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Challenge #00734 - B003: A Short, Sharp Shock

“It occurs to me…your inability to use the brain evolution granted you is none of my fucking concern.”

(There’s a difference between being differently abled and BEING WILFULLY IGNORANT)

[AN: Oh, don’t I know it. Just look at the majority of the Republican Party, anyone wealthy enough to never worry about bills, or Tony Abbott]

They’d carried through with it. The police, who he paid for with his taxes, had done little but make sure a car cruised by his mansion, once a day. And it wasn’t even on time. He would have been far better off paying for an independent security detail. But then, he’d trusted his taxes to work for him.

Then again, They, whoever They really were, had got him while he was in the bathroom.

And now he was in the mud and filth of a half-filled pothole. In an alley that was strewn with garbage, offal, and faeces.

Urien Peel allowed himself three seconds of bemused bawling before he found the strength to at least pull himself out of the noisome puddle. What he could see of the sky was grey. There was no indication of where he was or how to get back to Nirvana Estates.

“You’re going to have to sell that suit, friend,” said a voice from the debris. What he’d thought was another mouldy pile of garbage turned out to be a Noper located somewhere within a baggy, knitted… thing… that he hoped was at least warm. It certainly didn’t look to be good for anything else. Especially the general health of the area.

It would take him some subsequent weeks to learn that the unhealthy-looking colouration of that garment was the product of random dye, and not the mildew and filth that seemed to abound in the area she called Lower Skunge.

But, right now, he tried to recoil without stepping in something that would leave a stain.

The Noper in the tattered tarpaulin tent just giggled. “Relax, friend. If I’d have meant to roll you, you’d never have known it. Been watching over you. Should be grateful.”

“How do I know you’re not the one who put me here?”

More laughter that showed off, not horrible and yellowing teeth, but starkly white and well-kept dentition. “Friend, does it look to you like I have the resources to bust into Elysium or Nirvana or Shangri-La or wherever you’re from and hijack your overfed ass?” She moved, standing up slowly. Revealing that most of her apparent bulk was insulation. “Naw, friend, you were dropped off by the Karmic Re-Alignment Society. KRAS. They got themselves something of a Robin Hood scheme going on.”

She must have weighed sixty-five kilos, sopping wet. And she sure didn’t have any kind of physical advantage.

“Robin Hood?”

“Yeah. But in this case, it’s steal the rich, make ‘em poor, and see if they don’t live long enough to change their ways. I go by Angel. 'Case you’re wonderin’.”

“I’m Supreme Senator Urien–”

“Oh, I know who you are, Mr Peel. Everyone in Lower Skunge knows who you are.” Another surprising smile. “You’re the asshole who wants to nuke the poor. You goin’ nuke yourself, now, Mr Peel?”

“I’m not poor! I have Quintillions! All I have to do is snap my fingers to the right people and I’m back in charge of your sorry ass.”

“Well, if you want to get to the right people alive…” said Angel. “I strongly recommend you engage in some protective camouflage. People’re gonna notice that suit. That suit says you have money. Hell, there’s some folks here in Skunge who’d skin you just for your buttons.”

He didn’t doubt her. He knew the criminal element was rife in the Poverty Quarter. “Why haven’t you?”

“Because my best interests lie in you seeing how the other half lives. If you’ve been there… you’re not likely to be nasty to them as is still there.”

She lead him on a labyrinthine journey, through the Swap Markets where he traded clothing from the skin up (“Keep the socks, friend. Socks is hard to come by.”) for far more disreputable wear and some face paints (“These’ll change your face until the beard comes in.”) as well as some basic hygiene products(“It’s worth it to brush every day. Trust these teeth.”) and a large assortment of gewgaws that went into a voluminous sack (“They arrest you for having cash, down here.”).

“Why should they arrest you for having money?” he asked over a bowl of something that, while not the fare he was used to, was at least warm and promised to fill his belly. It was definitely not vegan or good for his waistline.

“Evidence of drugs,” said Angel. She ate as if she didn’t expect another chance to. With the bowl right under her mouth and very little time wasted in getting the food inside her. “Any money is proof that you been dealin’ drugs in Lower Skunge. They don’t 'spect you to earn any other way. And if'n you’re pretty enough, it’s evidence of prostitution.”

