Without

Without

===

A friend asked me: 
What would you do 

if 
money was not a factor?

The question was not:

What would you do 

if

you had a lot of money?

The root of the idea was not:

A fantasy of wealth 

but rather

A fantasy of satisfaction

The idea was not:

To dream of extravagance

but rather

To dream of contentment

It made me realize:

The dreams might be the same for some

but for others

Wealth and Happiness only briefly connect

Some people believe:

Wealth is the end all to happiness

but for many

Wealth is only a means to wholeness

In considering, I realized:

While I desire wealth

it is not

for Anything but my own freedom

What I want most:

Peace, contentment, and the right to live

and not

The constant struggle to survive

If money was not a factor:

I would do many things I do now

without

the Damocles Sword above me

Dualism

 

Picture Source: https://www.machinerylubrication.com/Read/616/gear-drive-lubricants

 

  Trigger Warning: Physical Violence / Gore

 

 ===

 

Dualism

 

    Drp.

    Drp.

    Drp.

    Blood dripped off of his body steadily, adding to the pool of crimson beneath him...wait...above him?

    Dorian arched his body this way and to try and get a better view. It was hard to really get a good angle given the dozens of large, metallic spikes that pierced his body at odd angles starting at the neck and going all the way to his feet. The giant skewers locked his body into place and made it difficult to really see anything, but given the blood was 'up' his face, he concluded that the most reasonable interpretation would be that the pool was above him.

    ...adding to the pool of crimson above him. Our stalwart hero once again found himself in the evil clutches of the Mastermind!

    "HA! HA! HA!" a boisterous and raucous sound echoed out from somewhere underneath of Dorian as...wait...

     Once again, Dorian twisted in place and tried to determine what his orientation should count as. His head was getting pulled towards gravity, so he was technically upside down. If someone else was looking at this other than stupid old Victor, they'd probably interpret that Dorian's feet were above him. But would it matter more about his own orientation or a global orientation to the room?

    "Do you mind? Are you even listening?" Victor demanded from his position above Dorian at the top of the spike contraption on a small platform overlooking the massive hole. Only moments before, the entire death trap had been covered by some well-laid lumber and a throw rug meant to catch Dorian in just such a predicament.

    "Yes, yes, yes." Dorian answered dismissively. "I'm listening, I'm listening. I'm just trying...to figure out..."

    ...underneath of Dorian as...wait...crap. What's the next line. Let's see, Mastermind above. Spike trap. Blood below...What's a good next line?

    "I don't think you're even listening." Victor accused the impaled man.

    "Yes, yes." Dorian called again. "Just...Give me a second. I'm trying to figure out the next line!"

    ...dripping blood. Right. Whatever.
    The evil Mastermind towered above our stalwart hero, standing only feet above the precipice of metal and malice that now threatened to...

    "Oh, come on, Dorian!" Victor yelled. "Are you doing the whole thing again? That narration thing?"

    ...that now threatened to consume...

    "Doriiiian..." Victor called again.

    ...to consume...Fuck!...

    "Yes! I was doing the narration thing! And you fucked it up!" Dorian growled back.

    "Ha! I knew it!" Victor yelled, pumping his fist in triumph. "I build this whole death trap and you can't even give me the time of day!"

    "It's not like that, Victor!"

    Victor, pulling a controller from his coat pocket, hit one of the dozens of unlabeled buttons. The walls of the tunnel that Dorian was suspended in that weren't being used for a giant crushing spike trap slid open. Cylindrical metal tubes, not spiky on the end this time but, instead, hollow, jutted out from their newly exposed spaces in the wall. Dorian's body was consumed a few moments later in great gouts of flame that were so hot the spikes holding him in place began to bubble and drip with molten metal.

    Victor stared down at his nemesis, or, more accurately, the flaming plume where the now liquefying body of his nemesis was, and just soaked it in. The heat washing over his face. The stink of burning human. The sense of success and a job well down.

    By the time the flamethrowers had done their job, the spikes, and the body that they had been holding in place, had been reduced to molten slag and was little more than a stinky, softly glowing puddle on the hard stone below.

    Satisfied, Victor put the controller back away in his pocket. 

    ...joining the pool of blood that had once been inside of him... Wait...I guess it's now inside of me? Do I have an inside?

    "Question." the bubbling mass of remains called up.

    And, like that, Victor's satisfaction drained away and left him with the same old exhaustion that had been plaguing him for a while now.

    "What?" he called back down to Dorian with defeated acceptance.

    "If blood was in your body, and then out, and then...uhh...this happened. Is the blood back in your body? Does the molten metal cause a problem with how things are mixed up? I'm having trouble figuring out the in's and out's here."

    Victor glowered down at the pool where lips and, disgustingly, a throat and vocal cord set were already emerging and rebuilding from the gore.

    "I feel like inside requires you to have the rest of the body in one piece." the disembodied lips continued as cheeks and teeth started to form around them. "So a puddle in a puddle is just...what...a big puddle? Right?"

    Pulling out the controller again, Victor considered it for a long moment. He had several things that would shut him up for a little bit. He could freeze him. Maybe suck him into a giant spinning saw blade. Just melt him again. Call a Roomba?

    But what was the point?

    Victor let out a long, drawn out sigh and, instead, tapped a button that caused the platform he was in to start descending towards the floor. The metal spikes did their best to retract automatically, but some of them, now hardening in strange, half-dissolved columns of metal, jammed in their housing. Still, it was enough that he could maneuver the platform around here and there and touch down next to the remains of his arch enemy.

    "Dorian." Victor began before sighing again and pinching the bridge of his nose with one hand. "I really don't know. I just... I don't know."

    "Like, don't get me wrong." the grotesque amalgamation of meat and bone declared matter-of-factly. "It's probably already actually inside now, but I feel like making that proper distinction is important to really get a sense of everything going on."

    "A sense of everything going on." Victor echoed, pinching his nose tighter. "Dorian, do you even have a sense of what's going on?!"

    "Pardon?" the bust of Dorian asked as he continued to slowly regrow from his molten puddle.

    "I mean, do you have any idea why we're still doing...THIS?" Victor demanded, waving a hand at half-destroyed trap room as a well of annoyance that had been growing within him bubbled to the surface.

    "This?"

    "YES! THIS! This song and dance! This... Whatever this is! Why are we still doing this?"

    "Well, you see," Dorian began. "I find your evil lair..."

    "Naturally."

    "Break in."

    "Obviously."

    "Deal with the traps and minions and all that."

    "Clearly."

    "And when I'm just about to defeat you, against all odds, you escape to your actual evil lair."

    "Oh, yes, the real one." Victor remarked snidely as he considered just how many different actual evil lairs he really had and how many had been destroyed over the years.

    Honestly, the property taxes alone made him cringe to even think about them.

    "And then I go to break in there! The actual lair."

    "Yes, yes." Victor agreed. "I know what we're doing. I asked why we're doing this?"

    "Because that's what we do." Dorian gestured with a meaty appendage. An arm, perhaps? Hopefully an arm.

    "And we've been doing it for as long as I can remember." Victor agreed. "But how long has that been? I know it was at least before the British came about."

    Dorian seemed to nod and consider. "I vaguely remember something about you wearing Roman armor for a while..."

    "Oh yea, I remember that one. I really liked that armor."

    "So, I guess before the Romans?" Dorian considered.

    "Yea, we'd been doing it for a while before that. Definitely before the Romans."

    The two sat in thought for a second, Victor standing over the cooling pool of mess while Dorian slowly grew and emerged out of it, his body stitching itself back together.

    "Was there a thing with dinosaurs once? Has it been that long?" Dorian asked thoughtfully.

    "Well, there was, but that was pretty recent." Victor considered. "You meant the one with the pterodactyl, right?"

    "No, no." Dorian shook his head. "The tyrannosaurus."

    "Oh! Right! When I was trying to create a dragon!"

    "Oh, yea! And you had that whole knight thing going on. Where did you even get that one?"

    "Bought it off some guy from Montana. Something... Brown? I think his name was Brown."

    The two stood there, just staring at each other. Remembering things that had come before and realizing that they probably only recalled a fraction of what had actually been.

    "Vic," Dorian echoed his nemesis's question. "Why are we doing this?"

    Despite himself, Victor tried again to recall, but knew that the answer was no longer there. Maybe he had just run out of space to remember stuff like that. Maybe it had been lost from one of the times he'd 'died'. Maybe it just hadn't been significant to begin with.

