Challenge #00371 - A006: Lovely Light

He was not so much burning the candle at both ends as he was hosing it down with a flamethrower. – RecklessPrudence

He knew he never had very long, and his habits almost personally guaranteed it. Self-maintenance was limited to a brief encounter with the toothbrush once a morning, a shower simultaneously, and whatever food seemed the most convenient at the time.

Those who cared for him told him not to burn his candle at both ends. He ignored them.

Too much to do.

Never enough time to do it in.

His first visit to any kind of medical clinic was also his last. When his kind neighbour and helpmate found him on the floor. Running a fever. Unable to move his legs. In a pool of his own piss and vomit.

Even then, he viewed medical interference as an inconvenience.

They were between him and his Art.

Too much to do…

He tried to escape five times. He had to get back to it. Had to finish.

“You *are* finished,” said the grumpy doctor who caught him the last time. “You aren’t burning your candle at both ends, you’re hosing it down with a flamethrower.”

He sighed in the confines of his wheelchair. “But oh my foes and oh my friends, it gives a lovely light…”

They were his last words.

It only took the populace three years to recognise his genius after he died.

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Challenge #00370 - A005: Cursed Curses

I get that it’s a curse, and it’s supposed to be horrendous and probably means I’m going to die in some terribly gory manner in a few days time, but did it have to be so damn cheerful? And the song is so peppy and catchy. This is like the opposite of what an evil curse is supposed to be, I feel vaguely cheated somehow.

[AN: Forgive the horrible poetry]

“You found the tomb/ You took from us/ You should have hit reverse,” the mummified barber shop quartet sang. “And now you know/ You suffer hard/ From our old ancient curse.”

“Is… there any way to shut them up?” pondered Dale.

“I’m sure they’ll get to that part eventually,” sighed Robin. “Putting everything back failed.”

“You sure it was everything?”

“Aw no. Mister Robbins! He took a little dolly thing from the table!”

“You’d best act fast/ Without a sigh/ Your feet they have to fly,” sang the mummies. “Prepare yourselves/ For Fate’s swift wings/ ‘Cause you’re all going to die!”

Robin sighed. “…fabulous…”

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More sound advice

When you are aboard an alien construct of uncertain design and purpose, you touch nothing! You have no way of knowing if a lever could vent the atmosphere into space…if…if a switch could activate flesh-eating nanobots! Until you have studied everything, you have to assume that this station’s sole purpose was to isolate and destroy you personally! DO YOU UNDERSTAND?! – RecklessPrudence

(#00369 - A004)

Humans.

The very word quickly became an agonised plea to the Powers Divine to at least make them slow down. If there was anything that could magnetically attract human attention, it was something inherently harmful.

Case in point, these two. Stan and Laurel. Both annoyingly only slightly the worse for their adventure.

Adventure (n): A human word for events classed as messy, dangerous, and likely to delay progress towards any goals.

“I do believe I made myself clear,” said Captain K'Raabz. “When you are aboard an alien construct of uncertain design and purpose, you touch nothing. There is no way to tell if a lever could vent the atmosphere into space… if a switch could activate carnivorous nano-bots… if a button could blow up the entire installation.”

The humans started to talk, but she overrode them.

“UT! Until you have studied everything, you have to assume that that station’s sole purpose was to isolate and destroy you personally. Do you understand?”

Silence. Both looked at each other.

“DO YOU UNDERSTAND?”

“But it was such a shiny red button,” said Stan.

“I can’t help it,” said Laurel with her thick, Norfish accent. “I’m a born lever-puller.”

Humans…

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Sound advice.

Whoa whoa whoa… stop right there! What have I told you both? We do not…ever…goad the universe! –RecklessPrudence

(#00368 - A003)

Herman’s hand was covered in chalk. He had run out of blackboards and was now working on the walls. “If. We. Can. Synthesize. A breach. In space. And time…”

“In orbit,” said Newt.

“We could… theoretically…”

“Warp the space-time continuum and travelvastdistancespreviouslyunknowntoman! Jus'thinkofallthediscoveries!”

“OI!”

Both men startled to find none other than Stacker Pentecost in their shared lab. “You stop tha’ right there,” he said, pointing an accusatory finger at the writing on the wall. “What have I told you both? We do not… ever… goad the universe!”

“Yessir,” said Newt.

“My apologies,” said Herman.

“You’re supposed t’ be stoppin’ that damn rift, not bloody riding it to Narnia.”

“Yes sir,” said Herman.

“Sorrysir,” mumbled Newt.

“Get back to work.”

“This is your fault.”

