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Corn Syrup
Feb 6, 2006
I'm in.

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Corn Syrup
Feb 6, 2006
The Din Within
598 words.
http://youtu.be/7w7ZeSIC6K0

"Welcome back, honey."

I hugged my daughter, still in her Army uniform, fresh off the plane. She smiled. A hopeful grin without showing any teeth. Her face was the same as ever, but her eyes had crows feet now and the sun and sand hadn't done her skin any favors. She had only been gone for two years, but looked like it had been ten.

"Let's go home." I said.

"Yeah."

----

We came home to find my youngest playing an online combat game. He has gone through so many, I have lost track of which one is which. After a while, they all sort of blend together into an indistinct mass of gunfire, explosions, and distorted radio chatter.

"Hi dad!" He said without looking away from the TV.

"Hey, Carl," I said as I closed the door behind us. "Look who's home!"

"Caroline!"

That was enough to get him to get up from the couch. I usually have to come just short of prying him off of it.

"Were you in any battles?" He asked eagerly. She set her bags down and stared at nothing in particular.

"Yeah." She said as her shoulders slumped.

I shush'd him before he could keep asking questions. He looked at me with confusion. Her jaw moved slightly, like she was rummaging around in there for the words she just couldn't find. Her head snapped up when I put my hand on her shoulder. She looked at us and sighed.

"Sorry." Her voice was low and quiet.

"No need to apologize, honey. You've been gone a long time. You must be tired."

"Yeah."

----

I glanced at the photos in the hall as Caroline and I walked to the bedrooms. One in particular stood out to me. It was taken during her recital for dance class in junior high. A lanky fourteen-year-old, her shiny, new skirt flying; waist-length hair whipping around. And a giant, braces-filled smile across her face, with confidence and a blissful lack of self-awareness. I was always rather surprised how well this photo turned out, considering that nearly every other one I took then was blurry or had my finger in the frame.

I saw Caroline out of the corner of my eye, watching me look the photo over.

"Your mother was so proud then," I said before turning to look her in the eyes, "And she'd be proud of the woman you are now."

Caroline broke eye contact and stared at the floor.

"Yeah." She sounded more deflated than before. I hugged her again.

"Hey," I said, "Sleep sands down the jagged edges of bad memories, y'know? It'll get better with time."

----

Screaming. A long, horrified wail coming from the guest bedroom. I ran across the hall and found Caroline, sitting up in bed, crying with her head in her hands. I sat down on the bed next to her and wrapped my arms around her. Her breathing was uneven and I could feel her heart racing. I heard the faint pop of gunfire from Carl's game in the living room.

"Why'd they have to die like that?" She stammered between sobs, "Why couldn't..."

She trailed off. I didn't reply. As I held her, I remembered the sweet, innocent girl who I said goodbye to at the Military Entrance Processing Station and realized I'd never see that person again. I had this mentally scarred young woman now. One who may not be able to sit through a fireworks show or sleep a full night again without medication and therapy.

"God drat it, I thought it was done..."

Corn Syrup
Feb 6, 2006
With a username like mine, I can't skip this week. I'm in.

Corn Syrup
Feb 6, 2006
Gray Area 996 words. Wolfram

"You seem to have attracted some attention."

"Oh?"

"Fujiwara Mori, one of your employees, has listened in on some of our calls and is investigating our arrangement. Deal with him."

"I'll take care of it."

-

He had said his name was Mr. Gray. Yamada had taken him up on an offer eight months earlier. He honestly couldn't remember most of the conversation that night, and thought that, perhaps, that was for the best. All he knew for sure was that he woke up the next morning with a nasty hangover and an undecorated, dark gray ring on his finger.

Yamada was, as any sane individual would be, suspicious. He had the ring tested by someone down in the metallurgy department of Aburagawa Industries, the corporation he worked for. The results came back saying that it was a hollow tube of tungsten carbide, a generally unremarkable ceramic. There seemed to be something in the tube, but Yamada had them send it back to him before they cracked it open to find out.

Once every week or two, Gray would call Yamada and give him a little bit of information. What to say to a particular person, where to be at a certain time, those sorts of things. Yamada rapidly ascended the corporate ladder from his middle-management position to being on the board of directors.

During one of these calls, Yamada asked Gray what his end of the deal actually was. He could hear the smile in Gray's voice when he replied,

"You answer to The Consortium."

-

"You fired him?" This was the first time Gray had shown surprise.

"He was getting too close! I had to do something!"

"I meant for you to try to bring him on board! Make him indebted to you! Make him not want to expose you! He was just suspicious before, now you've given him grounds for a vendetta!"