He remembered campaigning for those laws, in an effort to wipe out the drug trade and prostitution. The two major sins of the Nopers. He hadn’t expected that law to ever hurt himself, and not just because he wasn’t involved in either crimes.

It went like that for months, as his beard grew and the face-paints flaked away.

To get money, one had to be registered for employment. To be registered, one had to pass a written test (Urien hadn’t held a pen since he left elementary, and many of the reading and comprehension tests had words that baffled him) and have obtained previous work for cash (which he could be arrested for holding) as well as passing a physical.

The last part was a sticking point for Urien. They failed him for eating fast food, which was the only food he could legally obtain. Even the work trucks that sent him out for sweaty, back-breaking labor in the fields didn’t pay him in the fresh, healthy, natural food that his party insisted was available to everyone.

“Don’t they see how many corners I’m backed into?” he ranted over the evening fire.

“The word you’re looking for,” said Angel, “is 'we’re’. We’re backed into corners. We’re forced to decide whether to do something illegal and get executed, or to keep legal and starve. Even this fire could get us arrested if we were in the wrong place.”

And that was how he learned that the fire brigade for the Poor Quarter was forcing people who had homes to freeze in the winter. The homes of the Poor Quarter were bleak, concrete cubes that were lucky to have a door. There was no heat and no chance of trying to be warm without lighting a fire. And fires indoors (whether or not there was a door) were an offence punishable by life-term imprisonment for the family, and death for the fire-lighter.

The good news - according to Angel - was that the fire brigade enforced this law by district, and the cold families would huddle together around fires in other districts.

And, once in a great while, the better part of an unmonitored district would go up in flames (the cheap concrete was re-enforced with wood fibre and flammable chemicals) and the fire brigade would insist on stricter laws and more funding.

Urien had been all for handing them whatever they wanted. It had been his opinion that the Nopers were too stupid to know what was good for them. Now he understood what they were up against.

Three months after he woke up in a puddle, Angel lead him to The Wall. The fifty-foot tall barrier between the Poor Quarter and at least the middle class. It was telling that he had been poor long enough to fear the armoured and armed police force.

Angel downed her bag five feet beyond the bright yellow line. “This is as far as I go, friend. I’m pretty much as illegal as you can get while still being a citizen. Clean your face. Announce who you are in a loud, clear voice. Hold your hands high. And… you’re gonna have to leave your sack.”

Urien nodded. Carrying a sack past the yellow line was like carrying a visible bomb anywhere near a public figure. The contents of the sack would at least buy Angel some meals. Maybe even a nearly new pair of socks.

She helped him shave. One last act of kindness from a woman he barely knew. Angel kept herself to herself, and only showed him the ruin his laws had wrought.

It was intense, showing the police force who he was. Getting arrested and processed anyway. Getting interrogated.

Learning that, at least legally, Angel was really a man. And since she was also brown of skin, that meant she was a Dangerous Element… and therefore had to be rounded up and punished for public safety. She must have known this. But she helped him anyway.

And after that, months and months of deprogramming. He learned, in the end, to repeat what was told to him. But he could never un-see what he had seen.

They wouldn’t let him back into politics. The people who counted, the people who paid their taxes, wouldn’t vote for anyone who had 'gone soft’ on the poor and criminal.

All he could really do, was divert his wealth towards helping those poor souls on the other side of The Wall. Which meant funnelling his funds towards bands of fellow bleeding-heart hippie whack-jobs trying their utmost to help the disadvantaged. After the inevitable divorce, of course.

Funds that included a sizeable monthly stipend for the Karmic Re-Alignment Society.

Every little bit helped.

[Muse food remaining: 11. Submit a prompt! Ask a question! Buy my stories!]

OUT NOW!

All of 2014’s instant stories, packaged in easy-to-access format. Corrected of errata.

And because I love you [And because I fail at basic math] you don’t just get 366 stories… you get 367!

Click on the pic to go get your copy today!

…and please purchase generously…

3:30 AM

I’m editing One Leap Year of Instants and pondering the nature of the Bechdel Test.

