Challenge #00719 - A354: Divinity Proclivity
I am not the god of reason and understanding, I am the GOD OF THUNDER AND LIGHTNING -Thor
The halo was a dead give-away, really. Something about a God in mortal form made a visible aura of light a definite thing.
May ran through ever possible conversation gambit in her head and finished up with, “So you’re a God, then.”
“Not a capital-G god,” said the divinity. “Not any more. Not enough followers, you see. Nobody really wants what I do.”
“And… what do you do?”
“I’m Delugius, the god of precipitation.”
“Precipitation,” May echoed.
“Rain, sleet, snow, hail… Anything that falls from the sky, I can do it.”
May thought about that as she chased the stains around on the diner’s countertop. “Does it have to be Earth’s sky?” she asked.
Delugius shrugged. “No idea. Never tried for any other sky.”
“I read somewhere that it rains diamonds on Neptune,” she said. “A tiny little local flurry would be kinda cool.”
“And it would raise suspicion. Plus I’m thinking they may not be your ideal gemstone kind of diamond.”
“Well see if you can make it rain one, then. Just a random raindrop.”
He leaned on the counter. “You got an offering?” he said. “It’s usually chicken for a light storm.”
“Got a chicken and mayo sandwich, nearly fresh.”
“Sold.”
“Do I chant any thing?”
“Eh, something in the order of a prayer for a light shower of diamonds from a Neptunian sky should do it. It’s been a while and I don’t even know if it’s gonna work.”
May fetched the sandwich. “O great got Delugius, please take this offering of chicken and bless me with a small shower of rain from a Neptunian sky.”
“Niiiiice,” said Delugius. He took a bite of the sandwich. “MMM! I can feel it working. Here goes, here goes, here goes…” Delugius winced, grunted, and a scattering of black crystals rained down in a circle around May.
“Good news, it works,” said May, sweeping them up. “Bad news, I would have to convince someone that these were actually diamonds.”
If she put them in a saucer, they looked like black grit. And they were a pretty good size, compared to any real diamond she’d actually seen.
“Even if we knew where it rained gemstones, I’m pretty sure it’d be out of my range. I think Neptune was pushing it.”
May ran a fingernail through the pile, watching the little black blobs scatter and fall in the saucer. “I wonder if I could sell a story to some dealer…”
“Just tell them the truth.”
May snorted. “Yeah, that wouldn’t work at all. We’re the only diner that caters to semidivine organisms.”
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Challenge #00717 - A352: Pre-Luddite
The first cyborg hate crime probably happened around the time the first peg leg was ripped off with malice aforethought.
“Ereb… ka… heb…” Lynn dutifully wrote down the hieroglyphs and checked the translations. Her quest for extra credit had her translating old manuscripts that had been collected from, apparently, the dawn of time.
This was an ancient form of writing, from the super-early period of Egyptian civilisation, so translation was especially tricky.
She stretched the kinks out of her back and re-read over her translation.
It was a legal document. A court case.
And the earliest evidence of prosthetics.
Kef the Butcher bought his case against Horeb the Priest before Pharaoh himself. They had been through a number of lower courts, and the antagonism between the two arguing parties lead them straight to the living incarnation of Ra.
Horebb protested that the Gods had a plan for every living thing, and the fact that Kef had lost a finger and a half to a bumbling apprentice was part of the larger plan. Therefore, Kef had no business at all wearing a strap-on finger and a special ring that replaced those lost digits. He should be proud of his scars and not rely on artifice.
Kef complained that he was still unmarried and, on the occasions that Horeb had stolen yet another set of replacement fingers, Kef noted that all his romantic overtures were more likely to be ignored. If the Gods had a plan for him, then why did all the offerings he made at the temple not grow his fingers back? The Gods had given him a brain and his brother a magnificent skill. Could they therefore not mean that Kef was entitled to wear his new hand pieces to win love?
