8 posts tagged “fast_fiction”
PERCEPT DRIVE
307 words by Stanley Lieber
Plinth Mold sat and ate his Green Cashew cereal. The ship's percept drive sent barely visible tremors across the surface of his milk. "Do you ever get sad when you see a girl who is, like, all obsessed with sports and stuff, and you realize that there's no way you two could ever be compatible?" Thomas had somehow gained entrance to Plinth's cabin. What about the elaborate rhetoricalock system Piro had installed? Plinth had been assured, specifically, that Thomas could not penetrate it. Ridiculous. "You mean some girl you like?" "Not necessarily. Just, you know, any girl. Just to see her. From a distance, it's almost as if there is some sort of active force that draws you towards her, even as it pushes her away." "I can't say as I've ever suffered that sort of crisis, Thomas." "Oh. Well, even though I'm gay, it sucks. Strictly speaking." The ship lurched sharply and Plinth figured Piro must be wrangling the percept team to the other side of the deck, making a slight course adjustment. "Anyway, could we please shut up this incessant chattering? My Green Cashews are getting soggy." "All right, boss. I'll just head up top and see if anything else needs doing." Abovedecks, Piro was indeed herding members of the percept team from one side of the ship to the other. Each man or woman planted themselves into their new position and focused their attention acutely, fixing it upon a single point along the horizon that had been marked pink in their visors. Slowly, the ship began to change direction. Piro propped a leg up on the railing. "Forward; That way," he said, gesturing in a specific direction for the benefit of the percept team. Their gaze followed his hand. That was not good for the ship. |
creative.commons.attribution-noncommercial-noderivs.2.5
THE SHIP
794 words by Stanley Lieber
I'm watching the waves do weird things, dancing around the stuck pixel in my visor. It's making me a little nauseous. Piotr's abovedecks with the boss, Plinth Mold. I really, really, really didn't want him to come along on this outing, but Captain Plinth insisted. I can't say no to him; literally. In spite of the rumors of impending cutbacks, I need to hold onto this job as long as possible. There are debts to consider. And hey, it's his boat. But truthfully, I hate Piotr. He's my best friend, sure, but things are complicated. He makes me be the bottom. Plus his hair is longer than mine. These are only two of my reasons for hating him. Staring out of my porthole is not working. I'm going to blow groceries, so I'm getting out of here. I don't want cut loose on my sheets. I'm up top again, leaning over the railing. Piotr thinks this is all pretty funny. Plinth, if he notices, ignores the subtle best friend tension between Piotr and myself and yucks it up as well. I'm peering into his face, trying to line up the dead pixel in my visor with his one good eye. It centers me momentarily and I stop vomiting long enough to strike up a conversation. "Plinth, I need a raise." "I just want you to know that my having to fire Piotr isn't going to reflect badly on you." I am transfixed. Somehow I keep from letting go on Plinth's shoes. "You know, because you recommended him to the company." After a period of stasis the sky is vibrating normally again and so I'm going back to leaning over the railing. If you need me, you know where I'm at. Plinth keeps on talking. "Let's not tell him until we cross the Equator, eh?" Wiping my mouth. "He's not really my brother, you know." Going back over several years now, Piotr and I have been telling people we are brothers. Twin brothers, even. Somewhat surprisingly, seeing as how we look nothing alike, no one has ever expressed the slightest incredulity about our claim to blood kinship. I guess I have to admit I would be surprised if anyone at this company had paid that close attention to anything that came out of my mouth. But it goes beyond mere inattention. Never, no matter the ludicrous scenario Piotr and I may have just posited, has anyone, at any time, ever challenged what we were on about. Even when we deliberately craft preposterous stories. Even when it's clear we almost certainly must be lying. I have no explanation for it, though I do admit to taking advantage of the effect from time to time. We are a titanium tagteam of untruth. It's sickening. Anyway, by now I am determined to break the illusion. Piotr, my love. I hate him. "Boss, I have a confession. I've been lying to you, all these years." "In your way. Of course I know you are not a blood relation of Piotr's. Though I doubt anyone else here at the company suspects. You see, he is my son." I lean back over the edge, then straighten myself, then back over the edge, ad nauseam (ha ha). An inverted pendulum. The IV comes out of my arm and then premium grade Green is washing onto the deck. It is beautiful chaos. "No way, boss." "Oh, yes way, Thomas." "That's ridiculous. That's disgusting. How could this happen." It is a great storm that frightens the fish and blows up the skirt of our boat. It causes a great deal of entertaining interference in my visor. I am tracing lines between the raindrops with the messed up pixel and again it is making me quite ill. However, my stomach has almost caught up to the unstable gravity of the ship, and I feel that if only I can keep up with the raindrops, I may stave off vomiting indefinitely. In the meantime, the IV has been replaced to my arm. Plinth stands watch over the bridge. I can feel Piotr enter the room even though he is exercising his professional skill; he is so vain he even has to lie to me with his movements. "He's firing you, idiot." "I love you, Thomas." The ball is in play. I hate Piotr. "Of course you do, we're brothers, right?" "He's giving me the ship." This is just too much for me. I have to send more of my insides overboard. "You know he's my father, then," Piotr says. "Oh, fuck you." I barely get this out before losing it all over my bed. Piotr looks sympathetic but then gets a little testy. "Hey, don't make a mess of my boat." Then I follow my own advice. |
creative.commons.attribution-noncommercial-noderivs.2.5
SHIFT!
