Sun Squad – Yuppers

Stuck in a stutter
Fear the fallen utter
Nonsense in senseless death

– The Coming of the Condemned

In the black of space, a ship fell quiet. About fifteen minutes before the sounds of shouting, running, slamming, and gunfire echoed along the hull.

I hid shamelessly. I technically passed basic combat training some ten years before flying into the black to study and never used it since. As a scientist, I didn’t even carry a stun gun.

I’d heard of pirates out in the black. People figure the law won’t find you if you fly far enough. Those people live by plundering vessels and leaving them stranded. I thought we’d been raided, so I’d just lay low until they took all of our supplies and left.

I thought it was pirates before the silence. The silence didn’t make sense.

Then a murmur started. It echoed and vibrated across the hull. It was the sound of a house fly from Earth, circling around. As the sound grew louder, I thought of a hornet’s nest. I moved towards the sound, thinking of investigating, thinking there might be a mechanical failure. I froze when I detected a human quality to the sound. It was like a word being stuttered on the same syllable over and over. Maybe it was a recording the ship’s computer was accidentally playing back, caught in a loop. Maybe there was a system failure. I backed up again, trying to be patient, resigning to wait hidden in my lab.

It wasn’t long before I grew restless again, the unnerving noise echoing around the corridors. What if it everyone was evacuated? What if I’m the only one left here? With the systems failure, heat would deplete along with the oxygen, and I knew I’d freeze before I suffocated. I’d die alone because I was a coward.

I couldn’t sit still. Maybe I could fix it. I turned away from the corridor I’d seriously considered going into and went back into my lab. I sat at a terminal easily, even in the dark I knew my lab, my home.

There was no power. How could the computer system be making those noises without power? Was only this terminal down? What about the backup systems?

I reached under and pulled off a large panel, exposing the wiring. I crawled my way in about a half of a foot to find the connections for power and flipped a switch to manually engage the backup power systems. My terminal switched on.

From the new light I could see vague shapes coming from the corridor I was standing in before. I stood and inched forward. The shapes were moving in the same stutter of the buzzing noise. The shapes looked like human figures, but the movement were jerking and repeating.

As I began to see it clearer it was like a stiff dance, forward a half step, back a half, forward a full two, back another half step… It seemed robotic, but their faces were getting close enough to make out in the dim light.

Their vacant eyes were wide and blinking in the same stuttering cadence. I recognized some of them. It was the crew and not one of them looked alive.

Single file in their eerie march they came forward, not responding to anything I said. Their minds were gone or being controlled. I looked around my lab to hide. That was the only exit. I squeezed myself into the panel with the wires in desperation. Under and inside the terminal, I pulled the panel back on after me. With their vacant stares, unseeing and unintelligent, I was hoping that they wouldn’t be able to pry the panel off.

By some luck I was right, but they didn’t leave. They mill about outside stuttering, day and night without rest. I don’t know how long I’ve been in here any more. The background noise blurs together in a meaningless cacophony. It’s possible I’ve gone mad.

If I’m still sane, someone still might find this terminal I’m tapping into from the inside out. Someone might download this log and make some sense of it.

If I weren’t facing a slow death, madness, or whatever malady has befallen my crew mates, this might have been funny. Sometimes the sound is like “yup yup yup” as if they are agreeing with me.

Doomed, “Yup yup yup,” They agree.

I know the crew is either dead or one of those things outside. I won’t leave. Whatever my fate, I won’t become one of them.

This passage comes from a recording on one of the first ships that were found. It is the first recorded encounter with The Condemned. Though the ship was also found contaminated with Type Two and Type Three Condemned, it appears that in a single case one of the crew was able to avoid immediate detection and transformation.

There was a decomposed body found in the panel below the terminal. The cause of death appeared to be self inflicted electrocution. From the estimated time of death, the woman would have long since died of dehydration, and leaving would have surely resulted in her joining her crew as one of the Type One Condemned.

From here on the Type One were known as Yuppers in reference to her log. Though suspected, this allowed us to discover that Yuppers are attracted to noise and sound, but are unable to reason or perform motor functions other than moving towards its source.


