Category: Writing

Everyone had a theory about why the sun stopped shining.

All of them, from junior research assistants to nobel prize winners flooded the internet with wild speculations and advanced hasty conjectures on what to do about it. NASA took the problem head on, scrapping a resupply launch in favor of perturbing our star with exotic materials and mechanisms.

They all failed.

The launches were beautiful though, long shadows cast from the brilliant flame at the end of the boosters. At one point high up in the sky, it was almost as if the sun hadn’t gone dark at all – it just wanted to take a quick look at another part of the solar system. Then the rocket would pierce the clouds, and the ascending light would blur into grey dimness. A trick of the eyes, as light-deprived rods and cones flooded my vision with blurry clones, blending into the stillness of the night.

I’d been shopping when the sun blinked out.

Cheap plastic cladding of the cart pressed against my palms, aimlessly pushing my purchases down the home supplies aisle. At first I thought it was the momentary passage of a plane, we were near an airport a few miles away. No sunlight returned. The seconds piled on, rising with my pulse. Then I heard cars crashing and the rumbling of explosions in the distance. Going 45 miles an hour is easy at high noon, but not so easy when you can’t see an inch past your own nose.

Then the store lights went out. I ducked down behind my cart, breathing quickly. I could hear some of the shoppers starting to panic, crashing over displays and shoving to get to the doors they couldn’t see. Tiny blue squares of light from smartphones filled the air, like an abstract art exhibit. I didn’t dare move, I was trying to keep my heart from leaping out of my chest and desperately trying to quell the fear gripping my mind.

Unclenching my hands from the cart, I slowly slumped down, sitting against the shelves. I was not going to die here, surrounded by mops and plungers. Shifting to all fours, I crawled to the opposite side. Feeling along the abstract shapes of plastic bubble-packaging, trying not to make too much noise. Some instinct in me pleading with me to be quiet, don’t let the others hear you. Screams in the distance firming my resolve. I grabbed the business end of a mop, feeling the floppy strands drape over my wrist.

Tying a few blind knots to contain its mass, I then resumed my groping for some cans of lighter fluid. I had just passed them hadn’t I? Sitting for a few minutes with my eyes closed, against the dark, trying to replay the images in my head. Right, there had been an end display of charcoal briquettes, so the fluid must be close by.

Rising up into a half-crouch, mop in one hand and feeling along with the other, I finally brushed against the cold square tin of lighter fluid, complete with built-in safety cap. A rush of relief flooded over me, and I would’ve cried out in triumph had my instincts not held me back.

BLAM

Was that gunfire? I dropped down, scrambling in the direction of the cart.

Another loud report, and a gurgling scream down the aisle chilled my blood. Mind reeling, wishing desperately I could just blink out like the sun had, and reappear underneath my covers at home. Footsteps halted that fantasy, crunching on broken glass. Whoever it was, they were not far away.

I had to prepare.

Knuckles tight on the mop handle, I slowly uncapped the fluid, trying not to tip the container over. Dripping the fluid over the mop head, pattering softly on the floor. I reached into my pocket for my lighter, and positioned it at the base of the mop head. Both arms stretched out, half bent at the knees, ready to run.

Another step, this time much closer. How did he move without me noticing? Adrenaline flooded my veins as I sparked the mop, my crude defense against a maniac. For some reason I thought briefly about my dirty kitchen floor.

I had turned my head when the flame caught, guttering and violent. The gunman, startled by the billowing flame licking his face, he began to scream as the flames ignited his flannel shirt. I shoved forward, hard. Flailing and screaming, he ran down the aisle grabbing at both sides, each touch igniting price tags and plastic packaging. I raised my torch high, advancing slowly towards the gun lying on the floor. It was kill or be killed. I tried not to think about charred skin and burnt hair.

If that’s how its going to be, then I’m fixing to be a survivor. Picking up the gun, I walked back to my cart, heart thudding in my chest.

I had more shopping to do.

I couldn’t tell who he was, but he certainly wasn’t the mailman I was expecting at my door.

“You know what the problem with people is don’t you? They never change. Sure, you can point to the extremes and say person ‘A’ is very different than person ‘B’, or how person ‘C’ made this miraculous transformation overnight, but that’s just looking at the pigments, not the canvas underneath or the tools that put them there.”, He said, adjusting his overcoat.

