On lateness, and the end of the year

Okay, okay, settle down.  Let's have a nice, easy press conference, okay?  God, my head is still killing me.  That's off the record.  Don't write that down.

Okay, you.  Go.

"Sir, where was the post scheduled for Monday?"

Right.  I'll be honest with you, here.  I'm on vacation for the end of the year, so I left it off until Sunday or so.  I was going to write a post on Sunday evening - even had the idea all planned out - and then I felt a queasiness starting in my gut.

Long story short, let's just say that I should probably lay off the homemade Hollandaise sauce for a while.  You get me?

Salmonella.  Nausea, vomiting, spewing liquid out of both ends at once.  Really not a pleasant time.  Nothing like sitting on the john, pants around your ankles, clutching a garbage can to your chest as you try and catch all of the-

-well, it was pretty bad.  I'll leave it at that.  Next question.

"If this is Wednesday's post, isn't this a bit of a cop-out?"

Yeah, I suppose so, but hey, I just had food poisoning.  Suck it.

Besides, there will probably be one up for Friday.  Maybe.  Aren't you lot supposed to be off visiting friends and family, enjoying yourselves, instead of harping on a blog?

"What's in store for next year, sir?  And I love your work, by the way!"

Thank you!  Those are some kind words, imaginary reporter I'm voicing.

This next year will hold a few changes for Missing Brains!  I'm looking to do the following:

1. Complete the 52 book challenge - that is, read 52 books a year!  That comes down to one a week.  And to keep myself motivated on that, Monday's post will often be a short review of one of the recently completed books.

2. Not only do I want to write more Angels posts, but I'm going to be shaping them together into a collection!  Expect to see more stories, including some with a unifying arc that connects the different stories together.  Coming soon to Amazon!

3. Plenty of posts about science fiction!

So stay tuned, as this blog enters its SECOND FULL YEAR of existence, providing mostly regular updates, assuming I don't get poisoned again!

A Superhero's Betrayal, Part III

This story begins here.

The explosion erupted out of the compound like a gout of flame, a huge, rising, massive pillar of fire bursting up from Hell itself.  The heat and energy signature of the explosion registered even on the satellites orbiting the compound, far above.

Military troops had been positioned outside the compound, waiting for the signal from Captain Electric to move in.  Unfortunately, they were far too close to the explosion's epicenter to escape.

Most of the troops, heavy armor units, were vaporized where they stood, the metal chassis of the hulking machines melting into slagged piles of annihilated metal.  At least the troops inside the machines died instantly, their bodies flash-fried into little more than ash...

A Superhero's Betrayal, Part II

Continued from Part I, here.

"Captain..." I felt paralyzed, unable to move, unable to think.  This couldn't happen.  My own mentor, my oldest and strongest friend, the pillar of my entire life - he had just turned against everything we'd believed in, everything we had fought for over the last two decades.

The Cap didn't even glance at me.  Instead, he turned around to look at the screens behind Dr. Hazard.  "We need to minimize human loss."  His voice was distant, cold...

A Superhero's Betrayal, Part I

I kept my eyes on the passage behind us, my heart pounding in my ears.  We'd managed to defeat all of the Kill-Bots we'd encountered so far, but I knew that Dr. Hazard always kept reinforcements.

We didn't have long before they arrived, and we'd find ourselves under fire - and in this open chamber, there was nowhere to hide, nowhere to take shelter...

The Angels: Tough Love

Sitting at the table in the cafe, I did my best to take slow, full breaths.  Don't hyperventilate, I told myself.  This isn't a huge deal.

I mean, I was finally meeting, in person, the girl I'd been chatting with online for six months, and this was my only chance to make a good first impression in person.  This was the girl that I'd been pinning all my hopes on, that I was pretty sure I was falling in love with.  And now, I was going to see her in person for the very first time.

But hey, no pressure.

I looked down at the empty table.  Should I order a cup of coffee?  I felt jittery already, but I also wanted something in my hands, something that I could sip at to take my mind off of the rapidly approaching future.  I couldn't even decide this.

The door to the cafe opened with a jingle, and I glanced up.  Was this her?  She'd said that she was going to wear a red bobble hat, she'd messaged me.

But no, the man who stepped inside the cafe wasn't wearing anything on his hair.  He was, however, wearing what looked vaguely like a cross between a robe and a toga, all white cloth.  I frowned a little.  That was strange.

But the strangeness didn't stop there.

The stranger glanced around after stepping inside, spotted me, and gave me a head nod, as if he recognized me!  As I watched in shock and confusion, he cut his way through all the tables towards me, his eyes focused on me.

"Ugh, you look ridiculous," the man said to me as he plopped down in the chair opposite mine at the little table.

I blinked, feeling totally confused.  I didn't even know this man, although something about him looked slightly familiar.  I had that sort of impression, like when I see someone who reminds me of a dream.  "Um, excuse me, but I'm waiting for someone," I said, wishing that this guy would vanish.

"Yeah, yeah, Juliette sixteen, or whatever," the man replied to me, waving one hand vaguely in my direction in a brush-off gesture.  "As if that's going to work out."

Who the hell was this?  And how did he know the screen name of my date?  "Excuse me," I said again, this time trying to inject some more strength into my voice.  "But really, I don't know you, and I am meeting-"

"The whole thing's a crock of shit, you know that?" the man interrupted me, turning to stare at me.  As his eyes locked on mine, I felt my voice cut off.  I'd never seen such brilliant blue irises before.  "I mean, I was doing just fine smiting evil, all of that, and then next thing I know, I'm pulled and stuck in the guardian division!  And now I'm burdened with you sad sack, as if I didn't have enough problems of my own."

What?  "Hey, I'm not a-"

"Yes, you are," the man replied, waving a hand at me again.  "I mean, come on, dude!  Just look at you.  Hey, can we get some service over here?" he called out to a nearby waitress, snapping his fingers in the air.  What a jerk, I thought to myself.

The waitress turned and made her way over, a frown on her face as she glared at the man who had summoned her in such a degrading manner.  "What?" she asked, shifting her glare back and forth.  I felt a bit hurt.  I hadn't done anything wrong!  I didn't even know this guy!

"Cup of coffee, seven creams, seven sugars," the guy told her.  He immediately returned his attention back to me, acting as if the waitress had ceased to exist.  "But seriously, just look at you!  You're what, twenty-nine now?"

"Twenty-eight!" I replied, not sure why I was answering him.

"And you've got a dead-end job, no girl, and no friends," the man picked up as if I hadn't spoken.  "Seriously, dude.  You're about two more cats away from getting the Lifetime Loser award."

"Who the hell are you to-"

The man flapped his hand again at me, rolling his eyes.  "And not especially fast on the uptake, either," he said.  "Here, maybe this will finally make it clear."

The man bent over, rustling around in a pocket of his robe, as I felt my hands squeeze into fists.  How dare this stranger come over and just start insulting me-

But then, the man pulled something out of his pocket, and I felt my mouth drop open as my thoughts cut off mid-train.

He was holding a glowing ring, about the size of a dessert plate.

And as I watched, he hung this glowing ring in thin air over his head, where it bobbed up and down, supported by nothing.

I couldn't speak, but still tried.  "You're- you're a- you're an-" I tried, stammering.

"Yeah, yeah, angel, holy power, all that shit," the man replied, rolling his eyes again.  "Where the hell is that coffee?"

As I blinked and felt my mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water, the man's coffee arrived, the waitress slamming it down on the table so hard it spilled a little.  "There," she told him, before stalking off.

Finally, I managed to regain my voice.  "You're an angel!  But I didn't think that they existed!" I got out.

"Well, they do," the man told me, taking a sip of his coffee and grimacing.  "Ugh, spit.  Like I wouldn't notice.  And for whatever sins I committed, I'm now stuck as yours."

"Mine?  Like a guardian angel?"

"Yeah, just like that," he said, taking another sip.  "And ordinarily I'd just let you wallow in sadness, but you're about to make a major screw-up, so I figured I was obligated to step in."

"Screw-up?"  I had no idea what the man was talking about.  "Wait, am I going to bomb this date?"

The angel's eyes widened slightly at me.  "Bomb it?" he repeated incredulously.  "Hell no!  You're bombing it right now by showing up!  You ought to be running away as fast as those wimpy little legs of yours can carry you!"

"This is a mistake?"

The angel glared at me.  "And this is why I hate being a guardian," he announced to the world in general.  "Yes, it's a mistake!  She's crazy!  Cuckoo!  A freaking loony!"  He raised one finger up and swirled it around his head to illustrate what he meant.

"What?  But she seems perfect!"  I didn't know what to think.  On one hand, this guy had a halo, that was true.  But I'd been chatting with Juliette for months!

The angel held up fingers as he ticked off reasons.  "She's got just as dead-end of a job as you," he called off.  "She's got three cats.  Seriously, three.  She's gonna be as crazy as her mom is, and will drag you into the fights.  And she's really just trying to get you to buy her stuff."

I shook my head.  "I can't believe it!" I repeated, feeling flabbergasted.

The angel sighed, but then stood up.  "Fine, fine," he said.  "Here, come on.  We're going out to find you a real girl."

