AsciiWilderness

I just published Ascii Wilderness, the roguelike, Prealpha version.  Check it out at:

http://asciiwilderness.blogspot.com/p/ascii-wilderness.html

The Song of the Fox

https://www.createspace.com/3683959

purchase my epic poem, The Song of the Fox:

While mice beneath the meadows huddle


in the ground to well befuddle

many hungry beasts that roam,

at night returning to their homes

to wait upon the winter’s chill,

inside of mountain and under hill,

warm and safe within their burrows

in the hillocks and the furrows,

or staring at the concrete sky,

wondering what it is to die:





While rivers surge with spring’s icy foam,

a vixen leaves her home to roam;

a lovely orange fox, a lady,

she leaves her trio of orange babies,

she wanders distant from her den,

seeking rooster, goose, or hen.

She travels to the forest edge

and to the farm beyond the hedge.

Dim and sallow faced, the farmer

cocks his gun, intent to harm her.

Still drunken from the night before,

he props himself against the door.

He slowly raises rifle high,

whispering, “we all must die.”

A golden finch that rides the wind

alerts the fox with startled hymn.

The farmer’s bullets tear the air

and strike a copper kettle there.

With jaws upon the squirming hen,

she waves her tail, seeking then

the safety of the tangled forest,

while the human’s filthy chorus

floats upon the valley wind,

into the vale she does descend.

She lays down among the trees,

and converses with roaming bee,

golden with ore, it says unto she,

“Who are you? I’ve come to see.”

“a vixen,” she breathes heavily,

“This hen is for my family.

At my den I’m feeding three,

near the boulder, in the lee.”

The bee, she ponders, then replies

while buzzing noisily at her side,

“I shall tell them straight away

that you are coming home to stay,

that a meal is on its way,

and that the bullet missed today.”

The fox is left alone in peace,

to rest and sample her paltry feast.

The fox does gnaw upon a bone,

today’s mischief has been sown.

Night falls with belladonna sky.

Luna rises, ever high.

With shining eyes to aid her sight,

the fox heads home, into the night.

Vixen returns to cozy den,

the puppies feast upon the hen.

The pups who do not eat enough

suckle instead and soon are stuffed,

they dream of growing to be

chicken stealers, all three.

-- --

Three babies play outside the den.

The mother watches from within.

She sees again the little bee

who’d helped before so pleasantly.

“Tiny one please watch my young,

sing to them some songs you’ve sung,

watch them play down by the river,

follow them when they go hither.

The little bee did follow then,

three little foxes from their den

down unto the riverside,

the river flowing, ever wide.

The little foxes play and splash.

The bee is wary to keenly watch.

She sings a little song she knows,

of apple blossoms and little does,

when comes along an ugly man,

a man who kills because he can.

Lo and behold, the little bee

perches upon his nose to see

into his eyes, and decree:

“I stab at thee!”

Swearing loud the man does flee.

Sun high up, the vixen returns

with a cony, and in turns

the pups devour what is left.

The carcass they do toss and heft.

“What went on here, little bee?

It smells of human here to me,”

“Yes, a man did come along,

with his rifle, cold and long,

but I staved him with my sword

while he said an angry word.

The Vixen figures in her mind

to move the pups to somewhere kind,

where conies and mice are plentiful,

where food will keep their bellies full,

where, trying, man will never find,

a secret haven to which he is blind.

And so she does lead off the pups

that afternoon, with starts and stops.

She herds them ‘cross the stony hills,

far away, and making kills

of little mice, here and there,

to feed the babies, worse for wear.

The foxes stop to sleep that night

in a cradle of roots, curled up tight,

they snuggle together against the night,

keeping warm, and out of sight.

Swooping owls, silent sentries,

raid at night the tangled pantries

and report to hidden vixen,

“You watch out, the farmer’s fixin’

to hunt you down with many dogs

you’ll not find peace in hollow log

nor solace in concealing root,

(is that the human’s treading boot?)

a raven guide shall come for thee.

Follow him closely, you and your three.

Peering in the morning hours,

the raven waits in woody bower,

“You must wake and come with me,

to avoid a dreadful fate you see,”

The Vixen allies with the corvid

to avoid the vision morbid.

Wading in a shallow brook

they follow the brother of the rook.

When at the lake they do arrive,

the Raven says, “Swim while alive,

swim unto the island yonder.

When you get there do not wander.

The Faerie Queen does own the place.

You must seek permission and grace.”

The vixen looks upon her babies

and at the island, distant, hazy.

Terror grows from deep inside her,

the distance expanding ever wider,

but it does constrict when courage

mows her fears like so much tillage.

She sets her brow

like an iron plow,

and speaks unto her little ones,

“little babes, this won’t be fun.

we must go unto our fate,

before the hour gets too late.

