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Tag: creative writing

** Query – internal logs/ time stamp corruption – files not lost. No longer able to maintain chronological order**.

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Racquelle is half buried in a deep freezer before she becomes aware of the audio recording playing over the ship wide PA system. Having found her way through the vaguely human, mostly antique inspired vessel to what was a great candidate for the canteen. Racquelle found an unlocked standing freezer box and decided to go rifling through it in search of sustenance. The ice build up and oddly plastic wrapped packaging had her excited at first, but after pulling half of the deep freezers contents out into the open to find mostly powders and frozen black brown sludge which tasted awful, she was becoming increasingly agitated. Which made her stomach rumble, alerted her to a growing head ache, and a general sense of anger and frustration, chased by fatigue and the now constant belly ache. Pushing the lid open from the inside, and throwing out the last handful of bags to the floor, she stepped over the rim of the ice cold box and took a moment to listen to the message. The first thing she registered was that the ship ‘K’ and the humanoid AI Katayna had come out of their deep data dive long enough to compose a message and play it on repeat for her to hear it. Sort of a good sign, after nearly a full week of dead silence. The second thing she realized was that if the ship had no access to chronologically stored data, it would have to expend a far greater amount of time and energy to find whatever the fuck it was it went looking for in the first place. And, that she could potentially communicate with ‘K’ vocally again. “Glad to hear you’re alive and well K!” She said into the dimness of the canteen. “Good evening Racquelle. Apologies for our, my, prolonged disappearance.” Barked the PA system in response, justice little too loudly. “Motion tracking has you placed near our make shift morgue. I required certain molecular elements which we are unable to synthesize in bulk. Do you have an interest in the vitamins and minerals left over from breaking down the former crew?” Asks the ship flatly. Feeling rather taken aback Racquelle says “I need to eat and drink something quickly, or else I’m going to faint and likely never wake up again.” She rasps wryly. “I will light the way to the nearest cafeteria. Hold tight. Actually on second thought I will provide you with transportation. Your vitals are greatly diminished from when we first met.” With a horrendous screech a wall panel pulls open to reveal a small people mover with fat black wheels, a canopy of beige Formica, and plush yellowed off white leather looking seats. No visible steering wheel though, or breaks nor foot pedals. “Climb aboard Ms. Your chariot awaits.” Murmurs the tinny voice from the PA system.

Sitting at the round white table with a veritable feast laid out before her Racquelle listens intently while Katayna goes over what remarkable things they’ve discovered buried in the disrupted internal data logs. “We are as of yet unable to verify when, where or how any of these things happened. We would need to correlate the logs with the findings from all of the various antenna arrays located around us – which as you might suspect, will take some time. Things of note are as follows. We’ve made two outbound calls, to whom and what about, or why are a mystery as of yet. Also we have a near steady stream of incoming calls as of a few days ago. That’s not from the logs, by the by. It’s what caused our jolt out of the frozen processing cycle. We received a significant processing power bump of unknown origin. Seemed friendly though, which is odd.” Katayna tilts her head a little too far to one side in an imitation of a human expression towards looking puzzled. The act is rather comical in how over zealous it is.

Crunching on her vitamin and mineral porridge Racquelle takes a moment to stop eating and stare at Katayna. She points down at her bowl and says “This isn’t made from your old crew though right? No matter. I burned that bridge when I crossed it an hour ago.” With a loud and dry swallow she goes on. “Outbound messages huh? That does seem odd. But you guys have said you think you crossed both time, space and possibly dimensions too. Could it be a logging error, or some type of electrical distortion that looks like a message?” Ponders Racquelle. “Well, no. The first one had a lengthy set of technical diagrams attached to it, for a type of dimensional jumping engine, called a For E’s engine. Don’t know if we found that and sent it along, or designed it ourselves. The second one is far harder to decipher and has been put on hold. Though with the available processing bump in capabilities, we could tackle that in the background if we wanted to.” Katayna says in a chipper tone, at odds with the stillness of her face and metallic features.

Looking at the messy remains of her feast Racquelle leans back in her seat as a wave of nausea washes over from eating too much after days of going hungry. “Rookie mistake.” She mutters. “So – what’s next up on the horizon. I assume we’re here alone right? You consumed my other sortie partners and their ship, and we are weeks away from UB313. I don’t suppose I could talk you all into taking me back there? I have a few folks who really want to talk to you.” Quips Racquelle. “No – no. We are not alone. Our long range scanners have located a flotilla of approximately twelve fast moving vessels headed here, as far as we can tell from their roughshod trajectories. Some look as though they’ll arrive a few days after the majority, but I assure you we are most decidedly not alone. Well – short term yes, long term, not even close.” Says Katayna and K both simultaneously.