Not sure what to think, I let the other man pull me up to his feet.  "Hey, pay for my coffee," he told me, heading for the door.  "I'll meet you outside."

I did as he requested, handing a few dollars over to the stone-faced waitress and whispering "sorry" to her.  I then hurried out of the cafe, trying to catch up to the man in the robe, now standing outside on the sidewalk and glaring around at the world as if it had personally pissed him off.

"Come on, now," he grunted at me, starting off down the sidewalk.  "If I'm stuck with you as my client, I'll at least try and solve some of these problems quickly.  The sooner I get you back on track, the sooner I can get out of here and back to smiting, where I belong."

I did as he requested, tagging along a half-step behind him, but I still felt as though I had to say something.  "You're a real asshole, you know that?" I told the angel, trying to keep up.

He just shrugged and kept walking.  "At least I get things done," he told me.  "Now, come on!  And really, we ought to get you a dog.  Girls like a guy with a dog."

As we walked away from the cafe, a short, pale, bespectacled girl with a furry red bobble cap made her way towards the door, trying to brush cat hair off of her hand-knit sweater and furtively glancing around, as if she thought someone was following her, sweat stains marking her armpits...

The Portal

I woke up, my head aching even more than usual.  "Ugh," I announced, eloquently informing the world that I had returned to consciousness.

I tried to open my eyes, but they were still half-crusted shut from whatever I'd been up to the last night.  I only managed to get them half-open, and saw that I was someplace dim.  I reached up with one arm to wipe them free of the crusty debris-

-but my arm didn't move.

The Recruitment

Storm looked up through half-closed, hooded eyes as the scientist in front of him babbled on, his words spilling out of him like the rushing flow of a half-dammed stream.

"This is absolutely insane!" he kept on saying, as if this somehow contributed to the conversation.  "To have amassed this many samples of the triple helix fragments - why, it's totally unheard of!  Just imagine what sort of discoveries we can make with this!"

Storm didn't need to hear any of this, but he let the scientist keep on babbling.  Instead of listening to the words, he instead half-tuned them out, focusing rather on the man himself...

"I just don't like her!"

"So what, you just don't like her?  There's no reason why?"

"No, there's a reason.  I mean, I have a reason for not liking her!  I'm not just some sort of psychopath that goes around not liking people for no reason."

"Evidently."

"Gimme a chance, man!"

"Okay, fine.  Why don't you like her?"

Do Computers Speak to Angels?

As soon as I saw the angel stagger into the shop, his wide grin almost totally hidden behind the huge, bulky computer monitor in his arms, I had to hold in a sigh.  This wasn't going to be fun...

Containment Failure

I was walking down the hallway when it happened.

I felt my phone buzz in my pocket.  No noise, of course - I knew better than to leave the volume on.  Countless infiltrations had taught me the power of silence.

I withdrew the slim, black rectangle from my pocket, glancing down at the lit screen.  I made sure to keep the backlight turned all the way down, just bright enough to read the words on the screen/

There were only two.

"Containment failure."

Love at the return counter

The big box in my arms was heavy as well as just a little too big for me to hold comfortably, and I could feel the damn thing slipping out of my hands.  I tried to tighten my fingers as best I could, even as I began to lose sensation.  I was so close!

At least, I was close to the front of the line.  In terms of absolutes, however, I was still far, far away from clawing my way back up to equal...

The Next Big Thing in Video Games

The Prompt: Come up with the most outlandish "next big thing" in video games - and then sell it!

Read on to see my take on the industry's newest darling...

100% Achieved

When I flopped back onto the pillow, just before my eyes sagged shut, I glanced over at the clock.

11:57 PM, the red numbers read in the darkness.

I was feeling pretty good with the day already, feeling pretty accomplished.  Man, I thought to myself, I got a lot done!  But I still felt as though I was forgetting something...

The Third Door

The doorbell kept on ringing, even though I'd barely even have time to jerk up out of my chair.  "I'm coming!  I'm coming!" I shouted, aware that the person outside likely couldn't hear me, but still feeling annoyed.

I clomped down the hallway that connected my home office to the front door, hearing the hardwood floor creak under my feet as I drew closer.  Past the living room, the door to the coat closet, and finally, I arrived at the front door.  Through the curtain, I could see a shadowy figure standing outside, waiting for me to draw back the bolt.

From how he was still pushing my doorbell, I guessed that he wasn't the patient type...

The Family Pet

I stood in front of the door, trying to keep my knees from knocking together.  Remember, Harry, just be polite and open, I told myself inside my head.  Sure, you don't want to ruin things with this girl by offending her family, but you're a nice enough guy.  Just stay polite, and it will all be fine.

After one last breath, I reached out and rang the bell.  Here goes nothing...

The Angels: D'oops'day

When he stepped inside the coffee shop, his companion was already there, standing by the bulletin board and pretending to peruse the postings.  Of course he'd be early.

Lucifer forced himself to not grind his teeth.  Sure, he could regrow them with a moment's thought, but one of his under-devils had told him that it made quite the awkward squeaking sound when he did so.  "Doesn't exactly inspire fear of the 'Prince of Darkness'," the fallen angel had commented, snickering a little.

Of course, Lucifer promptly tossed the angel through a portal to the opposite end of the universe, inside quite the large star, but he still didn't feel great about the whole thing.

52,825 words (so far).

2,298 words written on average per day in November.

Published novel soon to come.

That is all.

Paradoxes

I knew from the moment that I woke up that something was wrong.

I sat up, groaned, and reached up to rub at my eyes.  My alarm was beeping on the nightstand beside me, but I had no idea how long it had been going off.  I reached over and scooped the little clock up, holding it up close to my eyes as I fumbled for my glasses.

"Shit," I grunted, as I read the time.  I was most definitely late.

I set the clock back down on the nightstand, and watched as it slowly sank into the wood.  "Solids variable," I diagnosed to myself.  At least it hadn't yet affected the bed - although it did feel even softer than usual...

"Either I will find a way, or I will make one."

The scout could already feel despair setting in as he cut along the path through the thick brush of the jungle.  He stepped past the carefully positioned leaves, making sure to set them back into position once he had cleared them, and then hurried through the little concealed clearing.

"Carter!  Carter!"  he called out, as he slipped past the grunts as they sat on the wet ground and rechecked their weapons.  The whole camp had been waiting on his return, hoping for good news.

They would be disappointed...

The Little Man

The little man whistled as he trotted up the stairs, a tuneless little ditty of discordant notes.  He kept his lips pursed as he blew through them mainly as something to keep himself occupied.  He never really remembered any music; it was just something to do.

The case in his hand felt heavier than he remembered, but wasn't it always heavier on the way up?  On the way down, of course, it would feel lighter.

Funny how such a small little bit of weight could influence the feel of the case so much...

"Call it in."

Hannibal kept his eye on the kid as he waited for the phone to ring through.  Damn connection always took forever.

Sure, the geeks in glasses told him that it was "for increased security," and that "the protocols needed more time to check the line was secure," but he didn't much care about that.  Hannibal knew his job, and that was all that mattered much to him.

But the kid was new.  Just accepted on, still full of piss and vinegar, convinced that he was making the world a better place with each bullet.  He arrived early every morning with the bright-eyed, bushy-tailed cheeriness that made Hannibal wince when he turned away.

Hannibal wondered how long that naivete would last.  He didn't remember it taking him long to see through the gauzy sheets draped over his eyes, but the kid might not come around as fast.  That was okay.  The longer he felt good when he laid down at night, the better.

Writing Prompt: The Narrator Doesn't Fall In Love With the Reader

Author's note: This is the writing of a personification, not of me!  Readers, I love you all!

First off, dear reader, allow me to extend a long and twisted middle finger towards you.  I sincerely hope that this opening statement makes my feelings towards you clear.

I have only one thing to ask you, o hallowed and eminent reader, as the fires of our love affair burn and consume themselves:

How dare you?

Writing Prompt: Seinfeld after the apocalypse.

Intro music plays: GEORGE and JERRY are sitting in a small, ramshackle lean-to shelter at a table.

Jerry: Wait, you decided to leave the group?  Didn't they have a whole underground bunker full of food?

George: Let me tell you about that bunker, Jerry.  There was NO variation!  No variation at all!

Jerry: No...

George: That's right!  And do you know what food they were all eating?

Jerry: Don't say it!

George: Beans!

Possession talk around the neighborhood grill

SETTING: The neighborhood barbecue, over by the grill.  The men are gathered around the grills, occasionally poking at the meat, while the women gossip and the children run around, chase each other, and occasionally scream.  It's a warm, sunny summer day, with the slightest of breezes rustling the leaves on the trees.

"Man, you cannot be serious.  On either count."

"No, I swear it's true!  Summoning ritual gone wrong, the whole nine yards.  It's really the only way for me to explain it.  She's nothing like how she used to be."

The Surgery, Part II

Continued from Part I.

Two hours later, Decker was in the operating room, his hands scrubbed clean with a molecular wash by the nurse-droid, a layer of protective antibacterial rubber sprayed over them as a protective coat.  Mrs. Taggett was on the operating table in front of him, thankfully still and silent.  Her mechodist ranting had been replaced by the steady beep of the monitoring instruments.

