Enjoy!

-Anthony

Lost & Found

“I think I just stepped on something.”

Even for a pawn shop the room was cluttered.  Without any lights, the silhouettes of other people’s junk were forbidding and edgy.

“Is it squishy?”

“Yes.”

There wasn’t the overbearing smell of dust and cleaner that Lesley usually associated with pawnshops: working as a songwriter in Stanton City had meant she’d visited her fair share by now.  She was surprised to find she hadn’t yet visited this one in particular, and was wondering not only why she had never noticed it before, but also why she was now visiting when it had apparently already closed for the night.

“Did it squeak?”

Lesley hesitated.  “No?”

“You should be alright then,” replied Jonas as the lights flickered and buzzed into life.  The room was a labyrinth of bookshelves and display cases stacked from floor to ceiling with the strangest assortment of second-hand bits, bobs, odds, ends and trinkets Lesley had ever laid eyes on.

She quickly looked down at her shoes to see what manner of squelch she’d stepped in, but there was nothing underfoot to be seen.

“So you said you’d lost something,” said Jonas walking behind a counter at the other end of the shop.

“Right, but I don’t think I’m going to find it here,” said Lesley carefully.  She was on the lookout for any scurrying as she navigated clumsily through the displays.  Fishing rods and bookends seemed to conspire to reach out to her, knocking against her stray elbow and catching on her shirt as she brushed past.

“You’d be surprised what lost things find their way here,” replied Jonas, pulling a ledger out of the antiquated cash till on the counter.

“Right, but I think you might have misheard me back there,” she said, ducking to avoid a low-hanging children’s mobile.  It spun in colourful arcs as she shuffled past.

“That was a nice club.  First time I’d been actually.  You play there often?”

“Second Wednesday of each month,” replied Lesley.  She threw her hands out, catching a statue that had been ready to topple off the shelf.   There was no place for her to put it back, so she placed it carefully on the floor.  “I think I should probably go before I break something.“

“A song, right?”

Lesley stopped as she almost made it to the relative safety of the serving counter.  “Uh, yeah.  That’s what I said.  But look, I don’t think you understand what I mean.  I didn’t lose the manuscript; I hadn’t even got far enough to write it down.  I’ve just temporarily forgotten how the melody went, it was just something to talk about-“

“It was picked up yesterday,” said Jonas, reading the entry above his finger in the journal.  “Kilmy sold it, must have thought it was unclaimed stock.  Undisclosed customer I’m afraid.”

Lesley blinked.  “What?”

“Your song.  It was taken yesterday.  I can call Kilmy now, he might be able to identify the guy who bought it.”

“I… don’t understand what you’re talking about.  I think I should go,” she said, backing into a glass display case showcasing a set of elaborately gaudy china plates.

“Wait a minute, we can help.  We can get your song back.”

“Look, it’s fine,” said Lesley stumbling over a gold bag.  A wave of second-hand goods began to shuffle in her wake.  “It was nice meeting you, bye!”

The door closed behind her, the hanging bells ringing merrily at her departure.  The entire store seemed to breath out in disappointment and settle back into its shelves and cases.

Squeak.

“Yeah, I probably should have explained that first,” replied Jonas.

Squeak.

“Thanks.”

Also, is it a good sign or a bad sign that sometimes I can spot clearly shitty writing on my part, but occasionally can’t think of anything to do about it, so I just leave it there?

-Daniel

One hour later, Wexler stood outside of McReynold’s house, holding an envelope full of money.

He was now wearing Urban Combat Camouflage, a bulletproof vest, and a World War one-era grey German trenchcoat.

McReynolds opened the door with a wolfish grin on his face that quickly disappeared when he saw Wexler’s outfit.

“And here I thought it was the tie that made you look like an idiot,” he said, looking down at Wexler’s combat boots. He looked back up and the predatory grin had returned. “Money?” he asked, holding his hand out. Wexler handed over the envelope.

The difference in McReynold’s appearance was far more dramatic. He had showered and shaved and combed back his hair. He was now fully-clothed in a pair of jeans, a faint grey t-shirt, and a battered old denim jacket. His breath no longer smelled like a goat that had been drowned in liquor.

“Excellent,” McReynolds said, accepting the money. He walked inside, stepped over the corpse legs without looking, and flipped through the stack of bills. Wexler took the fact that McReynolds had left the door open as an invitation to come in and stepped inside, closing the door behind him.

McReynolds pulled a random amount of cash out of the envelope, folded it up, and shoved it in the pocket of his jeans. He threw the rest on a coffee table. Wexler let out an involuntary whimper of disapproval. McReynolds followed Wexler’s eyes to the money on the table.

“Anyone who actually had the resources and capability to get in here would not be interested in money,”  he explained. “Now lock the door behind you, and meet me in the garage when you’re done.”

Wexler spent the next ten minutes attempting to figure out the sequence in which the colmplicated series of locks, bars, bolts, and chains were closed, and finally gave up when he had figured out just over half, thus ensuring that the house of McReynolds was roughly as secure as the US Bullion Depository, or as McReynolds called it, “mildly secure.”

Wexler found McReynolds standing in front of a large cabinet full of a variety of weapons that Wexler had no ability to identify. McReynolds zipped up an army-green duffel bag and threw it into the trunk of the black  ’68 Dodge Charger that was parked in the garage. He picked up three more shotguns, one of which Wexler recognized from when it had been pointed at his face earlier that day, and placed them in the back seat of the car.

“Come here for a sec,” McReynolds said. “Do you know how to use one of these?” McReynolds asked, offering Wexler a cold, black handgun. Wexler accepted the gun and it promptly thudded on the counter due to the unexpected weight.

McReynolds grabbed the gun back and handed Wexler a whistle on a loop of string. “If the bad men come, blow on this real hard.”

McReynolds walked over to a lever that was sticking out of the ground near the garage door and gave it a yank. A large iron bar that crossed the garage door lifted out of the way with a loud groan, then immediate began to slowly lower again to the clanging sound of gears and chains. He quickly punched a code into a panel on the wall and the garage door opened.

“Get in,” McReynolds said as he climbed into the driver’s side of the car.

“The first rule of Witch-Hunting is always drive a car that in the event of impact with a brick wall, stands a good chance of winning. Buckle up.”

+     +     +

Twenty minutes later they were standing outside of the downtown loft apartment that was, until recently, shared by Wexler and his sister.

McReynolds was armed with a total of three shotguns. The large double-barreled one from earlier was in his hands, another tactical-looking one was hanging on a strap over his back, and another much shorter double-barreled one was stuffed into a holster down his leg. If you made the observation that this seemed like an excessive amount of weaponry, McReynolds would point out that he likely killed over six hundred more people than you and that you could shut the hell up. Actually he probably would have just shot you, but that’s what he would have said if for some reason he didn’t have anything to shoot you with. which is unlikely, considering he usually carried three shotguns.

“You go change into something less ridiculous. I’m going to go through your sister’s stuff. Keep the vest but put it on UNDER your clothes,” McReynolds said.

McReynolds let out a long appreciative whistle when they stepped inside. The apartment was easily twice the size of his suburban home.

“Her room is just down the hallway and up the stairs above the den,” Wexler said self-consciously. He then went to his bedroom to change while McReynolds tromped off towards his sister’s room.

“HOLY SHIT THIS PLACE IS A MESS!” McReynolds shouted down the hallway.

“There’s an intercom near the door. If you flip the switch it will turn on the speakerphone,” Wexler said into the intercom.

“YOU DIDN”T TELL ME SHE WAS KIDNAPPED FROM HERE!” McReynolds shouted into the intercom a moment later.

“She wasn’t,” Wexler said. “That’s how she normally keeps it. And you don’t have to shout into the intercom.”

