Challenge #00879-B148: Tokens of Adulthood
multitool,
They threw him a Going Away Party. Just like they threw him an Adoption Day party on the anniversary of his arrival on Hippo Mining Station. And, like all the things the mining crew did for him, it involved available materials.
So far, he’d been given a pair of The Drongo’s old work-boots - refurbished and ‘gussied up’ with a layer of gleaming black ductape. This parcel contained fabric scraps from Dode’s stash. Every colour of the rainbow, and then some.
“These are your fat quarters,” he said. “I can’t–”
“Every JOAT must make their own coat, kiddo,” said Dode the JOAT. “And for that, you need cloth. I’m not about to send you out through five jumps with a bare back.”
“I’ll make good use of every thread,” he whispered.
The last gift came from all the miners. Meaning that they’d cumulatively gleaned, scraped, and fabricated it. Hard work, for such a little parcel.
It was, indeed, small. The red of two sides of the oblong was a kind of ochre. It had a H instead of the white cross.
The blades had a knife, two screwdrivers, a saw, and a pair of pliers. As well as scissors and a really big blade. And a spoon.
They’d hand-forged a swissarmynyff[1]. Rael wished he could weep for the joy of it. “Thank you,” he said. “I know how much this cost you. This is my first and best treasure.”
Dave was the last. “You’ll need this to go with Dode’s. Bon voyage, eh?”
It was a sewing kit. And a cheat sheet of basic patterns.
Work boots. A coat in potentia. And a First Multitool.
“Today,” he said, “I am a JOAT. And an independent citizen of the Galactic Alliance. Wherever I go… whatever I do… I’ll always treasure my time here. Thank you for everything.”
Then it was tears and crushing hugs from all the miners. And a couple of bawdy songs before they all-but carried him to the departing shuttle like a victor of some horrible war.
He had the things he needed to live. His tank. His kibble supply. The clothes on his back and the warm memories of the first place where he was loved.
He had the things he needed to work. Good boots, a coat, and his first toolkit.
And he had the entire universe to find a place where he would belong.
All in all, Rael found it… terrifying.
[1] It’s natural for some phrases to become words.
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Challenge #00878-B147: Educational Aside
Since this year was a bust, eurovision prompt 2: Lasha Tumbai
[AN: I looked her up on Youtube… wow]
“So… if that’s ‘Eurovision Lite’…” Rael couldn’t help himself. Perhaps curiosity was yet another Alpha-draft flaw. “What is -ah- ‘Eurovision Heavy’ like?”
“Nearest words I can get is - the video answer tae crack.” Shayde queued up another video segment and fetched more popcorn.
“I’m not going to see anything… awful… am I?”
“Na, na, na… It’s all good. This lot’re very good. It’s just… techno dance accordion.”
“That was word salad.”
“That was an accurate description.”
They were wearing mirrors in what could easily be mistaken for a third-dan Insulter’s uniform. The lead singer had a gigantic star on her mirrored skullcap.
It was techno. It did make him think about dancing. And there was definitely an accordion in there.
And it was catchy as hell.
“That,” he announced, when silence once again reigned, “was almost a level three weaponizable ear-worm“
“Glad ye like,” teased Shayde.
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Challenge #00877-B146: Walk This Way
The ministry of silly walks.
“Absolutely not. That walk is the wholly-owned property of the Consortium of Steam.”
Ribuffo sighed and stood still. “Fine. It was just an experiment. What about this one?” Once again, she paraded in front of the motion capture cameras.
And once again, the alarm blatted.
“Don’t tell me. I accidentally did Wilgro. I knew it. One more. One more.” This time, Ribuffo added the little fillip with the half-skip left step.
“That’s Wilgro with a half-skip left fillip,” said the clerk. “And it’s owned by Dedtrii, you know? The–”
“–one who does all the Wilgro parody pieces. I know.” Ribuffo fell into the interview chair. “Dale… I want to be funny. Are there any -Idunno- public domain walks?”
Dale raised her eyebrow. “Uh… I could get into trouble for looking.” Then she lowered her voice to a whisper, “And I can’t tell you to go looking for Archivaas Blaiiz in the Fiftieth district, subsection forty-eight. I can’t tell you to go meet at the Undisclosed Coffee Shop because it doesn’t exist. There’s no such thing as a cafe with no surveillance on Ghiisham. And I definitely can not tell you to get Archivaas Blaiiz’s help with form WWITGI-84529G. Got that?“
Ribuffo winked and tapped her squeaker-nose. “Absolutely not,” she said. “I won’t do any of those things at all.”
