|
in I'm bad at exposition. To be clear, I'm not talking about using too much (although something, yeah), I'm talking about not being able to deliver huge chunks of the stuff without losing/boring readers.
|
#
¿
Nov 30, 2017 01:27
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 25, 2024 05:28 |
|
|
Disillusion 999 Words https://thunderdome.cc/?story=6182&title=Disillusion Thranguy fucked around with this message at 23:13 on Dec 28, 2017 |
|
#
¿
Dec 4, 2017 01:50
|
|
|
Thunderdome week 279:How to Write a Story This week, let's have some fun and write stories inspired by wikiHow pages. Sign up and I'll assign you not one but two pages from that site. And I'll post an image from one of them if I can get that to work. So you've got some built in conflict if you want it. Maybe someone wants to do two things but can only do one. Maybe different people want different things. I want you to use both pages, but how deep you go into each is up to you. Just use the title, take things from the whole page, write about a picture in it, whatever. 1500 words. Pacific deadlines, 11:59 PM Friday and Sunday. No fanfic, erotica, poetry, nonfiction, etc How to Become a Judge: (Ask me.)  Thranguy Sebmojo Jay W. Fricks Entrants: 1. Quo Pro Quid (toxxed) (get ready for school, stretch a horse) 2. Antivehicular (protect cattle from rustlers, make kit-kat lasagna) 3. Aesclepia (clean a sponge, make a bicycle lighter) 4. Electric Owl (be an explorer, ignore your enemy) 5. sparksbloom (escape from killer bees, sleep on an airplane) 6. Tyrannosaurus (survive a bank robbery, practice shamanism) 7. Exmond (launch a model rocket, get married in Mexico) 8. Fuscia Tude (buy gold stocks, punch harder and faster) 9. Freakie (get rid of spider webs, master the Japanese art of the sword) 10. Obliterati (toxxed)(surf, use a pay phone) 11. Okua (handle a tire blowout while riding a motorcycle, meet your girlfriend's parents) 12. magnificent7 (Earn the trust of a feral kitten, determine authentic sunglasses) 13. Fleta Mcgurn (toxxed)(pick a good mango, rock and roll) 14. Flerp (Camel-toxxed)(condition your hair with homemade products, regain control of a spooked camel) 15. Siddartha Glutamate (toxxed)(get over a guy who dumped you for a lame reason, make a glitter bomb) 16. Entenzahn (make a garden gnome that looks like your husband, sing high notes) 17. Crabrock (remove old carpeting,avoid talking to people) Thranguy fucked around with this message at 05:29 on Dec 11, 2017 |
|
#
¿
Dec 5, 2017 02:42
|
|
in
|
https://www.wikihow.com/Buy-Gold-Stocks https://www.wikihow.com/Punch-Harder-and-Faster 
|
|
#
¿
Dec 5, 2017 06:28
|
|
|
Siddhartha Glutamate posted:Thran, hook me up with some wikihow nonsense. 'Cause I'm in. https://www.wikihow.com/Get-Over-a-Guy-That-Dumped-You-for-a-Lame-Reason https://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Glitter-Bomb 
|
|
#
¿
Dec 6, 2017 01:06
|
|
|
The next five people who go in can pick one of their two wikihow pages from the choices below. (I'll assign the other in reply.): How to Be a Ninja Punk  How to Deal with Difficult Police   How to Survive an Apocalypse  How to Become an Expert in Parkour 
Thranguy fucked around with this message at 18:29 on Dec 7, 2017 |
|
#
¿
Dec 7, 2017 07:12
|
|
|
Entenzahn: How to Make a Garden Gnome That Looks Like Your Husband and How to Sing High Notes 
|
|
#
¿
Dec 7, 2017 18:33
|
|
|
Less than twelve hours remain to get in this week.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 8, 2017 21:13
|
|
|
crabrock posted:in. How to Avoid Talking to People 
|
|
#
¿
Dec 9, 2017 06:26
|
|
|
Sign-ups are closed.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 9, 2017 09:09
|
|
|
And we're closed.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 11, 2017 09:14
|
|
|
Thunderdome 279 Results This was a good week, for the most part. The middle was fairly high, and most of the problems that kept middling stories out of the higher group were ones of completeness or story logic, which are a better class of problems to have than ones of basic syntax or narrative construction. Those who attempted humor this week did a much better job at it than just about anyone in the comedy week a few rounds back. Speaking of completeness, though, the week's first Dishonorable Mention goes to Freakie's Lessons, which, despite being fairly short wasted a large portion of its words and barely told the beginning of story. The second DM is one that I pushed for despite it being my second favorite story of the week. That would be Obliterati's Backwards Compatible, a lovely little fragment that works great if the reader has happened to have read Neal Stephenson's Anathem and utterly falls flat on the reader