“I know,” McReynolds said. “I was expressing shock and outrage. Man, if there were more empty liquor bottles and a corpse or two, I woulda sworn we were at my place.”

Wexler heard some drawers being opened and the rustling sounds of McReynolds searching through the room.

“Your sister listen to a lot of this club trancy techno shit?” McReynolds asked.

“She listens to a lot of everything,” Wexler said. “But the techno shit is probably from her job.”

“Which is?”

“Well technically I guess she’s a concert promoter, but she doesn’t really do a whole lot of promotion. As near as I can tell, my sister is a professional party-girl. And not in the Paris Hilton tabloid attention whore sort of way. She has a knack for crowds of people; well for people in general, but she’s especially gifted and knowing exactly what to say or do and when to do it to get a group of people to do whatever she wants. And companies that benefit from throwing great parties pay her a lot of money to make it happen.”

“Huh,” McReynolds said. “And this sorcerer of yours met her at one of these parties?”

“Yes, he goes by the name Septius. Apparently he has a thing for the number seven.”

“Sorcerers always have a thing for something. That and power. And usually also little boys,” McReynolds grumbled. “And how did you learn this Septius guy has your sister?”

“Her Friend, Nikki…”

“Fucking hell, it had to be another Nikki,” McReynolds spat. “These guys seriously need to get a better writing staff.”

“Is something the matter?” Wexler asked.

“It’s just that the sister always has a friend, and they’re either named Britney, Amber, or Nikki. Britneys are usually bubbly, stupid, and on the verge of hysterics, but once you’ve calmed then down they’re somewhat useful and at the very least usually have great abs.

“Ambers secretly think they’re too cool or mature or sophisticated to be hanging out with their more popular friend, but they’re still following around said friend, mooching off their popularity. But that’s fine, whatever, because they’re usually at least casually intelligent.

“Nikkie’s are the worst. They’re the backstabbing worthless bitchy type who go on to become shallow, controlling house-wives or murder victims. I hate Nikkis.”

“Oh… okay,” Wexler said.

“I’m done here. You ready?”

“Sure,” Wexler said. He met McReynolds back at the front door to the apartment. Wexler was now wearing designer jeans that his sister had given to him, and a buttoned up red flannel shirt. The bulletproof vest underneath was just bulky enough to make it look like he had an over-developed torso.

“Well, you look like you have a glandular problem, but it’ll do,” McReynolds said.

“Did you find anything useful?” Wexler asked.

“What? No,” McReynolds said. “No, I just wanted to go through her stuff. 34D. Nice.”

Wexler grimaced.

“Does the sorcerer have any particular hang-outs?” McReynolds asked.

“Not that I know of,” Wexler said.

“Then I guess we’ll be headed to this Nikki bitch’s pla… oh sweet, never mind. I’d go hide behind some furniture if I were you.”

“Huh? What’s going on?” Wexler asked.

“Underlings,” McReynolds explained. “Duck,” he added, then shoved Wexler over before he could move.

Wexler heard a boom above him that made his ears ring, followed possibly by glass shattering on the other side of the room.

“Got one!,” McReynolds said quietly. Or possibly loudly; it was hard for Wexler to tell.

“Get moving,” McReynolds said with a rough kick to Wexler’s ass. Wexler crawled across the floor just as he heard another boom, this time followed by the thud of something hitting the floor. He threw himself under an oak coffee table between two purple love seats.

Wexler had a hard time following along with what happened next because his view of the fight consisted mostly of loud bangs, then crashing sounds of his apartment being obliterated, and occasional screaming. At one point he thought he’d seen a pair of feet stalking towards him, but they had gone flying away a moment later following another bang.

“You can come out now,” he heard McReynolds say. It seemed to Wexler that the fight had gone on for hours, but in all five minutes had passed. “Sorry about your place. Though you’ve probably got insurance go cover it, right?”

Wexler climbed out from his hiding spot. His apartment looked like… well, it looked like someone had just fought six superhuman guys to death with a giant shotgun, which is almost exactly what had happened. “Almost,” because two of them were still alive.

“I got me two of ‘em! That’s my very favorite kind of interrogation, because only one of them needs to stay alive ’til the end,” McReynolds said, cheerfully. Wexler saw two men hog-tied to each other on the ground. They were both bleeding from various places on their bodies, though slowly enough that they didn’t look like they were going to die immediately. There was something odd about their blood though. It was darker than normal, and seemed thicker than it should have been. They also had what looked like individual tentacles  protruding from their wrists.

There were three more spread around the room, though these were clearly dead and mostly dismembered.

“What are they?” Wexler gasped.

“Fuck if I know, but they seemed professional enough to use a sound-dampening charm. The body I shot off the side of the building’s liable to get noticed though, so while I’m dealing with these two you go down and throw the body in the incinerator and then…” McReynolds paused and then sniffed. “Did you piss yourself again?”

Wexler had indeed pissed himself again.

McReynolds sighed. “Alright, I’ll go take care of the guy outside while you go change. From now on you’re going potty before we go anywhere.”

It’s not finished… at all. In fact I haven’t really gotten the story started. I’ll keep writing it… probably mostly at work still on the back of whatever scraps of paper I find, or now in a little tiny notebook I rediscovered in my room while unpacking from when I moved a couple months ago.

I’m hoping McReynolds will hang around as a character, because (even though you can’t tell yet) he’s interesting to me, and ALSO pretty fun to write.

He could die though. We’ll see.

Anyway… here’s what I’ve written so far:

-Daniel

Wexler looked nervous. His long, spindly fingers adjusted his bow-tie again. He had thought the bow-tie made him look more “sidekick”-y, but now he was pretty sure it just made him look ridiculous.

He might have been attractive if someone had bothered to show him how. He was tall, with dark hair and vivid blue eyes. If he occasionally spent some time out in the sun and subsisted on something other than products found at a convenience store at 3 am in the morning, the effect would have been devastating.

As such, his current haircut was a complete failure, his breath smelled like fake cheese, and he was wearing a button-up shirt with short sleeves under a very expensive long leather black coat. In the middle of summer. And the bow-tie was royal blue.

Maybe if he went by “Wex” instead of Wexler.

He was nervous because he was about to meet his hero.

The house in front of him was in disrepair. Surrounded on all sides by well-manicured, architecturally identical suburban development, the yellowing walls and falling shingles stood out like an abscess on a sore thumb. The lawn had not been mowed ever and the concrete walkway leading up to the front door was littered with an ominous amount of broken, empty bourbon bottles. There would have been a number of letters from the HOA if it weren’t for the fact that his neighbors, and frankly the officers of the local police department, were terrified of the occupant.

Wexler stopped fiddling with his tie and took a deep breath. He made his way towards the front door, carefully avoiding the larger shards of glass, and quickly rang the doorbell before he could lose his nerve.

There was a sign nailed to the front door that said “Forget the dog, beware of Owner.”

After a few anxious moments during which absolutely no one answered the door, Wexler attempted to peer through one of the windows. He discovered that all of them had thick iron bars on the outside, metal grates of some sort on the inside, and more grime than glass in between.

He tried the doorbell again.

He noticed a pile of decaying cigarette butts in front of the door. He carefully pushed it aside with his foot. Underneath was a doormat upon which someone had painted “FUCK OFF” in bright, DayGlo orange.

Wexler coughed. He put his ear against the door, hoping to hear some signs of life inside. He thought he heard what might have been a empty bottle of cheap bourbon rolling across the floor, but otherwise it was quiet.

Just to be safe, he tried the doorbell one last time.