Directing the nanowatt laser, Decker began the incision.  The small tumor was towards the back of the woman, by the spine, and he had to be careful not to pierce any organs.

Two inches in, the laser blinked, shuddered - and stopped.  Decker paused.  Did he hit something?  The laser was designed to cut through tissue and bone, just about anything short of metal.  What sort of obstruction could he have encountered?

The Surgery, Part I

Dr. Alan Decker was already regretting picking up this patient's file.  "What a disagreeable woman," he thought to himself, staring down at the middle-aged female lying on the hospital bed in front of him, her hands gesticulating as she rambled on.

"Look, doc, I'm not saying that they're all bad," she went on, again waving her hands (and, incidentally, keeping Decker from taking a look at the place where he would be cutting into her in a couple of hours).  "But come on, they're not human!  They're basically just collections of gears and cogs, not even alive.  They don't deserve the same rights as us, people made of real flesh!"

Decker had to struggle to control his eyes, preventing them from rolling.  Of course he'd get the hypocrite, the mechodist, the woman who hated androids even as her own flesh was failing her.  Instead of commenting, he forced himself to keep his neutral expression, gently but firmly leaning in with the power of authority.  When the woman's hand flailed past him again, he reached out and grabbed her by the wrist.

"Mrs. Taggett, I need to examine you for your surgery this afternoon," he stated, his ice-cold voice cutting through her diatribe.  "Please, if you can hold still, this will be quick."

The woman glared at him, angry at being interrupted, but she stopped moving about, and Decker was able to lift up her hospital gown.  The nurse-droid had already been in here, marking the exact spot where Decker would make the incision.  If it was up to the doctor, he would have let the droid do the entire procedure - but this abhorrent woman had insisted on a human touch.

Now he could see why.

Everything looked to be okay, the doctor quickly decided, and he was free to leave.  "Wonderful, Mrs. Taggett," he told the woman in the bed.  "We will proceed with the surgery this afternoon, and you should be free to go home by tomorrow morning."

The woman shivered, but her angry eyes never left him.  "The sooner I can get out of this house of clockwork, the better," she snapped.

Outside the room, Decker saw a small man, slightly huddled with owlish eyes, watching him as he emerged.  "How is she, doc?" he asked, stepping forward.  "I'm, er, Mr. Taggett."

The husband.  "Everything seems fine," Decker replied.  "It's a minor tumor that is being removed, and there don't appear to be any complications.  I won't know for certain until I cut her open this afternoon, of course."  He usually tried to avoid such direct language, but his temper was still running hot.

The diminutive little husband just nodded.  But as Decker turned to walk away, the man's hand shot out to grab his arm.  The touch was light, almost furtive, but it made the doctor pause.

"Look, sir, just..." Taggett hesitated, and Decker wished he could shake the man and get him to just spit it out.  "Just don't be too shocked, sir.  Trust me, it's all for a reason.  Just don't say too much to her."

Decker had no idea what this meant.  But before he could ask, the little man turned and scuttled back into his wife's room, and the doctor put this strange little exchange out of his mind.

To be continued!

A Prickling of the Skin

From the moment I woke up, I knew that something was wrong.

Ever feel that prickling at the back of your shoulder blades, that phantom sensation that just won't go away?  It happens when you've missed something, something important.  One time, I totally forgot about the fact that I had jury duty, and I walked around all day with this prickling in between my shoulder blades, sure that the Sword of Damocles was waiting just above my head, about to drop.

That was how I felt today, ever since I woke up.

Try as I might, however, I can't remember what could be wrong, what I could have forgotten.  I caught my bus as I hid from the rain in the shelter of the stop, went to work, put in my mindless eight hours of sitting at my desk and transferring files between spreadsheets, got on the bus again, came home, cooked the last pizza in my freezer (I need to get more food), and went to bed.

The next day, the prickling was still there.

Now, I knew that something was wrong.  That sense of unease was stronger, as if there was something right in front of me that I should be seeing, that my eyes were just skipping past.

I knew that something was wrong.

I just didn't know what it was.

I went to work again, putting up my coat to cover my hair against the rain.  I did my work, toiling away at those endless spreadsheets.  At home, I popped open my fridge, pulled out the frozen pizza (last one, I needed to go shopping), and tried to think as I ate.

What could be wrong?  I felt my skin was a size too small, like I itched inside of it.

It took a long time for me to fall asleep.

The next morning, the feeling was even worse.  Prickling all over, pins and needles coursing through my entire body.  I could barely think as I stared out the window at the pouring rain.  I knew that I had to go to work, but I felt as though my thoughts were moving through molasses.

Dash through the rain to the bus.  Open up my spreadsheets - sometimes, it seemed like I wasn't even making any progress on them.  Eight hours and change later, I stumbled back into my apartment, going for the frozen pizza (last one) in the fridge.

I needed to go shopping for food, I thought blearily to myself.  I had a small pad of paper sitting on the counter, and I picked up a pen.  I noticed with annoyance that I was down to the last sheet of paper.  There was something written on it already, but I crossed that out and wrote "buy pizza" underneath.

I was already getting tired.  I collapsed into bed, but I knew that I was missing something.

I almost slept through my alarm the next morning.  Clamber up, pull on my coat against the pouring rain outside, and run for the bus.  Data entry.  Frozen pizza.  The prickling was still there.

I know something's wrong.

Maybe I'll figure it out tomorrow.

Hacker's Heart: Rooftop Infiltration

The man was silent as a ghost as he drifted along the rooftop, crouching down amid the sensors and antennae.

Actually, Shard reflected, that wasn't a great turn of phrase.  Most ghosts tended to be somewhat loud, rattling their chains and moaning.  If anything, they were quite obnoxious with all their noise.

He, on the other hand, was most decidedly not loud.  His boots were outfitted with chameleon soles, shifting and flexing with each step to adjust to the terrain beneath.  Each step was sure-footed, the shifting soles making sure that not a single pebble was disturbed or moved out of place...

The Roach

I just sat there, staring at her across the table.  Something was wrong, I knew it.  There was something off about her, something that just didn't feel right.

It all started a few days ago.  She had gone to sleep before me, as usual, turning in and crawling into the sheets on her side of the bed while I stayed up late, trying to finish the never-ending pile of work.  But when I finally stood up, rubbed my eyes, and headed to the bedroom, something wasn't the same.  Something was different.

I barely noticed it, then.  I saw her in the bed, curled up, and just felt uneasy.  Sometimes, when a roach crawls on my skin, I just barely feel it, something wrong moving about on me.  That's the best way I can describe the feeling.  Something about her wasn't right.

That night, I was too tired to think much of it.  I shrugged it off, crawled into bed beside her, and fell asleep without much issue.

But the feeling didn't go away.

For the next few days, it just grew stronger and stronger, every time I looked at her.  She wasn't the same.  Oh, she acted like nothing was wrong, smiled and joked with me, but sometimes, out of the corner of my eye, I thought that I could see her expression melt away into blankness.

I began staring at her, watching all of her little habits closely.  The way she pushed back her hair - had she always done it like that?  Did she always curl her finger around the strands as she tucked them up behind her ear?  I couldn't remember.  But it wasn't right.  It was somehow off, different, a mocking imitation of what I remembered.

It crept into her speech, too.  When I asked her a question, something about our history, our past, I could see it.  For just an instant, she'd freeze before answering.  She almost looked like she was thinking.  Like she was recalling the answer.

But I could see that brief moment of total blankness in her eyes.

There was something in her head; I was sure of it, convinced of it.  Something on her brain.  Or in it, pulling all the strings to make her move like a marionette.

I began staring into her ears, into that hole of blackness.  It's such a big hole.  Any number of things could crawl inside of there, could invade through those open gates.

We went to the doctor, under the guise of a yearly checkup.  The doctor checked for brain tumors, at my request.  He saw nothing.  But I didn't feel reassured.

See, it's getting worse.  Every time I talk to her, I see that moment of blankness.  I've trained myself to spot it now, to see it whenever she tries to get near me.  She says she just wants to comfort me, to hold me in her arms like we used to, but I don't remember that.  It, that thing inside her, can't truly pretend to be her.

I know it's inside her.  When I look at her, I see a roach, a nasty little insect inside her brain, scuttling around and making her dance.  I shudder, I look away, but I still see it inside of her in my mind's eye.

I am positive it's there.

Please, you have to believe me.  I knew it was there, but I knew no one would believe me without proof.  If I could just find it, could cut it out and hold it aloft in triumph as I crush it between my fingers, I would finally be able to rest again, to sleep.

It's in here, somewhere.  I had to cut in, to search for it.  I know it's here.

I was careful.  I used plastic sheets, made sure that it had nowhere to escape.  It must be in one of these pieces, hidden away like a roach.

It must be here.

Setting study: Hacker's Heart

First, I want to apologize for using these last few posts to talk about my behind-the-scenes work on developing my next novel.  Sometimes, I just need to write things out - and I'm one of the writers who always needs an outline, and cannot write a long story without one.  Normal stories will resume next week!

For Hacker's Heart, the story is set in the future, and there have been some significant advancements in technology and how it affects everyday life.  However, despite so many different aspects of life, many things also remain reassuringly familiar...

