-protesters, slamming people with their shields and bashing anyone in their way with their sticks. He had read about people like this on the Quantumnet, but he had never seen them in person. One of the men pushed past Apollo, grunting an obscenity and then moving on. Apollo was humanoid, virtually indistinguishable from the Homo sapiens that were native to Earth. In fact, few people new that Apollo was an alien, even among his closest friends. He wondered how the Sapiens-Globalists would react if they new that there was a Quasar in the crowd, just inches away.
Almost as soon as this thought passed through Apollo's mind, there was a scream from somewhere up the street. Instantly, the crowd began moving, shifting in a slow push toward the noise. Apollo fought to move out of the flow but was caught within the throng. The crush of the sweating human bodies was incredible. One scream multiplied into many, which were answered by angry shouts and animal-like howls. The chanting of the Sapiens-Globalists was suddenly drowned out by a cacophony of noise coming from both the marchers and the counter-protesters. Among the confusion, Apollo could pick out shouts of "Quasar!".
He fought through the crush, finally squeezing out into a small space that the counter-protesters were avoiding. He stumbled as he was ejected from the crowd, falling to his knees in a pool of hot blue liquid. In front of him, a half dozen Sapiens-Globalists were beating on a young man with their sticks and shields. Apollo held up his hands, covered in sticky cobalt hemolymph, suddenly realizing that the men were beating the life out of a Quasar. Without thinking, Apollo launched himself at the men, wedging himself between the Globalists and the Quasar.
"Stop!" he shouted, his voice barely cutting through the roar of the crowd.
"What are you? Some kind of Quasar lover?" one of the men spat. "Get the hell out of here, or we'll beat you too!"
"No!" Apollo said, bracing himself for a blow. "Leave this guy alone! He hasn't done anything to hurt you!" As Apollo spoke, he tried to look over the crowd, hoping to spot the Peace Force. He noticed the shining red helmets of several officers standing in a tight knot, watching the demonstration passively. "Hey!" Apollo yelled, waving his hands frantically. "Over here! Help us!"
The Peace Officers waved back at Apollo sarcastically.
"Those pigs aren't going to help you, Quasar lover," one of the Globalists laughed. "They hate you losers just as much as we do."
Apollo felt his stomach tighten up as the truth of the Globalist's words sank into his brain. He looked at the men as they circled him, preparing to pounce. The Quasar on on the ground was bleeding badly and wasn't moving. Apollo knew that once the Globalists hit him, once they saw him bleed blue and knew he was a Quasar, then they would probably beat him to death. He took a deep breath. If this was going to be the end, he wasn't going down without a fight.
But before the Globalists could move on him, there was a deafening crash followed by shrieks of terror. The crowd pushed in on where Apollo was, collapsing the small circle and shoving the Globalists past him in a wave of terrified bodies. Apollo threw his body over the bleeding Quasar as humans rushed past him, sometimes tripping over his body, other times running right over him. The scream of sirens tore through the clamor of the crowd, swirling through Apollo's head as his body was continuously kicked, tripped over, and trampled upon. He held tight to the other Quasar, unable to do anything else under the crush of people, his back and ribs burning with pain. A heavy silence settled over Apollo as his grasp on consciousness wavered. The vague sensation of a hand touched Apollo's shoulder, then another and another. He was lifted into the air where he floated weightlessly for what seemed like an eternity. I must be dead, he thought to himself. This is what it's like to be dead.
When Apollo opened his eyes again, he was in a white bed, in a white room. His mother was by his side. When she noticed that her son was awake, she cried out happily, throwing her arms around him.
"What... where am I?" he asked his mother.
"You're in the hospital," she told him. "You were almost trampled to death at that awful rally."
"I remember that part," Apollo said. Moving his mouth was painful. "But... how did I get here? There was an explosion or something. I don't really remember."
"There was... well, there was a terrorist attack the rally," his mother said. "The terrorist killed a woman and injured some of the other counter-protesters. That was the sound you heard. But I heard what you did, Apollo." She paused for a moment, her eyes welling with tears. "I heard that you saved that boy from those ugly Globalists. I'm so proud of you."
Apollo flushed, feeling awkward for being praised like this. "Anyone would have done it," he said. "I just... I don't understand why they are like that. What have we done to them? Why are humans like this?"