See, I’m also writing Kung Fu Zombies and the very low bar of the Bechdel Test is, for the first time ever, a very hard bar to clear.

Why?

Well… my protagonist and sole POV-holder is a self-absorbed, self-centred, self-important, white male. Age twelvish.

And he doesn’t get his head out of his arse until act three. The last third of the book.

It’s very hard to write a scene in which two women with names talk about something other than a man when the lead character instantly bitches about why they’re not talking about him.

And he’s such a firkin whiny brat already.

I made him twelve because that’s old enough to be moderately independent without making him too old to change who he really is. And this guy NEEDS to learn.

[IMO all self-oriented white males need to learn, but there’s only so much one can do]

Ugh.

I feel ashamed of myself. I was in the five-figure word count before my leading ladies even turned up, let alone had a chat.

On the other hand, I know I must be doing a great job at characterising him because this must be how self-oriented white males think when they’re writing a screenplay…

Pretty sure all of the scrape-by Bechdel passes are the direct result of a man thinking, Two female characters - check. Both with names - check. One line each to each other about something blatantly trivial and ignorable - check. I AM THE GREATEST HUMAN BEING ON THE PLANET.

And then I wonder if that type of person views that low bar as something akin to Everest. Or Olympus Mons.

One person’s trash…

Arizona pyrope garnets occur in a remote section of the Navajo Nation in Arizona. The gems have never been mined commercially because there aren’t enough of them.  The entire world supply of these gems depends on those living nearby who collect a few stones after the occasional rainstorm and trade them at local stores.

This gem is most commonly called “ant-hill garnet” because they are “mined” by ants. Ants find the garnets while digging their anthills, drag them out, and discard them on the surface.
It’s wonderful to imagine the ants being SO FRUSTRATED at all these stupid crystals getting in the way of their work.
Makes you wonder what humans discard that an alien species would see as valuable.

(#00725 - A360)

Pebbyxx Brokk, the sign read. Assorted Liquids.

Cho'desh, already in a mind to browse, wandered inside. There were tanks, of course. Clear plexisteel and, for the more active liquids, solid glass, showed the interested customer the contents.

What almost startled Cho-desh out of her skin was the acids. She half expected them to be bubbling, but they just sat there. They didn’t even look evil.

“Uric acid,” she read, and then backed away.

“It’s quite safe,” soothed the shopkeep, presumably Mx Brokk. “That’s three centiUnits of solid glass, behind a repelling shield guaranteed to deflect even the most aggressive blows.”

“Why do you even have that?”

“Asteroid miners use it to dissolve worthless carbon,” explained Brokk. “It’s quite profitable and worth the trip.”

“Trip?”

“Oh yes. I found a little wormhole that leads to the outer reaches of this boring yellow star system. The cogniscents there are just entering the space age and they flush this,” a friendly knock on the container, which made Cho'desh flinch unconsciously, “into the higher atmosphere. I buzz the planet a few times and pick up their rejects. They’re none the wiser.”

“For that?”

“Dear Cogniscent… I get two Hours a miliUnit. And that’s for the super-condensed crystalline form. Then I sell them the purified water at an Hour a Standard Liquid Unit. How could I not pay attention to such profit?”

“And they just… dump it?”

“It’s waste to them,” Brokk shrugged. “Can I interest you in some more -ah- amenable liquids?”

“Thank you, but… no. I’m in exploration mode.”

Brokk nodded understanding and wished her a good day.

Cho'desh spent the rest of her day wondering what sort of creature would just throw away something as dangerous and valuable as uric acid.

[Muse food remaining: 11. Submit a prompt! Ask a question! Buy my stories!]

Dragons need better PR agents.

“Hmrph… but that’s how it always is, isn’t it? Just because they have so many prolific bards and scholars in their employ, they think they get the rights to dictate how everyone else is seen by the future generations - they don’t even TRY to ask my opinion… I’ve got scales on my butt older than their eldest king, and they still think they know more about my kind than I do… Humans are utter idiots.”

Catlike, the great elder dragon stretched and yawned, settling back in place before resuming his remarks to his one-woman audience.