    "I don't know." Victor confessed.

    Another few seconds drew out before them as Dorian slowly reached his natural height. The man was nude as his clothes had been disintegrated in the conflagration earlier, but it was nothing that Victor hadn't seen before.

    For the first time since he could even remember, they regarded each other as men, as thinking people, rather than as the enemies they had been for so long.

    "Dorian." Victor began.

    "Yea?"

    "I'm tired." he confessed.

    "I- Me too, Vic."

    The two took in their surroundings, glancing around at the half-destroyed trap room again, but looking at it again with a new perspective. So much time. So much money. So much everything wasted in this endless rigamarole of back and forth, back and forth. They had been spending so much time trying to kill each other even though they both knew that neither of them could die. They had tried literally everything under the sun to invoke their own deaths that-

    "It was because you couldn't die." Victor declared, the briefest flicker of a memory bubbling to the surface.

    "Was that it?" Dorian asked hesitantly.

    "Yea. You said you'd never met someone else who couldn't die when...something happened. I can't remember what. And then you tried to kill me just to see. And then I tried to kill you."

    "Seems about right."

    "I can't remember what really started it, but I definitely remember bashing your head in with a rock." Victor recalled.

    "I think I tried to drown you." Dorian though.

    "Oh, right! I remember that." Victor said before shuddering. "I hate drowning. Always leaves me feeling weird."

    All at once, the silence of the room grew around them. Everything that had been said, everything that had been done for so many years. The maiming, the attempted murder, the property damage, the crimes against humanity, the tax evasion...

    "Do you want to-" Victor began while Dorian stared at him expectantly. "Do you want to go get a drink?"

    "Yea." Dorian said with a nod. "I think I do."

    Victor stepped further to the side of his platform and offered the space to Dorian who slowly stepped on, dripping with the remains of the pool.

    "Though, one requirement." Victor continued.

    "Don't drown you in it?"

    "Also good. But let's get you cleaned up first."

    "Sounds like a plan." Dorian agreed.

    And so, enemies no more, the dastardly duo ascended towards the heavens aboard the Mastermind's creati-

    "Stop that."

    "Sorry."

===

Story submitted to Reedsy for their Weekly Writing Contest with the following Prompt: Write a story about two characters who have been fighting for so long, they can’t remember what started it.

 

https://blog.reedsy.com/creative-writing-prompts/

All In a Day's Work

 

Source: https://www.wallpaperflare.com/old-radio-station-vintage-wallpaper-uvrya

 

 

 All In a Day's Work

 

 ===

 

    Bzzzzzzzzzz.

    The constant droning hum made Gabby's neck and shoulders ache. It was this constant, incessant sound that just seemed to drill into her skull and set her teeth on edge. And, for whatever reason, it was absolutely atrocious today.

    "Guhhh!" she cried out in annoyance to no one in particular.

    "Problem?" Mike called from the other room.

    "No. It's nothing." she said with a deep sigh.

    She reached out to the small radio on her desk and fiddled with a few of the knobs but to little success. While she was able to lower the volume slightly, it also made the constant noise less of a hum and more of a soft crackle as more of the sound came through clearly. Gabby briefly considered turning the whole contraption off but knew she'd get in far more trouble then she cared to think about if her boss came in and her dispatch was turned off.

    But bless it all she needed a break.

    "Hey Mike?" Gabby called as she stood, stretching her arms in a feeble attempt to loosen the knot between her shoulder blades.

    "Yea?" came the answering call.

    "Can you keep an ear on dispatch? I wanna go grab a refill."

    "Yep." he replied unethusiastically.

    Picking up her mug, Gabby stepped out of the crowded little office into the main bullpen to find Mike exiting his own office. He looked very much like she felt. Tired, bleary eyed, and completely bored out of his skull.

    "Don't look too excited now." she said with a weak smile.

    "Haha." he exhaled dryly, running one hand through his blonde curls. "Wanna grab me a snack while you're over there?"

    "Sure." Gabby replied. "Any preferences."

    "Surprise me." he said as he walked past her into her office, sipping at his own coffee.

    Gabby let out an uncontrolled yawn as she walked by rows and rows of cubicles, making her way to the breakroom and the expensive coffee maker that her boss had felt was a 'necessary expenditure' for the workplace.

    She certainly wasn't going to argue.

    The whole thing was a fancy pile of machinery that she had no hope of ever understanding. It was shiny and chrome and seemed to gleam in the light of the breakroom. One of their clients had recommended it some years back and bless the man who did because it made dealing with the stress of the job just so much easier. 

    Taking her time, she looked through the selection of different beans and settled on a dark roast she had tried a few times but hadn't sampled in a couple of weeks. Gabby rinsed out the used mug in her hand, tossed it under the drip, and let the machine do its thing while she raided the nearby shelves for snacks.

    Onion chips. Potato chips. Granola bars. Popcorn. And...what is this? Salmon jerky?

    She shuddered at the thought, having tried it once and only once. The smell had been way too much and the taste was somehow even worse.

    Settling, instead, on some of the sweet Hawaiian onion chips, Gabby snatched up one of the bags and returned to the coffee machine as it finished dispensing the life-giving bean juice.

    "Hey, hey." Ralph said with a bit more pep then she felt the day deserved as he entered the little breakroom. "There she is. You workin' hard or hardly workin'?"

    "Hey Ralphie." Gabby replied, offering a genuine, albeit tired smile.

    "Hey Gabs." he returned. "You hear about that...?"

    "Yea. Yea I did." she said with a sigh. "Been non-stop all morning because of it."

    "Well, least first response is all done, right? Just the client's responsibility now?"

    "Mostly." she confirmed, glancing back to the near full coffee mug and snagging it from under the drip. "I think there's a few stragglers that are still getting sorted out."

    "Fair enough." Ralph replied with a shrug before taking up residence in front of the coffee machine. "You have to go out for it?"

    "No." Gabby replied as she fished out some almond milk from the nearby fridge. "But I wouldn't complain if they did, honestly. Ever since the big guy wanted to do the 'less hands-on' thing, I feel like I never get to see any clients. I didn't exactly sign up for a desk job."

    "Yea. But I get it. We can't hold their hands forever." her coworker replied with a shrug. "And hey, if we're the only ones doing any work, whats gonna be left for them to do? Am I right?"

    "Yea, yea. I guess so." she replied while stirring a spoonful of sugar into her coffee. "Still. I just wish I had a bit more to do."

    "Careful with that kind of wishful thinking." Ralph said with a smirk. "You just might get it."

    "Pff. Later, Ralphie." she said, walking out of the breakroom and back into the main hall.

    "Later!" he called after.

    Coffee and onion chips in hand, Gabby trudged her way back across the bullpen and by a seemingly endless number of cubicles. Each one had a different person in them, all doing their assigned work. Some looked happy. Some looked tired. Some looked like they could look into oblivion and win a staring contest.

    Same shit different day.

    "Oy. Big guy." She called as she reached her office door before unceremoniously tossing the chips at Mike's head. He was sitting at her desk, his attention focused on the radio on top of it, and staring at it rather intently.

     The chips bounced off his skull with a satisfying crinkle and cracking of the chips inside.

    "Rude." he said as he reached down and grabbed the now fallen chips off the ground. 

    Mike popped open the bag as Gabby walked back into her office, but he made no move to get up from her desk. Instead, he leaned back over and began fiddling with one of the knobs on the radio. It was only then that Gabby realized-

    "It's weirdly quiet." she observed, realizing that the constant hum was gone.

    "That's what happens when you don't try to listen to every station at once." 

    "I'm more efficient that way."

    "Yea, I bet you are." Mike said with a shake of his head. "I bet you can't even understand half of what's being said."

    "I mean, I can. I just have to really try to listen, ya know."

    "Well, I tuned you to Kids radio."

    Gabby frowned, thinking that maybe she should have gotten Mike that Salmon jerky instead.

    "Come on, man. Kids radio? That's always the wors-"

    As if on cue, the radio chirped in its own opinion on the matter.

    "H-hello? I... I don't really know how to do this... I've never really done this before..." came the uncertain sound of a young child through the contraption on her desk.

    "Come onnnnn." Gabby groaned loudly.

    "Hey, you've been saying you wanted some field work and you know the big guy has a soft spot for the kids."

    "But..." she began.

    "No good deed goes unpunished. You ever heard the story of the good samaritan?"

