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Month: January 2021

With the echos of the scream still bouncing off the protective shielding…

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The man falls heavily to his knees. The harsh bitter cold of the metal floor is bone chilling, and it seeps through the rough canvas coveralls at the point where his knees touch the ground. The thick icy grasp of the medical bay floor hits him quickly. With puffs of breath raggedly exhaled into the cold chamber the man is stricken with waves of fear. Bursts of crystallized breath plum out of his mouth with his dogged panted breathing. Outside of view beyond the protective barrier, ensconced in utter blackness, the rest of the medical bay appears to have deteriorated considerably. Heard amongst the rattle of his breathing are the insistent chimes of his wrist biometrics unit churning out error codes and warning notifications. Slowly rising to his feet, with a frail wobble to his steps, as though he hasn’t stood up in weeks or months the man stumbles towards the pale blue glow of the protective shielding he is standing within. The static fuzz ignites off of his finger tips, radiating through his palms and up above his elbows. The skin on his hands shimmers and pulses under the low voltage passing through it. Turning to sit with his back resting against the security shielding the man limply slides back down to sit upon the freezing cold floor. Feeling he harsh bite of the frosty metal against his rump. The static pulse of the shielding is accompanied by the shrill urgent chiming of the wrist biometrics notifications throwing up error codes and streams of data too small for the man to read. Looking down at the shimmering, rippling skin on his hands, his focus pulled away from the odd undulation of his flesh from the static from the security shield, he stares blankly at the wrist biometric unit. This is brand new he thinks soundlessly. “Yes… Yes it is”. Answers the empty darkness. Jumping to his feet, turning around, bare feet pattering the ground, the numbness now reaching his hips, the man screams again. A blood curdling, epic scream of madness. “Don’t be alarmed, we are you, that is to say, you are us. We are one. Do you understand?” speaks the disembodied voice, as clear as day, as though it were stood mere centimeters from his ear. Jumping with fright at each punctuated word, turning both this way and that, the man is frantic. Scattering bits of dust and debris, he searches the small med pod bay looking for the source of the voice. “No need to look for us, we are you, you are us, we are one. Together. Do you understand us. We know you speak a variant of the English language. Not American, nor British by Canadian English… yes?” speaks the voice in a slow drawl. Nod if you can hear us, do you understand the words you are hearing – Oh no. Here we go! Brace for impact… protect the head, protect the head! , make sure the tongue doesn’t slide back down the throat!”. The man crumples into a heap and promptly passes out. “Well, this is no good. We have to clear these notifications and sort out our access if we’re ever going to do anything useful with this vessel. We know, we know. Yes, I am aware of that. It does pose considerable challenges. No I am not currently aware of anything or anyone else quite like us, we… me.” The voices which can be heard sound muffled as though they were coming from another room down a shared hallway. Certain words are distinct but much of it flows together and is incomprehensible. Slowly everything fades to black, again.

**Another new installment of the interconnected space serial from 2020: The Chronicles of Kelvin.

In the stark white brilliance of the medical pods internal lighting…

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My vision fades from inky blackness to a dazzling white hot fire. Through the fuzz of far too dilated eyes in sudden brightness I can just make out my greyed, and cracked skeletal hand pressed upon the domed glass. The sensation of a deep cold burning the palm of my hand slowly crawls it’s way into my thoughts. Jerking my weak and flimsy hand back off the glass while tearing off the finger pads with the motion. The tear of the skin is audible like a seam popping on cheaply made pants. In the stifling silence I realize that I am alive, barely, and I do not know why. Left upon the surface of the glass are five perfect finger prints which start to flake off the frozen glass before my eyes.

