Ethical Heroism
Sam, Scott and defeating monsters while keeping one’s dignity.
(#00131)
The alleged victim was a monster. Scott had no doubt, because he was privy to a lot of stuff that the prosecution’s lawyers had managed to get removed from this trial.
The exact kind of monster who sued his victim.
Things were looking very bad, especially since his mutant defendant looked like a cross between a warthog and cthulu. Jurors judged by appearances, and none of Sara’s magic style advice could help a face full of tusks and tentacles.
Even Glee was lost for tactics.
“I saw the file,” said Sam. “Need some fatherly advice?”
“I need a miracle,” said Scott. “Got one of those in your time lord pockets?” It was an in-joke. Sam had an astounding amount of useful things concealed in his pockets.
“I’ve faced down monsters like this in the courtroom before,” he said, “The only thing you can do is make them out themselves as monsters.”
“Sara would do a job on him.”
“Sara, thankfully, is in Australia and can only blog about this. You might want to check her Tumblr.”
“Oh?”
“Lots of publicly available information. Free from legal censorship. Why, any idiot with Google could find it.”
“Thankyou-I-think.”
“Just look it up,” Sam smiled.
He did, with Glee shoulder-surfing. It was amazing what could be found in the age of over-sharing.
“Ding,” said Glee, “Ding. Ding. We have a winner.”
*
It was his first win with the victim going off in chains for a rightfully-deserved lifetime stint in Solitary. And, thanks to Kurt and his famous tail, he could hug a scared fifteen-year-old with tentacle hair and not gag. Or flinch.
“There’s some people who’d like to meet you, Tammy.”
Kurt, Sara, and Greer. All without their holograms on. All in street clothes. Sara had finally stopped growing at 6'1", and conspired to look like she’d just stepped off a catwalk wherever she went.
Tammy tried to hide behind her hands, which were not adequate to the task. “They’re all too beautiful.”
“Nonsense,” said Kurt, turning on his charm. “The rest of the world is too ugly. We can take you somewhere safe, where you can learn anything you want to.”
“I… don’t know…”
“Sweetie,” cooed Greer, “You’re still too young to live on your own, yet. Xavier’s will at least help you to gain confidence in the face of prejudice. And give you real-world life skills.”
“And we’re really prepared for mutant babies,” said Sara.
Tammy clutched at her middle protectively. “You’re not going to take–?”
Sara bought out her holoviewer. “Here’s my family and I. Todd’s the handsome one with the goatee.”
And, Scott noticed, completely overpowered by a four-year-old entranced by Princesses and Ponies.
Tammy giggled behind her hands. “Nice ribbons.”
“Soshanna thought so,” said Sara. “Would you like something to eat, before we go? Or to go before we go? I know most potential students like to book at warp nine, but biology wins in your case.”
For the first time, Tammy was making a decision on her own. “Well. I do need to pee…”
“Need an escort?”
“Thankyou.”
Not much of a beginning, he thought as he watched them leave. But then, he couldn’t exactly criticize.
[Muse food remaining: 10. Submit a prompt! Ask a question!]
Ding, Dong, Is The Witch Really Dead?
Jelly, Ice Cream, Maggie Thatcher and Sara’s obsession with all things empirical.
(#00130)
“Ah, the end of an era,” sighed Sara.
Kitty peeked. She was watching international news over a bowl of jelly and ice-cream, where people were protesting in the streets and holding giant puppets. It was interspersed with grainy old stock footage of people rioting. “Normally I like, ignore your what-the-heck moments, but… What the heck?”
“Margret Thatcher has passed on.”
Kitty waited for further explanation. When none was forthcoming, she prompted, “Which means…?”
“Some rather grousome celebrations,” Sara indicated the TV. “I’m trying to grok it, myself. She was elected Prime Minister for–”
“Prime what?”
Sigh. “Sort of like the President of England.”
“Okay.” Kitty tried to ignore the fact that Sara had just said that in her lowest-common-denominator voice.
“Anyway, she was elected Prime Minister for thirty-some years. They kept re-electing her for that time, despite the fact that she kept doing things they hated. Remember V?”
“Yeah, that was a cool movie.”
“Yes. Well. The original comic was written as a sort of protest against Maggie Thatcher’s regime.”
“Wait. How could they keep voting for her for that long? There’s term limits and stuff.”
“Not in England, dear.”
