Posts tagged Science Fiction

The stars beckoned behind the cracked sky. The world seemed askew beneath my feet. As I looked ahead, trying to deduce where my life would lead me, The Fragment of the Universe seemed to pull me, possess me, taint me. It was a reminder of humanity’s failed gambit and a monument to the end of the world.

My current silence here can be attributed to a few things, chiefly of which is the fact that I have been working on an interactive webcomic, called Diaspora. The model of which I have borrowed from, mainly, MSPaint Adventures. This means that the action is largely controlled by the suggestions of the readership, which seemed like a good way to force me to produce material, since I can delude myself into thinking that I’m not entirely responsible for the narrative, if it ends up not as good as I envisioned. Which isn’t to say I won’t give all I have to make it work and be enjoyable. My problem is over-thinking things, only starting to write when I have every single detail down. This model forces me to improvise and try to become comfortable without being in perfect control, which may be just what I need.

I had promised myself I would start putting things up on the 21st of December, for a kind of obvious internet reference. However, a few things, not least of which my self-doubt (which only decided to give me some space with the help of some great friends’ support), got in the way. But now here it is. I have already delineated most of the main events of the story and the first page is already up. I hope you’ll at least give it a chance and, if you can espy a chance at potential, spread the word around.

For that reason, this site may have to double as a development blog, so be on the look out for tidbits and notices here. I already know how the story, if it gets enough wind to get there, will end, but it’s with the twists and turns that you readers will help me. That will possibly present an amazing journey for both you and me.

Diaspora

Night at the rim was a cold one. Sometimes, it was like a good drink. It started cold and thought-provoking until it filled you up inside, it warmed you, it made you aware of what was home. Other times, it went down clawing its way through, leaving a sour taste, deep remorse and dirtying the sidewalk. Life in the rim was as simple as it was dangerous, just like the best beverages.

The raggedy cloth was made to spread the filth, not clean it. I grab the nearest glass, the dim light of the bar can just about read the dirty inscription on its bottom. No self-respecting bar in the rim was actually clean. It would intimidate the good customers. And the best customers were the ones that no one else would welcome, the outcasts. Those like me.

You hear a lot of stories when you are a barkeep, and you quickly learn to stay out of other’s businesses. It’s a survival thing. In the rim, you keep your head down and you spread the filth out of those glasses. But sometimes, hearing the tales of woe of clients is your only source of entertainment. You can barely understand the phrases, but the tale therein lives on. Life in the rim is diverse and all stories find their way sooner or later to my bar. Their stories help me forget just like the alcohol inebriates these fools. It’s a reciprocal relationship.

I know, though, as soon as the man enters the bar, that my introspection would be tested. He comes purposefully to the bar, making more eye contact than any other customer would care to make. His clothes were odd and you must understand the severity of that statement. My bar welcomes people from all over the rim, that means a bunch of different fashions, several of which I can’t even begin to understand. But this is a bar, no one cares what you wear as long as you wear something. News travels fast these days, even all the way out here, but in varying speeds. I see people wearing what I imagine is the latest trend sharing a drink with someone that dresses like my grandfather used to. But as soon as that man showed up, I realized a sudden change of atmosphere on the place. No one stopped talking and the music didn’t stop playing, but there was something different. The conversations were more hushed now, the music didn’t seem to have the same flair. The man wore spurs and a black hat, two silver bullets attached to it by a ribbon. I kept wondering how he could have found such old apparel. Bullets? Who even had those anymore? The trench coat was a bit much, I thought. But the noise of his spurs kept everyone on edge. Nothing like an obvious bounty hunter to bring a room down. I hate it when they are sober.

“What can I get you, sir?” My voice was certain. I returned the cold look with a warm one. Two can play this game.

“Information. I hear you have a regular by the name of Tryles.”

“No one here says their real name.”

“I know you know him and I need to talk to him. You’ll tell me where he is.”

