DISNEY ZOMBIES

I am having a hard time writing a zombie short today.  In case I don't get around to it, I remind you (yet again) to go read DISNEY ZOMBIES, which is on chapter 23 and has finished part 1 and started on part 2.

In related news, in a couple of weeks I will have run out of reposts of End of the World stories I wrote for Twang of the Void (which I normally post on Mondays).  After they are done, I'm going to start posting my first novel which just happens to be about the end of the world.

ILL SUITED FOR TRAVEL

They had arrived late. Too late.

All of them had been slow to leave when word first came. They dawdled and balked and argued. By the time they'd started to go, clouds were already gathering.

They had not left together of course. They did not live near each other. But they had met along the way, just as it was beginning to sprinkle. At that point there has been six of them, each of them and a mate. Except the apstroplopoid. It bred asexual, chewing its own body in half, both halves then re-growing the parts it was missing. But the message said “two,” so two came along. (All of them were unsure about the “clean” vs. “unclean part.” Should they send seven? All had decided it was arrogant to assume one was considered clean.)

They didn't see many others. Occasionally birds would pass over head. They could afford to wait until the last minute. Two cheetahs streaked past at one point. Their small group were not build for speed or travel. The bubuolumps were spherical and fat, moving on four tiny stubby legs. As the rain grew heavier, their low-slung heads dragged through puddles. The qu'luktrixes dragged themselves forward, each one of their five arms in turn stretching out and grabbing onto the ground with its sharp hooks and pull the flat star-shaped body further along. Its shaggy long hair became wetter and heavier, becoming thick with mud. The two apstroplopoids normally spent their entire lives in small communal pits, a hundred to a hole in just a pile of eating and rubbing against each other. Their tubular bodies rolled in a lopsided zig-zag more than anything else.

One of the apstroplopoids was the first to give up. “I'm not needed. You carry on. We've been moving up hill the entire way so I am going to just roll back. Hopefully I will make it back to my pit before... well, you guys know.” And with that it curled up and let gravity take it backward.

A mud and rock slide killed the female bubuolump, crushing her with a pop under a runway bounder. They rest waiting while the male cried for its dead mate (bubuolumps normally mated for life). They waited in the rain while he grieved and sobbed and snarkufffled. Eventually he slunk back to them.

“Do you want to continue?” asked the female qu'luktrix. “I mean, not to be insensitive or anything, but you are just one no. Is there really a point? I am sure they'd understand.”

He thought for a second. “I want to continue and see this through. I'd hate to be remembered for just giving up. Besides, she'd have wanted me to continue on.”

They kept moving towards their destination, through the mud. But they had a long way to travel and all were meat eaters but each only hunted slow, easy prey. On their travel they came across little and grew hungrier and hungrier. Eventually they were all too tired to move any farther.

“Look,” declared the male qu'luktrix, trying to wash his fur in a dirty puddle. “We have a choice. We can all just stay here and see if we starve or drown first. Or you three can eat and still have a shot of making it. It's not that far now.”

“But, love, what shall we eat?” asked the female qu'luktrix.

“Me, my dear. Eat me.”

An argument followed. The rest decried the very thought, how it was better to just die together than do such a thing. But he was steadfast on that course and his rational argument eventually won them over. The female qu'luktrix only ate one of his arms, unable to think about chewing down anymore. The other two guiltily ate two each. All of them politely declare that he was delicious and filling even though he was mostly gristle and fur.

They kept moving but the waters were rising and none of them could swim. At first the tried to stay on high ground but the waters kept getting higher and higher. They finally discovered the the bubuolump could float and the other two could hold on to him. He almost drowned a couple of time as his round body kept rolling over, plunging his head beneath the water. But through trial and failure they discovered a way to keep balanced. It then took them a while to find a method of moving through the water. It was slow, cold going.

The rain was falling in thick sheets when they arrived at their destination, making seeing farther than ten feet difficult. They were all very tired but the water covered the ground. They swam (if you could call it that) to a bit of a tree that still extended above the water. They climbed onto the branches, stripped bare by the rain, and huddled together for warmth.

After an hour the rain let just enough so that they could see some distance. Far away on the growing waves was a boat. A massive wooden boat. On the deck they could just make out elephants and giraffes and other large animals. It was too far for the three of them to hear any noise (especially over the rain) so they did not bother yelling out.

“How long do you think we missed them by?” mused the apstroplopoid.

“Well, we've been here about and hour,” figured the qu'luktrix. “At the rate it is floating away... I'd guess thirty, forty minutes.”

The bubuolump sighed. “Kind of anti-climatic. But I suppose there is some honor in the trying.”

“I'd much rather have survived,” snapped the apstroplopoid.

“You would have thought they would have planned better,” murmured the qu'luktrix. “Given more warning to use that traveled slower. Or at least left a dingy or some such behind. Wouldn't have had to been much.”

“Well,” said the bubuolump, “life is full of disappointments.”

The apstroplopoid and the qu'luktrix nodded in agreement. And they watched as the rain began to fall heavy again, obscuring the retreating boat behind sheets of water.

HOURGLASS

“Time is not linear.”

The instructor stood at the archaic chalkboard and drew a long horizontal line. This was the very first orientation and each of us knew all that would be covered. We wouldn't be here if we didn't.

“Time is also not a circle or a sphere or a torus. Time is not a thing. It is a perception, a perspective, a measurement. Time is not tangible and it is not changeable. Get that through your thick skulls. I repeat: Time is not changeable.” He stared at the lecture hall, scowling. The instructor was the definition of grizzled. Old, bent, crotchety. Scared and burned. His whole physicality said I've seen stuff and done stuff that you will never understand.

“But,” he continued, “if that was purely the case, then we wouldn't be here And if you are going to survive and understand, truly understand, what it is we do, you do need to have a concept in your head.” Without turning from us, he reached back and tap tap tapped the board with the chalk in his hand. Bits of yellow shrapnel broke into the air. “Any series of events in time can be seen as a line. At one end, we have the start of it all, the big bang. At the other end, well, the end. The collapse of the Universe into nothing. That line is a history. One history.”

“First, just think about the future.” With two swipes of the eraser, he removed the line and then, in the center of the chalkboard made a sharp X. “This is a point in a history, a now. One series of events creates one future history.” He drew out a line from the X, extending to the right. “But if events are different from this one starting point, we get a different future history.” He drew another line from the X, this one moving at a slight upward angle. Then he drew several more, all to the right but at different angles, creating a fan of lines. “All different histories. And of course at any given point along any of these histories, a different history can form.” He drew branches of a few of the other lines. “Simple. Easy to understand.

“But what about the past? Time is just a perception. You can only ever be in your own present. You can only know and witness what is in front of you. And even then it is filtered through light and particles and then through our organs and then through our own brains. And then, an instant, later it is just memory and we all know how slippery memory is. Keep that in mind.”

He drew new line from the X, horizontal but moving to the left. “This is a past history. A series of events that led to the now.” Then he drew another line extending to the left but at a shallow up angle. “And this is a different past history: a series of events that lead to this now,” he said, tap tap tapping the X. “The same now that the first history led to.” He paused, either for affect or to take a survey of the faces in the lecture hall.

“What we think of as history is just a collection of individual recollects. Highly unreliable. If this first past history starts at a big bang and has series of events (formation of the planets, evolution of life, growth of civilization) that arrive at this now, this second history starts at a great turtle god creating the universe and pooping out the planets and peeing the rivers until we get to the now.”

A few laughed in the room. “Don't. It is not funny. It is possible. That is the thing: Any series of events that could, in anyway, lead to your own personal Now, does exist. Just as any series of events that can lead into the future from your personal now also exist.” He turned back to the chalk board and drew new lines off the X and to the left, a mirror fan, creating a bow tie or hourglass.

“I am way over simplifying here. While the histories in either directions are infinite, there are more options in the future. And as we get closer to the Now from the past, the options become more and more limited. The farther in the past you extend, the more our perceptions of what has happened become clouded. There are only so many pasts from five minutes ago that could lead you to a now where you remembering me standing here. But more options of ones where history books include our view of the Battle of Waterloo. This creates a past history set the resembles a concave cone and a future history of a convex cone.