    Gabby glared as him as he walked past.

    "You suck." she declared.

    Mike just laughed.

    With a sigh, Gabby settled down to her desk and turned the radio up. Despite feeling riled up by having to do actual work, Mike was completely right. A kid could be justified and would let her get out of the office. At least, provided it wasn't over an X-Box or something.

    "...don't even know if you can hear me or not. But Daddy always says I should try to talk to you. He says..."

    The radio starts to go to static but Gabby quickly adjusts it until its crystal clear. Though whether the clarity is due to the equipment or the client is anyone's guess.

    "...every night. So, if you're listening. I guess I'm asking about my dad. He... My mom says he got hurt. There's a lot of people here. Lots of doctors. And they told me I should say goodbye. But I don't know why. Why can't we just go home?"

    Gabby felt a tightness in her chest as she listened that seemed to wash away her previous annoyances. She set down the coffee cup, having not even taken a sip.

     "If you can... Can you help him? I don't know what's wrong, but I don't want to say goodbye. I think he's hurt, but I don't know how. He won't get up. And there's these machines and..."

    She could hear the child's voice beginning to crack as the emotions began to overwhelm him. Pulling her attention away from the radio, she grabbed her workstation and pulled up the file on the client. Skimming it briefly, she noted a few key details both about him and his family.

    "Ahh, kid." she whispered to no one,  an exhalation of exasperation at the notes on the child's father. "That's awful."

    "I don't want to say goodbye. I just want him to get up. I don't want to say goodbye." the kid began to actively cry through the radio.

    There was nothing more to listen to. It wasn't like she was going to get anymore from a traumatized nine year old.

    A warmth flushed through her cheeks and around the edges of her eyes as she listened to the quiet little sobs and her throat closed ever so slightly. There was something about kids that always just got under her skin. Maybe it was too much of her boss's comments or something.

    "Alright!" she shouted to Mike. "You win!"

    "Ha!" came the answer from the door next to her's.

    She pulled up the messenger on her workstation and quickly jotted out a message to her boss, letting him know where she was going and that it was for a client. She then shot him over the ticket information and marked herself as absent before standing up and leaving behind the forgotten coffee.

    "See you when you get back." Mike called after her.

    "Yea, yea." she responded. "I blame you for this." though she knew he wasn't at fault for anything more that tuning the channel to be more focused.

    Crossing the bullpen and winding her way through the desks, Gabby reached the elevator and hit the button. She thought about how things used to be and how it seemed like only her, Mike, and Ralph were ever given leeway to do field work anymore. It used to be half the desks did on-sites but now the big guy only trusted the three of them and even those had to be justified.

    Still, she wouldn't complain about not having to wait on the elevator.

    The gleaming, chrome doors opened and she stepped inside, slapping the 'G' button before leaning against the far wall. The doors closed a few moments later with a gentle 'whoosh' and she felt the elevator begin to move. Her stomach lurched ever so slightly as the elevator descended quickly towards the ground.

    "Bluh." she groaned at the sensation of her lunch trying to crawl up her throat from the speed of the thing.

    The elevator hit ground floor a minute later and, stepping out, Gabby found herself in a crowded city. She took a moment to get her bearings, glancing around at the people walking by and the cars zooming through the streets, before settling on the large white hospital building at the far end of the block. A few seconds after, the sounds of the street died away, only to be replaced by a soft, incessant beeping of machines and the light murmur of voices, broken only by the occasional cough.

    Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out her phone and pulled up the details.

    "JEREMY GREEN. ROOM 722."

     Crossing the lobby, she took another, much slower elevator up to the seventh floor of the hospital, only to be greeted by a Caduceus symbol. Gabby couldn't help but chuckle, thinking that she really needed to see Hermie as it'd been a while since they last spoke, and then checked the directory. Following the guide to the right, she soon found what she was looking for.

    A young boy sat on a small bench, tears streaming down his face and his hands clenched tightly together in a ball. A woman, his mother presumably, sat over top of him, her arms draped around the child's shaking body. Tears streaked her cheeks as well and Gabby could clearly make out the racking sobs in her ribcage.

    "Ahh... Kid..." Gabby whispered sadly as she walked up and gently ran a hand through his hair.

    He didn't notice.

    Glancing past the bench into the room beyond, there was a cacophony of sound and light.

    Machines of all make and model stood around an unconscious middle-aged man in a hospital bed. Each one, some filled with fluid, some pumping, and most of them beeping and booping and flashing, created a chorus of noise that made Gabby wish for the simple hum of her untuned radio. Every device was hooked up to the man in some way or another with fluids coming and going in a truly disgusting display. At the far end of the bed, a nurse and a doctor stood looking over a chart, quietly whispering to each other. And, next to them, a gentleman in a black suit looked over his own chart while glancing occasionally at the man in the bed.

    "Hey." Gabby said with a wave, walking into the room.

    The medical professionals paid her no mind but the man in black glanced up and then locked eyes on Gabby.

    "Oh, come onnnnnn." he groaned, tossing the chart on a nearby chair.

    "Nice to see you too." she chuckled.

    "No. No it's not. Are we really going to do this?"

    Gabby glanced at the man in the bed and grimaced. He was in rough shape. It was truly a marvel that he was alive at all for the moment.  

    Bless modern medicine, she thought to herself.

    "Yes, we're really doing this, Az."

    "I just finished the paperwork!" he near-shouted in exasperation. "You can't just waltz in here and-"

    "I can."

    "But you can't-"

    "Yes, I can."

    "Can't."

    "Can."

    "Can't!"

    "Look, Az, I can and I will. I know we don't do this much anymore, but your department is just gonna have to deal with it. I'm doing my job and you know darn well that I am above you on these kinds of things."

    "But this is different!" Az complained. "He had a date! It was scheduled. You can't!"

    "Oh get off it before I call the big guy." Gabby said, turning away from him towards the man in bed. "Besides, what's worse? Filling out a report or having to complete the escort?"

    "Hmm. Well..." Az seemed to think, his annoyance turning thoughtful as he considered.

    "That's what I thought." she replied before settling next to the hospital bed, lifting her hand, and slapping the patient hard across the face.

    The man woke with a coughing gasp, vomit spitting up just a little around the edges of ventilator.

    "Holy-!" the doctor jumped.

    "Jesus!" the nurse chimed in, rushing to patient's side.

    "Can we get some help in here!" the doctor called before joining the nurse, working to get the ventilator out of the struggling man's throat. "It's gonna be alright, son. Calm down."

    From outside the room, the young boy peeked in and then tried to rush in before being caught up by his mother.

    "No, honey. Let them work."

    And work they did. With the patient machinations of the medical professionals, the man was quickly unhooked from a good majority of the machines that had been being used to keep him alive over the course of the next half hour. All the while, the boy and his mother continued to cry and watch, though it was clearly for a new reason.

    Relief.

    By the end of an hour, the three of them, the man, woman, and child, were crying together, embracing each other tightly in the father's bed.

    "I think we need to work on your subtlety." Az commented after finishing gathering up his things.

    "I can be subtle." Gabby retorted.

    "Clearly." Az shot back.

    "Easy, easy." the man complained from his bed as his wife squeezed him tighter. "You're choking me."

    The woman loosened her grip, but did little else to release her husband.

    "It's a miracle." she sobbed into his now tear-soaked hospital gown. "I don't know how but it's a miracle!"

    "I just choose not to be." Gabby continued. "They're not always supposed to be subtle."

    "Yea, yea." Az grumbled. "Wanna get some lunch?"

    "Sounds good."

    As the two began to make their way out of the hospital room, Gabby stopped to look back and realized that the little boy was no longer death-gripping his father but rather looked a bit more stoic. His eyes were closed tightly.

    "Thank you. Thank you so much." he whispered to Gabby, though he likely didn't know she could hear him.

    Gabby couldn't help but smile.

    "You got it, buster." she said, gently stroking the child's hair once more before turning and walking out with Az.

    "So, what're we thinking?" Az asked.

    "Anything but Ambrosia." Gabby answered with a grimace.

    "You still hate that stuff?"

    "When it's all you eat for a century or two, it gets old." 

===

Story submitted to Reedsy for their Weekly Writing Contest with the following Prompt: Write a story about someone whose job is to make miracles happen, literally or figuratively. 

 

https://blog.reedsy.com/creative-writing-prompts/

Real-Life Conflict

 

 ====

 

Hello, Everyone.