"...Oh. Well." Yamada floundered, "Uh, in that case, I'll just fabricate some reason to have him thrown in prison."

"We don't have enough clout in the justice system here to be able to count on pulling that off." Gray suddenly sounded very tired.

"Fine. I'll hire someone to kill him and-"

"No, if he survives the attempt, it would be too easy to connect it to you and make him even more determined. This calls for something no one in your world would belive exists, much less think is connected to your company. I'll send an agent. Make sure you wear your ring." Gray hung up without waiting for a response.

"Right," Yamada said sarcastically, "Like I can't handle this myself..."

-

As a member of the board of directors, Yamada had access to all Aburagawa Industries' facilities, so he had no trouble getting into Mori's office. It was, as he expected, vacant and messy. There were empty instant ramen bowls and candy wrappers strewn around the room. It looked like he had left in a hurry, with a half-eaten bag of dried seaweed on the desk and his computer still running. Yamada sat down in Mori's cheap, sweat-stained desk chair and logged onto the computer with his own credentials. Once logged in, the computer loaded a media player program by itself.

"Ah, Director Yamada." A contemptuous voice came from the PC speaker. Yamada jolted upright.

"Good evening. Or whenever. I don't know when you'll grow a pair and try to investigate my office yourself. You really thought firing me would get me out of your way?" Yamada tried to move the mouse, but found the cursor locked in place.

"You're going to stay there while I get my information out. I want you alive so you can be interrogated. I'm sure the government would love to know about this 'Mr. Gray' fellow."

Yamada ran for the door, but it was locked, no longer responding to his keycard. He ransacked the drawers in the desk and filing cabinets, but couldn't find anything suitable for forcing a metal door open.

"I'll see you on the news, Director."

Yamada screamed in wordless frustration as he picked up the keyboard and flailed around with it, destroying Mori's PC. Before he could get back to try the doorknob again, the door buckled inward with a resounding clang! Yamada backpedaled, his eyes open wide. The door swung lamely on its hinges before flopping down to the floor. A creature stood in the hall outside. It was shaped like a man, but had no head and appeared to be made of cement.

"Consort located." A low voice ground out from inside of it, "Searching for target."

"Target?" Yamada stammered, his voice two octaves higher than normal, "You mean Mori? I think I know where he is."

The golem stepped aside and made a surprisingly fluid gesture for Yamada to lead the way.

-

The maintenance tunnels were a leftover from the cold war era and had never had much security. Thus, to Yamada, they seemed to be the perfect place for a fugitive ex-employee to hide and use the company internet to leak information. Broad shouldered and standing ramrod straight, the golem had to nearly walk sideways to fit.

The tunnels were sparsely lit, with large dark spots between fixtures. In one of these spots, only a few feet before an open fire door, Yamada discovered a tripwire and gracelessly fell flat on the ground with his hands outstretched. The door slammed down and crushed his fingers. Yamada screamed and kicked, but couldn't free his hands. The golem wedged the ends of its fingers into the crack Yamada unwillingly created, forced the door back up, and walked through. Yamada pulled his hands to his chest and curled into the fetal position.

"Woah! What-" Someone cried out before being cut off with a quiet squitsh.

Yamada lifted his head to look and saw the dark gray shards of the ring sitting in the doorway.

"No Consorts present." The golem's grinding voice broke the silence as it turned to Yamada, "Eliminating witnesses."

Corn Syrup
Feb 6, 2006
I'm in.

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Corn Syrup
Feb 6, 2006
Career Change
[Words:1197]

"I guess that's one way to mourn your career," Claire mumbled as she helped me stumble into the diner. It was one of those 50's throwback places- checkered floor, red vinyl seats, polished chrome trim everywhere. All I cared was that the cheery music was too loud and the lights were too drat bright.

"You know we're about to close, right?" The waitress asked as she sat us down at a window booth.

"Sure, I just need to get some greasy food in my friend here." Claire said, "Always helps with hangovers."

She lingered for a moment, but went back to the kitchen without saying anything.

"Geez, you'd think she'd at least take our orders or something..." Claire pouted.

I looked out the window. Outside was a green meadow, the sun was out, and in the distance there was a rough, serrated mountain range.

"Hey, wasn't there a parking lot out there before?" I pointed outside and Claire followed my finger.

"Yup." Claire said with a shrug.

"No, seriously, what happened to your car? This is-"

I was cut off by the bell on the door as four people walked in to the diner. All but one were tall, blonde women, who wore brightly colored armor, and had white feathered wings on their backs. The odd one out was a rather effeminate man with a wispy moustache and blood stains all over his clothes. The women plopped down into the seats in the booth next to ours with sighs of relief.