“England’s like, weird.”
“Everywhere’s weird when you don’t live there. Just ask Kurt.”
“So they hated her?”
“Yup.”
“But they kept voting for her.”
“Yes.”
“And now she’s dead they’re like, celebrating?”
“Indeed.”
Kitty sat on the floor and stared at the images. “Would this be something like a war breaking out if like, George W. Bush died?”
“…which will possibly happen… But yes, you have rather nailed it.”
Kitty pondered the odds of Sara joking about that. Then figured out how old W. was and how likely it was that he’d pass anytime soon. “I’m'a go see how good our emergency shelter is.”
“Good thought.”
[Muse food remaining: 11. Submit a prompt! Ask a question!]
Creep
Anywhere in the story: “The element of surprise didn’t so much rest upon someone hearing you but registering the significance of your approach.”
(#00129)
“Okay,” said Rael. “They stole my coat. They somehow turned off your powers. We have, perhaps, two hours at most before they set off their doomsday bomb and all we have is the contents of a rather spacious storage closet with nothing useful in it. What, might I ask, is your big plan?”
Shayde, currently alarmingly caucasian, shorter, and red-headed, kept grinning as she piled the trolley with assorted bits and bobs. “Find a box tae hide in an’ occupy the bottom shelf. Trust me. I’m gonna use stealth.”
Stealth.
Well, in a pinch, even a hair-brained plan was better than no plan at all. Rael picked a box and squeezed himself inside. If anything was more alarming than watching Shayde mutter to herself as she assembled a scheme, it was listening to the same muttering with no other sensory input.
The door opened. The trolley rolled out, accompanied by aimless whistling that, though it failed to actually hit a tune, managed to molest quite a few in passing.
The wheels rattled and shook. The entire trolley made a cacophony as it trundled down the heavily guarded hallway.
“No admittance,” said the guard.
“Got deliv'ry order fer t’ main interface controller,” that was Shayde’s voice, but she managed to nail the local low-caste dialect as if she’d lived in the alleys all her life.
“No admittance.”
“What’s yer name, then, sonny Jim?”
Flakk. Sonny Jim. One of the many, many call-signs of impending doom a la Shayde. Rael cringed in anticipation.
“Why?”
“So I can tell me boss that one… Sergeant… Ro-ourke… failed to allow ‘is supremeness t’ get 'is crullers. An ye know 'ow 'e likes 'em fresh.”
The impassable door hissed open. The trolley rattled onwards in a similar fashion through three more.
And, like a miracle, they were in the countdown chamber.
“That was not stealth!” Rael protested as he sabotaged. “That was the opposite of stealth. It was the antithesis of stealth.”
“Na, it was past stealth an’ through to it’s true opposite. White noise.”
Of course. The element of surprise didn’t so much rest upon someone hearing you but registering the significance of your approach. And Shayde did love hiding in plain sight.
[Muse food remaining: 11. Submit a prompt! Ask a question!]
Challenge #00128: Once Upon a Nightmare
A feverish nightmare from the slumbering mind of Duncan Matthews…while totally awake.
“How can you stand to breathe the same air as that thing?”
“Hm?” said Jean, her mind had been elsewhere.
Duncan pointed to Essel. “That tranny garbage. I heard you and that are roomies?”
“Well, at least she doesn’t steal my clothes,” said Jean. Her tired voice and monotone said nothing to Duncan. Nor did the notes she clung to with a white-knuckled grip.
“Honestly, being in the same house with that thing would give me nightmares. If I could sleep at all.”
“Really,” said Jean.
Duncan ignored her glare of doom. “Yeah. Trying to figure out all the different ways it could try and rape someone. Has it got rid of the -uhm…”
Jean just raised an eyebrow.
“Ol’ chicken neck?” he made jerky motions near his crotch area.
“She doesn’t need to. She never had one,” said Jean. If Duncan had been listening, he would have heard the icy tones of death in her voice.
“Euw. I don’t even want to think about it.”
“You have no clue,” said Jean. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to be trapped in the wrong body? Can you even imagine if you woke up in the body of a girl?”
“Yeah. Easy.” He quickly mimed shooting himself in the head.
“Thanks for telling me that my life is only worth ending,” she said. And with that, she stormed off to talk with the freak, without giving any kind of clue as to what he’d done or said wrong.
Bitch.