– Compendium of The Condemned

Live It

Stagnant.
I wait for the universe to unfurl for me and
nothing,
blood curdling, sitting, watching
trying to see the moment,
but it’s gone.
Seizing pretty sayings,
trying to remember what or why
so I can make it come back to a
‘if I knew what I knew’,
but I’m only hurdled forward.
I know I was forewarned,
but I still thought that mortality meant
I could do it tomorrow.
Tomorrow.
Tomorrow is never today,
is always a blank page,
a clutched fist,
an active mind,
unsure how to hurl itself onto the page
and make something worth making.
Take heart while you
take your bliss.
Write fiction as if you
don’t live it.
Live it.

Stranger than Fiction

This morning, on my way to do ‘the mail run’ before work, I almost hit a bird in the road. The thing that was odd about this was not that it was an animal in the wrong place at the wrong time, or that it was me in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The weird thing was the location: East Hartford Ave. Uxbridge, MA

Matched with the type of bird: peacock.

I knew it was the beginning to another odd day. I knew this not because I am a reader of omens and portents. I knew this because life has become an interesting and unexpected thing.

By now I should expect the unexpected. I have a job where just when you think there is some sort of routine, something new and different that you’ve never seen comes across your plate and stares at you with beady little eyes. Add this to the rest of my life. I have weird, vivid, often horrifying dreams. Coincidences and dejavu are constant. Is it more strange to feel like whats happening has happened before, or that both Ezra and I met after not seeing each other since February (and years before that meeting) both wearing Metallica shirts and admitting we weren’t ‘really big Metallica fans or anything’.

I wonder about writing fiction sometimes and the length people go to make it seem realistic. With the odd occurrences that happen on a day to day it occurs to me that we wouldn’t know what realism was anyways. Reality often feels surreal, and truth really is stranger than fiction.

Last night I dreamt about telling someone at work that I just had a dream about them, since in the dream I dreamt having that dream.

I also dreamt I was a super-long pole arm bearer for some feudal post-apocalyptic oriental army. I was captured by the enemy feudal lord when he tricked me into thinking I was close to defeating him. It was simply a ruse to get me away from the rest of the army and capture me. When I tried to escape, no matter how far and fast I went, there was a large-as-a-house warrior waiting to bring me back to my prison. There was nothing to do at this prison but sleep and play strange card games I was bad at.

I can only spend so much time on the epic stores my subconscious undertakes. Life is constantly weaving a strange tale of its own. Instead, I spend my time dodging peacocks.

Trust, Even After Trying it’s Gone

Rex attacks with poison flour
Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest for the SNES. One of the crappiest Final Fantasy games ever made has some of the crappiest writers and translators at the wheel.

A warning to those who don’t know eating flour provided by undead dinosaurs may be potentially hazardous: an adventuring career maybe isn’t for you. This has been a video game public announcement.

What kind of adjective is “flamerous”? It certainly isn’t English.
– – – – –

Gawn and Treye sat down together in a cafe in a the small, industrial city of Worner, sleepy in its wintry shell. They hadn’t seen each other in months, though they live but miles apart. Treye had been calling Gawn off and on for weeks- as well as everyone else she knows in the city with little luck. Even friends with which Treye knew nothing but good times seem to have moved on to somewhere or something new and exclusive. Treye was getting sick of being positive about her loneliness, and her desire to vent was fast overcoming the desire not drive Gawn away. It had been three days since Treye spoke to anyone other than customers at work and voicemail boxes of friends. All of her recent attempts to try and meet new people were met with polite but cold reactions or hopes of sex.

Treye was about to give up on humanity and the act of putting trust in people. Still, she reached out to Gawn on more time hoping she’d be proven wrong.

Gawn tried to reassure Treye but also has a hard time disagreeing with her assessments.

“In all trust there is the possibility for betrayal,” admits Gawn.

“Then it is better not to trust,” Treye stared into her cup of black tea, hunched over it as if huddling for warmth..

“But… without trust there is no real friendship, no closeness, none of the emotional bonds that make life worth living…” Gawn lists passionately.