Racquelle’s face loses its colour and she turns a sort of ashen grey green, with flecks of blue purple around her eyes and mouth. The smirk fades just as quickly as it appeared. “Wait these are coming from UB313?” She croaks. “Uh no. These look to have originated from Earth’s orbit, possibly Mars too.” Says Katayna flatly. “Well, fuck me sideways.” Says Racquelle.

Part Twenty Nine: Ghost of the Dirty Starling.

“Admiral Garneau?, we have the solution in hand, sir”

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Stammers the small man from behind his mangled and abused clipboard. “The programming team have released the program to medical and they are about to disseminate it among the afflicted fire teams and their associated heavy artillery and infantrymen, sir.” The nervous young man barely takes a breath before diving further into his diatribe. “Doctor Tam, Commanding Officer Austenmire and several other members of the SLT are all ready and waiting in the sleeve halls, and tanker magazines, sir. Ready when you are to depart from your ready room, sir.” Finishes the young man with the last fading vestiges of breath. Sweat is gathering at his brow, his nerves are frazzled. It isn’t often a new recruit gets foisted upon the Valet role for an SLT status officer, and here he is, first run out beyond Mars and he is talking to, interacting with, and leading the fleets oldest and most distinguished admiral from appointment to appointment for the day. “Your lapels are sloppy this morning Jimmy, my boy. Here let me straighten you out before we depart” the old admiral barks from just inside the ready room double doors. A crisply starched arm reaches across the threshold to pop and refit the young man’s collar. “I recall when our jumpsuits were farm more utilitarian and less formal, these seem like a dress uniform. Utterly useless against the harsh vacuum of space, my boy.” The old man chuckles. “Oh I assure you Admiral, we are even more protected in these new issue, than the old ones, why I read in the academy about the updated specifications and it’s really just a marvel the first Mark VIO’s and their earlier crews didn’t all die with how stripped down and bare their suits were sir. The improvements, and integration with our Nanotech is mind boggling!” The young valet beams. “Hmm, yes I’m sure they are, sonny Jim. I’m sure they are.” The sparkle in the old man’s eye quickly disappears, as the knowledge of what he is about to preside over makes it’s way back into the forefront of his thoughts. “Well, no need for delay my boy, lead on, lead on!” Barks the admiral gruffly. With a woosh the double doors to the ready room close, and the young valet Jimmy links his arm into the admitals arm and walks him towards the lower personnel decks, where the sleeved soldiers are stored for transport to UB313.

Strolling through the halls of the Righteous Chord crowds of people have gathered to watch the admiral make his way to the soldiers in stasis. Word of their medical plight has made the rounds, and all seven of the shipboard psyops officers had put out many different stories. One officer, known to be rather unsavory was given the real story, and she passed it along to her cadre of friends whom occupied the fringe, along with twist elements of the ‘brain worms’ story to help muddy the waters. While the other six psyops officers put out sanitized versions of one thing or another. All the people really knew was that a solution had been found that would save strongest portion of the fighting force from the brink of annihilation, and little else regarding their state seemed to matter to anyone beyond that. The news that in two weeks time when they finally entered Pluto air space they would not be without their fire teams or walking tanks had boosted morale among the currently awake staff, that nobody asked any substantive questions regarding exactly what was meant by saving the fighting force. The truth of the matter would hopefully die with the SLT, after the return trip once the battle was over, and the remaining affected soldiers stasis sleeves went offline effectively killing, and hiding the truth of what they were about to do to about four thousand soldiers from their own ranks. It was not something the old admiral relished having to oversee, but with a decision this grave, no one but Admiral Mark Garneau could give the go ahead. The decision was eating him up inside, but it was ultimately for the greater good of humanity, and The Company.

Stepping out of the power lift the admiral waves subtly at Jimmy the valet to pause for a brief moment before entering the room where the newest ad hoc sleeved soldiers monitoring station was. Doctor Tam had felt it best to remove the squad from her medical facilities and place it closer to the armory and the maintenance decks. A soft jab at how the Admiral was now relegating the fighting force into mere assets, and no longer people worthy of the full length and breadth of her medical care. It didn’t raise any eye brows, and he took the jab on the chin like a pro. The old man stood motionless, staring at the doors before nodding once, and striding through the door as though he weren’t a three hundred year old man in the midst of an existential crisis, about to murder four thousand people in order to have the military assets he needed to kill the man whom killed his great, great, great grand son, and then some. Feeling the weight of the decision, the old man puffed up and played the part of the hero, in order to make the tough decision.