606 words by Stanley Lieber
"Nano-toxins. That eat sperm. Selective genocide."
"See if you can finish up these inks before Chricton comes back from lunch."
Plinth was flossing with a piece of o-ring from one of the prototype figures.
"You know, I've often wondered how to solve the problem of The Troll."
Chricton looked up from his workbench. "I think we should make a figure of this... this Troll character." He swiveled his screen around to display his design: a small creature with an obnoxious outgrowth of whispy hair, mounted atop a pencil as if it were some kind of ornamental eraser.
Image after Nina Bovasso and nicepimmelkarl |
creative.commons.attribution-noncommercial-noderivs.2.5
STARTING THEM YOUNG
705 words by Stanley Lieber
Tomorrow is a holiday, but today is not. My parents are at work and I'm stuck here at the babysitter's house, sitting out the two or three or four hours that I'll be trapped in this room, lying on my palette, dreaming without sleep about every possible other thing I could be doing with my time. I don't know why she puts me in here. (Granny is not really my grandmother. But this does not prevent her from locking me into the spare bedroom after lunch, leaving me there until shortly before my parents arrive to take me home. What am I meant to be doing, in all of that time? To Be Announced, I suppose. Granny has not been forthcoming on this topic.) Today's focus is a new assortment of military adventure toys. Particularly, the pre-visualization for a flying machine whose swept wings must be made to contract upon the release of a certain switch (I presume to be located somewhere along the aircraft's aft fuselage). I'm having a bit of trouble figuring out precisely how the wing mechanism will work. Something to do with strings or wires of some sort, all obfuscated from the child/operator. The picture is as yet fuzzy... Also up for review is a full-size, realistic combat uniform, infused with what I will for marketing purposes refer to as "the scent of battle." These two ideas should tide me over until the big door unlocks, clicks open, at around four o'clock. If I concentrate upon this pair of images intently enough, conceive them in great enough detail, covering every possible feature, I am convinced -- no, certain -- that they will have materialized in my bedroom closet by the time I get home. I'm not sure why I choose to believe in this notion, but, well, I confess that I do. I suppose it amuses me to do so. Consider my age. First then, the aircraft. "Dad is insatiable screwing his daughter," a voice states aloud, sounding quite satisfied with itself. It is only mildly distracting as I am quite used to this sort of thing by now. I shrug vaguely without losing my train of thought. It is laughable, really, these attempts at derailing my progress. "Japanese teen showing her hairy pussy," the voice continues. I have no trouble ignoring even this, and so carry on with the daydreaming as if no auditory phenomena were taking place. All is calm. "Homeless guy wearing a new 8-ball jacket." That tears it. Finally I have had enough, break down and reply: "Little cutie screams as she gets drilled on her new boss's desk. Okay? Is that what you wanted to hear? May I proceed now?" I have prepared myself for a dramatic pause, but the voices promptly fade into a perfect silence. I could almost actually go to sleep, in this quiet. Would that all of my projects could be undertaken in such sublime stillness. I'm quite certain the balance of my output would yield a sharp increase in quality. "Now to get back to work," I think. "Innocent Gays getting modernistic IT anally." I won't even dignify it with a response, this time. Why do they even bother? And yet, I have to admit that after all of this I am finally distracted. Remarkable, the advances in invasive advertising technology. Granny knocks gently as she comes in, clutching a packet of my medications, casting a knowing look back to me as she begins unscrewing the top of one of the bottles and sorting out a myriad of little colored pellets into the concave depressions of her hand tray. She looks down at me as I accept the tray from her and start popping the pills. "You were diddling yourself in here, Plinth." "No," I say. "You're hearing things, old woman." I think she is smiling at me but it's hard to tell because she's so old that her face is quite wrinkled even when she is asleep or watching the telescreen. I assume she was joking, that she didn't actually see me with my hands on myself. There, now I am certain she is smiling. This is ridiculous. As if I needed anything else to think about. That's all for today, Diary. |
creative.commons.attribution-noncommercial-noderivs.2.5
I'LL MANAGE
908 words by Stanley Lieber