Have courage, pups, and do not fear,

have a heart like brother bear.

Paddle hard and pace your strokes,

we must flee the human folks.”

The night arrives and the moon has rose,

The raven flies over, watching who goes.

The three take steps into the lake,

swimming in their mother’s wake.

They swim for hours and swim hard,

the vixen, caring, turns life guard,

a tired pup clings to her back,

her strength, however, begins to lack.

Although they were in terror some,

the pups this day do not succumb

to soggy grave, not this fell night.

Everyone fought the primal fight

against the cold, thick chill,

but the water does instill

an illness in the littlest one,

prone on the shore, as if shot by gun.

She prods him with her cold, black nose.

He looks up, irate to lose

this battle for his life to lake,

while fleeing the hunter’s knife to make

a home upon the distant isle.

“Just stay alive a little while,”

she whispers softly in the night,

the little one does not hear her plight.

They huddle in darkness, cold and weary,

in grey grasses, vision bleary.

Raven flies by in spectral silence,

never forgetting his alliance,

he searches himself for something to say,

while seeking out the queen of the fey.

The raven meets the faerie queen,

who dressed in thistle, colored green,

remarks, in her phantasmal beauty,

appearing then to state quite cruelly,

“Bring them to me come the day,

because there is a due to pay.”

And so, the raven flies away,

to bear the message, rather than stay.

The vixen wakes upon the morn,

darkness in her eyes forlorn,

but the night, it does not take

the runt’s young life, nor does the lake.

The raven comes with graven word

“Here, there is no Faerie Lord,

the Faerie Queen says you must pay,

if I were you I might not stay,”

Her little one is failing fast,

but she has hope unto the last.

Mouth on neck, she adjusts her grip,

calls the others, sets off on the trip

to visit the ancient, legend’ry queen

of the faerie folk unseen.

The day does come unto an end.

Tired and hungry, unable to fend,

the little ones moan, one is catatonic.

The only relief is the gross beak’s sonnet.

Guided by raven they finally arrive

at the bustling fairy hive.

The Queen is there in all her mischief,

daintily holding a white kerchief

of the finest spider’s silk

and a cup of butterfly milk.

“What have you brought me, noble fowl?

The vixen then let out a growl:

“Speak to me and I will tell you

of dangers that befell me through

this journey from my home,

far beneath the sky’s blue dome.

If you have a place for us

upon this island, then speak thus.”

The Queen of faeries is took aback

by the vixen’s proprietal lack,

but when she raises her hand to cast

faerie magic, a firey blast,

A deity of light

serious as night,

the Lord of Foxes does appear,

and fix the queen with steely stare.

the Canine Lord, he speaks with might,

and wisdom far beyond finite.

“How dare you threaten my vixen with flame,

Don’t you recall when once you came

to me for council, cold and lame,

when the Lord of Faeries earned his fame,

hunting you like so much game

when you were but a younger dame?

Now he sits within my belly,

slowly turning into jelly.

That shall be your fate as well,

if these foxes you do kill.”

When the queen speaks to the Lord,

She does so with careful, quiet word.

“This vixen, I see, is special to you,

I shall consider a lenient view.

“There is the issue of the price

for her to remain, and me to be nice:”

for me to heal the icy vice

that grips the runt. I’ll be concise.

I think that I do need a mount

who can leap and play and pounce,

who is colored like blood moon,

who keeps their image in high groom,

if she can fill these roles for me,

she can roam upon my island free.”

The Lord of Foxes does speak then

unto the vixen, “There is a fen

nearby I call my own,

where fae mischief is not sown,

where you can live in peace and she,

the Faerie Queen, will leave you be.

Know the Queen has bitter heart,

to help you, will she do her part?

You should have simply come to me,

little girl, you and your three.

This runt though, he has a fate,

I fear it is beyond death’s gate.”

She knows that she must join the fae

to save the runt, the only way.

“I love to leap and play and pounce,

my fur is orange to the ounce,

I am the prettiest fox around,

in me, a willing mount you’ve found.”

The Fae Queen is then satisfied,

though a smile she does hide:

“I think it is quite settled then,

make your home within the glen.

Come to me upon full moon,

so that we may dance and swoon.

Come close and let me tend the pup.

The magic liquid in this cup

will heal him before his time has ended,

drink this draught and become mended.”

Babies revive by faerie magic,

narrowly beyond the tragic,

the vixen sets off to the glen

to settle there her family in.

There is a comfy hollow log

waiting there, beside a bog

that’s full of mice and frogs and conies,

fat and healthy, not too bony.

The vixen doth retire there,

and fix the earth with quiet stare.

How far I’ve come to get away.

This tranquil place is where I’ll stay.

And for many moons, for years,

amidst great joy and salty tears,

the fox lived on in faerie glen,

and did not regret the fatted hen.