I looked around slowly, expecting a hidden camera crew to reveal itself.

“In this case, its the human psyche. We’re all wired to be random, and for the most part these random interactions tend to gravitate to the darker side in the absence of any kind of social moral code, or perceived danger from legal prosecution and enforcement.”, He lit a cigarette, smoke trailing upwards in a lazy contrail.

“Don’t believe me? Lets take a walk down the street, shall we?”, He grabbed my arm strongly, and I followed, out of curiosity and the strange feeling that we had met before.

“See that guy?”, he stopped and pointed, “Sure, he looks like an average homeowner, trimming his shrubs with the dedicated precision of a bean-counter, but that hides some rather awful history. You see, I know what he was in prior lives. One particularly nasty past was his life as a child slaver, he’d get them young and chain them up – keeping the really pretty ones for himself of course, while selling off the ‘trash’ as he called it for a tidy profit.”

He drew up suddenly, “One moment, I have to attend to this.”, He strode quickly to the fence where the man was trimming the tops of the hedges.

A quick snick of a blade and a four foot telescoping razor thin shiv penetrated the shrub trimmer’s abdomen, protruding out his back. Uttering a short squeak, the man fell behind the bushes, legs twitching.

Walking back to me slowly, folding his blade, “Where were we? Ah yes, the slaver. Well, that wasn’t the only thing, but you get the idea. I can’t allow any of those people to keep on living, having a chance at a normal happy life. For what? They ruined so many others. Its time to even the score.”, He smiled grimly, re-holstering his now compacted weapon.

He then turned suddenly and stared deep into my eyes.

“Good. So far so good. You better keep your nose clean, or we might have a little talk.”, he then strode away, angling towards a woman walking alone in the park.

The cold wind fluttered at the edges of my tattered coat, swirling between my knees and chilling me to the bone. December, and the sky was a grey bowl over the city. Walking slowly, I had to keep stopping to rest my weary legs.

This was it. Down to my last. The economy had crashed, and when all of those derivatives and debt instruments went to their digital graves, it wasn’t the bankers or brokers suffering, it was me with my stupid pension gutted and savings stretched to the breaking point.

I even had to dodge my landlord of 20 years because I couldn’t face him without money for rent. A single tear ran down my cheek, hot with the indignity of it all, the utter stupidity. I’ve always worked and paid my share, never cheated on taxes. And this is how it has to be.

Straightening up, I walked down the street to the MemBank. They were everywhere, riding the crest of new technologies out of autonomous zones of China, shiny skullcaps and geometric storage cubes peppered billboards with smiling faces and dollar signs.

“Got the dreams? See the GREEN!”

“Clean out that dusty closet, share your best with the rest!”

“Forget an ex? You got it, Tex!”

And so on, the gaudy colors and horrible type choices clashing with each other, the prices were the largest of all, automatically updating according to categories printed on the bottom border of the smart-ad.

Turning the corner, I pushed through the opaque paneled doors of the MemBank.

“Hey, you’re back – just give me moment, I’m with another client.”, Doctor Ellis smiled, the confident expression of someone about to make a lot of money.

I sat down on the primary-colored plastic seat, slumping toward the wall.

No turning back.

Just before it was gone, I thought about it again. Her smile, her lips. The 15 years we had spent together.

It was my last good one. And then, it would be the grey sameness of every day, blending into the next like a monochromatic film-strip. No chance of ever recreating that again. You couldn’t go back home, not when home had changed in a million ways, most of the people you knew were dead, with the outside world becoming a strange and scary place.

Not when strangers looked at you like you were a museum exhibit, complete with the window-tapping and the smug smiles of those who still had their best years ahead of them.

But I needed the money. The goddamned money. Clenching my fists, I tried to mop up my tears before Doctor Ellis came out again.
The door opened, and an older lady slowly walked out to the main entrance, with the Doctor close behind.

“Are we ready?”, Doctor Ellis smiled, impatient to get his fee.

“Sure”, I shuffled after him, letting the heavy steel door close behind me.

As flat and featureless as my life was to become.

So annoying. I’m really getting tired of humanity in general.

Its always the same thing, a do-gooder with too much time on their hands comes up with a law, it gets passed somehow into the books. Then I come along and being a free spirit with not much else to do, I eventually run afoul of these stringent rules and get thrown in jail, or the stocks, or some hole in the ground.