He was unhappy again; but when he halted to appraise the situation rationally he found that nothing had really changed. Why then this morose disposition? Each season Plinth Mold selected the action figures that would comprise the next year's line. He did this alone -- that is, his decision was final -- because Plinth knew that to consult a committee would signal weakness to the trade press. Such fanfare had been made of his spectacular rise, his subsequent reign and famously charismatic management style, that he was wary of reversing the polarity of this momentum, reluctant to sour himself in the public eye by demonstrating an acute lack of direction. He well knew that each word of praise committed to print was representative of an investment expected to yield generous dividends; that the looming weight of his success was not itself immune to the ancient and respected laws of gravitation. In fact there was a balance to the world, after all, and he was loathe to tip it off-kilter. The problem, then, was that these latest designs were not going to work. That is to say, Plinth could not decide between them. In years gone by such an impasse would have met with the unhesitant scrapping of the entire line -- Plinth would fire the team who had been working on it and start over from scratch. But, it was far too late for that this year. He would have to make a choice from amongst what he already had in front of him. He knew it was imperative to come to a decision, but still he was unsure of which design to go with. Yes, so something of some significance had actually changed. He flicked between each layout and reprimanded himself sternly for his indecision. Why was he making this so difficult? As he stared at each proposal he could not determine to his own satisfaction which was superior. They all seemed to consist of essentially the same elements, to be of roughly equal merit. "There is urine all over the front of this toilet," said Maude Mold, Plinth's wife of some twenty-five years. "Sometimes I sit down and my pant leg touches it -- I can feel it." "I guess I'll have to clean it up," Plinth returned. "That'd be a good idea, so I don't fucking retch." An earlier foray into indecision had cost him an entire season's work -- he had ended up pushing a wave of repaints into the stores for Redaction Day. No truly new figures for six months. Mention of that debacle was now off-limits in staff meetings, but it lingered in his memory all the same. Fatigued, he thought to himself that bouncing back from abject failure and humiliation was a young man's game. To All Employees: Our Guiding Principles form the basis for how we should manage our day-to-day interactions with customers and each other. They are the unchanging foundation that supports how we conduct ourselves everyday. Along with our Business Plan objectives and Factors for Dominance, the Guiding Principles form the building blocks to ensure the Figures department and ultimately UNIVERSAL MOLD's success. Click here to view the presentation of the month that discusses the importance of "Hold Yourself and Others Accountable." Act with Honesty and Integrity at All Times Exhibit a Positive Attitude Treat Everyone with Courtesy and Respect Do What You Say You are Gong to Do Seek First to Understand Then Be Understood Communicate Clearly and Often Inspect What You Expect Execute Flawlessly Everyday Recognize and Encourage Continuously Hold Yourself and Others Accountable Thank you, Plinth Mold President, UNIVERSAL MOLD "I can't believe I just wrote that," thought Plinth Mold. "I wonder how I would respond to a message like this, were I to receive it from my own boss." But of course, Plinth Mold did not have a boss. Had not, in fact, for some time. (Maude, it was true, was only his wife.) He tapped the appropriate region on his leaf's screen, causing the message to be sent out. He hated these condescending dispatches but it had needed to be done, and if that were the case it might as well bear his signature instead of some sub-manager. He tried to find solace in embracing the inherent responsibilities of his position, but curiously this acceptance didn't seem to alter his sagging mood. He still felt blank -- or worse, confused. "When you sit there with your pen, scritching away, it almost looks like you have friends," said Maude. "The movements, the gestures toward what appears to be the hashing out of a communique of some sort, are so realistic." Plinth sighed, folded up his leaf and turned off the lamp on his nightstand. He removed his eyepatch and laid it on the table next to his face, then ran his fingers over the concave surface where his eyeball would have been, were he a real little boy like his brother. His toes were freezing but Maude would not countenance another blanket, or any adjustment to the environmental controls. Perhaps he could show her the designs, see if she could muster a preference for one in particular. Immediately he wondered what that would cost him in the event of an acrimonious separation, and closed his mouth. He'd better just do it himself. Like so much else. "It's an expensive illusion, created just for you." There was silence, but he knew what was coming. |
Image by Degas, Portraits in an Office--The Cotton Exchange, New Orleans, 1873
creative.commons.attribution-noncommercial-noderivs.2.5
I QUIT
1195 words by Stanley Lieber