Pharaoh listened in silence to them argue case and countercase. Finally, he held aloft his flyswatter and decreed thusly:
Horeb the Priest should no longer speak for the gods. He shall go into the desert to find clarity. And if death should find him before wisdom does, his wealth shall go to Kef the Butcher. If wisdom does find him, Horeb the Priest will therefore pay Kef the Butcher the full value of all the fingers he has stolen.
Lynn managed to get so much extra credit from her work that she managed to swing Salutatorian.
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Challenge #00716 - A351: As the Station Turns
Aliens of all kind discover Soap Operas, have fun with the adaptations and scripts and of course the fans. — knitnan
Serialised drama is nothing new. The fact that it invaded the known universe before the humans made themselves known is the only thing from stopping the accusing finger pointing at those dangerous primates. And there is a legend that some baffling ancient alien went around the universe and introduced infant species to the concept. But some people will say anything…
Even the Archivaas have trouble tracking down the oldest one. Some proudly display Kerinat’n Place as the oldest and longest running of them. Others exhibit All My Daughters as the most inclusive.
Only humans called it ‘Soap Opera’ and there was a certain amount of foam and inadvisability of consumption in the end product that made the name spread.
There are those who love it, those who abhor it to the point of outright ostracising the entire topic… and those unfortunate souls who feel compelled to explain it, despite the clear and evident disinterest of their audience.
“…an’ when it turned out that they were twins, I cried. I fair cried.”
“Wait,” said Rael. “These are two disparate species. One of them is oviparous.”
“Na, na, na. Y’ see… his egg cracked an’ they had tae transfer ‘im tae new digs, ye ken,” explained Shayde. “And the best place was sharin’ space wi’ her pseudo-uterus. And then the unit got misfiled, an’ that’s why they have their Unty Briix.”
Rael growled. “Anyone with a modicum of science education knows that that is… what’s your phrase? A complete load of bollocks.”
“Aye, I reckon it’s all a plot by T’sert’ser tae ruin their happiness.”
Rael glared at her as he processed his latest mouthful of Gyiikish experimental recipes. It could, in his opinion, use a smidgen more hollandaise sauce. “How did you get into this nonsense in the first place?”
Shayde grinned. “Let me tell ye about my wee girl Apples…”
One day, Rael promised himself, he would learn to keep his curious mouth shut.
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Sonic Rainbows
Neil Harbisson’s TED Talk “I Listen to Colors” (I recommend checking it out first) is what inspired this submission idea, as did the phenomenon of synaesthesia. What if, somewhere in your Amalgam Universe, there was an alien race out there for whom normal perceptions of color and sound were not like humans, but color and sound were interrelated - fashion was chosen for how it sounded rather than how it looked, portraits were heard symphonies, and music and speeches could be presented as paintings, that sort of thing…
[AN: If you want to check it out, you can watch his talk here. Artificial synaesthesia is pretty darn cool. And I need an ear-bug to warn me not to stay in the sunshine]
(#00713 - A348)
The universe is colour. The universe is sound. It’s also taste and smell and all the other senses, but for C♭, those were the two that mattered most. They were one and the same.
But there were subtleties. There was a difference between sight-sound -the way something sounded when she looked at it- and sound-sight, which was the way things looked when she heard them. Mostly, they agreed. An ugly person sounded ugly when she looked at them and looked ugly when they spoke.
But the humans? They were always surprising. They were the reason she joined the Loyal Order of Hitchhikers.
A human could sound unpleasant on first impressions, but turn out to be the most vivid of speakers. Or have a Van Gogh singing voice. Or be able to tell stories worth an art gallery.
Some, unable or unwilling to do any of those, could take out a portable instrument and create symphonies.
One she met could do them with knitting.
C♭ was very pleased that she was allowed to both keep and wear that masterpiece. And did so at every possible opportunity.
But it was when she stopped in at an Unsuitable Food branch to enjoy the Opuses composed live that she met the most interesting one. She looked very sombre, mournful and dour, but sounded like a fresh spring day full of lilies.
“Ey up,” she chirped. “What’s with the loud sweater, then?”
“Loud?” echoed C♭ in confusion. “This is much quiet. Peaceful serenade, and calming comfort that also keeps me warm.”