Year: 2140

Location: Minneapolis, MN.  Why Minneapolis?  Because I'm fairly familiar with it, and it's always nice to have a setting that's well known (for anyone who's actually been there).  Obviously, I can play around with the details a bit, as it's over a hundred years in the future.

Technology: This is the big one.  There have been some advancements in many areas (cars now run on electricity, are much cleaner, and tend to look like rounded bumps, for example), but the biggest one is bio-augmentation.

Different types of bio-augments:

• Physical augmentation.  These enhancements increase physical abilities, such as speed, strength, jumping ability, height, mass, or other similar traits.  Most of the time, these augments can be observed with a glance; strength still needs muscle, and so people with strength augments tend to be very bulky and dense.  Speed implants tend to cause a "twitchy" status, due to the increased movement speed even when at rest.  Obviously, augmentations that change body shape, such as height augmentations, are instantly visible.  
• Physical augments tend to be seen more among the working class than the upper-middle class and rich, and are often used for jobs.
• These augments tend to be cheaper than most others - and are also most often done in shoddy workshops where they may not take properly.
• Mental augments.  These enhancements are designed to increase thinking speed or intelligence.  Designed to, at least.  These are brand-new, have not been fully tested, and don't always seem to properly function - at least, not without causing some side effects.
• Mental augments are rare, but occasionally seen.  They can't be observed physically, so they are easier to keep hidden.
• These augments tend to be most popular among the wealthy, who can both afford the incredibly high expense of these augments, and also make the most use of them.  They are also sometimes seen in people holding high jobs, such as prosecutors, surgeons and doctors, and some military agents.
• Mental augments come in two "flavors."  The first type allows the brain to access outside sources of information, such as the internet, with direct thought queries.  These augments allow people to almost instantaneously recall information from other sources.  The second type, newer and even less tested, is designed to enhance raw brainpower.  These appear to work, but often have strange side effects (vampires?).
• Utility augments.  This third group of augmentations is the most varied, and serves as a "catch-all" for any augments that don't fit in the first two groups.  These are often related to a job or career, or sometimes a hobby.
• Shard has several of these utility augments, such as an ocular augment allowing him to see the flow of electricity and interfacing nannites at his fingertips to allow him to jack in directly to computer systems.
• Other utility augments include GPS systems for people on the road, lockpicking tools for burglars or locksmiths, enhanced vision of various types, bone plating to protect against gunshots for soldiers, a blade that withdraws into the body for chefs or construction workers, implanted magnets, and other systems.
• Many police officers have a radio implant so that they can hear chatter and take calls without needing an earbud.  Some also invest in lock picking tools or armor plating.  Heart, obviously, cannot use any of these implants.
• Utility augments come in a wide range of qualities, from professional implants all the way down to back-alley jobs.  Obviously, paying more tends to lead to a better quality augment.
• Another sub-class of utility augments includes those for vanity or appearance.  These vary widely, from breasts that adjust in size up to hair covering one's entire body in various colors.  Some people even get enhancements to make them look more like animals, or creatures of myth and legend.

Character Study: Shard

Attention, fellow writers!  NaNoWriMo, the National Novel Writing Month, is fast approaching!  While getting started on the actual writing before November 1st is forbidden, we are free to plan and plot as much as we choose.  So for this week, I'm doing character studies on my characters that will be in my upcoming story.

Name: Richard Galt

Nickname/Preferred Name: Shard

Job: Freelance hacker, security consultant, suspected in several hacking crimes

Background: Richard Galt has always had an affinity for technology.  After nearly getting expelled from school at age thirteen, he returned and graduated in less than a year.  He's widely known in many tech circles, and is considered a "gray hat" - he occasionally seems to stray towards illegal prospects, but he's never been caught doing anything strictly illegal.  He works during the day as a digital security consultant for big companies.  At night, it's anyone's guess.

Skills: There isn't a digital system Shard has met that he can't break open.  He has several augments to aid him in this ability, and he considers it a point of personal pride that he's one of the best hackers alive.  He's also gifted with an excellent memory and almost insatiable thirst for knowledge, and uses his almost encyclopedic memory to solve puzzles.

Carried Items:

• Wrist-mounted computer.  Shard uses this device as his portable hacking station, and can hook it up to most machines he encounters.  The flexible touch-screen extends up his forearm, and responds to both mental signals and to touch commands.
• Electronic interface nannites.  Also known as "IO nannites" among hackers, these tiny little electronic devices allow him to directly interface with many computer systems.  They establish a microscopic bridge between his index fingers and a computer port.
• Sunglasses.  A classic part of any hacker's wardrobe.  Shard's glasses also give him some enhanced low-light vision.
• Optical nannites.  Give Shard the ability to "see" electrical currents around him.  Great for detecting alarm systems...
• Sensor bundle.  Looking more like a octopus-shaped blob of wires than anything else, this device can be plugged into most machines to remotely stream data to Shard, even when left behind.

Strengths: Richard has a powerful, inquisitive mind that is constantly working and tackling new problems.  When he has something to think about, he ferrets away at it, refusing to give up until he has an answer.  He's also fiercely intelligent, and also has a strong independent streak, leading him to work to be self-reliant.

Weaknesses: When Richard doesn't have a problem to occupy his attention, he tends to search for one.  This often leads to him getting into a lot of trouble when left without a problem - especially when he's not being watched.  He also has a blatant disregard for rules, which often leads to him straying to the outskirts of legality.

Pet Peeve: When Richard gets an idea, the worst thing anyone can say to him is "No."  That is the easiest way to make him charge in, just to prove his opponent wrong.

Character Study: Detective Heart

Attention, fellow writers!  NaNoWriMo, the National Novel Writing Month, is fast approaching!  While getting started on the actual writing before November 1st is forbidden, we are free to plan and plot as much as we choose.  So for this week, I'm doing character studies on my characters that will be in my upcoming story.

Name: Lovely A. Heart

Nickname/Preferred Name: Leah Heart, Detective Heart

Job: Police Detective

Background: Leah has always wanted to be a detective.  Even as a kid, she used to try and hunt down bad guys.  She enrolled in the Police Academy straight out of high school.  Not only was she top of her class, but she also took many community college classes at the same time, working to broaden her knowledge.  After graduating, she quickly established herself as one of the most talented and dedicated officers in the field.

Skills: Extensive combat training, including multiple forms of hand-to-hand combat.  A crack shot, proficient with a wide array of weapons besides her usual sidearm.  Smart and logical, able to remain calm and reason in tense situations.  Skilled in many police-related skills, including nonlethal combat, tactical driving, infiltration tactics, and other abilities.

Carried Items:

• Car keys.  Leah has her own unmarked police cruiser, which she's tweaked for peak horsepower and handling.  The vehicle is silver gray, and shows slight evidence of dents despite Leah having hammered them out many times.
• Zip tie cuffs.  Officers have found these cuffs to be more efficient and useful than standard metal cuffs, and have switched to using them.  Leah has a supply on her at all times.
• Police badge.  Equipped with holographic seals to prove authenticity.
• X5 stun pistol.  The X5 is the standard-issue weapon now given to police officers.  It fires a pair of charged steel flechettes that conduct an electrical charge between them - no wires required!  The stun is usually enough to bring down an adult male human.  Leah has modified her personal pistol to also fire a wide-angle burst of electricity, stunning in a wide arc.
• Medical bracelet.  This marks Leah as a "darkie" in case she is unconscious or immobilized and requires medical treatment.

Strengths: Leah Heart has an uncanny ability to ferret out answers for many crimes, even when it may be confusing to other officers.  Her combination of determination, intelligence, skill, and fierce competitiveness gives her a strong intrinsic drive to succeed, to come out on top.

Weaknesses: Is a natural "darkie" - her body is unable to accept bio-augmentation implants, and any attempt at augmentation could cause a potentially fatal allergic reaction.  Because of this, she must work even harder to keep ahead of her fellow augmented officers.  Leah also can have a short temper, a lack of patience, and is easily fed up and frustrated by bureaucracy and incompetence.  She doesn't tend to do well with jokes.

Pet Peeve: When things don't make sense.  Leah doesn't hold much stock with the supernatural.  "There's always got to be an explanation."

My birthday, and time for a little introspection

It's my birthday!  Happy birthday to me.  Another year definitely older, probably more experienced, potentially even wiser.

I've now been alive for a quarter century - one-fourth of my entire life (hopefully less than a quarter, but we'll see!).  Twenty-five years.  So long, and yet so short.  And to think, I spent a decent percentage of this time crawling around on my hands and knees, trying to not choke on my own drool or leave a steaming, smelly pile in my own absorbent little diaper.  Definitely didn't accomplish much at that time.

That's the real question, isn't it?  What have I accomplished?  What have I failed to accomplish?

The Prank War

Okay, I'll admit that the prank war has grown a little bit out of hand.

Yes, I started it.  But in my defense, you were snoring really loudly, and only getting a couple hours of restless sleep a night tends to wear a guy down after a week or so.

Maybe giving you permanent eye shadows with a Sharpie while you were asleep was a stupid move, in retrospect, but I felt that at least we should both look sleep-deprived....

