Bryna's Blog

It’s one of those things in fiction that if you’re a thief or a con-artist, then at some point you will be offered a score to end all scores. It will be, “the last job”. The thief, or con-artist will bring together his or her crew for the job, including one person who is unknown to all, but has a huge amount of promise.

What’s interesting about these “last jobs”, is a) if it’s a book or TV show we can pretty much be guaranteed that it won’t actually be, the last job. No one has ever sold anyone on the “penultimate job”, have they? b) there’s no guarantee that this job, whether or not it’s the last one, will be successful. In fact, it is more likely than not to either go spectacularly wrong, or work perfectly, in which case only the last few minutes or pages are spent on what happens next.

The day was perfect. In fact, you could say, it was a perfect day. The sun was out, clouds blew gently across the sky and the temperature, which lately had been unbearable and humid, was close to mid-seventies and dry. Thompson wriggled a bit more on the grass to get a better position and sighed gratefully. Nothing to do but enjoy it. No one around to tell him what to do, no one griping about the printer and how it was broken for the umpteenth time in a day, and no one asking him to do anything about it. It felt odd though. All he’d been doing in the office in the first place was gathering information for the rest of the team. Everyone else had their own jobs, his was done, and on such a perfect day too.

The whole operation had been his idea, so Thompson didn’t feel too bad about sitting the rest of it out. Of their own accord, his eyes drifted closed. Elin stood over him when he opened them. She didn’t look good. Her hair, normally held back in a loose pony-tail, was in disarray and she looked slightly out of breath. Thompson sat up. “What went wrong?”

“What do you mean?”

“Come on Elin, you wouldn’t be standing in front of me if this hadn’t gone pear shaped.” He’d seen the phrase somewhere and liked it. She gave him a look but didn’t deny anything. “Come on!”

“We were just getting to the good bit when the alarms went off. A couple security guys came in all business and escorted me out of the building. Apparently I didn’t have the right ID to be where I was.”

“But, we’d worked on it. It should have worked.”

“Well, it didn’t.”

“Crap.” So much for a perfect day, all he’d wanted was this job to go well, one he wouldn’t have to worry about, and now… it was down the tubes.

“Now what?”

Thompson shrugged. “Did you call everyone else off?”

“No.”

“So let’s see what happens.”

Henry opened the door to his flat and stared at the young girl standing on the doorstep. She smiled at him and looked down at the small index card she held in her hand.

“Are you Henry Sanbar?”

Trying to figure out what it was she wanted, he nodded without saying anything. She looked back down at the piece of paper in her hand and took a deep breath. “I’m um, yeah.” Her head didn’t move, although he could tell her eyes flicked back up towards his face as she thought.

“Can I help you?”

“Humm…” Her breath came out in a groan. “It, I really want to, well, you know, I just, like. Right.” The girl’s cheeks were red.

For some reason Henry couldn’t close the door on her. “Would you like to come in?”

The question threw her and she backed down a couple steps to the sidewalk. “Well, I, not, maybe?” The words didn’t convince her and she stepped backward several more times.

Henry didn’t advance, not wishing scare. “That’s fine.” He smiled. “If you feel more comfortable, we can talk on the porch.”

She shook her head, her cheeks crimson. After a few more moments, she turned and walked quickly down the street. Henry stared after her and wished they’d been able to say more than a few words. The call from several days before just now making sense.

Has this ever happened to you? You’re busy trying to defeat/finding things out/going deeper into enemy territory, all the while relying heavily on an older person for guidance and support. You know the person hasn’t given you all the information that you need in order to complete your task, but that’s fine because at some point soon they will divulge exactly what you’ve been doing in the dark.
Sadly, before this happens, he (or she) bites it. It doesn’t matter how, although more likely than not it will probably be some sort of murder. You think this because their death was in mysterious circumstances Thus, left to your own devices, you take whatever the last orders were to heart and try to do right by the person you counted as a third parent.

This means a lot of pain, due to the fact that now you are practically blind and have no idea where anything is headed. The mentor didn’t leave you with a huge amount to go on, and now you’re insulting people you should be embracing. It turns out though, that you might be on the right track, and your mentor did leave a bunch of clues behind, because if he (or she) hadn’t, then the whole story would have been bunk.

