Gold, And A Place To Spend It

The Court Wizard ran into my room, his robe covered in burn marks.

"I need your list of the best mercenaries we know, the world is at stake!"

I paused as I reached for the right scroll.

"Shouldn't I get the list of heroes of the realm?"

He shook his head.

"No, they're liable to throw their lives away in some heroic sacrifice and end up screwing everything up. Those who work for money are motivated to keep going so they can spend it! And this creature surely doesn't understand commerce!"

And it didn't, but it did understand illusion creation.

First, Second, Third

I woke up with an empty tequila bottle in my hand, a pounding pain in my head, and the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen in my bed.

I quietly dropped the first and tried to stop the second so I could try to remember how the third came to be.

I presumed the first was responsible for the second, but could it really explain the third?

If the third was the reason the first was empty though, that would explain it.

The third then opened her eyes and spoke.

"Hey handsome. Ready for round four?"

That raised further questions.

Faster Higher Deader

As far international assassin teams went, they had the best backstory by far.

The Coach had spies in every country's Olympic team, keeping track of every tryst, hook up, and orgy in every Olympic village.

Despite the publicised numbers on condoms, there was always a bunch that threw caution to the wind.

And the resulting outcomes were the peak of human physical ability, The Coach getting them and transplanting them when they were dealt with, then training them as Assassins.

It was a useful backstory, as anyone who fell for it was clearly too stupid to be doing business with. 

Communication

The problem with sending messages is that you need to be sure the other end understands you.

And not even just the contents of the message, but the fact that a message is being sent at all. To you, an upside down flag is the internationally recognised symbol for a ship in distress. To the yacht, you're just as drunk as they are.

Far too many possible connections are lost because the two sides aren't working with the same information.

So, to change the subject entirely, there's a pulsar that is pulsing at exactly even regular intervals, right towards Earth.

Reasons For Being Brought Along

She crossed her arms as he prepared to blow the door to the vault.

"I really didn't have to come!"

He shook his head.

"There are three reasons I need you here."

He blew the door, revealing a room full of lasers.

"Reason one: I clearly need your athletic ability to get the loot."

She sighed, and flipped through the lasers, grabbing the thumb drive and coming back out. As she got there, she then saw a guard coming towards them.

"Reason two: Your seductive ability."

She approached the guard, only realising reason three was her disposability far too late.

Uncertainty

He finished explaining his theory, as I stared at the device in his hand.

"So let me see if I have this straight."

"Please do."

"Your theory is that teleportation requires you to cheat Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, and by making it that neither position nor velocity of your molecuar structure is known, you can then transport to any other location, do I have your basic idea right?"

"Basically, yes, although you're glossing over important details. But enough talk, to the future!"

He pressed the button, and suddenly vanished.

I think when the universe lost track of him, so did he. 

The Oasis

She lived at the oasis in the desert, most days and nights being dull. But occasionally, there was a passing caravan, to which she offered goods and services.

But even more rarely, a lost traveller would crawl into the oasis, desperate and near death, having been separated from their travelling partners.

She would care for them, giving them water, food, medical attention, whatever they required to get back to something resembling health.

At which point she'd wait for another caravan, and then sell the traveller to them as a good and/or service, depending on the traveller and the caravan. 

Mrs Chen Next Door

I asked her what she wanted from the shop.

She burst into tears.

I was stunned, but after a moment, I asked what the matter was.

She cried harder.

I sighed, sat down, and waited for her to calm down.

She eventually calmed down.

I repeated the question about the matter, and what it was.

She told me I would not understand.

I asked her to try me anyway.

She explained about the fight she had with her husband the previous night, about the context of their marriage, and what she feared for in the future.

I did not understand.

Ancient Treasures

I was kidnapped from my dig in the halted construction work in the small city and dragged out to middle of the jungle, to an admittedly shockingly well preserved temple from the 6th century. I was the 'expert on this shit' that they wanted to steal.

They forced me to translate and find and disarm the traps leading into the inner vault.

Given they didn't want to listen to my warnings, I just focused on documenting what I found, until we got into the vault.

Where again, I explained how valuable aluminium and pepper was in ancient society like this.

Point Of Contention

"STOP!"

Despite my attempt to prevent it, the sound of a car and a brick wall having a disagreement about where each other was filled the air.

I slowly approached the point of contention, hoping to find that the wall had defended their point well. But instead, I found that it had been forced to concede a lot of points and had pretty much lost the argument.

As I silently debated the best way to deal with this, she wound down her window and glared.

"Why didn't you warn me, you stupid idiot?"

Another point of contention had clearly arisen. 

True Power

I learnt from my first teacher that true power was having a good gun, a steady hand, and enough ammo.

