|
Alright, I'm in.
|
#
¿
Jan 26, 2017 06:04
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 21, 2024 02:24 |
|
|
Week 234 The Job 1373 Words The knock at the door was sharp and sudden and Jameson, who prided himself on being prepared for anything, was wholly unprepared for it. He spluttered his way over to the door and threw it open. The cowboy that greeted him was a familiar one, and Jameson frowned. “What?” The cowboy laughed and tipped his hat. “Good to see you, too, Jameson. You sure did find yourself the rear end end of nowhere, huh?” Jameson looked at the desert surrounding his hut and shrugged. “I assume you want something from me. If you won't be direct with it, you can at least do me the service of coming in so I can continue my work.” With that, Jameson turned around and stormed his way back inside. The cowboy shook his head and sighed, then shoved himself off the door frame and followed Jameson in. “Got a job for you, Jameson.” “I had presumed as much,” Jameson replied, sitting back at his desk and picking up the book he'd been reading before the interruption. “And I am not interested.” “If they'd assumed you'd be interested, they wouldn't've sent me.” Jameson looked up from his book. His eyes narrowed behind his glasses and he blew the ends of his mustache out. “What do you want, Michael?” “Like I said, got a job for you.” He found a section of wall to lean against that wouldn't add anything he couldn't identify to his coat and folded his arms. “I can't imagine you got anything better to do.” Jameson grunted. “That is simply because you have such a limited imagination. I’m perfectly content to sit right where I am and continue what I was doing before your intrusion. Now, you have your answer, I have nothing more to say to you, so you may leave,” he said with a wave of his hand. Michael shook his head. “That’s not how this works.” Jameson wrinkled his nose behind his book. “Look, you can either come along with me, proper like, or I can bring you with me. And I’m drat sure you don’t want that.” Jameson turned his chair away. “You know my stance. You have your answer. I have no intention of changing that.” “We need you on this one, Jameson.” “I am retired.” “Ain’t that a load of bull,” Michael scoffed. “I. Am. Retired.” The dust settled between the two. Michael pushed himself off the wall and cracked his neck. “So,” he said, cracking his knuckles, “we’re doing this the hard way?” Jameson whipped back towards Michael. “Let’s not be fools,” he snapped. Michael took another step towards the desk, and Jameson was on his feet before Michael’s could land. Michael stopped and spread his arms. “Come on, Jameson. You know how this’ll end.” Jameson grabbed his cane and brandished it like a sword. “As do you.” Michael sighed, shook his head, and leaned forward. “What do you want, Jameson?” “I want you to leave, Michael. We were friends once, yes, and so they sent you to retrieve me, but I am, as I’ve said, retired, and I have no interest in coming out of retirement, regardless of the situation, circumstance, or messenger.” The silence lingered like an unwelcome guest. Michael lowered his hands and stepped back. “I’m sorry.” Jameson twitched. “Pardon?” “I said I’m sorry. It was wrong of me to come. You clearly have no interest in what I’m offering, so I’ll just head on out.” Jameson cocked his head. “I’ll leave you to your books and your,” he brushed off his shoulder, “dust. You’re probably out of practice, anyway. You’d just end up hurting yourself.” Jameson lowered his cane and shook his head. “I recognize what you’re trying to do, Michael.” Michael shrugged. “Well, sure. That was more for me than to get you motivated.” He looked around the room. “Well, I guess I’ll see myself out. You change your mind, find me here,” he said, pulling a card for the High West Hotel out of his coat. Jameson watched him lay the card on a chest of drawers. “Look, Jameson,” Michael said, stopping at the door, “you want people to treat you like a normal human being? Might help if you climb out of this pit every once in awhile. Nothing gets people to like you like doing them a favor.” Jameson furrowed his brow. “Good-bye, Michael. Perhaps you’ll come visit without wanting something of me, someday.” “Someday.” Michael ran his finger along the door frame. “You could always come out,” he said, opening the door. “I bet it gets boring something fierce, in here.” ----- Jameson found himself in the lobby of the West High Hotel, trying desperately to shut out some of the noise. Large crowds of people bustled about the lobby, brightly clothed and talking constantly about nothing of significance. He did his best to block out the noise, but