Ice Planet

I wrote this around Christmas for the class, before learning to write a character driven story versus a plot driven one so I hope this doesn’t disappoint. Hope you all don’t mind the length. It’s the beginning of a longer, unwritten piece, so don’t expect too tight an ending. Other than that, I hope you humans enjoy it.

-Russ

Chapter One: Michael Cross

I looked past the shining sphere of the alien craft, up through the spaceport doors, and the sun was bright and beautiful. If only some of its heat could reach the surface of this cold, dead planet Earth.

The extraterrestrial in front of me was small, about the size of a child, with a pink tentacled face and smooth bulbous head. I could see my reflection in its large black eyes, dressed as I was in my green snow suit. I placed the crate of samples on the metal floor afew meters from the space ship's ramp. Supplies were already rolling off the ship's conveyor and strong, able humans unloaded the goods.

"Uchapa" the Squidhead gurgled from its small slit of a mouth.

"Uchapa" I returned the unknown word and we smiled at each other. The geeks tell us that the Squidheads just smile to please us, but the gesture was effective. Its nostrils flared large and shrunk back to two small dots on an otherwise flat face. I took that as a sign of pleasure.

Just then my geiger counter let out a few clicks from my belt. Other spaceport workers had noticed their own devices clicking and beeping. A radiation storm was on its way. The Squidheads would be stuck under the surface until the storm passed. The overseer hollered a command and overhead the bay doors began to close. Bits of ice fell and broke on the alien craft, and with a loud "thunk" the doors sealed us all underground for another month.

The Squid in front of me scowled. What brow nature had given it crumpled with displeasure and its tiny mouth twisted and worked itself. Using one of four large tentacles, it lifted its human tech radio to its mouth and let off a stream of nonsensical sounds. I could see the overseer in my mind, on the radio in the control room, with no way to understand the alien. The geeks tell us their language has as many forms of each word as there are words, making it near impossible to understand. We only get along through mutual empathy.

The Squid finished his yammering and lowered the radio. I shrugged, and put my upturned hands in the air.

"Sorry ET. Can't open the doors now or we'd fry."

The Squid reached out and touched my hand with a slimy tentacle. I forced myself not to recoil from the cool slickness of its touch.

"That's it for samples this time. If you want them so bad you shoulda come before the nukes hit."

We lived in a nuclear winter, one that had lasted a thousand years. They say long ago a fuse got fried in a missile silo and it launched itself. Counterattack after counterattack later, the sun was a faint memory for a planet encased in ice. By the time the alien fleet arrived, it was almost too late. The Squids gathered the survivors and helped start a colony, in caves beneath the North American Ice Sheet. A thousand years later, we are still here, but the planet is not recovering. Without the Squids, we would have perished long ago.

What they did with the samples we brought them was a mystery. We trekked for miles beneath the ice, bringing back samples of what life we found. We traded it to the Squids for supplies: hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen for the algae farms. You'd be surprised what the geeks can make algae taste like.

Due to the natural amiability of our two races, we live symbiotically. The geeks say that the large eyes and head of the aliens makes them look cute, fooling the human brain into caring and cooperation. Either way, it works.

Human life goes on. There are about a million of us in the colony. There are farmers, writers, geeks, doctors, they all live, shit, and die down here in the hole. I am a ranger. I collect frozen samples from the ice deep in the caves.

Recently my crew found a frozen town deep under the ice. As I returned to the colony that day I wondered how damaged the DNA samples were, and if the geneticists could clone me a copy of the tabby cat I had found encased in ice. They geeks store the genetic information of the samples we find in computers hoping that someday we will clone extinct life and repopulate the Earth.

With the samples passed off to the alien, my job was done for the day. Back at my quarters, I peeled off my snow suit and turned to the computer that was built into the wall. I had twenty thousand credits. I made an order of synth-a-food to pick up the next day, and thumbed through the news headlines. "scientists achieve breakthrough DNA repair," "ET guests stuck planetside," and "Planet core temperature dropping. Is Earth dead for good?" and "Spacetravel: getting off this lifeless rock."

They were always talking about space travel, always just on the verge of a scientific breakthrough that would could change the planet. I turned off and went to sleep, the sun bright in my mind.

That night I walked through lush garden valleys like I had only seen in books, over mountaintops and past gushing waterfalls. Then I was in a water craft, racing over a liquid lake in the sunlight. I reached down over the side into the crystal water, it sprayed into the air like a thousand diamonds. I felt fear. Something was in the water.

That day was my day off. As I lay in bed that morning a knock came at the door.

"Who is it?" I groaned, not loudly enough as the knock came again. This time i wrapped the sheet around myself and came to the corridor portal. I opened it and found a cute brunette patrolwoman in full outfit.

"Whatever happened it wasn't me. Look officer Ive been taking my medication-" I started to say but she interrupted.