"I don't know, Apollo," his mother said. "I just don't know. Hatred is an awful thing."
"QUASARS WON'T REPLACE US! QUASARS WON'T REPLACE US! QUASARS WON'T REPLACE US!"
The chanting had been going on for over an hour. Jackbooted men in pink polo shirts, their hair meticulously coiffed, were marching through the streets in tight military formations. They carried large sticks and shields emblazoned with the symbolism of Vanguard Earth, the Earth First Sapiens-Globalist movement that had been gaining in political influence over the past eighteen months. For Apollo, it was the most interesting thing that he had ever seen.
Apollo was a refugee - a Quasar as the Earth First people pejoratively called him and his kind. His family had settled on Earth when Apollo was a youngling, fleeing from an interstellar conflict that had displaced billions of sentient beings. Amid growing isolationism and an ebbing political tide, Earth had reluctantly accepted a tiny fraction of those refugees. Apollo's father had told him the stories of the family's perilous escape, of the painfully delicate bureaucratic hurdles that they had needed to overcome, and of the difficulty of settling on an alien planet... but Apollo didn't remember any of what had happened. So far as he was concerned, he was an earthling. He had lived here his entire life. This was his planet. This was his culture. This was home.
Apollo watched with interest as the men in pink shirts pushed their way past counter-protesters, slamming people with their shields and bashing anyone in their way with their sticks. He had read about people like this on the Quantumnet, but he had never seen them in person. One of the men pushed past Apollo, grunting an obscenity and then moving on. Apollo was humanoid, virtually indistinguishable from the Homo sapiens that were native to Earth. In fact, few people new that Apollo was an alien, even among his closest friends. He wondered how the Sapiens-Globalists would react if they new that there was a Quasar in the crowd, just inches away.
Almost as soon as this thought passed through Apollo's mind, there was a scream from somewhere up the street. Instantly, the crowd began moving, shifting in a slow push toward the noise. Apollo fought to move out of the flow but was caught within the throng. The crush of the sweating human bodies was incredible. One scream multiplied into many, which were answered by angry shouts and animal-like howls. The chanting of the Sapiens-Globalists was suddenly drowned out by a cacophony of noise coming from both the marchers and the counter-protesters. Among the confusion, Apollo could pick out shouts of "Quasar!".
He fought through the crush, finally squeezing out into a small space that the counter-protesters were avoiding. He stumbled as he was ejected from the crowd, falling to his knees in a pool of hot blue liquid. In front of him, a half dozen Sapiens-Globalists were beating on a young man with their sticks and shields. Apollo held up his hands, covered in sticky cobalt hemolymph, suddenly realizing that the men were beating the life out of a Quasar. Without thinking, Apollo launched himself at the men, wedging himself between the Globalists and the Quasar.
"Stop!" he shouted, his voice barely cutting through the roar of the crowd.
"What are you? Some kind of Quasar lover?" one of the men spat. "Get the hell out of here, or we'll beat you too!"
"No!" Apollo said, bracing himself for a blow. "Leave this guy alone! He hasn't done anything to hurt you!" As Apollo spoke, he tried to look over the crowd, hoping to spot the Peace Force. He noticed the shining red helmets of several officers standing in a tight knot, watching the demonstration passively. "Hey!" Apollo yelled, waving his hands frantically. "Over here! Help us!"
The Peace Officers waved back at Apollo sarcastically.
"Those pigs aren't going to help you, Quasar lover," one of the Globalists laughed. "They hate you losers just as much as we do."
Apollo felt his stomach tighten up as the truth of the Globalist's words sank into his brain. He looked at the men as they circled him, preparing to pounce. The Quasar on on the ground was bleeding badly and wasn't moving. Apollo knew that once the Globalists hit him, once they saw him bleed blue and knew he was a Quasar, then they would probably beat him to death. He took a deep breath. If this was going to be the end, he wasn't going down without a fight.
But before the Globalists could move on him, there was a deafening crash followed by shrieks of terror. The crowd pushed in on where Apollo was, collapsing the small circle and shoving the Globalists past him in a wave of terrified bodies. Apollo threw his body over the bleeding Quasar as humans rushed past him, sometimes tripping over his body, other times running right over him. The scream of sirens tore through the clamor of the crowd, swirling through Apollo's head as his body was continuously kicked, tripped over, and trampled upon. He held tight to the other Quasar, unable to do anything else under the crush of people, his back and ribs burning with pain. A heavy silence settled over Apollo as his grasp on consciousness wavered. The vague sensation of a hand touched Apollo's shoulder, then another and another. He was lifted into the air where he floated weightlessly for what seemed like an eternity. I must be dead, he thought to himself. This is what it's like to be dead.