 

I've been debating whether or not I wanted to say something, particularly because I don't know how it will be received, but I feel like I'm morally obligated to at this point. I know plenty of those people who read here are not from the United States, nor do the politics of my country directly or even indirectly affect your lives, so you really have very little reason to care outside of a passing interest in world politics. With that said, however, I wanted to say something.

 

First off, for those of you that are possibly still unaware, there was a recent ruling by the United States Supreme Court that they have overturned a key case known as Roe vs. Wade. This case was a keystone that allowed for the safe practice of abortion and female reproductive rights within the United States, allowing for and providing protection of medical and bodily autonomy. However, due to the beliefs of a loud but strategically placed minority, those rights have now been stripped away from women across a majority of the United States, making them less of a person depending on the state where they might live. Worse yet, there have been multiple comments implying the intent is to try to actively ban these rights in locations where it is protected by State legislature as well as targeting the same for protections that exist for LGBT individuals as well as birth control methods.

I've been trying to think of what to say, to think of some eloquent or well thought-out means of portraying my thoughts on the matter and, candidly, my lack of ability to do so is the part of the reason I debated saying anything. However, at the end of the day, I'm fucking appalled by my country and the fucking dehumanizing policies that have been passed, and the only thing I can do at this time is to express anger and disgust.

Just to target a few of the early questions. No, I am not a female. No, I have not ever needed nor do I believe I will ever need these medical practices. No, I haven't even dealt with anyone within my friends or family groups that have even NEEDED these practices. However, that does not make this anymore appalling or infuriating as we, as a country, have been taking steps backward for many years now and this was a big fucking leap.

 

The atrocities that humanity may face are sometimes little and sometimes big. Sometimes they're creeping, slow, and only seen when viewed in relief against the shadows of the past. And sometimes they're plain as day.

It's very often easy to think of the conflict within stories to be something that is there only for the drama of the tale. To think of villainous actors and the horrors and atrocious acts that they commit in the name of good literature to be relegated to some bygone era or to the exclusive land of fiction. However, we need to remember that the terrible things we love to hate in fiction are not exclusive to storybooks and these things often have real world examples or parallels. Likewise, while stories often have big, grand, and commonly singular heroes, life rarely plays out so simply.

We need heroes. 

 

But, unlike books and stories, more often then not those heroes are not going to truly realize their impact. There are no knights in shining armor single handedly fighting a dragon. There's no sole survivor detonating the spacecraft to save the human race. There's not even a singular whistleblower that reveals the corrupt and malicious who are working against the people they are meant to protect and provide succor. There are only normal people.

For most, there is no singular view of success. There is no epic battle that your average retail worker is going to see. Your local plumber is not going to go on some grand quest and your neighborhood baby sitter isn't going to single-handedly dismantle the systems that are oppressing the American populous and trying to hand the power of the people to a select and privileged few. And, unfortunately, for many this will discourage them. They feel powerless. Unheard, unwanted, and enslaved to a life where they are nothing more than slaves to those in power. Fortunately for those in power, this is what they want you to feel.

Do. Not. Give. In.

All of the changes that have happened for the betterment of people have been the unification of singular people into a group who are unwilling to back down and unwilling to take anymore shit. Feeling divided and hopeless is what gives those forcibly stripping power the ability to do so. It is inconvenient, it is hard, and it is messy, but if you want better than you have, you have to fight for it. You must reach out to your neighbors, to your friends, to your family, to all those around you who are much more like you then they are different and say 'Enough is fucking enough.'

Many of us want life to be different than it is. For all the bad stuff to just disappear. We want to ignore things that are hard and we want it to just go away if you just turn your head long enough. And, in a way, it will go away. Freedom of choice will go away. Freedom of movement. Freedom of autonomy and the rights to free will and action. At this point, if we wait long enough, everything that made the country we live in great in any fashion will, indeed, go away.

So, I say again, we need heroes.

We don't need dragon slayers or heroes of fiction. We need people willing to do what is right in the face of the difficulties that will occur. We need unified, group action that says to those in power we are no longer going to be an easy mark and no longer going to let them rape and pillage our rights, our lands, and our lives. We need to act as one and say in one voice 'We don't need or want your version of history anymore.'.

I'm truly sorry. 

 

I know this isn't what you would normally expect from my site, but unfortunately I haven't been able to write or think about much else. For those of you who are indifferent to this, well, here's hoping it's because you are not American rather than simply deaf to the suffering of your countrymen and women. For those of you who are scared and being directly affected by this, I am very sorry you must experience this and I wish I had the power to just make it go away for you. And to those of you sitting on the sidelines, I ask that you take a moment and look around. Look at the people who are inflicting this. Look at the people who are suffering. And listen.

Connect with people. Plan. And Push back. There are many non-violent but effective ways to make your voice heard and to remove those from power who would do us harm. Money talks, but its silence is heard loudly. Reach out to your neighbors and, I promise you, there are already those working against this.

If action is not taken, worse will occur. We can fix this and we can turn it around, but it requires the average person to take ownership of their own lives and the lives of their countrymen. We need leaders, yes, but we need normal, average people who are willing to stand up and say 'No. Enough is enough.'

Are you willing to stand up too?

The Book Report: Dead Silence by S.A. Barnes

The Book Report:

Dead Silence

by S.A. Barnes

 

 ---

 

Outside, there's nothing. The void. Dark, endless blackness. Impossible cold. No food, water, or air. Just emptiness. Inside, the darkness presses in around you, only better than the void outside by the few work lamps that protect you from the black of infinity. Your head is pounding and the claustrophobia is setting in. The finery of a bygone era is all around you. Rare woods, plush carpeting, and beautiful flowers in every vase. Extravagant jewels, silks, fabrics, and opulence that only the most money can bye adorn the corpses of those who last found themselves in these haunted halls. If not for the dead, it very well may be an exciting adventure to board such a fine vessel, but the question keeps nagging at you. How did they die? Why did they die? And why do I keep seeing something move out of the corner of my eye?

Dead Silence is a masterful recapturing of the classic haunted house story, this time told in the deep recesses of space. Following Claire Kovalick and her team of deep space communications engineers, the story hops quickly between 'then' and 'now' as Claire retells the tale of how she found herself to be the sole survivor of a harrowing discovery after answering a distress beacon at the farthest reaches on known space.

With only bits and pieces of memory, some of which she can't even be sure are real, Claire retells how her and her crew discover the missing luxury cruise ship, the Aurora. A one-of-a-kind piece of history, this ghost ship has been lost for several decades after only a brief hay-day when it was revered as the single most luxurious form of space travel the worlds had ever seen. Only several months into the Aurora's maiden voyage, however, the ship mysteriously went missing without a trace, with no sign of it. Until now.

On entering the ship, they only find more questions than answers. And the mystery, and terror, deepens when they find themselves locked inside the Aurora with no way to escape and something else beginning to react to their presence there.

Now, locked in a mental institution after her discovery, Claire recounts her tale to the company executives in charge of investigating the ship's disappearance. She has no idea how she escaped and is only beginning to put the pieces back together after being discovered in an escape pod by a passing vessel. The company is certain that Claire killed her crew, either by accident or design, in the interest of keeping the wealth of the Aurora to herself. After all, this is the second time that she was the sole survivor of a catastrophic event and the first time certainly didn't paint her in a good light. And it seems all too convenient that she's haunted by her dead crewmates, tripping her up during her interviews when the company men might get something useful out of her.

Using the first person narrative, Dead Silence does a fantastic job of dropping the reader into the terror and keeping them in the action. A lot of information that ties to the heart of the mysteries is readily apparent and available in the reading, but often not plainly obvious due to the disorienting nature of everything going on. Even better than that, and perhaps this is just personal preference, while most things are wrapped up rather nicely, certain fantastical elements are simply never expanded on past the obvious due to the fact that the narrator herself never learns the answers. In my opinion, this actually helps strengthen the narration as a whole and adds to the sensation of being in the action.

I think my one complaint for the tale, and the reason I couldn't give this five stars, is that the strength of the book is also its weakness. Claire is very clearly traumatized and suffering from mental health issues. This is a point of growth with her character and it is very reasonably and satisfactorily addressed. However there are a number of times in the story where the focus is so heavily on this element and the 'spinning gears' in her head, so to speak, that I feel it detracts too much from what's going on. There are a few parts where it steps over the disorienting storytelling and instead becomes self focused enough that it begins to lose the reader and the focus of the rest of the book. If these areas were cleaned up, it would truly be a perfect, scary story.