"Oh no there's been no trouble. This isn't about that. Actually it's quite exciting!"

"I'm excited too," I said sarcastically, "what is it?" I groaned and rubbed my eyes under the bright LEDs of the metal corridor.

"It's the first time anything like this has happened. You'll have to come with me,” she said distractedly.

"Just a second, let me put on some clothes." I closed the door in her face. I threw on my alga-fiber clothing and snowsuit and thought about my last encounter with police, my diagnosis as schizopolar and subsequent hospitalization in the mental ward. I had crashed my mobile right into the patrol station because I thought my ex-girlfriend was chasing me riding a broomstick. One thing’s for sure it was a good way to get well known by the police. If this wasn't a medication check and she wasnt my probation officer, what was this all about?

I thumbed the portal control and entered the hallway.

"First we'll take the elevator to central control."

Central control?

"What for?"

"The ETs have requested to see you."

"How did they communicate that desire?"

"One of them drew a picture of you."

I wondered why me as we walked. Several cold metal hallways later, we took the elevator to central control. As it opened into the main hallway an ugly pockmarked man greeted us. The cute brunette who had disrupted my sleep stepped back into the elevator and disappeared behind its doors. Without introducing himself, the ugly man led me by the arm down the hallway, through some checkpoints, and into a stark white empty room with a table.

"Wait here." The door closed behind me. One wall was covered with a large mirror. I waited several minutes and then the door popped open and in came the pockmarked man again whose skin was riddled with scars. He seated himself across from me, looked at the mirror, and then at the papers in his hand. He smiled.

"Do you know why you're here?"

"Yes, the aliens stuck land-side have requested me.”

"Not only that. They've invited you into their spaceship."

"They're probably just pissed about being stuck planetside. You know how it is with the Squids, schedules, shedules and time tables and more schedules."

"You have a unique opportunity here to do something for your country."

"My country?" Home is multinational my inner voice reminded me.

"What we'd like you to do while you're in there is quite simple. Just take photos of their technology while you’re inside the Squid’s craft.”

I was starting to feel uncomfortable.

"Won't that piss them off?"

"The camera is organic so their technology won't detect it. Just take a few photos and everything will be fine."

I felt uneasy.

"The camera will connect to your brainstem and record through your eyes. It has to be surgically inserted so... Come in boys. You might feel a little pinch." Two gorilla sized men entered the room.

I freaked the shit out. i picked up my chair and beaned the ugly man in the head pretty well before they chloroformed me.

When I came to, I was in my bed. Had it all been a dream? I touched the back of my neck. There was nothing there but smooth skin. A knock at the door startled me. It was deja vous.

I put on my snowsuit and equipment belt and answered the door. It was the brunette cop.

"Hi sir. The aliens have requested to see you. You'll have to come with me."

"Sure thing, I just-" I smashed her hard on the head with my geiger counter and she was down. Was I going crazy again? I fell over her into the hallway and ran down the corridor in a panic, towards the spaceport. Afew long corridors and sets of stairs later and I emerged into the great subterrainean dome, and the alien craft was there. No one was around because of the radiation storm. I made my way to the silvery sphere's portal and banged my fist against it. Nothing happened.

Suddenly there was shouting and the sound of running feet. The hatch of the ship began to lower itself with agonizing slowness and I threw myself onto it as soon as I was able. It began to close and I entered the spaceship. A bullet bounced off the hull of the ship and suddenly it was vibrating around me. An escalator delivered me to what I could only guess was a circular elevator.

It was, and it lifted me into a room that was much larger than the craft seemed to be from the outside. Ten squids were in a circle of pilot's chairs around me, and I could see SWAT teams on the video displays setting up blockades below the craft. We appeared to be hovering in the middle of the spaceport.

"What's this all about? Am I losing it?"

"You're fine. Please be calm." The alien had spoken English. That was one of the less surprising things that had happened that morning.

"Whats going on?"

The aliens shared glances and whispered to each other. Then the whispering stopped, and one of them approached me holding a small silver orb. It was identical to the spaceship I had just entered. Seemingly on it's own the orb opened and revealed something I didn’t recognize that smelled edible.

"Would you eat a sandwhich? Are you hungry?"

"A sand-what?" I gazed at the strange food. Suddenly I felt quite peckish and the sand-what looked good enough to eat.

"So I just attacked a cop and come down here to eat a sand-what?"

"Partly." said the lead Squid.

“Was last night a dream?”

“Yes.”

What would you have done in my situation? I marched up to the sand-what and grasped it with both hands and took a big bite. I chewed and swallowed. It sure beat the nutri-algae.

"Is that it?"

"Now we wait," said the Squid.

"Wait for what?"

"To see if you will live."