I learnt from my second teacher that true power was having enough men (or women or whatever) who'd do what you said, no questions asked.

I learnt from my third teacher that true power was controlling the board, no matter how many players and pieces there were.

I learnt from my fourth teacher that true power was the ability to survive, thrive, no matter what happened on the board.

I learnt from my fifth teacher nothing before I shot them.

Sent Up

We passed each other on the stairs every morning. Him going up, me going down.

I built up a pretty clear picture of him from those passings. The obvious stuff was easy, the fact he was usually running upwards meant he exercised, the running shirt with the company fun run participant logo told me who he worked for, stuff like that.

Then the smaller stuff, the wedding ring, the broken nose, they started filling in the picture.

Of course, given that I had gone out of my way to give him false clues about me, maybe I was totally wrong.

Step 8

The procedure was hammered into every new trainee. No-one was allowed out on a run unless they could recite every step forwards, backwards, numerically, alphabetically, and every other way the instructors could think to ask.

Despite this, I found that when I was out with some kid on their first run, I had to watch them like a hawk. Half of them would fuck up.

You'd think it would always be on step 8, when it came time to shoot the target. But the guy who messed up step 12, forgetting the cash, that was a guy I worried about.

Escaped

When the chance came to escape, I took it.

Many years later, my daughter got out, and she didn't immediately hunt me down. I took this to mean that she didn't love me (because she didn't find me to hug me), nor did she hate me (because she didn't find me to stab me).

So I just kept going, until by sheer dumb luck we ran into each other.

And then she told me that she thought I was dead, because that's what her mother told them when I vanished.

She then gave me a hug.

And then stabbed me.

Over Done

The idea that people are complex and multifaceted is an obvious point that doesn't need to be made.

Except some people really are simple and straightforward, in both good and bad ways.

The idea that you can't love can survive any barrier or hardship is not so much obvious as it's just hammered home by so much media over so much time that it doesn't need to be said.

Except there are some hardships that irrecoverably alter what love can be, and others shouldn't be overcome.

So, with that said, my stupid now ex-girlfriend is sitting in jail right now.

Just A Friend

In order to analyse the spell, she said she needed to ask a friend, which she did by opening a tear in the air, a giant eye staring through. She held up the scroll, the eye focused on it, then the tear healed up, a piece of parchment drifting into her hand from where it had been.

"What was that?"

"My friend, he lives outside of existence, sort of."

"Sort of? What do you mean 'sort of'?"

"He lives in a different... Wait, who wrote this spell?"

"I did."

"But he says he did!"

Nice to know your own future.

SURPRISE!

There was going to be a surprise at the end of the night.

Not a marriage proposal, god no. Even if I had thought we were there, I would have dropped hints to gauge her reaction first.

Nor was it a break up. Even if I had concrete evidence she'd have cheated on me, I hated when people made a huge song and dance (sometimes literally) about dumping someone.

No, I was simply going to reveal that I'd won the lottery and was now a multimillionaire.

The surprise turned out to be she did like public dumping, without concrete evidence.

I'm Fucked

I woke up with an alien probe up my ass, and two little grey men staring out a window. I could understand them, somehow, maybe the probe, I dunno.

"I say we just jettison it."

"Oh come on Blorgnac, if this gets investigated, they'll find it floating out here and start asking questions!"

"So we go closer and do it."

"And leave our warp field signature near the wreckage! Come on! We could just eat it."

"I'm on an unintelligent only diet."

I sat up, to see Earth destroyed.

Suddenly getting probed wasn't the worst fucking I'd had that day.

Encounter Tangency

The problem came an hour before the encounter tangency. Everything had been going well until I ran a test check on the stasis field generator.

And it failed.

This was a problem as the stasis field was going to be the only thing stopping the giant asteroid from destroying us in the encounter tangency.

I brought this to the attention of the rest of the crew, who all were convinced it was a mistake, and that it would work when required.

I took their opinion on board, and then had a quick encounter tangency with the nearest escape pod door.

Army Surplus

The lone survivor pushed aside the remains of the armored personnel carrier he had been riding in, slowly rising to his feet.

"What the hell, is he a zombie or something?"

I slapped the shocked solider on the back of his helmet.

"There are plenty of possible explanations for his survival, most of them revolving around sheer luck."

I walked up, slammed the butt of my rifle into his head, knocking him down and then shot him twice in the chest.

I turned around, and then heard it get back up.

"Right, NOW you can start to claim zombieism, maybe." 

From The Desk Of Dr George Bolin

This is the confession of Dr. George Bolin.

