Posts Tagged writing

[partim] Mori.

Oct 6

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The door had opened out onto a countertop that was several paces across.  There were rows and piles of books here, most books being taller than me, and even sitting on my golem I couldn’t see over many of them.

But there was no sign of a computer, and I couldn’t sense any connection to the network, either.  Who would do research without the Internet?

“So what did you bring me here for, Munk?”

The golem carried me to a book that lay by itself on the counter.  Unlike many of the other books, the title was in a script I recognized, even if it was Devanagari.

Now, while I did have to learn a bit of Sanskrit for alchemical studies, I was, in general, pretty hopeless at it.

The title, at least, was pretty straightforward; it was just चन्द्रिक, Moonlight.

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[partim] The day of the singularity.

Oct 6

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“The doors—” the man started, confused for a moment. The doors were indeed of the push-to-open kind.

“I guess I should start here, then,” he said. “This is the Halkiadakis Institute, of course, I’m John, in this place we… well, everyone coming from the past comes through here. So it has to be kept traditional, so people aren’t disoriented.” He started walking again. “So different areas for different arrivals—this is the Modern area, and I work in the Medieval and sometimes the Primitive—”

“Wouldn’t time travelers be ready for new and strange futures?” Ralph said.

“Oh, we’re not here for time travelers,” John said. “I mean, I said everyone coming from the past, I mean everyone. That’s our mission here, our number one obligation.”

“What is?”

“To salvage everyone from the past. To have made death meaningless. To give everyone, every person who ever lived, another life free of death and hardship.”

“But—everyone does die—or did, back then, anyway—isn’t the past, the timeline, supposed to be immutable?”

“It is—and that’s where you come in, Ralph. Your talent makes this whole operation possible.”

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[scrap] Taaq.

Oct 4

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I said there wasn’t much my mother could tell me about the history of the world.  There was one story though, which may as well have been myth for all I’d really believed it, but the diarists had put it in their preface anyway.

I’d been a little cub when first I’d heard it; I’d heard that off-worlders could see all sorts of things in the sky—suns, moons, stars, and how much of the time the whole thing might be lit up in blue or pink or whatever… and I asked her why our sky was just black.

And she told me the story of Bαkhfikeιννᴥi, which the diarists had translated as “Frontarius”.  I thought it really ought to be “Frontier,” since it was the same as our name for the planet, but I guess “Frontier” isn’t a manly name in their language.

Anyway, Frontarius was a king of icebears back in ancient times…

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[partim] Piñata.

Oct 4

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My body hit the wall with a hollow thunk.  The wind roared harder; I felt myself being pushed back farther, even though I’m sure I wasn’t moving anymore.  I couldn’t even shut my eyes to keep the wind out of them as the sun started coming up over the west side of town.

That didn’t seem right at all.  I haven’t been out here all night already, have I?

That didn’t seem right either.

And then I saw a car driving down the street backwards.  And then more.

And then crowds of people, all moving in reverse.

I felt like I should be scared.

I mean, I was—but the fear itself was a bit hollow, without my body pumping the chemicals in.  I knew I was scared, but I didn’t feel it.

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[partim] Blake.

Oct 4

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“But yeah,” he went on.  “We don’t have absolute power over anything in this world.  And because our power is not absolute, there will be times things outside our power happen.  And of course they’ll be things we wouldn’t have wanted to happen, if we had the power to stop them.  But it’s a rejection of reality to expect things to always go the way we want—the correct thing to do is be ready for when our control fails.”

“So when you lose a memento of your sister…”

“Then I launch into monologues, thank you.”  The waiter had appeared again with Blake’s order, which the menu had defined as wheaten moon-cakes, flaky after the Viennese fashion, and not, by any stretch of the imagination, biscuits of any sort.

I placed my order—dovo amandine, which was apparently the day’s special; Blake ordered “likewise.”

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[partim] Mori.

Oct 4

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The kelvin took one look at me—a wounded tiger being carried by a golem—and raised his spear as though to guard the door.  When he saw we were a wounded tiger being carried by a golem, though, he dropped his spear and vanished.

Munk carried me through the red door.

There was a big room on the other side.

All right, while it was a welcome change from the maze of twisty passages, all alike, that’s really no introduction to the place.

It was big.

I keep wanting to start there because bigness really was the defining characteristic of the room.

All right, it was obviously a laboratory.

A big one.

And I don’t just mean the size of a warehouse—though certainly it was—but everything in the lab was big.