“If you don’t lay the fuck off that doorbell I’m gonna try to part your hair with this shotgun,” A hoarse voice shouted from above. “And I’m warning you I’ve been drinking all day, so right now my aim’s for shit.”

Wexler looked up to see two barrels of a large shotgun pointing at his face. Behind the shotgun he could just make out an unruly mess of sand-colored hair and a pair of angry, blood-shot eyes.

“Er…” Wexler said.

“What the hell’re you doing ringing my doorbell so early in the morning?” the shotgun demanded. It was 3 PM in the afternoon.

“Uh…er…” said Wexler.

“Well? What are you? Reporter? Assassin?” the voice demanded. “Jehovah’s Witness?”

The shotgun seemed to shake a bit at that last one.

“Muh…Mick-McRey…er-nolds,” Said Wexler.

“No, I’m McReynolds. Who the fuck are… what the hell is that smell? Did you piss yourself?”

Wexler had indeed pissed himself.

“Shit,” McReynolds said. He pulled the shotgun back inside the window.

James “If you Call me ‘Mack’ I’ll End You” McReynolds might have been attractive if he gave a shit about anything. McReynolds epitomized the “ruggedly handsome” look with strong features, sandy-colored hair that was slowly greying at the temples, and a hard body covered in a network of scars that told tales of bravery and heroics. He had the kind of soul-penetrating ice-blue eyes that either made you confess or lubricate, depending on your gender.

At the moment however, he was wearing only a tattered pair of briefs that were covered in a combination of spilled bourbon and grease stains from the bucket of fried chicken he had passed out on roughly a week ago. He had the sallow bloodshot look of someone whose primary caloric intake was cheap liquor and he had not practiced hygiene for three months.

Wexler heard a series of clicks, scrapes, and finally a loud clunk from behind the door.

“What’s your name?” McReynolds demanded after he opened the door.

“Wexler,” he said. “Wexler Wimbledon…”

“Wexler Wimbledon?” McReynolds interrupted. “That’s an awful name. Who the hell would name their kid ‘Wexler Wimbledon?’”

“…the third,” Wexler finished.

“‘The third?’ You mean there’s three of you?”

There was an awkward pause while they both struggled, for different reasons, to figure out what to say next.

“Shit, I’m sorry,” McReynolds finally said. Wexler wasn’t sure whether McReynolds was apologizing for insulting him or expressing remorse for his name.

“Well, come in,” McReynolds finally offered, stepping out of the way. This was not going at all how Wexler had expected, but James McReynolds had just invited Wexiler into his house, so Wexler stepped inside.

In the past 25 years, McReynolds had killed 638 people. This is provided we expand the definition of “killed” to include “re-killed”, “staked”, “banished”, “exorcised”, and “disinfected.” We also have to be willing to expand the definition of “people” to include vampires, werewolves, zombies, ghosts, demons, sentient parasitic ooze, and on one occasion, some sort of curse monster intent on driving him insane via severe crotch irritation.

Upon reflection it’s possible that the last one was crabs.

Either way he had killed it with fire.

Very very delicate fire.

“What’s your pant size?” McReynolds asked after Wexler had stepped inside.

“30-34,” Wexler said.

“Ah, then you can probably grab the pants off the corpse,” McReynolds said, indicating a body that was laid out on the ground, the head and torso of which seemed to have been turned into sand.

“Erm,” Wexler said.

“Don’t worry. It’s preserved. It was a mummy, so no bacteria,” McReynolds said.

Wexler took a few hesitant steps towards the corpse.

“I’d leave the underwear though,” McReynolds added.

Wexler gave him a confused look.

“Scarabs.”

Wexler nodded solemnly and began trying to pull the sand-covered trousers off the corpse.

“Beer?” McReynolds offered from the kitchen. He reached into the fridge and pulled out a brown bottle. “It’s a…” he blew on the label and then scratched at it with his thumb, “Budweiser.”

“No-uh… thanks. Can I get a glass of water though?” Wexler asked as he struggled to pull the pants over the corpse’s shoes. He looked up to see McReynolds blinking at him without comprehension.

“Nevermind, I’m fine, thanks,” he said with a final tug.

“‘Kay,” McReynolds said. “Bathroom’s down the hall.” He pulled of the cap to the beer bottle with his teeth, spit it out in the sink, and then took a swig. Wexler proceeded down the hallway and found the bathroom.

The bathroom was so thoroughly messy and encased in mildew that Wexler was sure it was being punished. He promised himself a bath in hand sanitizer later and did his best to put it out of his mind. He turned on the tap and stripped out of his soiled clothing while he waited for the substance coming out of the faucet to become something that could reliably be called “liquid.”

“So,” McReynolds asked from outside the door, startling Wexler mid-splash. “What brings you to my door this morning, Wexler?”

“I’ve got a case for you, Mr McReynolds,” Wexler said.

“I’m not a detective of a lawyer. Sounds like you’ve got the wrong guy.”

“Well I’ve been reading about you on the internet…”

“I hate the internet,” McReynolds interrupted.

“Well… I’ve been reading about you, and everyone seems to say you’re an expert in these sorts of things…”

“How much?” McReynolds asked.

“How much for what, sir?” Wexler asked, still splashing his groin with water.

“How much are you going to pay me?”

“Oh… Ten thousand dollars?” Wexler tried. He had tried to research what the going rate was for the services of a paranormal expert and Witch-hunter, but his research had been inconclusive.

“Hold on,” McReynolds said. Wexler heard McReynolds stomp up the stairs and rummage around something that seemed to involve a lot more glass bottles.

“Fifteen thousand,” McReynolds said after stomping back down the stairs.

“Okay,” Wexler said, weakly.

“Excellent. So what’s the job?”

Wexler finished pulling on the replacement pants. He threw the old pair out; guessing, correctly, that McReynolds did not have a working laundry machine. He opened the door to find McReynolds standing outside, still primarily naked.

“Well it’s my sister…” Wexler started.

“Stop,” McReynolds said. “Is your sister good-looking?”

“Why yes, she’s beautif…”

“Does she have great big tits?” McReynolds asked.

Wexler’s eyes went wide. “Sir, she’s my sis…”

“Does she or does she not have big-ass titties?” McReynolds demanded.

“Yes…” Wexler admitted, looking down at the floor.

“Deal’s off,” McReynolds said.

“What? Why?” Wexler asked, shocked.

“Done this one too many times,” McReynolds said.

“Look,” McReynolds continued, noting Wexler’s crestfallen expression. “This is how it’s going to go. You’re the wealthy heir to some Fortune 500 who just had their sister kidnapped for reasons that I don’t care about by vampires or a demon or…”

“A sorcerer,” Wexler said.

“A sorcerer? Fuck me, alright, make it twenty thousand. Kidnapped by a sorcerer. Now I can tell by your embarrassing tie that you’re a fan and that you’re hoping to become my plucky sidekick so I’ll show you all of the ropes of Witch-hunting and demon-slaying so you can live like some rich playboy James Bond wannabe who kills evil when he wants to adventure or to impress some babe into sleeping with you.

We’ll follow whatever lead you have, get ambushed by some low-level thugs who don’t take us seriously, kill the fuck out of them and capture one. After interrogating him, we’ll find our way to the secret bad guy hideout where we’ll fall into some trap that we’ll have to clever our way out of. Then we’ll find your sister and discover that this sorcerer had some completely different reason to kidnap her than you thought.

Meanwhile over the course of our adventure you’ll have your Siddhartha moment and realize for yourself that there is suffering out in the real world and that it does in fact suck, which will cause you to feel like you need to make some great character change and inexorably lead to you sacrificing yourself in what you believe is a heroic manner, but is in fact completely retarded, during the last boss fight.

After you’re dead, I’ll kill the sorcerer, save your sister and then find out that, clever plot twist, the sorcerer was just some schmuck lieutenant.