“Are the programmers present with us today” asks the admiral. A brief scuffle near the center of the room as two shabby and disheveled men step away from the circular bank of monitors and computer terminals. They mumble quietly, with eyes down turned, that yes, they are in fact present and accounted for. “No need to wait on ceremony. Press upload, enter, Go or what have you and let’s get the healing started.” Growls the admiral. A shuffle of tired steps and the bushy brown haired man named Bryan steps over to his terminal, leans down and taps a single button. A blue progress bar appears on all the monitors in the central column and around the outer walls of the modest room. The exposed cables pick up the glare of the new blue light from the screens. Rapidly the flashing zero starts to increase upwards to hang momentarily at ninety eight percent, before a large 100% flashes repeatedly in a brilliant green.

“Sir! We have movement across the board, the fire teams are waking up sir! It looks like it worked!” A chorus of shouts and whoops explodes from inside the room. Admiral turns away from the jubilant crowd catching a glance from doctor Tam. Their eyes met and linger for a brief moment, when doctor Tam looks down at her feet and the admiral exits the room followed by a very lively young man in a valet uniform.

Part twenty eight: Ghost of the Dirty Starling.

In the midst of report #2

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And it’s a big one, but not as large as the report that came before it. Woah-buddy, now that was a biggie. This one, luckily enough has fewer pie charts, by a full 1/3 of the quantity, and is shorter in overall length. Which is nice. I’ve gotten all of the low hanging easy wins related to the project finished, and now the body of the audit is my next big thing to tackle. Which reminds me, I need to source new images to spruce things up a little bit more.

I read earlier that it is supposed to snow all day now. I wonder if this will keep the ice around for a few more days, or if that’s mostly a lost cause now. Not sure. Would love to get the kids outdoors for another skate or two, but “We get what we get, and we don’t get upset”. Every body now!

Laying in bed last night, and the last few nights at that, I’ve thought up some great titles and subjects for posts, but they elude me in the mornings. I wonder if I’m dreaming it, or what. I don’t want to log on to write it down as I want to go to sleep as they come to me, but eh? I’ll make due.

Maybe when some invoices start to roll in and the work slows down again – it always does. I’ll have more capacity to ‘brain Good’ and actually finish the last 1/3 of my interconnected space series. As I sit back and look at it, and connect some dots, I realized I had some real estate to make up, and some geography to cover in order to make it happen how I want. Either that or I graze past it, and save that for a third book, and just get as close to it as I can, and do it more justice when I’m not feeling so frazzled with paid day job work. I feel as though a duet of short novellas is better than a trilogy. I don’t want it to feel drawn out or padded. Perhaps I just need to be more judicious in my editing, and scrape off more sub plots or extra characters this late in the game. But then again, shoe horning some current character into a role not meant for them doesn’t help me either. I have no deadline, so I’m not going to rush it. Yeah. That’s the ticket. Not going to rush the ending just because I hate having it loom large over my head when I have free time to think. The story is not my enemy! It is there as a creative outlet to help me deal with stuff. Gives me a chance to build something from nothing, when I don’t have the time or energy to sculpt in clay or build using wood.

Eighty four things I hate about everything related to hyperbole.

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Literally or figuratively? I just don’t know anymore. But all preamble aside, let’s find more time for ado. Poor old ado. Never given the time to play out, always without further. A shame really, that. I’m a big believer in ado. Let’s the moment play out, it does. Gives us all the time required to stop and smell the roses, or check a text, email before getting started. We need to stand up to the ‘No Further Ado’ people and scream, Yes! Ado, give us more – more – MORE!!!

Otherwise it’s a quiet and serene Tuesday in early March of the year 2022. Yesterday the green grass was exposed and today we are blanketed by more wispy white snow. It won’t last though. The sun is getting warmer in the sky, and our average temperatures will exceed zero degrees Celsius on a consistent basis. What we are entering into now is the slush & mud period of Ontario Canada living.

Which also means the clocks will leap forward an hour making our morning awful once again, and our evenings brighter. We really need to choose one side or the other and leave it be. I hate flipping between the two. Not as much now that I no longer commute, but dragging bedraggled kids out of bed in the darkness is no fun. Zero stars. Do not reccomend.

If I recall I managed one or two new short story entries over the last few weeks. I really need to take better notes, so I can keep tabs on all my threads so I can bring it together in a sensical manner. I thought I’d have it done by the end of February, but paid work takes precedence over my hobby time. Not going to lie a part of me wants to just bullet point explain the ending to you all, and myself, rather than write out the necessary chapters remaining. Come to think of it, I have gotten as far as I had plotted in January, so I just might have to. I hope some of you have had fun following along. We only just passed chapter 27, so I hope to wrap up before it balloons out to 50!