Comedy was serious business on Ghiishem.
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Challenge #00876-B145: DO NOT ASK
Murphy’s Law, and ensuing resulting chaos thereof.
[AN: You can get some really interesting ones over here: http://www.scottrainey.com/jokes/murphys_laws.htm]
There are rules to space travel. Primary amongst them is: Shut the flakking door. And many of them are cycled upwards or downwards depending on the frequency of use.
But always, somewhere in the top ten is: Never ask questions with an inherently obvious answer.
The examples of the lawbreakers are numerous. Blex T’iiv once said, “They’re only level three Deathworlders. What can they do to us?” and quickly found out.
R’ixxo the Mighty asked, “How can those squishy things conquer a solar system?” and got a very practical demonstration.
And many humans have had, “It can’t get much worse, can it?” as their epitaph.
And, in retrospect, Trader Ax’and’s should really learn to stop asking, “What else can this human do to make my life more complicated?”
The human had a nervous rictus and both hands cupping his genitals. “Hi,” was the only greeting he had.
“I take it your ‘date’ didn’t go that well.”
“Ah. No. Water-soluable clothing. Water sluice ride. Do I need to spell it out?”
Ax’and’l sighed. “Has a complaint been registered against Ambassador Shayde?”
Sherlock maintained his usual unreadable facade. “Mister Barrow refuses to press charges. He said he deserved it.”
“What did he do to–” Ax’and’l cut himself off. He was learning. “No. No. Never mind. I’m sure I’ll read about it in the news feeds.”
Hwell belched an anxious titter. “Yeah. She kind of made certain there was a lot of press…”
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Challenge #00875-B144: Things To Do…
W.I.P. (work in progress, U.F.O. (unfinished object). See what you can do with it.
[AN: You don’t really need to say “see what you can do with it” at the end of a prompt. I will see. And so will you. Required reading: Ballad of Bitzer]
July 13 1923
Bitzer had been waiting. Hiding silently under the dropcloth and listening. One of the children had a nasty cough. It sounded like the poor infant’s throat was about to be coughed up.
She knew from conversation that Maman was working on anything that would help. Ivy tea. Barley soup. Steam… always hard in the middle of winter.
The children were not allowed to see Bitzer. Not how she was. With only one arm and half a face and no legs… it would scare the poor babies to death.
…and speaking of steam…
Bits waited until Maman turned on a tap before she reached backwards to turn on the tap behind her head. Water poured into a pail and re-filled it. Just enough so that Bitzer could sip and refill her boiler with the help of a long piece of rubber hose.
Maman would not be coming downstairs, tonight. Of course not. She was so busy with her flesh children that she had no time for her metal one. And that was all right. Bitzer could wait. She was patient.
1925
Waiting was getting a little dull. Nobody hardly ever came down into the cellar, any more. Especially not Maman. Bitzer read things. Books within the reach of her left arm. The plans on the wall for Colonel Peter A. Walter Singing Musical Automaton Zero Zero One.
And then she had an idea.
What if Maman was testing Bitzer’s capabilities? What if she wanted to see what Bitzer could do on her own?
And why not? The tools were right there. Most of the parts were right there. Right within easy reach. And the plans were certainly legible.
1938
Her right arm was suspiciously unlike her left, but -oh!- how useful it was. And with the help of the wire-frame spectacles… and a coat-hook screwed in to the left side of her facial chassis… she could see and do so much more.
Legs were infinitely more trouble than arms. She was certain she hadn’t got her right hip quite correct. And with the beginnings of metal femurs, she could sit up and reach the oil on the high shelf.
And an envelope of pictures.
They were funny pictures, with black where the white should be and vice versa. All but one went back into the envelope from whence they came. This one was special. This one was Maman.
Bits took a moment to read the careful writing on the back. Plaesir Gloria “Play” Arist nee Aris. Shown here in Walter Worker Uniform C. 1894. Negative. Do not expose to light. Bits hugged it to her opal heart before sliding it under the headrest.
1942
The people who came down into the cellar did not even bother to look for Bitzer. They put things in boxes and shoved the boxes together until there was no room to shove them into.
