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Aug 28, 2015 09:37
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| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 03:57 |
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 Spin again!
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Aug 28, 2015 13:25
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The New Prize 1400 words Cyberpunk political intrigue VIVIAN "You better hold her still, or this is gonna cost us all," Creasey said, holding the needle, and Vivian did as she was told. They couldn't coax Addie to go under anaesthesia, not after the last time. The cost of a real gas man would have been prohibitive, anyway. This was better. Vivian pinned her sister's arms down tightly as she could, trying not to picture the bruises that such forcefulness would have caused on her old body. Creasey threaded the cord in with the rest of her wiring, until it was indistinguishable as far as Vivian knew. She bit her lip. "Will they be able to tell?" "Depends on how well you've programmed her," he said. "How's her acting ability?" "She'll do her part," Vivian said. She hadn't wanted to mess with her sister's wide eyed sincerity. Perhaps, as her uncle had argued, time would have ground away that part of her personality, like it had done to the rest of them. But it hadn’t happened when Addie was alive, and Vivian couldn’t make that call. "I'm hearing reports that the government has a bot in play, too," Creasey said, stitching Addie back up again. "Maybe Qi’s faction, too. You think this is the first time some schmuck tried to go around them at a taping? There's a lot of desperate people out there." "Don’t call her a bot after you spent all morning sifting through her guts," Vivian said. She turned back to her sister. "Hey kiddo," she said, tucking Addie's hair behind her ear. "You back with us?" "I didn't go anywhere," Addie said. This time, it was true. HUOJIN/ <<Once you're inside, you're on your own.>> Huojin’s handler told him via his neurotransmitter. As though he was unaware that he was totally expendable. <<So play it cool.>> <<You’re saying I shouldn’t announce my intentions on American TV?>> She sighed. <<I’m saying get your hands on this tech. Your country is counting on you.>> <<Not just me. Is our guy on the ground ready?>> ADDIE Addie was still raw from surgery when they left for the studio. Her pain wasn’t real, but tell that to the clump of meat and wires and secondhand toaster parts currently masquerading as her brain. She pressed a hand against her belly, but stopped in case Vivian saw. "It's weird they still shoot this in meatspace," she said. "The show's older than Gramps," Vivian said. “It was an institution even before the government seized control of it.” The rules of the game were simple. A “randomly selected” group entered the game and bid against each other for prizes. The prizes ranged from the trivial (luggage, minor neural upgrades, a week in Cancun) to the more sought-after items (cybernetic implants were quite popular). Rich people would pay to watch people scrap over their leftovers. Everybody else watched too: some to vicariously enjoy the winning bid, others as light entertainment alongside their TV dinners. Recently, rumours of a new prize had begun to circulate. “If Creasey’s right, the place’ll be crawling with people trying to get that tech,” Addie said. “It could be a trap. Maybe the government’s gonna ferret out Cutler’s faction. Maybe -” “gently caress the government. gently caress Cutler. We could get Mom and Dad back, sis,” Vivian said. Addie looked down. Right. RICH They didn’t pay Rich to host. His current existence, fueled though it was by augmented parts, carefully monitored implants and the discretion of his bosses, was the sole positive of this gig: every day he hosted was another day he spent alive. He’d heard talk of them hiring an upgraded chimp for the part, but nothing yet. Focus groups suggested the fanbase preferred tradition, and Rich fit the bill with his carefully cultivated puns and expensive suits. Still, he’d been getting calls from some major players. Politicians, mob bosses. It wouldn’t hurt to let some of them through. Rich already did it on a small scale: people would do anything to be on the show. If he didn’t facilitate them, they’d just pay