Your sister and I will escape but, as previously mentioned, you’ll be dead by this point so I won’t get paid, and therefore the most I’ll get out of the deal is probably a new scar or two, another vendetta against me by some asshole who fancies himself the lord of something, and a fifty-fifty chance of banging your sister.”

Wexler wore an expression usually seen only on roadkill.

“So it’ll be Twenty-Five grand, ten in cash up front, and you cover expenses.”

“O-okay,” Wexler managed.

“Deal,” McReynolds said, grabbing Wexler’s hand and shaking it. “You really suck at bargaining.”

“Thank you,” Wexler said, clearly still overwhelmed.

“Come back in a hour with the cash and we’ll get started.”

Wexler headed for the door.

“Oh, and lose the bow tie. You look like an idiot.”

Not so much of a rewrite than a light edit. I cut out some bits that needed cutting (how’d I know they needed cutting? ’cause I thought they were clever), reworded a whole bunch of things and made sure to set the scene a little better.

I tried a few times to start the story from scratch, but I think I’ve been involved in this piece well too much to do a complete rewrite without some guidance and motivation from a third party. Those few times I did try, I ended up recreating what was already there, almost word for word. Perhaps I like it too much to try rewriting it without someone’s help. Or maybe, like I always feared, I just can’t rewrite!

Anyhow, the new version is below. Let me know what you think of the edits, or the piece as a whole!

-Anthony

Idenbra
Written by Anthony Sweet

Now see, this is why I don’t do bloody scav runs.

Tide sirens wailed out ten minutes past, and my employer, quotation parenthetical and derision implied, is still sifting through a mountain of sand and rubble that once was a library or somesuch, nigh on gibberish in his frenzied scrabbling. I would have left the snout-faced junkscav in my tracks five clicks past, but the bastard strictly promised Payment On Delivery, and the only thing worse than dying out here is not getting paid.

Plus he’s still a mate, which apparently counts for something.

“Gimme two more!” he yells from within the man-unmade crater. “This could be genuine!” Jen-you-whine with his Yankton drawl.

“What’s going to be genuine are our impending demises if you don’t hurry yourself along.”

There’s snoutrise over the rubble. He pulls his damn stupid hat off his brow, giving me a trusting look that places responsibility solely on me and mine alone. “Nothing fearing! Sirens called only two-“

“Ten.”

“-minutes ago, and I have the rabbithole’s best getaway chauffeuring me home.”

He winks, a private joke with himself, and ducks back down out of sight. I shake my head, pump the clutch twice to keep the engine warm. That’s me alright – the only, and consequently best, working driver in Sparewood. Too many hoons burned themselves out over the years, and the profession got slammed down on by the magistrate jacks. If there’s to be couriering of any kind, they said, caterpillar moustaches wiggling with indignation, it can be seen to by the sufficiently equipped and more-than-capable federal trains. Put a lot of pilots to drink and their families on welfare, or what passes for it out here. There were pickets, protests, but there ain’t no use of a strike for folk who don’t work anymore. Truth is, most of them were a danger to themselves anyway– only reason I’m still alive when most others ain’t is I don’t risk a road I don’t know.

“Jaxon! My lead’s pushing the pedal by the count of twenty, regardless of the number of passengers it’s accommodating.”

“Two more! I’ve… just… about..”

Thump.

“Got it!”

“Great. Now move.”

He ambulates up the rocks. I’d berate him for taking his sweet time, but the strain is evident from the sweat on his face, and the curio in his hands looks no lightweight.

“What in sweet glory is that?” I ask as he dents my boat’s passenger cabin with his generous rear end. There’s a faint whine, the smell of ethanol, and we leave the memory of a civilisation lost to red sand behind.

“Genuine artefact, Id! Weighs a ton, could be solid iron by the looks. That’s some shitsweet rarity of a find, brother.”

“Worth something to a smelter then.”

The look he gives me should be withering, but borders more on the petulant. “This could date back as far as 20Cad, which would make it-“

“Worth more intact. Looks a little fragile, with all those moving bits.”

“All the more reason for you not to knock on it like that. Look, on the side.”

“What the hell’s a tie-pee-righ-ter?” I ask, glancing at the engraving on the side. Old letters, almost didn’t recognise them. Eyes back on the sand.

“Honestly? I’ve no idea.”

“Hope it’s worth it to you then.”

It’s quiet for a while. I figure if the tides didn’t come through every sunround, I’d spend my every moment out here absorbing this desert silence. It’s the kind of nothing that fills a man. Lets him look about himself without the clutter of anything else.

“How long ago did you say Forecast’s sirens blew?”

“Fifteen minutes.”

“So we’re still at least five clicks afore the tide.”

“Yeah.” I try not to think of the headlines plastered across the broadcast boards the last few months. The appraisal and subsequent inquests into the Forecast Agency. Tidal prediction inaccuracies of up to a hundredclick. The latest federal casualty lost to the storm, an entire township’s worth of ethanol lost, left to stew in the sand.

For all I know, we could have found ourselves mid-tide ten clicks ago-

There’s a tingle through the steering column, a precautionary alert that makes a catch in my throat. I’m already looking at the LED atop my boat’s mast before the squealing starts. The signal turns red. I flick a switch just as quickly as the alarm started, the siren strangled midcry.

“What? No, no, I just said we’ve got at least five more-“

“Seems the world don’t want to wait for you Jaxon.”

I can already see the storm coming in the rear-view bar. It’s only a shadow on the horizon now, but soon enough it’ll be rolling right over us. Jaxon’s contorted in a half-spiral, lap pinned to the chair by his leadweight antiquity, eyes darting to see to the telltale black line. It doesn’t feel so quiet anymore.

The prow of the boat slices through red sand, streaming freckles of black particles where the burners skim too close to the desert floor. I release the catch-alls, the half-circle shells unfurling along the mast. We may look as unwieldy as the SydOp House, but the wind now serves more use than just a whistle – not much of a boost compared to the eth-burners that run this skiff, but more of an edge than without.

“Sweet Alice look how fast it moves,” murmurs Jaxon, still pin-twisted in his seat to see behind.

“Make yourself useful.” I toss the comm.-unit at him. “We’ll need the rabbithole’s shield doors down if we want to get inside.”

“But they wouldn’t be up, they know we’re out here!“

“And they know that’s coming.”

“Shit shit shit,” he fumbles. “Forecast this is Jaxon Ridley, Forecast this is Jaxo-“

“Station Sparewood, we receive you Ridley.”

“We’re coming in with the tide on our arses; I hope you’re keeping the welcome mat out for us.”

“Ridley, we advise you make Shelter West One. The shields are powering up within your estimated arrival.”

“We can’t make Shelter West, it’s on the other bloody side of the city!”

“The shields are coming up in four clicks, and your nav-cord puts you out beyond that time frame. The Agency cannot risk delaying the shield protocol.”

“Tell them to give us one click longer,” I say, watching the tide roll behind us in the rearview. The black swirls, turgid and chaotic, spilling over itself to claim whatever unfortunate lies in its path. The keening wail of the wind shearing through the black waves is already audible.

“You won’t make the gates in time,” I hear crackle through the speaker in Jaxon’s hand.

“We’ll make it, if those doors are open for one minute longer.”

“Sweet damnation, Forecast, you can’t leave us out here!” Jaxon paraphrases.

There’s the hiss of intereference for a moment, and then, “Affirmative.” The line cuts out.

“Does that… do they… are they going to…”

“Guess we’re ‘bout to find out.”