"Remember when this job didn't involve so much walking?" One of them asked the others, who tiredly agreed and engaged in small-talk.

Rather than sitting with them, the man wandered to the restrooms and went inside. The women didn't pay attention to him or us and continued their chatter. Claire was awestruck and stared with her mouth open, leaning out into the aisle to try to get a better look at them.

"LeShawndra!" She whispered, quickly glancing from me to them, "Omigod, LeShawndra, look at them!"

I was more interested in the nondescript man who was walking away from the restrooms with a key in his hand and a sly grin on his face. We locked eyes for a moment. I squinted as I tried to get my hangover-addled brain working. He briefly raised a finger to his lips, then walked away. I looked around, but no one else seemed to have seen him.

"Wait, where did the warrior go?" One of the women in the other booth asked.

"Who cares," Another answered, "One mortal's as good as another." She turned around, resting her elbow on the divider between our booths, and looked at Claire, "Hey, you wanna go to Valhalla?"

"Uh, sure?" Claire's eyes flicked to me.

"Cool, let's go." She climbed out of the booth and the others followed suit.

"Okay." Claire got up and followed them to the door.

"Doesn't this seem kind of-" I tried to protest, but stood up too quickly and was forced back by a wave of nausea. They had already walked outside by the time I got to my feet.

"Bye, LeShawndra!" She called to me on her way out the door, "Good luck finding your next job!"

My head was clearing as I lurched my way after them, but the sunlight outside made me stagger, giving them an even larger lead.

"God, someone needs to turn the sun down." I remarked to no one in particular.

I shielded my eyes with my hand as I followed the group through the meadow to a path. I tried to catch up, but they had me outpaced and soon disappeared from view. The path was paved with smooth stones and lead out of the meadow up into the mountains, where it was carved directly into the mountainsides. It didn't fork, so I hoped that they were all sticking to the path as well. I didn't feel myself getting tired, and the sun barely inched across the sky.

The path cut through a grove and split to go around a massive tree that was covered in golden foliage. The leaves spun in the breeze, flashing as they caught the sunlight. I kept my eyes down and rubbed my aching temples.

The path rejoined after the tree and lead up to a tall, wooden building, stopping at an imposing double door. I tried to open it, but it was locked, so I checked around the perimiter for another way in. In the back, there was a humbly proportioned, crude door. I gave it a shove. It creaked open and I invited myself inside.

Inside, there was a middle aged man in faded, vaugely purple robes sitting at a desk and scribbling notes on a sheet of paper while talking to himself.

"Who knew that hosting a gigantic feast for millions that lasts for several millenia would be so expensive," He muttered, glaring at the page, "I didn't allow for enough time. I really didn't expect Ragnarok to take so long to start. At least Odin agreed on my recommended cutbacks to the Valkyrie budget..."

I tapped him on the shoulder, causing him to jerk in surprise. He whirled around to look at me, knocking his stool over.

"A living mortal woman? In Valhalla?" He asked, incredulous, "Did you get lost?"

"No, I followed my friend, who was taken here." I paused when I realized that the top of his head barely reached past my shoulders, "Who are you? I thought the Norse gods were supposed to be... taller."

"Call me Hunding. I am no god. Think of me as the maitre'd of Valhalla."

"Can you help me find my friend?"

"I don't see why not. It'll give me a break from trying to fix this frostbitten budget."

-

We stood on a balcony overlooking the dining hall within Valhalla. From the bulky tables, to the spear shafts as pillars, to the shields lining the ceiling, everything about the place seemed solid and ancient.

"Is that your friend?" He said, pointing down at Claire. By appearance, she was quite out of place, still in her modern-day clothing. However, she seemed to have adjusted quickly, gorging on food, telling stories, and joyfully singing with the men around her. I caught her eye and she smiled and waved before turning back to her new companions. I sighed. Hunding sighed as well.

"I can't take her away from this."

"I was hoping you'd say that. The reassignment paperwork is such a pain. Freya and Hel always take so long to sign off on it when it gets to them..."

"I wonder if that diner's still there..."

"Oh, that? It just sort of comes and goes."

"Don't ya'll have a bridge to the mortal world or something?"

"Eh, sort of."

"Sort of?" I glared at Hunding.

"We leased it to the Chinese government for 100 years."

"poo poo." I leaned onto the balcony railing and put my head in my hands.

"Well," He said with a wink, "At the moment, we have a job opening for a new Valkyrie. We just let one go after she tried to fool Odin with a bystander's soul after losing a warrior..."

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