Typical New Year Guff

Every year, at this time, I tend to do one of these about the new year. Something about looking back at a year, most of them bad so far, and then looking forward to a new year, and some guff about how maybe it'll be good, or more likely about how the coming year will probably be worse, trying to be either right or pleasantly surprised.

And I suppose this is technically more of the same, just without the basic creativity of doing it as a short story.

But I'm just tired. Of this year and just plain sleepy too.

Optic War

He was the hero of the people, the man who was going to single-handedly win us the war, the Captain of our Dreams. His exploits had only needed a slight reworking to become legendary.

He did clear out the entire embankment alone, we just didn't mention the gas bomb dropped moments earlier. Stuff like that.

But then he gets killed by a random squad of grunts on a routine patrol. So we had to finesse that, pump up the numbers.

Unfortunately that just gave the other side more spots to fill up in their Superstar Squad for their own PR.

One Bar Connection

When my old phone came to life and began showing social media that didn't quite line up with reality, I was confused by the error.

Then when it got further apart from what was going on, culminating in a couple of important elections going the other way, I was happy for the escape.

When I saw how that world seemed so much better, I was depressed for obvious reason.

Once every post was about aliens making contact, I was disappointed by missing out.

Then all the posts stopped.

I hope it's just because I've lost connection. But the last posts...

The Hunger

The Hunger could not be sated.

It had existed since time began, an unending need to feast, a being of pure darkness even as the universe around it lit up.

Not that that mattered to The Hunger. The universe and all that dwelled within it were like microscopic specks of detritus, compared to the terrible beauty of The Hunger.

And now, the time was nigh, The Hunger no longer would wait, it would seek out-

"Snookums! Where's my big fluffy ball of cuteness? I've got your din-dins ready!"

The Hunger stretched and padded over to the food bowl to feast.

Catch A Virus

The ground shook with every step the machine took, houses and roads squashed and cracked underneath the alien monstrosity.

Every weapon Humanity had tried had failed, from EMPs to straight out nuking it, large chunks of what was Europe would be uninhabitable for decades. But the machine just kept walking, picking seemingly random items up in its giant claws, staring at it, then crushing them.

No one knows who finally managed to hack in, but the world was saved by that unknown person who linked the machine to wifi.

It was halfway through Humanity's porn when they brought it down.

Post Night Stand

I rolled over, and slowly opened my eyes to find her standing in the middle of the room, quickly throwing on clothing. As she began to spin around, putting on her bra, she noticed I was awake. She gave me a rather strained smile.

"Oh hi, um, look, I'll be honest, I have no recollection of last night and I have no idea who you are, so, yeah, I'm just gonna go."

She threw on a shirt and headed out the door. I gave her a moment, then got up and began to find out where the hell I was.

Crimes Against Nature

Any momentary disorientation when the door was opened was dispelled by the hands pulling me to my feet, and the drumbeats that indicated someone was about to  be executed.

I was honestly surprised it took them this long. I marched along, as my crimes of being 'foreign' and 'unnatural' were read out. I stood against the wall, shaking my head to the offer of a blindfold which was nice, and the offer of a cigarette, which was odd.

Then they shot at me.

I thought they hated me before, but when they found out I was impervious to bullets, man.

Eve's Night

10:57.

I roll over, lay on my side for what feels like hours, then roll back to face the clock.

11:01.

I get up, go get a glass of water, drink it, then go lie back down.

11:09.

I try to count sheep again, get bored at a couple hundred.

11:17.

Get up, go pee, lie back down.

11:21.

Sigh, try to masturbate, fail to get anywhere.

11:43.

Punch pillow and lie down.

11:44.

Stare at clock.

12:01.

I made it.

A full year without her. Without my Eve.

12:02.

Sleep.

The Price We've Paid

Cast the spell, pay the price.

You think crushed diamonds were just for show? To use magic, you gotta give up something. Precious metals and rare items are so often used because without them, the usual price for magic is a part of your soul.

Or rather a soul you have ownership over. Hence the market for demonic traders, and for slaves. It can be someone else's soul, if you own it.

Now, if one were to work out how to fool that process and use anyone's soul...

You noticed how little empathy there is to go around these days?

The REActivate Purloined Engineered Resources Project

Dean shook his writing hand as he stood up. "That has to be it, right?"

The Supervisor looked up from her clipboard.

"You're volunteering to be hardwired into this Neural Alien Total Harness, a device we still don't understand. This procedure has been performed five times now, and resulted in five deaths. There's a lot of paperwork to ensure there's no blowback about number six."

"Whatever."

The procedure only took a few seconds, then the NATH took over, and Dean felt the voice in his head. "Ahhh, now you have potential. Merge with me."

After a moment, DeATH stood up.

Felt Like Hours

Attendance was taken.