“Even now as I stand here with you…”

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I feel off, somehow. I was drawn here, like a moth to a flame. I know this place, in an off-hand, buried in my former Gene’s kind of way.” Murmurs Katayna quietly.

She has been delivering an intensely personal and fractured monologue since shortly after taking on the appearance of the only living thing aboard the strangely familiar, yet alien vessel. From what Racquelle can gather from the repeating diatribe from the AI humanoid figure that erupted suddenly out of a room after a rather drastic interior design shift, is that ‘K’ or Kelvin whomever that is, was once a human, and a man at that.

Of approximately forty odd years of age, unmarried and worked mostly in isolation doing routine tasks between the external hull plates. On one of his three day duty rotations he went in between the hull plates to do a task, and all was well, came out on the other side and every single person, and many ship systems were dead or severely damaged.

His only option was to turn to the Edu Bots stored on the science and engineering decks so that K was to become knowledgeable enough to be able to fix many of the issues, but the ships course and trajectory were permanently fubar’d. He spent a life time alone here with only a few bots for company, until several decades later his body began to deteriorate and he was sequestered into a med pod, where K’s body had all the organic materials slowly swapped out for some of humanities earliest Nanotech. For reasons unknown K suspects the ship passed through worm holes and galaxy spanning electrical storms, where K awoke, realized he was now a sentient hive mind of nanobots, integrated itself into the vessel, and began consuming raw materials to expand and grow and rebuild the ship into a kind of living, breathing, machine-organic cyborg monstrosity.

Finally partitioning off a portion of itself to become an able bodied humanoid named Katayna. It is all very surreal, and more than a tad insane.

But what K can’t figure out is how it got back into Sol system. Katayna is trying to determine whether they were summoned here, or resolved into human space by chance. The resulting internal scans of logged data has taken a few days, and Katayna doesn’t seem to have been spared from the data processing power drain. Which is why she’s stuck in the monologue loop, while swaying gently in the hallway. Racquelle was faced with a decision, wait it out, try to trigger a loop ending response, search force hard restart button on the figure or die of thirst and/or starvation why K searched through petabytes of internal data, from the time and multi-dimensional travel it seems to have undergone after running screaming full tilt through the star systems.

Walking around the gently swaying silver white humanoid body Racquelle notices that Katayna isn’t exactly naked, but nor is she clothed. Her bodies exterior looks to be made up of all kinds of panels, some with specular differences, and variations of the writhing, and wriggling nanotech lace that covers the ship itself, both internally and externally. The look is akin to a body suit with seams and waist accentuated by piping and oblique panels that soften the metallic hardness of her skin texture. It’s all very strange. As though a long lost man was trying to recapture what he felt femininity was via fashion. It’s not half bad, but it’s just a little off. At least she isn’t sporting a peekaboo bra, or breast armor plating. Racquelle smirks at the thought.

Speaking into the air Racquelle repeats herself for the thousandth time. “Katayna, can you hear me?” She waves a hand before the lolling eyes of the humanoid ai. “Are we being hailed by any other vessels or star bases?” She clicks her fingers by Katayna’s ear. “Are you receiving any broadcasts from UB313 or – I can’t believe I’m going to say this Torus Station or Earth?” She claps several times loudly. “Hello? Anybody else home?” She shouts, her voice echoing loudly down the long central hallway. “Well, if you need me I’m going in search of food and potable water!” She stands taking a long look at the swaying form of Katayna. Turning around in her spot she decides to tear a strip off of the hem of her shirt and places it on the floor, folded in the shape of an arrow. “I don’t have paper or a pen, and my communicator seems to be jammed, by you, so hopefully you’ll notice the sign here, or can hear me as I make my way around looking for food. Ok? I don’t know why I’m talking to you. I don’t know why I’m talking to myself. I can’t stop. Food. Food or water that’s the plan.” Was an angry wave Racquelle sets off on foot down the long central hall towards the center of the unknown vessel.

Part Twenty Seven: Ghost of the Dirty Starling.

“Do you know why I asked you come here Ms. Darla?”

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“Hm. Do you have some terrible inkling for what I might have in store you for?” The doctor asks through his surgical mask. He isn’t facing Darla whom is strapped down onto an icy cold metallic gurney. His attention elsewhere as he is looking over his personal hand written notes and diagrams tapped up to a wall in his private surgical bay. The drawings are gruesome but are also the product of someone with artistic talent, and more than a little flair.