All in all, Dead Silence does a great job in standing among other space-based horror stories. Akin to tales such as Alien, Dead Space, and, particularly, Event Horizon, the author holds their own, using both the expected and unexpected to craft a fantastic scary story. I definitely recommend this book for anyone who wants a new spin on the old classic of ghosts and ghoulies that go bump in the night, wandering haunted halls til someone new comes to call.

If you're interested in checking it out for yourself, feel free to check out the link below, I personally recommend the audiobook as Lauren Ezzo's acting adds an extra, emotional weight to the story that I believe adds to its telling:

 

Dead Silence | Audible Audiobook

Dead Silence | Kindle Edition

Dead Silence | Paperback

Dead Silence | Hardcover

Ceaseless Dark - Chapter 2

Original Artist: Shawn Poh | https://www.artstation.com/artwork/qdOQL

===

 

The problem, simply, is larger than many people

tend to realize. Space, and space travel, requires all

of the relevant resources to be carried with at all

times; or, at least, some measure of acquiring the

necessary resources. Ask your average layperson and

they will give you the big four: food, water, air, and

fuel. But existence requires more than that.

 

Any tool you will ever have, or the ability to fabricate that

tool, must be brought with you. You must bring clothes,

medicines, recreation...literally anything and everything

you would need to function both mentally and physically;

all of that must be shoved into a cramped, vehicle

with you as you shuttle through the dark. 

 

Imagine being forced to live in an apartment for 

years on end. Every door, window, every crack to the

outside would be sealed and you would have to live in

there without anything but telecommunications to the

outside. No physical, outside assistance of any kind.

 

What would you need to bring with you to survive 

for all of that time? 

 

- Captain Tatiana Botezatu, The Nagato 

 

 

Chapter 2

 

  

    The entire door gave way with a muted thunk that wasn't so much heard as it was felt through the reverberations of the environmental suit. However, thanks to the microgravity, the door didn't fall, but rather just began to drift lazily backwards away from them.

    "After you, little lady." Dunagan said with a wave of his hand.

    "Well, if lady's first, by all means." Colby shot back with a wave of her own hand.

    "Well now, don't mind if I do." he responded with a mock flip of imagined hair.

    The big man pushed off gently from where he rested near the door, floating into the hallway beyond, followed shortly thereafter by Colby. 

    The hall was pretty much what they were used to with these sorts of ships. Cramped with only enough space for the two of them to be side by side, drifting maybe a foot or two off the deck. Sleek, metallic paneling, thick, solid metal doors, big, bulky electronic doorpads and monitors, hardened polyglass lighting across the roof and floor, and clearly marked walkways, doors, and location designations in bright off-white paint that, without the century of exposure to the elements, would have glown in the dark with natural bio-luminescence.

    Everything was sturdy, built to last, and meant to survive and help the passengers survive deep space. No frills. No decoration. Just functionality and rugged durability.

    All about them, things drifted quietly in the dark. Random objects that found no rest due to the microgravity. A pen spinning in a constant, lazy circle. An old tablet that drifted near one corner of the hall. Someone's discarded hat, a UMC private's hat based on the designation on it, hovers just between them as they move. The dented remains of a steel coffee tumbler slowly bounces off one wall.

    "Spooky place." Merrick crackled out over the radio.

    "Eh, it ain't the worst place we've been too." Colby said with a non-committal shrug that the pilot on the other side couldn't see.

    "Still... gives me the creeps." she shot back.

    "And that's why you don't dive." Jameson's voice came through over the static of the radio.

    "Nah. Don't say that, boss." Dunagan replied with a smirk Colby could make out even through his darkened visor. "Give the little girl a chance. Next time, I'll fly and she can go with Colbs."

    "No fuckin' way." Merrick answered quickly.

    Half way down the hall, Dunagan and Colby stopped in front of the next door. Near identical to the one they just cut through, this door was labeled as 'EQUIPMENT STORAGE'. Glancing back the way they came, Colby could just make out 'ALPHA LAB' next to the sizeable hole in the metal that they'd passed through.

    "What? Don't think I'd make a good pilot?" Dunagan chided.

    "Dunagan, I don't think you could fly us a hundred kilometers through open space with the ship on autopilot."

    "Technically, that wouldn't be flying." Huli seemed almost to whisper through the static of the connection.

    "Look, all I need is a fancy hat and to sit in the squishy chair. No muss, no fuss." Dunagan blustered with a gentle wave of one hand. "Best damn pilot y'all have ever seen."

    Colby glanced down the hall to the flotsam floating about. After spotting her target, she hopped along the wall for a moment and snatched the old private's hat before returning and tapping the old piece of headwear against the chest of Dunagan's environmental suit.

    "There ya go, big guy." Colby said. "All your's."

    "Ah!" he almost squeaked with joy, a sound you wouldn't expect out of the wall of muscle that was the big man. "A fancy hat!"

    "And I'm sure we'll find you a squishy chair somewhere in here if we look hard enough." Colby returned as she pulled the plasma torch once again from her belt.

    "But is it Merrick's squishy chair?" he asked.

    "No, I guess not."

    "Well then I don't want that one. I want Merrick's."

    "It's my squishy chair, Dunagan." Merrick hissed out playfully. "All mine. You'll never get it."

    The blue-white flame ignited on the plasma torch, spurting and flickering with little flashes of white and gold trailing off its edges as Colby brought the tool up to the outside edges of the door. Instantly, the metal there began turning to a soft, molten putty beneath the torch's heat.

    "But see, I got the hat, Merrick. And you'll be on a dive with Colbs. There will be no one to stop me!"

    "Buhh." Colby could hear Merrick practically shudder through the radio connection. "No thanks. And, even if I did go on one of those deathwalks with Colby, someone could stop you."

    "No one could!" Dunagan repeated.

    "Huli could."

    "Here I thought you'd say Pascall." Colby commented, her focus on her work in front of her.

    "N-no. She's right. I'd just lock out your access to the command consoles." Huli said, her voice distant as she seemed to be thinking about it. "And probably my door after that. No, definitely after that. But, worst comes to worst, yea, I'd call Pascall."

    "They've got ya beat, Dun." Colby observed.

    "What am I being called for?" Pascall's thick baratone scratched out through the microphone.

    "It's nothing, Pascall." Merrick replied. "Just threatening Dun."

    "Dunagan?" Pascall asked, just the slightest hint of threat in his tone.

    "Alright, alright." Dunagan said, holding up his hands in defeat, though only Colby could see it. "I'll be good. But I'm keeping the hat!" he quickly added.

    "Love ya, Dun." Merrick chided.

    "Yea, yea. Say that all you want but you cheated bringing Pascall into this."

    "What can I say? I'm just a fan of the man with the high power sedatives."

    There were a few scattered chuckles throughout the radio feed, though, unsurprisingly, not from the doctor himself. Pascall was almost certainly more focused on some other project more interesting to him unless something drastic happened and the team had need of his services.

    "Got it!" Colby said as she finished cutting through the metal around the door.

    She stepped aside and, gingerly, Dunagan drew the slab of metal that was the door back out into the hall with them and set it to drift away down the hall to join the rest of the detritus. It was always easier to bring the doors to them versus trying to shove them into potentially small spaces like an unknown room. In this instance, it was definitely the right choice.

    Beyond, they found themselves in what seemed to be some sort of large, walk-in freezer. The walls were a thick, textured metal and several large vents could be seen overtop of three heavy-looking, industrial shelving units packed to the brim with assorted items.

    It's probably colder now then it ever was when the power was on. Colby mused.

    "What've got, guys? Can't quite make it out." Jameson asked through the static.

    Dunagan and Colby both drifted carefully into the room and started going through the stuff on the shelves. Plenty of it was basic lab equipment. Beakers, vials, metallic and plastic hand tools of every, shape, size, and level of precision. Cleaning supplies for every state of matter be it solid, liquid, or gas. Nothing more than they might find on in their own ship's haul.

    "Nothing interesting here." Colby announced.

    "Sucks to suck." Dunagan commented, causing her to glance over his shoulder, though the only thing she could make out were some sort of darkened polyglass jars.

    "Got something?" she asked.

    "Hey, Jameson." Dunagan asked, ignoring Colby's question. "What's the rule about pets on board, again?"