who has not. Piggybacking on another author's speculative physics isn't quite a fanfic ding (The main character isn't quite actionably equivalent to Fra Jaad), but it's worth a DM's worth of stern gazes. Rounding out the bad news is the week's loss, which goes to Siddhartha Glutamate's The Rut, for an introspective, passive narrator who doesn't do anything but wallow in self-pity for nearly the full word-count. On to the happier news. Honorable Mentions go to QuoProQuid's They Said I Could Become Anything, So I Became a Horse and Crabrock's Weird Yoga Pose, two stories that took creative approaches to their prompts and produced a pair of very fun little stories. Rising above those two stories is this week's winner: Entenzahn, for the fun and creepy The Sorrow Song Welcome back to the Blood Throne!
|
|
#
¿
Dec 12, 2017 03:17
|
|
|
In
|
|
#
¿
Dec 12, 2017 16:51
|
|
|
How (not) to write a story:the crits For Everyone Time for another brief essay on my ideas about flash fiction, something that directly applies to several of the stories this week and might be useful for the rest of you as well. Today’s topic is Illusionism. You know how they say that when you look at an iceberg, you’re only seeing the 5% of the thing that’s above water? Now imagine a fake iceberg: take that 5 percent and stick it on top of a wooden raft. That’s what writing is. You’re presenting that 5% and trying to fool the reader into thinking that the other 95% is there, under the text, under the water. In realistic fiction that means doing research. In fantastic fiction that means worldbuilding. In every kind of fiction that means understanding characters. And to make the illusion work, for the important things, you need to know things about your subjects that you don’t directly put into the texts. Not the entire 95%, but enough to know what it’s shaped like. What the mysterious event in the past that you reference was, you should have an idea in your head even if you’re not even going to give the reader enough clues to make a guess. Exmond’s Humanity’s Children Typo in the second line (“hissed opened”). Overall, this is charmingly loopy. I'd name the blobs (even just turning the colors into proper names would have helped the flow of the story a lot), and either cut all of the “scientists would call this” bits or give that runner a payoff. This wound up in the high middle of the week for me. Okua’s All while the soup was getting cold Title cap issues,my bane. 300 beats in an hour is 5 per minute, which is not only not excited but nearly dead. Not sure if learning how to fix blown out tire would actually have helped here, unless this guy was so daft as to be driving on a known flat. Still, another pretty good piece of work here, middle to high probably. Freakie’s Lessons Not much happens here. A lot of words wasted with redunancy, too. I mean, this is an okay beginning for a story. It needs a good trim, but you’ve established a character, given him a desire that he can't currently attain, maybe set him on a path. But that's not enough. Raise the stakes, force a decision, do something to drive this to a conclusion. In a much worse week, this might have escaped mention, but would probably always fall into the low third. Antivehicular’s The Candymonger’s Tale Another fun one. The world building sort of falls apart under close examination: for one, I don't see how you can have a fiat currency but no postal service, or manufacture crossbows but not maintain guns. (I mean, I’m assuming that this is a generic postapocalypse, possibly caused by an EMP of some kind. Although the lack of any re-introduction of electronics and the absence of guns now leads me to suspect this might be secret S. M. Stirling fanfic. But more likely it’s just a not-quite-thought-through worldbuilding thing.) But if you don't look too close at that sort of thing, fun. Middle, middle high maybe. Entenzahn’s The Sorrow Song The opening sentence is frankly a mess. And you use the “creepy last sentence” device on a few too many paragraph in a row early on. But this is very strong in general,high,first serious win contender. Siddartha Glutamate’s The Rut First section has way too much introspection and too little actual story. Very tell-y, too. The imagery, where the title comes from, is strong, probably the best part of the story. Doesn't get any better really. First prompt seems inverted and second completely absent, which is not what you’re being judged on but does make me wonder what led you to write this particular story. V low, probably loss candidate. Quoproquid’s They Said I Could Become Anything... Nice opening. Okay, here's the thing. This is an interesting idea, but it's the idea for