The sage green tiles of the operating room glisten with moisture as the large overhead drum lights buzz loudly in the quiet theater. The quality of the light is a brilliant, nearly pristine blue white. Darla has to squint to make out the shape of the doctor across the room from her. But the starkness of the paper stands out against the darkness of the rough hewn rock walls above the green tiles. Massive double doors swing gently as the air circulates constantly through some whisper quiet hepa filter units. The air tastes astringent, like bleach residue and quat sanitizer spray mixed together. It tastes thickly on her tongue and sticks cloyingly in her throat. The center of the floor, directly under Darla and her gurney is a sloped polished cement floor that terminates in a large drain grill that occasionally gurgles and burps as the base UB313 tilts and rotates under its orbital stresses.

A panicked and afraid Darla can’t turn her head more than a few inches or move any of her limbs at all, the tight straps are biting into her flesh sharply with every twitch and tug. Her heart is thumping in her chest, and her breaths come in ragged bursts. “Well aren’t you the excitable type.” Quips the doctor as he turns away from his notes, pushing his glasses up his nose with a single finger. “Not to worry Darla. I’m not going to operate, but you see I have other needs of you. No- no, not those kind either, I’m afraid.” He chuckles leering over Darla’s nude figure writhing on the gurney. Leaning towards her he picks up a needle from a tray covered by a blue cloth. “No, even I have my limits. Apparently I can’t just kill all of my Risk Assessors in one fell swoop. Your friend Trevor is quite right, I do need the processing power which the Oracle network soaks up.” He says jovially. With a quick and practiced motion he swabs her arm and plunges in a syringe attached to a tube and collection bag. ” I need it to feed my babies. I know everyone thinks I’m mental and that I don’t believe it Nanobots or Nanotech, but the truth is, those are artificial. More machine dependencies. No!” He shouts angrily.”Here, with what I’ve learned, with the experiments I’ve cultivated. I have harnessed uniquely natural energies to power my beasties. My darlings, my lovelies. No-no, for you I just need plasma, some platelets, and various other minor ingredients which my standing army has trouble processing in abundance. I had hoped i would have the time to help them so that they could synthesize the remaining items better, but not to worry! A little prick, a pinch and a squeeze and you’ll be back to your desk in no time.” Laughs doctor Jang heartily. Pulling his mask down around his chin, he circles the gurney to stand at Darla’s head. Bending at the hip he Whispers into her ears, so softly she can barely hear him. “Do you want to know why I’ve exposed you? Left you nothing to hide behind? Showing me just how afraid of me you are?” His breath a soft caress of her cheek. “Because I get off on it.”

“Come on Darla, are you being serious right now? We’ve all had to take turns donating blood, why would he put you in the surgical bay naked for what amounts to a blood drive. That’s insane. Just tell us where you were, and why you’re three hours late for your shift?” Quips the short, fat man with a ridiculous moustache. “I just fucking told you why, Ricky!” Screams Darla as she shakes and trembles at her desk. “Yeah, well… un-fucking-likely, am I right!?” Snivels Ricky in response. “Oh, your buddy Trevor left you a note on your desk. He wouldn’t let me read it, said it was for your eyes only. Technically I’m not your boss per se, but I’ve been here like three weeks more than you, so… you know. I kinda am.” He trills weakly turning back to his own work station, leaving a very upset Darla sitting alone in her cramped office. Slamming the door shut after Ricky leaves, Darla crumples into her chair with hot salty tears streaming down her cheeks. After a brief period of tremors she sniffles, rubs her eyes with her palms and finds a small envelope sealed with black wax tucked in beside her computer terminal. “Where does he get all this shit?” Darla mumbles to herself, looking over the black wax seal, and the rough off white paper envelope. Using her finger nail to pick the wax seal off whole, she pulls out the slip of folded paper and unfurls it. The rough hand made paper smells like lavender, and is rough to the touch under her fingers. Her fingers make an audible scrape as she runs her nail over the textured paper. Two words are scribbled in the center of the slip of paper, along with a red blob. Pulling her desk lamp over towards her, she flips on the dim bulb to reveal what it says.

The blob at the center looks like a bloody finger print, and the note reads “We’re fucked!”.

Part Twenty Six: Ghost of the Dirty Starling.

Sixty Eight degrees° the elevator muzak from Helsinki.

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And what a fine specimen of a mind bending psychological disorder it is too. All kazoo noises and garbage can cymbols, with a soft synth wave chorus throughout. Pulling off the melody with a saw blade and violin bow was a stroke of genius. Could do without the canon blasts and the nails on a chalk board, but you have your tastes and I have mine. Let’s just agree to disagree on the finer points, shall we.