    "Only Sir Fredrickson the Third is allowed on board and only because he is fluffy and delightful." the captain replied in his normal, strict monotone despite the ludicrousness of the statement.

    "So if I told you I found something slimy and disgusting?" Dunagan asked while proffering up the jar he was holding to Colby, who took it gingerly.

    "I'd say you should probably clean your sheets." Merrick offered.

    Colby stared down at the jar in her hands, trying to understand what she was looking at. The jar seemed almost perfectly sealed, as though it were never meant to be opened somehow, though, how whatever was inside actually got inside was beyond her. Smooth polyglass in a perfect cylinder, maybe some 30 centimeters tall and 13 centimeters wide. No openings, tabs, or any obvious means of getting into it short of sawing the thing open.

    Whatever was inside the jar was a lot harder to make out, however.

    The majority of the inside was stained a deep ombre green with scattered batches of brown, black, and deep violet purple. Those patches that she could see through, Colby could make out some sort of thick mold or growth coating the inside of the cylinder that appeared almost furry or fuzzy in appearance. Tiny tendrils of some sort of plant or something grew out from the fuzz and drifted listlessly about like it was in a fluid.

    Colby gently shook the cylinder in her hand and, confirming, saw things drift about thickly as though in a soup. She couldn't make out any liquid actually sloshing, and concluded that it must be vacuumed sealed.

    Then, as she watched, something small and with far too manly limbs moved swiftly from one of the patches of mold to another. Disappearing just as quickly as it appeared.

    "Guhhh." Colby exclaimed.

    "Wow." Huli proclaimed. "I think something's moving in that, Colby."

    "Definitely is." she confirmed.

    "And we got more!" Dunagan declared excitedly before motioning to the several shelves of similar containers, probably at least two dozen in total.

    "The hell is this thing?" Colby asked as she held it up closer to look, once again seeing something small and slimy dart from mold patch to mold patch.

    "Whatever it is somehow hasn't frozen in deep space and still has shit living in it, so that's good enough for me." Jameson declared matter of factly.

    "These things are gonna sell for a pretty penny." Dunagan declared happily and Colby felt her own excitement growing.

    "Let's get them back to the ship." Colby said, brief thoughts of what something like this could be worth flashing through her mind.

    "Negative." Jameson said. "I'll mark it and you can pick them up on your return sweep."

    "But Boss..." Dunagan began.

    "What if something happens to them?" Colby finished.

    "If a century in space hasn't done it yet then I hardly think another thirty minutes or so is going to matter. Besides, you're going to follow quarantine procedure and put those things in DeCon tanks. This isn't the family station wagon."

    Colby and Dunagan stared at each other through their visors, looking at the jar in his hand and the ones on the shelving, but it seemed like the matter was already settled on the other end.

    "What is a station wagon?" Merrick asked.

    "Th-they were a type of old fossil fuel vehicle." Huli answered.

    "Huh. Weird."

    "Boss..." Colby began again.

    "No. Now hurry up. You're burning air." Jameson said flatly, shutting down any further discussion with that simple fact.

    She stared at the jar, a bubble of worry starting to creep into her stomach.

    "Come on." Dunagan said with a gentle pat on her shoulder as he took the jar, placing it back on the shelf where he found it. "We'll grab em on the way out."

    Colby stared after the jar for a few seconds longer, watching as something dark and slimy flitted from once side of it to the other, appearing only long enough to disappear into the mold on the opposing end and wondered at how anything could be living in there and not be frozen solid.

    "Yea. I guess you're right." she said before finally looking at her diving partner. "Let's go."

===

Start the Story from the Beginning

Ceaseless Dark - Chapter 1

 

=======

 

Space is one of the only wonders that humankind will never

truly manage to fathom. It's seemingly simple in its complexity,

able to be summarized in only a few words, but impossible for

any person to grasp the magnitude of it. The concept of 'Infinite'

is one that the layman and scientist alike can agree on the basic

definition readily. Endless. Without borders or edges or dimensions. 

A vastness so great that the act of traversing a fraction of a fraction

could see the birth, rise, and death of an entire species and not even

reaching your intended destination during that time. 

The very concept is so grand in its scope that no terrestrial ape,

no matter how clever in their machinations, could ever hope

to appreciate or understand the unlimited, uncaring emptiness of 

which we barely manage to survive in by no other measure than luck.

- Dr. Shagun Beckett, "Into Infinity"

 

 

Chapter 1 

    "Easy. Eaaasy." Dunagan drew out the word as if by force of will alone, the universe would bend to him.

    Colby ignored him.

    The plasma torch in her hand was hot, even through the layers upon layers of protective equipment and the thick padding of her environmental suit. Truly, a testament to the dangerous tool in her hand. The blade of blue-white flame burned noiselessly in the vacuum around her, but seemed to echo up through her suit from her fingertips as a ghostly hissing noise.

    "Almost through..." she declared. "Three... Two..."

    In the next moment, Dunagan pulled hard against the debris, wrenching the freshly cut metal loose, and then promptly pushed back against it to keep the whole mess from sweeping the two of them back into the blackness beyond.

    "We're in." Dunagan announced.

    "Good job, guys." Merrick crackled over the headset radio. "Keep us posted and be careful in there."

    "Always am." Colby responded, the excitement slipping through as she did.

    Colby always felt excited the first time they entered a wreck. To her, it was like opening a present on Christmas morning. Every ship was different. Some were big and boxxy. Others small and sleek. Plenty were somewhere in the middle with all manner of weird shapes and angles, facilitating the needs of whatever systems or people used to inhabit it. But opening them up was what really got her heart racing.

    You never knew what you'd find inside.

    Contrary to what most Earthers believed, wrecks were somehow both more and less perilous than they imagined. Many dirt-dwellers thought of it akin to diving for sunken treasure in pirate infested waters, exploring the rotting corpse of some vessel claimed by the sea years prior. But, given the lack of both sharks and water, abandoned space-vessels were more akin to urban exploring or, perhaps, wandering into a great, old ruin. It wasn't completely uncommon to find the remains of people, though probably less common then one might think.

    As fun as Colby always thought that sounded, it just wasn't accurate. Instead, the actual dangers came from the ships themselves.

    After all, people don't just abandon ship because everything is ship shape. Something catastrophic is often happening. The bigger ones, engine failure, reactor meltdown, etc. don't tend to leave much more than scrap to pick up. However radiation leaks, environmental failures like oxygen or temperature, and even contaminants like disease or a dozen different types of system failures can all lead to people high-tailing it off a ship and leaving the hulking vessel to careen lifelessly through space.

    When working ship salvage, as Colby and her team did, it was always necessary to remember that the inside of a ship was filled with untold dangers, all of which you had to be on the lookout for. Something as simple as a misstep or bumping too hard into something could tear open one's environmental suit and then it was "Bye Bye, Guy".

    Still, that had never happened with their team.

    They were professionals.

    Even with all the dangers, the reward far outweighed the risk for her.

    Just as every ship was filled with possible dangers, it too was filled with possible treasures. Scrap was the easiest haul. Literally just metal and alloy to be processed down and recycled to fly again once more. But the interior of ships were filled with anything and everything imaginable. Anything that a person might possibly carry with them or strap onto or into a ship could potentially be hidden within the confines of a dead wreck.

    Technology, electronics, equipment, contraband, smuggled goods, cargo of all shapes and sizes, and, depending on a salvager's view of graverobbing, potentially any number of personal items could all be found and resold for a decent price.

    While Colby and her team didn't fall into that later category, there were times she'd considered crossing the line. One time in particular had been on a small passenger ship when she found the remains of an old wealthy woman's jewelry box. Technically she could have commandeered the expensive box and its contents without anyone being any the wiser, but it always felt wrong.

    It's one thing to take from an empty vessel.

    It's another thing to take from that which was once a person.

    Now, as Dunagan carefully pulled the loose pieces of metal and tossed them out behind, dooming them to an eternity of drifting through space til they either ran into a sun or burned up in the atmosphere of some planet who knows where, Colby felt her guts tightening in excited anticipation.

    The ship they'd found, the Auriga, was an old military science vessel that had been marked as destroyed roughly a century back, during the First Planetary War. Based on the condition it was in, it seemed likely that it been under fire and the crew jumped ship. Holes pockmarked the hull and detritus, attracted by the pull of the vacuum of space, had filled in the gaps of the wreckage.

    No gravity.

    No atmosphere.

    Filled with debris and the remains of a hurried escape.