hackers for the privilege. Right now, though, Rich had a show to put on, and a life-changing prize to give away. FELIX They waved Felix’s guy through easily enough. He’d heard Cutler’s people were trying to get the intel as well, but he doubted they’d even show up tonight - not in person. The Chinese on the other hand… He sat down in the stands with the other contestants, trying to keep his movements as smooth as possible. The guy whose body he’d hacked didn’t have particularly sophisticated systems; it made him an easy target but meant keeping him believable was more of an ordeal. His hands kept trying to clench against Felix’s will. The other contestants all had that same look: Please let them pick me. Felix didn’t give a drat about that snazzy new entertainment system that was up for grabs. They were all so easily controlled, following the government’s script to the letter. Let them pick me. Let me pick the right price. Let me win the thing that will make me whole. Fools. They deserved what they got. VIVIAN Vivian sat in the parking lot, watching via neural stream. Addie went in alone, claiming Vivian’s presence would only make her nervous. Vivian didn’t really buy it, but Addie was the one taking the risks, so she got to call the shots. The first part of the scheme went off without a hitch. Rich Mosby brought on contestants in his smarmy fashion (”Come on down!”), and Addie eventually got called up. One of the people called up before her was a dentist named Gary. The guy had a strained grimace on his face, his hands twitching as though beyond his control. He made it through to the showcase after sharing a meaningful glance with the host. Vivian tapped her neurotransmitter. “The dentist’s hacked,” she said, as a hairdresser won a trip to Hawaii. No reply, but of course Addie was concentrating hard on the game, and acting natural. “You got this, sis,” Vivian said, as Addie spun the wheel successfully, going through to the final showdown. “He’s not the only one with an in. The showcase is yours for the taking.” And so are Mom and Dad, she thought, but left it unsaid. ADDIE The last time Addie saw her parents was right before the accident. That wasn’t exactly the truth, but that was the memory she’d been left with. They’d all had a nice lunch together, and then her parents had taken Vivian to the airport. That was where Addie’s memory ended, because Vivian had programmed it that way. The last time Addie saw her parents was in that car. But even that wasn’t real. Addison Grubauer was the one in that car, and Addison Grubauer was dead. So were Mom and Dad. The host was asking her to guess the price for the big, top secret prize. Like Addie needed to guess. She’d win. But was that the right thing? No. She shouldn’t win. She shouldn’t be here at all. And her parents - HUOJIN Huojin hadn’t expected a fight but here he was, unable to gain control of his guy. Either somebody had hacked Gary, or he’d gotten greedy and double-dipped. Either way, Huojin needed to assert control. He couldn’t let the device fall into other hands. <<Give over to me>> The dentist staggered forward. Two members of the security team moved forward with him, the jig being well and truly up. Dammit. Game over. Unless - FELIX Well, gently caress. Unless - ADDIE The price was right there in her head, waiting to be voiced. Addie could feel the hackers trying to force their way into her systems. She didn’t know if the answer was coming from them or herself or even Vivian. She wished it could come from her parents. Addie pointed at the box behind the host. "My parents are inside?" Rich pasted on his made-for-TV smile. "That's right, Addison! They can be yours, too, for the right price!" Addie could see his eyes darting between her and the dentist, clearly wondering how to salvage the episode. “And if the price is wrong?” Rich made a discomforted noise. “Well, you know how it is, Addison -” “They’ll be destroyed, right?” “Well - yes.” Addie exhaled. “Sorry sis,” she said, and then she gave her final answer.
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Aug 31, 2015 10:48
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Thanks for the crit, SH!
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Sep 2, 2015 05:39
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In! (for some good old fashioned losing.)