The Singularity is Coming, and It Will Be Terrible

Many scientists will talk about an upcoming event called a "singularity."  This event, championed by very brilliant man Ray Kurzweil, is the point at which machines become smarter than humans.  And once machines are as smart or smarter than humans, the machines can design their own improvements, at an incredibly accelerated rate.  Whether this singularity will happen, and if so what exactly might happen, is a point of significant debate among scientists and other forward thinkers.

I believe that this singularity will happen.  And I believe that it will be absolutely terrible.

I believe that the singularity, this point where machine intelligence surpasses human intelligence, will eventually arrive.  Perhaps not quite within 30 years, as Kurzweil predicts, but it will arrive.  Prediction and heuristic algorithms are growing constantly more powerful, allowing for computers to extrapolate from incomplete data to make predictions.  Even today, Google can take a search string and not just provide a best-hit output, but can integrate keywords, linked phrases, and other information to create a more holistic guess as to what the searcher is after.  It seems like a sensible conclusion that this will eventually grow to at least an approximate facsimile of human thoughts, with a trillion times the background information and references to draw upon for support.

However, unlike Kurzweil, I am pretty sure that this technological singularity is going to prove to be incredibly frustrating.

The internet, for example, is an incredibly disruptive tool that has led to the rise of countless new opportunities.  Yet it also brought new problems and conflict; net neutrality, Comcast-Time Warner oligopolies, the increasing concern of personal security and privacy in a world that is growing more and more digital; all of these problems tag along with this great breakthrough, like remoras attached to a shark.

Even today, in class, we debated Eli Lilly releasing synthetic human growth hormone (HGH), allowing for short children to be treated and to grow to a height more comparable to their peers.  This treatment ran $20k-$40k per year, mind you.  That immediately raised questions of inequality and the growing divide between the rich and poor.

Now, how will people respond to the option to upload a brain, to create godlike robotic bodies, to find new and inventive ways to cheat death?  (How much does one of those robotic bodies cost, anyway?)

One of the wealthiest and most powerful nations in the world cannot even provide an acceptable health care system to its citizens.  Introduce the option to purchase lab-grown organs or brain-scanning nannites, and I cynically imagine that the divide among the populace will further increase.

We are approaching the ability to sequence the human genome for a thousand dollars or less, yet six in ten Americans still don't realize that ordinary tomatoes contain genes (now that's scary).

The singularity, a huge leap forward in innovation and discovery, will open up amazing new abilities that previously were believed to be squarely in the domain of miracles.  But that doesn't mean that they won't immediately be covered with a fine grime of human pettiness, price gouging, misplaced anger and distrust, and pure dumbfounded incomprehension.

Think about when you had to teach your grandmother to send emails.  Now, try and imagine explaining to her that cell-sized computers are going to create a digital backup of her brain to transfer into a robotic artificial intelligence.

Imagine the cries of "class warfare" when the ability to create real-life save points is released - for the low, low cost of $7 million per year in equipment, processing power, implants, and data storage.

The singularity is coming, and it's going to be terrible.

The Drug Dealer's First Day... In Police Academy!

Oh, dammit.  I knew that this was a bad idea.  I stared at the huge, imposing man, praying that he somehow wouldn't remember me from the dozen collars, all those searches.  Please, I thought to myself, let him only think of me as "faceless drug dealer number twenty-three."

And then his eyes fell on me.  His face lit up in furious, scowling recognition, and I felt my heart sink down into the ground through the soles of my police regulation boots.

The man came stomping over, and I had to consciously squash my instinct to turn, sprint away, maybe hop a hedge or two or look for one of my friend's houses to duck inside.  Instead, I forced my back to stand up straight, to gaze ahead and waiting to be addressed.  Never mind that I was shaking in my stupid uniform.

"You!"  The man's roar was filled with disbelieving fury.  "What in the nine bloody hells do you think that you're doing here?"

Now that he addressed me, I returned his gaze, forcing my eyes not to pull away.  "Here to protect and serve, sir!" I called back, desperately willing my voice to remain strong.

As the man chewed his jowls, his face growing red with apoplectic fury as he searched for words powerful enough to convey his displeasure, I suddenly flashed back to when a Mexican gang had attempted to move in on my selling territory.  I'd been snatched off the street, blindfolded, and hauled before their jefe, a hulking man in an ill-fitting suit.

That jefe had tried to intimidate me, too, to scare me off of "his turf."  I hadn't backed down.  I warned him that my bosses wouldn't tolerate his intrusion.  I had stayed strong, and four days later, the darkly tanned man grabbed someone that he shouldn't have touched and "mysteriously vanished" in the middle of the night.  He didn't even have time to grab his product or his cash.

This was no different.  So despite the quaking in my bones, I stared evenly back at this huge, hulking police sergeant as he panted in my face.

The man was still struggling for words.  "But, you can't be a damn officer," the man finally spat out.  "You're a criminal!"

I felt a couple of the other recruits in my line shifting their eyes over to me, and groaned internally.  I'd known that it would come out at some point, but I had hoped for more time to bond before it was revealed.  "He's scum!" the instructor continued.  "Listen up, recruits, because this is your first learning experience!"

The man stepped back and stabbed his thick, meaty finger out at me.  "This man," he went on, "is a small-time drug dealer, and has been busted on many occasions, often by me personally!"

"But never charged."

Whose voice was that?  Wait a minute, it was my own!  What in the world was I doing?

"You never convicted me, never pressed any charges," I went on, my voice only quivering slightly.  "And every time the police needed a lead, I always helped out.  I did my part - and now I'm going straight.  Is it so bad to want to join the good guys?"

I glanced around at the other men standing on either side of me.  Their eyes were lingering, but I caught a couple faint nods.  Maybe they were, just the slightest bit, impressed.

The sergeant had gone bug-eyed at my little speech, and as he looked at the rest of the recruits in the line, he could see that they weren't turning against me as he'd hoped.  "Well, maggot, I hope you're ready to have every last ounce of that old life beaten out of you," he snarled.  "Because I know you, recruit.  I know that you're scum.  And I'm gonna punish you for every single plastic baggie you've pushed!"

For a long minute, the man held my gaze.  I forced myself not to break eye contact, not to look away.  And finally, almost reluctantly, he stepped back and surveyed all of us in the line.  "As for the rest of you," he announced, "don't expect me to go any easier on you, just because you weren't drug-dealing little punks in a past life!  Now, fall in, and get into that classroom!"

We fell in, trooping into the indicated room.  I glanced around at my fellow recruits, half expecting to see the same angry stares that the sergeant wore.  And there were a few.  But there were also some nods of comfortable acknowledgment, even a couple quick little grins.

Maybe I could do this, I thought to myself.  Maybe the leopard really could change his spots.  Maybe I could really leave my old life as a dealer behind, become an officer - go legit.  I certainly knew what to look for, how to deal with the gangs and the pushers!

I was certainly going to try.

Hell's IT, Part II

Continued from here.

I stared at the most recent note in the file, my heart sinking.  The tech, apparently not satisfied with writing in the largest available font, had added both bold, underline, and italics to his final sentence.  "Insists on using summoning portals from 3 iterations ago," it read.  "Totally tech illiterate, and heavy on the smiting."

Not good...

Hell's IT, Part I

The phone rang at me.  I glared down at it for a minute before I picked it up, wishing that I could send a curse through the line itself.  Unfortunately, the caller was probably higher ranked than me.  Otherwise, they wouldn't be calling.

The persistent, shrill noise continued, until I finally grabbed the receiver just to make it stop.  "Hell Service, Tech department, this is Carob, how can I help you?" I said, the words sliding out in a single sentence.

"Yeah, uh, I'm having some problems," came the response.  I rolled my eyes, holding the receiver out away from my mouth in case a swear word accidentally slipped free...

Hacker's Heart - potential opener

Detective Heart knew that the call was coming even before her earbud crackled.

To an observer watching, the woman might seem almost psychic, judging from the way that she reached down for her phone a half second before it rang, not flinching as the buzzing sound cut through the air.  But Detective Heart wasn't psychic, although that skill would be useful to possess.

Instead, she was simply observant.  Her partner, previously slumped back in the passenger seat of their cruiser, perked up and leaned forward as his neural implant vibrated.  That little twitch of a reaction was enough to warn Detective Heart of what was coming.

In her mind, the detective felt a little irked at how the officers with the neural upgrades always got the call first, even if it was only a half-second's lead.  It wasn't like it was her fault that she was ineligible.

The irritation passed in a brief flash, however, as her phone rang.  Detective Heart hit the control on her phone, hearing the little bud in her ear crackle to life.  "Heart," she spoke aloud.

"Hey, Leah."  Detective Heart jerked upright, flashing into full wakefulness.  That wasn't the voice of the dispatcher.

"Chief?" she said back, the slight lift in inflection turning the response into a question.

On the other end of the line, she heard a sigh.  "There's another one," the man spoke up a moment later, his voice sounding more tired than Heart could remember hearing.  "This one's downtown, Fifth and Park.  Get here right away."

Heart didn't have to glance over at her partner to see if he had been listening; she knew that he'd been keyed in to the radio as well.  His neural implant automatically linked him in, even offering him the option of responding directly by thought without speaking aloud.  Smartly, however, he'd kept his mouth - and his thoughts - to himself.

