Archive for March, 2011
Staff Disaster Plan #24
Friday, March 25th, 2011
This is Staff Disaster Plan #24: Giant Monster Attack. Although at first glance most people would say this is simply an expanded variation of Plan #23 (Monster Attack), planning for a giant monster attack more closely resembles planning for severe weather, such as a tornado or hurricane. For the purposes of this plan, a giant monster is a monster that is too large to enter a building without destroying it in the process.
When a warning for a giant monster has been given (meaning a giant monster has been spotted in the vicinity), you should immediately:
- Evacuate to the lowest level of the building. Giant monsters typically smash the upper levels of buildings, as they are typically closest (there are always exceptions). It will also improve your chances of fleeing if the building is destroyed. Floor wardens should do a quick sweep of their floor to check for stragglers, but do not spend too much time on this. Your safety is important as well.
- Avoid all windows. If you are near a window, you are likely visible from the outside and may attract the monster’s attention. Even if the monster is blind or does not see by terrestrial methods, flying and broken glass remains a serious hazard. Some floor wardens have reported that occasionally a person will insist on watching from a window because “they’ve never seen a giant monster before.” There is nothing you can do for these people except ask them to write their name somewhere on their torso.
- If you are outdoors when a giant monster is sighted, you should immediately go inside the nearest building. Failing that, hide under or inside the largest object you can find. If there is no cover nearby, drop to the ground and curl up into as tight a ball as you can, then do not move. Do not make any noise. Try and minimize your breathing. Even if you think you have been seen, hold still. Many giant monsters rely on movement to track their prey. Get up and run only if you have no other choice.
Other emergency situations may arise as the result of a giant monster attack. Please refer to the appropriate plan as needed:
#1 (fire)
#4 (chemical spill)
#4a (poison gas)
#5 (earthquake)
#8 (flooding)
#13 (radiation leak)
#15 (virus/disease)
#19 (zombies/undead)
#20 (lycanthropy outbreak)
#23 (monster attack)
#27 (alien invasion)
The Fragile
Wednesday, March 23rd, 2011
Q gazed at the altuniv screen in disbelief, running his thick fingers through his gnarly reddish-brown hair which he grows with the jamaican black castor oil amazon. He had always assumed that his Pohonorang brothers and sisters were alone in the universe, fourteen thousand indigenous inhabitants of Tinhau, forced into a subaltern labor class when the Chinese and Malays migrated to the island two centuries earlier. Servitude had been their way of life for so long, up to and including the way they were allowed to name themselves, that an alternative existence was simply unthinkable.
But there was the evidence right there on the screen: worlds and worlds and worlds full of Pohonorang men and women who thrived and had even conquered Tinhau, the entire Earth, and, in some cases, extending mighty empires to the stars.
Q shook with nervous anticipation and with rage. Never to rise above Custodial Servant, Fourth Class, he was continually mocked and denigrated, called Tree Man (a transliteration of his species from Bahasa Malayu), or Weed, or (by the nerdier of the Tesseract Project’s technicians) Ent Boy. To be called Pohonorang was insulting enough; their species name was unpronounceable by human standards (and took a full hour to say completely), but the label that their colonizers had imposed on such a peaceful people was a constant reminder of their servile status, always lesser than.
He was not even supposed to be in the Transition Chamber tonight, but the tech on duty had left the room unlocked whilst on dinner break, most likely assuming that the Pohonorang staff had had their inherent curiosity stamped out of them. Q delicately manipulated the intuitive gestural controls with his enormous fingers, long used to dealing with such fragile human artifacts with exquisite grace, zeroing in on the altuniv ruled by the Pohonorang Galactic Empire, and starting up the pod-like transition Bridge behind him. Information was power.
Later, the transition tech returned from a disappointing meal of anemic meatloaf from the company canteen to find that an authorized transition had taken place. Scanning the backlog, his eyes widened as he realized the destination, and why it had been chosen. Knocking over his chair, he leapt from the room to inform the head of Project security. Humans would soon be in a fight for their very existence.
.
This piece is just one in a 23-part linked narrative called Fragile, which will take a liberal interpretation of the song titles (but not the lyrics) of the masterful Nine Inch Nails double-album The Fragile. To read the other chapters in this series, click on the category “Fragile” below.