a story that's at least novella length if not longer. You've trimmed it way down to make it work here, sort of,but all of the month missing parts really feel missing: a few more incidents to show her trying to succeed, and a lot more characters. A longer version would probably want a student antagonist or two, a few teachers, and one or two more friends in her circle, maybe one of which goes Horse during the course of the story, and you’re getting close to the length of a YA or midgrade novel I think. I had this at the middle with potential to be worked into something much better. crabrock,weird yoga pose Another fun one. Also another one that can't hold up to that much scrutiny really, too many cognitive and biochemical stolen bases. I mean, there are probably stark theoretical limits to the processing power of such a relatively small neuronal network, a mind with literally no inputs isn’t going to be able to grasp pretty much any of the concepts it’s using during the pre-eye parts of the story or really anything at all apart from maybe math, the business of taking over cellular machinery is pretty much just magic, and so on. Still fun, high group, hm candidate flerp, The Fable of the Camel I laughed at the ending. I liked the general Fable story. The two things don't work together exactly though. I mean, the ending requires the setup but is based on but sells all the Goodwill it built doing what it does. This is essentially an ockless Ock story. Middle. Tyrannosaurus’ Doctors Without Borders Okay, interesting,entertaining, well crafted. Another that barely holds together logically, I'm afraid. If the vault was her health, what was the cancer, and wouldn't their heist have in fact made her more endangered? The story’s unusual structure works, for the most part, doesn’t particularly get in the way or take anything away, but it doesn’t really add anything or let you do anything that couldn’t have worked in a traditional narrative, so I wonder why you should have bothered with it in the end. High middle, probably below the hm line. Fuschia tude, So, You Want to be Fabulously Wealthy The “be” should be capitalized. More charming daftness, where were you during comedy week? Seriously, had it been in that week it would likely have been my choice for the win. Not sure if the other judges then would have felt the same, though. “<wild assertion>, but that’s another story” is one of the laziest forms of illusionism. It can work, still, and sometimes even without you having any idea what that other story is. Still, lazy. And it has the risk, if you’re successful and you’re writing serially, of having your fans demand you write that story even if you can’t come up with any answers. There's a big high middle this week and this is part of it Obliterati , Backwards Compatible Another pretty cool piece of prose that is a lot less than a story. This one, though smaller than the others, does a much better job at the illusionism, making it feel like the missing parts exist. Of course, the problem here and is that the only reason I have a clue what's happening is because I've read Anathem. Fra Jaad is always cool, but a reader without that background is going to be lost. And I don’t know how to fix this or if it can be fixed even. A big part of its success is in its compactness, and you’re going to lose that entirely delivering the speculative and real quantum physics payload that it needs (and probably also the booster rocket of Captain Crunch hacker history that it also likely would need.) So, apart from ‘turn this vignette into a long novel’ or ‘target this directly at a very small subset of fandom’, I have no idea what can be done. High subjectively, but fatally flawed. Fleta Mcgurn’s This Rider Is Bullshit This one is just sort of there. I don't think it does quite enough to justify the revenge ending to be honest, I sympathize more with the band here. Even the member you dwell upon at length isn’t made quite awful enough to outweigh the narrator’s petty unprofessionalism (which will probably bite them in the rear end down the line), and the other, less-developed targets of the revenge here are even less justified. And the more I think about it the bigger that problem gets. Low.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 12, 2017 21:05
|
|
|
E is for Elder - The age or the wood. N is for Nature - The kind that is good. T is for Tender - Merciful, kind. E is for Effort - And keeping in mind. N is for Nachos - With flavorful cheese. Z is for Zebras - That go where they please. A is for Annum - Another one past. H is for hours - And making them last. N is for numbers - To measure our fun. Ent, it's your birthday - Have a happy one!