The female detective didn't waste any time talking to him.  Her finger slammed down on the police cruiser's ignition button, and the engine sprang into gently rumbling electric life.  Her foot slammed down on the accelerator, and they took off.

As she navigated deftly past the other vehicles on the road, often slipping around them even before they had a chance to respond to the automatic signals being broadcast along with her wailing siren and pull over to the side of the thoroughfare, Heart ran through the clues from her most recent case in her head, mentally cursing.

Damn it, the man had struck again!  She didn't know how he got around, how he chose his victims, or even why he kept on killing.  This case stubbornly refused to conform to anything Heart had previously witnessed, to snap into some sort of sense.

She did know how he killed, at least.  Small comfort that was.

The killer simply tore his victims bodily apart.

Up until now, the man seemed to mainly target those poor souls unfortunate enough to be on the streets late at night, mainly vagrants and the homeless.  But from the sound of the Chief's voice, the case had just taken a new turn.  And it didn't sound good.

Normally, the drive to Fifth and Park would have taken about fifteen minutes.  Heart made it there in seven.  But even as she skidded to a stop, the electromagnetic brakes nearly locking up under her heavy foot, her heart dropped down from her chest, landing somewhere in the pit of her stomach.

The intersection was painted in flashing hues of red and blue, projected from the lights of half a dozen other squad cars blocking off traffic.  Cops were already at work, rolling out caution projectors and herding bystanders away.

Something had changed.

The Telemarketer

Hey, my phone's ringing!  Why?  Who in the world is so desperate to talk to me at 9:38 in the morning on a Tuesday?

Oh, here it is.  Hmm.  Unknown number.  Well, this doesn't seem promising.  But whatever, it's still ringing, and I'm out in public.  People are starting to look at me.  This feels a little uncomfortable...

M Drive - The Sludge, Part II

Continued from Part I, here.

The entity blinked, and nearly went insane.

For a moment, the universe, all of that lovely sensory input, simply vanished.  The entity was cut off, back in its prison outside of reality!  It had been thrown back out, rejected, trapped once again in its indeterminate and everlasting hell!

When the entity opened its eyes again, it was screaming.

Adventures in Home Brewing, Part II of II

Continued from here.

"Yeah, you sound sober!" I pointed out.  "Weren't you drunk just a moment ago?"

Dan looked back at us, blinking a couple of times.  "I am!" he insisted.  But then, a moment later, he shook his head in wonderment.  "I mean, I was..."

For a moment, we just all looked at each other.  Ari, perhaps because he'd been sober from the beginning, was a little quicker on the uptake.  "No way," he said, and he grabbed his own cup of coffee.

Dan and I both watched as he lowered the cup from his lips - and screamed.

The scream went on for quite a while, until Dan slapped a hand over his mouth.  "He's gone too far the other way!" he cried out at me, as Ari battered at the bigger man with flailing arms.

I stared back, wide-eyed.  "What do I do?"

"I dunno, find something with alcohol!"

I spun around, staring at my kitchen.  We had (well, Dan had) finished off most of my beers.  In desperation, I grabbed the jar of vanilla - distilled in alcohol.

We shoved the bottle into Ari's mouth and forced a couple gulps down his throat.  As we watched, holding our breaths, the man finally calmed down a bit.  "Holy crap," he gasped, staring at us.  "That stuff is strong!"

"What happened to you?" I had to ask.

Ari shook his head back and forth, searching for words.  "Okay, you know when you take a shot on an empty stomach, and you just feel the world lurch as the alcohol hits you?" he finally stammered out after a minute.

We both nodded.

"Well," the man concluded, "it was just like that, but the opposite.  And way worse."

After that ordeal, we all needed a drink.  And not of my brewed coffee concoction.  Dan scrounged up some more beers, and we sat around, staring at the still mostly full jug of black liquid.

"Could make a fortune outside bars at last call," Ari finally offered.  "Sobers people up with a sip, that stuff does."

"Yeah, but one wrong sale and you've got somebody screaming," I retorted.

After a minute, Dan just shook his head.  "Damn, man," he finally said.  "You definitely brewed something, that's for sure..."

Adventures in Home Brewing, Part I of II

Dan and Ari were both watching as I revealed the bottle from the refrigerator, struggling a little with its weight.  The three-gallon jug was nearly full of dark brown liquid, sloshing back and forth with a bit of foam cresting the tops of those waves.  The liquid inside was dark, murky, the brown of bloodsoaked mud.

It didn't look especially appetizing, I had to admit...

M Drive - The Sludge, Part I

Formless wasn't quite the right word to describe it.

The entity had shape, of a sort.  If shape was the right word to describe a writhing, roiling mass that seemed to defy any attempt to corral it into a set form.  It spasmed and twisted, trying to seek out some sort of definition for itself.

Blind, sightless, tasteless, earless.  The entity was trapped in a hell of sensory deprivation.  Every second was a million years of confinement, of lack of any awareness except for itself.  It threw out filaments, twisting tentacles of blackness, but it encountered nothing that brought it relief.

That was almost the end.  Perhaps, in another story, the entity would have simply gone completely past the realm of madness and into the peaceful valley of catatonic slumber.  In many stories, that did happen, and nothing was left behind except for a small puddle of ever-shrinking sludge, just one more meaningless deposit in the middle of nowhere.

But that didn't happen...

Lucifer's Gift, Part III

This story begins here.  The last entry was here.

...and bumped against one of the fallen cherubs, who was now sitting on the floor.

With his fat, baby-like fingers, the reached out for the apple sitting in front of him.  The apple was gleaming, shining, looking perfect.  It definitely did not belong in the grasp of this chubby little imp!

Lucifer's Gift, Part II

Continued from Part I, found here.

Like I said, I knew that this was a dream.  And as I looked around, even if I hadn't thought so before, it was now abundantly obvious.

I appeared to be standing in a diner, looking like it was straight out of a Norman Rockwell painting.  That is, except for the cherubs.  And the devil.  And as the waitress sauntered over to me, I noticed that she was dressed in ripped tights, a strapped-up leather bustier that looked to be covered in nasty symbols, and sprouting a pair of batlike wings hanging off of her back.  As my eyes fell on her, she licked her lips at me with a curiously long tongue, in a manner that can't possibly be considered anywhere below PG-13...

Lucifer's Gift, Part I

As the little cherubs flapped around my head, making rather annoying bleating noises, I stared back at the man in front of me and became absolutely, completely certain of two things:

First, this was definitely a dream.

And second, this man in front of me was the Devil.

Let's Take A Walk

"So listen, I've been thinking, and I think I know what we need."

"What, like a new coffee table?  Mine has a lot of stains, since you keep on forgetting to put down a coaster."

"Nah, dude, not like that.  I mean what we need as a race!  As part of humanity!"

"Ugh, one of these again..."

"I promise that it's really good."

"...fine.  Okay, tell me.  What do we, as members of the human race, need?"

"We need something to tell us when we're almost there!"

"...what.  You mean like GPS?"

"No!  Well, kind of.  But for tasks!  Goals!  Achievements in our lives!"

"I'm really feeling lost here."

"Okay, well, think about this.  Haven't you ever wanted to become a best-selling author?  Or a famous actor?  You know, some big dream like that?"

"Of course I have!  Everyone has."

"Well, so why'd you give it up?"

"I mean, I dunno.  It's tough, isn't it?  You try and you try, and you don't seem to be getting anywhere.  Eventually, you just stop."

"Yeah, exactly!  But don't you wonder sometimes?  What if you were almost there?"

"You mean like I was about to make the big time?"

"Yeah, exactly!  And maybe you were just one book, one gig away!  But you don't know, because you quit before covering that last little step."

"Ah, I see.  But if there had been a voice to tell me that I was almost there-"

"Then you would have pushed through, and you might be famous by now!  Or rich!  Or successful in life!"

"Hey!  I think I'm doing okay in life!"

"Oh, okay, sure, but not amazing, right?  Because we give up too fast!  So we need someone to tell us that we're almost there!"

"Or even better, a progress bar."

"No, not a progress - actually, wait, hold on.  That does work better."

"So it's agreed.  We need a progress bar for all of our goals in life.  I'll draw up the paperwork so that we can submit it to God for his signature."

"Come on, dude, you don't have to be sarcastic about it."

"I'm just saying - it's a cool thought, but it's not just magically gonna happen."

"Whatever.  I thought it was creative.  Anyway, it's getting chilly out.  We should probably turn around."

"But what if we're almost there??"

"Almost where?"

"I dunno.  Whatever our walk goal is."

"Just for that, I'm not gonna use a coaster on your coffee table tonight."

The Best & Worst Days of My Life, Part II

The doctors told us that the chance of it happening was low.  Exceedingly low.  She's a very rare type, they'd tell us.  The organ in question is very sensitive, easily damaged, and doesn't last long after death.  These organs, of this type, almost never came on the market.  Sarah was at a high spot on the list, but the list meant almost nothing.  Most people left it through death, not through a happy ending.

And then the call came...

The Best and Worst Days of My Life, Part I

I stared down at the piece of paper in my hands, sitting on the edge of the bed.  I could feel my suit wrinkling, crease lines forming in the fabric, but I didn't care about it.

It didn't matter.  Nothing else mattered.  Just the words on that sheet of paper.