Eventually everything becomes clear, but not before you’ve gone down the wrong track, had the shit kicked out of you, and finally made a few right decisions based on the clues left behind by your mentor. Also, your mentor wasn’t without friends, who tend to help you in the most dire moments, and remain with you once everything has worked itself out.

Ril sat in the booth with his eyes closed, drifting between wakefulness and sleep. Conversation of other diners meandered through the air, their words occasionally reaching his ears. He tried not to pay too much attention, knowing the place he was in was neutral, no one at the restaurant either cared or knew anything about his work or who he was at all. A waiter stopped by his table for the second time, refilling the water glass he’d half emptied right after sitting down.

“Glad you could make it.”

Ril sat up and gave his mentor a bleary look. Blinking a few times didn’t clear her up any until he remembered to put his glasses back on. “Yeah well, I had to work a little harder than I thought.”

“You look awful.”

“Two hours of sleep in twenty-four tends to do that, and I’m not that young any more.”

His mentor, Val, made a face. “I’m at least twenty years your senior, if not thirty. I wouldn’t think you were old.”

“That’s not what I meant.” He gave her a tired smile anyway and refrained from rubbing his eyes.

The waiter came over with another menu, placing the laminated plastic in front of Val. His hands clasped in front of him, the waiter smiled at the both of them and waited. “Is there anything I can get for you today?”

“Water please.”

“Is that all?”

“Yes.”

Ril hadn’t known Val to drink anything but. He wondered if this was for any other reason than cost, or if Val was putting off someone poisoning her. Nevertheless, most of the time, when he was on his own, he did the same thing. It never hurt to be too careful. The waiter went away.

“So.”

“So. Found anything more out?”

Ril nodded and stared at the table. It hadn’t been easy this time. Hell, it wasn’t easy any of the other times, but every day it seemed to be a little more difficult. He knew, even with Val’s admonishment, that he wasn’t really young enough to pursue the job any more. Delving deep into the underworld of hidden money’s and even more difficult pharma was what he’d went to school and eventually the academy for, but at 28, a few of the kids were giving him looks. If he were smart the last thing he would do was this job and then call it. Val would understand. The only thing was… he wanted to see it through and this job, even if it was his last, seemed to be more convoluted than anything.

“It’s part of their world. Stay up all hours of the day and night, choosing exactly what stock’s going to move where. You don’t take the drug and you fail, there’s no other way to manage.”

“Have you been taking it?”

Dithering over the fact, he barely looked up when the waiter arrived with Val’s water. He stood waiting for them to order their food. Ril finally looked into the waiters face and ordered what he always did. “Mandarin Salad.”

The waiter nodded and turned to Val. She sighed and went with some dish Ril thought couldn’t possibly be what it sounded like. After the waiter left them alone at the table, she slid something over. “It’ll counteract the effects.”

“Insomnia?”

“Among other things.”

“Great.” Ril nearly grabbed it off the table and swallowed it dry. Using the water as a chaser, the pill eventually made it down.

“Now get some rest. Tell me what you’ve found in the morning.”

“What?”

Smiling at him, Val got up from the table, leaving a hundred behind. Ril stared at it for a few moments before getting the picture. “You can’t give me information on no sleep, you’re not detached enough from it. I’ll talk to you tomorrow morning. We’ll meet in the building this time. Say, ten-thirty.”

It meant getting sleep, but also… Ril paused for a moment. It meant a break. Someone else would fill in for him. No that he had a huge amount of sick days available. Or any. You didn’t show up for work, you were weak, you weren’t a person any more. How can you follow stocks if you take a day off? The last hour was a long time. It didn’t matter. It wasn’t his real job, and there were plenty of other firms that would take him, even a ‘slacker’.

“I’ll just tell the waiter that our dinners are to go.”

“Thanks.” He could feel the pill taking over. His eyelids were rocks sliding into place. Val would have to take him home at this rate.

Soft cushions felt like clouds against his tired body, but his mind decided it was enough. Opening his eyes, Ril looked around the room and didn’t try to figure out how he’d gotten there. Pushing the throw off, he got up and went into the kitchen of a place that obviously wasn’t his.

“Val?”