It is the trying I think that wears me out. Yes. I do not believe I will try any more today. I tilt my head so that my eyes appear to be focusing on the surface of my pressure screen. In actuality I am focusing on nothing at all -- but this hardly matters. Aside from our corporate clients, we are fortunate to service a number of truly eccentric, truly wealthy collectors, a handful of whom have lately become obsessed with recreating the childhoods of their ancestors. Amongst these are a rarefied elite who wish (and have the means) to enact elaborate simulations of what it must have been like for their great-great-great- grandfathers to open their presents on Redaction Day morning. A set is created, costumes are donned. From what I understand, never having witnessed it myself, actors are even hired to reprise the roles of relatives who have passed on. I know, it makes me roll my eyes as well. But the pay is remarkable, and unlike so many of our customers, I must work for a living. Though I should be honest. It's a bit more complicated than I make it seem. You see, the clients believe we are locating and procuring the original artifacts. That is to say, the actual toys their ancestors played with. Of course in reality such an operation would be unprofitable. Tracking down examples of these antiques in good condition would inflate prohibitively expensive overhead (to say nothing of trying to verify they were actually the same ones owned by individuals who are by now long dead); we simply could not stay in business if we actually provided the service we are being paid for. Hence, much of my work is concerned with creating convincing replicas that we pass off to our clients as authentic. Or so my standing orders state. And yet, for the last many years, I have suspected that what my superiors actually hired me for, what they continue to pay to accomplish day in and day out, is merely to always wear a smiling face, to always agree with whatever happens to proceed out of their mouths next. On the face of it this may not seem so terrible a task, but judging from my performance record (as documented by my immediate supervisors in my personnel folder), it is apparently too much for me to handle. Today, I cannot quite prevent myself from communicating my thoughts.
Here is my situation: I would prefer not to continue working on the fake figures project without the extra pay unless the work is going to become a part of our job description (this includes training others to take over for me, which would amount to doing the work anyway). I will not refuse a management directive if I am instructed to continue working on the fake figures. This communiqué is merely intended to register my complaint, so that the objection is not invisible and does not disappear from the record. If the Service Leader role is being eliminated from our workgroup, then it makes sense that people who are no longer acting as Service Leaders would no longer receive Service Leader pay. But for those of us who are still expected to continue doing the extra fake figure work, it does not make sense for us to suddenly no longer be paid for work we are still expected to do. No advance notification of the change, and no explanation of the change after it was made was offered to me, or to my knowledge, to anyone else. I was informed of the change only after filling out my timesheet on Monday. The change represents a significant pay cut for me, and I would not be comfortable continuing on, performing the extra work that is not required of my fellow employees (whose job title I share and whose pay rate I now share as well), as if nothing had changed. It is not my intention to pose an ethical dilemma or to cause an unwarranted disruption, but simply to draw into focus this situation which adversely affects both myself and others. To clarify: I will await further instruction before continuing work on the fake figures project. What this will accomplish is extra attention being paid to my regular assignments. Suddenly, small errors in my work process that (being largely inconsequential or a matter of personal style) have gone by for several years without comment will become "coaching opportunities" that must needs be addressed immediately. I have prepared for this inevitability by compiling, ahead of time, a list of rebuttals to each request for corrective action I anticipate will be forthcoming. Of course it would have been easier to have corrected these small errors before the management of my company was made to notice them, but I have discovered during my years here that if they fail to detect a small number of actual errors, they will as a matter of course invent false ones to take their place, whilst still expecting you somehow to account for these simulacra. As this would be impossible, it is far better to give them something real to complain about, something you at least have a small (if diminishing) hope of actually correcting. In this way you may allow them to exercise a measure of power over you, sating their lust for same, without your ever actually losing control of the situation. As I suspected, the petty retribution is not long in