1. Secretary Warner confirmed the previous minutes were accurate.

2. The improvement program was reviewed, and the board unanimously agreed it was proceeding acceptably. Brief discussion about possible extended remumeration for the executives in charge was tabled for a later date.

3. After another brief diversion, discussion about upcoming vacancies caused by unforeseen illnesses in the senior staffing levels was undertaken, with the board practically unanimously welcoming the new staff coming into the structure from outside.

4. The improvement program director wished to note their disagreement.

Attendance records to be amended due to removal of former director.

Eccentric Professionals

These pick and mix jobs could be lots of fun, as long as the clients hired the eccentric professionals. As I met the break and enter specialist on top of the target museum, I tested the waters.

"Man, cold huh? I bet you could cut glass with my nipples!"

I got a blank stare back from her, and I sighed. Then she turned to the skylight and yanked down her shirt.

"Uh... That's just a-"

She rose back up and showed me the diamond stud on her nipple piercing, then got back to work.

So that was a promising start.

The Careful Bureaucrat

The bureaucrat had spent over a decade hearing every single sob story. Every day was another tale of woe and distress. Every day was the same questions, the same dedication to focus on the actually relevant issues at hand, namely the correct forms.

In all that time, there was only one story that really got to him. One person that his heart really went out to. A young woman, within a year of getting married, lost her parents, her husband, her home, her unborn child.

He helped her. And then her case was the one audited.

He's more careful now.

Unfortunate Reaction

Solstar found Glory sitting on the roof of the Custodian HQ, a piece of paper in her hands.

As he sat, she silently held the paper out to him. He took it and quickly read the hurried handwritten letter.

"This..."

"A fan letter. From a young techie who just developed a new kinetic energy feedback device. She wants to be a superhero just like me.

Maybe if I'd answered this, then Lowbridge would still be standing."

"Her reaction to your action isn't your fault."

"Except I would have maybe understood what she was before I attacked."

His silence spoke volumes.

Stationary Orbit

So after the sixth satellite went offline, a drone was sent up.  It found the cannibalized satellites, with a dead cyborg inside them, along with lots of strange technology.

They brought it down, and after some reverse engineering, our tech level jumped forward a century.

So much so that a few years later we made the first attempt at time travel. They were very careful not to use a cyborg test pilot.

The only message we got back from him was a few weeks after his arrival, which mentioned he'd had to replace body parts.

Temporal engineers are still arguing.

The Great Realignment

As a Third Bishop of Laka these past ten years, I'd gotten good at the Daily Sacrifices. My cuts were clean, my smoke thick, my chanting quite beautiful, if I said so myself.

But then came the Great Realignment. Laka, while remaining infallible, had to appeal to a modern congregation. The Daily Sacrifices were no longer necessary.

I was an almost forgotten outland missionary. And this locals didn't follow Laka, but liked the smells and sounds, so I kept doing them.

Thus, I was saved from Laka's Curse.

Unless it really was a disease that spread quickly through populated areas.

Her Big Heart

She always had a big heart. Every day she would spend some time working for a charity, being a supportive voice for people in need, or sometimes even just giving me attention and support that I probably didn't deserve. She's the reason I took the plunge and made my artistic statements. She supported me every step, even when certain people online started coming after me. Then one of them tracked me down and opened fire on us. Maybe she could have survived taking the bullet for me, it was shallow into her chest cavity, but she had a big heart.

Losing The Plot

On some level I did appreciate the effort to disguise the bad news behind lots of long words. But for the most part I was just angry with this banker in his ill-fitting suit and cracked glasses taking away my family's farm.

As he stood there, holding out a pen and waiting for me to sign my life away, my hand slowly clenched into a fist. He noticed.

"You... You wouldn't hit a man with glasses, would you?"

"You ain't no man."

I swung.

So not only did I lose the farm, the cracked lens took my finger off too.

The Question Of Our Meeting

The very first thing she ever said to me was 'Fuck?'.

Now, if that had an offer, I probably would have come up with a less awkward story to retell of our meeting.

Had I swore in the preceding few moments, it could be acceptable as the start of her making me a better person or something.

It'd be sweet, with a bit of an edge, if she hadn't known English at the time.

Plenty of possible options for contexts that would be interesting. It being her offering input as to a possible answer for a trivia question, that's boring.

Next Level

About twenty different unreplicable things occurred at once, and I found myself no longer strapped into the test craft but instead sprawled out across what I assumed was a floor. I looked up, and saw a three dimensional shadow of a six dimensional being. This somewhat distracted me, and I don't know how much time passed, assuming that was a concept that was still relevant, before I heard the being speak, and then the apparently actually replicable things reoccur and I came back, that one sentence somehow recognizable in my mind.

"I put in the wrong cheat code, I guess..."

My Master's Words

It was the first sword I made, and it was barely a weapon. My master told me to keep it, so in later years I could see how far I had come.

