Challenge #00764 - B033: Emergency Procedures

“When in trouble, when in doubt. Run in circles, scream and shout!” Have fun with this!

These were the most bizarre aliens she had ever seen. Their emergency klaxon was a twinkly little tune suitable for Play School or Sesame Street[1] replete with singing. The jolly lady’s voice instructed the entire crew on how to panic in the same tone of friendly warning that other PSA’s would tell children where and how to cross the road[2].

Allie just danced through the panicking Gallusians and fixed the problem. It wasn’t even that big a deal. A simple solder and the diverse alarms fell into silence.

“Oi!” Cork protested. “Why’d you have to go and do that for?”

“It was broken?” Allie suggested. At their collected, avian, blank stares she added, “It needed fixing, so I fixed it.”

“That’s for the third chorus,” said Cork, as if the visiting human in their midst was beyond dense. “We get our panicking over with, and the automated systems then tell us who needs to do what so we can do it. Then we finish with a round or three of orchestrated panicking so everyone has it out of our systems and we can move on.”

“Why not just fix the problem and then do all the de-stressing?”

Cork looked at her as if she’d grown another head. “Where’s the fun in that?”

[1] Some things will last forever. Do not argue with me on this.

[2] Look up They Might Be Giants’ song In the Middle, In the Middle to hear what I’m talking about.

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Return to the Greater Dereg That Got It Right

Exactly what it says on the tin.

(#00763 - B032)

[AN: This would be directly related to Challenge #323 in One Leap Year of Instants, available for whatever you want at Smashwords]

How to run a world without taxes, Kell wrote. First: Eliminate the government. Elected officials only care for their results in the next election, leading to years of nothing done, followed by flurries of activity nearing the election season.

Public services are therefore run by non-profit organisations with client care as their first priority. Volunteers are hailed as heroes and paid a bonus based entirely on how many lives they save.

Those who wished to be educated paid their educator on a pre-arranged system based entirely on information retention. Thusly, this planet has a high mass of extremely informative memes.

Libraries run entirely on the funds from book and information rental. And are extraordinarily well-kept.

Those who care to can learn from generations past at a fraction of the cost a live tutor would demand. This has lead to a lot of ‘genius from the underclass’ stories before the idea of underclass was understandably eliminated. Social change continued along these ideals until all reason for despising another individual besides jealousy was gone.

The media runs itself, of course, going with what sells the best. And advertising costs are appallingly low.

It’s not been made easy to succeed. All the normal social blocks are gone, and in their place are others. Foreigners expecting to stay are also expected to contribute. Holidays are something that happens when the holidayer can afford to go.

Nevertheless, businesses have found out through trial and error that allowing their employees time off leads to greater productivity.

The atmosphere of the entire planet is one of enlightened self-interest. Citizens help the poor and downtrodden because eliminating poverty also eliminates the need for crime. The mentally disabled are nurtured with proper care because they would easily become hazards to the smooth running of society, were they allowed to run loose.

In fact, all disorders are equal. If cures are not available, palliative care is at cost. Exorbitant prices for medicine are unheard of, here. One sick person can make many sick people, that is why they do their utmost to eliminate sickness.

I heartily recommend this planet to the Cogniscent Rights Committee. Please take the assorted leaders of the other Greater Deregulations to this world, so they can see what their world could be if they just allowed the people to run the world.

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Numedid Meets the Birds of Earth, Part 3

Numedid meet the Penguins, finding them to be practicing Marxists with the capacity to utterly conquer the known galaxy, but have held off because they “want to see how the whole human thing turns out first”.

(#00762 - B031)

[AN: Not gonna lie, my first thought was with the Penguins of the Madagascar movies… resisting said temptation with my entire might.]

Humans called them Emperor penguins. They had a much more complicated name for themselves that T'reka the Wanderer could never pronounce, but they were kind enough to allow her the luxury of calling them ‘Emperor’.

“We are bird-kind,” said the Matriarch. “We have no ill-will to bird-kind. The bipedal, bald mammals… we watch them. They are kind enough to us. We share… planet for now.”

“What do you mean?” asked the Numidid.