“My fault? I’m not the one who wondered about harmonic shifts!”

Pentecost sighed as they started arguing over each other. Scientists. Why did he have to get the only two on the planet with no brakes?

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Have you ever had a dream…

That made you honestly depressed once you realised it was only a dream? And not for one of the usual reasons - living loved ones, missed chances taken, you’re a superhero - but for something on a much larger scale?

Say for instance, you had a dream that lead to near-free energy for all, universal healthcare and education (there was no distinction in living quality to mark the Third World anymore), grand societal change for equality and to redress past wrongs, but without committing great new ones. Increased lifespan, revived space program, colonies on two other celestial bodies, mining mostly offworld, environment recovering and being helped along in the process, et cetera et cetera.

Say also that in this dream, you were instrumental in these changes, and you lived forty years in said dream - in dream terms of course, so broad strokes and feelings - and then, going to sleep expecting to wake up to said near-utopian future, you instead woke up in 2013, in your old body.

You are depressed not only because as far as you can see there is next-to-no chance you will get to see such a world in your lifespan, but also the knowledge that barring magic, you accomplished more in that world than you ever will in this.

Now… what do you do? How do you propose to ever measure up to - yourself? How do you manage to deal with all the ways the real world falls short of the dream one, when it feels like you spent more time in the dream world than you have years in this one?

Make it a fic war prompt if you want. – RecklessPrudence

(#00367 - A002)

This was not her beautiful house. There was no sign of her beautiful wife. It was a dingy, dripping, cockroach-infested cupboard that barely qualified as a flat because there was room for a bed in it.

And she was back in the wrong meat-suit again.

FUCK!

She got out her dream diary and wrote down every detail of the life she’d lived. A different reality. A world she’d made out of wishes. And yet, in the dream, she had seen how it had been done.

It was worth a try.

She started with the name of the shrink who had saved her other life. Doctor Weisenbaum.

And, amazingly, she did it again. No judging. None of the usual psychologist shitbaggery. Just a patient ear and potentially helpful tactics to try.

And she got HRT after the first month!

Next on her list of names was Blaize. She was harder to find and a nerve-wracking encounter in a lesbian bar and fretting that her falsies were slipping. Blaize was literally the girl of her dreams, and just as politically savvy as she remembered.

Of course, reality was slower than the dream. It took a year for her breasts to grow in and three for her hair to grow out. It took a painful decade for her to be comfortable with her new self.

Periodically shattered by the inconsiderate cat-calls of men who were offended by her breathing, of course.

Gathering like minds was easier in the dream. As was forming a political party with just enough juice to keep going until the next election.

It was hard, and trouble, and exhausting. She and Blaize fought a lot more than they had in the dream. It never escalated to violence. There was crying and hugs and learning how to be better people to each other. There was money and family and pets and bills and transportation and the smell in the office at home…

A home that was a dinky little two-bedroom in the ‘burbs with a half-butt kitchen, not the mansion of her dream.

She kept a transcript of her dream. Blaize referred to it as her 'cheat sheet’ and kept a score of how accurate it was. Details like silverfish in the filing cabinets were not the stuff dreams were made of, and therefore didn’t count. Big events like the rapist in the summer night did.

They did not tell the police about the cheat sheet. They said they expected a certain level of intolerance for living together as they did.

It made the news, of course.

And that was the key turning point for the Queer party. Support upswelled. Donations surged in. Even from Allies-in-name-only. Votes swarmed in.

The tears in her eyes as Blaize took her oath of office were a fact of her dream, too. The first black lesbian President of the United States.

They had a long way to go, yet. Forty more years of hard work, uphill battles against bigots, congress, raging republicans, and men whose masculinity was so threatened that the merest hint of her presence could shatter their confidence.

Naturally, she sexed up her wardrobe just to spite them.

There was a long road ahead. They both knew it. And every second was going to be worth it.

Even if she woke up in the wrong meat-suit again and had to start over.

Every second with Blaize was worth the pain.

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From a forum discussion…

…on making humans unique on a galactic scale without turning us to either primitive brutes, diplomats, or supah-speshul-snowflakes.

I’m not sure if I’ve submitted this before, but a cursory search didn’t turn up anything.

Poster A: Humanity possesses the right combination of above average curiosity and below average sense of self-preservation. This has lead to us following technical development pathways that the rest of the galaxy would consider, well, insane.

When other species reached for the stars, they did it only after they’d safely developed antigravity or teleportation technology. Mankind put a man on top of a missile and pointed it up.

When any other civilization suffers a hull breach battling aliens, they reroute power from the primary phase disruptor array to compensate and retreat. Humans slap some duct tape on it and return fire.