When Apollo opened his eyes again, he was in a white bed, in a white room. His mother was by his side. When she noticed that her son was awake, she cried out happily, throwing her arms around him.
"What... where am I?" he asked his mother.
"You're in the hospital," she told him. "You were almost trampled to death at that awful rally."
"I remember that part," Apollo said. Moving his mouth was painful. "But... how did I get here? There was an explosion or something. I don't really remember."
"There was... well, there was a terrorist attack the rally," his mother said. "The terrorist killed a woman and injured some of the other counter-protesters. That was the sound you heard. But I heard what you did, Apollo." She paused for a moment, her eyes welling with tears. "I heard that you saved that boy from those ugly Globalists. I'm so proud of you."
Apollo flushed, feeling awkward for being praised like this. "Anyone would have done it," he said. "I just... I don't understand why they are like that. What have we done to them? Why are humans like this?"
"I don't know, Apollo," his mother said. "I just don't know. Hatred is an awful thing."
Saturday, July 29, 2017
The Purge
Another entry in the Short Story SmackDown.
When Harold woke that morning, the sun was shining cheerfully through the window of his second story apartment. The air felt crisp and clean. It was going to be a beautiful day.
When Harold's phone started vibrating epileptically while Harold was in the bathroom shaving, he didn't notice. Harold's phone was still buzzing itself to pieces in a desperate bid to catch his attention as he was making himself a cup of tea. While Harold read through the newspaper in the living room, he was blissfully unaware of the storm of messages that were bombarding his phone as it rattled helplessly on the nightstand by his bed.
It wasn't until a quarter to eight when Harold finally made his way back into his room. He found his phone on the floor near his bed. It had vibrated itself right off the nightstand. Harold ran his thumb over the cracked screen, sighing. This new Foxxcon model was supposed to be all but indestructible. "Made in America," he mumbled sarcastically.
Harold pressed his thumb against the biometric reader embedded in the screen and the phone chirped to life. At least it still worked. He held the phone at arm's length and it scanned his face and retina. After a moment, Harold spoke a gibberish passphrase, completing the multi-factor biometric authentication protocol and the phone quickly decrypted itself.
Some of Harold's colleagues had razzed him about his adoption of the MFBAP, but Harold swore by it. "Come on," one of Harold's closest friends Gary had chided him, "the world has changed so much. They've been opening up for years. We have the rule of law, now."
But Harold wasn't so sure. Granted, the Great Purge had happened years before he had been born. But Harold had grown up with stories from his Grandma and his parents, telling him about what it had been like when the President had suspended the judiciary and executed thousands of lawyers. Even though Harold had come of age in a time of increased liberalism and legality, he couldn't help but feel a little paranoid, especially as a human rights lawyer.
Once Harold's phone had decrypted, a flood of messages filled the screen. Harold's stomach sank as he read through the chaos. Gary, his security-skeptic friend had been arrested. Government agents had raided his apartment just that morning, plucking him from his bed and dragging him from the building naked except for a black bag over his head. Harold shook his head in disbelief. Gary was one of the best human rights lawyers Harold knew. He was one of Harold's closest friends. They had worked on dozens of cases together over the years.
As Harold worked to wrap his brain around what had just happened, his phone started to go crazy in his hand, nearly shaking itself from his grip. The messages were coming frantically, from nearly all of the other human rights lawyers that Harold knew and worked with, from all across the Bay Area. Government agents were storming homes and offices, bagging lawyers, and dragging them away. Harold felt a wave of nausea wash over him. The stories he had heard during his childhood were suddenly becoming real-life nightmares. The government was purging the judiciary.
Just then, the door to Harold's apartment exploded inward. Agents in tactical gear burst into his apartment. He barely had time to issue the encryption command to his phone before he was tackled and his world went black.