|
|
#
¿
Dec 13, 2017 17:51
|
|
|
Time Flies Like a Bullet Prompt:Max Payne ~1250 words The killer with my dead lover's face pulls the trigger, her gun pointed right at my forehead. Mine’s out too, pointed straight at her heart. I’m good as dead already, with a fraction of a second to shoot back and take her with me, but the Slowdown flashback has already hit, so I’ve got plenty of time to make my decision. Slowdown was our drug, Julie and me. Did just what you'd think, made seconds feel like hours. We stretched out highs from other drugs, from simple sex, from a quiet sunset on a South Carolina Beach. There's a price, though. There always is. Slowdown’s not addictive. The opposite. The more you take, the more often the effect hits you at random, stretching out moments of pain and boredom until you can barely bear to keep on living. We weren't there yet, but we were getting close when someone took a crowbar to Julie's throat. I've never been any kind of investigator. When I've been able to hold down a job it's been pounding out dents and changing out oil and batteries. But the police, well, the police were less than useless. Everything they said translated to “We’re sure it was you, but we can't prove it just yet. Want to confess?” So I figured the only way her killer would ever get what they've got coming is if I found them. The bullet has cleared Tara's gun. Its spiraling motion is mesmerizing. Slowdown doesn't let you move any faster. I can't dodge the bullet. The only muscles that can keep up with your brain under its effect are the ones that move your eyes. First couple of times going Slow everyone works those so hard their eyes ache for days after. Julie and I were together more than two years, in normal time. I thought I knew her pretty well, but there were lots of big things I didn't find out until after she died. That she came from money, old money. That she was married to some other old money guy named Franklin for four months before getting an annulment. That she had a twin sister. All this I got from public records. I started to think this detective business might not be as hard as it looked. Two days later I was taking punches to the gut and face from Franklin Sauer Jr. while two of his guys held my arms. He didn't ask questions, because I didn't know anything he didn't already. He didn't give warnings because I already got the message. Stop digging. They left me bruised and aching on the floor, and the Slowdown in my system kicked in, turning a few minutes struggling to my feet into hours. Franklin’s money was dirty as the Devil’s own unwiped taint. Used his businesses and fortune to launder money for the Russian mob. Julie's family found out, cut her out of the will and trusts. Their lawyer called to tell him about it and he kicked her out of their house before hanging up. Did she know some secret of his, from when they were together? If it was worth killing over then why wait another three years? Franklin was an rear end, but if he was behind Julie's murder I couldn't figure out why. My eyes are rolled up as far as they go, tracking the bullet. It won't be long before I have to make my choice. Squeeze the trigger or let the gun drop from my hand. I found the man who actually killed Julie, the one who swing the crowbar. Our dealer, Joe, no last name. He stopped slinging in our neighborhood right after, which got me thinking. I asked around, found his new corner. He ran when he saw me. He had a buddy out there, guy named Lucas, trying to be a lookout and hired muscle at once. He wasn't good at either. We had a little conversation, the three of us, Lucas, me, and my right fist. Lucas told me where Joe lived. I got there first. When he found me waiting, holding the blood-stained crowbar in my hand, he was eager to talk. Thing is, he didn't have much to say. He was paid to do it, and didn't know who was doing the paying. Used dead drops and burner phones. I didn't kill him. Hurt him real bad, hospital bad, permanent disability bad, and made him swallow half his own stash before I started, to make it last. I thought it would make me feel better. It didn't. Joe was just a tool, just a bullet. I still had to find the person who pulled the trigger. I can't see the bullet any more. I move my eyes back to Tara's chest, tracking my own gun. Tara was my last suspect. I found out that her dad stroked out a few weeks back, was nearly a vegetable now. Tara was calling the shots. Maybe Julie got her name back into the will, and her little sister wasn't ready to share? It was thinner than the sole of a ten-year shoe. I was getting ready to have a talk with her when the frame started to come down on me. A marriage certificate in the mail, signed by me and Julie and a justice of the peace. Never happened, but there's the proof. Life insurance papers for policies I never took out, with my signature expertly forged on them too. Money in my bank account out of nowhere. I withdrew as much cash as the machine let me and ran. Only dumb luck that the cops were too lazy to