coming. Only this time I have miscalculated. The proper factors must not have been taken into account. My perspective on the matter must have been skewed. Instead of creating a situation in which requests for corrective action may be issued against me, I seem to have overstepped a series of invisible boundaries, to the point that my services at this company may no longer be required. (At least, that is the general thrust of the notice I have just received; no, it has not informed me directly that my employment has been terminated -- that piece of information will be delivered to me by telescreen tonight while I am at home, safely away from the building and my co-workers.) Earlier in my life I might have been unduly troubled by a misstep of this nature, but by now I am experienced enough to realize that such wanton acts as my open, unguarded communication may result in serious consequences. I experience little or no emotion as I close down my telescreen and begin to clean out my desk. As I replace my chair to its normal position and heft a small box of belongings into my arms, the president of our company, Plinth Mold, shoots into the room enjoying his usual stride, which encompasses twice the average floor area as that of the common adult male. He glances over my person and pushes past me, on his way to discuss further staffing cutbacks with my former supervisors. I apologize briefly for having stepped into his path, and exit the building quietly, using the First Street side entrance. Taking the long view, I suppose I have quit my job. |
creative.commons.attribution-noncommercial-noderivs.2.5
OUR FATHERS
2053 words by Stanley Lieber
| I couldn't get the spamming lid off, so I just bashed the object's base against the corner of a nearby counter (avoiding the spray of flying smart glass rebounding from solid granite) and kicked the resulting debris out of my path before moving back to the terminal to finish transcribing. I worked quickly and had most of the inscription keyed in by the time one of the big kitchen doors dissolved into its frame. In sauntered Paris Mold. He glided smoothly across the tile floor, making a bee-line for the object (and by extension, for me), where he proceeded to peer deeply into my screen, observing my progress without actually announcing his presence. I flashed him my teeth, along with a look I'd developed for occasions such as this, all while continuing to type at an unlikely speed. Carefully, I unlatched the bag under my table with an obscured foot. Paris slid his gaze up easily from my keyboard to my shoulders to my scrambled face in a single continuous gesture, maintaining a blank Nipponese expression I couldn't have mustered even with help from all the electronics. I hadn't acquired his mastery in sixteen years on the job, and had long ago come to grips with the fact that I probably never would. That's why I was in the field instead of jockeying a mug of hard coffee in the board room. I still needed the expression sleeve for close-up work, which put me at a disadvantage when it came to interactions with this particular spamhole. But as he began to speak, I noticed there was a loose eyelash stuck to his cheek -- it may sound petty, but a small detail like that could be my anchor in the moments ahead. "That's some portable," Paris stated, nodding in the direction of my table-top device and its broadcast antenna, now fully extended and lit. The room was folding back upon itself and pulling all kinds of visual transforms that reminded me of the elementary programming exercises given to young school children, where they're made to model the cellular automata that generate snowflakes, tree branches, flocks of birds, etcetera. Being this close to Paris was like chewing taffy made from ropes of electricity. I couldn't keep my head straight for long, but leaned forward and smiled feebly in agreement. I paused for a second then, and coughed. Hesitantly, I fastened the strap on my helmet and clenched my eyes together until my inner ears again reached equilibrium. I shot Paris one last, hapless glance, then tightened up my scrotum and pushed at something on the floor with the tip of my boot. Following a short series of digital pulses, the whole place went wobbly for real, and began to collapse around us. The look that took hold on Paris' face as the ceiling rushed toward its communion with the floor, as he realized what I'd done -- a face that was, at last, no longer inscrutable -- was well worth the effort I'd put into the whole operation. I allowed myself some measure of satisfaction, doling it out carefully. Precisely. No more than was appropriate. Still, this was going to kill me, too. I (apparently) rolled over. The next one was different. I dropped in another pat of margarine substitute and inhaled over the sizzling pan. Sprinkling in bits of shredded paper as I folded the eggs, I could make out some disconnected sentence fragments on the collage board which came online when my eyes closed. These were definitely the requisition forms I'd sought -- the informant who'd led me to them would keep