    It was honestly Colby's favorite sort of wreck.

    It was probably the closest she ever felt to being one of those explorers that so many people thought ship salvager's were. Those old divers that would go down into the ocean ship wrecks. Water. Sharks. Beasts and mysteries of the deep.

    Colby felt goosebumps run down her back, the darkness closing in around her as her and Dunagan floated gently through the newly cut opening. The drifted past the thick, jagged remnants of the hull, and into a wide open space lined with computer bays, electronics, and a dozen different pieces of equipment that she could only think to describe as 'Science Stuff'.

    Her lips curled into a genuine smile as her helmet lights carved through the dark and she took in the load of old equipment that was, quite literally, in the very first room they'd entered on the ship.

    "Jackpot." she said gleefully.

    Strictly speaking, electronics that had been floating around in the emptiness of space were unlikely to actually work anymore. More than half, if not all, would almost certainly be toast. A century of exposure to cosmic and solar radiation, not to mention temperature fluctuations that varied by several hundred degrees, had a tendency to do that.

    Even so, finding military or science intel of any kind always pulled a pretty penny from the party who had lost it, more so if someone was inclined to sell to the opposing side. On top of that, the equipment itself was a good deal more valuable as scrap to be recycled and repurposed than hull metal.

    Precious metals were, after all, precious.

    "Can I say? I hope the whole damn ship is like this." Dunagan said, the smile plain in his voice.

    "It may be. May not." Jameson chimed in with a burst of static. "I'm marking it for the moment. Complete your sweep."

    "You got it, boss." Colby confirmed.

    "Be careful in there, guys." Huli's gentle voice sounded over the static of the microphones. "Military ship means no records. No records means I can't guide you through there."

    "We got this." Colby said with confidence.

    "Hell yea, we do." Dunagan agreed, lifting a heavy, gloved fist and receiving his desired fist-bump from Colby.

    "Enough chatter." Jameson said with a clipped tone. "Get moving."

    "Aye aye, boss."

    Floating past the bays of electronics, the two salvagers made their way to the sealed door on the other side of the room and began cutting their way through with the plasma torch, intent on the ship, and the bounty, beyond.

   

 ===

 

Read the Next Chapter - Chapter 2 

Addressing the Elephant in the Room

Addressing the Elephant in the Room

===

Hello again, all.

It's been a very long time since I've been on Blogger as is no mystery to a lot of the old Author and Writing crowd. While I did decide to pop back in and considered just posting things whenever, I felt like I should respectfully let people know what's going on.

The short and simple of it is: life happened. While I don't want to dive too deeply into it, a large amount of medical and personal circumstances struck very hard, not to mention being followed by the beginning of the pandemic and the disaster that has been the last few years. As it stands, I had very little inspiration to do anything short of hide from existence and haven't done much in the way of writing.

My intent for moving forward is quite simply to get back into it. I'm a great deal more focused on writing both small and large projects. I'm working on several things on the back end that I intent to publish and therefore don't want to actually post on the blog. I can promise more to come on that one. I intend to also put out stuff on the block that wouldn't otherwise find its way into a publication. These might be a bit more random then previous, though I hope that's more because I've expanded as a writer than gotten worse as one.

I'll let you be the judge of that.

Finally, I'm thinking about changing things up to make this less of a purely fiction related blog and expand out more. I've had thoughts about doing reviews, informationals, and things like that, but I really haven't delved too hard into that quite yet and am not sure if I want to quite yet.

At the end of the day, my intent is simply to get back into the groove and really start writing and living again. I hope everyone has been doing well and it's nice already seeing some familiar names and blogs that I haven't seen in quite a few years.

The best I can offer is: expect more to come. I'm not sure about scheduling or anything like that, just know that the willingness is there, so keep your ear to the ground.

 

Just a Little Chip

===

    Late morning sunlight filtered through tall, stained glass windows resting in stone archways long since weathered by many years. While each window was emblazoned with their own images, some of battles of history past, others of myths and legends, and others yet of figureheads near forgotten, it was the light that entranced him most.
    The light, run through that stained glass, ignited into a rainbow of color every morning, using the stained glass as its paints to splash a spectrum of hues across every stone and brick that lined that long hall. And, with the miniscule bits of dust that drifted from the ceiling on particularly lucky days, the colors seemed to even dance in the air.
    Today was one of those lucky days.
    While RM-BH-022 lacked the mindful programming of some of his brethren to allow him to truly appreciate the beauty that the natural world provided, something about the light in that hallway always drew him back to it. He’d return to it day after day, mopping and sweeping and cleaning the corners like clockwork, even when his scheduling didn’t actually call for it.
    A bug. One of the arcanists called it.
    A quirk. Another said.
    Too much time to figure it out. The headmaster finally declared.
    Why would they care if the mechanized cleaner happened to clean one particular hall more often than required? It was doing its job after all. So long as it didn’t get in the way of the students attending.
    Perhaps that’s why they had spent so much time trying to figure out the little quirk.
    “Move it, tin-can.” one of the students said as they barreled down the hall, nearly slamming into him as he leaned over the mop, trying to get up a particularly stubborn bit of who-knows-what on the floor.
    A split second later, a human male, dressed in the long, flowing garments typical of the Illusion Branch, followed after the other student, calling after him and actually shoving aside the mechanical janitor.
    “Hey, wait up!” the human shouted as RM-BH-022 hit the ground with the clang of metal on stone.
    His mop, bucket, and several hand brooms went flying as he hit the ground, scattering cleaning implements in all directions with janitorial tools sliding across the floors, bouncing off the walls, and one particular brush banging against one of the stained glass windows.
    The hallway quickly filled with students as the period came to a close. No one paid the Forged in the hall any mind as he picked himself up off the stone, seemingly no worse for wear, began gathering the tools of his trade, and continued about his duties.
    After all, why would he, a drone seemingly identical to the twenty nine others that wandered the campus, stand out in any manner? They might as well pay attention to an individual brick in the wall.
    For that matter, why would they care about him leaving the hall? Surely he’s got somewhere to be and it couldn’t have anything to do with them being there.
    
    The next day passed much as any other.
    RM-BH-022 moved from task to task, passing students, faculty, and Forged alike, bustling about the campus without thought. When he found a mess, he cleaned it. When he arrived at his scheduled regions, he sanitized them. He worked quickly, diligently, thoroughly, and always stayed out of the way of his betters.
    He was everything he was programmed to be.
    Except for that bug.
    At the same time the following day, late in the morning, when the sun was just beginning to filter through stained glass, the hall one again had a single occupant.
    Mop in hand, RM-BH-022 slowly wiped and worked the old stone floors while the dustmotes, always the last and seemingly regularly forgotten element of his work, drifted down from the ceiling.
    As always, the hall lit up with the rainbow of colors, dozens of stained glass windows illuminated by the sun behind them.
    With an exception.
    Looking up from his mopping, RM-BH-022 realized that there was something different about the light in this room today. It was miniscule, but a single, small beam of sunlight shined unabashed through one of the windows.
    No color.
    Only pure, natural sunlight.
    RM-BH-022 set down the mop and made his way over to the offending window, leaning down to examine the minute difference in color. To the average student, it likely would have been left unnoticed for quite some time; either til someone was looking directly at it at the right time or if the damage got worse. However, to a Forged meant to pick out the most mundane details, the small, centimeter wide hole stood out as plainly as if someone had put their fist through the glass.
    It was the same window he had been in front of the day before when he was knocked over. The one his hand-broom had hit.
    He ran his finger over the hole, watching the light appear and reappear and noting the slight difference in heat that it put out compared to the filtered light. Again, it would be nothing to any regular person, but he wasn’t.
    RM-BH-022 knew without checking that he did not have the ability to repair the glass. While all of it had been cast by artisans several centuries back, repair required a mage’s touch; someone with the ability to fix it without removing or warping the precious window.
    There was nothing he could do, so why should he waste anymore time than just reporting it and moving on?
    He stepped back away from the miniscule hole in to see the larger picture.
    The window before him, like the rest of the windows in the hall, was emblazoned with something significant to the original founders of the Academy. This one, though RM-BH-022 himself did not know it, showed the principle hero of the War of the Gryphons; a man by the name of Hrothnar the Wise.
    In the window, Hrothnar, cloaked heavily in red velvets and brown leathers, stands upon a hill, one hand extended to point towards something unseen, his other hand at his side, loosely holding a tome. Behind him, set in relief, before a boiling sea of blue and white, seemingly a hundred Gryphon-mounted Cavaliers wearing White, Silver, and Gold and brandishing swords, axes, and spears, fly forward towards where Hrothnar points.
    Were he actually studying here, he’d likely know that this was the turning point of that War. He’d know that Hrothnar, having chartered an agreement with the Gryphons using the aide of his brothers-in-arms, a Druidic Shaman by the name of Colgan and the Ranger Le’ara, used the power of the Gryphon riders to overcome the tyrannical Kingdom of Trevania. He’d likely also learn that this was the first recorded instance of Gryphon-Human relations and one of the founding moments that would eventually lead to a multitude of achievements for the Human species; in particular the dawn of the Erengale Empire, which still to this day relied heavily on the regal creatures.
    But, to be fair, he would have also likely fallen asleep were he to have that level of comprehension.
    “On your left!” a voice shouted behind him before, a moment later, something slammed into the back of his head.
    And his head went through the window.
    The glass shattered loudly, exploding outward in a sparkling array of ruby reds and emerald greens that showered the lawns four stories below the window, though RM-BH-022 only had a split second to comprehend this before momentum of the shove finished slamming his face into the stone windowsill.
    “Caleb! You broke the window!” a second, familiar voice shouted.
    “Yea, whatever. They can bill me.”
    RM-BH-022 leaned up for a moment, the action causing his neck and back to fight against him, and saw the same two from the day before. The second student, a human in Illusionist robes, and the first, a blonde haired half-elf wearing the same.
    Crick.
    RM-BH-022 looked up just as the weakened window started to crumble.
    ShhhCRACKcrack!
    And as it gave way directly on top of him.