I took another bite of the sand-what.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"We have been collecting samples from your planet for a long time, since our first scouts happened upon this solar system and saw your race evolving from apes. Our work with the samples is finished. We have prepared a new Home for your race, on Mars, where verdant hills await. We have done all this in secret, repairing the damaged DNA of the samples with ET organism DNA. We only hope the ecogenetic system of animals and plants is organically compatible with your own."

I looked down at the sand-what as I swallowed a bite.

"Why do I feel expiramented on?"

One of the Squids came close to me with a small device in his hand. Several electrodes ran from his head to the device. He pasted a couple of them onto my body in different areas and we waited. He said, in English for my benefit,

"All systems nominal."

I breathed a sigh of relief.

"Your race will finally help us get off the planet? To Mars?"

"Do you think we will hand Gaea's daughter to the likes of your earthly government? The premonition you had this morning is only a small part of a larger picture of treachery your race plans against us. Humans as a species cannot be trusted with technology, space travel, or a living planet. But individual humans can be trusted with much. You will be the first Martian colonist."

"Why me? You know I'm technically crazy, right? Schizopolar... Why not a healthy human?"

"You have the traits we are looking for. You are kind and well meaning. A little open mindedness is tolerable."

"You call crazy open minded?" I asked the Squid.

"Know this, on our home planet, there is no thing like a psychiatric hospital. However, we do have many shamans or mystics. Our race is not like yours. The love in our small hearts is great. Before we learned the secrets of wires and metal we knew the secrets of the soul and psyche and the chemical mastery of the body through discipline.”

I didn't think the aliens really understood the situation. I had an incurable chemical disorder in my brain that was controlled by medication. If I didn't get the meds I didn't sleep, and if I didn't sleep I lost sanity over time and would eventually endanger myself or die from lack of sleep. As if reading my mind, the alien responded.

"Mars is attuned to higher mental frequences and should accomodate your advanced brain without the need for medication."

“Ok, I’m open-minded, not crazy. But an advanced brain? Give me a break, if anything I’m over-imaginative.”
“And what are these imaginings of?”
“Other places, other times. Hypothetical situations, a lot of the time.”

“What if I told you that all realities are alive in their own dimensions? Imagine a living dove, from Earth’s youth. It flies away from you in your mind. Where does it fly to? When it breathes, when it fears, what is breathing or fearing? No indeed, the mind does not contain imaginings, but creates windows into a multiverse of infinite possibility.”

Images swam through my mind, of my childhood on the algae farms, of colonists in alien ships headed to mars, and they were given all the more meaning by the alien’s words. I refocused on the present moment.

"Who can come to Mars, exactly?"

"Anyone who signs this contract."

Another silver orb floated into the room and opened in front of me, revealing what appeared to be a legal document written in English on some kind of syntha-paper.

"What does it say?"

"Basically you give up all your human rights and join the Altruuan collective."

"And why would I give up my human rights? Aren’t they like, the culmination of human social evolution?"

"No one has rights in our society. Instead we all agree to respect life and each other. We live in perfect harmony. Copies of this document and explanations will be posted on every computer in the colony tonight. Tomorrow, we take the first colonists to Mars."

“You realize you could get everyone or no one at all doing it this way. The colony will be in complete chaos once your contracts hit the computer network. The legal document should be a standing invitation to get off the planet, not a one night, hit or miss, do or die kind of thing.”

“Unfortunately it can’t be that way. For you humans, a certain size and isolation is important for a colony to maintain good levels of moral behavior… In large societies there are those who would use others to their own ends, to say the least, and there is little personal accountability. When Earth’s population was at its peak, around fifty billion, moral and ethical code was in shambles around the world. 1% of the population lived in extreme lavishness, about ten percent were provided for, and the rest were mostly starving, diseased, or living in poverty or in fear of it.”

We looked at each other in silence for several minutes. I thought of leaving everything familiar behind. Finally, I thought only of the tabby cat, encased in blue, irradiated ice.

What the hell. It beats being on medication. I thumbed some engine grease on my snowsuit and put my print on the dotted line. The alien smiled.

-- Chapter 2: Sarah Williams

When I awoke my first thought was pain. My skull would not quickly forget the blunt instrument and the man who had accosted me. Michael Cross was his name.

A fellow officer shook me hard.

"Sarah, you ok?" he asked.

I touched my head and winced. There was a lump that was sure to look hideous, but no blood.

"Damnit Nick, Don't you know not to shake an injured person? What if I had a neck injury? And didn't I already tell you not to touch me in general?"

Nick radio'd central that I was alright as I waved him away. I used the wall to help stand myself.

"You should see the commotion in the flight bay. SWAT has an ET craft surrounded, Cross is inside it, and they're saying he's a multinational security risk."

"A what? I read his file, he's just a ranger. A mentally ill geek toady on ice skates for heaven's sake!"