***
Harold squinted his eyes against the blinding lights shining into his face. He had no idea where he was. After they had bagged him and dragged him from his apartment, someone had knocked him unconscious. When he woke, he was strapped into a cold metal chair, his head restrained, with bright white lights glaring straight into his eyes. Harold's mind raced as he recalled the stories he had grown up with. "Don't fight," his Grandma had told him. "That's how they get you. Let yourself flow like a river. When they took your Pop-pop, he was like water. It took them days of round the clock torture to break him. He died with dignity."
"Harold Cunningham," a nasal voice squealed through the blinding light. "Let's get to the point. You can make this easy, or you can make this difficult. Your colleagues - your lawyer friends - have all confessed already. All we ask is that you confess, too. I have a document listing your crimes. Confess and it will end before it begins." The voice thrust a sheet of paper in front of Harold's face. It listed a litany of false accusations. "Confess," the voice said.
"I'd love to confess," Harold said, "but I just don't remember committing these crimes. No, I happen to be one of those people whose memory shuts down under pressure."
Harold's vision exploded into a constellation of stars as something hot and heavy smashed into his face. "Have it your way, Mr. Cunningham," the voice said. "The drink," the voice called out.
Harold squinted hard, looking past the lights to see a shadow mixing liquids together. As it added the last liquid, the solution turned opaque. Harold had heard about "the drink" from his clients but had always assumed it was hyperbole on their part. He swallowed hard.
"Do you know what this is?" the voice asked Harold
"I have no idea," Harold said as bravely as he could. "But by mother told me to never trust any complicated cocktail that remains perfectly clear until the last ingredient goes in, and then immediately clouds."
"You're trying to be a hero," the voice laughed. Invisible hands grabbed at Harold's face, prying open his mouth. "You think you can attack the government with law? You're attacking soldiers with words? You don't understand, Mr. Cunningham. What your soldier wants -- really, really wants -- is no-one shooting back at him. You're shooting blanks. We use bullets." The voice giggled as it tipped the drink into Harold's mouth.
When Harold woke that morning, the sun was shining cheerfully through the window of his second story apartment. The air felt crisp and clean. It was going to be a beautiful day.
When Harold's phone started vibrating epileptically while Harold was in the bathroom shaving, he didn't notice. Harold's phone was still buzzing itself to pieces in a desperate bid to catch his attention as he was making himself a cup of tea. While Harold read through the newspaper in the living room, he was blissfully unaware of the storm of messages that were bombarding his phone as it rattled helplessly on the nightstand by his bed.
It wasn't until a quarter to eight when Harold finally made his way back into his room. He found his phone on the floor near his bed. It had vibrated itself right off the nightstand. Harold ran his thumb over the cracked screen, sighing. This new Foxxcon model was supposed to be all but indestructible. "Made in America," he mumbled sarcastically.
Harold pressed his thumb against the biometric reader embedded in the screen and the phone chirped to life. At least it still worked. He held the phone at arm's length and it scanned his face and retina. After a moment, Harold spoke a gibberish passphrase, completing the multi-factor biometric authentication protocol and the phone quickly decrypted itself.
Some of Harold's colleagues had razzed him about his adoption of the MFBAP, but Harold swore by it. "Come on," one of Harold's closest friends Gary had chided him, "the world has changed so much. They've been opening up for years. We have the rule of law, now."
But Harold wasn't so sure. Granted, the Great Purge had happened years before he had been born. But Harold had grown up with stories from his Grandma and his parents, telling him about what it had been like when the President had suspended the judiciary and executed thousands of lawyers. Even though Harold had come of age in a time of increased liberalism and legality, he couldn't help but feel a little paranoid, especially as a human rights lawyer.
Once Harold's phone had decrypted, a flood of messages filled the screen. Harold's stomach sank as he read through the chaos. Gary, his security-skeptic friend had been arrested. Government agents had raided his apartment just that morning, plucking him from his bed and dragging him from the building naked except for a black bag over his head. Harold shook his head in disbelief. Gary was one of the best human rights lawyers Harold knew. He was one of Harold's closest friends. They had worked on dozens of cases together over the years.
As Harold worked to wrap his brain around what had just happened, his phone started to go crazy in his hand, nearly shaking itself from his grip. The messages were coming frantically, from nearly all of the other human rights lawyers that Harold knew and worked with, from all across the Bay Area. Government agents were storming homes and offices, bagging lawyers, and dragging them away. Harold felt a wave of nausea wash over him. The stories he had heard during his childhood were suddenly becoming real-life nightmares. The government was purging the judiciary.