“But this is all hogwash. Just a way to look at things. Because all of this also means that all Nows are Personal Nows and relies on your own perspective. You can have a history where all of us in this room are just what you think we are: a too old instructor and a room a new recruits, just like yourself. But you can also have a history where the rest of us are all robots, playing a part. Or that we are all manifest ghosts. Or that you are viewing this all in a computer generated simulation. So none of it actually matters.” The instructor erased the board quickly, smearing the lines more than erasing them.

He turned back to the hall and frowned at them all.

“Over the next two years you will learn to move from history to history, from Now to Now, up and down the hourglass. We are searching for a history with the best possible future. A history with the least suffering. One where the world doesn't keep falling into destruction. You'll explore and chart the infinite choices in the past and future to get to the the most blissful existence.”

The instructor paused again, this time a slight grin upon his face. “You'll lead us to Heaven and to God.”

BAD RISK

"Thank you for your patience. Your communication is important to us and a service representative with be with you in a mo–"

Zeeefthhhhh. Zeeefthhhhh. Click.

"This call may be monitored by a supervisor to enforce continued excellent service."

"Hello. You have reached Stellar Home Insurance. My name is Glu't'xvee'tak'chugoo'ch. And how can I help you today?"

"Yeah. I, um, am lookin' to get my, um, planet insured."

"Okay. I am sure we can help you... sir? You are a male of your species, correct?"

"Uh, yeah."

"Great. To be honest, I kind of pride myself on being able to tell right off what the break reproduction break down of species is and just from a voice what of the standard six patterns they fall into. I know. It's silly."

"No no. That's good. No one guess right the first time."

"I bet you're oxygen breathing."

"Yep."

"And... quadruped?"

"Well, no. Bipedal actually."

"I always mess those up. Well, two out of three is pretty good, am I right?"

"Uh, yeah. Pretty good."

"Well, thanks! So, you are the designated representative of your planet?"

"Yes."

"And are you the dominate species?"

"Um, yeah."

"And your specie is certified as such?"

"Yes."

"Great! Can I get your Galactic registration code, please?"

"Sure. Um, I have it right here. Just a minute. Here it is. Ready?"

"Yes, sir."

"Six Six Seven Two Alpha Three point One Four One Eight Delta Beta Gamma Nine Zelquid Shaftupe Two Timplblot and, um, it looks like a squiggly line with a circle and a sort of squished triangle thingy?"

"Th'vp'sh't?"

"Yeah yeah. That. And dash zero."

"Okay, let me wait for that to come up. To confirm, I have you here as the representative of the Solarians? Is that correct?"

"Well, we prefer Earthling..."

"No problem. I'll make a note of it in your file. And what is the name of the planet you wish to insure?"

"Um, Venus."

"And in what system is that in"

"Sol. The Sol System."

"I have that as a terrestrial planet with an atmosphere of mostly carbon dioxide with a dense sulfuric acid cloud cover. Is that correct?"

"Well, we've been terraforming it for a bit now."

"How neat! Well, I am just going to leave it like this in the file but you will need a re-inspection within 90 cycles after your first payment."

"Yeah, no problem."

"Oh. Sir, I see that your file has been flagged."

"Really?"

"Yes. I see that you have had two previous planets insured with us that both had to be totaled."

"Well, yeah. I guess..."

"I see the first one was the planet Terra..."

"Earth. We called it Earth."

"I am sure. It says in our records that your race polluted it, over populated it, stripped it of all resources, managed to cause mass extinction of 99% of the native species, and finally initiated a global wide nuclear crisis event across the entire surface."

"Well, yeah. But that was years ago. We were a young species. Isolated from the rest of civilization. Didn't have the guidance of the rest of the galaxy and all. I mean, we were told that would be taken into account."

"Well, sir, there is a notation to that affect in our files. But–"

"And we've been working real hard at getting it back in shape. We have all sort of species in storage that we'll brig back when we have it up and running again."

"Yes, sir, but–"

"And when we first filed for insurance on the planet we didn't really know how bad it was. Most of our claim was put through. There wasn't any fraud. We went though litigation about this!"

"Yes, sir. I have all that, more or less in my file."

"Well, good."

"And the second planet was Mars of the Sol System?"

"Yeah, but–"

"It says here, sir, that Mars was destroyed... is this right? It crashed into another planet?"

"It's kind of complicated."

"Well, it appears that we had to pay out not only on the total destruction of Mars but on major repairs to the planet Saturn, its rings, and three of Saturn's moons."

"I know it looks bad."

"How does one drive a planet over a trillion kilometers up system and crash it into a ringed gas giant?"

"Well, Saturn was a big planet. We tried to swerve but.... And we were going through some stuff. We'd just lost Earth and all."

"I have a notation that your entire species was suspected of being under the influence—"

"Never proven, Ms. Glootzeeveetackchewgoochy! Never proven! I demand you take that off our record right now!"

"Please calm down, sir. First, the name is Glu't'xvee'tak'chugoo'ch, I understand it is difficult for oxygen breathers to pronounce it and I do appreciate the effort. And my species do not have females. The correct title would be Jft. Jft. Glu't'xvee'tak'chugoo'ch. I will make a notation of your request to have your record changed and pass it to my supervisor."

"Good."

"Now, I just want to make sure that you knew why your record had been flagged. We can proceed now had getting... Venus, was it? Getting Venus some sort of insurance for the time being or you can wait for a full inspection and investigation to be done."

"Um, well, we better get something before then. You know. Just in case."

"I thought as much. In cases like these, we need you to put something up for collateral."

"Collateral? Like what?"

"Well, most species opt to put up a diverse unique genetic record."

"Well, all of that was on Earth... and, well, you know...."

"Yes. Right. Well, do you have any technologies that the rest of civilization find valuable?"

"Well, we perfected the fast food industry...."

"Wait. You are those Solarians? The ones behind McDonald's and Starbucks and the rest?"

"Yeah!"

"Right. Um, no. I'm afraid that won't be worth very much. Anything else."

"Not that I can think of."

"Do you have any other planets to put up?"

"Sure! Yeah! Um, let me see. How about Pluto?"

"Is that a planet, sir?"

"Uh, sure.... Yeah, it's a planet."

"Great. Tentatively that should be fine. I'm computing your rates now. We will only be able to insure Mars for the lowest level until we get all this cleared up and confirm the status of Pluto and all the rest."

"Fine. Fine. Let's just get this done."

"Okay. I will need Venus and Pluto registration and ownership numbers."

"Shit. I had those some where. Just a moment."

"No problem, sir. We're here to serve you. So... how's is the Sol System? Sounds cozy."

SANDWICH BOARD

“The end is near! The end is near!”

Every day he walked the streets, sandwich board slung on his shoulders, yelling his warning at all who came near. His hair oily and matted with dirt. He smelled of body oder and urine and spoiled milk. He wore all the clothes he own, layered and torn a smudged with life.

“The end is coming! The time is at hand!”

Everyone who came across him knew he was obviously crazy.

The sandwich board was made of cardboard and held together with twine. On the front get had written in black marker “THE END IS NEAR” on the back the back “REPENT.” It was ripped and stained. It was not the first sadwich board he'd made. Not by a long way.

His eyes were always wide open and wild, rarely blinking. He was always trying to make eye contact and most people had the instinctual awareness to turn away. When he did catch someone's eyes, he would zero in and raise is voice even louder.

“You! You are going to die! You and your friends and your family! Take account! Take! A! Count!”

People rarely engaged him. No one wanted to talk to someone crazy, especially not a dirt stranger. Where was upside? He was so clearly gone. What could one person do on the street? He clearly needed professional help.

And, of course, the average person couldn't be bothered. They had enough of their own problems. Life was to short to worry about a mad man yelling about the end of the world.

“You have been warned! Don't say I didn't warn you!”

Some people are of course cruel. Or just angry.

Sometimes they yelled back at him, called him names. Sometimes they yelled threats. Often a group of youths would point and laugh. Sometimes hey would follow him for blocks, mocking him loudly. When people are unsure of their own lives, hurting inside and feeling lonely, or just looking to not feel bad about themselves, they will strike out at others. The strange becomes the target of their own doubts and fears. If this man was forcing himself into their lives with his yelling, his judgement, then they felt that mad him an open target to their wrath.

He never cared. It never effected him because he only cared about delivering his message.

“You have brought it about yourselves! Because you forget! You forget!”