It happened to me in England, where I got on the wrong side of a local magistrate and had the full royal treatment, imprisoned in the Tower of London. Not just any cell, mind you, but one of the special VIP rooms. Deep in the inner ward, large hewn blocks of stone and a bit of grass was all I could see, when I pulled myself up to the bars.

I could’ve been dramatic about the escape, but after running a gauntlet of swords and other nasty things, I’d be torn to ribbons and in a lot of pain. Yes, being immortal doesn’t mean that I don’t have nerve endings. I also don’t heal any faster than a regular person, so being shredded by sharp metal objects wasn’t my first choice.

I chose a more leisurely way out, managed to get to one of the storerooms after giving the guard the slip, and hid myself in a large chest that I overheard was being shipped out. It was part of the annual tribute from the well-to-do to the king, so I just dumped out some of the coins and jewels, kept a few choice bits for myself, and hid inside.

It got a bit dicey when they opened it of course, only having a thin layer of coins and such over me, thankfully they missed stabbing me with a sword they used to check for any live cargo. Crafty bastards.

I can’t always do the sneaky thing. Sometimes I’m just in a hurry and I need to get the hell out of there.

Happened at Alcatraz, I just knocked out a guard and kept on running as they were shooting at me. Had a bit of luck when the guy who worked the mechanical locking mechanisms for the doors was visibly stunned to see me take a bullet and keep going, rather than actually press any buttons to sew the place up. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have ever made it out of there.

I just kept on going, bullets whizzing around me and some going through me – stinging like hell – until I got to the rocky cliffs and dove into the water. The cross currents are pretty bad, and if I hadn’t swam down to the bottom to claw my way across the silt-rich bay, I doubt I would’ve made it to shore. More likely swept out to sea, where I’d have to wait like a human buoy and latch on to a passing ship, or a friendly marine creature.

Very rarely do I have to actually wait out my captors.

Happened in a small desert village, was thrown into a deep hole, I think it used to be a well until it dried up – and sat there until I couldn’t hear anyone topside anymore. That took a few decades. I actually lost track of time, doodling on the cave wall with some burnt twigs someone had thrown down on me, possibly to finish the job, but it didn’t do anything except burn my hair off.

That was the worst one, because I became a bit of a celebrity with the younger kids. They’d whisper their wishes down the old well hole, and I would try to whisper back encouraging things or just crazy riddle-like answers. I had lovers ask for my blessing to be married, and old men confessing their souls out to me. It got rather lonely when they didn’t come by anymore. Never did I feel so isolated – other than being immortal I mean – until that happened to me.

So look, you know my story, so I really just want you to incinerate me this time, okay? Catastrophic damage will undo what my innate nature seems to ignore, so lets just get on with it.

I’m done with this living forever crap.

I was late for work again.

Running around my apartment, picking up clothes that seemed passable and shoving various limbs into them, zipping and buttoning. Had no idea where my tie was, so I snatched my backup from my dresser, slamming the drawer shut with my sock feet. I can’t believe I did this to myself. Was it the alarm? Did the power go out for a fraction of a second? It didn’t matter now.

All that mattered was getting into the lab, so I could stand on the catwalk over the main beam assembly to monitor energy levels. A few minutes later, I was stuffing a slice of burnt toast in my mouth and revving the car engine, lurching out of the parking lot on to the highway. Jamming the accelerator as far as it would go, willing the two tons of rusting metal and plastic to go faster. I’ve got to get there in time.

An eternity compressed into 30 minutes later, I was pulling into test site. The guard waved me through, lowering the barrier and getting back to his crossword puzzle. I smoothed my shirt and glanced into the rear view mirror. A little shaggy, but it will have to do. At least I didn’t have to make the key presentation to all the military bigwigs. That would be my bosses job, thankfully.

Haphazard parking job, grabbing my briefcase and notes, rushing into the building like a human hurricane. I barely got into the main testing chamber before my boss started to speak at the lectern set up near the racks of computers powering the abstract maths of our experiment.

“As you know, we’re in the final phase of testing. Project SUNSTRIKE was undertaken to provide the military with a force unparalleled in modern science. Control of the sun’s flares.”, he shuffled some papers, looking up at the assorted brass seated up front,”This will allow pinpoint accuracy when stimulating the outer layers of the sun, which will produce flares of any class desired, from small-scale effects to full EMP directed fury.”