For the rest of the galaxy, major organ failure was a death sentence until they invented nanoregenerative therapy. We tear open the bodies of our dying and restore their vitality with zombie organs ripped from our still cooling dead.

In the eyes of the galaxy, we’re the mad science race.

Poster B: In addition to zombie organs, we also have robot organs. When our bones break, we bolt them back together until they heal. We consider nukes a viable form of propulsion for spacecraft [Ed: Orion Project]. We make explosives so unstable they destroy the lab equipment used to measure them. We keep class 4 biohazards around because we aren’t done studying them.

The real kicker? Humans consider such things perfectly reasonable and ordinary science, done by reasonable and ordinary men who live in ordinary houses with ordinary jobs.

Mad science? Nope, just regular science. – RecklessPrudence

(#00366 - A001)

[AN: You’ve pretty much nailed why the other species still call humans insane]

From the lectures of Kagzak:

The field of human studies is only partially dangerous. Yes, I am aware that humans have higher thresholds for physical damage, coupled with a centric thought that has to learn other species are different.

Before the discoveries of T'reka the Mad, also known as T'reka the Inquisitive, humans were widely believed to be incredibly hazardous.

[An image of a human from the pre-Amity pool of media. The human had a splinted leg and, though walking with the aid of a crutch, still reached towards the evidently terrified saurians. The legend on it read: HORROR OF THE HUMAN]

And it is true that events that would permanently disable any other cogniscent are viewed as a mere annoyance to humans. We well know that events that would cause death in other cogniscents merely incapacitate a human. Indeed, it is possible to remove all of a humans’ limbs and they will still find means to get around and accomplish things.

[An image of a quadruple amputee in a motorised wheelchair, steering the device with a straw in her mouth. On her lap, a monkey dressed in children’s clothing.]

This image, of course, dates back to “The Shattering”, a continuing event in which spacefaring humans sent colonists down the Terran system’s wealth of one-way wormholes. This example has a trained animal as an assistant. Helper animals are an old concept, dating back to domestication.

[An image of a man with a dog on a harness]

This human has no use of their eyes. The animal with him assists in navigation. And in the event that an animal is unwanted or unavailable…

[An image of a woman with a striped stick, paired with another wearing cumbersome goggles.]

…the humans have both simple and complex technologies to assist instead.

But enough of disabilities. I must warn you that some images you will see here are of a disturbing nature.

[An image of a stone carving, depicting humans in a series of complicated poses. Central to the scene is a pregnant woman and another approaching her bulbous belly with a knife]

This is an ‘operation’. Also known as 'surgery’. A procedure in which medical personnel cut a living human to fix what has gone wrong with their insides. The one pictured here is a 'caesarian’ in which the human infant is extracted through such surgery.

This image dates back to the early bronze age of the humans, and pre-dates the use of anaesthetics.

[Gasps, murmurs, and nervous laughter from the audience]

[An image of another stone carving. This time the one with the knife was working on the patient’s head.]

This is early brain surgery from the same era. The belief at the time being that holes put into the skull bone would relieve symptoms of mental disorders. Or what the early humans believed to be mental disorders.

It would be centuries before humans would use drugs to keep surgical patients both quiescent and unaware of their surgeries.

[A video of a chemical rocket launching. Judging by the slowness of its ascent, it was a large rocket]

This is the launch of Apollo eleven. An historic moment in human history. They literally strapped themselves to an explosive and fired themselves at the moon.

Astonishing, I know. They did this in the infancy of their computer age, without having first developed their famous gravity drive or magnetic launch technology. In fact, they continued to use primitive explosives as a means of launching from their planet’s surface for some significant time.

Human medical science has benefitted from their 'space age’. Including temporary, mechanical, replacement organs. This never quite supplanted harvesting the dead for organs used to replace defective ones in a living human.

[Gasps and murmurs from the audience]

Surgery is frequent with humans, and sometimes performed for vanity. They will hire a surgeon to break and re-set their facial bones, rearrange their skin, their hair… insert or remove things deemed 'ugly’, simply to attract a more desirable mate.

So much so that, before the age of the Great Return, it was 'natural’ for males and females alike to alter their physical selves in order to fit arbitrary and unrealistic beauty standards.

We have since been able to train them out of such atrocious habits, fortunately. That said, humans still possess a high tolerance for pain, and low thresholds for personal safety. There is even an ethos of sacrificing a 'hero’ to protect the larger populace.

Flying headlong into battles where divine intervention would never poke a stick, as it were.