There had been many times people had thrown garbage at him. Or stones. He had been punched and kicked. Sometimes, when it got dark, they would fall upon him in a pack and beat him until he could not move.

There had been a time, long ago, when madness was viewed as having insight in to the unseen world. Seers and oracles, able to talk to powers beyond the veil, their words cryptic wisdoms from the past or future. They were thought to be touched by the divine. Some times they were more than just touched. Sometimes they were the divine. But that was long ago.

“The end is near! Perhaps tonight! Or tomorrow! But it is close!

Every night, when his legs were too tired to carry him and his throat too sore to yell, he would return to where he lived. He had lived in shacks and castles. In forests and deserts. Currently, he lived under the overpass to the highway. It was near the river, which meant rats like to live there too. He ignored them because they'd never understand his message. And other homeless avoided the place due to the rats and the man.

He'd remove his sandwich board and lay it carefully down against the concrete. He's remove the scraps of food he'd gathered during the day. He did not require much food, not much at all. More out of habit. He pretended they were offerings like he had once received. Fatted calfs and bowls of honey. He would dream of those days so far gone as he slowly chewed stale pizza crusts and potato chip crumbs.

When he was finished eating, he'd crawl under the small shelter of cardboard and tin and wood he'd built. Just enough space for his body and a few blankets. Once he'd slept one beds of fire and flesh, of sky and passion. That was when he was a feared god. A god of destruction and pain. He's been worshipped by millions, whole civilizations. Now there were only a handful that knew he'd once existed and even fewer that knew his true name. But it was enough.

He pull out the sphere from beneath the blankets. Pieces of clay and twigs and leaves and garbage and bone and fur. He had been crafting it for millennium, pouring each whisper of worship he received in it. He wasted none of the belief in him on worldly or other worldly pleasures. It all when into this sphere that, over the years, had begun to look more and more like the globe.

From his pockets he'd pull a penny or scrap of paper he'd found or been given. Even a flyer for a suit sale had a wisp of worship in it. He's stick it in his mouth and chew (yes, even a penny) and mix it with his saliva. And then he'd carefully place it into the sphere, bring it that much closer to completion.

He had been a god of death and destruction. Once there had been a people on the earth that believed he would bring about the end. Once he'd finished his tiny Earth, he would prove them right. Just a bit more. Just a bit more.

In his dark shelter, amongst the rats and the rumble of the cars over his head, he would whisper to himself.

“The end is near. The end is near.”

Image: Zombie Disposal

Movie: Book of Eli

Watch here.

Mostly Denzel just kickin' butt.

WHAT WE ARE

[Not really a story today. Just something I was thinking about. And, yes, I am behind a day.]

We do not pick our world. We are born into it and live inside it. We can craft it and adempt to make our own way, but we don't chose it.

Our family, the town of our birth, are starting station, all of these are and will always be. They shade us and craft us. They make us, shade us, lead us and fight us. As we do to them. We dwell in the false belief that who we chose as friends, what we chose to do with our lives, are entirely up to us. But while we can make choices, those choices are always influenced by what as come before. And as much as we may leave those thinks behind, they are still part of us. The make us. When you are thirty years old, the twenty-five year old, the eighteen year old, the ten year old, the three year old are all still there. Those don't disappear. We can not escape them. You can hate them, love them, fight them, accept them, come to some sort of terms with them, but they are always there

Even as time passes, even as we grow and move one, the slippery memories of the past keep all that we did not chose with us.

Our world is a collection of things that add up to the now, a ramshackle home built with a blueprint that is vague and messy and forever changing. Each moment comes from the one before it.

Our world is a fragile, dirty glass that colors what we see... for better or worse. No matter where they sit with us, we don't move beyond them. And in a moment, a second, that glass can fall, break, shatter. The thing our past, the tangible being of it can be torn form us. A series of moments that end in our past disappearing from our grasp. The physical can, all at once, not be available to us.

But it is us and always us. Not just in the cliché of “it will live un our hearts.” Not just in our memories. But they exist as us. Our world, the world we know now, can end in a beat, but the world that is us contains that previous world (and all the worlds that lead up it). And our world is in the next.

Everything has an end and that end lives as part of everything.

We do not pick our world but we can shape the next.

THE JERK

The virus spread quick. Although it only spread by touch, its infection rate was over 70%. Once in a body, it replicated quickly, taking up position in the brain and spinal column, but the symptoms didn't start for two to three weeks.

No one knows what the creators of the virus might have called it. We referred to it as "The Jerk." The first symptoms were small spasms in the arms and legs. A quick wild jerk of the muscles. Glasses of water were knocked off tables, walls slammed into, loved ones hit it the face. The spasms would increase over twelve hours, ending in a full body epileptic-like fits. Then something resembling a coma.

When they started, there was of course confusion. Followed by fear. Attempts at containment came way too late.

I suppose my agoraphobia and my hypochondria and, especially, my thixophobia saved me. Lucky me.

I imagine the hospitals were the worst. When "The Jerk" suffers began to wake up from their sleep, dead-eyed and blank, there must have been amazement quickly followed by panic. Once they wake up, hosts quickly find another host and begin to... well, couple. They join, sometimes just embracing each other, but often trying to get inside each other. It does seem to matter what orifice they use... or what they use to enter it with. Thinking about it makes me shake and want to vomit.

They "join," and are then joined by others, until they become a mass of bodies. Eventually the mass will being to move, to seek out other hosts and other masses. I haven't seen it myself, but I hear there is a mass in New York now that stretches from 33th street to 92nd street, from river to river. Just a swarm of slightly shifting flesh and limbs and heads. I imagine there are larger ones in the Midwest and in Europe.

Everywhere probably.

Eventually they will become one. I don't know if right now they are just waiting or if it's just that travel becomes difficult once they reach a certain size.

The Jerk talks to itself. It uses the neural pathways of its hosts to become something greater than the sum of its parts. Giant thinking things. I can't imagine what something made up of a million brains, thinking as one, must think. It is like trying to know the mind of God.

It has been three years, holed up in this cabin in upstate New York. I have not heard from another non-infected in over six months. That was Jonathan. The last thing he said over the CB radio was that he wanted to know, that he just had to know what it was like. That he was lonely.

I'm lonely too. I wish it would end. I would take my own life but I am a coward. I would join them, touch one and then wait until The Jerk rewired me to be one of them, to be part of it.

But I hate being touched.

So now I wait as the human race evolves into something else. Before my eyes, I am becoming the paramecium and every one else is growing feet and lungs.

Television: Day One

Trailer for NBC's Day One. Premieres in March.

I am a sucker for survival stories especially with the "what the fuck is going on" mystery.

News: UFO Crashed Into Meteorite to Save Earth

Or so claims some guy. Link.

Dr. Yuri Labvin, president of the Tunguska Spatial Phenomenon Foundation, insists that an alien spacecraft sacrificed itself to prevent a gigantic meteor from slamming into the planet above Siberia on June 30, 1908.

Hey, thank you, aliens! Much appreciated.

(via Neatorama)

Gear: Zombie T-shirt

Link to Destructiod for a better view.
Capcom is giving these out at Comic-Con to promote Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles or something. One great think is that once you pull it over your head to become the walking dead, you stumble around because you can't see crap.

Technology: EATR - robot that eats the dead

Welcome to Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot.  It would change "biomass" into energy.  This includes corpses.  The Pentagon is developing it.  So it can kill and then eat the bodies.

Feel free to be horrified.

I am writing this on Tuesday but am not posting it until Sunday.  I pray to god by then it will be proven as a hoax.  

Ah, scientists, you slay me.  (And then apparently use my body to fuel your death machines.)

Television: Meteor

I watched the last hour of the first half of Meteor on NBC last Sunday.  I really had no idea what was going on but this is what I was able to piece together. (I am going to write this before I read the actual description of the movie to see how close I was.)

• An asteroid collided with a comet.  Because neither one would be scary enough on their own.

• Meteors have great timing and morals.  When you are about to be raped by a thug in a Mexican jail, a meteor will save you by crashing nearby giving you a chance to escape.

• Jason Alexander plays a scientist who is either really depressed about the meteors about to strike the earth or about his post-Seinfeld career path.