“These are the experiences and feelings that make up life itself,” agrees Treye.

“Exactly,” Gawn slapped the table, glad to be getting through.

“So… you put yourself at risk, and do so knowingly and willingly.”

“…every single time,” admitted Gawn, smiling.

“How do you know when to trust others and when to trust your doubt?” Treye pushes herself and her tea further across the table towards Gawn, “How can you separate paranoia from a real, deserving lack of trust?”

“Hopefully you trust yourself over others before the knife ends up in your back. Other than that, I really can’t give you an answer. Some people trust others until they give them sure reason not to. Some will even forgive and extend trust again and again.”

“How does one find a trustworthy individual?” Gawn seemed to have all the answers, and Treye hoped she could pull some to apply to her own life.

“The same way one finds an honest man.”

“What?”

“I’m saying, one doesn’t. The capacity for betrayal is within all of us.”

“Not me,” Treye denied without a hint of pride or happiness at the proclamation.

“If that’s true, then I pity you. You are doomed to a lifetime of expectations that no one can fulfill and things given that no one can reciprocate.”

“Perhaps there is something wrong with me,” Treye squeezed the ceramic mug, “Sometimes I suspect I am not human.”

“Oh, you’re human all right- human enough to feel betrayed, rejected, isolated, like no one understands you-”

“So, I’m just a whiny cliche?” Treye chuckled at herself without a bit of humor.

“No, just human: individual, but part of a common experience of common emotions.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. People don’t feel the same way,” Treye paused, thinking before finding the words to explain, “Sure, we all get sad or angry, but one person’s depression is barely another person’s sadness. The same sad person maybe feels barely any anger”

“How would you know?”

“I know when I react honestly and deeply, there are times I’m told I should be in a mental institution or on a drug.”

“Yes… I guess some people are… sensitive,” Gawn conceded.

“And I’ve met other… sensitive… people and have found they understand me better, but are perhaps even more selfish that the norm. The can be more unsympathetic.”

“They’re trying and protect themselves maybe?”

“I could think of many reasons. In the end, it just is. The sensitive person is a victim in a cycle of their own creation making themselves more the victim by throwing themselves under trucks and into fires- that is unenjoyable, but comfortably selfish: the attention they attract, the band aid of other’s pity and self pity. Other people become competition,” Treye shakes her head bitterly.

“And you’re different..?”

“Yes. I know I hurt myself by giving trust to those who don’t deserve it, by not being able to connect with people that would treat me better, but I don’t advertise it like a beacon hoping for those to flock to me to ease the pain as well as allow it to continue so the flock stays.”

“Maybe you should. Maybe you just don’t because you’re afraid they won’t come.”

“No, I’m afraid of being disgusting and weak like them. I’m afraid of my own guilt,” admitted Treye.

“Oh, so bottle it up inside and try hard not to trust those you want to. There’s a logical solution,” Gawn rolled his eyes and nibbled at the left over crumbs of his scone.

“I guess I’m caught in a bit of a paradox.”

“If your values weren’t mixed up in this, I’d have a solution: throw your honesty, integrity, pride, loyalty out the door… Just be and accept.”

“What, like them? Those people don’t accept anything- they live in constant delusion. I’d rather be miserable than delude myself,”

“Would you rather be lonely than to try to trust again? To never connect or know someone else again?” Gawn was getting frustrated.

“It doesn’t matter much what I want. I’m lonely either way. Trust gives darkness a face to whisper to at least.”

“For a bit of pity for you?”

“No. Connection. For real, honest connection. Not ‘I feel bad for you’, but ‘I know what you mean, and hang in there.’.”

“You’re talking about wanting someone to care, understand, and accept you as you are,” Gawn was trying the best to be understanding and sympathetic, but was seeing the circular logic Treye was caught in.

“Yes. And I know I will find it again. It’s just painful knowing it never lasts. At the next inconvenient moment the connection ceases.”

“Um… can we maybe talk about this some other time? I mean, it’s been good talking but… I just have a lot of stuff to do, you know?” Gawn got up to leave. He put forth a forced smile and mentally asked for forgiveness.