I wing us left and up the slope towards Sparewood. The skiff’s already running a mite slower with Jaxon’s clunked-up piece of shite weighting us down. Behind us the screech of the tide hurtling across the desert steadily gets louder. By now we can see the dark bulges, a landbound storm that eats both the sand and sky. Already the day grows dark, a premature nightfall that will only last a few clicks at most. Rarely do we see a cloud in the sky that blots the sun as effectively as the tide.

Up the hilltop, the walls of home. Sparewood. The metal is scratched black, day after day of the tidal winds hurtling past. Already the translucent blue of the shield doors are starting to creep up, a spherical growth, sterile and indomitable. Only the technology of these domed shields makes settlements like Sparewood possible, a haven safe from the daily storms.

Also making my job that little bit tougher today.

“They’re already going up! Id!, the doors!”

We’re angling up the slope now. Sand is kicking over our heads, a red cascade creating our own dome, parted only by the catch-alled mast and Jaxon’s ridiculous hat. It’s a spectacular feat of millinery functon that the piece has remained atop his head the whole time.

The keening wind is now accompanied by the cries and howls of the inhuman caught in the rip and pull of the tide. Not all living can remove themselves from the rolling storm’s path, and few enough of those that don’t are left to live the torment of being pulled along with its current. Some say it’s not so much the wind that will kill you, but what is carried on it.

“Now don’t you start to panic on me,” I say to Jaxon, even as I begin to steer the column right and back down the slope.

“What, where, where are we going?”

“We’re on the east slope; we have to take the switchback.” I imagine his eyes widen as he hears this, and I see him look down the slope.

“No no no no Id no take the ravine you can make it Id-“

“No jump, Jaxon. In this wind we take the switchback.”

“You’re crazy! Id, we’re gonna drive right back into the tide! Take the ravine, for sweet sake!”

“That as may be, we won’t make the jump.” To further dissuade argument, I pull the column right, perhaps more violently as needed, and jerk the pinned Jaxon into his cabin side.

We’re now angled back down the slope, the switchback only a short respite before the climb back up to Sparewood. The ravine, unseen but only metres away, was the bright idea of some jack official generations ago, acting as a catchment for the unwanted terminals caught in the tide’s wake. Peeling burnt flesh caught against the shield walls after tide would have no doubt been a revealing job, and the ravine served a means to minimise civilian and federal conscience. To risk sickness of the flesh is one thing, but of conscience, to know that what you’re chopping and scraping was once a living, breathing beast, mayhaps even a man, is knowledge most could live without.

“Id. Id. We’re going- Id!”

“I know,” I say, though I doubt he can hear me now. The storm has rolled closer, devouring the vast expanses of blue and red we took for granted moments ago. It’s night that we look into now, not broad daylight as it should be. The shriek of the black wind is symphonised to the cracking of stone, the squawking of beasts. It is mostly black cloud we watch, jumping erratically forward, pulsating to almost be breathing. Amongst the wind and burnt sand is the limb of a man, the gnashing of a snout. The wind is stinging across our faces and arms, and where black sand scratches at our skin a strange tingle surfaces that, from experience, I know will burn unholy for days, if those days are to come for us at all.

A creature unknown to me bursts out of the roiling black, close enough to see its eyes rolled back into its skull. It thrashes madly from the tide and dives right for our skiff; propelled either from the burning gushes behind or its own crazed bid for freedom, I can’t tell.

“Id, dude, dude, dude dude dude,” is all Jaxon says, watching the black eternal bearing on us, his measure getting faster and more frantic. He points to the incoming projectile, and it’s all I can do to swerve the column left, veering from the switchback path. Leathery wings spiral uncontrolled, and the crazed creature erupts into raucous screeching. It plunges into the middle catch-all sail and filters out and back into the approaching tide.

“Dude, dude, dude,” continues Jaxon of his mantra, though I can only keep my eyes on the sand in front. Any second now we’ll have the corner to the path back up the slope and towards the homestretch. The shield doors of Sparewood are almost halfway up now. I chance one look into the swirl of the maelstrom, perhaps only a hundred metres away now and approaching faster than any other means of dying I have entertained. I know now there is another nothingness that can take a man, and it is not a quiet one.

“Get ready to ditch it,” I yell above the thunderous wails. I hit the steering column hard further left, back up the slope and past the switchback.

“What?” he yells back above the roar.

“That,” I indicate to his archeological find. Even if I could wish this boat to go faster it wouldn’t be enough to quell the sick feeling in my stomach. The waterfall of red sand is once again scooping over our heads, falling from the catch-alls and swirling into the black devil chasing at our heels. “I say when, it goes overboard!”

The blue of the shield doors is all but full now, the dome around the cityscape complete. Only the barest of mouths at the station door remains, inevitably closing tight. We’re barely a handful lengths away, and my stomach tightens further. “But-“

“Now!”

With an effort born of, well, I don’t know what, Jaxon pushes his arms and legs up, hauling his solid iron find up and overboard as at the same moment I snap back the catch-alls, the sails snapping full in the wind. Without the weight of the contraption in Jaxon’s lap, the boat’s burners leap forward, and as if the atmosphere had just turned to liquid, the boat bouyants up and into the air, soaring without any semblance of ease or grace.

This is the first time, and I pray last, any of my rides ever become airborne.

There’s the barest of gaps to fit half the skiff through. I hear metal rip and supports shatter along the hull as they tear along the uncompromising shield doors. A thunderous snap as the mast breaks in half and tears out the decking and half of my cabin. Still we’re airborne, one burner crunching and blasting, cut in half as the last of the shield door seals up against the rest of the translucent dome. All around now is the steel runway of the Sparewood Forecast docking station, and I can hear the wail of the tide banging and scraping along the city protected. We’re no longer outside, but still we hurtle forward, uncontrollable.

These few moments borne on broken wings of metal and timber are horrifying, and I have all too much time to look at the solid ground below and think,

‘I bet this is going to hurt.’

When I come back after a while though, well, I almost seem to enjoy it.  Tweaking and tightening up loose ends and sloppy sentences.  Making it even better than I remembered.  It feels good to have that distance from the piece and look at it with a view of “This is what will make it good”.  Objectiveness, I guess.

The following is one of the first short stories I wrote after deciding I’d like to try creative writing as more than an outlet for games.  It was after a dangerous drive home, it was just before midnight and I was extremely tired, and I didn’t finish until 2am and promptly fell unconscious in my chair.  It’s flagrantly different to my usual style of writing, but it’s the grand-daddy of a setting that to this day I am still excited to think about writing when I get the narrative chops to do so.  I actually only had hard copies of this piece left, and spent a few nights last week transcribing it to my laptop.  I’m sure we still have the computer I originally wrote this on, but I’ve no idea where it is at this current moment.

There’s a lot that needs adjusting and rewriting in this piece, and I’m not quite sure where to start.  But in a few weeks, I’m going to have it shipper and shaper than it’s ever been.

-Anthony

Idenbra (original draft 2006)

Now see, this is why I don’t do bloody scav runs.

Tide sires wailed out ten minutes past, and my employer, quotation parenthetical and derision implied, is still sifting through a pile of rubble, once a library or archive or somesuch, nigh on gibberish in his frenzied scrabbling.  I would have left the snout-faced junkhead in my tracks five clicks past, but the bastard strictly promised Pee Oh Dee, and the only thing worse than dieing out here is not getting paid.

Plus he’s still a mate, which apparently counts for something.

“Gimme two more!” he yells from within the man-unmade crater.  “This could be genuine!”  Jen-you-whine with his Yankton drawl.

“What’s going to be genuine are our impending demises if you don’t hurry yourself along.”

There’s snoutrise over the rubble.  He pulls his damn stupid hat off his brow, giving me a trusting look that places responsibility solely on me and mine alone.  “Nothing fearing!  Sirens called only two-“

“Ten.”