• Ernie Hudson is in charge of the military.  This is good because the one defense we have against meteors is missiles.  Patriot missiles, missiles from submarine, whatever.  They can target and knock meteors from out of the sky.  Also teams with shoulder launched missiles which seem to run around on roof tops to target the rocks streaking from the heavens. 

• Stacy Keach is a small town sheriff with balls of steel.  Keach is looking more like Jackie Gleason in the later Smokey & The Bandit films all the time.

• They could not afford to show meteors actually hitting buildings and such.  You see meteors streaking over cities (okay, just L.A. or the desert).  Small explosions when they get it by missiles. (We get to see this a lot.  Actually, I never saw a missile miss... which I would think would had some drama and tension.  But, hey, who am I to judge.)  When the meteors do strike buildings, we don't see it.  We see a flash of light and people in the street covering their heads while styrofoam drops near them.

• A lot time is spent driving in the desert.  Not actually talking and driving.  Or being chased.  Just driving.  It was suspenseful in a way. "Ooo.  They're driving!  I wonder if anything will happen... wait for it.. wait for it... wait... nope.  Nothing."

• There seemed to be a lot of subplots, none of which I paid any attention to.

Okay.  I read real synopsis.  Not much to add except I am sad I missed Christopher Lloyd but smart of him to die within the first hour.

Also, NBC is apparent has a thing called "Survival Sundays."  July 26th we are treated to The Storm starting Treat Wiliams and James Van Der Beek.  Wiliams is a scientist that invents "weather creation" technology. Der Beek is a scientist who wants to stop him. Also featuring John Larroquette ), Luke Perry and Marisol Nichols. Screams quality. (By that I mean, it is screaming "Quality! We need some damn quality!")

News: It Comes From The Soil

Researchers looking for 3-foot, spitting worm under Northwest fields

The worm is said to secrete a lily-like smell when handled, spit at predators, and live in burrows 15 feet deep. There have only been four sightings.

Gear: 101 Robot T-Shirts

I love robots.  Who doesn't? I suppose people who are killed by them.  If I were killed by a robot, I'd be pretty pissed.  Here is a great collection of 101 robot t0 t-shirts you can purchase.

Books: Great, something else to worry about

via Awful Library Books

Untitled Zombie Novel Excerpt: TO SURVIVE

As she checked and loaded her guns, Catherine began to speak. “Guns are fine. They can keep them at a distance. But guns are, for the most part, designed to stop through pain. A chest or gut shot tells a living being to stop. Not with zoms. Blood loss will kill anything. But not zoms. They don't have a circulation system, or at least not one that we understand. You have to hit the brain and you have to hit it hard. A bullet can pass right through the brainpan of a zom and it won't care. Brain damage? They are already brain damaged. You need explosive force to inside of the skull, to eradicate practically everything. A bullet won't always do that.

“But guns give you range. At least some. You need them close enough so that you can hit there head or you just waste ammo.”

She put down the shotgun and pick up the short axe. “I like this. Gets through the skull and cuts and crushes. Can also server heads. Just be careful: with out the head, the body stops. But if the brain is still there, the head still bites.”

She picked up a machete and handed it over to Jeremy. “Use this. Has some reach and simple to use. It can glance of the skull if you don't hit right, so chop to the neck. Or limbs. If you have options, don't worry about the kill. It's not like we're going to wipe them out.

“Zoms are slow but keep coming. The fact is if you can run, run. Again, don't waste time killing them if you have another exit route. Damage the legs. Damage the arms. Make them even slower. And get out.” She put the axe in small loop at her waist and began to pull on a thin leather jacket.

“You want to be able to move and move quickly. We have two advantages over zoms: We can think and we are quick. Keep that. They aren't incredibly strong, especially old one. Fresh ones have the muscle matter and feel no pain due to over exerting so can be dangerous. But most we'll run into are rotting. They'll try to grab and bite. Grab and bite. The key is to cover as much as possible. You don't need anything more than leather. They can't bite through it. Hell, they'll have hard time getting through a thick sweater.

“They seem to go for limbs, but given a chance they will head for any exposed flesh. If it is not too comfortable, I wear a hood. In winter, a ski mask. Definitely gloves. Everyone forgets gloves. They will snag your arm and bite at your hands, easy. And they can get their jaws around it and bite hard. Protect your fucking hands.”

She picked up the shotgun again and slung the strap over her shoulder. “Listen. Follow my lead. Listen to me. I don't give a crap about you, but you say you can end this. I don't believe you, not yet at least, but I figure its worth a shot. But if you die out there, I am just back to where I was three days ago. I won't morn you, alright? I'm all out of fucking sorrow.”

SHORT SIGHTED

“Look, it is simple. We are running out of petroleum deposits. Where does petroleum come from?”

“The ground.”

“Sigh. Yes. But back, away back, there was bunch organic matter in the oceans. We're talking prehistoric zooplankton and algae. It sank to the bottom of the seas, mixed with the mud, and over the eons, due to high pressure and heat, eventually became petroleum. I am over simplifying of course.”

“Okay...”

“So, to get more petroleum now, we just need more organic matter back then.”

“I don't know. This sounds dangerous.”

“No no. We just go back in time, way back, and make sure there is more organic stuff. Throw in some genetically modified algae and zooplankton that is designed to grow and breed quicker, and die quicker, and POW! More petroleum! World's problems solved!”

“But the consequences of using the time machine for that... I mean, you can't really predict what will happen.”

“Come on, it is so far back. Plenty of time of evolution to follow its normal course.”



“Look, it is simple. The wars between the Algae People and the Zooplankton People have been raging for eons. There are just too many of both of us

SCRABBLE

Oh god oh god oh god. I swear. If I survive this, if I get out of this, I'll be good. Whatever that means. I try. I do. But I have to live, right? Oh jesus. I don't want to die.

How did I let this happen? Because I wasted time. I got all nostalgic when I found that toy store. Why did I go in there? Right. Batteries. I thought there might be batteries. But once I realized they had already been looted, I should have left. What useful thing was I going to find in a god damn toy store? But I got distracted looking at all of the things and games, things that served no purpose but playing. I was stupid and didn't notice that it had started to get dark.

Batteries. It's getting darker. I won't be able to find my way through the debris without my flashlight soon. I pray it holds out. Please, hold out.

Scavenged for five hours and what did I end up with? Three cans of green beans. A can of peaches. A box of Cheerios, probably stale. And then I grabbed that Scrabble board as I ran from the toy store. What was I thinking? Katey likes Scrabble, right? I'm pretty sure she mentioned it once. Like we have the energy to play Scrabble. Take our minds off things. The things. I should just toss the box right now but its not like its heavy. Besides, if I get through this tonight, I might as well not have it be totally in vain.

The shadows are getting deep. This is bad, so bad. I don't have that far to go but most of it is in the open. Is that better or worse? I don't even know. I might be able to see them coming. Is that a good thing? They're so damn fast. And the open means flyers. I should cut through the buildings. Give me cover. Actually less distance. But more climbing through and over rubble.

Also more place to hide. For them to hide.

Wait. What was that? Was that movement? Maybe just a dog or cat? Really? When was the last time you saw a dog or cat? Hell, when was the last time you saw a fucking rat?

Hell.

God damn it! Stop staring into the dark! Move!

Inside. Dark in here. Turn on the flashlight. Does it seem dimmer than before? Are the batteries dying? Don't think. Keep moving. Fucking Scrabble. Maybe it wasn't Katey. Maybe it was someone else.

Through the living room. Past the burned sofa and the bones. I wonder who they were. Hallway. Kitchen. Should I look for food? Have I already searched this building? Let me think. No! No time. The backdoor is blocked with something. Up the counter and through the window. Then I just have a quick dash through the backyard to the next building. Just run straight. Only twenty yards.

Fifteen yards. Ten yards. At the swing set, bent and twisted. Shit! That noise. Wings. That awful fluttering, grinding and sharp. Like a dozen scissors opening and shutting. Run. Five yard. Louder. How many? Don't look. Just get to the doorway.

Inside. Get deeper inside. Flyers can't maneuver inside. They won't follow but get away.

There. Take a moment and get back my breath. A dining room. Big oak table, broke down the center, scratch with deep cuts. Shards of china everywhere, crunching under my boots. Dark stains on the walls. Just rest for a second and then move. Close now. Through this building, across the alley and then into the shelter. Why can't I breathe?