A sharp snap of her fingers, briefly illuminating the soundscape with its light. “Aw, yer a Sweet-RIff, yeh? Lemme ge’ ma axe…”
Her arm briefly vanished into a shadow and re-appeared with a guitar. Then she played the name of C♭’s people flawlessly.
“Yes! That’s us! You know the songs of my people?”
“No’ quite, but I can jam. You lead, then.”
It took four songs and quite a lot of change raining chartreuse tingles into her hat before someone told C♭ that the entity known as Shayde was an Ambassador.
She was the best one C♭ had ever met, capable of making her feel at home even though she was hundreds of jumps from her home planet of Chorus.
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Challenge #00692 - A327: “Secret” Identity
A character wakes up next to their spouse, ready to start their day. But… this person is not what they appear to be - what seems to be a normal person is just a disguise for their true self, a fearsome and powerful inhuman entity. The catch is that the spouse knows about this secretive disguise… but the entity doesn’t know the spouse knows, so still tries (a bit ineptly) to hide things. The spouse finds this too adorable to ruin the fun by revealing what they know just yet.
He always spent a few minutes in the morning just… lying in bed and watching him sleep. The love of his life. The most adorable human being in the universe. It was a miracle just to have him in the same house, let alone the same family.
It was very much a miracle that the breathlessly beautiful Bob Ballard had ultimately said ‘yes’ to nerdy nothing Melvin Mündané. never knowing that Melvin was secretly the courageous crusader Captain Charisma!
“I know you’re watching me sleep. Take a shower, look after yourself, and I’ll have eggs and sausage.”
“Eggs and sausage or eggs and sausage?” Melvin teased. The joke had been going on for five spectacular years.
"Breakfast, thank you. We have kids, next door.”
“You wanted to adopt,” Melvin pretended to whine. He loved it, of course. Bob and Melinda and Trey made the perfect family together. And Melvin made four.
They were his motivation, his reason to fight, his home to defend. And a blessing to go home to. And, on the rare occasions when he spent a whole day as Melvin Mündané, mild-mannered minion of MultiGloboCorp, they were his reason to smile.
The special ringtone went off.
“Drat,” he sighed. “Work needs me. ASAP. You’ll have to get your own breakfast, honey.”
“I hate that you’re on call,” Bob pouted.
“So do I. Hug the kids for me.”
“In excess.”
Melvin used a little of his super-speed to get ready, that morning, hiding his super-suit under his ordinary business one, and dashing out the door. Then it was up, up and away for another day of derring do.
*
Bob giggled. “He forgot the car, again,” he murmured. And he’d forgotten that super-fast drying left spatter all over the bathroom. And running out the door at fifty miles an hour tended to scatter the kids’ art.
Of course he knew that Melvin was Captain Charisma. Like his superhero moniker, Melvin wasn’t exactly mister subtle.
“Is Daddy saving the world again?” asked a sleepy and yawning Trey.
“Yep. And he’s going to beat the bad guys.”
For Bob, it was another day of being Da. But every moment was worth it. Even the spatter in the bathroom. He felt like the luckiest man alive.
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Challenge #00688 - A323: Benevolent Anarchy
Just for shits and giggles, a Greater Deregulation that lives up to the name. Total meritocracy, ‘I don’t care what you do as long as you stay the Hell off my property’. In other words, a GD where ‘profit’ is equated not just to ‘money’, but also ‘personal freedom’. In other words, less Republican, more Libertarian.
Welcome to Greater Deregulation Nor-Northwest. No freeloaders.
Kell the Hitcher helped unload the cargo. This was as far as the freighter captain would take her. And she knew about all the other Deregulations.
She’d expected a pall of smog and near-slaves populating most of the planet to support a few in their excess.
She boggled to see clean, wide streets and a happy populace. No need for bars on windows. No need for the bristling weapons of other Deregulations. The power came from the sun and the wind. And some geothermal plants in the active volcanic zones, but those were very far away from the main spaceport.