I reached up and rubbed one hand across my face, hoping that somehow, when I reopened my eyes, things would have gone back to the way that they were.  That she'd be back...

The Three Wishes, Part II

This is a continuation. Part I is here.

This question, so innocuous, definitely produced a response from the genie ahead of me.  He stopped dead, spinning around to glare at me.  His eyes were wide, and his look was so intense that I took a half-step back before I caught myself.

"Want to be set free??" he repeated, nearly screaming.  "Are you freakin' mad, man?"

Faced with this onslaught, I cowered back.  "I saw it in a movie!" I stammered, too terrified to say anything but the truth.

For a moment later, the man glared daggers at me.  Then, he took a deep breath, clearly attempting to calm himself.  "Ahhhh," he sighed as he let out the breath slowly.  "No, please, please, for the love of God, do not set me free!  And don't even joke about that!"

I was confused.  "Wait, you don't want to be set free?  Why not?  Isn't this a burden on you?"

The genie opened his mouth to reply, but then paused, wagging a finger at me.  "I'll tell you after you make a wish," he replied.

Right.  A wish.  I had three, right, so it was okay if this one wasn't perfect?  I racked my brain.  But something made me pause.  "What about phrasing?" I asked.  "Are you going to always grant it in some twisted way?"

The genie threw up his hands.  "No!" he all but shouted.  "Just wish!  I just want them over and done with - I'm not going to waste time screwing them up for you!"

I didn't know if I could trust the man, but what other option did I have.  "Okay," I began.  "I'd like to never have to worry about money again.  Just have, like, a trillion dollars someplace.  No one knows, but I can just pay for whatever I need without ever thinking about it."

"Oh, you humans," the genie chortled, more to himself than to me.  "Always thinking about money."  He raised his hand and snapped his fingers.  "Granted."  And a moment later, he handed me a black credit card.

"Okay," I said, after tucking the card away carefully.  "Now, why don't you want to be free?"

We had come to a bus stop, and the genie took a seat on the empty bench.  He looked up at me for a second, waiting until I sat down next to him.  "Look, this isn't my world," he said.  "And I don't even know all the details of this whole ordeal.  Our universe is entangled with yours, or something like that, so occasionally we get yanked over from ours to yours.  And not to put too fine a point on it, but yours sucks."

I wasn't sure if I should be offended at this slight to our universe.  I mean, it wasn't terrible!  But the genie was still talking.

"And anyway, when we come over, we've got a bunch of energy buildup, that we figured out we can discharge through wishes," he continued.  "So that's where the wishes come from."

"But you don't want to be free because..."

"...because if you wish that, it discharges all the energy - but uses it to bind us to this universe!" the genie finished my sentence, a little heat in his words.  "And really, all I want to do is get home."

I nodded.  I could understand that.  I felt as though I'd been trying to get home for far too long.

After a long minute of silence, the genie clapped his hands down on his knees.  "Anyway," he said, finally breaking the quiet.

"Second wish?"

The Three Wishes, Part I

The genie wasn't how I had always envisioned them in my head.

For one thing, he wasn't big and blue, with bulging muscles and those metal bands around his fat wrists.  Instead, he was wearing a tee shirt, the logo faded to obscurity amid what had to be years of occasional stains, and a pair of faded and scuffed jeans.  He looked more like a surfer than a magical being.

If he hadn't appeared with a clap of thunder in the middle of the antique shop, out of thin air, I would have never pegged him as unusual at all...

Have you heard? I wrote a book!

I wrote a book!  A novel, actually!

Check it out here:

The Less Than Perfect Wedding

This little project started 9 months ago, when I participated in NaNoWriMo, the National Novel Writing Month.  However, just because this story was written, that didn't mean that it was ready to be shared.  Not yet.

But now, after nine months of tweaking and editing, I feel ready for it to be published.  Fly, little novel!  Go out into this big, scary world, and make a few people chuckle!

For anyone who wants to read what this book is about, just continue.  Trust me, it's funny.

”All I wanted was the perfect wedding. No bitter mother, no pothead father, no crazy sister or lecherous brother-in-law. No surprises. Nothing going wrong. Not happening.”

Danielle Jansen, newly engaged bride-to-be, knows that there are signs suggesting that her wedding won’t turn out perfect. 

One such sign? As soon as she’s engaged, her parents can talk about nothing but divorce. Next, Danielle finds that her bitter mother has hired a wedding planner without her knowledge - and the theme appears to be Damnation & Hellfire. And just to put the cherry on top, her insane sister shows up to her bachelorette party stumbling drunk - and claims that she just seduced Danielle’s husband-to-be. 

When Danielle’s boyfriend proposed, she warned him about the chaos that would shortly follow. He didn’t listen, but she did warn him. Because the old saying really is true: you don’t just marry your partner - you’re stuck with their entire family...

If the link above, doesn't work, you can get to it here: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00N552OEM

Tell your friends!  Tell your family!  Tell your enemies, if you think they'll buy a copy out of spite!  No Kindle?  You can read this book in your browser!  But please, help me continue to provide a brief moment's entertainment by supporting me in this purchase!

"We are NOT taking the wizard."

"Ugh," Clara groaned, her eyes almost as sharp as the dagger currently twirling through her hands.  "I can't believe we're bringing this guy."

Maria glared at the female rogue, although she could sympathize a bit with the complaint.  Clara was tough to get along with, her personality almost as pointy as the dozen or so blades secreted about her person.  But even for Maria, the man was quickly wearing thin.

"We need a wizard," she brought up, for what felt like the millionth time.  Her white cleric's staff was shifting a little as it leaned against the tree beside her, so she brought it down to prod at the fire.  "And he's the only one in town.  We're lucky to have him."  The words even rang true to her.

But what else could they do?  It was true - they needed a wizard.  The eight-legged corpse that the damn man was currently squatting upon was proof of that...

The Regression Chambers

I stared up at the board, looking at the different times available.  How long did I want to enter the chamber for?  An hour?  A day?  Maybe even longer?

The robot attendant, a faceless white automaton, was somehow still watching me.  I could feel its gaze on me, that kind of implacable patience that can only be fueled by silicon circuits.  I ignored it.  I was used to being watched by robots.  They were only there to serve, after all.

I knew that some people went in longer.  My friend Lev had once entered the chamber for an entire week.  When he had staggered out, limping and bloody, he insisted deliriously that it was the best experience of his life.  But he also had to get immediate attention from the med-bots, fixing up his injuries before he bled out.

Lev was hardcore, there was no doubt about it.  I knew that, deep down, I aspired to be like him, but there was no way that I could manage to survive an entire week.

I stepped up to the counter, finally making up my mind as much as I knew I ever would.  The robot had its face on me.  "Have you made up your mind, sir?"  it asked.

All of the robots had a slight but unmistakable British accent.  No one really knew why; Lev insisted that it was the quirk of a long-dead programmer.  It was a quirk that we were prepared to live with.  No one was able to fix it. No one made things any more.

Lev insisted that this was the problem.  I didn't know.  I didn't think that I was ready to make any decisions like that.

"I have," I replied to the attendant.  "One day, please."

The robot didn't respond, but there was a slight clicking from behind it, as the electronic circuits in the chamber rerouted themselves to the new pattern.  A few second later, the heavy, pressure-sealed door beside the attendant slowly opened with a hiss of released piston steam.

I took a deep breath.  The location and the time was always randomized; there was no way to tell where I would pop up.  I quickly ran through my preparations, my skills that I had mastered, hoping that they would be enough.

Lev's lessons once again rang in my head.  We realized too late that we were stagnating, he insisted.  He loved to give these sermons, stomping around and waving his arms.  We didn't know that, by giving ourselves everything that we wanted, we were stopping our forward momentum!

I wasn't quite sure what this meant, but Lev was really insistent on this part.  We had lost our innovation, he claimed.  We were content, and so here we stopped.

And this, he went on, was why our ancestors had built the chambers.  It was a way to escape, to get to a time and place where we were no longer protected, no longer cushioned by attendants to provide whatever we needed.  It was a chance to return to the fire, the crucible in which we had been forged.  I didn't know what this meant, but Lev loved to repeat it.

I could almost hear his voice now, as I stepped up to the huge, heavy door of the chamber.  "Return to the crucible," he would say, his aged voice cracking slightly.  I was returning now, as I had done so many times.

My heart in my throat, I stepped through the door.  There was a hiss immediately behind me as it closed.  No retreating.

I stared around at my new surroundings.  I was on a beach, I saw.  There was no sign of man.  The surf was gently lapping at the sand, and I could see palm trees nearby.  The air smelled of fresh salt.

I grinned.  This, I could deal with.

Remember, I thought to myself as I picked up a stick and began sharpening it on a rock.  No safety net here.  No med-bots.  No one to help if I got into trouble.

This made me feel alive in a way that I'd never felt before.  And I couldn't get enough.

"We are just simple farmers."

Of course, we didn't put up much resistance as the raiders came rolling into our little town.  They didn't even need to fire off a shot, although they did so anyways.  One of those idiots was leaning out the side of their stripped-down Jeep, firing an AK-47 up into the air like he was Rambo or something.

What an idiot.