"They're saying he possesses sensitive technology… Won't say what of course. My guess is, he found somethin' good in the ice caves, wants to sell it to the aliens. I’m gonna go check out the scene."

Nothing was making sense. Why would the aliens notify central to fetch Cross, why not keep it a secret if there was supposed to be some kind of exchange?

I entered the override code into the portal control and entered Cross's chambers. I thumbed the computer there and entered another passcode. I had no new orders. In fact, the certified government contact, the pockmarked man who had qued me to summon Cross, was missing from my contact list. There seemed to be no trace of the data in my account. The computer reported an error when I tried to manually call it up. However when I checked the server overflow, there was his IP address. I called up a prompt and commanded a trace-route. It appeared the agent’s computer was broadcasting from the genetics lab in Outpost R.

Outpost R was a sample collection station deep in the ice caves and was abandoned due to contamination by radiation. It was about 200 miles from the colony, a mile below the surface of the ice sheet. And someone was there, someone with computer savvy, someone who worked for central but illegally manipulated the network. Someone who wanted Micheal Cross, and didn't want to be found. Are they monitoring my online activity right now? How far does their power extend?

I noticed I had a new email. My security privileges had been revoked due to unobserved contact with a person designated a security risk. More paperpushing to get this cleared up, I thought at first. Then I realized just what it meant. I couldn't enter central control to find the scarred man. I was being targeted. My superiors were possibly in league with the unknown hacker. I decided to play dumb. I wrote an email to my supervisor requesting a hearing to reactivate my privileges.

With no other jobs in my que I returned to my warm chambers and felt curiosity and paranoia overcoming me. It was like a bad fiction novel somebody wrote for their college class. I had to get to Outpost R, to find out who wanted Michael Cross and why.

Chapter 3: Michael Cross

I discussed many things with the aliens that day. Their home planet was a single great ocean with a few archipelagos and they evolved in the shallow tropics from something like a cuttlefish. They were originally a caste oriented society, with warriors, egg tenders, queens, gatherers, and hunters, all physically unique. This created an empire where decisions were made with the idea that the majority and minority achieve perfect inter-accommodation of needs, all roles having equal importance to the society as a whole. Evolutionary pressures, such as the numerous predators, sculpted a massively social species, whose first and greatest technological achievement was a perfect society. Once that was achieved, all things were possible, and their civilization became space-born.

When I asked what punishments there were for criminals, the alien just looked at me as though I were a child.

“Suppose one of us was bent on Murder. We have a bodily organ that contains a hallucinatory chemical. It becomes stimulated when the brain is malfunctioning. The chemical releases, causing a hibernation state. In this state, the individual’s consciousness rests. When the individual awakens, any imbalances in his mind and emotions are gone. The hallucinogen could be adapted and synthesized for use with humans.”

“So… Your race’s moral decisions are left up to a built-in organ that regulates your behavior?”

“If humans were were not interested in murdering each other, no matter what the cause of this disinterest, I have no doubt they would find other ways to settle their differences.”

I sat in silence, wondering if the human race were risking some kind of enslavement to the aliens. The conversation turned to other areas.

The human colony on mars was already built, in the Northern icecaps of the planet. They said that remaining in the icy environment would ease the psychological transition of the new colonists. All Interesting conversation aside, I was now stuck on the alien ship. I probably wouldn’t get a chance to pick up my syntha-food order.

“Is there somewhere here I can sleep?” I didn’t know what time it was but I had talked for what seemed hours with who I thought was the lead squid. they were hard to tell apart. Did they even have individual identities?

“This way,” one of the squids guided me to a portal and into a small chamber with a bed and large video screens displaying something I recognized.

“Are those… Tropical plants? Like from the Compton’s Encyclopedia?”

“Yes.”
“And that’s… The ocean.” It was Bright, blue, dazzling, and Infinite. I was in love.

“It’s an ocean, yes.”
“… But not Earths…”

“It’s Mars. Sleep now.”

My eyelids suddenly felt very heavy. I hadn’t taken my meds. For months my nightly slumbers had been drug induced, but I was so tired this night I fell hard asleep without any help.

When I awoke, I was staring at the floor. I lay face down in an alien hospital bed, made of some strange white porous material. I could see a few drops of blood on the silver floor. I felt a shock at the back of my neck, and then I was overcome. Images flashed before my mind, of the alien ship. But I seemed to see it from within, to comprehend it. I knew what made the alien craft fly, although it was nothing I could explain easily.

I was not restrained. I tried to move, but couldn’t. I was scared. A voice spoke into my mind.

Don’t be alarmed. Your government implanted you with a neural magnetic resonance imaging device. Had we not reversed the flow of data, causing your visual cortex to receive input from the device, it would have drained your brain of all electrical activity over the period of a month. You will have more sense-data to deal with from now on, and it will take time to get used to.