[Giggles from the audience.]

Before the uniquely human invention of non-lethal combat, their chief strategy was to charge straight in, guns blazing. This proved especially effective, since other vessels would prefer to preserve their occupants rather than win the fight.

This included strategies like the Kamikaze Bomb.

[A video of a small human vessel with one pilot flying straight towards an alien vessel and ending in immolation]

This course will cover this, and many more human insanities. We will attempt to plumb their reasons for their seemingly bizarre choices, and why such strategies are mind-bogglingly successful.

Remember, always, should you continue this course, the seeming human motto: “If it’s crazy and it works, then it was never crazy.”

I expect an essay on that motto by the end of next week. Thank you for your Time.

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Post failed alien invasion

*Alien and Minionbot are watching the sky. They are in one of the major polities located on a large landmass in the northern hemisphere. It is the non-sunward-facing portion of the fourth segment of the seventh larger segment of the planets orbit, by hu-mon calender.*

Minionbot: So historically, these hu-mons seek dominance by attempting to detonate one another with precise munitions.

Alien: Right.

Mb: And being dominated, they attempt independence by detonating their oppressors with the same precise munitions.

A: Right again.

Mb: And once liberated. The hu-mons celebrate by launching and observing elaborate displays of precise munitions hand crafted and synchronised to music.

A: Exactly.

*pause, they both continue watching the sky*

Mb: We’re… lucky to be alive, aren’t we?

A: Sometimes I wake up screaming.

(Stolen from the same webcomic) – RecklessPrudence

(#00365)

Another month, another warlike, human holiday. On the fourth day of their Joo-lie, more precisely the fourth night, the humans liked to detonate things.

Zykryxx and his mechanical Minion had made themselves relatively comfortable on the roof of their fabricated home to watch the rockets’ red glare.

“Research completed,” announced Minion. “It is a fact of history that hu-mons seek dominance by attempting to detonate one another with precise munitions.”

“Or outright mauling,” added Zykryxx.

Minion nodded. “And if they are being dominated, they attempt to gain autonomy by detonating their oppressors with the same precise munitions.”

“Correct.”

“Then, once liberated… the hu-mons celebrate by launching and observing elaborate displays of precise, hand-crafted munitions that are synchronised to music.”

“Yes.”

“This is filed under ‘entertainment’.”

This gave Zykryxx some significant pause. He put down his snacks and beverage and stared anew at the vivid display of pyrotechnics. Even if he had done his homework as a conqueror, these monkeys would not have stayed conquered.

“We’re lucky to be alive, aren’t we?” said Minion.

Zykryxx spoke softly, still hypnotised by the enormity of his grievous error highlighted in amazingly-coloured explosive light. “Sometimes, I wake up screaming.” And now he knew why.

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Stolen from a Webcomic

Alien (thoughtfully): A whole holiday of disguise and deceit [Ed: Halloween]… truly these hu-mons are a formidable race.

*points at minionbot*

Alien: Every one of their vaunted ‘holidays’ are actually exercises in deception and warfare.

*resumes thinking position*

Alien: Christmas - a thinly veiled exercise in obfuscation and forensic cryptology. Easter - infiltration and recovery… New Years Eve… a form of globally coordinated mass ordnance deployment.

Minionbot: What about Valentine’s Day?

Alien: Ah yes, Valentine’s Day… Psychological warfare.

Minionbot: How horrible!

Alien: Could be worse… at least there’s chocolate. – RecklessPrudence

(#00364)

Zykryxx had to admit, they had made him and any surviving followers comfortable. They had made an environment for him from the biota aboard his ship. Sealed in a habitat with him and his few surviving followers. They let him and the others build things.

And, since the scant survivors were currently not talking to him, Zykryxx had made himself a companion/minion/pet for company.

Well, he had to make three of them, because the humans took the other two to see what made them go by destroying them in a systematic and analytical manner.

He also had to admit that they were very clever apes, indeed. They found his system of origin and negotiated a treaty with his people… but they hadn’t been able to convince the Krykkarax to take him or his followers back.

So they were stuck here for life. Under the human microscope. With no way to escape and nothing to do if they did.

And on the other hand, he also got to observe the humans and their bizarre, baffling habits. Even with just Minion to talk to, it was entertaining and educational.

Currently, the humans on the other side of the glass were having Halloween. The entire goal was to obfuscate identity and, apparently, drink themselves under the table or put themselves into a sugar-related food coma.

“Observe, Minion. An entire holiday of disguise and deceit. Not to mention threatening negotiation for gain… These Hu-mons are a formidable race.” Realisation dawned at that very moment. He had the common thread! “Every single one of their 'holidays’ is an exercise in deception and warfare.”