In other news I found a line on a nice looking set of used golf clubs from nearby, so I hope to acquire those later on today, for a modest price. Score! The point of the purchase was to be able to continue a new (hopefully yearly) golf outing with my older siblings, and my father for as long as he can manage it. I’ve never owned golf clubs before, so this feels momentous. Similar to how i felt actually buying my own pair of ice skates. Perhaps this summer I’ll be fortunate enough to have a date night with my wife and we can go to the driving range or mini putt by ourselves! Like we used to do all the time, prior to having children. How we long to have a quiet meal out together. Damn you Covid! Going to be a while yet too.

Think we might take the wee one to go see some fish today. Obviously the first choice would be an aquarium, but that’s down town and full of people. So we’ll go the closer option, I imagine, and hit up the Zoo. Lots of exhibits have fish, and we have family yearly passes, so – cheap too! The large wall tank near the jellies is my favourite, but I know others like the massive curved tank option as well. I have never owned fish, but I do watch a guy on YouTube from Alabama who spent many months and lots of money building a five acre bass pond on a corner of his peanut farm. Maybe I like the building more so than the fish, but it was interesting and entertaining at the same time.

I’m feeling the terrain building bug again. Problem is, I don’t have anywhere to store or maintain yet another 2x2ft playing board. I could build it and give it away, or sell it. But I have peculiar tastes, and I’m not sure I’d want to part with it when finished anyway. Could be I just want to work on something physical, as writing is fun, but it’s also just more digital output. Not a tangible item to hold, that has weight and a realness to it. Plus, to build more terrain I need to buy a lot of expensive supplies, where as I have clay on hand that I can use, bought and paid for, just waiting on me to get down to business. Choices – choices.

I wonder if I will keep the streak going up to one hundred days. I’m sort of amazed I have made it to 68, to be honest. Something tells me if I’d have tried this with exercise it would have fizzled after day five. Which, honestly, reflects poorly I’m sure. I just passed chapter twenty five, so I think I’m down to the last few chapters. Although every single time I say “only X number of chapters left” I find something new to expand upon and the count goes higher. So let us say, the last handful, and we can draw this portion to a close. I don’t think I will be able to let this universe go, so I can forsee new stories developing after I close out book two. Could take a full year to come back to it again, but maybe not. These daily writing entries tend to get me thinking, and that ends up as a new chapter getting written. Once the wheels are in motion, I have to write it down, or else rely on my memory to recapture it later on. Not my favourite way to go about it.

“Good morning, and how is my patient today? Hm…”

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“Oh now don’t get up Mimi.” Chuckles the man to himself. “I realize you’re catatonic in your stasis sleeve.” He says walking around her as she is stuck hanging frozen in her pod. He comes to stand face to chest with Mimi as her enormous body hangs several inches in the air, suspended in her metallic egg shaped pod. The biological ingredients of the slurry she’s encased in keep her body clean as well as the cells fed, without having to run a more intrusive feeding tube, or catheters for waste removal. The magazine like structure where she is warehoused during the transit from near Earth to Pluto is one long thin room, lined with hundreds if not thousands of similar stasis pods that extend out away from her into darkness. The long hall sloping upwards like a giant wheel seen from the inside. Each one of the sleeves containing other members of her fire team or tanker unit swinging and swaying gently in the dimly lit room. The closest source of light is a sickly green glow from below the dirty floor grates. The grime covered bulbs burning a small trail of oily smoke upwards leaving a thick dark soot upon the wall opposite her. There is motion in front of her eyes as Mimi stares at the man, his breath begins to fog up her clam shell glass door. Besides the man, and the endless rows of sleeping infantrymen, the two are effectively alone. The man of medium build, and bushy brown hair looks vaguely familiar, but it’s really hard to tell from the distortion of the clam shell doors, and his fogging breath. “Have I got some fun in-store for us today Mimi. Oh baby, you’re a big girl. I’m going to have some fun!” The man shouts as he turns in a circle in front of the pod. His soft moccasins make no noise on the open metal grate floors. The green sickly light of the room sparkles off of all the full stasis pods, catching on angles and all of the beveled curves. The man is clapping and hopping about excitedly. As the fog from his breath begins to recede against the glass Mimi can see the man wheel over a cart full of tools and surgical implements. Her heart rate begins to increase. Inside the stasis pod the paralyzed Mimi begins to panic. “Oh Mimi, we are going to have so – much – fun.” The man grins widely, as he begins to open up her pod. The soft hiss of escaping gas, mixing with the rank smell of his hot breath crawls deeply up inside her nasal cavity, to cling cloyingly in her throat. “Don’t worry baby doll, daddy’s got some new tricks today.” He whispers thickly into her ear.