his life -- but these fragments of what seemed to have been a triplicate copy were only partially complete; missing something. Tabasco. I thumbed the labels of three different brands (there were several in this cabinet) before selecting one at random after I'd figured out the ingredients and proportions of each bottle were identical. I went ahead and emptied them all into the mix then, for good measure. For some reason a brief shot of green-smelling flame licked the shelf above the stove. Shit! I batted it with my spatula, left-handed because I was holding the frying pan with my other appendage; clumsily because I had to guess about where the tongues of flame were going to dart next. In walked Paris Mold. I couldn't actually see him or make friendly eye contact because I'd been blinded thirty years previous to his visit, whilst toiling on one of the very first jobs he'd thrown my way. On account of my disability he still brought me work from time to time, and not a little bit of mock sympathy, which I tolerated with a smile because Paris Mold was God damn rich. Morally indebted though he was (or at least, I had convinced myself he labored under the burden of a personal morality), he still preferred to keep an eye on how I was making use of my expense account. Results where what mattered to him; cripple or no. It was reasonable. "Can't sleep?" "Horseshit, boss. I'm re-assembling the Codex receipts because that's the only alternative to sleep. Plus, I'm hungry." Paris wanted to pick up and tell the caller to take that attitude and line his briefs with it -- but maintaining a professional demeanor was part of the job, and in any case politeness to real employees had not been in the Contractor's job description. (Not part of the job description this time, he told himself, marking down notes for revisions to the standard contract.) Letting the Lunchbox field his calls had been a tradeoff for actually showing up in the office, these past few weeks. Paris was striving to avoid verbal contact with any of those most persistent clients, the ones who would check in for daily updates despite the binding contracts that only pledged his company to bi-monthly reportage (no extra-contractual communication was ever to occur in either direction). It all sounded very clean and pragmatic at the time of each signing, but upon contact with reality, day-to-day transactions hardly resembled the smooth continuity of process he had envisioned when drawing up the policies. Ideally, there would never be a need to speak to anyone out loud. In the real world, you couldn't get these nominal "consumers" to stop calling you. For anything. Paris realized that what he was really selling each day were slivers of his lunch hour, if not raw hunks of his remaining lifespan. The Contractor, of course, wasn't exactly a client, but still needed far too much phone coaxing, which kept Paris away from his pressure screen far more than he'd like. Paris pushed a button and cut the call short, mid-message. He didn't care if the Contractor knew he'd hung up on him. The Lunchbox went back to blinking passively and Paris opened his sandwich, resting an elbow on the touchpad of his pressure screen while he pushed bread and lettuce into his face through a grate of yellowing teeth. The Contractor didn't call back for several hours. Paris didn't wonder what the guy had wanted, while he ate, but later, peering over the financials, he thought maybe he should have answered. Whatever the problem was might have been service impacting. More credits lost, and it was probably down to his inattention. He hadn't even asked his assistant for the story behind the calls. My pressure screen was tempting me to murder-suicide. The unit goaded me without displaying any remorse whatsoever. I began to find its arguments, ostensibly aimed at getting me into my office and behind my desk at a reasonable time, less than compelling. I told it so by way of a firm gesture into the touchpad, but it just shrugged blandly and continued with its monologue. Pressure screen ad stars like Lilo Bitch and Martin Crunch, in spite of what anyone with common sense knew were exemplary credit ratings, held insufficient funds to complete a transaction with me; not even they could afford my glassy-eyed attention to their nonsense, interspersed into each of my waking seconds. Anyway, I rejected the notion of paid advertising outright (which for obvious reasons helps to price me out of the market). Rots your pockets and drills your sockets. Trash; refuse; waste. Advertising is not entertainment. Shows my lack of culture, I suppose, but there's always time to get educated before I'm retired and need income. There will be plenty of droll incapacitated days to absorb and advise on commercial pitches when the coffers start to drain into the negative. Until then, I'll keep my reflexes to myself and stave off bankruptcy through sheer recalcitrance of will. Scan this, ad bastards. I tapped against the screen with the edge of my boot, but decided at the last second against destroying the fairly-new unit, because unlike