On the plus side, it meant that there were plenty of things to build her legs out of.
Maman was going to make such a fuss when she came back and saw all this mess.
Bitzer decided that she might be better off finishing herself so she could at least clear a path.
1946
Sorting was fun. She got to see new things and find new books and there were lots of things to read. And there were toys, too. Toys the children had had before Maman sent them down.
Maman was being so mysterious… Maybe Bitzer should ask her if this was the right idea.
She waited until night-time, of course. Maman liked to stay up after dark and do all the things she couldn’t do with the children in her elbows. And again, she contemplated the stairs. They were just a series of little floors. All the way up to the big door.
She could lift a foot and place it on a step. She could hold the bannister and brace against the wall…
But the instant she tried to pull herself up, her damage sensors screamed that something was very, very, very wrong with her knees.
Maman was not coming down, yet. And Bitzer could not go up.
Perhaps there was a hint in one of the boxes…
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Challenge #00874-B143: Sufficiently Advanced Technology
Today’s challenge is to write anything you like based on the animated video for Mystery Skulls: Ghost
If you need to know, Blue = Vivi, Yellow = Arthur, Purple = Lewis and Dog = Mystery
[AN: This takes place sometime after a re-union of ghost and mystery team. Also I love the fuck out of MSA :D]
Mystery had his nine tails out as he slept. And one eye open. Lewis glared at the kitsune, and at the target beyond.
Arthur. Snoring gently into a cushion of electrical parts and crystals. The remains of an entire case of Caf-Pow Superbullet cans scattered around the vicinity of a trash can.
Like so many other nights. Many of them while Lewis still had flesh.
The way it used to be… they never let Arthur tinker alone. Strange things happened when he was hepped up on too much caffeine and sarsaparilla. And, yes, there was a scattering of root beer bottles underneath his desk.
Memories battled with each other. Lewis knew, as team mom, that Arthur was going to wake up with an atrocious back, a crick in his neck and one hell of a headache. Why hadn’t Vivi…?
Vivi couldn’t carry Arthur to bed. That had always been Lewis’ job.
But also, he remembered the push. One green hand and a lunge. One expression of demented glee battling with the other - utter, pitch-black terror. And his own, illogical concern that Arthur had once again become possessed. He’d forgotten his stupid amulet in the stupid car again. Even though they put the stupid thing on the stupid rear-view so he could stupid see it and remember to put it stupid on…
And he remembered the feel of the stalagmite. And the struggle for air. And begging Vivi not to look. And he remembered the hate. He always remembered the hate.
It was easy to hate Arthur. It was easy to enjoy scaring the kid. So easy… to forget that he had once been Arthur’s mentor. That he’d taken the nervous, twitchy, bullied and browbeaten mechanical genius under his wing. How Arthur had resurrected the Skullmobile from a burned out chassis and a veritable plethora of junk parts.
…how Arthur had invented most of the machines that had saved them all too many times from the otherworldly menaces…
…how scared and shivering Arthur had kept coming back to face his fears…
And he had to keep reminding himself. Why he should not hate Arthur.
Vivi told him, often, about the year and a day since the fall. She called it ‘the fall’. During their time apart, she called it ‘the bad thing’ and did not remember. And once she did… She literally cried for a week. Once she was done, she told him how Arthur had gone through a rapid succession of replacement limbs before inventing his own. It had half the tech they used on their adventures, inside it. And an improved Amulet. He’d never get possessed again.
Some days, it felt like too little, too late. Tonight… it made the rage go away. Because Arthur never took the arm off. Not even for a second.
Lewis tidied up, using his postmortem telekinesis to silently remove the remains of Arthur’s indulgences. And in doing so, he uncovered the plans. Like always, the contents of the plans were incomprehensible to Lewis, but there was a title and a paragraph. Added by habit to stop Lewis derailing Arthur’s train of thought with questions.
He still did that. Even after a year of Lewis’ death.
The words on the sheet read: Corporeal Recombobulator. Return flesh to Earthbound Spirits over the passage of nine months. The rest of it was the usual incomprehensible mixture of math, science, and magic.
And the finished product resembled a bright yellow companion cube.
“…’m s’rry, lew… didn’ mean it…” Arthur mumbled, turning his head. There were transistors and resistors and a crystal stuck to his face.
Lewis sighed and carried Arthur to bed. Things may never be as they were… but they could at least mend the bridges.