Spaces between the brick-and-mortar shops were taken up with little barrows of small-time business people. And very cunning ones who did not directly compete with their more solidly-established hosts.
Shops that sold clothing, for example, had at least one accessories barrow outside. And a barrow that made beverages. And someone selling some local delicacy.
What really surprised Kell was that none of these hucksters were barking for her attention, business, or money. They watched her. Some displayed their wares. Some showed off with the art of making.
Only the performers were allowed to make noise. Something that, according to the tourists’ handbook, was reached by mutual agreement.
The free market was actually free.
Corporations could do as they wished, but so could the buying public. Corporate records were public records. So if any corporation was weighed and found wanting… the public abandoned them.
Which was why the waterways were clean, the air was clear, and everyone had access to information.
There were no schools, just people who wished to educate, handing out their knowledge via the info-nets. And getting paid by the people who viewed it.
There was a medical system. Publicly funded and looking astonishingly like free health care. People passing by the hospitals or medical centres just… absently tipped their pocket change into a donation bucket for the greater good.
Kell picked a park and a nice-looking spot and set up her shingle. Stories told, donations welcome.
It was going to be interesting to see how this one had got it right.
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Challenge #00686 - A321: Peripatetic Commerce
Local union meeting for the owners of Little Shops That Weren’t There Yesterday, And Are Gone When You Try To Go Back, Local 37.
“Any new business?”
One hand went up. A relatively young hand in a forest of otherwise weird old people.
“Yes?”
“Who, where or when are we local to, exactly?”
Half the union assembled there groaned.
"Local is an artificial concept, but if you want actual co-ordinates…”
The entire meeting room filled with the chorus, “The Virgo Supercluster, Section two five five of the Milky Way, Galactic supercluster seven five two, Mundis Mundis Universe…”
The younger hand went up again. “And… if someone… accidentally wandered into Kasterborous?”
The meeting went downhill from there.
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The Q&A Session of Genghis Khan!
Genghis Khan rises from the dead, and gently and politely corrects some misconceptions about his history, personality, etc.
(#00685 - A320)
There were several big surprises when Gengis Khan returned from the dead. Not the least of which being that he was average height for a man of his time.
He was muscular, well-groomed, and quite brown… yet he looked as much at ease in a modern business suit as he should have in horse-hides and furs. He did not have a single weapon on him, but the very air was thick with threat.
The interviewer on Good Morning China did her utmost to avoid recoiling from him every time he leaned in to flirt with her.
“As you can see, I am only short in retrospect. As was Napoleon, I believe. The truth is, nobody documented my dimensions because nobody thought they were worth noting. The rumours of dwarfism are obviously an attempt to posthumously -ah- belittle me. Haha.”
“Haha,” echoed the host. “And the other rumours? Of your ruthlessness?”
“Utter nonsense. The people of my time respected a show of might. I played to the audience. But the real truth is, if someone had the skill and cunning to come close to killing me? I made them one of my generals, and faced that skill and cunning towards my enemies. Far more productive in the long run. A true meritocracy values those with skill and drive.”
“What about invading Persia?”
“It was my duty as khan to see that those who threatened my peaceful envoys never did so again. It was, to use a modern phrase, super effective.” Gengis smiled. He had amazingly clean and straight teeth.
“And the forty million deaths?”
“I was a warlord. Death was my business. Happily, war and death are no longer necessary, this time.”
“This time?”
“Yes. I’m going into business.”
Such a simple statement. But it drove fear into the hearts of millions. And yet… Mongocorp was surprisingly benevolent once it gained ultimate control.
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The Hunt Begins!
The Rabbit Women of Solares IV begin their Great Hunt! (for carrots, Earth-Men mates, Bugs Bunny memorabilia, what-have-you.)
(#00684 - A319)
Nobody saw the invasion coming. Well. Almost nobody. Make that ‘nobody who counts in the greater social milieu’ because Professor Cocomilia was largely viewed as a crank.
His theories about Lapinoids had been the stuff of geek comedy for years. As were his increasingly agitated attempts to warn the public.