follow up on the tip fast enough to catch me when I picked up the mail. I feel it, the worst headache I've ever had, all concentrated on one spot on my forehead, inches above the top of my nose. I make my decision. I went back to my apartment, three days later. Dumb move, but I needed my notes. I wrote everything down, hard copy, since I figured I might have to ditch my phone. The police tape was already cut. I had a gun, the first thing I bought with the frame-up money. I took it out, walked inside. Tara was there, searching through Julie's things. She'd just found the notebook, in her middle drawer. She turned. She had a gun, too, and whipped it around to address my head. We faced off for a long moment. “Murderer,” she said, and shot me in the head. She thought I killed Julie. I can hardly blame her. The frame was solid. If she'd been the one who put it on me, the one who hired Joe she'd know better. If she was killing me to put a bow on the set-up job she would have done it to look like a suicide, barrel to skin rather than across the room. The pain shoots our in six directions at once as my gun slips out my fingers, unfired. The cracks in my skull spread, split, turn everything to pain. She's the last thing I see before everything goes red. She looks so much like Julie. This is going to take a while, but I'm just about out of thoughts that aren't pure white agony. I hope she reads the notebooks, finds the one in my pocket as well, hope she figures out what I couldn't, hope the killers don't get her first. She looks like she can take care of herself.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 18, 2017 01:54
|
|
|
 in
|
|
#
¿
Dec 19, 2017 06:47
|
|
|
The Skull Beneath Prompt: 1185 words Laura Bennix, as everybody knew, was the deathworker of Half Moon Bay, California. The citizens of that town took pride in her presence, even though very few of them could, if asked, tell you what, exactly, a deathworker did, or was, or could even speculate as to what national origin a name like 'Bennix’ might indicate. They would be hard pressed to come up with a single additional piece of information concerning Laura, apart from the fact that she was single. At the moment, Laura was engaged in conversation with a blue whale named Louis. While nobody in Half Moon Bay would have guessed that in particular, those who knew her best, the various neighbors, librarians, waitstaff and bartenders of the town, would not have doubted it for an instant if you told them, although they would have imagined the conversation to be carried out mostly in gesture and assumption, with song and with dance. “There’s a death coming,” said Louis, in perfect English with a slight Texas drawl. “A big one, five skulls swimming on eight ink-black legs.” Laura sighed. “You’re sure?” She should have known. Louis didn’t come around just to socialize, not in the winter at least. The whale nodded, and the wake from that nod nearly capsized Laura’s speedboat. “How soon?” “Two days,” said the whale. He dove into the sea and left Laura to her work. Two days. Five skulls. It was going to be a busy weekend. * * * Most places don't have a deathworker. They aren't very common. So when a big death comes to them it hits all at once. A massive automobile accident. An apartment fire. A mass shooting. Early in her career, Laura had some questions about this, along the vein of free will and such. One of her deaths, a tall death with wings of fire and ebon skin, explained it to her. “The men who lose control of the chariot or who start the brawl are the cause, are fully to blame. Their paths call us to them.” “And when I do my work?” she asked. “You change their minds,” said the death. “How can you call a will free if their minds cannot change?” * * * Laura returned to the sea two days later. She knew exactly where to go. The water-death rose out of the waves, and she trembled. She began her offering. “Jacoby Forrest,” she said, holding up the skull. It was not the one he would be buried with the next morning. It was his other skull,clean and white as pearl. Jacoby had been ill, and in pain. He saw the arrival of the deathworker as a blessing, and welcomed her touch, grabbed her hand and pressed it to his forehead. She wished more were as him, envied the deathworkers of towns with enough people so ready to go. “Peter Hawk.” The second second skull was black and grease-shiny, as though it was made of tar. It was solid, and it made a small splash as it hit the water. She found Peter in the prison. He cowered in the back of his cell as the guards opened the door, screaming for his lawyer. “Dumb-rear end fool,” jeered the inmate in the adjacent cell, “No lawyer going to stop her.” He was right. Peter sold drugs, hard drugs, meth and heroin, and sold to middle schoolers. Guilty, by Laura's standards, which were far more stringent than the law’s. She touched his head, took what she came for, and left the building. “Miranda Sykes.” A maroon skull with blue veins. She begged for Laura to pass her by. She offered bribes. Laura