When he looked back at Mystery, he seemed like an ordinary dog, once more.
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Challenge #00873-B142: Distracting Objects
Keets and a laser pointer.
Problem one: Keets are super-delicate babies and must be protected.
Problem two: Keets are as hyper as all get out in rainy weather.
Problem three: Keets can climb, but they’re not that great at getting down safely.
Problem four: they’re suicidally curious and have worked out how to open the playroom door.
Keri had to keep them under constant supervision and off the shelving and occupied until the grownups came back.
And, as further trouble, the usual array of kidvids didn’t seem to capture their gnatlike attentions. Neither did any of the approved toys. They were bored out of their little gourds and had cabin fever to boot.
Then she remembered how she kept the kittens away from Mom and Ms Ri’ki. In a fit of half-crazed, sleep-deprived genius, Keri got the trinkets jar down and unearthed the laser pointer.
*
“We’re ho-ome!”
Silence. Ominous, heart-stopping silence. Anne rushed to the playroom door and sneaked it open.
One pre-teen child, deep in slumberland and the pillows of the hammock. Leg dangling awkwardly at an uncomfortable angle.
And in the nest-bed opposite, one, two, three… all four of Ri’ki’s keets. All snuggled up together under the warming blanket.
All alive, whole, and -yes- breathing.
“…mom…?”
Anne nearly jumped out of her skin. “Hi, darling. How was keet-sitting?”
“Hectic until I busted out the laser pointer.”
“Oh… kay?”
“Ran ‘em around until they ran out of puff,” Keri grinned. Then yawned. “And I’m still on ten percent battery. Can I go to my bed?”
“Yeah, go for it. The grownups can keep an eye on the keets, now.“
Keri sighed and lurched towards her room like a half-conscious zombie.
Laser pointers. They really did work on any creature with a small attention span.
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Challenge #00872-B141: Children of the Monitor Light
http://chokingonfeelings.tumblr.com/post/120109659651/zzdigital-what-if-someone-got-bitten-by-a
(Transcription:
What if someone got bitten by a vampire, but didn’t realize it. So then they go around and keep misidentifying all the symptoms, like
“Dude, you haven’t gone outside in a while.”
“Yeah, last time I went out I got this wicked sunburn.”“Are you still up?”
“Yeah, I started bing watching this show on Netflix.”“Dude, I’m seriously craving something right now.”
“Like what?”
“I dunno. Pizza rolls?”)
Hey there. Andy Carter. Freelance programmer. Nerd blogger. But you knew that. That is, if you’re one of the few who actually reads these ramblings.
I’m still looking for that asshole who slipped me something at Juliana’s kegger/barbecue. Would you believe nobody got photographs? Like, a million people glued to their phones and doing Snapchats and that kind of fuckshit… and not one of them caught the asshole who figured out a way to get past my guard.
He was a slick sunofabitch, I can tell you that. It’s bastards like him that make me put on the ole cockblocker 9000. And you all told me that it was stupid to make my own chastity belt.
Ha! Joke’s on you. It worked, so ner.
Anyway, ever since then I’ve had some weird kinda bug. Bastard managed to give me something.
It’s been four weeks since I woke up on Juliana’s porch swing with a massive pain in my neck. Weird stuff has been happening.
I get this bizarre craving for rare meat. Like super-rare. You ever heard of Blue Steak? Where they bless a hunk of dead cow with a kiss to the grille and serve it like that?
Yeah. THAT rare.
I am sorry. This is like an overwhelming craving. Spinach doesn’t cut it. I can’t be vegan any more.
At least it’s still raw food, right? It’s gotta be some kind of healthy.
And on that note - to the ‘just get some sun’ team: I literally can’t. Last time I stepped out into daylight? I went out to fetch my mail. Came back inside with the kind of sunburns that make people sick. I think I might be allergic to sunshine, now.
Yeah. It’s a thing.
Moonlight is okay. It’s diffuse. It doesn’t hurt. And taking midnight strolls is not exactly safe for a gal unless I have the sense of mind to don the cockblocker 9000 and carry my best friend - the Louisville Slugger with extra barbed wire wrapped around it.
It’s amazing how few people fuck with me when I have Louis by my side.
I have to avoid the cops, though. They tend to frown on Louis.