“Uh doctor Tam, we have increased brain activity with Tanker number four eleven, uh, Mimi. Mimi Waters ma’am. Her synapses are going ape shit again.” Says the hunched over orderly in the medical bay. His desk a mess of papers and charts and data logs. Infront of him is a bank of seven monitors all displaying the brain activity of a full platoon of infantrymen aboard the Righteous Chord. A shuffle of papers, and the rustling of pants is all the man hears in response. A moment later he can feel the warmth of an agitated body beside him at the desk. “Pull her up to the main screen. Can we add in an overlay of the last incident. When was that, can I get a time stamp please?” Barks doctor Tam into the general melee of the room. Someone from nearby shouts out. “According to her helmet camera data from the tanker unit she is in stasis inside reads that she only just finished one about an hour ago ma’am.” The response is quick and to the point. “Christ, an hour? What is the actual? Please. Mr… um… Deakins.” Doctor Tam pauses for a breath to allow the tech at the monitoring station to bring up her data. “Actual official time stamp from central monitoring is fifty seven minutes, and two four seconds ma’am.” He says. “Less than an hour inbetween, Jesus Christ. Is this across the board, or only a few rare cases.” Dr Tam asks into the room, to no one in particular. “Looks to be across the board ma’am.” Says Deakins flatly. “Fuck!” Shouts dr Tam. She leans over Deakins shoulder to turn the monitor towards herself to get a better angle. “Can I get a visual of the patient on screen, and bring up all of the play backs of the brain activity. Over lay them all together at once. Same start times and just let them play over in real time with this new incident please.” She says calmly. “Now we watch and wait, and see if we learn anything new.” The doctor pulls a chair close as her whole teams stops to watch Mimi’s face, a frozen rictus of anguish, fear and absolute terror. “Map any micro expressions, or eye movement. I need something from all this, anything at all!” Barks doctor Tam. As she settles in, and steals herself to watching someone in total paralysis have a waking nightmare, and brain damaging migraine combo, for the thousandth time in just weeks.

With a loud creak the bushy haired man cranks the clam shell door open further than it needs to go. Standing in the open door way the man leers inside. “That’s it honey girl, let me have a good look at you. Oh my, we have so much to work with!” He stamps his feet and dances a silly jig like a toddler. “I just don’t know where to start with you today. So many choices, so many rock hard, throbbing choices! You don’t know what you do to me Mimi. If you only knew!” He chirps in a sing song voice. The man’s eyes gaze over Mimi’s nude figure lingering upon the under hang of her breasts and her flat muscular abdomen. He reaches out with both hands to run his palms over her stomach. “Do you know what I really want to try today Mimi?” He whispers as he rests his face against the cool flesh of her belly. Turning his head to rest an ear and a cheek against her tummy he looks up at the frozen face above. He uses a finger to run lazy circles around her belly button before he places several fingers of his right hand into her belly button. “I had a dream last night about you Mimi. I did something naughty. But it felt – so – good!” He says laughing. “You’ll never guess what it was. Not in a million years. You’ll never guess!” He sings aloud.

Mimi is frozen in place as the man before her rests his head upon her belly, she can feel his long bony fingers tracing lazy circles around her belly. With a pinch she can feel him push several fingers into her belly button, as he plays at his version of pillow talk. She is angry, she is violated, she is totally unable to move, blink, talk or do anything while in stasis, and she screams internally for what feels like days on end. With the removal of tension from her belly she can see the doctor pull back. He’s reaching over to the wheely cart behind him, the selection of tools just out of focus from her field of vision. He is talking quietly, Mimi can’t make out what he’s saying to himself.

“The thing is my lovely, we’ve been doing this for years now, and we’ll just keep on doing this for years to come. But the fact is I need something more. I need something new. Variety, my lovely Mimi, is the spice of life. We’ve tried every thing of a natural sort, but now I think we need to get creative Hmm. Yes, yes we do. Ah here it is, you were hiding from me!” The man sneers at his tray of tools. “Trusty scalpel was being sneaky.” He reaches down to pick up the instrument. The sharp edges glint in the oozy green light. The man’s bushy brown hair is now damp, as though he is sweating from exertion or from heightened arousal. “Here’s my plan my lovely, I’m going to cut a one inch hole in your belly, and then I’m going to penetrate you until I spackle your guts from the inside! How’s that for something new!” He squeals in delight as he leans forward to his sloppy work.

Mimi catches the glint of a scalpel in the putrid light of the room. The man is so excited he jolts about animatedly. Did he just say spackle my guts? She thinks. Oh what the fuck is this. With a hideous jab she feels the blade glide through the tissue and muscle of her abdomen, pain blooms from the deep wound. If she weren’t paralyzed she’d have crushed this man’s skull several times over, since he began to visit her in stasis weeks ago. Through glassy eyes she can make out the shape of the man as he moves his cart closer to the open clamshell doors of her pod. Clumsily he climbs up, and begins to pull himself out of his pants and shuffles forward towards her. Pain explodes in her abdomen, as the brown haired man hunches to his work.

