Archive for June, 2010
Connected / Chapter 1: Transitions
Friday, June 4th, 2010
AUTHOR’S NOTE: The following is the first chapter of an ongoing flash serial, “Connected.” Search for the tag “Connected” to find other chapters. Subscribe to the Daily Cabal RSS feed for a new chapter every 2 weeks.
Every man has his tribe. Home. Work. Streams of consciousness flooding in. No man is an island. Even in the dark of the night, dreams stream in. Everyone, everything… connected.
Except for these moments. These transitions. Tribe to tribe. Home to work. Family, friends, all-access celebrities, blinked away. Alone. Isolated. David Morello–just a sack of meat waiting.
But only for a moment. The system dials, reconnects. His feed swallowed, disseminated, reconstructed. Detective David Morello. NYPD tribe.
Macros pilot his meatsack to its desk but he’s already got a homicide request. There is a moment of disorientation as the on-scene detective’s visual feed obliterates his own.
A man on a bed. As if asleep. Except his eyes. Black ruins that ran down his cheeks. Crisped flesh at the edges.
“Morello patched in,” he says.
“Chambers,” comes back a hard nasal voice. “My ‘sack’s on-scene. John Doe. Dead on my arrival. Fried.” Chambers pulls up images from the crime lab mainframe. Twisted cranial wiring. Morello asks the AIs in research to cross-reference them.
“Too much heat,” Chambers says. One more image. Graphic.
“We know what the Doe was connected to?” Morello asks. Known harmful feeds, or downloaded malware will cut the case time.
“That’s just it,” said Chambers. Diagnostics begin scrolling down the shared feed. “He wasn’t connected at all.”
No. Morello denies it. The thought of it. It is as if he is suddenly alone. Suddenly in the dark. In that yawning moment of disconnection stretching out, out, out. No feeds. A man alone. Quaking, Knowing this is the last transition. Life to death. Just a sack of meat.
#
He cuts the police feed. Dials his home tribe. His kids, his wife. Sensations wash over him, through him: puzzling over a math problem, over a recipe for stew, watching an ass track down the street.
#
Back. The murder scene. NYPD tribe.
“Thought I lost your feed,” Chambers says.
Again, the fear. But weaker now. John Doe’s problem, not his,
He gets Chambers to flip the corpse over and sees the burn mark. Suicide. Overcharged himself. Morello isn’t surprised. Disconnected… alone… No man is an island. He is either buoyed up by others, or he drowns.
Morello posts his report. He watches the feeds of those who read it. All of them sharing the knowledge. All of them, through him, connected.
Crossing the Streams: A Universal Traveler’s Guide to Public Urinal Etiquette
Thursday, June 3rd, 2010
Attention Human:
1. Idle chatter is discouraged. If you must talk while whizzing, stick with safe topics such as the exchange rates of galactic currencies. Avoid referencing the weather with terms like “pissing down.” Never talk about sports. Trust us.
2. No matter how appetizing it may be, the toilet cookie (urinal cake/deodorizor block in some sectors) is not a dessert item. Note that this will not stop certain species from eating it.
3. Some reptilian races may compliment and/or challenge you by releasing their urine in your direction. Remember that while pissing off an alien is generally a bad idea, pissing on an alien is, sometimes, necessary to your survival.
4. Do not put foreign objects in the urinal. Galactic restroom sanitation services have the technology to tag your items and send them back to you via rapid teleportation. You do not want this.
5. Don’t use your communicator to update your status or whereabouts, even if using less than 140 characters. It makes you look like a douchebag.
6. We realize the urge to look at your neighbors’ equipment is strong. Resist this urge, especially on rimworlds. Nothing is a faster weenie shrinker than close inspection by three dozen purple eyeballs.
7. Pointing and laughing will usually result in death.
8. Whistling and humming can often be taken as sexual come-ons. Unless you are into that sort of thing, keep your mouth closed and save that rendition of “It’s a Small World After All” for when you’re alone.
9. Do not smoke. Some species expel gases which are much more silent and deadly than you can imagine. And just because you haven’t smelt it doesn’t mean someone hasn’t dealt it.
10. Wash your hands. Push the button clearly marked “soap” as all other cleansers will melt your flesh. When drying, we suggest the lowest possible setting unless your insurance covers emergency limb replacement.
Keep these tips in mind and you’ll make it out of the bathroom alive.
This has been a service of the non-profit organization Not All Humans Are Dumbasses.
Let’s work together to make humanity look good – but not so good that they eat us!