"Er, that is to say, present company excluded, of course.  But honestly, it just is aggravating, how things get twisted. I invest in the region by keeping my finances local, and they call it ‘hoarding wealth’.  I defend my property from attackers, they cheer on the ‘heroes’ who ‘assaulted the monster in its own den’.  I can’t even go out for a bite to eat without some peasant who barely has enough wits in him to play in the dirt-patch he calls a farm screaming that ‘the dread beast is pillaging his prized cattle’… Prized? You mean the weak and elderly of an already-pathetic herd?  Which I only took because the royal huntsmen already claimed all the best boar and deer in the Grand Wood for His Majesty’s table? Bah.  And I didn’t burn down that orphanage intentionally - a moth flew up my nose and I sneezed when passing over it on my way to the Southlands. Could’ve happened to anyone, really.”

He shrugged, gently passing the delicate satchel back to the royally-garbed woman.

“Feh… they’ll probably even find some way to spin this little meeting of ours into some ‘villainous machination of the demon wyrm’, I imagine. Probably claim I kidnapped you to eat you or something. Ridiculous.”

(#00723 - A358)

“Well I am a princess,” said the bard. “I just happen to be temporarily out of the princessing business.”

“I know,” said the dragon. “I could smell it on you. Something about the royal inbreeding.”

“Excuse me?” said the Princess Bard.

“Well you do tend to mate with your cousins a lot. Knights errant who are promised your hand don’t happen that often, do they?”

“Uhm…” she blushed. “Yeah. I was going to marry my second cousin twice removed? He’s thirty-five. I’m not even almost fifteen. So… I ran away.”

"Thirty five,” rumbled the dragon. “Since we are chatting, I suppose introductions are in order. The long form of my proper name is… a little unpronounceable for you… you may call me Gort.”

“I’m Ivy,” said the Princess Bard.

“The same plant, but a different name. Interesting. Is thirty-five so terrible? I understand it’s more than twice your age.”

“…i’m… closer to thirteen…” Ivy mumbled. “I don’t even have my moon time yet and they were trying to put me out to stud and I’m not sure if I ever want a man with me like that. Let alone him. I’d rather be a bard and sing for my supper.”

"Good for you,” said Gort. “I shall hire you to be my bard. I don’t suppose dragon-roasted meat is your thing.”

“Er. No. Sorry.”

“To each their own,” enormous talons gently plucked what seemed to be a small urn from the pile and filled it with gems and coin. When Gort put it next to Ivy, however, it turned out to be an urn well above her own height and half again as wide as she was. “Is this sufficient payment? I know little of human furnishings, so I trust this will be sufficient for the alcove?”

“More than sufficient for my entire life!” Ivy had to stand on a rock just to reach into the top and pluck out an emerald the size of a warrior’s fist. “What do you want me to do?”

“Simply tell the truth about me,” said Gort.

Ivy sighed and picked up her instrument. A simple traveller’s harp. “Do you know the name for this?”

“A lyre,” said the dragon. “Yes. An appropriate instrument for a bard. I see. Very well. Gild the truth about me. You will fly with me when I fly. See the world from the clouds. Share in the Dragonsong. And, in general, know about me.”

This was more than Ivy had ever expected. It beat the living hell out of huddling under trees and getting kicked into the gutter. “Thank you, sir dragon! I’ll do my best, I promise!”

Gort chuckled. “Dear little princess bard,” a head big enough to dwarf four horses swivelled around on a huge neck so the gigantic lizard could whisper, “Ivy is ever a girl’s name. In all its forms.”

“Oh. Lady dragon…” Ivy curtseyed. “My apologies, m’m. I was always taught that dragons were male.”

"Humans,” Gort rolled her gemlike eyes. “How do they expect little dragons to be made, hm?”

“I suppose we never thought of it,” allowed Ivy. She was staring at the emerald. A King’s ransom. Certainly enough to hire workers to cut a stair up and into the alcove. And craftsmen to make what furnishings she liked. She remembered her mother telling the craftsmen what she wanted. Ivy could certainly do it with a little more grace. And spin the tale of the generous dragon who just wanted people to understand.

…and maybe even have some spare coin for a better lyre. Yes. Maybe even get a dragon put on its body, somewhere. In honour of her sponsor.