I am being held against my will at gunpoint by four men in masks who are insisting I write a false confession for the death of Alicia Booth-Smythe. She died of complications from surgery, but these men wish to put the blame of it on me for unknown reasons.

So, I am writing this note in my usual handwriting style on the assumption that they will force me to redo it so they can read it, so please understand that it is also not true.

Signed,

Dr. Go fuck yourselves Boys fully.

Simplicity

I hated jobs that required split second timing. Give me a closed bar after payday that just needs a shotgun, balaclava, and an intimidating voice. I leave the million dollar casino heists with biosecurity bypasses, guard switching timetables, and a dozen different getaway vehicles to those who care more about knowing they did something hard and 'cool' to the payoff.

That said, there was one time where I appreciated a job like that. Those four guys pulled off an amazing heist, no question.

And then they got robbed by a guy with a shotgun, a balaclava, and an intimidating voice.

Shared

The different friendly messages the app displayed informing me in slightly differing wording that my rideshare was on route had begun to loop.

By the fourth cycle, I was getting frustrated.

By the eighth, I snapped. I went back to the homescreen and opened the more expensive rideshare app.

But then I paused. What if the other one turned up? It was well past the point where I could cancel for free, but still...

Eventually I booked the more expensive one. It arrived quickly.

"Let me just ditch this loser." He explained, pressing a button.

My original booking was cancelled.

Game Class

The suave English spy in the gimmicked tuxedo looked over the cards in his hand at the flamboyant criminal mastermind, who was looking somewhat perturbed that he hadn't won yet.

Finally, he began to lay his cards down one at a time.

"I cast Kelnar's Fireball, which activates and discards your Goblin Security System, forcing me to discard a golden card. I discard Golden Handshake, which gives me 15 points from the General Orders event, which I double with Uncapped Avarice, giving me the win."

The suave English spy was very happy he paid attention in his Game Theory classes. 

Crane Kick

He lifted his arms and one leg up, like that kid in that old movie about kung fu or whatever.

At first, I paused out of shock that someone who try that, then I just let the moment hang as I enjoyed seeing him struggle to stay on one leg.

"So, was this everything you thought it would be? How's your leg, hurting I bet!"

"Come closer and I'll show you!"

I laughed.

"Well, no, because you'll just kick me, that's the point, yes?"

"No."

"No? What is this a punch?"

"No, it's a distraction."

I was kicked from above. 

Getting It

I asked for clarity, for a more clear picture of what was going on, or at least some data so I could try to work out what was happening.

I didn't get it.

I asked for assurance, for a commitment that things would get better, or at least just a reason to believe it wouldn't get any worse.

I didn't get it.

I asked for release, for a end to the pain, or at least a pause, a chance to regain my stability and peace of mind.

Surprisingly, I did get it, but it only made me feel even worse.

A Perfect Arranged Marriage

The marriage was meant to be purely for the sake of the families. One was title and history rich, but had run out of money. The other was full of what was technically new money, but the money came from livery stables and the like, and so it was as old as new money got.

And one family had a daughter, the other had a son. And thus, an arranged marriage of near perfect harmony could occur.

But then the problem came up, when the daughter and son met, and actually fell for each other.

Suddenly they had opinions now...

Locked Room Mystery

The body was found in a windowless room, with no secret psssages, and the door was locked from the inside. But it wasn't a suicide. What happened?

The classic locked room puzzle, which in fiction always has some convoluted solution involving psychoactive drugs or human hair locking ropes that were burned  away.

But in reality, the real locked room mysteries are always a simple case of human error, the door wasn't locked, or it was suicide, or any number of boring solutions. It's never the cool type.

Except for when the room is built quickly around the corpse, quite obviously. 

Docked Stars

I had my head down in my work when she came into my office, a voice speaking from her mobile phone.

"What is this?"

She asked this and held the phone out to me, and I listened, sort of, as I continued to type.

"Simple enough out of the office voicemail message. Bit long, but clear spoken and honest. 2 and a half stars."

"This is your voicemail!"

"I know that. Gave myself half a star for it."

"Why is your phone going straight to voicemail?"

"Because I wanted to be left alone, the failure of which lost 3 stars."

Sliced

He was the last guy in the sharehouse I needed to give me his pizza order. I stuck my head into his room, where he was playing a game on his console.

"I need your pizza order dude, what... Ain't that 'Fantasy Questline Online 4'?"

"Yep."

"I thought you told me it sucks?"

"I did, it does."

"So why are you playing it?"

"You see how my character attacks, just spinning his sword in a circle?"

"Yeah?"

"Look at his name."

"Which... 'Cuisinart'? You're playing for the PUN?"

"It's so good though!"

"Bad game playing worthy?"

"Yes!

Oh, and pepperoni."