“-minutes ago, and I have the rabbithole’s best getaway chauffeuring me home.”

He winks, a private joke with himself, and ducks back down out of sight.  Shake my head, pump the clutch twice to keep her warm.  That’s me alright – the only, and consequently best, working driver for this rabbithole.  Too many yahoos burned themselves out over the years, the profession slammed down on by magistrate jacks.  If there’s to be couriering of any kind, they said, caterpillar moustaches wiggling with indignation, it can be seen to by the sufficiently equipped and capable federal trains.  Ticked off a lot of the pilots, put a few families on welfare, or what passes for it out here.  There were pickets, protests, but there ain’t no use of a strike for folk who don’t work anymore  Truth is, most of them were a danger unto themselves – only reason I’m still alive when most of them ain’t is I didn’t take their unnecessary risks.

That’s the secret to success around here.  Let every other hoon call the percentages and take their chances.  You just take the safe way home and learn to make the unnecessary easier on your time out.

“Jaxon!  My lead’s pushing the pedal by the count of twenty, regardless of the number of passengers it’s accommodating.”

“Two more!  I’ve… just… about..”

Thump.

“Got it!”

“Great.  Now move.”

He ambulates up the rocks.  I’d berate him for taking his sweet time, but the strain is evident from the perspiration on his face, and the curio in his hands looks like no lightweight.

“What in sweet glory is that?” I ask as he dents my passenger cabin with his generous rear end.  There’s a faint whine, then the smell of ethanol, and the wasted decay of a civilisation past is left behind in the vast sinkhole of red sand.

“Genuine artefact, Id!  Weighs a ton, could be solid iron by the looks.  That’s some shitsweet rarity of a-“

“Worth something to a smelter, then.”

The look he gives me should be withering, but borders more on the petulant.  “This could date back as far as 20Cad, which would make it-“

“Worth more intact.  Looks a little fragile, with all those moving bits.”

“All the more reason for you not to knock on it like that.  Look, on the side.”

“What the hell’s a tie-pee-righ-ter?” I ask, glancing at the engraving on the side.  Old letters, almost didn’t recognise them.  Eyes back on the sand.

“Honestly?  I’ve no idea.”

“Hope it’s worth it to you then.”

It’s quiet for a while.   I figure of the tides didn’t come through every sunround, I’d spend my every moment out here, absorbing the silence.  It’s the kind of nothingness that fills a man.  Lets him look in himself without the clutter of anything else.

“How long ago did you say-“

“Fifteen minutes.”

“So we’re still at least five clicks afore the tide.”

“Yeah.”  I don’t bother him with the details plastered on the broadcast boards every man, woman and child has beared witness to.  The appraisal and subsequent inquests into the Forecase Agency.  Inaccuracies of up to a hundredclick for tidal predictions.  Agent Jon Fwissam, the latest federal  casualty lost to the storm, an entire township’s worth of ethanol lost, left to stew in the sand.

For all I know, we could find our-

There’s a tingle through the steering column, a precautionary alert that casus a catch in the throat.  I’m already looking at the LED atop my boat’s mast before the squealing starts.  The signal turns red.  I flick a switch just as quickly as the alarms started, the siren strangled midcry.

“What?  No, no, I just said we’ve got at last five more-“

“Seems the world don’t want to wait for you Jaxon.”

I can already see the storm brewing along the rear-view bar.  It’s only a shadow on the horizon now, but soon enough it’ll be rolling rght over us.  Jaxon’s contorted in a half-spiral, lap pinned to the chair by his leadweight antiquity, eyes nailed to the line of turgid black.  It’s not so quiet anymore.

The prow of the boat slices through red, the sand throwing up a cloud out back, black particles floating where the burners skim too close to the surface.  I release he catch-alls, the half-circle shells unfurling along the mast.  We may look as unwieldy as the SydOp House, but the wind now serves more use than just a whistle – not much of a boost compared to the eth-burners that run this skiff, but more of an edge than without.

“Sweet Alice look how fast it moves.”

“Make yourself useful.”  I toss the comm.-unit at him.  “We’ll need the rabbithole’s shield doors down if we want to get inside.”

“But they wouldn’t be up, they know we’re out here-“

“And they know that’s coming.”

“Shit shit shit,” he fumbles.  “Forecast this is Jaxon Ridley, Forecast this is-“

“Station Sparewood, we receive you Ridley.”

“We’re coming in with the tide on our arses, and hope you’re keeping the welcome mat out for us.”

“Ridley, we advise you make Shelter West One.  The shield are powering up within your estimated arrival.”

“We can’t make Shelter West, it’s on the other bloody side of the city!”

“The shields are coming up in four clicks, and your nav-cord puts you out beyond that time frame.  The Agency cannot risk waiting any longer.”

“Tell them to give us one click longer,” I say, watching the tide race behind us.  The black swirls, turgid and chaotic, spilling over itself to claim whatever lies in its path.  The keening wail of the wind shearing through the black waves is already audible.

“You won’t make the gates in time,” I hear crackle through the speaker in Jaxon’s hand.

“We’ll make it, if those doors are open for one minute longer.”

“Sweet sweet damnation, Forecast, you can’t leave us out here!” Jaxon paraphrases.

There’s onlt the hiss of intereference for a moment, and then, “Affirmative.”  The line cuts out.

“Does that… do they… are they going to…”

“We’re about to find out.”

I wing us right and up the slope towards Sparewood.  The skiff’s already running a mite slower with Jaxon’s clunked-up piece of shite weighting us down.  Behind, the screech of the tide hurtling over desert sands steadily gets louder.  By now we can see the dark bulges, a landbound storm that eats both the sand and sky.  Already the day grows dark, a premature nightfall that will only last a few clicks at most.  Rarely do we see a cloud in the sky that blots the sun as effectively as the tide.

Up the hilltop, the walls of home.  Sparewood.  The metal is scratched black, day after day of the tidal winds hurtling past.  Already the translucent blue of the shield doors are starting to creep up, a spherical growth, sterile and indomitable.  Only the technology of these domed shields makes settlements like Sparewood possible, a haven safe from the daily storms.

Also making my job that little bit tougher.

“They’re already going up!  Id!, the doors!”

We’re angling up the slope now.  Sand is kicking over our heads, a red cascade creating our own dome, parted only by the carch-aled mast and Jaxon’s ridiculous hat.  It’s a spectacular feat of millinery function that the piece has remained atop his head the whole time.

The keening wind is now accompanied by the cried and howls of the inhuman, caught in the rip and pull of the tide.  Not all living can remove themselves from the rolling storm’s path, and few enough of those that don’t are left to live the torment of being pulled through its current, unable to walk their own path anymore.  Some say it’s not so much the wind that will kill you, but what it carries upon it.

“Now promise me you won’t panic when I tell you this,” I say to Jaxon, even as I begin to steer the column right and back down the slope.

“What, where, where are we going?”

“We’re on the east slope, Jaxon.  We have to take the switchback.”  I can feel his eyes widen as he looks at me, and then looks down the slope.

“No no no no Id no take the ravine you can make it Id-“

“No jump, Jaxon.  In this wind we take the switchback.”

“You’re crazy!  Id, we’re gonna drive right back into the tide!  Take the ravine, for sweet sake!”

“That as may be, we won’t make the jump.”  To further dissuade argument, I pull the column right, perhaps more violently as needed, and jerk the pined Jaxon into his cabin side.