No one answered. He wasn’t surprised. It was odd that she hadn’t woken him for their meeting though. Glancing at the clock told him he was late by at least a half hour if he didn’t bother to take a shower. Checking his phone told him no one called. Ril started to worry. It wasn’t like Val not to leave some sort of message, and if leaving him in her apartment alone wasn’t sign enough, the silence started to get to him.

Padding down the hallway, he pushed open the two doors, one leading to a bathroom, the other to a bedroom. There, lying on the bed face down, was Val’s dog. It’s head rose in greeting. Ril nodded back and closed the door. The dog didn’t protest. Still feeling uneasy, he went back to the couch and dug between the cushions. His cell came out easily. Ril pressed five for a few moments, waiting until the screen indicated someone picked up.

“Hello?” Mona, Val’s assistant.

“Bluebird.”

“Scarecrow. Val’s not in.”

He nodded, expecting her answer. “She leave a message or something?”

“No, I though you had a meeting with her.” Her voice paused for a moment as she stared at the calendar on her screen. “An hour ago. Jeez, it’s been that long? Scarecrow, where are you?”

“Why?”

“The boss, she wanted an update too. Val was supposed to tell you, but I guess, if you haven’t met…” Implications hung over the unfinished sentence. Ril closed his eyes and wished he’d slept longer. Val shouldn’t have left him in this mess, it didn’t make sense.

Parodies of the Swamp Thing abound in our popular culture. It’s rather odd, given that fact that most of the people watching certain of the parodies or reading about the creature from the swamp, have probably never even seen the movie, or for that matter read up on the subject at all. Sadly, I am one of those people, and so really don’t have a huge amount of go on. (Mostly this is kids I’m talking about, since there are plenty of comic books on the subject. In fact that’s where the idea started in the first place.)

Having glances at wikipedia to glean at least a little bit of information, it turns out the creature defends the swamp from all manner of bad people out to destroy it. This is deffinitely a good thing, and makes me wonder just what he’s doing now that the disaster in the Gulf is hitting the same swamps he is said to live in.

Bubbles burst in the heavy mud, causing Becky to leap backwards into a tree. Her ankle felt twisted, and she wondered why she’d hiked out there in the first place. The idea at the time had made a lot of sense, thinking about it now, not so much. Itz, standing on the bank of the swamp, angrily slapped at the mosquito buzzing around his ear, missing the ten thousand others already sucking his blood.

“Tell me again.”

“It’s for the class.”

Taking out his flip Itz waved it around the area and back at Becky. “I see nothing.”

“That’s the point. We’re disproving theories, debunking them.” Readjusting her footing, Becky glared at him and beckoned for his ass to get over there. He gingerly made his way towards her. She didn’t mention the bubbles in the mud. It was disturbing and she wanted to see his reaction to the actual thing as opposed to her telling him. One of them popped just as he gained the tree, causing him to jump at least a foot in the air. Becky smiled slightly. “And it’s more authentic if we actually go to the place where it supposedly lives. ”

“Instead of staging it?”

“Duh!”

Both of them stared out into the muck for a while. Itz filmed a few bubbles as they burst. Nothing much else happened. Becky started to make the leap back to shore when something slimy grabbed her wrist and stopped her. “Eww, Itz, what the hell?”

He gave her a look. “I didn’t do anything.”

The thing had let go. Examining Itz’s hands for goo, Becky found none. She turned to go back to shore again. This time the slime hit her in the shoulder. “The fuck?”

Itz shrugged and turned to go as well, but not before noticing the mud on her shoulder. “Hey!”

A low moan came across the water. Both of them shivered involuntarily. Itz turned the camera back on and aimed it randomly.

Out of the gloom and dark figure appeared, standing ten feet tall. It lumbered toward them, moaning the whole time. Itz filmed as long as his hand could stand it, and then bolted, Becky not far behind.

As he watched them run off, the creature moaned once more and waded back in the swamp. It never hurt to have a little publicity.

A long time ago, a friend of mine and I were have a discussion between what type of superpower would be better, super speed, or teleportation. She maintained that teleportation was the way to go because if you wanted to be somewhere, then there you were. I maintained that if this were the case, then what was to say you could bring what you were wearing with you and it seemed a tad inconvenient to end up somewhere with no clothes on. We then discussed the various merits of leaving clothes stowed all over the place.