This was a space for giants to do science.

Therefore, the room was big.


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[partim] The day of the singularity.

Oct 4

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The distant future, when I found myself looking at it, didn’t look all that unusual, which worried me a bit. It was an empty room we found ourselves in—and reminded me something of a hospital—dingy white walls, scuffed linoleum tile, and a long mirror along one wall.

Okay, obviously an interrogation room, then? But there was no table or anything—there ought to have been a table, with a bright light over it, and the good cop would be standing in the corner, conflicted, while the bad cop would lean over the table, snarling, yelling—

“Ralph!”

A short, dark-haired human in a lab coat greeted Ralph warmly, starting with a handshake and ending with a full-on embrace.

“I hear it’s supposed to be your first day today,” he said. “Ah hey, sir,” he said, noticing me.

“It’s such an honor to be the one to orient you,” he said, returning his attention to Ralph and apparently trying to ignore me. “Come on, come on,” he said, leading him out the door.

I followed along. The hallway would not have looked out of place in a 20th-century office building. Maybe the future hadn’t changed as much as they’d thought it would?

Of course Ralph asked the question before I could bring myself to. “Hey,” he said, “Hey, what’s up with this future? The doors don’t even dilate!”

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[partim] Shine.

Feb 11

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The food went quickly, and my hunger came back.  I shoveled in egg rolls after kung pao after potstickers, my light burning hot inside me and illuminating the whole room.

Beside me, Fofaa ate, with a daintiness unusual in non-anthros, but steadily and relentlessly. Her light didn’t brighten so much as it increased in splendor, the fire changing colors, and becoming visible through more of her scales, bathing her in an amazing aura.

I lost track of how much I ate—I figured they’d be keeping track well enough.  My gut was straining from fullness and I know I had to push my seat back to make room at least three or four times.

I would have loved, desperately, to stop and give my gut a good rubbing for comfort’s sake between plates, but by this time my belly was way too hot to touch.  I was glad I didn’t have to worry about undoing a belt—my backside’s generally plenty to keep the pants up—but I was just reaching the point where I’d have to open up the button and reclaim some breathing space.

I grabbed a couple of spare forks from the table and used one to lift my overstuffed belly out of the way, and I stuck the other one under it and jiggled the button till it came free.

I exhaled heavily and put down the forks.  That was a lot better.  Before I could do anything about it, though, the girl who was bringing my next plate dropped it—the plate shattered and eggs foo young went everywhere.  She seemed frozen in place, and I turned to see what she was looking at.

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[scrap] Silk Rail.

Feb 11

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I left my chamber and looked through the busy halls and rooms of the temple till I found what I was looking for: the god, who was sitting in a classroom teaching a half-dozen young jackals the principles of the steam engine.

I stood in the doorway and watched.  I still didn’t understand even the basics, even now.  Aiol once said that some people are not susceptible to the divine influence—whether that of one god, several, or even the whole pantheon.

But while that may be true of some, but the influence of the god was definitely on me—but not in his learning.  I watched him, reverently, until the lesson was over and the students had left.

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[partim] The day of the singularity.

Feb 11

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You can’t talk Ralph out of anything he’s got his mind set on.  Normally I don’t try—too hard, anyway.  But the idea of a future like this was frightening.  A hundred years might not have meant much in the distant past—but just ten years was already making big changes, as the phone in my hand suggested.

I looked up at Ralph.  “I’m not ready for that,” I said.  “Please, Ralph.”

“You don’t need to be ready, babe,” he said.  “Babe, we’re going there to get ready!”

So there was no way I’d win that argument.  I didn’t even get a chance to properly accept defeat, though, before Ralph was dressed and ready and dragging me out the door.  “C’mon, c’mon, c’mon,” he said, as I tried to get my pants on.

“I told you we don’t need the DeLorean for time travelling,” I said, a bit embarrassed, as he headed towards the car.  Seriously, I thought, what would the future think?

He looked it over.  The Chief had never taken good care of it; it was pitted from occasional hail, rusty in places,—and I already mentioned it was in need of tires.  Ever since he got his first job Ralph said he wanted to restore it, but he never could hold on to the money.

“All right,” he said, “All right.  One hundred years.”

He took my hand and I knew I couldn’t fight it.  Somehow it’d become Ralph’s choice to make, not mine, and I was only shaking a little bit as I pulled out my phone.   I blacked out almost immediately.

November 8, 2110

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