“Yes. I understand. I know. Goodbye.”

Treye and Gawn never saw each other again.

Waywards Wandering – Chapter 4: Knowing Everything, A Screen Shot For Every Post

AD&D Pools of Radiance screen shot
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Pools of Radiance (PC version) – Unlike the NES version of this game, the Commadore 64, Atari St, and PC versions allowed you to customize the character portraits and map icons. They also supported trans gendered characters. :) This dwarf is hot!

I’m changing the post format so I will be giving you a screen shot of something wonderful every post (likely a video game scene). I was dedicating whole posts to many at a time, but why not hoard them and let them trickle out so you may appreciate each one like the work of art it is?

Now continues the story of a large walking lizard and his pet monk. Click here to see all of the story so far.

– – – – –

That morning Kanji and Deathwish stood outside the temple packed for the road. They were now well rested and well fed. Father Salane was also generous enough to donate supplies and a small sum of money from the temple stores. Father Salane in turn charged that they help rid the world of its ills and watch over Lashea.

Where is she? At this rate we’ll loose the whole morning, Deathwish had begun the morning in high spirits but was fast growing irritated as his shadow grew shorter.

Kanji started to open his mouth in Lashea’s defense, but quickly stopped. Kanji could imagine that leaving home for the first time was difficult, as he remembered doing it himself many years ago. He could understand why Lashea was late, trying to say goodbye to everyone and everything she knew perhaps forever.

On the other hand, Deathwish wouldn’t understand such a comment if Kanji had made it, since he never got a chance to say goodbye to his home before being torn from it and plunged into this world. Kanji stood as Deathwish paced, silently praying to Brihaad. He opened his eyes when he finally heard the temple doors open and slam shut.

“Sorry I’m late,” huffed Lashea jogging to Kanji’s side, “I underestimated how long it would take me to pack,” On Lashea’s back was a huge, bulging backpack that looked as if it were about to rip under the strain of its contents. Packed aside it was her large sword, on top were rolled blankets, and pots and pans attached jangling at her side. From her belt she sported three large belt pouches which jangled and bounced off her thighs as she jogged up to her new companions.

“What’s that horrible smell?” she asked coming to stand by Kanji and Deathwish.

Kanji sighed and glanced at Deathwish, not even having to hear his unhappy thoughts. He then smiled at Lashea as kindly as he could manage and pointed at her back, “Um, what’s all of this?”

“They are my things, of course,” replied Lashea, confused.

“Lashea,” Kanji put on a gentle tone, “we’re going to be traveling a long way on foot. You’re not going to want to carry all of that. I’m sure there are things in there that you don’t need.”

Lashea bristled at what she interpreted as a condescending tone. She strode up to Kanji, and purposely looked down at him at an exaggerated angle being a full head taller than the monk, “I think I’m more than capable at determining what I do and don’t need. All I have are my clothes, books, bedding, money, food, eating utensils, dishes, pots, soap, hairbrush-”

Two rules: you carry it. If you can’t, you leave it behind without complaint, Deathwish turned away and started walking down the steps of the temple, his claws clicking on the stone, pulling his cowl into place.

Kanji looked up at Lashea, “Just consider how you would fight a monster so encumbered.”

Lashea merely stared at that point, brows furrowed, arms crossed, “Well, I’d put the pack down of c-”

While the monster waited for you to be ready! Speaking of monsters waiting for people to be ready, let’s get a move on, shall we?

“I’ll be back in a minute,” Lashea muttered, her face bright red with anger or embarrassment, Kanji was not sure. She turned around and rushed back into the temple. Kanji heard a chuckle coming from up above and looked up to see Clavus laughing and shaking his bald head.

“Be patient with her, you two. Remember, none of us started out knowing everything. That took some time.”

Kanji digested the irony of his words and realized they were likely aimed at the annoyed Deathwish who walked, talons clicking, back up the temple stairs. Kanji smiled and nodded at the plump priest and waited for Lashea, Deathwish remaining silent and managing to stand still.