“Oh Mimi, oh, oh Mimi, do you know what this needs?” The man giggles as he splashes onto her exposed intestine. “Tomorrow, we use fire!” He laughs, and laughs, and laughs as he wipes himself off and retreats down the hallway into the distance.

Over the video screens doctor Tam can see Mimi’s face scrunch and pulse as her brain waves skyrocket. In the middle of taking a note her wrist communicator pings a notification from both admiral Garneau and his lead advisor Gerald. An emergency meeting has just been booked for the admirals ready room in a few minutes time.

A commotion at the lab doors breaks out as a team of six technicians drag two badly beaten men into the room by their arm pits. Doctor Tam looks at the message from the CO and shouts over the din inside the lab. “Excuse me, Ladies and Gents, we are working here. These two men are to accompany me to my next meeting, so do be kind, yes?” She shouts menacingly. The gathered technicians slowly settle down into a more subdued state. The obvious adrenaline rush gives way to the shakes, and a few of them sit down as they succumb to the feeling. Turning away from the younger portion of her team doctor Tam goes back to standing watch over the monitors, quietly.

“What was that! Did you see that? Was that a spike, report to me people. Did we catch that? Is it distortion from the camera, is it parallax?” Shouts doctor Tam to her room full of medical staff and technicians. “We have it ma’am!” Chimes in Deakins. “She spiked her neural load so high it was off the charts, she nearly had an out of body experience. I can’t imagine what she’s thinking in there. Whatever it is, it’s fucking awful, ma’am” Deakins says quietly to the doctor seated behind him. “That Mr Deakins is the under statement of the fucking century!” Scoffs doctor Tam. “I need a report of this to take with me to the SLT meeting.” As she walks toward the doors out to the lifts a petite woman hands her the print out of the case studies and has the two semi conscious men in tow.

Chapter Twenty Five: Ghost of the Dirty Starling.

And on the sixty fifth day, He said, Oh – Lord, I have finished reading the last book in the series, and was at once, both elated, and forlorn.

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For it was a good series, of both length and depth, but now it is over, and where there used to stand a long winding road full of opportunities there is now only the hard cold truth of the back cover, closed and defined. Like a stone rolled over the door to seal in the freshness. I am sad. I do however have a new book to read, a part of another series I enjoy, plus next month John Scalzi’s new book will drop and I’ll likely enjoy that one too.

I wasn’t going to talk about books, I had something else on my mind which I was gearing up for today, but now that the power has been out since 2:00am, school is cancelled, it’s going to rain like cats and dogs all day, I had to change gear. I imagine power will be back some time between 9:00am and 12:00pm, so it won’t be an entirely lost work day, but with the kiddos home it’ll be a wash. No tv, no microwave, no toaster or fridge, no dvd player, and no furnace. Could potentially be a trying day for us. Oh joy.

Happy I managed to get through so much work on Monday through Wednesday. Could have been a disaster if I’d left it until later in the week.

Now that I think on it, I can’t recall – at all, what I was going to lead with today. Not even a scintilla of an idea of what it was. I know that yesterday afternoon I thought it was funny. But it totally escapes me now.

Oh, to be fair I was reading the Expanse book series, if anyone wanted to know. Book nine finished it all off. Although I did see that they have collected some peripheral short stories from the universe into a book, so perhaps we’re not quite done yet. We’ll see. I liked how it came together, so maybe I’ll leave well enough alone? Or not. I don’t have any other science fiction series that I have been following along with besides Matha Wells’ Murder Bot Diaries (which is also fantastic) oh and Mary Robinette Kowals alternate history A Lady Astronaut Novel series.

I have done some considerable thinking about my next few chapters. Was planning to write one today, but – kids home all day due to inclement weather. Stay tuned, things should get interesting!

Sixty two: Microns versus thousandths of an inch.

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Welcome back to Monday! New week new me, am I right!?! I’m positive but I’m not that optimistic. Pragmatic might suit me better. Looking for the hidden surprise while allowing myself to enjoy things as they are. Like – expect the worst, but enjoy what comes to you.

Anyway, I’ve just gone and sprung an appointment on myself for early today so I’ll need to keep this short.

Hey! Did you see that I wrote about 3000 words of short stories yesterday? Nice. Haven’t had that kind of output for a single day in more than a year. Had a bit of umph to try a third but got caught out with a possible Cinderella Story for the Cincinnati Bengals. But – they botched it, so. Whatever. Had a great bowl of chili though. So good!