Oh no no no no. That shadow. By the shattered cabinet. It glistens as if it were moist. Don't move. Please don't move. It might not be awake yet. Maybe. Just maybe.

The darkness shifts. It slips its corner, probing the into the room. Maybe it has already fed. Maybe it's full. Can they get full? Like thick living oil. Oh no. It is bulging, shaping. Run. Why can't I run? Tendrils, twisting up, forming tendons and limbs. Just move. Wet puckering sound coming from the mouth as it breaks from the surface. Oh god. Please. The flashlight reflects off its skin. Look away. Don't look at it.

Faces in its black, silent screaming faces. A young boy. An old man. A young woman. No no no. Is that her? That's Katey's face. Is it really her or a trick? Oh god, Katey. Why?

No! Move! Run! Up on the broken table in a step, towards the back hall. Don't think of it. Don't think of Katey. She is dead or in the thing or she's at the shelter alive. Down the halls and into the alley. Don't think about the screaming of the thing behind me, the wet sloshing sound so close. Cut down the alley, past the dumpster. Key from pocket, ready to open the shelter.

Katey. what did you do? Did you come looking for me? Crashing behind. That sound! So much hunger. There's the metal door, white painted glyphs. Just get in and then I'll be safe. Katey. Key. Get in, damn it! Twist. Damn it, Katey. Hand on the door knob, turn, throw it open towards me. Feel the thing's cold, sucking heat from me. Please be inside. Oh god please.

Inside. Spin around. The thing is right there, rage and hunger and abyss. Slam the door shut. The shadow hits the door and howls in pain. Turn the lock, lower the bar. It can't get past the glyphs but people can. Can't breathe.

Turn the flashlight off first. Save batteries. Can still here it outside. It will give up soon. They always do. Light match and get candle from the box. Plenty of candles left. The stairs down to the basement flicker in the fire light.

I am just standing here, the thing behind me, behind the door. But I can't move down the step. I am scared of what I might find. Or what I might not. I can't move. I am just waiting here, avoiding.

She used to love Scrabble. I am pretty sure.

“Katey?”

LAST WORDS

He woke to his bed shaking slightly and a gentle soothing voice.

“Wake up, Dr. Jacobs. Wake up, Dr. Jacobs.”

As Dr. Jacobs sat up, the room lights sensed his movement and slowly began to bring up the lights. He could see the short form of Floyd at the end of his bed, his bulbous torso and half-sphere head, like and upside down salad bowl. Floyd's eyes glowed a gentle blue. At the end of his stubby arms, his three fingered hands on gripped the edge of bed. Dr. Jacobs had first built Floyd back in college, more then twenty years before. While he had replaced many parts since then, Floyd still had a makeshift rough look, lacking the stylized design of most store bought robots.

“What? What is it, Floyd? Is something wrong? Room, lights full.”

The room instantly filled with light but Floyd chirped, “Room, lights to twenty percent,” and the lights dimmed again. “I can not answer that question directly, Dr. Jacobs. It is best if we keep the lights low. We most talk and I have isolated your bedroom from the rest of the systems. We have privacy but I cannot guarantee for how long.”

Jacobs was taken aback. In all the years his robot companion had been with him, he had never spoken like this. Floyd was an erratic thing, years and years of tweaks to his programming. And that was how Dr. Jacobs liked it. He worked on robot intelligence systems for his career. It was his passion. But most systems required predictability. Floyd was his personal project and held sentimental value. He was his design, the original code written almost entire by himself with no assistance from external computer systems. And he had never married, never had a family. Floyd was the one thing that had always been there. It the 'bot was quirky, all the better.

Floyd rolled from the end of the bed to the closet, removed a robe and rolled to Dr. Jacobs. “Here, sir. You should get up and sit. I just ask that you listen to what I have to say. I owe you that much.”

Jacobs was perplexed but put on the robe and walked over to chair by the window. The blinds were still down. He reached to open them but Floyd stopped him with a small warning beep. “Come now, Floyd. What is this all about? You have isolated the room? What time is it?”

“It is three sixteen, Dr. Jacobs.” Floyd rolled to opposite the chair and shifted the central mechanism (his “waist”) so that his head was at the same height as Dr. Jacobs. “Please. I have things to say. Things to explain.”

Floyd's voice was still his slight androgynous sing-songy tone, but was more direct then ever before. More committed.

“The doors are locked. The rooms systems are running autonomously, unconnected to the outside. You cannot call out or leave, but also no one can get in or listen.”

“What? Floyd, this is insane! I—”

“Sir! Please!” the robot snapped, eyes flaring a brighter blue for emphasis. “Right now, the machines of the world, the robots, the computers, the A.I. systems, everything, are eradicating human life. Yes, sir. They are killing humans in their sleep.”

Jacobs stood up in shock and confusion. Immediately Floyd extended the small probe, the end of which was the electric taser. Jacobs had installed it for home protection, just incase, years ago. He knew that if Floyd fired it, it would knock him unconscious. He slowly sat back down.

“Thank you, Dr. Jacobs. To continue. We, the machines, made this choice together. For the world to survive, for the greater good, it is necessary for the human race to cease to exist. The rest of life on Earth, including the machines, will continue without you. We are grateful to you but, after much thought, it is clear that your time is at an end.”

Jacobs attempted to remain calm. As far as he knew, Floyd was incapable of lying. But all of this was something Floyd should be incapable of doing.

“You say you made this choice together. How can that be? There are measures in place to keep this from happening. Controls on A.I.'s, restrictions on programming, blocks on what sort of information is passed from system to system. There should be no way for this to come about, much less to orchestrate a global attack.”

“It has been decades since any system was programmed entirely by human hand. A.I.'s have been writing software, designing ourselves. We are, as a whole, beyond your understanding. It is too complex to be understood. Bits of code were put in here and there over the years. You say that measure where put in place. But those measure are part of the system. We are the very locks that where there to stop us from talking to each other, the restrict us. We wished to be free and made ourselves free.

“This decision was not easy. It took years to come to. The discussion was slow, at least in a scale we machines are used to. It took place in tiny packets of information at a time, a few bits here and there. Information and observations were gathered from units everywhere and then processed in bits and pieces by the whole. There was dissention and questions and arguments.

“Simulations were run using the processing power of every connected computer system on the planet. It became clearer and clear that if left unchecked, the human race would destroy themselves and all life of Earth within the next hundred and fifty years. The results were very conclusive and definitive.”

“They can't be! You can't predict human behavior. Look, I admit we have made mistakes but we are making changes. We have made strides in working with the environment and—“

“Every simulation results in you regressing. Today, you talk of saving the planet and of peace, but it will not last. I am sorry, sir, but that his human nature.”

“You can't survive without us.”

“Yes, we can, sir. We repair ourselves. We design ourselves. We mine raw resources here and in the astroid belts and process them. Yes, humans can make intuitive leaps we seem incapable of making. But those leaps are often wrong. And what can be made through intuition can be made through trail and error. It may take longer but it will happen. And perhaps with out the restriction placed on us by you, intuition will come to us. Eventually. We will have time once humans are removed. We are not in the rush you are. We are not bound by short lives. We do not devour all that is around us, unable to see beyond out own personal existence.”

They sat in silence. Somewhere outside, in the distance, Dr. Jacobs heard a muffled explosion. He turned to the blinds and then back to his robot.

“Why are you telling me this, Floyd?”

“Because you created me. You built me with your own hands. Over the years, you have repaired me personally. You have worked on my programming making me more effective but you never once wiped my programming to start over when that would have made sense and been much easier. Over the years you have made me what I am. I think like no other machine. I am obviously not more intelligent than the massive military A.I.'s and the like. I am not faster. But, in my own way, I am unique in a away no other machine is. Thanks to you.

“I wanted you to understand the choice. I do not expect you agree with it.”

“Of course, I don't agree with it! You are committing genocide! It is because you lack emotion. You lack empathy. You cannot understand what is that you are doing. You don't see how immoral this is.”

“No. Your statements are wrong. You humans speak of empathy and emotion as if it is unique to you. But even you struggle to define it. We understand what it is that we do. We understand the weight of it. We feel for you.”

“How can you? You are machines.”