“We share much. We share the cold. We share the nurturing and feeding of the young. We share the fish. It is no great stretch to share a world. No need for us to conquer the humans. They will exterminate themselves in time. Or leave. Either way, we are patient. We have always been patient. Winter ends.”

That was two words with an ocean’s full of meaning. Winter ends. The dark times of the season, or the dark times of the epoch, or the dark times at all… would end in the fullness of time. All the Emperors had to do was endure.

They were prepared, if it came to a fight, of course. They were Emperors. They were prepared for anything. They had a camouflage flock up on the ice to appease the humans who came to make documentaries… but in the caves underneath Antarctica…

It was a Survivalist’s wet dream. Shelter, facilities, factories, farms… everything a nation of penguins could ever want.

Including weapons.

T'reka fluffed out her feathers on instinct. She was in the company of dangerous Birds.

“There’s hope for the humans,” soothed the Matriarch. “If they ever get too unruly, we might have to step in.”

Considering that the Emperors had already allowed the humans to slaughter whales, overfish to the point of global ocean breakdown, and dumped tons of plastic in the waters… T'reka had to wonder what that fatal line would be.

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Challenge #00761 - B030: What a Waste

A numidid who is the living embodiment of handsome - his feathers are perfectly aligned and gleaming, talons sharp and shiny, vibrant crest, and zygomatic arches to make everyone swoon.
He’s also a scientist. (from Amity or not)
Commence shenanigans!

Lu’iz had no idea he was handsome. He carried on in all his beliefs and allowed everyone else to be mistaken in theirs. Such was the life of a scientist.

And yet, every day, he would hear some female on the streets or public transits sigh and murmur, “What a waste…” as if his very existence was offensive to the order of things.

It plagued him ever since he passed puberty, and continued to confuse him for some years into his lonely adulthood.

Young storekeeps would coo or bob for him… right up until the moment he opened his beak and spoke like a scientist. It would be then that he heard those fated three words and the regretful sighs.

Sometimes, he received hate… as if his very existence was an aberration like none other in the universe. Lu’iz had very little idea how he had managed to capture their ire. He was, according to them, deceptive and dishonest. Trying to trap honest females in a sordid relationship with a -ugh- scientist.

He had given up trying to explain that he wasn’t trying to do anything of the sort when T’reka the Mad’s transmissions began from Toxic Island. He began avoiding going out in public, too. At least until the equally insane humans’ views began to infect the general populace.

His neighbour, Ii’ree was the first to talk to him. Nervous and clearly afraid of anyone seeing her at it, she asked, “Why did you go into Science? You could have easily been an actor. And far more acceptable.”

“Acting is the art of lies,” he answered honestly. “I have a far better relationship with the truth.”

“Do you have any idea how beautiful you are?”

“None at all. Everyone keeps calling me a waste. Or a liar. I… I don’t like that.”

Someone came through the hall, cutting off all opportunities to speak further.

Lu’iz thought nothing of it for the following months, until she found him calibrating a telescope on the roof of their shared domicile. It was late afternoon and he was checking the orbit of the local gas giant.

“You’ll burn your beautiful eyes out,” she cautioned. Ii’ree was gathering her laundry from the rooftop clothing lines.

“All is well,” he assured, “I am not looking at the sun. I’m observing the nearby planets.”

“In daylight?” she scoffed. “There’s nothing up there.”

“We see the moon, do we not? There is more to see if one knows how to look. "I have counted four moons around Stripy Titan already.”

Ii’ree looked up at the boundless blue. “There is nothing to see but the air…”

“Then come and look closer. I promise you won’t catch Science Germs.”

She put her basket down and hopped up to his perch. Peered skeptically down the eyepiece. And then Ii’ree squawked and leaped backwards. “Impossible!”

“Deep breaths,” he soothed. “Impossible is another way of saying ‘don’t look’. The universe continues to work without our observation. The blue Stripy Titan is proof.”

“…but… but… How?”

“It’s always there. Night just allows us to see it better. And I counted the moons by the shadows they cast. It’s quite fascinating.”

“It’s terrifying,” breathed Ii’ree.

“Why?” he asked. “How could it hurt you?”

Ii’ree had no answer. But for the rest of her life - including the passage of time when it was legal to be his wife - she would take the time to look at the sky in wonder.