Just then, the door to Harold's apartment exploded inward. Agents in tactical gear burst into his apartment. He barely had time to issue the encryption command to his phone before he was tackled and his world went black.
***
Harold squinted his eyes against the blinding lights shining into his face. He had no idea where he was. After they had bagged him and dragged him from his apartment, someone had knocked him unconscious. When he woke, he was strapped into a cold metal chair, his head restrained, with bright white lights glaring straight into his eyes. Harold's mind raced as he recalled the stories he had grown up with. "Don't fight," his Grandma had told him. "That's how they get you. Let yourself flow like a river. When they took your Pop-pop, he was like water. It took them days of round the clock torture to break him. He died with dignity."
"Harold Cunningham," a nasal voice squealed through the blinding light. "Let's get to the point. You can make this easy, or you can make this difficult. Your colleagues - your lawyer friends - have all confessed already. All we ask is that you confess, too. I have a document listing your crimes. Confess and it will end before it begins." The voice thrust a sheet of paper in front of Harold's face. It listed a litany of false accusations. "Confess," the voice said.
"I'd love to confess," Harold said, "but I just don't remember committing these crimes. No, I happen to be one of those people whose memory shuts down under pressure."
Harold's vision exploded into a constellation of stars as something hot and heavy smashed into his face. "Have it your way, Mr. Cunningham," the voice said. "The drink," the voice called out.
Harold squinted hard, looking past the lights to see a shadow mixing liquids together. As it added the last liquid, the solution turned opaque. Harold had heard about "the drink" from his clients but had always assumed it was hyperbole on their part. He swallowed hard.
"Do you know what this is?" the voice asked Harold
"I have no idea," Harold said as bravely as he could. "But by mother told me to never trust any complicated cocktail that remains perfectly clear until the last ingredient goes in, and then immediately clouds."
"You're trying to be a hero," the voice laughed. Invisible hands grabbed at Harold's face, prying open his mouth. "You think you can attack the government with law? You're attacking soldiers with words? You don't understand, Mr. Cunningham. What your soldier wants -- really, really wants -- is no-one shooting back at him. You're shooting blanks. We use bullets." The voice giggled as it tipped the drink into Harold's mouth.
Saturday, July 8, 2017
Burn it Down
Another entry in the Short Story SmackDown. The musical inspiration I chose was "Burn it Down" by The Cog is Dead.
***
Sanjuro dug his thumbs into his temples, grinding away at his skull as if he could somehow push the terrible sound out of his head. He had tried everything he could think of to rid himself of the incessant thumping, the blaring horns, and the wretched English gibberish. But over the past three weeks, the sound had only seemed to get louder and louder. It was slowly driving him insane.
"Mifune, are you listening?" a voice called through the cacophony. "Mifune!"
Sanjuro's head bolted upright so quickly that he nearly tossed himself from his chair. "Ah, yes, I'm sorry sir! I... I just have a splitting headache. I... it must be a migraine. I'm having trouble concentrating."
Sanjuro's boss looked at him skeptically. "You've been acting strange since you returned from the sales call in Hong Kong," he said. "Did you pick up a bug while you were down there?"
"That must be it," Sanjuro lied. "I think I got sick from drinking the water." He was having trouble hearing himself speak over the sound pulsing violently inside his own skull.
"Go and have yourself checked out," his boss said, dismissing Sanjuro with a gesture. "We don't need you infecting the rest of the team here."
"Thank you, sir," Sanjuro said, bowing deeply as he stumbled from the conference room. "I'll go and get checked out immediately."
Sanjuro shambled down the hall, the sound of drums pounding rhythmically in his brain. The secretary said something to him as he passed her desk, but he couldn't hear her voice. The sound, the goddamn sound... by the time he left the building, his head was spinning wildly. For a fleeting moment he considered heeding his boss' advice and going to have himself examined by a doctor. But he knew he couldn't do that, not with what he had inside his head.
"Hey! Watch it, buddy," a man on a bicycle barked as he whizzed past. Sanjuro lost his balance, backpedaling until he tripped over a curb and fell to the ground, striking his head on the marble walkway.