there was a reason he never went out. He fought his way up to the counter and tried to force a smile at the woman behind it. “Jameson O’Connell, here for Michael Redfern.” The woman returned his smile with a surprisingly genuine one and looked down at her notes. “Good morning, Mr. O’Connell. Mr. Redfern came by earlier and left a note, let me see if I can find it,” her finger moved its way down the page, “here. Mr. Redfern will be in the lounge. If you go back towards the front and swing a left, you’ll find it no problem. Is there anything else I can assist you with, Mr. O’Connell?” Jameson looked over his shoulder and counted the number of people between himself and the door to the lounge. “No, thank you.” “Well, you have a great day, Mr. O’Connell, and if there’s anything else we can do to assist you, just let us know,” she smiled. Jameson forced another smile, nodded, and headed back out into the crowd. He forced his way through the swarm, pressing himself up against the furniture to get by at times, and eventually burst out into the lounge. Immediately, he was assaulted by a thick cloud of smoke and whiskey. His eyes watered and his throat burned. He retched and turned back out of the room. But the other room was no better. Impossibly, the crowd had grown even thicker. He steeled himself, turned back around, and plunged into the cloud of smoke. Once his vision cleared and his ears stopped ringing, he caught sight of Michael sitting at a booth with a few other people Jameson didn’t recognize. He made his way over to the booth and sat down. “Jameson!” Michael greeted him with a nod and a raise of his glass. “Glad you could make it. Please, take a seat, order a drink. I’ll introduce you to the others.” One of the strangers leaned over the table and held out his hand. “John Kane, Jameson. John Kane. Real pleasure to finally meet someone of your reputation. I can’t tell you how excited I am to watch you work.” All of John’s greeting came out in a single burst and Jameson was left looking at the outstretched hand. He screwed up his face. “John,” Michael warned. John looked over, “What?” Michael raised his eyebrow and nodded towards Jameson. “Oh, right.” John pulled his hand back. “Sorry, Jameson. Old habits,” he laughed. Michael shook his head. “Jameson, this is John Kane, as he said. He is the financier of this little operation.” John raised his fingers to his brow and saluted. “And this is Jo McAllister.” The woman on his left waved and smiled. “Nice to meet you, Jameson. I’m looking forward to working with you.” Jameson managed a smile and waved back. “Well, Michael, I’m here, I’ve met your crew, and I would very much like to be somewhere else. As the only reason I’m here is to, as you say ‘get out of the house’, I would like to know in what capacity Miss McAllister will be assisting us and move to somewhere less suffocating.” Michael grinned. “Jo here’s our pilot. Never seen one better.” He downed the rest of his whiskey and smacked the glass back down on the table. “Now, let’s get to work.” Flash Rule: "Murders most foul. Mysteries most enticing. And a master sleuth whose brilliance is equaled only by his facial hair."
|
|
#
¿
Jan 29, 2017 19:20
|
|
|
Crits are noted and appreciated. Cheers.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 31, 2017 00:37
|
|
|
Many thanks for the crits from Week 234. Also, I'm in. Give me my cards.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 10, 2017 02:10
|
|
|
Week 236 658 Words You Can’t Learn That On YouTube Jason lived for this. Being alone in the woods, away from the city, with nothing but a bit of wood and cord and a dozen razor tipped arrows to keep him company. He kept his quiver at his hip because he’d seen some guy on YouTube doing some pretty cool poo poo that way, but he kept bumping his elbow against it as he moved through the undergrowth. He grumbled to himself and shifted the heavy leather wrapped tube again. He took a swig of Gatorade. If Bear Grylls could kick the poo poo out of nature, so could he. He moved through the undergrowth, stepping just like the video had shown, keeping his eyes on the ground, making sure he didn’t accidentally step on a patch of dry leaves or a twig like in a bad movie, and when he looked back up he was no longer alone. Jason froze in his tracks. He’d been careful, like the video told him, so the boar hadn’t seen him. He nocked an arrow to his bow. The boar grunted. Jason forced his hands to stay steady. It’s just a pig, it’s not like it could do anything to him. He brought the bow up and sighted it like the guy in the video. He breathed out slow and silent. He was ready for this. He’d watched the videos, practiced