I’ve been getting a little more… aggressive, lately. Like I want someone to fuck with me. The idea of smashing Louis into some douchebag’s face is… well… it’s a kind of fantasy that rarely leaves my thoughts.
And I swear I’m hallucinating. I can’t see my face in mirrors, any more. I thought that was something that only happened in dreams. Bernie, the nice lady who delivers my shopping, came by and confirmed that I wasn’t dreaming. She also said she couldn’t see my reflection, either. She helped me with that video I put up on Youtube.
That one won me five hundred off of Real Or Fake. Yay.
And - I used to love anything garlic. Now even the faintest whiff of Aoli makes me want to run and puke. I’ve been torn from my favourite condiment.
Bernie keeps telling me it’s for the best. That I smell nicer, now.
I have no idea how to tell her, but… she’s started to smell delicious. Like I want to bite her neck… Actually bite it.
Something weird is going on. It’s that asshole’s fault, I know it.
Can anyone help with this? Every time I google the symptoms, I get a billion links to Twilight fanfic. Gross.
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A call home from college…
((Inspired by this rather strange image: http://i.imgur.com/wq1qvY4.jpg ))
“…um… and one more thing. Daddy, I’m dating… a black man.”
“Well, that’s no problem. I’m no racist; I’m not gonna be upset if my baby girl thinks her old man should have a future son-in-law with brown skin.”
“Daddy, we’re not even thinking about marriage yet! But anyway… no, Daddy, I didn’t mean a colored person. I said black. He’s literally black. My boyfriend absorbs light. I’m dating a living void from beyond the edge of space.”
“… well… that kinda distance’s gonna make travel for holiday visits tricky.”
(#00871-B140)
[AN: I think I might know what happened with that pic. Once upon a dime, before digital imagery, I took a photo with my best friend at the time, pre-prom. The people at the photo processing place “corrected” my deathly pallor into a healthy tan and my friend, who was already a healthy tan, into really dark. Even if this pic is digital in origin…. The image is further proof that engineers really need a wider scope when photographing brown people.]
He arrived in a perpetual shadow and a subtle chorus from an eldritch origin. His otherwise normal street clothes delineating his form.
“Thank you for inviting me into your home,” he said in a voice that sounded like honey at midnight where the jar had been wrapped in black velvet.
“Yeah, I hear it’s quite a haul from where you live.”
“I am an exchange student. And I am seeking to immigrate. You have an interesting civilisation.”
“Thank you, we do work at it.”
“You are at a crux point. I wish to observe the conflict at a much closer range.”
“Oh… kay…” Steve cleared his throat. “And -ah- your intentions with my Donna?”
“I was not aware that you owned her.”
“Uh….” he cleared his throat again. “Well… Um…” the awkwardness of this Thanksgiving was only going to get worse.
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Challenge #00870-B139: Never Hitchhike Drunk
“And that is how I accidentally fostered peace between two species and became mayor of Broccolopolis”
Let me tell you, there are some cargo haulers out there who can make Space Lightning out of anything that can ferment.
And freeze-distilling that stuff in Kelvin-scale temperatures gives it one hell of a kick.
And my brewer in chief decided to drop me off somewhere light years away from my destination.
A planet in the middle of a generations-long war.
By the time I got there, they’d been killing each other for millenia and just about the entire planet was an immense graveyard. I say ‘graveyard’ but it was more along the lines of ‘garden’.
See, both sides elected to honour their dead with sort of… tree things. If you can imagine a hybrid of a carrot, pumpkin, broccoli and Yggdrasil as a ‘tree’. They looked like trees and that was good enough for me.
There was only one town left and it had a thick wall in the middle that passed for the spaceport. And administrations building. It was there that I discovered, in my hangover haze, that both sides were no longer fighting over any kind of moral issue. They were fighting over land in which to live.
All those trees left zero territory for housing or farming.
I went for an escorted tour and someone informed me that they were edible from root to leaf.
“Well,” I said, “Why don’t people eat the insides and live in them, then?”
You could hear a pin drop.
I wasn’t quite sober, yet, so I assumed the tour was over and ambled back to the hostel room that was literally a hole in the wall.
And when I woke up… I was not only savior of the planet, but also the mayor of the now-expanding Broccolopolis.
I have my very own Ygdrassil-manor with an indoor pool, though. It’s not all bad. And they make a killer tree-sap brew here. Want to try some? No strings attached…
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