My boss then stared at me, gesturing, “Now that our monitoring team is present, we can proceed.”

Taking the cue, I did a half bow towards the generals and clambered up the gangway to the overhead monitor station. Flipped a few switches, powering up the primary grid. Below me was the sprawling proof-of-concept design, part particle beam and part laser, designed to inject exotic matter into the beam, to be carried along to the sun’s surface. It would’ve been better in space, but our budget was tight and the extra GigaWatts really didn’t matter, as we were drawing directly from a nuclear generator installed on-site.

The countdown began, and I leaned forward with my goggles to observe the test platform below.

5 – 4 – 3 – 2 – 1 – INITIATE

The low hum of main banks discharging into the excitor rings filled the air, shoving particles close to the speed of light through the optic traps, bouncing them until the proper levels had been reached. Then, the release – as I moved closer to see – my tie started to fall.

Oh shit, it was a clip-on. With my favorite tieclip on it too.

I watched in frozen horror as the tie fell right in the gap between the primary discharge conduit and the final stage optics now trained upon the sun. My hand slammed down on the red mushroom-shaped button to abort, but it was too late. One bright flash, and the tie vaporized, including what had been attached to it.

I stumbled back, stunned.

“What the hell was that!!??”, Screamed my boss, face red with rage.

“My.. my… tie fell.”

“Well, reset the experiment!”

“That’s not going to help us much.”

“WHAT?!”, he started to stride forward, to climb up to the gangway.

“Don’t bother. The tritium atoms in my glow-in-the-dark tieclip have made it to the sun’s surface. I’m seeing a 400% reaction mass headed on our vector.”, I stared at the screen, not wanting to believe the numbers it was showing me. Damn, it would be closing in fast.

“What can we do?”

“We can burn.”, I dropped down in my seat, panic rising, my eyes starting to tear.

60 seconds to go.

Macx licked his lips nervously, pressing the access button on the scratched panel. He hated having to do this, but he had no other choice. Standing in the shade, he paced nervously until the speaker crackled to life with harsh high tones.

“What do you want?”

“I’m the 5 pm appointment.”

“Quantity?”

“Two liters.”

“Stand by.”

The panel light dimmed, and a long echoing rumble came from the bottom of the elevator shaft, faintly issuing from the small vertical crack in the armored elevator door.

So its come to this.

After all the saving and scrimping, moving the family away from the labor camps at the dwindling icecap mines. It was their chance for freedom, maybe make a break for the defended enclaves in South America or India, places where the rain still fell.

That was the whole problem, the world with billions of thirsty mouths, but only few places where pure water made an appearance. Some of the ultra-rich could afford their own aquifer drill rigs – going deep to the very boundary between water-trapping rock and the sediments above, but even that wasn’t a guarantee.

Many had done so and dropped the aquifer levels to mere feet in most places, causing massive erosion and sinkholes when the parched earth gave way. There were entire stretches of land that looked like a moonscape, dotted with wrecked mansions and empty storage tanks.

While the planetary percentage of pure water stayed constant, where it fell made the difference between agonizing death and modest abundance. The Latin Cartel was the first to reach an accord, and build the massive defense barriers around the Amazon rainforest.

Millions stood at the edges in makeshift camps, hoping a stray storm would allow them to fill containers placed at the walls edge. They knew better than to attempt to climb. Automated sentries and patrol drones would make short work of any effort in that direction.

Macx closed his eyes, trying to imagine the last time he had showered in clean water. It was so long ago, a faint memory of being little and looking up – seeing the droplets of pure crystal water fall down towards him, splashing down the drain. What a waste, all of those liters! If he only could open up a portal to that time and scoop up some of that, his family would live like royalty.

The elevator door began to open, massive bolts shuddering aside before revealing a dimly lit car, just barely able to fit two people.

“Inside, quickly”, a speaker from the far wall of the car crackled and went silent.

Macx hurried inside, the elevator doors closing behind him in a swift interlocking motion.

A sudden acceleration downward made Macx gulp involuntarily, like he was being swallowed whole by some mechanical gullet. Going to one of these exchanges was risky, but he had to do it. It was the only way to have enough water to kickstart their home filtration loop, to give them time to plan their escape to the hydrated zones. There was nothing here except desperate miners trying to dig holes to the aquifer, which was receding from their reach day by day. It was madness to think they’d succeed.