in his backyard, got all the gear, and made it out to the woods on his own; he could take the shot just as easily. He drew back the bow and loosed the arrow. The videos hadn’t said anything about what to do if you missed. The boar found Jason and squealed. Jason’s hands locked up. The boar turned into a blur of brown fur and then there was something curved and hard where it should have been flat and soft. Jason squealed. What little bit of survival instinct hadn’t been dulled by the hours of LCD and plasma screens kicked into action. The K-Bar that he’d bought online flew into his hand and came down on the boar, striking the base of the neck. His hands grew damp and sticky, but the knife came down, again and again. Finally, the boar stopped moving. It whimpered and spat out a last wheeze of pink before slumping over, pulling the deep red tusk out with it. Jason stared at the boar, his breath hot and heavy. Suddenly, his side erupted in pain and he doubled over, gasping. He clutched his side, feeling the wet and the stick, and screamed through grit teeth. Adrenaline forced him to his feet and he stumbled through the woods. He pushed through the trees and burst out into a clearing. A river ran along one side of it, and the leaves had grown into dew cups. He took one to his lips and drank the sweetest water he’d ever known. The pain at his side wasn’t going anywhere, but he felt like he could focus, again. He lifted his shirt. The water and Gatorade mixed with bile and blood and found their way onto the ground. He grabbed another dew cup and poured the water over the wound. At least he could see it, now. The wound wasn’t large, but it wouldn’t stop bleeding, and it wasn’t the thin bright red blood from the movies. He took the leaf and shoved it against the wound, then dug in his pockets for the little roll of tape he’d brought (At least something from the videos wasn’t worthless) and started taping the leaf to his side, pulling the tape as tight as he could. When he was pretty sure it wasn’t going anywhere, he put his shirt down and stood back up. Or tried to. His head weighed a ton, his knees buckled, and he fell to the floor. For a moment, the whole world was a green blur. But it was peaceful and warm. And he was so cold.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 12, 2017 21:35
|
|
|
Thanks for the crits. Also, in.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 15, 2017 21:51
|
|
|
Week 237 2864 Words Bob Monday, Day 16 Officially (In the lab, anyway. Outside of that it was “a chunk of space rock”), it was an extraterrestrial organism. Unofficially, it was a six foot long squid thing that had started as a baseball sized blob of pink goo before growing an arrowhead shaped top and mass of tentacles to make nightmares cry. It shimmered through a spectrum of metallic greens, reds, and yellows, barely moved outside of the pulsating which seemed to keep it off the ground, and never made any noise other than when the mass of tentacles rubbed together in its pulsations. The team named it Bob, after the reggae singer, and elected Garvey as head caretaker. The question was not “what is Bob” but “what does Bob do”? Garvey’s interest was in the answer to the former but the powers that be said otherwise. Over the past sixteen days, they’d done just about everything they could think of short of sharp sticks and atom bombs, and none of it had mattered. Bob persisted. It’d stopped growing about three days in and not changed in any noticeable way since. The current test was audio-visual stimulation; something they’d done before in various configurations, but not with a film Garvey actually enjoyed. He watched Richard Dreyfuss make a mountain of potatoes behind Bob and smiled. “You were not what we expected,” he said, taking down another note that read “NO ACTIVITY/REACTION.” The door opened behind Garvey. “Close Encounters?” Jusic mused, taking her seat next to Garvey. “Bob doesn’t look anything like the greys.” “You got a better suggestion?” “Slither.” Garvey shook his head. “Haven’t seen it.” “Yeah, well, it’s about parasitic space worms, so be thankful, I guess.” He chuckled, “No kidding.” There was a pause as Jusic made a note. “Is Arrival out yet? That might work.” Garvey shrugged. “Not sure. I picked this ‘cause I like it. Bob doesn’t care, either way.” “Just because he doesn’t react, doesn’t mean he doesn’t care.” “Fair enough.” “Anything happen over night?” “Bautista’s looking over the tapes.” The four person team worked 12 hour shifts, with Garvey and Jusic actively observing during the day and Bautista watching a recording of the 12 hours they weren’t there. Any notes went through Peng, who spent