Suddenly, the sound stopped. Sanjuro started to shake with relief... after weeks of the same wretched song looping endlessly in his head, drowning out everything else, he could finally hear himself think. He couldn't help but laugh out loud, and then laugh harder still at the crystal clear sound of his own voice. But then a sudden fear grabbed hold of him; how long would this silence last? He cursed himself under his own breath. This was a mess he had created. Everyone had warned him against getting cybernetic implants abroad. Hell, the government even had laws against it - which was why he couldn't go to see a doctor. Doctors were mandatory reporters. Once they scanned him and realized that he had an unlicensed implant, they'd turn him right over to the police. Sanjuro's stomach tightened at the thought of doing time in Fuchu prison.
"Ugh," he groaned, lamenting the mess he'd stepped into. He'd had friends and coworkers who had had cybernetic upgrades and none of them had had any side effects. Those positive experiences had convinced him that it was a good idea to skip across the border while in Hong Kong and get a cheap knock-off implant installed in Shenzhen. He'd save some money and get an upgrade, all while getting paid by his company. It seemed like a win-win.
But within days of returning to Tokyo, the sound had started. He still remembered clearly the first confusing moments as a driving drum beat had swelled in his mind. At first, he had thought he was hearing a ringtone or a loud radio from another room - but then the growling monotone of the singing had started and Sanjuro knew that something was very, very wrong. Sanjuro couldn't speak English very well, he could still recognize the sound of the language and he knew that what he was hearing was an English song. But the dominance of American cultural influence had petered out decades ago, well before Sanjuro was born. Nobody played English songs anymore. Especially songs that sounded so dated. What he had started hearing must have had something to do with the implant that he had just had installed. Somehow, the quack in Shenzhen had installed an implant that played an old American pop song on repeat instead of the auditory upgrade Sanjuro had paid for.
As he thought about his situation, the song started up again; quietly at first, and then building in volume and intensity. Sanjuro clawed at his ears and pulled at his hair. "No!" he screamed in desperation. "I can't take it any longer, I can't listen to this song for another moment!" He cast his gaze about, searching frantically for an escape. His eyes settled on the hectic traffic in the street just a few meters away. Remembering how the sound had stopped when he had struck his head on the ground, Sanjuro grinned to himself grimly.
The words of the song rang in his brain as he darted toward the street: It's time to strike a match and burn it down... Sanjuro had no idea what the words meant, but he knew the strange foreign syllables by rote memory. Screaming to drown out the sound, he launched himself into the road. In the moment that his skull made impact with the gleaming bumper of a speeding vehicle, the sound abruptly stopped and Sanjuro sighed in relief just before his head exploded and his body was shredded to pieces in the frenzied onslaught of traffic.
***
Sanjuro dug his thumbs into his temples, grinding away at his skull as if he could somehow push the terrible sound out of his head. He had tried everything he could think of to rid himself of the incessant thumping, the blaring horns, and the wretched English gibberish. But over the past three weeks, the sound had only seemed to get louder and louder. It was slowly driving him insane.
"Mifune, are you listening?" a voice called through the cacophony. "Mifune!"
Sanjuro's head bolted upright so quickly that he nearly tossed himself from his chair. "Ah, yes, I'm sorry sir! I... I just have a splitting headache. I... it must be a migraine. I'm having trouble concentrating."
Sanjuro's boss looked at him skeptically. "You've been acting strange since you returned from the sales call in Hong Kong," he said. "Did you pick up a bug while you were down there?"
"That must be it," Sanjuro lied. "I think I got sick from drinking the water." He was having trouble hearing himself speak over the sound pulsing violently inside his own skull.
"Go and have yourself checked out," his boss said, dismissing Sanjuro with a gesture. "We don't need you infecting the rest of the team here."
"Thank you, sir," Sanjuro said, bowing deeply as he stumbled from the conference room. "I'll go and get checked out immediately."
Sanjuro shambled down the hall, the sound of drums pounding rhythmically in his brain. The secretary said something to him as he passed her desk, but he couldn't hear her voice. The sound, the goddamn sound... by the time he left the building, his head was spinning wildly. For a fleeting moment he considered heeding his boss' advice and going to have himself examined by a doctor. But he knew he couldn't do that, not with what he had inside his head.