We, of course, instantly had our hands up.  What are we going to do, fight back?  We're farmers, not mercenaries!  And it might be the Wild West out here, society collapsed and every man for himself, but we have a healthy respect for many things still.

For example, none of us is much inclined to replace our internal organs with chunks of hot lead...

Events In Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear

Sure, I'll admit it.  The car is a gift to myself.  It's not a necessary component of my daily life.  No, it's a moving declaration of my mid-life crisis.

And hey, I deserve a mid-life crisis!  Come with me.  As I roll down the streets of my memory, let's examine all the places that I've royally botched things up.

Ah, here's college.  The good ol' alma mater, where I spent every night partying.  Which, as it turns out, probably wasn't the best idea.  My grades were all right, sure, but I still lagged behind my classmates, and not just from the resulting hangover.  They went off and got jobs at fancy law firms.  I ended up back home, pulling double shifts to afford my crappy apartment.  Hah.  More like compartment, if you managed to squeeze inside.

Of course, then I met Jill.  Love of my life, from the moment I laid eyes on her.  If I hadn't been back at my home town, back working at the front counter of that little shop, I never would have met her when she came strolling in.

I can see that some of you in the audience are perking up.  "Maybe this is a love story," you say.

"Maybe this will all turn out smiles and happiness in the end," you whisper to each other.

"Perhaps he's just showing us how far he fell so that we can see how high he rose," you exclaim hopefully.

Sorry, folks, no such luck.  We're still dropping.

Cinderella, Ever After

I had just settled down on the couch, a copy of my favorite pulp novel on my lap, when I heard Charming come in.  I rolled my eyes, putting the novel aside.  No reading for me, it seemed.

How could I not hear the man come in?  He insisted on riding that damn white stallion everywhere, and its hooves always left dirty tracks over the marble floors of our palace.  Sure, we now had servants for mopping all of that mess up, but I still felt bad for them.

A second later, the Prince himself came sweeping into our room, his sword rattling in his scabbard, his boots clicking across the floor, and his hair probably perfectly in place.

You know, I suggested some carpets?  "They might brighten up this place, make it warmer," I had said.  I hadn't added that they'd also muffle the Prince's imperious striding everywhere.  He wore spurs on those boots, you know that?  Click, click, click.  Drove me nuts.

A second later, arms swept around me, and I felt the man kiss at my neck.  Okay, he wasn't all bad.  He had some good points.  That made me feel even more guilty.

The Urban Escape, Part IV

This story is a continuation. Start here.

The doors open once again.  My worst fears are realized.

Donaldson.

The boss.

My boss.

I'm pulling hooky and my boss is in the elevator with me.

Shrink back.  Hold briefcase.  Don't make eye contact.  I'm just grabbing an early lunch.  Not feeling great, hoping some OJ will be enough of a pick-me-up.  Don't want to infect the office.  My shield feels flimsy.  I don't know if it will be enough.

The boss is in.  Doors close.  Tick, tick, we drop through the floor.

Three floors down, and he clears his throat.  "Barry."  It's not a question.  My gut's in knots.

"Headed out early?"  This is a question.  No, it's an interrogation.  I lift my eyes, and he's locked on like a laser sight.

"Just an early lunch, sir."  That quiver in my voice is good.  Shows I'm being truthful.  I just wish it was on purpose.  "Not feeling so great, hoping that some fruit might help prevent any sort of flu, nip it in the bud."

Narrowed eyes.  Is he buying it?  I can't tell.  "Flu."  He wants an explanation.

I scramble to give it to him.  "Had a couple late nights, sir.  Might be coming down with something.  Don't want to affect office productivity, though.  If it's bad, I'll push through and work from home."  There.  Good work ethic.  Promote that man.  Or at least let him out of the building.

"True," he nods after a minute, and I have to fight to hold in my sigh of relief.  "Want to keep the herd safe."

He leans in.  I try not to lean back.  "By the way, on the topic," he adds, his voice dropping.  "Have you heard about this ebola thing?  Just caught a whisper of it.  Bringing doctors back here, I heard."

"Sounds quite nasty, yes sir."

"I might duck out a bit early, stock up on supplies.  Caught a whisper that there might be shortages, maybe even riots.  Don't want to deal with that.  Working from home's a good idea, Barry."  A nod, a nudge from an elbow.  "Good man."

We're slowing down.  The doors open.  Sweet, sweet freedom awaits.

Let Donaldson out first, though.  Watch him stride across the lobby in his suit.  Keep the downcast expression.  Keep on thinking about being sick.  Gotta play this right.

...and he's gone.  Step through those big doors.

Breathe in fresh air.  Arch back.

Freedom!

The Urban Escape, Part III

This story is a continuation. Start here.

"You must have heard the news.  I can't believe they're doing it now.  Those poor people, and with the holiday right around the corner."

I don't want to look.  But I feel myself caught.  The gravisocial field is too strong, and I don't have enough managerial thrust to escape.  I turn, sigh, and nod.

"Hi, Bertha.  What are you talking about?"

She's still in her chair, but I can feel that tugging field rolling out like waves from her.  She doesn't stand much, but she doesn't need to.  She's like a small mountain, pumping out ever-present clouds of sadness.  Whenever someone has a balloon of happiness, she's always ready with a pin.

"Marketing," Bertha repeats, as if I should know.  "They haven't hit their targets.  Half the division's being laid off."

Didn't know.  Don't care.  Need to get away.  "Well, I'm sure that they'll be hired back soon enough," I say, putting on a fake smile.  "Besides, they make a ton.  They'll be fine."

"It's a bad sign," the cloud of sadness insists.  "Means more layoffs are coming soon.  Might hit our department.  Someone will be going.  And probably someone new, or someone close to retiring."

My teeth hurt.  I keep them clenched.  "I'm sure we'll be fine," I say.  But it's not enough.  I can't fight sadness with optimism.  Gotta try a different tack.

I flick through my options.  Ebola?  No, blew that already.  Other sad things?  I'll just be caught forever.  Happiness isn't enough.  I've got one more card left.

Time to play for shock value.

"Actually, Bertha, there's a video I've been meaning to show you," I say, trying to lean around her to reach her keyboard.  I don't think I can make it around.  There's too much 'round' to make.

Instead, I wave at her keyboard, and finally, she passes it over.  She's a little confused, but with me for the moment.

Pull up YouTube.  "Sail Cat."  Awolnation.  This might be my ticket out.  Bertha's over the hill, she doesn't watch viral videos.  Not even the old ones.  I've had this bullet ready in the chamber for a while.

Play.  Video's going.  "Aww, stray cat?" Bertha rumbles, but she's still watching.

Music's building.  Here it comes.  "SAIL!"  Off goes cat.  Gasp goes Bertha.

"Oh my gawd!  I can't believe it!  How do I watch it again?"

"Just click right here.  No, here.  No, this button.  Look, just let me."  Video's playing again.  Bertha has all her attention on the screen.  The field lessens.  This is my chance.

Sprint away.  From behind me:  "SAIL!"  "Again, again!"  I'll have to find some more cat videos for next time.

The elevators are ahead of me.  Jam the button.  C'mon, c'mon.  Ding.  Yes!  Through the line, into the room, and I'm free!  The doors are closing!  The doors are closing!

The doors are... caught on a hand in them.

I've got a bad feeling about this...

The Urban Escape, Part II

This is a continuation. Story starts here.

The man is already striding towards me, one hand up and waving back and forth, as if there's any chance I would miss him.  "Barry!  Yoohoo!  Hey, what's happening, mister early lunch?"

I feel my hands tense, clenching.  No.  Stay calm.  I can handle Gossip Gary.

"Oh, just feeling a little under the weather," I reply quickly, stepping forward to cut the distance between us.  The man's still loud, but maybe this will bring him from deafening down to just piercing.  "Think I might work from home this afternoon."

"Under the weather?  I don't see any rain clouds over ya!"  This is accompanied with a braying guffaw.  I want to knock his throat in.  No, stay calm, keep it cool.  Think sick thoughts.

Shrug.  "Well, you know there's a bug going around," I say.  I need to throw this dog off my scent.  A thought occurs, a possible way out.  "I mean, you heard about the ebola, didn't you?"

"Oh, sure, I heard all about it!  What exactly are you talking about?"  He has no idea.  He can't admit ignorance, however.  He's hooked.

Lower my voice.  Look conspiratorial.  Play this right.  "It's all over Africa, you know," I let on.  "Spreading around.  Even the doctors are sick - and they're coming back here!  Bringing it with them!  There might be an epidemic here, but all the news outlets want to keep it quiet!"

Oh, there's the light in his eyes.  "But don't tell anyone about it," I go on.  Hook is set; time to reel in.  "We don't want a panic, right?  People rushing the stores, riots, all of that."  Tap nose.  Too much?  Nah, just enough.  "Know what I mean?"

The man is nodding - too fast.  He is caught, snared in my net.  Hook?  Net?  Whatever, I don't fish.  He's already itching to dash off and spread the news.  "Remember, keep it quiet, Gary," I add, and then move past him.

I don't think he even notices me leaving.

One down, and the exit's ahead.  Go, go, go!  I put on a burst of speed.  One turn.  Two turns.  Just one more...

"Oh, Barry.  It's terrible, isn't it?"

Oh no...

To be continued!