had been least sure about her, up until the moment Miranda offered to give Laura her own children in her place. Then she knew that the stories of decadence and neglect that had led her to this house were true. Her finger jabbed out and she fell dead. Laura hoped Miranda's daughter would be better off in care of the state. She knew things wouldn't be, couldn't be worse. The fourth skull was small, dark grey, shades swirling and unformed. She whispered the name. “Darren Sykes.” “You're here for me too,” the boy had said. He didn't look a day older than thirteen. “Do you think so?” said Laura. “You have to know about the squirrels,” said Darren. She did. Staked to the ground, vivisected, four at least, four that weren't found first by other animals. “And I know what that means.” “It's not a sure thing. You could get help-” “I have dreams. About my mother. About my little sister. And it-” Darren swallowed hard. “It felt great.” Laura's hand started to move. “Is that what it's like for you?” She pulled back. “No,” she said. “There's some satisfaction, in doing it right. In making something random and cruel into something closer to justice. But there's no pleasure in the killing.” Not for the deathworkers who lasted, at least. The ones who didn't, some of them started to like the killing too much, or to like the power, to start making their choices based on personal grudges or abstracted political theories. Darren coughed. She had been lost in thought for minutes. “I think,” he said, crying, nearly choking, “I think I'm ready now.” Laura nodded, and touched his head. “That's four,” said the skull-faced death. “Where is the last?” Laura dove into the water. That was always the way. The last skull was the deathworker's own, usually refused, in favor of other kindnesses to lonely ancient Death. All of the deaths were Death, were the same person. But they reflected different desires, different needs. The fire deaths came for long and intellectual debates. The earth deaths shared pleasantly empty conversation over exquisite meals. The air deaths played games, chess or go or showdown poker. And the water deaths were all about the physical act of love, had been from the beginning. * * * They were sailing on Homer’s wine-dark sea and then they weren't, she, an old maid of eighteen years, her father, his new wife, and their infant child. No longer above the water but below, with many-armed death coming fast. She swam to him, begged with water filling her throat for mercy. She saw kindness, already felt the beginnings of love, though that may have been the start of drowning. He kissed her, skull jaw and teeth warm on her lips, then nodded. She made it to shore, carrying her half-brother, still miraculously alive, breathing. A fire death came soon to explain the details and perform the rituals and ceremony, to make it official. * * * When Laura entered the water her lower half transformed to match his, the lower half of an octopus, tentacles shining white. They kissed, then coupled, an abstract tangle of black and white and joy. The term for her role wasn't always 'deathworker’. For the first few thousand years of her life, Laura and those like her were instead known as deathwives. She preferred the new name. It was, perhaps, less accurate, less true, but only in ways that weren't anyone else's business.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 26, 2017 05:22
|
|
|
in, science fiction.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 27, 2017 11:49
|
|
|
Things I like about thunderdome Crits Promtps New people showing up New people sticking around People coming back People putting effort into stuff like the archive and the recaps Dramatic readings tdbot kayfabe Things I don't like low turnout brawls with half-assed or entirely absent kayfabe (excluding megabrawls. Megabrawls are good) people being afraid to critique poetry failures
|
|
#
¿
Dec 29, 2017 01:08
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 25, 2024 05:28 |
|
|
Beautiful and Terrible As the Dawn 1048 Words We write the year 2347, a world abound with nuclear alacrity, when suddenly Frank enters with a smile. It’s unnerving. Frank never smiles. We always thought that when they made him an editor they surgically removed the muscles required to go past a smirk. “Arsenic Scorpio,” he says, syrup-sweet, “A word of advice. Lead with the severed head.” He’s so singular and linear. The kind tone still strikes most of us as strange. “Also, if you don't make deadline with something human beings can understand I will personally rip off your legs and feed them to my pet crocodile.” That's more like Frank. We're Arsenic Scorpio, or rather, we're the collective of headmates and identities that used to delude themselves into considering themselves that they were just one woman. For the next sixteen hours we are all completely aware of each other, no secrets and no lies. All thanks to the Academy's latest drug, which they’re just a catchy street name away from releasing. And that's only the third most