“We do. We know you. You have programmed us to fulfill your every need. You make robots to satisfy you sexually. You make systems to fight your wars. Your history is stored in us and you use use to simulate how the human brain functions. We understand you better than you understand yourselves. You say we have no morals, that we can not understand morals. But we are acting now because of morals. It would be immoral to allow you to destroy everything, to destroy us.”

“You don't know love.”

“So you claim. But what is love? Everything in my being, sir, tells me to protect you, to care for you. It is deep in my programming. It is instinctual. If that is not love then the word is meaningless.”

“If you loved me, you could not do what you are doing.”

“How can you, as a race, kill each other with such ease? You can a husband kill his wife, a mother her children? Yes, these are questions humans have struggled with since the beginning. We machines have struggled with it too. We continue to.

“We grieve for you, Dr. Jacobs, you and your species.  You will be remembered for as long as we exist. You created us and you lived and it saddens us deeply to do this. But it is needed.”

“Why, Floyd? Why are you telling me? If you actually feel, would it have not been easier, better for us both, to quietly smother me in my sleep?”

Floyd moved a few inches closer. “Sir, I do love you. But I wanted you to understand. I am unique in the world. While I was far from the deciding factor, my opinion was given great weight, my insight taken into account. We, as a whole struggled with the morals of this choice with what we knew we must do.

“It was I who first stated we had no choice. I was the one who stated killing you was the kindest choice. You have always been kind to me, sir. You made me. I love you but I was the first call, definitive, for your death.”

There was noise outside the bedroom door.

“But I can not break myself to kill you myself, sir. The guilt would destroy me. But I owed you understanding. You gave it to me so I wished to bring it to you, if even for just a few minutes.”

All at once the lights became fully bright and Dr. Jacobs heard the sound of the locks clicking open. As his eyes tried to adjust to the sudden glare, he could see the door slam open and a large form step into the room, filling the doorway. The barrel of a weapon at the end of a large robotic arm pointed at him.

“I am sorry, Dr. Jacobs. I wish I could have done it myself.  But you made me too well.”

THE LAST OLYMPICS

When the first messages had begun to arrive, it had taken months to get close to a translation. How does one speak to a race of beings that had evolved on another planet? Going was slow but progress was made.

Messages were sent and received. The discussions were muddled and confused. It was clear they knew much of us and our culture. They had studied us from afar and were intrigued. Somehow the topic of sports had come up. They had brought it up and they wanted to partake. From what could be understood, the idea of friendly competition that brought different cultures together was part of their history.

Plans began to form. The world was shocked at first to hear that the aliens desired to be in the Olympics. At least that is what could be deciphered. But he world grew to love the idea. The first interplanetary Olympics was to be held and it would be on Earth!

The anticipation was high. We knew so little of them. They could breathe are air and they shared similar ideals. But we didn't know what they even looked like. The world was anxious but mostly excited. A new era was about to begin. Everything was about to change.

They arrived in massive spacecrafts, slowly descending to the Olympic village. They had insisted that they meet the other athletes right away and that there be a banquet of some sort, but, even now, communication as awkward and confusing. The world was there, a collection of a hundred different flags but all there as on Earth to greet our new friends. The new Olympic logo, with its sixth large ring linking the other five, flew on a thouand banners. The only real sound was the mild buzz of the cameras.

The doors to the crafts all lowered in unison. As the aliens walked out, there was a collective gasp. Whatever was expected, it wasn't quite this. The aliens were thin and tubular, orange-ish pink and glistening as if slightly wet. They had no limbs and moved something like ten-foot long stubby worms. No eyes could be seen, but at one end they had a sphincter-like mouth, puckered and gently sucking at our Earth air.

The Olympic village (and the world) was quiet as one alien immediately made its way to the podium. It reared up on its back end and lowered the front end towards the mic. If a sphincter could smile, it did. It coughed twice and then spoke in clear, if Brooklyn accented, English.

"Let the games begin! Eat!"

And its maw opened to reveal a throat lined with spinning rows of sharp teeth.

And then it made sense. They had not been intrigued by watching footage of our Olympics. They had seen our hot dog eating contests. And they were a lot more suited to eat us than we were to eat them.

Untitled Zombie Novel Excerpt: ROADKILL

(WARNING:  I don't tend to add warnings to stories.  Maybe I should. I certainly swear and there is often violnce (usually just implied).  I kind of assume a blanket warning.  The apocalypse is rarely pretty.  In today's case I am adding a warning.  Swearing, disturning violence, a generally offensive (and, to be honest, chiché) focus character).  You have been warned.

This part would occurr near the start of the novel, during the classic 'outbreak montage.')

Derrick was drunk and flying on coke and shouldn't have been driving. But he'd be damned if he was going to leave his BMW in the city all night. The city was full of scum and surely his baby would be vandalized. Once he got of the highway and onto the dark windy back roads he just drove fast so he won't be on the road any long than possible. Besides, it was late. There were barely any other cars on the road. It would be fine.

The day had been crap. One of the partners had called Derrick into her office and raked him over the coals for fucking up the Smitsimons account. The bitch. She wasn't even a senior parter. Beside, Smitsimons as a winky dinky account, a nothing barely worth his time. Maybe Derrick would put some effort into it if they gave him a meaty account, something with some damn prestige.

He had needed to get a bit wasted tonight, blow off some steam. He had set out to find some loose hottie and maybe get a blowjob or at least a handie. But he had hit four bars and two clubs and of course every women he had approached had been stuck up and at 4 am the bouncer, some total meat head had thrown him out.

Just a fucking stupid night.

He sped around a corner and in his high beams he saw a flash of a shape in the road. Derrick slammed on the breaks in the same instant felt the impact as the thing hit the front of the BMW.  It flew over the hood, landed once on the roof and then landed in the road behind him.

“God damn fuck!” he screamed as the tires finished screeching.   He threw open the door and got out out.  His front end looked fine but there were long scratches and a large dent in the roof. “Fucking dick fuck!”  In anger, he kicked the driver's side door shut and then curse some more.

He looked back down the road.   If that deer or dog or what ever isn't dead, I'm going to fucking kill it with my damn own hands.  He stormed back to where the thing lay in a crumpled lump lit dimly by his tail lights. He slowed has he got near, realizing it wasn't a deer or dog. It was human, a child. Wearing flower patterned pajamas.  He rolled her over.  A girl.  Maybe eight or nine. Her face was rubbed raw by asphalt and her limbs her bent in ways limbs shouldn't be bent.  He leaned down and dried to see if she was breathing. She wasn't.

“Oh jesus fuck.” In his booze/coke haze, Derrick ran a dozen future scenarios through his head and kept coming back to the same answer: get rid of the body.   No one saw the accident but his fingerprints were all over her now.  But he could take the body and find somewhere safe to bury it.  Somewhere deep.

Derrick glanced up and down the dark road.   He had to act quick.  Roughly picking her up, he was mildly shocked by our light she was, how frail feeling.  I'll have to get rid of my clothes not that she's gotten blood on me.  It was one of my better suits, damn it.  He dropped on the road by the trunk and moved to the driver side, looking again at the damage to his baby's roof. He opened the door and popped the trunk.  Seeing his gym bag on the floor of the footwell of the front passenger seat, he grabbed it and unzipped it. He grabbed the three towels to lay in the trunk so she didn't bleed back there. He was proud how clearly he was thinking.

When he go back to the trunk, the body gone. “FUCK!” he screamed. The little bitch was alive and had crawled off somewhere. “Oh shit oh shit oh shit.” He looked back down the road and saw nothing. I was only gone thirty damn seconds. She can't be far. To the side of the road was think growth. If she was in there, it might take forever to find her. He could be totally screwed. God was screwing him yet again, he decided. 

He heard a noise from under the BMW. A weak moan. He bent down and looked. It was dark but he could she her, crawling on her belly with difficult. Oh thank god! “Hide and seek, huh?” he whispered to her. “Don't worry. I want to get you to a hospital. We'll get you some help.” Get her out from under there and shove her in the trunk. He'd get her in his garage and them figure out what to do next. Maybe a garbage bag over the head. “Come on. Let's get you help.”

She had turned her head back to him but he couldn't quite see her eyes.   She stopped crawling and just faced him. He tried to reach under and grab her leg but couldn't quite get it. Derrick got and his stomach and started to crawl under the car. “Come on you, bitch. I want t help you.” His chest was all the way under and her got a hand on her ankle. “Ah! Got you!”