The once plush and padded all white interior on which I am splayed is now all grey and faded to a crusty brown, spattered with spots of orange, yellow and mustard coloured stains. As I wriggle around in search of the internal release latch, dust plumes fill the air making me cough violently. The claustrophobic tightness of the painfully cold harness, the dazzlingly bright white lights, and choking clouds of dust add to my confusion and panic. The interior of the med pod is freezing cold, so cold I can see whisps of breathe and a crystalline pattern on the domed glass matching the outline of my hand print, now contrasted greatly by the dust particles cascading off my dissolving finger pads. The radiant glare of the lights is awfully blinding. My eyes feel as though they are on fire, as though I haven’t blinked in weeks. My throat is parched and feels cracked. My tongue thick and numb inside my mouth. My breath rattles thickly in my chest. I can feel my ribs creaking beneath my coveralls. An audible rumble of my intestines disrupts the silence, punctuated only by the ragged short breaths I’m taking. Peering through the frosted glass looking outside the medical pod I catch sight of something that is down beside and below me, decayed and worn is an oddly familiar Edubot of an orange colour. It is in a terrible state of disrepair. The tank like track treads have worn through completely and peeled off the guide wheels. It appears to have crept over to the side of the med pod to manually interface with the pods override functions. It’s lone protruding finger pressed firmly against the med pod reset button. But why? What possible reason would the ships medical bay have for cutting off life support. All I can see within the medical bay is the small pale blue illuminated circle encased in our atmospheric protection dome. A shimmering curtain of pure energy. The ship must truly be in trouble for this last ditch security feature to have deployed. By the state of the looming darkness beyond, the ship has been derelict for quite some time. Finding and triggering the latch to release the pods internal restraints with a loud click. Reaching up to push the fabric harness to the med pod out of my way I can see the ghastly grey pallor of my skin beginning to fade, and a bluish tinted pink replace it. As I watch there is a certain plumpness that seems to fill out my emaciated hands and arms. A flush of warmth rushing to my extremities, filling my chest and clearing my head. A sudden chirp from the biometrics on my wristband has started to chime with notifications. An error code I don’t recognize is flashing double time on the small OLED screen on my wrist, I must plug in to the med bays internal computer to figure out what is going on. I have never seen such a code before. The interface on my wrist biometrics is brand new, and not a model that I’ve ever seen. Everything is so strange. Colours and sounds are off kilter, at once too sharp and yet fuzzy. My balance is shot even as I am laying down. My limbs feel foreign to me. I begin to panic while I can’t find my equilibrium. My heart is thumping savagely in my chest. As I thrash about inside the med pod I finally pull the main release latch and the outer dome sweeps out into the open room. A faint tinge of machine oil and stringent cleaners can be tasted on the stale air. Mixed with ozone burning off the protective energy shield. A massive cloud of dust bursts forth with the air pressure change. Trying to calm myself I swing my legs around to try and step out of the raised pod. The once soft padding crumbling under my shifting weight. The cloth comes apart like parchment paper. There is a significant lag between thinking about putting my feet down on the step just outside the pod and my limbs actually doing it. The sensation is uncomfortable, like trying to pilot my own body from seven feet in the air above my head. Trying to swallow my rising panic I have to reach out and put my weight down on the Edubot as I clamber out of the medical pod. The sole of my foot sticks to the ice cold metal step, and the pain of the icy burn races up my leg. Peeling my foot slowly off the step, skin sticking to the surface, the pain makes me focus. Looking around at the pale blue shimmering safety curtain of energy surrounding the pod my attention is called back to the insistent chime of my wrist biometric monitor. “What is going on?” I croak into the silence of the illuminated med bay. My voice, not quite my own, or how I remember it, reverberates off the powerful safety shielding. Looking beyond the sizzling ghostly curtain of the atmospheric safety dome I catch my first glimpse of my reflection. I am not myself. The surface of my skin is visibly crawling. I scream.

**A continuation of the interconnected space serial from 2020: The Chronicles of Kelvin. – Follow along over the next few weeks (hopefully) for the remaining installments of the story.

The bug has hit…

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Storyboarding out the next five additions to my interconnected space short stories. It has been more than six months since I have contributed to the series, besides a one off short I released yesterday, which ultimately seemed to dislodge some cobwebs and allow me, mentally, to align my thoughts and make a coherent story emerge out of my head. But don’t worry, my themes of isolation, confusion, future technology are all going to be well represented. I looked over my notes which kept on getting longer and longer and realized that instead of one ridiculous seven thousand word dump of text, I could break it down into smaller and more manageable pieces and explore each new chapter of the story with aplomb. I had tried several times over the last half of 2020 to plot out some new work and the dastardly covid fugue, or pandemic fatigue was making that near impossible. I don’t know how long this kick in the pants will last but I feel better all ready.

Plot outline for new chapters.

I’m guessing this new literary kick started because I now have three pounds of clay on my desk with a new armature built, and designs for several wood working projects for my wife and children ready to start. We’re into a new lockdown with nowhere to go, so I guess this is how I will try to remain sane with the whole family home 24/7 , and the coldest stretch of the year upon our doorstep keeping us indoors for much of the day. Isolation was far simpler when you could just go swimming in the sunshine to while away a few hours each and everyday. Not so much fun when it gets down to minus twenty degrees with the windchill. Anyway, not that I have an enormous readership, or that there are more than a handful who have read all of the interconnected series from cover to cover, but I’ll be back at it soon enough. I hope you’ll join the returning cast and crew of The Company: A Series of Interconnected Short Stories.

Don’t get discouraged if I pepper in some non-fiction(ish) one off stories in amongst the serialized stuff. Some times my kids do funny or relatable stuff that makes for humorous micro short stories. Wheels up!