“Christmas?” said Minion. It was rather fond of Christmas.

“A thinly-veiled exercise in obfuscation and forensic cryptology.”

“Easter?” Minion’s second-favourite holiday. Zykryxx often wondered why this one was attracted to vibrant colours.

“Infiltration and recovery.”

“New Year’s?”

“Globally co-ordinated mass ordinance deployment.”

Minion buzzed and its eye-lights spun. Processing data and buffering. “What of Valentine’s Day.”

“Psychological warfare.”

“That’s horrible,” gasped Minion.

Zykryxx gently patted Minion on its head. “It’s not that bad. At least there is chocolate.”

Chocolate made all things worthy. Even being stuck in what amounted to a giant, upended fishbowl.

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[citation needed]

“The problem with quotes on the internet, is that you can never tell if they are genuine or not.”
-Benjamin Franklin (c/- RecklessPrudence)

(#00363)

“The same thing’s been said about the Galactic Text-nets, though it was attributed to Mark Twain.”

“Really? I’d have thought they’d give it to Confucius.”

“Which one? The lizard, the bug, or the human?”

This resulted in a minute’s worth of thought. “Probably the human. They’re everywhere these days.”

“Mmmmh… yeah. Sometimes I wish we’d never let them in, y'know? They’re so… invasive. Their words, their culture… some of their sayings? They just keep creeping in.”

“As does their racism.”

“See what I’m saying? Their nature is infectious.”

“Good thing for us, though. Ever since they turned up on the Galactic Scene, everything just keeps zooming forward.”

“Yes. I know. I have a few in my crew and the nonsense they pull is astonishing. Just last week, I had them all singing in my cargo hold.”

“Scary.”

“Their collective mythos pool is so wide and varied. You never know what’s going to set them off.”

“True, but it’s also true that a majority of it is harmless.”

“I gotta keep wondering where they’re zooming us forward to. What’s the big destination?”

“That’s the problem. Their imaginations are always years ahead of their bodies.”

“And sometimes physically impossible.”

“Never stops them trying, I note.”

“And that, my friend, is the scary part.”

Both considered their drinks for a while, contemplating whether to obtain another.

“Where’d you get that quote from, anyway?”

“The news. There was an archeological dig on one of the human worlds that self-imolated. They found an almost intact Christmas Cracker. That was inside it.”

“Humans are weird.”

“Mm-hm.”

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Fun with (decidedly non-Standard) Units

2000 Mockingbirds = 2 Kilomockingbirds
Basic Unit of Laryngitis = 1 Hoarsepower
453.6 Graham Crackers = 1 Pound Cake
1 Kilogram of Falling Figs - 1 Fig Newton
Time Between Slipping on a Banana Peel and Smacking the Pavement = 1 Bananosecond
Half of a Large Intestine = 1 Semicolon – RecklessPrudence

(#00362)

“Echo!”

The space whirling with birds now filled with imitations of Shayde’s voice saying ‘echo’.

This pleased her no end. “Oh aye, they’re mockin'birds.”

“A scan could have accomplished that,” sighed Rael.

“But a scan isnae nearly as much fun.”

“Our job is to scan the flock and come up with an estimated count, and if it’s above the limit, to cull the excess,” Rael explained. “It is not to have fun.”

“Aye… and how many kilomockin'birds is the limit then?”

He only had to look at the wide, fanged grin on her ebon face to tell that she had dropped a pun. “People like you are the reason we have Galactic Standard Measurements.”

“Well excuse me, mister cranky-pants. I didnae know ye left yer sense of humour at home.”

Rael sighed. It was going to be a long day.

*

Shifting crated fruit cargo, Shayde found a box of figs. “'Ere, if I dropped this, would ye measure it in fig newtons?”

“Must you try to cheer me up?” he almost wailed. This had been her tenth terrible pun.

Her grin faded away. Her luminescent eyes swirled from lets-have-fun autumnal tones through worried-yellow to soft gold. “I ken yer upset; an’ yer no’ that upset with me… I’m tryin’ tae take yer mind off it. Whatever it is.”

“They found another Faiize down a former one-way wormhole,” said Rael. “Wave of the Future are going to use them as some kind of excuse and drag legal proceedings on even further. It’s going to be a legal nightmare. Just when we were almost making progress…”

Shayde put down her figs on the cart and sighed. “Aye, that’s nowt tae laugh about.”

Finally.

All he had to do was talk about it. He may yet turn her somewhat civilised after all.

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