"Hey! Watch it, buddy," a man on a bicycle barked as he whizzed past. Sanjuro lost his balance, backpedaling until he tripped over a curb and fell to the ground, striking his head on the marble walkway.
Suddenly, the sound stopped. Sanjuro started to shake with relief... after weeks of the same wretched song looping endlessly in his head, drowning out everything else, he could finally hear himself think. He couldn't help but laugh out loud, and then laugh harder still at the crystal clear sound of his own voice. But then a sudden fear grabbed hold of him; how long would this silence last? He cursed himself under his own breath. This was a mess he had created. Everyone had warned him against getting cybernetic implants abroad. Hell, the government even had laws against it - which was why he couldn't go to see a doctor. Doctors were mandatory reporters. Once they scanned him and realized that he had an unlicensed implant, they'd turn him right over to the police. Sanjuro's stomach tightened at the thought of doing time in Fuchu prison.
"Ugh," he groaned, lamenting the mess he'd stepped into. He'd had friends and coworkers who had had cybernetic upgrades and none of them had had any side effects. Those positive experiences had convinced him that it was a good idea to skip across the border while in Hong Kong and get a cheap knock-off implant installed in Shenzhen. He'd save some money and get an upgrade, all while getting paid by his company. It seemed like a win-win.
But within days of returning to Tokyo, the sound had started. He still remembered clearly the first confusing moments as a driving drum beat had swelled in his mind. At first, he had thought he was hearing a ringtone or a loud radio from another room - but then the growling monotone of the singing had started and Sanjuro knew that something was very, very wrong. Sanjuro couldn't speak English very well, he could still recognize the sound of the language and he knew that what he was hearing was an English song. But the dominance of American cultural influence had petered out decades ago, well before Sanjuro was born. Nobody played English songs anymore. Especially songs that sounded so dated. What he had started hearing must have had something to do with the implant that he had just had installed. Somehow, the quack in Shenzhen had installed an implant that played an old American pop song on repeat instead of the auditory upgrade Sanjuro had paid for.
As he thought about his situation, the song started up again; quietly at first, and then building in volume and intensity. Sanjuro clawed at his ears and pulled at his hair. "No!" he screamed in desperation. "I can't take it any longer, I can't listen to this song for another moment!" He cast his gaze about, searching frantically for an escape. His eyes settled on the hectic traffic in the street just a few meters away. Remembering how the sound had stopped when he had struck his head on the ground, Sanjuro grinned to himself grimly.
The words of the song rang in his brain as he darted toward the street: It's time to strike a match and burn it down... Sanjuro had no idea what the words meant, but he knew the strange foreign syllables by rote memory. Screaming to drown out the sound, he launched himself into the road. In the moment that his skull made impact with the gleaming bumper of a speeding vehicle, the sound abruptly stopped and Sanjuro sighed in relief just before his head exploded and his body was shredded to pieces in the frenzied onslaught of traffic.
Sunday, June 4, 2017
Wattpad MyHandmaidsTale Competition
I'm on a roll with these Wattpad competitions. Check out my latest entry here. This one is an extension of Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale". Enjoy, and make sure to vote it up.
Friday, June 2, 2017
Wattpad Short Story SmackDown Qualifier
Check out my entry for the Short Story SmackDown on Wattpad (or just read it below).
Also, happy SciFiFriday.
Frank grinned, inhaling slowly and deeply before he replied and when he did so, he ensured eye contact with Dave was maintained...
"It's time," Frank said flatly.
"What you mean, 'it's time', Frank" Davey spat. "Of course it's time! That's what I've been gettin' at with all this. Are you not listenin' to me, Frank? You got something in your ears, Frank?" Davey stepped in close to Frank, their noses almost touching through the bars. "You need to open up your mind, Frank. You need to get what I'm sayin' into your head."
"It's time," Frank said again, that stupid grin still spread across his face. Davey couldn't tell if Frank's grin was an attempt at pacifying or mocking him. "Come on, Davey boy, let's get you up and at 'em. You'll feel better once you take these" Frank put his hands through the bars, palms up, two small white tablets in each hand. "Let's go," he beckoned.