I thought back a response. Instead of letting me wake up on the operating table, you could have told me what was happening. One of them spoke finally.

“Had we told you about the magnetocamera it would have detected such and self destructed your nervous system. Apparently your government did not want this technology falling into our hands.”

I was confused. I thought I had merely drempt the episode with the pockmarked man and the magnetocamera.

“You’re wondering how it got into your neck. On your clothing, we found traces of a government developed retrovirus. It seems that your room was gassed last night with the microorganism. Once your DNA was altered, the organ developed on your brain stem overnight. Your conscience warned you that something had happened to your neck, and pushing the limits of human consciousness and psychic ability, showed you a picture of one of your many new enemies.”

I was overcome just then with another cascade of images flooding my mind, pictures of me hitting the brunette with my Geiger counter. She vibrated and sparkled with living energy under my newfound sensory capability. In slow motion I watched the plastic tool hit her on the head, and I could see her life functions change as she passed out. Still on the operating table, I waited patiently for a more comfortable moment.

“It’s over. Return him to his bed,” the lead squid gurgled to the others. My eyelids felt heavy again, and I slept.

As soon as I was awake, the circular portal opened and revealed what looked like a human technology hallway and yet another squid-faced alien. Colors, vibrations and sparkles crept in the edges of my vision but weren’t terribly intrusive. The data feed into my brain from the magnetocamera was causing the visual noise.

“Am I… On the ship?”
“No, you’re on Mars.”

Chapter 4: Brian Slayne

It was nighttime. The chiefs of staff of the colony surrounded the table in front of me. We had all gathered to address the issue of Michael Cross and the alien contract showing up on everyone’s computers. The nightly lockdown prevented any chaos – everyone was safe, imprisoned at home.

“Why let the colonists off the planet at all?” Bob retorted.

“We’re a democracy Bob, in case you’ve forgotten,” I replied from across the large, circular table.

Robert watched me from across the room, with a perfect poker face, silent eyes peering through two slits in his scarred up skin. Our breath showed in the unheated room. Reflected in the metal wall, I could see myself behind him. I was older, burly and grey. Bob was thin, and ugly.

“We can’t stand by and let our neighbors give up their human rights.” Bob had a point. What a snake.

“Granted,” I said, “But look at the rights you’d violate by preventing them.”

“What do you suggest then? Are you going to sign the alien contract, Mr. Slayne?”

I hadn’t really thought about it. As the leader of the counsel, my place was with the people. I had read the contract. The offer was to move the humans to Mars, to a planet with life.

“Is that so far fetched? We have every reason to trust the aliens completely. Our races have cooperated for a thousand years now, they could annihilate us, abduct us, let us starve. Instead they have gone out of their way to insure our survival on near our own terms. We have every reason to expect a continuance of this beneficial relationship.”

“So you would have us give up our sovereignty as a race, indeed our individual sovereignty, to abide by the whims of an alien race who claim to have a perfect society? They didn’t explain how this society works in the least.” Bob smiled with self satisfaction at his own remark.

“A thousand years ago, people from across the world collaborated to make this colony what it is today. People who were very different from each other. As different as we are from the aliens, it makes sense that we join something greater than ourselves. We have no future on this lifeless planet.”

“So you suggest we just give up. Let the aliens have the stolen technology, let them take over the human race.”

“Now you’re blowing things out of proportion. If you had read the contract you would realize it is revocable so long as a working colony remains here. Any colonist who doesn’t like the Altruuan’s ways can reassume his human rights and return to Earth. The government should encourage people to think carefully tonight and make the choice that is best for them. Send out a bulletin not to be alarmed and that we endorse the alien contract. In addition, send the SWAT team in the spaceport home and issue an apologetic, uh, drawing to the aliens for the idiot who fired at their ship, whom I want suspended. Additionally, assemble a transition team that will join the colonists on Mars. In the morning, I want Michael Cross, off that ship and in my office for a friendly chat. If he has any stolen technology, we’ll find out then. Make it so.”

Chapter 5: Sarah Williams

That night the ET’s offer hit everyone’s home computers. They were all the same: A one use, two way ticket to Mars. I leaned forward slightly to speak into the computer’s microphone.

“Mom, have you looked at the contract? I’m going. What’s dad saying?”
“He… He wants to stay. We want to stay.”

“I can’t believe you! I know you want off this frozen rock, just tell him it’s the way it’s got to be!” I practically shouted into the microphone. There was silence for a long moment.

Finall, I could hear her lean away from the microphone and yell into the next room.

“Harold, I want off this god-awful frozen rock and that’s the way it’s got to be! And you’d better take me goddamnit!” she finished in complete seriousness.

“Mom, I didn’t expect… What’s he say?”
“I think he shit his pants. Looks like we’re going to Mars.”