He didn’t quite remember the rest of the day. Only that things otherwise went better than expected. Plans did not muck up thanks to whichever lunkhead who had had a funny idea. He had dinner, argued with his parents, and went to bed.
And woke up with tits.
Big, bouncy, and surprisingly painful tits. And his junk had gone. Vanished. He was still himself. His face was still his own. But his body…
His body was now a target.
For every guy…
Just.
Like.
Him.
He opened his closet and found it full of frilly pink things. There were bras where he used to stow his wife-beaters. Panties where his jocks should have gone.
And -euw- feminine things and a helpful calendar outlining ‘trigger week’ in red.
“Are you coming down anytime soon?” said Mom, hanging around his door.
“I’m a girl…”
“Ah,” said Mom with some relief. “Progress at last. I knew this whole thing with pretending you’re a boy had to end sometime. Come on. Find something pretty and fix your face or you’re going to be late!”
She was gone before he could protest.
There were no belts. No necklaces. Nothing to wrap around his neck and no plastic bags he could smother himself with.
There was an optimistic card on his dresser. Apparently congratulating him for staying alive for three months. Someone had written, “Way to go girl!” and he had, evidently, crossed out the 'girl’ and written 'boy’ over and over again until there was no space left. Even inside the O’s of other 'boy’s.
“Dunc!”
Duncan snorted. He was still on the bench. Still staring at Jean and the tranny freakshow.
Graydon leaned into his field of view. “You okay, Dunc?”
He blinked. Shook it off. “Yeah. I thought those mushrooms on that pizza were a bit weird.”
“You trippin’? Seriously? Man, I should have some of that pizza tomorrow.”
“Don’t,” he said. “It’s a bad trip.” He did a covert check. Pecs. Junk. Normal. He was normal. A real boy in the body of a real boy.
“You wanna play Trash the Tranny?”
“Not… today. Listen, I’m not feeling great. I’m'a have to bail. Kay?”
“Yeah. Sure. Food poisoning’s no fun. Catch you later.”
“Yeah,” said Duncan. He went home. Said nothing, and went quietly to bed. Afraid to sleep. Afraid that once more he would wake up in the wrong body. And almost eternally grateful when he didn’t.
[Muse food remaining: 12. Submit a prompt! Ask a question!]
Challenge #00127: Conversations on the Twilight Zone
Jean, Wanda and a little bit of bonding over astral physics. Todd makes an appearance.
“Saw you in the dream-realm, last night,” said Jean. “You were… not exactly hallucinating? I thought I could help.”
“That was you? But you were–”
“Probably veiled behind a curtain of your understanding. I’m sorry about that. I backed off when I realized what was happening.”
“I don’t undertand what you’re saying…”
Jean sighed. “Sometimes? People find themselves on the astral plane. I try to help them out when I can. You must have some deep-buried issues to summon those phantoms.”
“…they seemed real…”
Jean sat. “It’s okay. If you manage to find your way into the astral plane again, you need to remember that you are ultimately in control. Everything you see and hear in the astral plane comes from your own mind.”
“But… those things…”
“Tell you what. Next time I find you lost? I’ll salute three times so you know it’s me. I can help.”
“Yo, X-geek. What'cha doin’?” Todd challenged as he landed.
“Trying to help,” said Jean. “I’m going now.”
[Muse food remaining: 12. Submit a prompt! Ask a question!]
Challenge #00126: Why Would You Do This to Me?
The noodle incident. Name names.
[AN: The whole point of Noodle Incidents is you never find out exactly what happened. See the Trope Page. Grats, you made this author scream in anguish.]
Sherlock had separated them. Rael, at least, got a hot meal and something to occupy his hands. “So. What do you know?”
“Admittedly, not a lot,” said Rael, getting his credentials straight right off the bat. “I’m not a historian. I only study the elements of Terran culture that cross my path on a frequent basis. And… well… Shayde is a strange occurrence magnet. This sort of thing very quicky becomes background noise.”
“It’s not background noise when a larger portion of the Elemeno is covered in noodles,” said Sherlock.
“I had barely enough warning before it -ah- landed.”
“Landed,” echoed Sherlock.
“Apparently, bubble realities land,” said Rael. “And we found ourselves in a kitchen that was, to my best guess, designed by M. C. Escher and H. P. Lovecraft.”
“A kitchen.”