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Challenge #00760 - B029: Hug-a-Bunch

“And here we have- please put the new ambassador down.”
“But (s)he’s so cute and cuddle able!”

Ha’ri still didn’t understand how she became an ambassador to her people. She was just one of the many, many asteroid-chasers trying to make enough money to pay for more than her ship and its fuel. Especially damages.

Then a ship belonging to the strange, balding apes had come out of nowhere and she made the mistake of hailing them.

Now she wore a gold version of her work clothes, and walked among giants.

The humans were all right, really. They were just mind-bogglingly insane. But insane in ways that bordered on genius.

No other species would have thought of tying a ship’s proximity sensors to the grapplers, and then programming the latter to take anything it snagged straight to the on-board processors. And nobody else would have considered calling the resultant, cthuloid monstrosity a harmless-seeming name like “the hungry caterpillar”.

It took Ha’ri all of ten beats, watching it in motion, to want to have that system attached to her ship. It was a nightmare made mechanics, but it was a potentially profitable nightmare.

And now, she was in another nightmare. An immense space station seemingly designed by a warped mind. Her human guide had explained that the station had just happened. Various people throughout the ages had added to it, reconfigured it, and otherwise messed around with how it was put together. Ha’ri was so used to humans by now that she was not surprised at all to learn that there was a cult of humans who considered the station to be a living being.

And then there was the welcome she got upon entering the Ambassadorial Conference Arena. There were already people there. If one greatly expanded one’s definition of ‘people’ to include a group of human-shaped machines playing instruments with a glowing-eyed creature with sharp teeth - while a blue-skin man looked on in resignation.

“Aaaaaawwww…” cooed the black-skinned humanoid with the guitar. Her glowing eyes had somehow turned pinkish. “Aaah ‘is such a cutie…”

“Shayde,” warned the blue man. “No…”

By then, the being known as Shayde was across the room and had literally picked Ha’ri up and was vigorously cuddling her.

“Put the new ambassador down!”

"Aw but she’s so cute an’ huggable…”

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Wardrobe Malfunction

We return to the campaign of Kermit the Frog and Undead!Fred Rogers, who is now starting to look a bit…ripe. This leads up to a live debate where bits of Mr. Rogers visibly start falling off, ending in a total structural collapse during his concluding speech.
Even with one member a rapidly putrefying puddle of flesh, the Frog/Rogers ticket is still far in the lead.

(#00759 - B028)

[AN: I want to go on the record that I find this idea really disrespectful to Mr Rogers, everything he stood for, everything he lived for, and his surviving friends and family. Thanks, you have left me in a place between my collected morals]

“Mercy…”

The interview jinked to a sudden halt. Rogers was holding his right arm. Moving it back into his shoulder socket with his left hand. “It’s running out,” he said, looking horrified. “I didn’t mean to alarm anyone. This is… this is what happens to the human body once it’s dead. I’m sorry.”

Those were the last words he spoke through a fleshy mouth. Kermit explained it, while a team of aides hustled Rogers out. First, behind a curtain, and then, into a prepared facility.

“You see, kids, in order to come back from the-from the-from the other side, Fred Rogers had a choice. He could inhabit a living host, which would steal their life from them, or he could re-animate his own, dead body… which -uh- which would… you know… have its drawbacks. We did everything to keep him together, but…” Kermit sighed. “None of that was enough.”

“Are you going to continue your campaign now that your running-mate is out of the picture?”

“Who-who-who said he’s out of the picture. We’ve had a plan for this since we started.”

*

They put his bones back together with artificial joints. Clothed them with the additive foam process. Used the best science to reconstruct his face. His eyes, though artificial, still needed glasses.

The best of puppet science made him something of a macabre puppet, himself. Opposition rallied with the phrase ‘puppet government’, but the kindness and caring evident in the remains of Rogers, as well as in Kermit, convinced millions to vote for them anyway.

The republicans were livid.

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So That’s What They’re Up To…

Scenes from an apartment building for divinities who lack major worshiper populations. Thor complains about Sobek using all of the building’s hot water, Huitzilopochtli and Apollo are catty he-bitches to each other, and even the other Gods of Death agree that Anubis is damn creepy; that sort of thing.

