digitaldust

I was reading this BBC NEWS article about 4 galaxies colliding and thinking about scifi set in galaxies like that. I don’t think I’ve read anything except universe spanning space opera that has even talked about them. Most galaxy bound scifi has been set in our galaxy the milky way. Interesting.

I’m particularly fond of this bit I just wrote. Word count is approaching 13k. Just 37k more to go this month. Gak.

“Who are… I!” The body of the Dancer spoke with force, more statement of existence than question. All the other bodies were still. Their eyes had now all turned and were all looking at the Dancer.

“This is an interesting phenomena.” The Professor commented to no one in particular as he stood up and replaced his spectacles.

“I’m not getting a good feeling about this. Professor, find the erroneous subject and terminate it immediately.” The Bishop tried to rise from his chair. His Aide rushing forwards from the shadows to help him lever his bulk upright.

“Who am I?” The Dancer asked staring with unearthly intent at the Professor approaching from the centre of the circle. He walked towards her unperturbed by the cold abyss staring out of the Dancer’s eyes.

I was attracted to this Hunter S. Thompson quote when I read it whilst in the states.

As long as the constant speedy lure of… &lt insert current proffesion &gt … seemed more essential and important to me than the ugly, slow-burning reality of writing a novel, any effort to write fiction would have been a part-time, left-handed gig… And in any other line of work except writing, people who try to deal with the world and life and reality off a split focus base are called “schizoid” and are taken off the streets, as it were, for their own and the greater good.

It agrees with and sums up where my head is at. How much is the rent on that little house at the end of Vladimir Illyich Illyanov Street in Archangel.

San Francisco ’02

Chapter 1

Some time before touchdown the drugs loosened their hold. I remember turning to my Scottish and unnervingly unpredictable attorney and saying, “I feel awfully light headed I think you should drive.”

I got up and walked down the aisle as it lurched sickeningly away from me. These intercontinental flights are brutal things and not easily understood. I stumbled and kicked my way through the loose limbs to get to the toilets at the back of the cabin. Christ, I’m glad we sat near the back, the chances of us going down are so high that any factor, like being at the back of the plane, are going to weigh heavily in our favour. I looked back across the seething rows of seats at my attorney. She was quiet now. She had been mumbling to herself earlier and raving about the French and worm farms. Incoherent babbling and screeching like a tape machine played backwards. Strange words I don’t even pretend to understand.

I made it to the end of the very back of the plane, legs rubbery, walking bow legged, staring straight ahead, fixed on my destination. Suddenly these harpies leapt out of the galley. Crazed leery creatures, drunk on cheap booze and stinking of it. They pounced, sensing an easy victory, cornering me and trying to chat me up. They were from San Jose and on the prowl. I smiled and nodded and tried to stay upright. It’s never good to show fear in these situations. Any slip and I could be torn to pieces. I know this from experience; I once saw a man ripped to shreds by women just like this, a huge pack of blond, bubble-gum jeaned freaks. There may have only been two of them now, but I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life in a wheel chair.

Later in my seat I had in my hands phone numbers and email addresses I never intended on using. We were mere minutes away from San Francisco. I turned to my attorney and said.

“This is web country, we have to be very careful. Very careful. There used to be plenty of internet to go around but it’s all dried up, the rivers dry. There will be all sorts of hungry beasts there ready to suck our lifeblood. Try and latch on to us. They wont kill you mind you, they’ll attach themselves and inject some kind of horrible OEM based anticoagulant, anaesthetic, psychotic drug. You won’t notice any of them until you’ve collected 2 or 3 and then it’ll be too late. We’ll have to burn them off and you’ll probably loose all higher brain function at the same time.”

She jumped up and clapped her hands over my mouth. “Shut up! Shut up!” She looked around suspiciously and stared viciously at the little Indian lady beside us. “There might be some of them on the plane here and if they hear you this gig will be up. We’ll be screwed, they’ll strip us in customs, hose us down and throw us out on the streets naked and penniless. You don’t know these people like I do, you’ve never been here before. What you’ve read in books I’ve experienced.” She sat back down and looked nervously around, her gaze finally resting back on the small Indian lady. My attorney smiled at her, a huge hyper real ear to ear grin.

“It’s OK.” I leaned across and said to the small Indian cowering by my attorney. “She’s just admiring the shape of your skull.”

The BBC is really just a huge bee hive with bee/ant like beings living in the ceilings and under the floor. Workers are just drones, they get infected by the hive and carry around insect larva inside them. The hive has natural camouflage as a corporation, as a collective hive they are naturally adjusted to living in the corporate world.

It turns out that all sorts of big companies are run by giant insects. They use all sorts of modern technology; for example they exchange information via electronic pheromones, e-mones. “If only our employees would just get up and rub antennae instead of hovering over their computers. It would be ergonomically better for their exoskeletons if they got up and crawled around.” the hive CEO (Chief Egg Orifice) keeps saying.)

BT (British Termites)
Mycosoft a company run by Mushrooms
IBM (International Beezness Machines)
Sun (antsystems)
PmC (PrayingmantisCrickets)
Crayfish Supercomputing (Not doing well in the industry, too big and old)

I got second place in an ultra short story competition for the Labyrinth (a site/project run by this author Kate Moss). Read “Clean” here.