Challenge #00889-B158: Nonse

With the amount of sense the last few hours have not made, I’m tempted to believe that this is all a simulation someone or something built into the universe for people foolish enough to have attempted what I did…

[AN: I am having intense internet trouble at the mome so I’m giving this to you from my phone. Forgive the lack of the usual formatting]

The trees were gathering water and farming people.

This… this was wrong. The sky was the colour of earth and the earth itself was blue. And… slightly marshy? But it was dry. A dry and supple sponge that nevertheless conspired to squelch.

A triffid on its leash was hissing at her. It looked exactly like the ridiculous rubber monsters of the movie. She guarded her eyes, just in case, and stumbled onwards down the soggy road.

One tree-child, naked as a jay, ran screaming from her. Yelling what sounded like, “Groot! Groot!” to the others.

She was out of range of the hissing triffid, at least. Shayde looked the lead tree squarely in its… face? and carefully, slowly, assumed a position of surrender.

Fingers interlaced and hands on top of her head. Kneeling in the squishy ground with her ankles crossed. And, because she was two heartbeats away from messing what was left of her clothes, Shayde did the one thing that always helped her calm down.

She sang.

“Picture yourself on a boat on a river… with tangerine trees and marmalade skies… Somebody calls you, you answer quite slowly. A girl with kaleidoscope eyes…”

She peeked. Okay. This was good. They weren’t exactly aiming their weapons at her. But they were approaching with caution.

This was not the time to grin and show her sharp teeth. This was a time for staying very still and not doing anything at all threatening.

“Fimbalism finger fink,” the leader demanded. “Krelborn groot lalama!”

“Rapacious radishes,” she replied, and almost kicked herself. “Look. You cannae understand me. I cannae understand you. Mebbe a wee bit o’ pantomime?”

“Sconculous! Erid flelow carnarvon?”

Shayde sighed. This was going to be a long day. “Would ye believe, I’m mostly harmless?”

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Challenge #00867-B136: Manuals Exist for a Reason

Two people are standing in front of [Large, technical, dangerous-but-necessary item]. They are discussing how to do something highly dangerous with it that is their best hope at this point.

Person #1: [Name], walk us through this.

Person #2: First, you’ll want to [BAD IDEA]. Then [ANOTHER BAD IDEA]. After that, [NO]. Then [DON’T DO THIS] and [SERIOUSLY, DON’T].

Person #3: So…basically everything written here, in order, right after ‘WARNING: DO NOT’…

Person #2: Essentially.

The night before the Big Day.

Kevin could tell that this was bad news. Hackmeyer had promised him, Dave-o and Steve some extra credit if they helped the Professor with his ‘little adjustments’ to Katie’s “dimensional pinhole” instrument array.

“Okay,” said Steve. “What are we doing to this thing?”

Hackmeyer cracked his knuckles. “First, we disengage the safety alarm. Then we increase all the inputs in the first array three marks past the red line. After that, we move on to the secondary and tertiary arrays, moving them comfortably into the red zones. If not further.”

Kev picked up the very detailed operations manual that he had helped Katie put together. “So… just about everything in this manual, under the title, ‘This Will Kill You and Most of California if You Try It’, right sir?”

Hackmeyer glared at him. “Need I remind you, mister Polson, that you have extra credit and I have significant grant money riding on this display being one that the military can appreciate? The last thing any of us need is some little girl playing it safe so that her dollies can have a tea party in the reactor!”

Dave-o and Steve agreed with Hackmeyer. None of those three men had read the explicit details of exactly what could go wrong with Katie’s dimensional pinhole. And, after all, this was America. Bigger was better. Why have a pinhole when one could have a sinkhole?

Therefore, he tried desperately to covertly unfuck everything that the others fucked up. And he left Katie’s dummy ‘safety switch’ in the covert ‘alert’ position.

He just had to hope that Katie could fix everything in time.

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Challenge #00856-B125: Just… Don’t Ask

I’d ask what else could go wrong, but I think I’ve got quite enough happening as it is, thank you.

“Awright… awright…” the entity calling herself Shayde seemed to be having difficulty with the sugar-coated and softened information they had just told her. “I can deal wi’ this. I can… I can deal wi’ this. Wee bitty bits. Aye. Deal wi’ it in wee bitty bits.”

The attending medtechs were watching her vital signs like hawks. As was Rael. Her heart rate was safely within panic realms, as was her adrenaline.

“I’m no’ on Earth, aye…”

Rael bit his tongue to stop himself echoing her ‘aye’. “Correct,” he said.

“I’m no’ in me own time…”

“Correct again.“

“It’s been five hundred years.”

“To our best estimates. Give or take a few decades.”

Redline panic. “How many is a few?” she wailed. And she wailed it in ancient Welsh.

“No more than three.” He elected not to tell her that the error was more likely to be on the ‘give’ side, and that the Galactic Standard Calendar had a really bizarre definition of ‘year’.

The entity known as Shayde got up and paced. “Plus or minus thirty years, what the fook…“ She flipped back to pre-shattering English. “I’m miles from Earth, aye?”

“Aye.” Damn it. “I mean, yes. You are.”

There was a soft sound and a flash of light, and the other entity of trouble incarnate was suddenly sharing the room. “I’m growing impatient.”

“Aw fook off, Loki!” Shayde threw something at him. The entity known as Loki vanished before her missile had a chance to connect. “Great. Jus’ fookain great. I’d ask what else can go wrong, but I reckon I got more’n enough on me plate.”

“Correct again,” said Rael. “And for the record, probability analysts have determined that the Universe really hates the people who ask that kind of question.”

This instantly derailed her panic. “…oooh, can I look at the math?”

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