The entire talk left me in hysterics and as we were walking up the hill to her cabin (for this was at summer camp), I had to pause for breath. In truth, I mentioned between gasps for air, it didn’t matter one way or the other, since if you had super speed, you’d have to worry about friction anyway.

This was in fact covered in the movie “The Incredible’s” where one of the characters needs a suit which can withstand the speeds he’s going. If he were just wearing jeans and a t-shirt, he might run into a few problems.

Jerry stared at his underwear with some chagrin and back at the nice old lady. She leered at him. Sadly, they were the only piece of clothing he owned which seemed to never get torn to shreds. It was possible because he live in a world where public nudity was frowned on, but it seemed more likely that it was due to his adherence to tighty-whities than anything else.

Sighing frustratedly at the state of the rest of his clothes, he ripped them off and wished he’d remembered to wear jogging shorts. The lady’s leer was getting larger. Jerry looked up at the building she stood in front of and sighed again. “Did you call?”

The lady’s expression changed to one of confusion. “What?”

“It’s just, I was headed to work and I heard something from over here, was that you?”

She looked around. “Oh, yes. Someone just ran off with my purse.”

Glancing down the sidewalk on either side, Jerry gave her a hard look, made more difficult by his lack of dress. “How long ago?”

“What do you mean?”

The city knew there was someone going about stopping petty crimes, or really, just making sure they didn’t happen in the first place. It also knew that the person doing it, more often than not, seemed to only be wearing his underwear and not much else. “I mean, is the whole exercise futile? I don’t exactly bring a change of clothes with me you know.”

Her eyebrow raised. “Excuse me?”

He wondered why he did any of it in the first place. “Nothing.” Straining to hear anything, he gave up after thirty seconds and jogged off.

Which is not the same as finding yourself upon one. Trust me. When a person lives in a world where they’ve only known hardship and difficulty, then most things that happen within that world tend to be either seen as normal or so far outside the norm that they need to be defined differently. This will either cause the protagonist to start thinking about things (i.e, their world) differently or change the world so much that during the adoption phase something goes horribly wrong.

Whereas, in Discover a Post-Apocalyptic World, the protagonist is the thing which causes the world view of the populace (in the long run) to be changed. In which case the story is told from the “alien’s” point of view.

A lot of books use this device to tell the tale of the person who leads the rest of the world out of darkness. Weirdly enough, a lot of children’s books at the moment prefer the post-apocalyptic world to other types, giving the protagonist a child’s worldview and allowing the readers to identify with the character a bit more. Sometimes in a society where the rules are seen as arbitrary, it takes a kid to question authority.

To a certain extent, all of these things are metaphors as opposed to what we see as real life. There are worlds that can be post-apocalyptic and fit into the science fiction genre, but anything that takes place in the future is still made up by the person writing it, no matter how much they’re trying to take from the technological advancements of the day.

The last thing is once the authority is questioned, then the person doing the asking will inevitably be thrown out of that society. Eventually they will be accepted back into it. But only after a long and drawn out proving and adventure.

Fences surrounded the compound, supporting lights which shone on the buildings day and night. It made it difficult to see the color of the sky at night, but no one dared ask why. Van liked to stare up at the sky anyway, whenever she had the chance. It made her think of what might be out there, and if there were other people, perhaps watching what they did.

Her parents noticed this but said nothing, believing that no matter how she looked nothing would come of it. Soon, very soon, their daughter would join them down below, working the computers, keeping the motors running. The computers were the only things keeping the place going now. They told of other outposts as well, but it was their outpost that had the most power, and therefore, every other one relied on what they had to give.

As it was, Van already had a good ability with technology. Even when she was young, she’d held a small paper in her hand and known exactly what to do with it. It was thought throughout the adult community, that if a child show such talent, they’d more likely than not be sent as liaison’s with other outposts, if only to teach the people in them what to do.

When asked about the fences, all her parents were able to say was that they kept out the weather. Van would look up at the sky and the lights and try to understand. The weather always seemed fine.

You know how, in certain science fiction stories, people crash land, or land on a place where it seems the only people around are either mutants or highly attractive types who shout “come with me!” just after your ship and at least one ship-mate has been eaten/blugdened to death by the mutants?