But after my master died, I sold it to a random drunk for enough gold for a bed for the night.

Turned out he was drunk because he was passed over for the King's Body for his brother. He challenged him to a duel, and my sword shattered and killed his brother in a fluke.

Now my new master wants me to make more shattering swords.

Any ideas?

'Die Hard' As A Christmas Movie

Look, I get it. You can't just set a movie in December and toss in 'White Christmas' and have a Christmas movie. You have to have the morals and the themes to have one.

You gotta be about how family is important, about how friends, even new ones, can be family. Something about how money and things are nice but not the true meaning of the season, heck, maybe even something about how empty proclamations of morality aren't as good as true belief. And lots of red splashes.

And since 'Die Hard' has all of those, it's a Christmas movie.

The Scientific Method

The discovery of reliable fusion power, followed quickly by the first FTL drive, was a boon for Humanity not just on the obvious level of seeing to all our basic needs, but also it expanded our scope of scientific research exponentially.

Now we could go visit black holes and examine them up close. We could instigate a supernova to measure it at all stages of development. Now we could drill all the way through a planet and see what happens.

Yes, in doing so we unleashed an ancient evil, but we learnt so much during the aftermath, totally worth it.

The Need To Be Alien

So I knew that for the world to accept he was an Alien, when we went public he'd need to be more, well, Alien. Physical similarities were one thing, but he sounded human and 'normal', I had to change that. It took a little while but he eventually understood, and we began to brainstorm an affect for him.

His first idea was to be dismissive towards a group, calling us all 'females' or some such. I had to explain how people did that already.

Once he heard that, he got really offended I said his was normal for some reason.

Find Statement

I had asked for the files, so I could find the witness statement I needed, but I had been expecting an email with a cloud link, rather than boxes that looked twenty years old and smelt forty years old, filled with unsorted loose-leaf papers.

I'd pulled plenty of all-nighters at school, and I knew exactly how to prepare. Before I'd looked at one page I preordered food to be delivered every few hours, bought a dozen energy drinks, and had bedding sorted for power napping.

I found the statement within five minutes.

The office loved the free food next morning.

Turn, Turn, Turn

Revolutions are a tricky thing to control. Starting one is easy enough if you have enough time, or power, or influence. But they tend to take on lives of their own, as people get emotional and unpredictable.

You may want to move the needle a few places, and you may be able to handle it moving a quarter turn, but far too many revolutions end up spinning the wheel round and round, where it stops nobody knows.

Unless, of course, you own the wheel.

Until it gets chopped up and used as firewood to burn the wheelowners of the world.

The Clean Cowpoke

They call him the Clean Cowpoke round these parts. He turned up the day the government opened up the land to be claimed, his clothing as spotless as his cash. He convinced a few other settlers to sell their land. And then he vanished.

He turned up a year later, same clothes, still spotless, just before the sherriff foreclosed.

Then again, just in time, three years later.

Then five after that.

Every time spotless and just in time, ain't aging either.

Something's gonna happen on that land, and I...

Wait, that's him!

He ain't in danger of losing...

Oh dear.

The Worst Day Of My Life

It was the worst day of my life.

My alarm failed to wake me, and by the time I was running out the door I had a cut on my face and what I later learned was a broken toe.

I was not fired immediately when I got to work. I worked for most of a terrible shift before I put a foot through the ceiling, then I got fired

As I was escorted out, I tripped and slammed into a woman on the street.

And since she's my wife now, it was also the best day of my life.

Loose Translation

She didn't speak English, and I didn't recognize the other language scrawled in tiny matching columns on several loose pages she gripped tightly in her hands.

The conversation was slow and simple, as without any seeming order to her list, I tried to stick to simple questions.

Her name was Mitka.

She came from far, but attempting to get a name just resulted in confusion.

She came here because fighting. Many fighting.

Did she have family, friends, anything here? She just kept pointing to the only two word phrase in the list.

Help, please.

'No' was on the list, thankfully.

Walk After

Just one more mile.

How long had I been traveling? How many miles had I walked, every step one more towards my goal? Too long, too many, but finally it was going to be over.

Half a mile now.

The key hung around my neck, a reminder with every step of the promise my father made me after the end, before he died. That he had planned for, well not this, but something like it.

A hundred feet or so.

Find the rocks in a circle, pull back the tarp.

Find an already ransacked bunker.

Sigh.

Get back to walking.

Seep

There was an attack on the castle by mercenaries hired by the Royal Court of Woodglen. Under cover of, well, covered wagons they broke in and headed for the royal chambers.

They fought their way to the King's chambers, losing most of their numbers but one did break in and manage to take off his hand before he was cut down.

The King's stump was covered in hot tar as soon as they were able, but while the King survived the tar seeped into his blood and changed him.

At least to his own people, Woodglen didn't notice a change.