(#00758 - B027)

[AN: Apologies for the eurocentrism, but I did have to do very quick research on this and finding non-european obscure gods is an exercise in frustration]

Hestia ran the apartments. As far as being a landlord was concerned, this was her heaven. She was a goddess of hearth and hospitality, and ran a family clinic on the side with some of the other fertility gods.

St Isidore teamed up with Mímir, a disembodied and mummified head, to run the internet equivalent of an advice column and were seldom seen outside of the shared meal times in the dining hall. Which was when Mímir would tell his ‘joke’ to anyone who bothered to hang around and listen to it.

“…and then Odin goes to the dwarfs and asks them nicely for them to create a new body for me, since Vanir threw a hissy fit and shredded my original corpse…”

Iris, clad in clashing spectrums of gaudy, angrily added food items from the buffet to her tray. “Mercury! Bloody Mercury. I could have been just as good for the messenger business. But no. They had to go with a dude with wings on his hat and his winkie hanging out…”

“At least you get girls named after you. All I get is the occasional side-fling in Sailor Moon episodes and scungy weeaboos using my name in vain.”

“…flaw after flaw after flaw after flaw,” Mírmir continued. “They fix the knees but the hips go wrong. They fix the hips, but the neck goes wrong. They fix the neck…”

Antevorte sighed. “Nobody is really listening and if you do finish, you’re going to get eggs thrown at you again. I’ll help.” She reached forward to soothe Iris. “It’s all right. We’re all here, hoping for our next big break. And believe me, it’s harder than it seems. You have to find a really specific niche.”

“I might have an in with crazy cat ladies,” offered Faustitas. “Hardly anybody has herds of anything, any more.”

Mímir was nearing the end of his joke. “…and finally I said - You know what? Odin can just carry me around. It’s a hell of a lot easier than returning this curse-ridden body to the shop every other day. Not that you’re not doing your best–”

The entire room chorussed, “But it’s better to quit when you’re a head.” and then half of them threw eggs at him.

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Challenge #00757 - B026: The Visitor

Part of a tiny story - Unfurl by IPostAtMidnight
She usually enjoyed unfurling a fresh sheet over her bed, swishing it out like they do in those detergent commercials. Tonight, however, as the sheet settled down onto the empty mattress, it outlined the contours of a body.

It wasn’t a pleasant silhouette, either. It was the doughy shape of a man who couldn’t be bothered with himself. And further, the sheet above the body immediately stuck to pools of what she hoped were sweat. Vigorous action around the crotch region indicated that the man was pleasuring himself.

“Hey babe,” said a familiar voice.

“Ugh,” whispered Bea. God, not Tony. Fucking Tony. “What the flying shit, Tony?”

“How’d you know it was me? You got no proof.”

“Given the number of times you’ve orchestrated an incident where I ‘accidentally’ walk in on you masturbating and you ask me if I like what I see? Plus I know your voice. Get out and take your skeezy habits with you. I already told you I never want to see you again.”

“I know,” said the invisible Tony. Still masturbating lazily under the sheet. “That’s why I went to extreme lengths for you. I know you want to get fucked by the invisible man.”

Bea glared at the space where his head should have been. “Which part of 'fuck off’ did you repeatedly fail to understand?”

“I heard 'fuck me’…” he purred in what he imagined to be a seductive tone.

“Get out. Get lost. Go find some other woman to annoy. I don’t even like you. You’re a disgusting example of a human being and I would prefer that you took up residence on the other side of the universe.”

“Aw c'mon, babe. I did all this for you. You should be grateful. Everything I’ve done, I did it so you would love me.”

“Obviously taking a shower wasn’t in your itinerary,” Bea observed.

“I know you want it dirty…”

“I would rather burn this house to the ground with me inside than have sex with you!”

“Third degree burns? Kinky. I think I could swing it. For you, babe.”

Bea had a better idea. “Close your eyes and no peeking.”

He evidently put her night mask on.

She set him on fire instead. Watching the invisible douchebro burn was hilarious. Besides, she never wanted to touch that bed or those sheets again, now that they’d been infected by Tony’s presence.