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Sep 9, 2015 01:00
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From Moment to Moment 1015 words The family sat quietly around the dinner table. Their near-silence was periodically punctured by the sound of Father hacking his way through his chunk of ribeye. Father did so with a vigor that suggested he wished there were something else beneath his blade. Mother gave up on small talk after the first glare from her husband's direction, a look as sharp as any slap. She bowed her head and shoveled the food into her mouth without another word. Gustave kept his head down, too. He didn't need to look up. He had the perfect image of the scene sketched out in his mind: Father at the head of the table, with Mother and Gustave flanking him. He gave grudging consideration to the heavy, taut lines of Father's hand gripping his knife but laboured over remembering Mother's grimace, the whiteness of her knuckles, her periodic glances in Father's direction as though awaiting instruction. If this were a painting hanging on the wall of somebody else's dining room, all would be well. This would just be an isolated moment, instead of one of a series quite likely to culminate in pleading and bloodshed. Gustave pictured himself making the brush strokes. He might change Mother's expression, if only to ease that tension in her jaw. He could make them all smile. He could make this moment last. He could - "Pass the salt," Father said, and then the moment passed. * The evening progressed and Gustave retreated to his room. He watched the sky change colours and thought about capturing them, but there was no inspiration there. Gustave couldn't focus on a sunset or the inky night sky when he was trying so hard not to listen to the voices in the next room. He needed something stronger to drown out the way his mother's voice cracked when she was pleading, so he got out of bed and took out a pen and some paper. Gustave drew them. The knife, Mother's knuckles - "Stop it, Peter! Oh God -" No. That wouldn't do. He drew his mother, and left Father out entirely. She was luminous, bathed in light. Gustave couldn't quite picture her smiling, not with that noise in the background, not until he could think of something worthy of her smile. He didn't draw her in that room. Gustave drew the forest he saw through his window, and as he sketched his mother's unbowed head looking upwards, he finally had reason to draw the sky. * There was some mad alchemy in it. Gustave’s pen touched the paper and he created moments without consequence. He drew his mother riding into the forest, something she had never done. He drew her standing over the pond with someone else’s blood dripping from her hands. He drew her in a hundred different moments. She was a witch, a goddess, a fleeing princess - anything but his mother, cringing away from another sudden blow at the dinner table. Gustave’s lines grew surer as the days and weeks and months went by. Surely reality was the lesser cousin to these confident portraits. Any day now, the world would right itself, and submit to the reality contained in those sheets of paper. He heard screaming coming from the kitchen and lifted his pen to block it out once more. * The screaming continued through the night until finally, finally, it stopped. When Gustave emerged from his room, a moment existed where he could not think of anything but the sight before his eyes: his mother, not his muse, lying bloodied and still in the kitchen with Father crying over her prone body. There was nothing for him to draw, no next moment to evade. There would be no more such moments again. * Gustave stopped drawing. He stopped talking. He didn’t eat. The world around him continued, but he had no response. They took his father away in the back of a police car, his bloodied fists chained uselessly together. They buried his mother at the very end of a long row of grey tombstones, each inscribed with phrases such as “beloved wife,” and decorated with bouquets of rotting flowers. Gustave went to live with a distant aunt in a house that was never tense with looming violence. His hands never itched for a pen or paper. His mind was blank. The child psychologist he was every other Thursday would offer him watercolours and urge him to paint “whatever springs to mind, dear.” Gustave shrugged. Nothing came to mind. She placed the brush in his hand and guided it to the paper. Her hands were slender, with rings on the same finger his mother had worn her ring. He thought of those same hands, ruined, pawing against Father’s chest as she had struggled to get away from him. Gustave had seen the red prints on his father’s shirt that night, in the moments after he entered the room. Mother was already dead by then, but she was still wearing that ring. “It seems silly, but sometimes it can help to express what you’re feeling,” the psychologist pushed on. “Art is a powerful tool. It can give voice to what we can’t say, and it can help us to work through pain we might otherwise avoid. What do you feel like painting today?” Gustave considered the question. The answer was an old one. “My mother.” * Gustave still wanted to capture that one moment. The moment before his father took the knife to Mother’s body, stabbing and slashing until exhaustion - not remorse - gave him pause. The moment before Mother went still and cold, her red prints left forgotten on her husband’s cotton shirt. He wanted to paint it, and seal it off so that nothing could follow it. In that moment, Mother could be happy, sad, or indifferent. She could be in the kitchen or hiding in the forest. She could be anything at all. Anything that Gustave put to paper. He would keep painting it until he got it right and that final, bloody moment went away forever. Gustave picked up the paintbrush and got to work.
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Sep 14, 2015 07:24
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In w/ a flash rule thanks!
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Sep 29, 2015 02:30
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| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 03:57 |
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curlingiron posted:If crabrock's Ivory Tower bullshit flash rules are too fancy for you, feel free to ask for a secondary-level flash rule from me. I ain't givin' 'em to ya if you got one from crabs, though. I'll take one of these, please!
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Oct 3, 2015 03:20
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