We’re now angled back down the slope, the switchback only a short respite before the climb back up to Sparewood.  The ravine, unseen but only metres away, was the bright idea of some jack official generations ago, acting as a catchment for the unwanted terminals caught in the tides wake, so as to minimise casualties of both civilian and federal conscience.  Having to peel the burnt flesh of lost souls caught against the shield walls after tide would have no doubt been a revealing and mortifying job.  To risk sickness of the flesh is one thing, but of conscience, to know that what you’re chopping and scraping was once a living, breathing beat, even man, is one most could live without.

“Id.  Id.  We’re going- Id!”

“I know,” I mutter, though I doubt he hears me.  The storm has rolled forward, devouring the vast expanses of blue and red.  It’s night that we look into now, not broad daylight as it should be.  The shriek of the black wind is symphonised to the cracking of stone, the squawking of beasts.  It is mostly black cloud we watch, jumping erratically forward, pulsating to almost be breathing, but amongst there is the limb of a man, the gnashing of a snout.  The wind is stringing across our faces and arms, and where sand scratches at our skin a strange tingle surfaces that, from experience, I know will burn unholt for days, if they are to come for us at all.

A creature unknown to me bursts out of the rolling black, close enough now to see its eyes rolled back into its skull, flapping madly through the air.  It dives right for our skiff, propelled either by the burning gushes behind, or its  own crazed bid for freedom, I don’t know.

“Id, dude, dude, dude dude dude,” is all Jaxon can say, forever watching the black eternal coming for us, his measure getting faster and more frantic.  He points to the incoming projectile, and it’s all I can do to swerve the column left, veering from the switchback path.  The crazed creature, leathery wings spiralling uncontrolled, erupts into raucous screeching as it plunges into the middle catch-all sail, and filters out and back into the approaching tide.

“Dude, dude, dude,” continues Jaxon of his mantra, though I can only keep my eyes on the sand in front.  Any second now we’ll have the corner to his the path back up the slope and towards the homestretch.  The shield doors of Sparewood are almost halfway up now, and if ever I cut it closer I feel I would have bled.  I chance one look into the swirl of the maelstrom, only hundreds of metres away now and approaching faster than any other means of dieing I have known, and know now that there is another nothingness that can fill a man, and it is not a quiet one.

“Get ready to ditch it,” I yell above the thunderous wails.  I can feel the relief in Jaxon as I hit the steering column hard further left, back up the slope and past the switchback, as much as I sense the reluctance in his look.

“What?” he yells above the roar.

“That,” I indicate to his archeological find.  Even if I could wish this boat to go faster it wouldn’t be enough to quell the sick feeling inmy stomach.  The waterfall of red sand is once again scooping over our heads, falling from the catch-alls and swirling into the black devil chasing at our heels.  “I say when, it goes overboard!”

The blue of the shield doors is all but full now, the dome around the cityscape complete.  Only the barest of mouths at the station door remains, inevitably closing tight.  Barely a handful lengths away.  Stomach tightens up again.  “But-“

“Now!”

With an effort born of, well, I don’t know what, Jaxon pushes his arms and legs up, hauling his solid iron find up and overboard, as at the same moment I snap back the catch-alls, the sails snapping full in the wind.  Without the weight of the contraption in Jaxon’s lap, the boat’s burners leap forward, and as if the atmosphere had just turned to liquid, the boat bouyants up and into the air, soaring without any semblance of ease or grace.

This is the first time, and I pray last, any of my rides ever become airborne.

The barest of gaps to fit half the skiff through, I hear metal rip and supports shatter along the hull as they tear along the uncompromising shield doors.  A thunderous snap as the mast breaks in half and tears out the decking and half of my cabin.  Still we’re airborne, one burner crunching and blasting, cut as the last of the shield door seals up against the rest of the translucent dome.  All around now is the steel runway of the Sparewood Forecast docking station, and I can hear the wail of the tide banging and scraping along the city protected.  We’re no longer outside, but still we hurtle forward, uncontrollable.

These few moments borne on broken wings of metal and timber are horrifying, and I have all too much time to look at the solid ground below and think,

‘I bet this is going to hurt.’

Anyway – enjoy, and please leave a comment if you can.

-Tim

–

The Great Work

She awoke cold and shivering, to a world devoid of colour and life. Eyes, wide and vibrant green darted around, taking in a landscape of harsh white contours, and cold metallic surfaces. Lithe, toned muscles struggled against biting metal restraints and she whimpered, a faint plaintive noise, at once both oddly melodic and strangely haunting. Above her, a black orb swivelled down at the noise of her whimper, revealing a lidless and vast black lens that peered at her. In its unfathomable depths, a red light blinked steadily. She stared upwards in mute terror, frozen in a silent tableaux, unable to look away.

From somewhere, the sound of steady footsteps reached her thin, pointed ears. She looked aside from the orb as a panel in the white wall slide aside with a soft hiss. Through the door stepped a tall man, clad in more harsh white, a long coat that buttoned closely about the neck and reached down to trail on the floor. His head was shaven, and his eyes were hidden behind slim metal glasses that appeared as if fused to his yellow, veiny skin. He stepped up to his captive patient, bending at the waist to peer down at her, and bent his thin, almost lipless mouth in a poor imitation of a smile.

“Ah. You’re awake.”

She squirmed under the restraints, shut her eyes and began to whisper frantically, desperately, in a lilted sing-song language. The thin man knitted his non-existent eyebrows in confusion, and raised a hand to his mouth. “Computer: translate to EN-Western. Primary language: plane 393-X. Dominant dialect. Codename: Proudfaeyre.”

“..ddess, save me, Goddess, I beseech thee, Goddess, save m–”

She stopped, shocked, hearing and understanding her words anew in a foreign tongue. Her brilliant green eyes opened and fixed upon the man. He could see the unspoken question in them.

“A clever trick, yes? You understand me, don’t you? Our tongues are the same now, at least as long as we remain in this room. The exact specifics of it are, I think, beyond you, but let’s just say that one of the first things we discovered was that our… biologies are, hrm, not so different. We are much the same, you and I.”

She struggled for words, as if testing her mouth to this new language. “Who.. are you?”

The man above her laughed, a cold sound. His other hand came up into her view, holding a dark metal rectangle on which scrolled lines of unreadable text. With his free hand, he tapped at it absent mindedly, causing ripples in the scrolling data. “My name is not important. If you like, you may call me Citrinitas. How do you feel?”

“Feel? I feel..”

There was a pause as she searched for the right word.

“Cold. I am cold. Why am I cold?”

Her captor began a slow, methodical walk around her. “You are cold because your core body temperature was lowered unexpectedly during the gating process. This is not uncommon. This condition is known to us as planeshock. I am going to ask you a series of questions, and you will answer them for me to the best of your ability.”

His tone brooked no argument, and she bristled. Forgetting her confusion and fear, she glared at him in sudden, comfortably righteous anger. “Impudent creature! I am a High Priestess of the Goddess in Green! It is you who will answer my questions. Release me at once!”

The thin, yellow man stopped his pacing and leant over her again, bringing his unreadable face towards her own, until their skin was almost touching. He grinned, revealing a mouth full of metallic teeth, and gave a throaty, bubbling chuckle. “No. I do not believe I will.”

She spat in his face and he flinched back, standing upright again and wiping his veined skin with a cloth pulled from his long coat. Closing her eyes and lying back, she began to chant to herself, a rhythm and hypnotic phrase. Citrinitas watched her impassively, one finger scribing patterns into his dataslate. Her chanting increased in tempo and power, and as she did an ethereal green glow began to form around her hands. Shrill warning lights sprang to life across the walls and ceiling, filling the room with their alarm.

With a dull whoosh, the glow coalesced into bright, brilliant flames that wreathed her hands and forearms. Her eyes opened and she stared up at Citrinitas, face alive with power and majesty. “Now, creature, you will behold the power of the Goddess. Now, you will pay for your blasphemy!”