    “Testing. Testing.”
    “Seems like audio cues are working well. Visual should be coming online shortly.”
    “You sure you aren’t worried about that chip?”
    “It’s fine. The restrictions the inhibitor chip place on them are just redundant backup. Their programming is really what takes care of it. Besides, mending the broken head and shoulders was already a nuisance. We’d have to replace the entire chassis to replace that chip.”
    “Okay. If you insist. I’m just wondering if we shouldn’t wait til it can be replaced.”
    “Yea, right. You want to talk to the headmaster about ordering a party down to Ironrock Keep to find the gems required to make one?”
    “Not really.”
    “It’ll be fine. It’s just a custodial Forged. What’s it gonna do? Mop aggressively?”
    “Yea. You’re prolly right.”
    The world, all at once, snapped into stark relief. Brilliant blue and white lights glew all around and at him while a smaller gnome male, his hair shock white and tied back, leaned forward with some sort of metal instrument.
    “Begin tracking.”
    Doing as he was told, RM-BH-022’s eyes focused on the metal instrument before him and the gnome, no, the biologic known as Felros, the head artificer, proceeded to test his visual acuity. The other biologic, a dwarf female called Elna, the head arcanist, took notes as they worked.
    “Good.” Felros declared proudly.
    The two started saying something. Was it to him? Was it to each other? He was having trouble focusing on them. What were they saying? Did it matter? It probably didn’t matter, right? Why would it matter?
    And for that matter, why was the other biologic so flushed? Her skin seemed oddly red. Was it always like that? Had he just never noticed. And she was so…wet around the edges. Particularly under the arms. Actually, so was the first biologic. His lips in particular. Everytime he talked, he could hear the saliva slapping on his lips. And everytime either of them moved, they sounded…squishy.
    Were they always squishy?
    “Repeat.” Felros said with a snap of his little meaty appendages. “Designation number.”
    “Sir…” the other biologic said, a hint of nervousness in her voice. “Something seems off.”
    “Enough, Elna.” the old, frail little biologic snapped at the stouter one. “Designation number. Now.”
    “Designation Number: Ru..Ru… RuM-BuH-022.” RuM-BuH-022 responded in an unfamiliar, chipper voice.
    “Seems like that replacement voice circuit might be bad.” the fat female biologic commented.
    “Whatever. It’s not like they’re conversationalists.” the little, easily broken biologic said dismissively. “Objective.”
    “Objective as last: Monitor, maintain, and Sanitize grounds for Academy.”
    “Retain Objective as Last and begin primary programming.”
    “Acknowledged.”
    RuM-BuH-022 stood and walked past the squishable, disgusting little biologics and made his way promptly out of the room without another word.
    “See. Voice circuit works fine. It was just his designation number that was the problem.”

    The next day did not pass like any other.
    RuM-BuH-022 moved aimlessly from place to place, passing students, faculty, and Forged alike, seemingly dragging as he was unable to focus on any task. His head and body felt strange. Almost foreign. As though he were wearing the metal of another and someone had left a beehive behind in his head. He didn’t work though he notated those locations that really should have been.
    He felt like he was drifting and, despite answering what he knew he was supposed to say, he felt no direction.
    No programming.
    The only habit that felt right came at the same time the following day, late in the morning, when the sun was just beginning to filter through stained glass.
    The damage from the day before had already been fixed. The mages had been by, no doubt due to dozens of complaints from students about the dangerous conditions of a broken, twenty foot window, and already mended Hrothnar the Wise. The window was good as new without even the minor chip to speak of.
    For long minutes, RuM-BuH simply stood there, staring up again at the stained glass window. From time to time, he’d glance to and fro, marveling at the glittering colors that seemed to drift in the air and paint the walls, but mostly he just marveled at the window.
    Who was this man?
    What was his story?
    Where could he fi-
    “Watch it, Ro-”
    Rum-Buh spun in place, already anticipating the shove that was coming, and perfect, metal fingers clasped around fragile, meaty wrist. There was a crunch as pathetic bone splintered under barely trying servos and the ensuing scream of pain from the little Illusionist biologic was promptly cut off as a single metal hand closed over his mouth.
    “What?!” the second biologic Rum’Buh already knew was going to be there shouted. “Caleb!”
    A thousand things ran through his mind in a moment, but something bubbled up that felt right. Felt correct.
    “Please. Do not interrupt the Custodians. We are helping to make this your home away from home.” came out a chipper, robotic voice.
    Releasing both the little biologic’s mouth and shattered radius and ulna, Rume’Buh shoved him harshly to the stone floor.
    “Caleb!” the second one shouted again as he dropped to the ground by his friend.
    “It appears you have suffered an injury from tampering with facility maintenance Forged. This would be inadvisable in the future as the machines that maintain this facility are much stronger and more durable than you.” He continued in that same chipper voice. “I recommend reporting to the physician. Would you like me to take you there?”
    “No!” the second biologic shouted as the first sobbed, holding the purple and red mess of an arm. “We-we got it.”
    “Carry on then.” Rume’Buh said as he turned and walked away, admiring the gleaming colors of the hall.
    They were gone before the rest of the students arrived.
    And neither saw the smile that graced his metal lips.
    Pushing his way through the quickly crowding hall, he continued on through the gathering flood of stinky, sweaty bodies until he crossed outside into a small courtyard that looked down onto others below it. Flowers hung from vines sneaking through trestles above and snaked their ways along columns and benches. Some students were gathered here, but many were thankfully quiet.
    With an exception.
    “I’m telling you, you need to stop talking to that guy.”
    “You’re telling me. He’s the one that keeps showing up in my dreams. At least your’s doesn’t talk.”
    “I don’t think the talking is the problem.”
    Two male biologics, similar in appearance despite the difference in hair color, sat off to one side speaking over a small lunch. One, the blonde speaking about dreams, appeared particularly haggard and looked like he hadn’t gotten a good night’s rest in several days.
    “What’s up, boys!” Rume’Buh heard shouted from behind.
    Turning to look back at the third voice, another blond haired biologic came walking through door of the courtyard, waving to the first two.
    “What’s Up?” Rume’buh responded.
    The two biologics both fell silent and a queer smile cross the third one’s lips as, looking to Rume’buh for the first time, a chuckle escaped his lips.
    “What’s up to you, too, big guy.”
    “Rume’buh.”
    “Sorry?” the blonde biologic responded.
    “I think you made a friend.” One of the two said as they walked up to the third.
    “Didn’t know they could talk.” the other said.
    “I am Rume’buh.” Rume’buh clarified.
    “Arioch.” the third one responded before pointing to the other two. “That’s Locke and Pal, though don’t make me tell you which is which.”
    “Nice to meet you.” Rume’buh declared.
    “Huh. I didn’t know they could talk.”