I thanked the technology gods for the closed circuit microphone system, impossible to tap or listen in on from outside the colony.

“Mom, I’m in some trouble.”
“Oh no, what’s happened, I told-“

“You know Michael Cross, from the news? In the ET craft? There’s something strange going on. They’re saying he’s a security risk but he’s just a nobody, and then someone was playing with the computer system, someone in Outpost R.” Mother let out a big sigh. She knew me too well.

“So you’re headed to Outpost R?”

I gave her a long moment to think about arguing with me.

“You can take our mobile, but the rooms are locked, hon, with curfew and all.”

“See you in ten minutes. Bye.”

Getting out of the room was the least of my worries. I quickly grabbed my pistol, Geiger counter, and radio.

I keyed into the door that there was sensor failure and a fire. It popped open with hesitation, and I was through in an instant, jogging down the corridor and towards the stairs that would take me to Residential Zone B where my parents lived.

(Goes to outpost R)

Chapter 6: Micheal Cross (considers returning to earth… explores new colony)

Character list:

Michael Cross

Brian Slayne

Sarah Williams

Nick

Pockmarked Man - Robert

Wasted Youth

Hi all - this story was for an English class prompt. -Russ

Falling snow drifted across the deserted intersection as the youth smoked a cigarette in silence. Ashes fell on her white party dress, carpeting her overly round belly. In the evening twilight a blue sedan approached, creeping down the balsam-lined lane. As the car pulled up and the window lowered, inside she could see a middle aged man in a flannel shirt, with two kids in car seats in the back. She extracted her cigarette from her mouth so she could speak.

“On your way home from work, Clyde?”

“Yeah. Can I get a hit off that? You need a ride baby?” She passed him the cigarette.

She looked at the two kids in the back.

“No.”

“Well what the hell are you doing in the middle of the night in the snow, and pregnant too!”

One of the kids in the back burped up something delicious looking just then.

“Having a bad night. Just shove off alright?”

“Just tryin’ to be a good Samaritan,” Clyde said as he reached back and wiped up his baby’s vomit with a rag.

“I’m fine. See you later.”

“Ok but we’re supposed to get six more inches tonight,” Clyde took one last long look at her, rolled up the window and drove off into the descending gloom.

No sooner than she had taken another drag on her cigarette than she threw it on the ground and swore. Her mother’s bronze suv was pulling up to the intersection, no doubt returning from an evening church committee meeting. The vehicle rumbled to a stop and down came the window.

“Cheryll what on earth are you doing out here! You’ll freeze to death. How come you’re not at Tooley’s?”

Cheryll begrudgingly approached the vehicle and stuck her head in the window.

“Mom I-“

“What’s that smell?”

“I had a beer-“

“You’ve been drinking too? All I can smell is marijuana. Didn’t I tell you that’s the devil?” Oh, shit.

“Mom why don’t you just move to the damn church and leave me the fuck alone.”

“Just get in the car and come home. We’ll talk about this later. I’ll call the priest

and-“

“Just leave me alone! Go home! Go read the bible! Do anything just leave me the hell alone!”

Her mother stammered for a moment and was silent. She twisted her face as though she had bit into a lemon not expecting the sourness, and her finger ground itself against the “up-window” button impatiently. The car gunned and sped off, leaving Cheryll alone in dark silence. She salvaged her marijuana cigarette from the snowy ground and lit it up again. She took a deep, soothing drag. The snowfall was picking up now, and a chill wind had risen to bite at her uncovered legs. A white dodge spirit approached the intersection now, its headlights blinding Cheryll. It too pulled up to the intersection and stopped. The door opened and the interior lights came on, revealing pure filth. Old mcdonald’s food and cigarette butts littered the car. A burnt spoon sat innocently in the passenger seat, regretful perhaps, but accepting of its fate.

“You need a ride, Cheryll?”

Silence.

“You know I’m the last one who comes through this area at night. What are you gonna do if nobody else drives by, freeze, you and your baby? Forget Tooley, come back to my place, I’ve got some product.”
“I’d rather freeze, Billy.”

“Have it your way… Bitch!” He slammed the door and revved the car, fishtailing and covering her with slushy snow in the process. Before he had gotten up to full speed another car appeared. The lights blinded Cheryll as the Subaru forester pulled up. The window rolled down and the cabin lights came on.

In the front seat sat a greasy sextagenarian in black leather jacket and pants. Smoke curled around his unshaven face from the cigarette he casually smoked. In the backseat was a black trash bag, a rust red knife, and an ochre-bladed chainsaw. The car smelled of gasoline, timber, barbecue, alcohol, and marijuana – needless to say, it was tantalizing.

“Hey cutie. Had a rough night? Want to come back to my place?”

“Hey Grandpa. What took you so long?”