"Get off'a me!" Davey bellowed, jumping backward away from Frank's outstretched fingers. "You ain't listenin' to me, Frank! This, all of this, it's all going to end! It'll all be gone, Frank! You get that? You get any of this? Is any of it sinking in? Our names, in the books, for all of history; inscribed in stone, Franky, written in lights. They'll look back at us, everyone of 'em, and they'll say: 'Those guys did it. They did it for us. We're here because of them!' All the killin', all the hurtin', all the pain; all of it for them, so they got a chance, Frank. You see what I'm sayin' Frank? Earth to Frank. You in or not?"
"I'm sorry, Davey," Frank sighed, his voice heavy with an empathy that had been lacking moments ago. "He's refusing," Frank said to the empty space behind him. "Pop the lock."
"What are you talkin' 'bout," Davey spat, glaring at Frank through the bars. But as he opened his mouth to speak again, he was interrupted by a loud KLANK-KLANK. The gate to Davey's cell squealed open slowly and two large men stepped out from behind Frank and grabbed Davey by the arms, forcing him to the ground.
"What the hell!" Davey screamed, thrashing about with his legs, biting and spitting at the air.
"Hold 'em still," Frank instructed the men holding Davey. "We'll need to adjust his dosage. He's even more agitated than when he was first brought in. And the delusions, they haven't calmed at all."
"IT'S ALL GOING TO BURN!" Davey screeched. "I'M GOING TO KILL YOU ALL, FRANK! I'M GOING TO KILL YOU ALL!"
Dr. Frank injected Davey with a cocktail of sedatives and psychotropic medication. Davey continued to struggle for a moment, and then went limp. The orderlies picked up Davey's flaccid body and placed him on a metal cot in the corner of the cell.
"Restrain him," Dr. Frank told them. "We'll need to keep him snowed for his own good until I can stabilize his medication."
Also, happy SciFiFriday.
Frank grinned, inhaling slowly and deeply before he replied and when he did so, he ensured eye contact with Dave was maintained...
"It's time," Frank said flatly.
"What you mean, 'it's time', Frank" Davey spat. "Of course it's time! That's what I've been gettin' at with all this. Are you not listenin' to me, Frank? You got something in your ears, Frank?" Davey stepped in close to Frank, their noses almost touching through the bars. "You need to open up your mind, Frank. You need to get what I'm sayin' into your head."
"It's time," Frank said again, that stupid grin still spread across his face. Davey couldn't tell if Frank's grin was an attempt at pacifying or mocking him. "Come on, Davey boy, let's get you up and at 'em. You'll feel better once you take these" Frank put his hands through the bars, palms up, two small white tablets in each hand. "Let's go," he beckoned.
"Get off'a me!" Davey bellowed, jumping backward away from Frank's outstretched fingers. "You ain't listenin' to me, Frank! This, all of this, it's all going to end! It'll all be gone, Frank! You get that? You get any of this? Is any of it sinking in? Our names, in the books, for all of history; inscribed in stone, Franky, written in lights. They'll look back at us, everyone of 'em, and they'll say: 'Those guys did it. They did it for us. We're here because of them!' All the killin', all the hurtin', all the pain; all of it for them, so they got a chance, Frank. You see what I'm sayin' Frank? Earth to Frank. You in or not?"
"I'm sorry, Davey," Frank sighed, his voice heavy with an empathy that had been lacking moments ago. "He's refusing," Frank said to the empty space behind him. "Pop the lock."
"What are you talkin' 'bout," Davey spat, glaring at Frank through the bars. But as he opened his mouth to speak again, he was interrupted by a loud KLANK-KLANK. The gate to Davey's cell squealed open slowly and two large men stepped out from behind Frank and grabbed Davey by the arms, forcing him to the ground.
"What the hell!" Davey screamed, thrashing about with his legs, biting and spitting at the air.
"Hold 'em still," Frank instructed the men holding Davey. "We'll need to adjust his dosage. He's even more agitated than when he was first brought in. And the delusions, they haven't calmed at all."
"IT'S ALL GOING TO BURN!" Davey screeched. "I'M GOING TO KILL YOU ALL, FRANK! I'M GOING TO KILL YOU ALL!"
Dr. Frank injected Davey with a cocktail of sedatives and psychotropic medication. Davey continued to struggle for a moment, and then went limp. The orderlies picked up Davey's flaccid body and placed him on a metal cot in the corner of the cell.
"Restrain him," Dr. Frank told them. "We'll need to keep him snowed for his own good until I can stabilize his medication."
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