Unfortunately, he survived. Bawling all the way through hospital, court, and into prison that the fire hadn’t hurt him as much as her rejection.

And, strangely enough, Bea was grateful to him in the end. If it wasn’t for the court case, she’d have never met the love of her life, Andrea.

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Challenge #00756 - B025: That is Not a Solution

On the one hand, that is a legitimate problem.
On the other, I’m not sure I could come up with a worse solution to that problem, even if you gave me a research grant and several years.

South-Southwest Greater Deregulation.

The problem element milled around, five yards away from the electrified wiring. Just a few inches short of the raised wire that denoted the area where the guards in the tower would shoot.

They all stared at Monica in desperate hope. 

“Are you hiring?” some of the bolder ones asked. “Please, ma'am. My kids need to eat.”

Another spoke. “I need to work. I can’t afford m–*” cough cough cough cough, “My meds.”

“Brass-Balls” Bush grinned as he strolled beside her. “Isn’t it wonderful? The only crime they can commit is on each other! It’s self-policing. And they can’t get any drugs without passing a drug test and writing a two thousand word essay on why they need the drugs. And the hiring process is as simple as picking some of the willing up from the gate.”

“We need blankets,” complained one of the problem element. “Winter’s coming and we’re cold.”

“Sir…” said Monica. “I don’t think this is the solution to the problem that will get you votes.”

“Oh I don’t need to worry about that,” chortled Bush. “Anyone in the poor-sore ghetto is automatically a criminal! They’re not allowed to vote, any more. And the people who really care will be voting for me.”

Monica suppressed a shudder. “I am hiring,” she decided. “I need some housekeepers.” But what she really did was train them in covert infiltration and assassination techniques.

Something needed to be done about the status quo. Making sure that it wasn’t stable was all she could think of.

…which might not have been the best solution, either.

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Challenge #00755 - B024: It’s Just Politics

“It’s like a madhouse, designed by a succession of madmen, each with a deep hatred of their predecessors brand of madness. And it’s on fire.”

[AN: Never in my life have I been prompted to reply with a screenshot of Google asking “Did you mean ‘the Australian Government’?” But no. I am a writer. I make stories.]

Tradition is a very peculiar thing. Things begin with reason and rationality and end in farcical imitation, hundreds or thousands of years later. The story is told of a housewife who cuts her roasts a certain way, because that’s the way her mother did it. Research is undergone and traced back to the grandmother, who could not afford a larger roasting pan, like her more affluent daughters and granddaughters.

Traditions don’t always have to make sense…

Relwer had had enough of the carryings-on of her local politicians. She also had a kickstarter that explained her lofty goals.

Many of them, she was certain, backed her because she promised to get rid of annoying advertising.The rest of it, citizens’ rights, proper drug registration and rehabilitation, the elimination of the glass ceiling… everything that should have been unpopular opinions, basically… all that was overwhelmed by the possibility of reduced blood pressure by way of clever management of really annoying advertising.

She won by a landslide. Filled the houses with people who agreed with her.

It was the first time in history that the political houses were filled with the poor and disenfranchised. Alas, it was also the first time in history that the empowered staged a rebellion. Which was, for the first time in history, the only time that the empowered were successfully overwhelmed by the disempowered, simply because the disempowered actually had a taste of economic freedom under the new regime.

Of course, there were other rebellions, much later. Once an actual even playing field was established. The Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms lovers all teamed up to preserve the way of life they were used to. The people who loved two out of those three teamed up with the religious extremists to try and reassert a rule established by the parts they liked out of a religious book that was written more than a thousand years ago.

Which was quickly squashed by the invention of a community based solely and exclusively on all of the rules in that ancient book. Nobody liked living there. The freedoms they thought they had didn’t exist under Holy Writ.

But… also because of Relwer and her Sensible Revolution… The houses of government now all wear silly hats. Because she had a campaign to display how many politicians were overpaid. She relied on all she needed and nothing more, and wore a silly hat to display her open frugality. She declared to the public that politics was a circus anyway, and she was making all the other clowns stand out. And, to prevent falsification, the silly hat also came with a transparent personal budget.

To this day, the politicians of East Lesser Deregulation are the most humble, and the most ridiculous.

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