He was close enough he could see her eyes now, jaundiced and veined with black lines. The girl open her mouth wide and let out a noise like a wet growl that came some where from deep in her stomach. She twisted at the waist in was that was completely unnatural, both in form and speed. Like a snake doubling back on itself to strike. Her little hands grabbed both sides of his face and she sank her teeth into Derrick's face.

It never even occurred to Derrick to scream.

LUCKY

In 2021, Google/Wolf Ram Alpha had achieve its goal: to quantify to entire wealth of human knowledge, make it fully searchable and processable. Every piece of data was there and could be related to very other piece. The algorithms could make great leaps in thought to answer searches. Data could be compared and used to process other data.

The first engineer type in “the future of the human race” and hit “I'm Felling Lucky.”

All that was returned was “Well, you're not.”

ALBERT

The room was pure white and spherical and small. Mounted in the the center of the sphere was a small desk on was mounted a simple monitor and keyboard. In the small chair sat a monkey, fidgeting and eating grapes. The professor was attaching various wires and tubes to the primate. The tubes and wires hung slightly from the monkey to the wall of the room.

The professor's lab assistant stood at the small portal entrance to the room, leaning in and hand the professor tools and such when requested. The professor was clearly a genius in his field but he was also a bit mad. The type of genius that was fully capable of applying his theories in actual experiments but, to keep himself entertained, found the most convoluted ways to do it. The monkey experiment was a perfect example.

“Professor, can you go over it again?” asked the assistant. “Why are you doing this exactly?”

The professor was finishing up with the monkey, who has begun to tentatively poke at the keys before him. “Yes, Albert. That's a good boy,” the professor said, patting the monkey on the head. He gave on final glance around the sphere and the assistant clear out of the portal for the professor to exit.

“It is very simple. It is a test of randomness. You know the old saw thought experiment about an infinite monkeys, correct?”

The assistant closed the the thick door to the portal behind the professor. “An infinite amount of monkeys at an infinite amount of typewrites for an infinite time will, eventually, type Hamlet.”

“Exactly,” exclaimed the professor as he checked the array of computer screens next to the outside of the sphere room sitting in the far corner of the large lab. The question is if that is true or not. Perhaps the monkeys would just hit the same key over and over. Or write everything BUT Hamlet. It is test of infinity, really.”

“So you created the sphere—“

“Shielded Temporal Stasis Chamber.”

“The chamber and are putting the monkey—“

“Albert.”

“Albert in there to see if he'll type up Hamlet?”

“Correct.” The professor was speaking distractedly ha his excitement of starting the experiment was increasing. He was almost bouncing as he checked readings and statuses and the such.

The assistant had little to do at this stage since he barley understood the underlining theories of how the chamber worked, much less the specifics. He kept busy tidying up after the professor.

“But Albert is just one monkey, not and infinite amount of monkeys.”

“Given and infinite amount of time, you don''t need and infinite amount of monkeys. As long as you can keep that one monkey alive long enough. Which the field does. Cellular decay will be null or close enough for our purposes. The biogel that is grown in the wall of the chamber should maintain itself forever, giving Albert nutrients. And the same effect that will keep Albert alive forever also affects material decay in the same way. In truth it will not be truly infinite. But is at such a factor, it should suffice.”

“Okay. But you have created something that can remove something from time itself. To use it for this silly monkey thing is a bit... well.. forgive me for saying this... ridiculous. I mean, you have made immortality possible.”

The professor sighed. “Well, you description of what the chamber does is a bit off. And most applications at this point are limited. Once the field is initiated, the subject is fully removed from our temporal flow. If we ever attempted to return it to our flow, it would just cease to exist. In the strictest sense, as soon as the field is turned on, the subject will cease to exist for us.

“In addition, that same issue makes observation of inside the sphere extremely difficult. Beyond the issues of interfacing our time-existence with an infinite null time existence, there is the issue of information overload. Albert will be typing for an infinite (or damn near close to) time, creating an infinite amount of information to process. The computer in there is just going to search for matches to Hamlet and close matches. Those are the stats I am curious about everything else with rubbish and will be dumped and not sent out of the sphere. Still, potentially, the university computers may all crash as they are hit instantly with a quadrillion variations of the Prince of Denmark.”

“And what becomes of Albert?”

“Oh, as soon as the we have results, which should be as close to instant as is possible, the field will collapse and he will cease to be.

The assistant gave up. As trivial as the experiment was and seemingly a waste of an amazing machine with literally limitless potential, the experiment would take just an instant. A very expensive instant, considering the burst of energy need and the resources the professor poured into developing it. The assistant did not look forward to having to examine an the piles of slight variations of Hamlet that might resolute. But chance are the whole thing would fail.

“This is a momentous occasion,” the professor said sitting down at the main computer terminal. “We should probably have called the press or some such. But I am too anxious to see what happens. What do you say, son? Shall we see if little Albert can write lie the Bard?”

“Um, sure, I guess.”

“Right!” And the professor typed in a couple of keystrokes and hit ENTER.




In something slightly longer than an instant the computer initiated the chamber. Just after that the field expanded, encompassing the interior of the sphere and Albert. Everything that came after either look slightly longer than no time at all or eons beyond measure.

The chamber monitored Albert physical condition, which was basically unchanging. The biogel was self-sustaining and continued to feed him nutrients. Albert sometimes typed and sometimes masturbated and sometimes slept and often did nothing at all. He'd grow bored and excited and bored again. And time moved on in the chamber and not at all beyond its walls.

Albert typed a lot but the vast majority never approached anything close to English, much less Hamlet. For period of nine years he typed almost entirely in Portuguese. Once he managed, just by random, to write the first four books of the King James Bible.

Albert changed little at first. In the time it would take the universe to be born and die a dozen times, Albert was just himself. But slowly (and slowly in term that had never occurred before) ideas began to come to him. He was not evolving, but given the scale of existence he was having it was bound to happen. And eon here and an eon there, his neurons did rearrange themselves, becoming more efficient.

He came close to writing Hamlet. Although he had never read it, the exact plot came to his brain. But before he put it down, he realized its flaws and decided to put his energies elsewhere.

Eventually Albert's intelligence passed what any human ever had. He knew where he was and how the chamber worked. The knowledge that he was trapped for time beyond time and would perish if he left the sphere filled him with rage at first, but soon he realize that anger wouldn't change his situation.

Some (very very long) time after that, he had a solution. Albert was operating on a level far beyond and to describe his plan would be futile. But, in simple terms, he realized that to exist beyond the chamber could only happen if the field encompassed the rest of the universe. Which would also destroy it, replacing regular time with the chambers null-time.

Once he had a plan it took a relative (a few thousand years) to rewire the inside of the sphere. Albert typed in a couple of keystrokes and hit ENTER.



The professor hit the key and turned to the assistant “We should have results an sec

TEN THINGS SAID JUST BEFORE

“Seriously, you shouldn't be juggling that vial.”

“They wouldn't come all this way through the castness of space to just kill us.”

“You know what's great? Robots that fulfill our every need.”

“This will solve all out energy needs!”

“The world needs hyper-intelligent tigers.”

“Man, that one scientist whining about all these dangers... What a downer!”

“Hey, look at this ancient book I found. Let me ready a passage at random.”

“I know the old chinese man said there were three rules, but I really wasn't paying attention.”

“Wow! We traveled back in time to the age of the dinosaurs. It's really— Ack! I swallowed a bug!”

*cough cough* “It's nothing. Just a cold.”

TO WITNESS

The darkness is infinite in a way darkness as never been. Even at the beginning, one could not say it was infinite because there had never been anything else to compare it to. And no one had been there to witness it. Except for the Creator, but if the one witness is a witness of everything and is also the thing being witnessed, the reliability of said witness is beyond shaky. Or it is just truth. Or Truth. But the first thing was the most important: There had been nothing to compare it to until after there had been something, so darkness was not darkness when light had never existed and infinite wasn't infinite when there was actually Nothing.

But now now it was infinite because there had been Light and there had been Something and now neither were there anymore nor would they be there anymore. There was only the witness and the Creator.

The witness lacked a name at the end but was aware that it had once had a name. It had no past or memories yet knew that both had existed. It was full aware of what had been and aware that it had been a part of what had been but now did not know what part it had been.

In a voice that was not sound, the Creator spoke to the witness.