Citrinitas continued staring impassively at her, unmoved, oblivious to the warning shrieks of the room’s sensors. He raised another hand to his mouth. Green firelight danced in the dark metal of his goggles.

“Computer: nullgene T3X-005 in subject. Confirm.”

She looked around, unsettled despite herself. “Who is Computer? What are you–”

There was a blink of light, and her vision wavered. She looked down to see the fire of her Goddess flicker and die, evaporating into nothing. A second later, a wave of indescribable agony shot through her and she screamed. She screamed and screamed, tears streaming down her perfect skin. Every sense, every part of her very being burned in agony. The pain continued for what seemed like an eternity, and all the while Citrinitas remained unmoving, watching her intently.

Eventually, she found the strength to speak again. “Goddess…”

Citrinitas resumed his pacing. “4:37. You are impressive. It takes many of your kind hours, even days to recover from that. Some of them never recover at all.”

She tried to focus on him as he moved, but everything ached, and she could only close her eyes and continue to weep. “Wh– what. What did you do?”

“I have disabled the genetic sequence that allows you to manifest your abilities. You will never be able to call upon your… what is your word? Greenfire. Ever again.” He continued speaking, as if this were a trivial thing, a thing of no consequence to her. “The process can have radical, and often unexpected cascade effects upon your other genes. Therefore, while you are still conscious, I should like to ask you a series of questions…”

She struggled to understand. “But.. my fire was a gift from the Goddess. She… I was chosen! It is an honour!”

Citrinitas chuckled again. “A gift? Your gift is nothing more than an evolutionary hiccup. A divergent offshoot over thousands of years, activated by rigorous mental conditioning and a series of trigger phrases. Supported by cultural constructs and, if my research is correct, an extremely selective breeding program. What you have – sorry, had there – is no more a gift than your hand or foot.”

She shook her head wildly, desperately. “No, no, no… Goddess please, help me…”

The tall form of Citrinitas stopped his pacing, and stepped over to her. “It is clear to me that you do not understand. Very well.”

He placed his dataslate down, out of sight, and used his free hand to remove the glove on his other hand. Beneath it, his skin was pale yellow, almost translucent, and in some places badly scarred. He flexed it, experimentally, and held it over her captive form.

“Watch.”

With a flick of his wrist, a brilliant green flame roared into life. It bathed his hand in an ethereal glow and left shimmering trails through the air where he moved it, and as he brought it down close to her, she could feel the immense heat that it radiated. Unable to take her eyes from it, and unable to help herself, she whimpered again.

He waved his hand, and the flames vanished. Silently, he pulled his glove back on and picked up his dataslate once more.

“By the Goddess…” she managed to whisper.

Citrinitas heard her, and smiled. This time, his smile was real, and deeply terrifying.

“Your ‘Goddess’ has nothing to do with it, Priestess.”

He resumed his pacing, resumed his inscriptions, and resumed his questioning. “Is it true that a Priestess of the Goddess in Green is forbidden to mate with any other than a Priest of the Father of Iron? How long has this law been enforced?”

She closed her eyes, and began to weep.

See, I was catching up with a friend the other week about this, and we got to talking about why we do the things we like in our spare time.  I started talking about how I feel when I’m writing something I like, or go back and read something I really like.  It feels good, y’know!  And while the logic of my last posts make sense (the more you practice, the higher the chance you create something you like), that steady grind defeats any momentum I get from enjoying the creation.

I think there’s a happy medium somewhere, but I haven’t figured it out yet.  In the meantime, I’m going to leave the teaser that the next project I want to work on involves rewriting some scenes from one of my favouritest project ever.  I’m a little excited about this!

-Anthony

After a number of false starts, I discovered something pretty important for myself – if what I’m writing doesn’t have some sort of supernatural element to it, no matter how small, I fail.  Pretty hard.  I have a theory this has something to do with ‘things happening to people’ scenarios as opposed to ‘people happening to things’, but I haven’t fully figured that out yet.

With that in mind, I offer the (somewhat lacklustre) results of my first self-imposed challenge – turned out much, much shorter than I intended, but I liked leaving the piece right… there.  The usual ‘needs tightening up, rewriting, etc’ clauses apply.  I’ll come back to this in a few days with fresh eyes and comment on what I like and dislike; in the meantime, I’d appreciate if you did the same!

-Anthony

T-Shirt Death

It had started in school, when Kenneth asked Jimmy Paez why his shirt said he wanted to punch everyone in the face.  Turned out it was just Kenneth’s face that had needed punching, and the shirt didn’t actually say anything except for its generic disposable income branding.  Jimmy had quipped something about self-fulfillment that Kenneth might have found funny had he not needed to run to the nurse with a blood nose.

It took Kenneth a little while to realise he was the only one that saw messages on people’s t-shirts.  It took even longer to realise they were almost always directed at him.  It was around the time one well-fit lass’ bosom read ‘BUS COMING!!!’ that he realised there may have been more to what was going on than he’d figured – this was further compounded by the screeching air brakes and frantic horn beeping sliding into his periphery.

He’d been thankful every day since for that shapely bust and it’s timely warning.  He’d also started taking note of the clothes people wore, just in case they had something important to say to him.  This didn’t seem at all odd to Kenneth, simply something else to watch out for, like mouldy bread or hairy toothpaste.

With all this in mind, you could forgive Kenneth when he saw the t-shirt in the mall that said in plain gothic, ‘The End’, that he had to follow it.

Kenneth didn’t believe in determinism, but even so, he had to follow it.

I don’t know to what extent Tim or others might take this concept, but I’d like to give myself reasonable deadlines and challenges that other people might also find useful or interesting.  So if you see a set challenge you like the look of, feel free to do it yourself and let me know how it goes!

Challenge:  Inspiring the New

Having started writing from making games instead of stories, I tend to get pretty wound up creating settings.  I love making worlds and populating them.  Flavour texts and short stories only follow once I’ve brainstormed and written entire pages of concepts, feelings, sciences and faiths.

What’s good about this is that I generally have a great base to work from (and there’s very good reasons why setting can be more important than plot for the short story medium, but that’s for another time).

What’s bad about this is that when I get the urge to start something new, which can happen pretty often, I find myself straight away going to a previously established place and just expanding on one of my pre-loved settings.  This isn’t necessarily bad if I want to just get some words out, but it can be bad news creatively if I don’t push myself to create outside of my comfort zone, and I’m usually very comfortable by the time I’ve got a workable setting.

Therefore, the theme of my first challenge: New.

Duration is two weeks, and the set piece has to be completely brand-spanking-new on the freshness factor – no repeated characters, ideas or dialogue tidbits.

S’gonna be tough.  Wish me luck.

-Anthony

Words can have exceptional meaning, so it’s important to realise that these words don’t just happen.  They’re nurtured and tended to almost constantly.  In this respect, though we may all take something from a piece of prose, the person most influenced and humbled by the words should be the writer themselves.  And unless you have an indomitable centre of being, you cannot grow these words and meanings without good criticism.

Strangely we believe that good critiquing can only come from a select educated few, yet we want our words to have meaning to the greater mass.  I find this idea, well, really weird.  I want my writing to be enjoyed by as many people as possible, and that means finding out what is accessible, palatable or interesting to as many people as possible.  For every person that reads my work, they will have something to say about it.

And every word, as long as it is considered and well intentioned, will be of benefit.

If you are reading this, then you should know that we want you to hang around.  You may like what gets posted on this blog, you may not, and as long as you intend to inform without harming, we want to know everything you think about what we do.  It could purely be narcissism, but what does it matter if we intend to learn from it?

Without knowing what is readable, we won’t learn how to write.

-Anthony