his days entering them into the database. The only change in the schedule came on the weekend, when Garvey and Jusic took alternating solo shifts. Jusic looked over at the whiteboard. Garvey had scribbled “Close Encounters”, “Music (Marley)”, “Artichokes”, “Poke”, and “LLS”. Jusic clucked, “‘Artichokes’?” Garvey shrugged. “Why not?” The team had been there since the start. Garvey, a biologist, had been called in to deal with the physical side of Bob and Jusic, a psychologist, had been brought in to deal with the mental side of Bob. Unfortunately, neither side had shown much activity. Jusic yawned and leaned on her elbows. “Long night?” Garvey asked. “Not really. Got held up coming in.” Garvey nodded. “How’re you sleeping Garv? Good?” “Sure, I guess.” “I had this weird dream about Bob, last night. Or, well, not about him, I guess, but he was there. Just kind of… floating,” she waved her hand. “In the background.” Garvey chuckled, “Well, I haven’t seen Bob in any dreams that I can remember, but if I do, you’ll be the first to know.” Harvey and Junic spent the rest of the day trying to find new things to talk about while Bob persisted in doing nothing. Before long, Peng and Bautista came in. The usual bickering about how nothing happened happened, and then they were swapping what few stories they hadn’t yet and laughing about what ridiculous thing Bob would do when it finally did something. Bautista was determined it would just keel over with zero fanfare, and Peng fought the notion furiously. “I refuse to accept that something capable of surviving interstellar travel would arrive only to do nothing but die after a few weeks.” Bautista scoffed. “Just because you don’t want it to happen doesn’t mean poo poo. What’s to say it’s even alive?” “It shows all the classic signs!” “Now hold on a sec,” Garvey put in. “While it’s true that it exhibits most of the characteristics we associate with living organisms, that doesn’t necessarily guarantee that it is alive. We-we don’t even know where it’s from. Let alone if what passes for signs of life there are even close to what we use, here. We’re looking at it from a human perspective, and mankind has always assumed that they were the pinnacle of design. Even our interpretations of ‘God' are grounded in our understandings of ourselves. But this isn’t human. It’s not even from Earth. We have no grounding in what to look for, here. We assume it’s alive based on the fact that it appears to respirate, but it doesn’t respond to any stimulus that we’ve seen, it hasn’t reproduced, and it hasn’t consumed anything. For all we know, this could be the ‘fingertip of God’, or-or even ‘God’, itself.” Everybody looked over at Bob. “The point is, we don’t know anything about it. And until we do, we just keep doing what we’re doing. Sooner or later, something’s got to give, right?” Peng nodded. “Sooner or later.” ----- That night, Garvey’s wife called to remind him about their daughter’s softball game on Sunday. He assured her that he’d be home on Saturday and wouldn’t have to leave until well after the game. He asked how work had been for her, and she talked about the usual problems with parents and kids and the district not giving her any funding, and then they said their good-byes and Garvey started to close up for the day. What Peng had said about Bob showing “the classic signs” had struck a chord. Bob definitely moved, though not very much, it clearly grew from the tiny pink blob into the multi-colored squid, and it had shown signs of respiration based on the chemical composition of the room they kept it in. It seemed to maintain itself pretty well, so homeostasis seemed likely, but they hadn’t seen it reproduce (unless it was actually a unicellular colony, which was a possibility), and it hadn’t responded to any stimulus, at all. Whatever Bob was, it didn’t fit neatly into the old textbooks. Garvey was of the opinion that “life” was more of a scale than a binary, but he was having a hard time putting Bob anywhere on that scale. And they were no closer to figuring out what, if anything, Bob did. He understood the need for the government to know if it was a communication array, or a weapon, or a visitor, but he was starting to wonder if Bob would or even could do anything. He felt himself starting to drift off to sleep, and wondered if Jusic was the only one who’d seen Bob outside of the lab. ----- Wednesday, Day 18 “So, you asked me to let you know if I had any dreams about Bob? It showed up last night.” Jusic raised an eyebrow. “Oh?” “Yeah. It was just sort of there in the background. But I definitely saw Bob.” Jusic shrugged. “There’s a pretty good chance that’s just because I told