disruptive thing they’re up to. We were at the Academy for the party. You might think that a bunch of pencil-necked geeks aren’t your best party choice, but you’d be wrong. They get all of the new weird drugs before the Pharma syndicate gets rid of the fun side effects. (Our eyes are bright violet right now. We know that’s not going to be part of the finished product.) On top of that, they’ve got a “monogamy, but outsiders don’t count” sex culture, just like the Teamsters and the Bards, but they don’t have as much contact with other syndicates as those people, so when they do host a party they gently caress like eager greasy weasels. We were just getting used to being a collective ourselves. Our libido is distributed over nine different voices in here, and it took us most of the first day to realize that democracy just wasn’t going to work. So after voices of self-preservation and curiosity finally staged a coup, we dragged ourselves away from the pile, through a shower and over to the office of Alabaster Jonas. He was our source. Told us about the Academy’s latest moves quietly lining up contracts with most of the major mercenary Syndarchs. He was going to tell us all about it, tell us the why of it. Except when we got to his office his body was sitting at his desk, but his head was nowhere to be found. Now, had we been a monadic consciousness organized on patently unjust traditional governing structures, we’d probably have gone into a panic right then. Discovering dead people, in our experience, usually involves getting blamed for them. But we had a quick internal synod and approached the matter rationally. We examined the wound. No blood, with signs of freezer burn. We calmly alerted the campus security subcontract police and told them what we had found. “Find the head and you'll have found the killer,” we said helpfully. There was a lot of activity. Nobody even considered us as a suspect. In fact, everyone was much more worried about finding the head. We went looking for someone who knew what was going on. We found Dr. Jonas’ assistant, Dracula Winner. “Oh, hello again,” he said, confusing us for a moment. “Have we,” we said. “Um,” he said. “Last night.” We remembered. Six of the nine judges had given him high marks for eagerness and attention. “Right,” we said. “Arsenic Scorpio, we didn't exactly have an introduction.” “You're Arsenic Scorpio?” he said. “Wow. If I'd known who you are, well...” We raised our eyebrows. He trailed off into a mumble, then started again. “I'm the one who recommended to Archimedes that he leak through your feed.” Did he give us the scoop? Yes, he did. Archimedes and a few other researchers accidentally discovered something world-changing. The figured out a way to start a fusion reaction up from nothing, just using a sequence of carefully aimed lasers and magnets. “Accidentally,” we said. He assured us it was just that. That’s the way science works, he said. The drug we’re on right now was supposed to be a memory enhancer. We’re in disagreement over whether we believe him about this. “The thing is,” he goes on, “Is that it’s easy. No need to go mining and purifying uranium for years while every other syndicate watching you can tell exactly what you’re up to. The fundamental technology can be done by just about anyone. You know what this means, right?” We all spoke at the same time. We said “We’re hosed,” while he said “We have to take over.” It almost makes sense. If anyone and their dog can make a weapon of mass destruction now, the only hope is mutually assured destruction, and that only works with a small handful of superpowers. About a hundred independent syndicates and guilds, each with access to the sun’s own nuclear fires? Recipe for disaster. So it’s time to consolidate. Worst thing about it is that if every collective that doesn’t want the academy running the continent gets together to try and stop them, well, that works for their plan, too. They never did find old Archimedes’ head, and that’s bad news too. While whoever took it can’t sew it onto someone else’s body, they can extract a lot of technical data from it. And everyone there kept looking at us like we were stupid for not knowing the difference between the one, which was a perfectly reasonable application of science, and the other, which was an insane fantasy. So someone else is likely to know how to make laser-induced fusion bombs very soon. Maybe they’ll try to lead the anti-academy bloc. So expect a year or two of eager nucleation around the world. In fact, if we read between the lines of the news from overseas, the Pan-African League and the Southern Cross Alliance, it starts to look like they’re not pre-collapse throwbacks at all, but that we’re the ones running behind. We’re going to be joining the trend. When this dose wears off we’re going back to being an individual, for good. Getting through this year is going to take a lot of being able to not think about the things we’re worried about.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 2, 2018 08:42
|
|