“Yes. The bubble reality also included what looked to be an illegally augmented wolf, a robot with the intelligence of a standard Augment, the -uh- squid in the environment suit. I mentioned him previously.”
“it’s in my growing file,” sighed Sherlock. “Do go on.”
“There was also a small child of about seven and a sometimes-tiger. I think.”
“Sometimes… tiger.”
“It spent half its time as a plush toy. The other half, it stood in an upright stance and acted like… a human.”
“And where do the noodles come in?”
“There was a voice. It came from… everywhere. It shouted, ‘Ready, Set, Cook’ and then all this… pasta… came down. Shayde started knitting it. The kid was trying something with ketchup and pepperoni. The other three were alternately running away or trying to black-box the -uh- noodle font. And… since it was pooling around my calves…”
“You endeavoured to eat it,” concluded Sherlock.
“Yes.” Rael sighed and rubbed his temple. “Once Shayde finished knitting a kein bottle–”
“Knitting… a klein bottle…”
“Are you doubting my memory?” challenged Rael.
“How does one knit a klein bottle?”
“In two-two rib, apparently….” Rael coughed. “Once it was finished, the reality burst and all trapped individuals went back to their home realities. And… some of the contents went with them.”
“Leaving noodles, sauce, and sundry… stains… sprayed at high velocity over a ten cubic SDU area.”
“Yes,” said Rael, glad of his understanding.
“None of this,” said Sherlock, “can be proven. At all.”
“Imagine the trouble the other residents might be having…”
Meanwhile and Elsewhen…
“It wasn’t me, Mom,” protested Calvin, in the middle of a blast zone of noodles, sauce, and mystery stains. “It was space aliens, honest! It really was! It wouldn’t have happened if the giant talking dog hadn’t tried to take apart the noodle nozzle…”
“Bath. Bed. No dinner,” said Mom. She was red-faced furious.
Calvin wasn’t certain if this was a lucky escape or not.
[With sincere apologies to Bill Watterson and Freefall. Obviously, I took liberties.]
[Muse food remaining: 13. Submit a prompt! Ask a question!]
“I’m Impressed”
Scott’s 1tth straight victory in court and the slight but unmistakeable praise that Glee gives him upon not making an ass of himself while under the cosh. She also admits something about her personal which Scott almost, ALMOST misses in his joy of not losing…again.
(#00125)
“Not guilty.”
Scott quietly breathed out and shared a hug with his client, a kid who was still manifesting and had, in a fit of excitement, fear and hiccoughs, accidentally incinerated a car.
“Thanks for the heads-up Mr Summers,” said Barbary. He clutched the card with the address and contact details of Xavier’s institute like a more normal person would clutch at their last chance.
“Not a problem. Everyone needs a second chance. You’ll be in good hands.”
The kid shot off at warp nine for friends and family while he tidied up his papers.
“That makes eleven,” noted Glee. “Quite the straight number.”
“All it takes to ruin a streak is one,” said Scott.
“So defeatist. You should celebrate. Go have some fun.” Glee snapped her own briefcase shut with compact efficiency. “You earned it.”
“They’re your tactics. You should come along.”
“The difference between you and me, Mr Summers,” said Glee, “is I scare people.”
Scott watched her go. And he thought that he had a knack for finding the ashes of defeat in the pyrotechnics of victory…
[Muse food remaining: 14. Submit a prompt! Ask a question!]
A blessing? Or a curse?
We’ve all wanted to go back and unsay that one hurtful thing - or at the very least, apologise before a chance at a friendship is lost - utter those words that got us mocked that time, undo that stupid thing that cost us self-respect and possibly more.
Only thing is: Who could stop at one?
(#00124)
Kylie blinked. There were now three of her in her room. Two were older. Both dressed in identical old-fart clothes that spoke loudly of their devotion to the hegemonic norm.
“Don’t go to the party,” said the one on the left side of her mirror as she continued to apply makeup. “It’ll be the worst mistake you ever make.”
“Are you kidding me?” said the her on the right side of the mirror. “Not going to the party was the biggest mistake of my life!”
“I got roofied and raped and slut-shamed! How could your life be any worse than that?”
“Um. Excuse me? My social life imploded after that party. Anyone who was there had all the breaks. I was ostracized as a nerd and never got anywhere.”
“I thought going to this party would stop me getting ostracized as a nerd,” said Kylie the younger. “And the people who are there anyway? They’re the social elite. They’d get all the breaks regardless.”