you I saw him in mine. If he starts talking or something like that, let me know. Or if he keeps showing up.” Garvey returned the shrug. “Will do.” Bob had continued to not respond to anything for the past few days. They’d managed to get copies of Arrival and Slither, both, and Garvey was happy that Bob hadn’t seemed to respond to Slither. He’d added a fresh slew of “NO REACTION/ACTIVITY” to his notes, and learned that Jusic didn’t have much of an interest in music. They were running a test involving various numbers of differently sized and shaped objects being shown to Bob when Jusic clicked her tongue and turned to Garvey. “Why do you always call Bob ‘it’?” Garvey blinked a few times. “Um, well, I don’t presume to know Bob’s gender, or if it even has one. I feel like calling Bob ‘him’ sets a certain expectation. And even if it has a binary male-female sex, we can’t say what it is or what it would represent itself as, right? Short answer, I’m just trying to go in as open minded as I can.” Jusic seemed to run the idea around in her head for a bit, then nodded. “That makes sense, I suppose. I mean, Bob is kind of an ‘it’, after all.” Garvey chuckled, “That’s the whole reason we’re here.” ----- Saturday, Day 21 “Had another dream about Bob, last night,” Garvey said as Jusic came in. “Oh, yeah? Just in the background, again?” “No. This time it… it actually spoke.” “Really?” “Yeah. It said, uh, ‘Soon. It’s going to be soon.’” “Huh. Anything else?” “Nope. That was about it. I mean, I’m not the psychologist, but it seems like poo poo to me. It had a Jamaican accent. I mean, technically, it said ‘Soon. I’s gunna be soon, mon.’” Jusic laughed. “Really? I’m not sure if I should be offended, or not.” Garvey gave a half-hearted shrug. “But I would be inclined to agree with you. The fact that he spoke probably just comes from my telling you to expect that, the ‘it’ in ‘it’s going to be soon’ is probably just your inherent desire to see something happen, and the terrible accent is probably just because we named him ‘Bob’ after the singer.” She smiled and patted him on the shoulder. “I wouldn’t worry about it, Garv.” Garvey did his best to smile back and turned back to Bob. The dream had inspired him to play The Harder They Come, so at least he was watching a movie he enjoyed, again. ---- Garvey was heading home for the weekend. He was starting to feel like he needed the time away from the lab. His daughter had a game, tomorrow, and he was excited to get to see her play again. Not to mention seeing his wife and son. The helicopter ride was boring and uneventful, but his son was three, so he made sure to tell him how exciting it all was. The drive home was spent talking about how things were with them, and the kids got to bed as soon as they were there. Garvey enjoyed a beer and spent some time catching up with his wife. “It’s good to have you back,” she said. “It’s good to be back.” He couldn’t help but notice how the thick ringlets of her hair hung a bit like tentacles. ----- Sunday, Day 22 Garvey pushed his glasses up and rubbed his eyes. It was a beautiful day for a softball game, and he and the family were sitting in the bleachers waiting for his daughter to come out and start pitching. She’d done great last season, ending with the second lowest ERA in the league and tieing for the third most strikeouts. This was the first game of the season, but Garvey’s wife had said she’d looked even better during practice. Garvey fixed his glasses and watched the sides change. Bob came up to bat against Bob and watched a pitch go by before knocking the second one over to Bob at first base for an easy out. He shook his head and blinked. His daughter stood on the mound, facing off against the next batter. He blinked again, and Bob threw a pitch. Another blink showed his daughter winding up for another pitch. He got up and hurried off to the concession stand. He got himself a glass of water and chugged it down. He was asking for his third when his wife caught up to him. “Are you okay? You just took off, back there.” Garvey swallowed. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just been working too hard.” “Can you ask them for a week off, or something? You look really pale.” Garvey nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, I’ll ask.” His wife put her hand on his cheek. “You’ve got to take care of yourself, first.” She lead him back over to the bleachers and Bob stayed out of the rest of the game. When they got home, Garvey’s son asked when he had to go back to the helicopter. His wife replied, “Soon. It’s going to be soon.” ----- Monday, Day 23 Back at work, Garvey told the team what had happened. Bautista shook his head. “That doesn’t sound good, man. I understand you’ve been here since the beginning, but that doesn’t seem healthy, you know?” Peng nodded agreement. “Perhaps you should take some time off?” Garvey shrugged. “That’s what I was thinking.” Jusic stayed quiet. “Jusic?” Garvey asked. “Maybe you shouldn’t.” “Why not?” “Maybe this is what Bob does. Maybe it’s some kind of psychological warfare. Like an invasion tactic. You get used to seeing Bob all over the place, you think it’s just in your head when they actually are all over the place. Or everyone just assumes you’re suffering from dementia. Either way, it makes it easy for them to start moving in.” “You’re assuming Bob is an invading organism. My guess is I’m just exhausted and need to take a break from seeing it everyday.” “Until we know what it does, we can’t make any assumptions.” “We don’t know that it does anything! For all we know, Bob is a highly advanced lava-lamp. This over insistence on determining what it is that Bob does when we don’t even know what it is is ridiculous. We have no way of knowing for sure what it is or what it does until it decides to show us. Now, you and I have done just about everything we can think of short of nuking it, and we haven’t seen anything change. What’s to say it even has a purpose? What’s to say it does anything? What’s to say it is anything? And if it is some kind of psychological warfare, how come it hasn’t affected you?” Jusic shook her head. “I don’t know, Garv, but this is the first time we’ve seen Bob do anything other than just float around in his cage.” Bautista spoke up, “Now, wait a minute. You said you’d seen him in your dreams, before, right? How is this any different? It’s just a day-dream, right? You haven’t actually interacted with it or anything, have you Garvey?” “Well, no.” “Okay. Then we assume it’s just exhaustion. If we’re running an experiment, we need a control, right? Take a week off, hell, take three weeks off, and if you’re still seeing Bob outside the lab, after that, we’ll worry about it then.” Jusic shook her head. “I disagree-” Bautista cut her off, “Noted. Peng?” Peng looked from Jusic to Garvey. “I’m with Bautista, on this one. We can’t be sure it’s something Bob’s done unless we remove Bob, right? Garvey should take a few weeks off, and come back rested. If the hallucinations don’t go away, he knows how to get in touch, and he’s not stupid enough to try and hide it.” Garvey nodded. “Right.” Jusic threw her hands up. “Fine. We’ll do it your way. But don’t blame me when Garvey ends up paving the way for the reggae squid invasion.” ----- Garvey found himself sitting across a desk from a smartly dressed man who looked far too young to be in charge of man’s first contact. Garvey had explained the situation and the young man was typing something into his computer. After a moment, he looked up. “So, what you’re telling me,” he started, “is that you need some time off because your duties are negatively impacting your ability to provide clear and concise information or observations. Is that correct?” “More or less, yeah.” “And you don’t feel that you’ve been able to complete the assignment, that is, determining the purpose or function of the extraterrestrial object, at this time?” “Not really. I would argue that we don’t really know our purpose, either, so unless the, uh, ‘extraterrestrial object’ is some sort of tool, we likely won’t have that answer, anytime soon.” “The commentary is unnecessary, Mr. Garvey, however, your statement will be taken into consideration.” He turned back to the computer and typed something in. “Mr. Garvey, I’m going to assign you three weeks of leave. If at any time during those three weeks you should see or encounter the extraterrestrial object outside of the laboratory, you are to report it immediately. In addition, you will be required to provide daily check-ins to update us of your condition. If we feel you are fit to return to your duties before the expiration of your period of leave, you will be asked to return. Is that understood?” Garvey shrugged. “Yeah.” The young man stamped a paper and passed it across the desk. “Get some rest, Mr. Garvey. We’ll see you in three weeks.” Garvey packed his things and made his way out to the helicopter. He turned around and frowned at the facility. As he climbed aboard, he began to think maybe three weeks wasn't quite long enough. He watched Bob give a thumbs up, and they lifted off.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 20, 2017 00:36
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 21, 2024 02:24 |
|
|
Many thanks for the crits.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 22, 2017 02:26
|
|