The doors opened smoothly, letting cool air wash over him. What luxury, such sweet coolness! Macx stepped nervously into the small room. At one end was a large airlock device to swap items, and a circular grill that let the broker speak through the dense ballistic-proof panels framing the wall.

“Step to the center, in the light.”

Macx shuffled forward, hands at his sides, showing his palms. Sudden moves were not recommended.

Two automated turrets in the corners of the room triangulated his skull with computer-guided precision.

“Submit payment to the slot.”

Macx counted out the last of his savings, and shoved it through the horizontal cut in the panel.

“Stand By – verifying”

A large man in a fitted suit stepped forward from the other side, rapidly counting the bills and shoving them into another slot in the desk.

“Take the two empty jars from the lock and place them in front of the dispenser. You’re in luck, your timing is perfect.”

Two jars were produced, and Macx shifted them in front of two angled pipes sticking out of the wall.

The man turned, and unzipped – golden liquid began to flow into the jars. Some would be stored product mingled with fresher supply. It would be enough after filtering to get the family filtration system going again. Macx tried every trick he could to maximize its efficiency, but after many cycles of drinking and urinating – some still got lost to the dry air.

Once the two jars were topped up, Macx spun on the metal lids and wrapped some flexible tape around the rims. At four pounds or so combined, it was all he could risk carrying in case he had to run. Being ambushed after leaving the upper doors wasn’t uncommon.

“Thanks for your business. Come back again.”

Macx carefully placed the warm jars in his concealed carrying pockets.

So this is what it felt like to be rich.

I knew today would be the end.

Let me explain, and I know I might be covering things that you already know – but please be patient, this is for the people just switching in to this chat.

Everyone I know loves games. The older games, the kind that came on silicon and had to be physically plugged in to a bit of hardware (I know, right? That is insane!) still have a hardcore following even among the most ardent techs that I know.

Yeah, yeah, they don’t have the usual niceness of full audio, smell, taste, and all that – but that was part of their charm. You were looking through this small glass window into another world that was built of brightly glowing blocks of color.

So my friend, Ty, he’s off on one of his longer runs to get some crusty old tech from one of those ancient deposits of plastic and … uh… what was it called… “newspaper”? Yeah, the stuff that had words and non-moving pictures on them. He loves reading them after doing a quick assembly-scan from the fragments he finds.

He says its how he makes his own machine projects more “authentic” by using slang from the ancient aughts.

Whatever, I don’t get into archeology really. This is more about the gaming bit.

So Ty comes back with a dusty backpack full of Satoshi knows what, and I tell him immediately to put the damn thing on the floor because I’m not going to have my SmartCleen(tm) absorbing all those foreign particles. They have enough work to do around my place since I’m always working on sculpture and painting things. (Another topic, but yeah I don’t dig the AI proggies that do it all digitally.)

“But Ci, this is some good stuff!”, he says, rummaging through the many pockets and belted loops.

“Whatever. Just slot something interesting in so we can have a good laugh.”

I wasn’t trying to get into the relative merits of old-school games, I just wanted to see the oddly colored bits and hear the painfully 2-Dimensional music playing.

Ty triumphantly produces a rectangular plastic thing, and shoves it into the receptacle port of my Multi-D display.

Initializing — Please Wait…

That’s odd. Usually the intro menu pops up right away. I get irritated and suspect that Ty is wasting my time with another dud. I’m about to pull the nasty thing from the slot when something new pops up.

Greetings – You have one city left! Try to destroy all incoming enemies! This is your only chance!

I look at Ty and he just shrugs, “It must be one of those older games that were waves of enemies and not much else.”

I’m looking at the screen trying to get a handle on how the letters are formed, they seem to be melting and dripping in some weird way that I’ve never seen before. Not quite old-timey like some effects I’ve seen used in these games, but more slick. Something rising and falling out of the edge of the letters, like it was almost pushing at it like something alive trapped beneath.

I spool out a controller and reposition it in my now-sweaty hands. Something doesn’t feel right here.

Then the sirens started.

Moving to the window we see them high in the sky. The machine-precise weave of white contrails. Drones, thousands of them. They were meant to defend, but now they were screaming in at frightening speeds, vectoring in on MY building.

Ty looks at me and says “Well, better make it count.”

I began to play.