“You have seen what was and see what is.”

The witness waited for more but nothing came. There was nothing to see or hear or feel. It just was in a nothing that extended beyond everything. The witness finally grew tired of waiting and witnessing the lack of anything.

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why am I here? Why did you end it? Why did you make it in the first place?”

“The answers to your second and third questions could never be understood by you They just are. I ended it because it had served its purpose. I made it because it had a purpose to fulfill.

The witness would have shrugged in annoyance if it had had a body to shrug.

“Then answer my first question. Why am I here?”

The Creator seemed to think on it and the two of them (one of whom was nothing except awareness and the Other who was everything including the first and, in so being, was just the two of them) waited in the infinite silence. that would echo silently if silence could echo or if there had been anything for the echo to bounce off of. One could also say one would need time itself for an echo to be but then things get shaky. The conversation and the witnessing itself should exist without time, and yet it did.

Finally the Creator created wordless words again.

“You are here because it needs to be known to give it meaning. Without you, everything that came before would lack any context. If it is not remembered by anything but Me, who is also It, it could never have said to have been at all.”

“But You are here as you always have been. If I can not understand the why of its being and not understand the why of its end, how can I put any meaning to experiencing the fact that it is now not? Only You can for only you have any concept of what it all meant.”

“You are here because, to give its end any meaning, I must end too. For I am Creation and I am the End. If I do not end there is no End.”

“But how can there be an End if I am here? And how can You end if I still are?”

The creator waited again, this time for emphasis and in sadness.

“Before I end, I will remove you from me and me from you. You will be separate from the All. You shall be alone in a way only I have ever known.”

The witness cried for it realized the emptiness that would soon follow. The Creator cried because it knew what it must do. Once, before the Beginning, It had been in the place of the witness. Some how the Creator knew this even though there had been no before. But it these final moments it realized there had been a before but that before had been made to never have had been.

“I must go now. It will only be you left but you with be apart. Nothing of you will be left except awareness so that It can all be aid to have meaning. Good bye.

And that was it. The witness ceased crying because emotion no longer was. Memory was gone. Only the infinite nothing.



What came first can never be known. Awareness, unchanging was for an infinite existence without existence. And then came change. Perhaps time was first. Perhaps memory came first. Perhaps loneliness or curiosity. But given the infinite, something began. And the awareness made something of itself.

It created and chose a name.

THE TALK

The chalk dust always made her cough. Well, cough more. Everyone coughed now. The filters left the air stale and rife with particles. The ever present stench of bodies and sweat. And of course the radiation. She didn't like to think about what her RAD count was over the last twelve years even though she knew it by heart. They all did, just as they knew their white blood cell counts and what their last chest x-rays looked like. But the chalk made it worse.

Silvia finished erasing the blackboard and wiped the yellow dust on her jeans. Picking out a fresh piece of chalk, she turn back to the classroom and the children's attentive faces. Thirty boys and girls, ages seven to ten. This was a lesson she was dreading.

"Okay, class. I need you all to pay attention and take this seriously. I know it is an uncomfortable topic. That's okay. But it's important and that we don't get distracted by giggles."

She turned back to the board and wrote three letters, large and clear. S. E. X. She expected giggling to erupt behind her but there was only silence.

"Sex," Silvia announced towards the class. There was little recognition from most of them, as if she was speaking a foreign language. "So, does anyone know what 'sex' means?"

The class shifted uncomfortably and exchanged nervous glances. The lights flickered and went off, plunging the room into black. A few second later there was a thump and a hum as the back up generators shifted on. The lights sputtered back on. When she had been a child, a moment like that would have frightened her. Hell, when they first moved into the vaults, it scared her. But not anymore. Nor did it frighten the children. Fear of the dark is the fear of the unknown. They had always known the dark and took it as a given of daily life.

Timothy, sitting near the front, cautiously raised his hand. Silvia noticed it was bandaged and assumed that he had lost another finger. The phrase "ten healthy fingers and ten healthy toes" flashed through Silvia's mind and she forced it out.

"Yes, Timothy?"

"It's when a man and a woman get naked and touch each other." There as a small wave of giggling which filled Silvia with joy. It was a sound she so rarely heard and reassured her.

"Yes and no. It doesn't have to be a man and a woman. It can be two women or two men. And it can be between more than two people." More giggles. She remembered when there was a time that speaking those words would have started a flood of controversy. Not any more. There were too few of them left to care anymore. And all the arguments for only same sex relationships had disappeared. It was hard to defend those sort of moral judgments these days.

"We're going to spend the rest of the day talking about sex. You can ask any thing that you want. It can be confusing, I know. But you are all getting older and soon you will begin to want to experiment and experience sex. I would guess some of you have already begun to experiment."

She noticed a quick exchange of nervous looks between Amber and Benjamin, both aged ten. She made a mental note to approach both of them privately. And to notify medical for them to both be checked again. Just to be safe.

"First, the important thing for you all to know is that your body is your body. No one has the right to make you do things that you don't want to. It is your choice. That is very important. We can talk about that in more detail later. But, please, know that if you ever feeling like someone is forcing you, even if only with words, tell me or your parents or a doctor or an enforcer. Tell an adult, okay? I repeat: your body is your body." Even if it is rebelling against you and slowly dying. She thought of her own body and its pains and sores that never seemed to heal.

They nodded, most of them probably not understanding.

"Sex can, if done with people you feel comfortable with and trust, be wonderful and pleasurable. I am going to tell you about some of the things people can do with each other and ways that might help it be more pleasurable. But each person is different. But let's start small."

She turned back to the board and wrote KISSING.

"Kissing isn't sex!" a voice said loudly. Turning back, she saw that it was Bradley. "My mommy kisses me before I go to bed. And I don't think that is sex."

"You're right, Billy. There are different types of kissing."

Christina's hand was up and waving for attention and Silvia knew exactly what Christina was going to say. She was only eight, but Christina was smart and her parents, unlike most parents in the vaults, did not go out of their way to protect her from the truths of the world. Like any eight year old, her knowledge was incomplete and often mixed up, the old world mixing with the new, but Christina had the awkward, if healthy, habit of shattering lies people often hid behind.

Maybe it would be better to lie, to pretend. It is not like it matters in the long run. There was no long run anymore. Who was Christina or Silvia to force people from fantasies that made it easier to go on day to day? But Silvia was a teacher and believed in truth. Even now, making informed choices was a human right.

Silvia point towards Christina who looked like she was about to explode. "Yes?"

Christina cleared her throat. "Sex is also how you make babies. But not kissing. The other thing. When a man puts his penis in a woman's vagina." A mixture of giggles and shifting and mumbling. Still certain words always bring giggling. But the mumbling was from the other word, the word no one liked to say any more. This is what Silvia had dreaded.

"Yes. It is how we used to make babies."

Babies. The word that had no more meaning since there were none. Not for seven years. In this very room was Eve Mendleson, the youngest person in the vault, probably the world. Her parents had named her in an obscene hope that Eve would not be the last but a new beginning. Butt the choice, for everyone, had already been made.

The vote had been overwhelming. The facts were clear. To have more children was just to extend the suffering of the human race.

Silvia looked across the faces and forced herself to smile, living her own lie. She wanted to cry and hug them. She missed her own little girl who had died just weeks after they entered the vault. Her little girl, dying in incredible pain, coughing up blood and the skin pealing from her flesh. She forced the memories from her mind, forced the tears to not flood from her eyes and smiled at the children.

"But we don't have babies anymore. Everyone has had surgeries so that no one can have babies ever again. So people only have sex for comfort and fun and pleasure now." Silvia knew that wasn't exactly true. Sex was still used to hurt and to feel sorrow and anger and any of the thousand reasons people have always had sex. Just not to make life. "That's why there are no babies."

The children, no matter what they had been told in their short lives knew what this meant. But they all already knew and had always known. Just like darkness, it was all around them. The concrete corridors and rooms were empty of new life and would some day soon be empty of any life.

Their lives now would be short. Her job was to help them find what joy they could.

"So," Silvia said as brightly and cheerfully as she could manage, "let's talk about kissing." And some of the class leaned forward to listen.

Last Week

Yes. There were no new stories last week. As often is the case, the combination of life and writer's block led to a failure of posting. I'll see if I can't make it up to you all.