Challenge #01530-D069: Wit of the Ages
Stuff found written on walls. – @knitnan
Corridor 3278B had been marked as a Paradox Hazard by the local representatives of the AI Alliance, thus causing something of a traffic snarl in the adjacent byways. Since she was in the neighbourhood, Officer Lyr Marken investigated, reading everything there that was still legible.
She found it easily. Beautiful, artistic script that read, Everyone writes on walls except me!
Lyr instantly went for the first suspect, dialling up Ambassador Shayde’s personal comms. “Ambassador Shayde F. Pitt…” she began in an accusatory tone.
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Challenge #01503-D042: One Dull Afternoon in an Ambassadorial Office
“I feel I’m very sane about how crazy I am.” - Carrie Fisher – @recklessprudence
Rael slowly turned to glare at Ambassador Shayde. She had said this out of the blue, apropos of nothing, and continued browsing on her personal screens as if nothing had ever happened. He took an educated guess, “Quote of the day?”
“Twitter feed,” said Shayde. “That’s definitely sommat I missed out on. One hundred and forty letters tae say somethin’ cool. Brevity bein’ th’ soul o’ wit an’ all.”
“Must have been a very witty era,” muttered Rael. Inwardly praying to any god -with nothing better to do- to accept the prayer of an atheist, and stop Shayde bringing more human inanity from the twentieth century back from the dead.
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Challenge #01493-D032: The Universal Coin
“Be kind. Don’t hurt other people. It’s all the sort of Christian ethics stuff I thought was bullshit when I was a kid. No, it turns out it’s not bullshit. Tell the truth, be kind, all that corny stuff.“ - Carrie Fisher – @recklessprudence
Above all else, do no harm. That had to be a law for landing in strange places and in weird circumstances. Of course… the landing couldn’t be helped. Something there was that didn’t like her landing in a complete set of clothing. And something always ate her left shoe, no matter how secure she thought it was when the ‘gods’ whipped her away.
Bloody Loki. If she saw their false faces again, she’d either kill them or die trying. Something of a plan, but no window of opportunity. The world stopped spinning and pushed the air out of her lungs and made breathing in again a very painful prospect. On the upside, it looked like she wouldn’t be waking up tied to a stake and on top of a pyre in progress again.
“It’s a demon! Kill it before it can gain power!”
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Challenge #01483-D022: Portents of Doom
“You know the bad thing about being a survivor… You keep having to get into difficult situations in order to show off your gift.” - Carrie Fisher – @recklessprudence
“I wouldn’t ordinarily complain about your… shenanigans,” said the Cuidgari Security Chief everyone knew as Sherlock, “you have such a finely-tuned sense for skating on the borders of legality. But this is the third time this week. Are you bored, or have you and Rael had a… ‘tiff’ as you call it?”
“In me defence, I fergot it was a ten-day week,” said Shayde. Technically an Ambassador, and nominally human. She had a… complicated backstory[1]. And, as it seemed, she lived to make life interesting for everyone around her. “That, and… er…”
That ‘er’ was a portent of doom if there ever was one. “I’m not a therapist. I’m not here for your confession. Talk to your… ah…” what was her outlandish phrase? “Snuggle buddy? He’s at least been taking _classes_ in therapy.”
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Challenge #01456-C361: One Muddled Mid-morning in a Mystery Vessel
“Do you want to know how I can tell this is a terrible idea?”
“…how?”
“I’m being the voice of reason!” – OohLookShiny
The assembled cogniscents spared a moment to regard Ambassador Shayde. Widely regarded as the specific embodiment of human insanity. They then looked to each other as if daring someone to say, How did we get so far astray?
“As th’ great Montgomery Scott said, Ye cannae change the laws o’ physics,” insisted Shayde. “Well. Unless ye got special circumstances, ye ken, but this is no’ one of ‘em.”
“And you would know this,” said I'braxx. Ze was a more recent addition to Galactic Society and still equated insanity with lessened cognitive abilities.
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Challenge #01446-C351: Bad Head Day
:Merrily Doing A Thing:
:Pause:
(To myself) “Wait, no. Logic.”
:Stops Doing The Thing: – @recklessprudence
Brain fog gets to everyone. Even those who do not, strictly speaking, have brains as we know them.
Rael caught himself in early morning lo-cal fog, holding a bread knife over a large cantaloupe. What he had been about to do was unclear but cutting had to be involved.
“This is not right,” he told himself. He put the knife down, put the cantaloupe into the Skin-a-Majig[1], and extracted his overnight oats whilst the fruit did its circular ballet.
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Challenge #01432-C337: Very Wrong Number
Phone numbers and… unxpected… results. Your choice, the FBI story, the Red Phone story, both in one, or one of both. – @recklessprudence
Not many people called her on the comms. Even Rael was satisfied by sending her Pings. Text messages somewhere between chats and emails, as she understood it. Some methods of communication had homogenised since the eighties.
Phones were the biggest. She didn’t have a phone as she knew it. The closest she had to a phone was a set, an earwig that hooked over the back of her ear and transmitted sound directly to her cochlea, and a ring that acted as a microphone.
She was having a day off, which meant that it was noon, and she had yet to get out of her pyjamas or stop watching cartoons. And therefore it was a surprise that the ring she wore on her pinkie buzzed. Seconds after that vibration, her left ear started ringing.
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Challenge #01357-C262: Strange Encounters
“Why is there a man convulsing in the halls?”
“Don’t worry, the king’s men will see to him.”
“That’s… not what I asked,” – OohLookShiny
The new Ambassador for T'kerrrita was taking the Tour. Since it was between Ambassadorial Meets, the Tour was meant to acclimate them to the most amount of civilisations in the least amount of time. And, naturally, one of the stops was Amalgam Station, which always had a solid volume of Ambassadors at any given time.
Unfortunately… one of those Ambassadors was Shayde.
The guide, a human named Bob, had hoped to rush T'rrri through the main commercial concourse and thereby keep them distracted with enough shiny objects to choke a Bugblatter Beast. Alas, all those hopes were dashed because Murphy’s Law decreed that the worst possible thing had to happen at the worst possible time.
Challenge #01353-C258: Baffling Footage
Imagine this being the only news clip in existence for this time period (like the comment says) after Shayde pops up, and people asking her about it. – @recklessprudence
[AN: Amalgam happens 500 years in our future, but I can deal]
Shayde didn’t expect a ceremony. Usually what passed as her work was catching up with news and events she had missed[1], gathering favourites, and occasionally explaining things to a small audience of concerned Archivaas.
Today… the entire theatre was booked out. With live-streaming content for the people who couldn’t get a seat and people crouching in the aisles and a camera person aimed at her face to catch even the subtlest reaction.
Shayde checked her databrace to see what the flying hell was up.
2010’s. Weather forecast.
Challenge #01346-C251: Purse of Holding
Like the Tardis it’s ‘bigger on the inside’. It can be anything carryable from a Ladies handbag (a notorious source of strange objects), to one of those pull along “granny” trailers, or whatever you like. – @knitnan
“Here. You’ll need this.”
It looked like a small, leather pouch. There was some beading on it that had evidently not been designed with hard use in mind. But, it didn’t feel like a small, leather pouch. It felt indefinably heavier. “What is this?”
“Bag o’ holdin’,” said Shayde. “They’ll take yer coat, so put yer best-use stuff in tha’.”