I tried to suppress the chuckle, I did. But kids nowadays are too arrogant. The signal was for Zack, the muscle I keep around for rainy days and hustling barrels. We don’t need to make this into something it isn’t. Overeager bounty hunters are as easy to come by as they are to be dealt with.

“I keep the habit of only talking to customers, you see. Can’t have the pleasure of my company for free. Or you think people come down here for the liquor?” Arrogant, I know. But in my experience, most of these in-your-face outsiders can only be met with an arrogant counterattack. 

“I’m done with your games, old man” 

The cold metal of the pistol reflects the liquid in my glass.

“You’re an outer rim boy, aren’t you?” He can barely contain his widening eyes.

“What makes you say that?” Bad actor.

“Outer rim bars are outdated. You can’t shoot in here. Dampeners.” It works. The man ponders and visibly gives up. He’s making it too easy.

“Alright. Give me something.”

“Haha. I’ll not hold that responsibility. Choose something.”

“How about a Blue Wahl?”

“Sure thing.” The douche drink was already half-way done when he finally said it. Good. He couldn’t read the bottom of the glass. Would’ve been odd, out of context.

“Now tell me about Tryles.”

“You’re his brother, right?”

The silence is answer enough.

“You look like him, down to the same drink.”

“So you do know him. God damn it, old man! Is he gone?” The drink spills while his wide-eyes survey the bar.

“Don’t worry, he’s not been here today.”

“Tell me where he is!”

“None of my business really, but I have been where you are.”

“Old-timer, I don’t care about your story. Where’s my brother?”

“He’ll be here later. But are you really thinking about killing him?”

His poker face could use a little work.

“Don’t worry, I don’t know that. I can read it in you. Used to be a ‘hunter myself, lifetime ago.”

“Uh… really? Why did you quit?”

“Hah! Come back in a few years and ask me that again.”

“Whatever. You said you’ve been in my shoes…”

“Hired to hunt a relative that made too many wrong choices… It doesn’t matter what you say, it’s not simply pulling the trigger.”

He had become silent now, way too focused on his drink. He wasn’t going anywhere.

“The Galaxy was another place back then, you either smuggled or hunted. Otherwise, you’d starve. Law enforcement only really worked for the big guys. And sometimes not even for them, with the right kind of money. Everyone’s a bounty hunter, one way or the other. It is just a matter of price. My price didn’t have zeroes in it, though.

Back then, life in the Core could get harder than in the farthest planets of the Outer Rim. Politics took precedence over everything, even people. Even my wife. And it is simple, too easy, to break a person, to make him resort to the worst, to realize the worst in him. And once he realizes vengeance won’t bring her back, won’t numb the pain, he’ll keep on hunting. Because by then, it’s all he knows how to do, isn’t it? And each job numbs you more, makes life bearable a little more. Until comes a contract for another relative of yours, and the relationship between you two feels so far away, stored beneath years of painkillers. And you tell yourself you have to do it, it’s a job, and he probably deserves it. But you know you’re no different than him. Your brother took to drinking and ended up from drug to drug, looking for something to fill the void left by your mother’s death, your father’s absence. Your drug was different, but just as addictive.

People today often think that Bounty Hunting is a glamorous profession. They force themselves to not think about the blood and the lies and the awful cleaning up. They see in movies and think that bounty hunting is about looking cool and spewing cliches. But after every job, when all the flair and imposingness of the profession wears thin and you realize there’s nothing really attractive about it… that’s when you realize that one day it will all catch up to you and whatever you did, you’ll have to live with it.”

At that point, leaving him to ponder with his drink seemed the best move. He was in his last drops, after all, and there’s nothing more thought-provoking than an empty glass. I’m sure it will help that he’ll read beneath the glass the words “You’ll have to live with it”.

Another old one while I make sense of some things. This was yet another story developed to try and flesh out a science fiction setting with my cousin. I don’t really like how this one came out, maybe someday I’ll revisit it.