“What’s the matter Ted, you don’t look so hot…

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Is it the turbulence or the magnitude of what we’re about to do that has you looking all green and grey around the edges?” Barks the Sargeant at the rear of the rickety personnel carrier. A haphazardly made drop ship amounting to little more than a transport container with a heat shield and a few hours of life support bolted into the roof. The interior is colourless, except for the rust and burn marks from previous drops. Timidly the young trooper responds “Is it, is… is it always like this?” He stammers his way through the question as the drop ship rocks violently in the brutal atmospheric turbulence. Small bits of rust and debris fling about the interior as the planets gravity well starts to take hold. With a terrible lurch and a muffled cut-off shriek, the sargeant, who is sat opposite the meek trooper at the rear of the vessel, leans forward with a vicious grin and snarls “Every mother fucking time my son! , isn’t that right boys and girls?” From all around the cramped vessel chants of “Urrah!” Can be heard. For several heart beats they repeat it in unison, with the echoes reverberating off the rusty & bare tin walls. Leaning back against the walls the sargeant bellows “Any second now boys and girls, the ship will kick on its reversing thrusters, we’ll then have to hit the ground running!” With a violent jolt, and the screaming of the jets, soldiers are rammed back into their spartan seats, a cold hard chunk of reinforced pipe with spare bits of rubber zip tied to it. Not much better than just having to squat or stand for the duration of their orbital drop. Given the speed at which they descend, the seats provide almost no safety whatsoever. But these troops aren’t careening through space in a mad dive for the surface for their own safety or for anyone else’s for that matter. They have one goal in mind and it isn’t for the faint of heart. The bland and timid trooper begins to shake violently, and vomits all down his front. The other troopers seated around him, afix their bayonets, testing the triangular serrated blades against their thumbs, and tighten down their helmet chin straps with a quick and knowing grin. Everyone pukes on their first run. There are no simulations here, no dry runs afforded to new converts. Not when you’re the rebellious underdog in this intergalactic battle for the soul of humanity. You either exalt in the mayhem and bloodshed and live to fight another day, or you end up as a pieces of the body count. Whimpering softly to himself, the coarse chunks of his breakfast clinging to his make shift tactical vest, the trooper looks to be in no condition to have to savagely murder his way to the rendezvous point several kilometers away, north of the drop zone through densely populated urban living quarters. These aren’t soldiers that the troopers are looking to massacre, they’re just ordinary folks who happen to live under The Company’s occupation. But they failed to heed the call to rise up, and are now just another line item and tally for the profit loss section of The Company’s ledger. It is all very cold and calculating, if it were not, you might just go mad. Peering over the heads of the seated troopers the sargeant calls out his trusted few with his all too familiar refrain “$1000 Credits to anyone who can prove they killed more than their assigned 300 women & children!”.

On a quiet summer day, as the wisps of soft clouds swirled in the sky, a company family fun day at the park is underway. Thousands of families have gathered for picnics and games at the expense of The Company. The rising sounds of laughter and sport drift lazily on the summers breeze. In the small gaps between bursts of laughter the rustling of brilliant blue leaves can just be heard, punctuated by the odd lilting bird calls native to this foreign world. With little warning the wisps of smoke suddenly materialize into hundreds of clunky metallic drop ships littering the sky. With the echoes of laughter still in the air, tens of thousands of miss matched black clad troops storm out of their drop ships and grind their way through the gathered masses. In a flourish of blades, knives, swords, guns and a hail of bullets the shock troopers gain purchase on this world and settle in for the fight of their lives. None of the inhabitants are armed, no one is prepared. There was no warning, no issuing of a declaration of war, no established protocol being followed. In the fetid wake of the troops are naught but the final screams of pain and horror as bits of bodies are left strewn about the town. Within the blink of an eye, the black mass of shock troops have ripped through the inhabitants and fled across field and wood and town to their rendezvous. All but one. A tallish, bland and timid new soldier, who isn’t wearing a helmet and is covered in vomit. He simply stands numbly, hands at his sides, pupils madly dilated, dizzy in the mid day sun. Head baking in the glare of the hot sunlight as he stands utterly still in the ghastly aftermath. With a violent lurch he crumples to the ground to retch, spilling bile and the last vestiges of his breakfast on the blood soaked ground. All ready the noise from the flies and carrion birds is settling in, soon it will be deafening. Falling face first, tears soaking his eyes, laying prone upon the ground he reaches out his hands to curl his fingers about the sticky hot entrails littering the park, the young timid trooper gasps in horror and passes out.

In the distance the sounds of rocket thrusters boom. The sudden raucous explosions and the wafting smell of fumes causes the timid man to stir. There, not five kilometers to the north of him are streams of jet blast as the rescue ships depart the planet. In less than fifteen minutes, they had entered the atmosphere undetected, mutilated vast swathes of a town’s population and fled for their next attack. All non combatants, no military or intelligence objectives taken, just shear violence and unadulterated terror. Then vanish back to the stars never to be seen again.