Well, those worlds tend to be post-apocalyptic. It’s fairly rare that nothing has happened and the world simply became this way of its own accord. Typically, within these stories will lie the tale of how that planet came to be as the heroes found it. Some sort of terrible war, or plague, or famine, will have caused people either to choose to scrounge what they could or develop a new society in which there are certain prescribed rules for each and every person. When this happens and our protagonists find themselves within this society, they also find out that the people who seem not to be evil and mutant like are, evil and mutant like on the inside*.

With a few not so evil and mutant like good looking people, they escape to found their own society. At least, that’s the premise of today’s apocalyptic tale. Tomorrow, who knows.

Unable to keep the fire from spreading to the rest of the console, Kelsy bailed out of the cockpit and into the living quarters. The rest of her crew looked at her fearfully, wondering what would happen next. It hadn’t been a great flight to begin with, helped less so by the spit and hope that kept the thing flying through space in the first place. Kelsy hadn’t meant to take the ship out at all, but with so much at stake, she thought one last trip might be what they were waiting for.

With a lurch, everyone fell sideways. Happenstance put them over a planet. Not one they knew but at least one with enough gravity and atmosphere to let them fall without the fear of constant orbit. Thinking about the fire door behind her, Kelsy took a deep breath, hoping there was enough to last them to the end of the flight and looked over at her husband. He patted her hand and frowned, trying to think of something positive. “Do you know where we are?”

Returning the frown, she looked down at his hands and shook her head. “You mean, planet wise, or place wise?”

“Either one.”

“Deep, and no idea.”

“Is it… did you get grav readings at least?” Linc, the cook, piped up.

All of them were still lying where they’d fallen, it didn’t make sense to get up. The ship was jolting enough by that point that getting up was probably impossible anyway. “I didn’t even get a chance to see how far we were from the ground hon.”

Talk ebbed after that, leaving thoughts free to wander about impact ratios and splatter points. Kelsy herself managed something Rorschach would be proud of, or more likely, her mother, who was a graphic artist. Questions about why she even bothered with space ships in the first place ran across her brain.

Impact came without anyone knowing. Slowly, feeling for bits of her that weren’t broken, Kelsy pushed debris off her and sat up. The planet obviously had breathable atmosphere, though with more helium than her body was used to, making her feel lightheaded.

(Okay, obviously there needs to be more. So, if you’re patient. This will happen.)

*By the way, I’m very aware that the whole thing is kind of Planet of the Apes. Although to be honest, I was actually thinking more about Wells’ Time Machine than anything else.

Apocalypse  stories abound. Especially now. After all, when it feels like it’s closer to possible for the world as we know it to end, why not fantasize about what it might be like. What’s a bit weird is that we assume any human survives. Given the various ways the world ending can happen, most of them don’t really bode well for the human race.

On the other hand, we tend to be a rather tenacious lot, so it could happen.

The elements of a story within the survival of an apocalypse can vary depending on how religious and good a story teller the person is. For instance, Stephen King wrote The Stand. It’s a great story, with characters who might be archetypes, but they have feelings and character. When they don’t make it to the end it leaves us wanting them to return no matter what the cost. Look at the other elements of the novel and you see a great amount of religiosity. This is fine, mostly because the people within the story don’t push it, they take it as given. If it had been any other way though, I’m not sure I would have made it through the book.

On the other side of this is Cormac McCarthy’s The Road (funny how both have just two words in the title, one about standing up against a greater force (in this case, the devil) and the other about constantly moving to get away from one bad thing or another. The title could also evoke a sense of freedom, although given the story within, perhaps not). In it a father and his son make their way through a post-apocalyptic world, the father defending the son from everything that might harm them. God (or Jesus), never enters into the equation. It’s the two of them, the father and son in the book, against whatever is left of the world.

I’ll admit, I never read The Road, nor to I intend to. Mostly this has to do with the fact that I can’t get through overly depressing books, no matter how good the writing is. This isn’t because I don’t want to read them, it’s just… I’m happy to know it’s there. If I wanted to, I could read it.

The Road (from what I’ve heard), is rather unrelenting in its assertions that even if humanity somehow does survive a world ending event, we won’t really be able to recognize it as such. The Stand differs in this because it’s message is completely different. Stephen King killed off most of the US (and Canada?) only to build up what was left of humanity, so it might have been split between good and evil, that’s fine, the good guys won (duh!) and they got to create a new community where everyone was kind.