There once was a Time Traveler

Who through time ran sensibler

For when in the future

Got back like a vulture

Making money as a fortuneteller

Just something I cooked up while thinking about how to progress on a particularly tricky part of my latest story. I can not vouch for the quality of these poems, it is my first time trying my hand at limerick, after all. But it is something to fill the void while I finish my latest story, I guess. Here’s a variant: 

There’s a man who with time messes

Of the future never confesses

For when in the past

Shifts the facts so fast

It changes the whole of the verses.

Around me, the city lies in shambles. The blast knocked out a few buildings, cars are just piles of molten metal tossed around the street. There’s no sound but a high-pitched noise that pierces my brain. There’s movement on the edge of my vision, but all is blurred. The sky seems to be made of lava.

The academy taught us how to proceed in a situation like this, how to assess the situation. To look for the probable point of origin of the blast, to realize if anyone else was hit, to shake off the trauma and shock and worry about getting the civilians out of danger all the while trying to look for suspicious people and being prepared for a second hit.

But no amount of VR training could prepare anyone for the real deal. The high-pitch subsides slowly. Charred concrete and entire sections of buildings block the street. It takes a while for me to hear the screams and the crying, someone is sobbing near me as my vision starts to fade. 

Looking into the ashen sky stretches my senses, I feel like I see all of creation. The stupidity of ants afraid of life itself, lashing out on whatever they think invades their turf. Inconsequential brats insensitive to the sacrifices made to keep what we now have. In times like these, while patrolling above the streets of New Fakhar, it feels so long ago, I used to wonder if trying to protect this decay was worth it, if things like these weren’t inevitable. I feel like I’m freezing, as much physically as emotionally. It seems ironic when I look at the red reflections in the towers of smoke. I feel the tears further blurring my vision, my eyes contemplating firmament. Somehow, the burning sky reminds me of the sunrises of old.

I’m trying to keep a weekly update and I had idealized an update plan of alternating random short stories I have lying around with the ones I’m working on for the 100-theme challenge. But this week I ended up not finishing the story I’m working on for the challenge, so I’ve decided to bin the whole notion. Enjoy another quick story.

“You know, people think that in this age of information and starships, that novels no longer have any importance. I read a paper one of these days saying that ‘we already live in a sci-fi life, why would we need the fiction if we have it all right here in real life?’. I laughed for a solid 15 minutes. Really. We spread ourselves through a whole galaxy, at least three planets overpopulated. we have a massive system linking all that. That means a enormous database of information and a uninterrupted flux of information from trillions of different sources every second. We are devastated by information, overwhelmed by it in ways we couldn’t even have dreamed of just a few years back. And people think that’s fine. That it’s easy to cope with that, that life is too complex and big to waste away with books, specially what the unbelievably consumerist society of ours demands of books. But people forget the values of escapism, specially for people of today. Books are more complex than ever, granted, but they simplify the complexity of our lives. They give us structure, they guide our thoughts that would otherwise be scattered around billions of areas.

But writing today is a nearly impossible feat. Much research is needed to give your story verisimilitude. Which brings us to our present situation. Because you see, I’m writing a book. It tells the tale of a serial killer with a deep message, that sort of thing. He kills one of each species and race, nothing more, nothing less, across the galaxy. Nobody pays any mind to it, of course, until a incorruptible cop starts to become suspicious of the apparently random killings. It’s still fiction, of course. I can write about a incorruptible being, because it’s what we all would like to be or to believe exists. The book brings all kinds of discussions about racism, specism and the impact of non-ordinary events on the lives of a crumbling empire that encompasses a galaxy and far surpasses the lives of a few naturally doomed.

Research, you understand. Hey, hey. Don’t cry. It won’t hurt, I swear. Look at it as you making a sacrifice so that no one else of your kind dies by my hands.

All in the name of art.”

Well, it’s wondrous what a few kind words can do to someone’s confidence. Thanks to the feedback of a few people, I’ve decided to draw a new yet flimsy stop to my silence. This story is part of an universe-building project I started with my cousin (960018) but sadly ended up archiving. I’ll post some of the stories that were generated from that, at least one every week.

Until then, gape at an assortment of sublime imagery.