And then came Invasion Day.
They were seven-foot-tall amazons with huge muscles and even huger mammaries. Their armour and weaponry was far superior to anything that Earth had in stock. They were formidable. They were unstoppable.
…and they were surprisingly willing to pay for any kind of merchandise that featured a rabbit.
When the bulk of the Terran population noticed that they were all female… That’s when the trouble really started.
The furries came out of the woodwork. Not the friendly kind, not the ones who had fun dressing up like animals. And definitely not the ones who just admired anthropomorphic animals.
No. The ones who came to throw themselves at the Lapinoids’ collective feet were the ones who gave the rest of the furries a bad name. The basement-dwelling, self-entitled, porn-generating weirdoes who were one crucial step away from bestiality.
And they were the ones who gave humanity a bad name.
Which was when humanity found out that all of Professor Cocomilia’s ravings were right on the mark.
Especially about them being carnivorous.
Humanity in general and furries in particular were more than willing to let the Lapinoids slaughter the 'bad examples’. But when they moved on to the more 'normal’ throng…
Well…
That was when Jennifer 'Hoppie’ Rodriguez found her time to shine. Her fursuit resembled the Lapinoids in almost every degree but height. She was the one who managed to negotiate for peace with a mixture of dance, pantomime, broken Lapinae, broken English, and a little bit of song.
The Lapinoids were so grateful that they gave her custom-fitted diamond armour and a life-size statue of herself, in costume, made of gold.
Because everyone knows that carats are a bunny’s best friend.
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The Best Genes Money Can Buy…
Adam stared past the mirror-glass and into his own eyes. They were perfect in place and symmetry, blue as the sea. His cheekbones, nose and jaw came together to make a flawless model’s face. His rational mind said that he should be happy, for he had everything he could ever want in terms of intelligence and good looks, and his parents were kind and loving. Still there was sadness inside those eyes. He couldn’t bring himself to tell his parents that there was something wrong with him, that the perfect son they had spent so much money on gene-tailoring… wasn’t really perfect after all.
Adam could lie to his parents, to the world, but not to himself. He saw the gorgeous young man in the mirror, but he hated him utterly. He shifted uncomfortably as he glanced down at the body in the mirror, resisting the urge to flinch in distaste, as he often did at seeing it bare. Yes, it was a perfect body, but it wasn’t his. It was the body of the perfect son. But in truth, all his life Adam had known that he much more wished to be the perfect daughter.
(#00668 - A303)
He’d stolen one of his mother’s old dresses. One of her ‘circus tents’ that she dragged out and laughed at to think she was once so fat with child.
Body gestation had its risks, they said. But it was the ultimate expression of love…
That’s what mother said. They could have gone for an artificial uterus, but the fashion at the time was to use the uterus already there…
If they had been unfashionable… Maybe Adam wouldn’t be in so much trouble.
He slid the dress on. Cupped a purely imaginary bosom onto his slim frame. Restyled the hair that Adam had been allowed to grow out to a certain length. Just a little too long for a boy.
“Hi,” she breathed, trying to sound more like the girl she knew she was. “My name is Adelle…”
“Do you want it to be?”
Adam froze. Panicked. Almost messed herself. “Please don’t be mad?” she squeaked.
Mother was leaning against the doorframe with her perpetual glass of tan liquid. It was fashionable to be an alcoholic… but only those closest to her knew that it was sparkling apple juice.
“I’m not mad. The risks were explained. Including the fact that you could have missed out on some important hormones. Entirely my fault. Adelle. It’s a pretty name.”
There should have been yelling. There should have been fury. Everything she’d read on the subject told her that the bodyqueer were routinely rejected.
“Y-yes…” she stammered. “I’d like to keep it, please?”
“Of course,” said Mother. “I suspected you might not be the son I ordered. I’ve had all the right doctors lined up for some time.”
The dress dropped. “Really?”
“Of course, darling. Only the best. And always the best. Want to start the process?”
Adelle’s mouth said, “Yes please!” before her brain could think it.
It was going to be a great year.
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