Archive for the ‘David Kopaska-Merkel’ Category
Oh yeah, THAT chicken
Tuesday, May 26th, 2009
“Get off the counter!” The chicken fluttered onto the dining-room table. I shooed it toward the outside door, but it flew back to the pass-thru. It pecked at the formica. Then it looked at me.
“These pastel boomerangs are so 50’s.”
“Shut up!” I pulled the cleaver off the magnet bar beside the sink. Me and the chicken, we had a history.
“Are you pondering what I’m pondering?” it asked.
“I think so,” I replied, “but you need two witnesses for a legal will, and we’re alone here.”
An echidna wearing a magenta cape leaped from behind the fridge. “That’s where you’re wrong!” it shrieked.
I jumped. I hadn’t expected the echidna. But then, nobody does. I advanced on the chicken, keeping one eye on the echidna, which made menacing gestures with its forepaws. The wind was picking up, and there was a lot of trash in the air. Wind? Indoors? The anteater laughed crazily.
“Kinda slow on the uptake,” the chicken remarked. “Your housekeeping leaves a lot to be desired,” it added. “And your leap was more a stumble” it said to the echidna. At this point paper was knee deep on the kitchen floor and I couldn’t get into the dining room. I backed out into the hall and went around the other way. However, the dining room doorway was stuffed to the top with shredded paper. I could hear the chicken ranting about clashing paint colors and crooked paintings.
I went outside to call 911.
Darrell Crosby answered. We went to high school together. He married Melissa Echols, a girl I’d had a crush on for years. But I didn’t hold it against him. Not considering how things turned out. I mean, I knew she was an animal lover, but that girl went way too far. There should’ve been a law. Heck, there used to be a law. Bottom line, I knew Darrell would be on my side.
“I’d love to help you, Ted. You know how I feel about them. But my hands are tied as long as they don’t hurt anyone. They didn’t hurt you, did they,” he asked hopefully.
“Couple paper cuts. But they’re occupying my house! At least my dining room. Am I supposed to eat standing up?”
“What part of ‘I can’t freaking arrest them’ don’t you get?”
“You won’t do anything.”
“Can’t.” He hung up.
I hate these stupid animal superheroes, but I hate Critical Chicken the most.
end
Data Note: A recently recovered Principalian stasis object
Tuesday, May 19th, 2009
Author: Network ArEG
A small [12K] damaged data file, proton-coded using a simple variant of Sless26’s Algorithm, was found in a stasis module of Principalian age. This was the only surviving item in the module. The code format was previously unknown, but maximum-parsimony analysis suggests it is close to the root of Sless26, rather than a derived form. A transcript of the file’s contents follows.
—
“The Kielbasa Machete,” by Sycamore Hudson, is a deceptively simple novel of sophont trafficking on a decaying L-point habitat. Reference to traditional human food and agricultural implements in the book’s title is meant to convey the persistence of cultural artifacts from one society to its successors. The author, an historically referenced construct, was instantiated by IBQ a.u., which first incorporated in the Sol system.
In this, its 6th novel, Hudson continues exploring the world of the Relevancy, a time now more than 3 centuries past. We return to Canis Miner, the mineral-extraction a.u. staffed primarily by uplifted canids. The protagonist of “Riding the GM” returns, but as an elder statesbeing. Helena Malamute-Wong is a VP of CM. The protagonist of TKM is Loh Neptune, a tool designer from the Oort Republic.
Neptune has lost his backup to a bolide that perforated a vault belonging to the First Memory Bank of Centaurus. All he knows about himself comes from the last 2 years. He broke up with his life partner, a felid (!), on their anniversary. Why? He doesn’t know. His quest to recover the romantic ruin that is his life leads him to the most dangerous sections of the habitat, and plunges him into the midst of a shadow economy fueled by ruthless exploitation. Ultimately, he stumbles onto evidence for a plot aimed at the heart of the Relevancy itself, and makes himself a target for every trafficker and kidnap-for-hire ring in the system. And so on.
A good read, TKM is lacking in accuracy: Hudson has bent history in service of plot. For instance, Neptune uncovers evidence of a zygote robbery that included the last 9 frozen humans. These zygotes, if they ever existed, would have been destroyed long before the even1Sq366,#
–end of file–
Analysis of this document has just begun, but it may be a part of the Organic Litsum, thought to have been lost in the Second Nanobreak. Analytical results will be presented at the next Conflex.
end