And let’s not forget the much beloved Twilight Zone episode of the man with all the time in the world to read.

Imagine my surprise this morning when I woke up to see the world no longer existed. True, the trees outside still had leaves, and the grass was still green, but that seemed to be about it. Upon opening the windows I noticed no bird calls, no bugs to jump into my morning meal of watermelon and yogurt. As I made the coffee the smell wasn’t the same either.

After taking a shower, I turned the radio on to hear what was going on. Nothing but static greeted my ears. Perplexed, I shook my wife, who batted me with a pillow and told me to shove off. Not sure what to do, I got dressed and went back downstairs. After pouring another cup of coffee, I opened the door and went out to get the paper. It was there, waiting for me on the front steps. Inside the bag was a small note from the paperman explaining that his boss had called and this would be the last paper delivered for a while. It made sense.

With the paper in hand, I went back inside and took care of the pets. The dog wanted feeding, and the cats needed their litter changed.

In some stories, there are characters who suddenly realize that they aren’t who they say they are, and in fact, don’t exist at all. This can lead to revelations where the person figures out they are a character in a video game which has gained a life of its own, or the character we thought was secondary to the plot being forced to carry on without the person they were using as a persona.

In the second case the person we thought of as secondary will figure largely into the plot. He or she could be a killer and not realize it at the time, or, they’ve invented this character that they’ve been playing. It got out of hand and now have to admit to themselves and the world that they are not who they say they are. What’s even more fun is the whole conundrum of having a character realize they aren’t real and then question not only themselves but their entire reality. At that point who can they trust? They can’t trust themselves because they don’t exist, but if they don’t exist, then who, or what, is causing them to think they way they are and act the way they do*?

Personally, I like the metaphysical aspects better than the realistic ones. It could be just me, since I like the way fantasy has a chance to play with reality in a way that staying with the “real” world doesn’t allow you to do.

Gareth sat down and spun his chair in a thoughtful circle before facing the screen. It was blank, the way he liked it. Then, bringing up a chat window, he typed in the person he wanted to talk to and hit enter. The person on the other end responded immediately.

Waiting a few seconds proved correct. A short answer came up on the screen.

“Just wanted to know what was going on.”

“Nothing much, why do you ask?”

“We haven’t talked in a while, that’s all.”

Gareth thought about it for a moment, if he counted right, they hadn’t spoken for at least a month. The person on the other end started to type something, stopped and started up again. “Noted, I’ve been busy.”

“Anything interesting?”

“Just life things.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, well, I have been looking into a few things at work and it turned out it took a little longer than I thought, sorry.”

Gareth nodded. His work had been taking him longer too. Paperwork to fill out, accounts to keep track of, people to look into for new hires. None of them seemed to be worth hiring, but he’d done the research anyway. “It’s okay, I just wanted to know how you were.”

“I’m good. Actually, life is good, turns out we’re introducing a new system into the computers that’s supposed to make them work ten times faster at work.”

“Really?” He didn’t care, but this was sometimes what they talked about, after all, if you wanted to remain friends you always had to take the good with the bad.

The person on the other end typed an emoticon. It smiled. Gareth smiled. He wasn’t sure he liked the things. He didn’t know if they really meant anything to begin with. Then they typed something else. “It has been. So, even though I haven’t talked with you for a while, I’m now typing to you in real time. What you see is how I’m typing.”

“What do you mean?”

“As I type it’s coming up.  You’re watching me as I type. Can’t you tell?”

“I guess.”

“Well, I hope you appreciate it. I heard you didn’t like some of the new things they were doing.”

Gareth thought about it. He wasn’t sure what the other person meant by new things. “New things who were doing?”

“Nothing.” The response was too quick.

“You mean the people I had to interview?”

“Yeah, those.”

It was a pat answer. He wasn’t sure he liked it. Spinning again, to ease his tension, Gareth thought about the people he’d been sent. They’d been qualified, but that was about it. Neither of them seemed to know a darn thing about the systems they were supposed to manage, and yet they’d applied for the job. He frowned and held his fingers over the keyboard.

Looking at the screen for just a moment, he paused and put his hands down.

*All of this because my father was reading an article that posited we (as in the whole universe) might be holograms. Think about the connotations of that and figure it for a while. Certainly makes me think.