The two other Kylies stared at each other. “The whole thing was a set-up?” they said in unison.
“You know what?” said Kylie the younger. “I might anonymously call in about a rowdy party with drugs and then show up late with Starbucks.”
The two other Kylies vanished under the ripple effect. Kylie smiled and finished her lipstick. It wouldn’t be so bad, but versions of her just kept on turning up over the most improbable things.
[Muse food remaining: 15. Submit a prompt! Ask a question!]
Be interested to see what you do with this one:
“Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?
- Mark Twain
(#00122)
There were designated busking zones on any station large enough to attract the kind of itinerant population that gathered Minutes by entertaining passersby.
Amalgam had hundreds of them.
Rael knew from long, and partially agonizing experience, that Shayde loved them like nothing else. In the hours not taken up by duty, she would take her ‘axe’ down to one at random, and play for pocket change. Allegedly so she could 'unwind’.
This from a being who entertained herself by winding other people up.
The surprisingly unjust part of it was that she could always afford to feed the both of them after just a few sets.
This time, she’d found a dismal corner calling itself the Slop Shop. It catered to the sort of clientele who knew they couldn’t afford anything better and didn’t want to pretend to try.
Shayde ordered a meat pie floater to start and spotted someone in a booth.
They were having the Impoverished Special, which consisted solely of whatever fruit one could get away with picking from the nearest orchard before security got interested. This pallid and washed-out soul was staring at their lone apple in near suicidal despondency.
“Ey up,” said Shayde. One of her many, many call signs of doom. She left her stool to park herself opposite the truly unlucky one in the booth. “Why d'ye sit there lookin’ like an envelope without any address on it?”
“En-ve-lope?” echoed the sallow saurian. He looked to Rael for translation and fished in his pocket. All he had to offer was Seconds.
“She asks why you are sad and despondent,” said Rael. He not only pushed back the Seconds, but palmed an extra Minute into the man’s sad pile.
“I came to see the universe. I believed I could trade on my talent… but nobody notices me.”
“D'ye get stage fright?”
“I do admit nervousness,” the saurian confessed. “But that shouldn’t alter my performance.”
Shayde handed across a ten Minute coin. “Gi’ us a song, then. Up ye pop like you would in t’ hall.”
The instant he started playing, the poor creature blended in with the walls.
“Scared o’ muckin’ up, aye?”
“Er… yes?”
“I’m gonna give ye an’ old Earth song ye can’t possibly muck up. It’s designed to be played bad.” This time, Shayde took the dias.
It was horrible. The tune was both random and out of key, as for the singing the only creature it could attract was possibly a lovesick cat.
And the words… well… they got to the point.
“OOOOOOOOOOOHHHHH…. Give me some moNEY! Just gIVe me some MOneeeeyyyy! You can drop it right hErE on the groUND! And if you don’t give me enO-OUGH, I’ll foLLow you HOme… and sIng outSIde your winDOw for the rest of your LIIIIIIIIIFFFFE!”
The saurian blinked. His anger colours flushed. “I shall not,” he announced, “need to play that song.”
“Think of it when ye play the good stuff, then. You omnivorous?”
“Er… yes?”
“Than I can shout ye another floater. You look like you need feedin’.”
The young saurian again looked to Rael.
“Shayde has a habit of feeding strays,” he announced. “She thinks it will count for her in her afterlife.”
[Muse food remaining: 17. Submit a prompt! Ask a question!]
Philip K. Dick said it best:
“Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.”
(#00121)
“This,” announced the Doctor, “is the Monestary of the Believers.”
“The believers in…?” prompted Sally.
“Everything. Everything that is. And a few things that aren’t. They devote a lifetime to it. Each devotee is not allowed to have the item they’re meant to believe in.”
Sally peeked through the slot. A monk knelt on the floor, writing or praying or both.
“So they’re a believer in chairs?”
“Yes. Fella three doors down believes in tables. Poor man has to do his writing on the floor.”
“Ouch…”
“I feel sorry for the lady at the end of the hall. She believes in cushions.”
“Why go to all this bother?” Sally asked. “Things had to exist before people believed in them.”
The Doctor gave her one of his smirks. “Did they? Or were they just collections of atoms with a convenient shape and a familiar name?”
Sally would spend the rest of her life asking herself that question.
[Muse food remaining: 18. Submit a prompt! Ask a question!]