And she’d have to think of something a little more poetic than ‘Gort’. It just didn’t sound very lyrical.

[Muse food remaining: 13. Submit a prompt! Ask a question! Buy my stories!]

…Primitive Technology?

“The first great technological innovation in this ancient and primitive society,” the documentary host said with a small chuckle, “was the idea of attaching a very big blunt rock to the end of a very long stick to smash their enemies and prey at a relatively-safe distance, rather than attempting to engage them at closer range and bash them with a somewhat-smaller pointy rock held in the hand…”

A pause for effect as the camera passed across the array of crude clay-and-reed huts and their hide-clad dwellers.

“Needless to say, with the concept of weaponry established, things more-or-less spiraled down from there, and it remains nothing short of a miracle that they still exist today, and still in the same relatively primitive ‘wood, bone, and stone’ stage of technological development as they were thousands of years ago…”

It was at that point one of the “primitives” could be seen in a hut in the background, passing by an open window… with what clearly appeared to be a laptop computer tucked under one arm.

(#00703 - A338)

“What?” Tel boggled at the outtake. “These people are pre-tech. We checked. They’re definitely pre-space. How the flip—?”

“Never heard of asymmetrical development?” said a newcomer. Not one of his camera crew.

One of the natives. She was still wearing animal skins and feathers.

There was no way they could have learned Tel’s language. No way they could have seen where the hide was. Where his base camp was…

And yet…

There she was, in living colour.

“How—?”

“We didn’t think it was necessary to have architecture. We worked on our minds and philosophy and -yes- technology.”

“But your homes, your weapons… How can you have advanced technology and live in mud huts?”

“The need for huts is recent. We couldn’t stay in the caves, following the comet strike. Our geology’s become unstable and we’ve had to adapt.”

The native -Zerka- took Tel on a tour of the most stable of their previously industrial caves. Most of the space was taken up by manufacturing equipment. Still and silent, now.

Starting to rust.

“Because the comet caused massive tectonic shifting, we have to rebuild above ground. Until recently, we’ve had no need of architecture. We still have teams working on the most stable and safest designs.”

“Really?”

“We’ve got into the habit of making sure everything works before we turn it into reality. That’s why all our technology uses background radiation as a source of power. It lets us gather and hunt and then devote our downtime to more cerebral pursuits.”

That night, Tel entered the a clay hut with Zerka to watch in awe as a team of ‘primitives’ ran simulations over a cloud network that relied on subterranean beacons instead of satellites.

There was always an opportunity to learn. And Tel was glad to be proven wrong.

[Muse food remaining: 18. Submit a prompt! Ask a question! Buy my stories!]

Challenge #00697 - A332: Extreme Cuisine

Rapid tissue cloning from donated cells + vat-grown flesh as food-products = “My God… I’m delicious!”

They’d called the restaurant Eat My Ass. And the staff handed out FAQ sheets as to why they did it.

Fast-tissue cloning worked best on the muscles of the gluteus maximus. Which, in the kitchen/laboratory, became the best well-marbled meat individually tailored for each customer.

They had a wide variety of dishes that, technically, were veganism in its purest form. No animal had to suffer, because the only protein came from the customers themselves.

And everyone who ate there had nothing but praise for the food.

The only drawback?

Everything was a cut of rump.

[Muse food remaining: 24. Submit a prompt! Ask a question! Buy my stories!]

Sales Report

As you can see, people are downloading my free titles on a regular basis. The most popular is also the most recent, Interview Inside a Terrarium.

Actual sales, people who got the paid titles in my repertoire, remains low. Only one sale each of Hevun’s Ambassador and Hevun’s Gate. You can see them on the line graph on the far left.

The good news is that most of my downloads are coming directly from Smashwords. If people bought stuff, that would mean that I’d be getting the most money from sales. But since I’m not getting paid a lot, it means that I might have a chance of earning something, should any customers return.

I know that there are literally hundreds of people who’ve downloaded a sample of my works and not come back to complete the sale.

And I have to ask why.

Is my writing not good enough? Are my stories not compelling? Or is it a case of absent-mindedness coupled with the lack of money that’s plaguing eveyone?