Bitch and Crunch, I wasn't made of credits. Complain as I might, I needed this thing for my legitimate work. The touchpad shrunk away from my boot, but crept back into place when it realized I wasn't serious about striking it. My shoulders drooped and I sagged back into the couch. Momentarily (but completely) defeated. I would try to give myself a break. I propped my broken eyes against my lower eyelids and tried to sink into the meditation I hadn't practised in a decade. Things were tense lately. Forcing myself to scan screens for familiars, night after night, was only exacerbating problems which had started outside the home. In all honesty, I could not really blame pressure screens for what had lately begun to ail me. Besides, scanning was a family responsibility. It fell on me to pull myself together and put protein in the sacks of my children. Scanning made that happen, even if eschewing the higher-paying advertising work meant I had to burn more hours behind a touchpad than any person should. I was a man, and I wouldn't complain. Much. After my useless eyes had remained closed for about fifteen minutes, the pressure screen clicked twice and went into powersave mode. I would not want to speak about the dreams that followed. I held my finger over the "eight" key while Paris regarded my handiwork. I wasn't about to enter negotiations with this sanctimonious scumfuck without leverage of some sort -- even if that ultimately meant blowing his forehead into spun glass with both barrels of the rigged-up ten gauge I had concealed in the drop ceiling. With one flick of my finger, the panel would swing open and the shotgun would project a hot lead sandwich through Paris' face, displaying unambiguous prejudice. Eat that for lunch! I judged from the sound of his low, even breathing that he was standing right on the mark. Almost... The bandages on my face started itching, and I twitched a little to try and adjust them with the edge of my nose before they slid off of my face -- which would have been awkward looking, given the situation. "What is that? Sign language?" Paris snickered. My eyelids started to burn. I punched the "eight" key vigorously, but nothing happened, save for a long, piercing beep once I'd filled the keypad's buffer with "eights." My hands weren't on home row. That wasn't an eight. It was too late. When they woke me up, I'd been chewing on my left hand, apparently trying to get at my identification chip, and complaining that I couldn't manage to kill Mr. Mold, no matter how many arcane strategies I'd put into play. He was just too clever. His training, or something. That's what got me taken into the Blue Room. They wanted to know if I was through wasting time, and ready to get back to doing some serious work. When would I straighten up? Was I really so sick I couldn't produce? What was this nonsense I'd been ranting about? Disable the DRM on these forms? Surely I knew we couldn't do that. The words "dishonorable discharge" were floated in my presence. All I was trying to say was that, if taxpayer credits were being spent to produce these documents, then taxpayers should be able to save them, trade them, reuse them however they saw fit. Does that sound so wrong? Well? |
creative.commons.attribution-noncommercial-noderivs.2.5
THE MOLDS
1499 words by Stanley Lieber
| Every evening a man would come around to collect the wax sculpts, which were taken for final approval and cast into molds for first shot test runs down on the manufacturing floor. Gently he would scoop up each figure and place it onto a tray before pushing his cart along to the next desk. This cycle repeated itself and with every new season the company's lead design team would complete a fresh collection of figurines which would shortly find their way onto retail shelves. Jonathan's team had never failed the company. Motioning to the man, and then toward an array of assembled parts spread out on the table before him, Johnathan indicated the work that had most recently occupied his attention. The wheels of the man's cart emitted a cantankerous noise and shortly it began to roll again, this time in the direction of Johnathan and his work area. Out of nowhere Plinth Mold entered the room, shaking the dust from his boots and shouldering past the man with the cart, locking his one good eye (somehow) onto both of Jonathan's glassy green orbs. Plinth held this connection as long as he could before moving on to the next leg of the Interaction, by then well underway. Jonathan batted a curtain of hair out of his face and began to scratch his yellow beard absently. There was no use trying to stop him now. Plinth removed his eyepatch, revealing a smooth, barely concave surface, where an eye socket would have been had Plinth been born of a mere woman, and inspected Johnathan's most recent achievements. The first sculpt he snatched from the table seemed to captivate him, singularly, and he hoisted it up into the light, the better to take in its particulars. His weight shifted forward and his mouth produced a vaguely appreciative sound without suffering his lips to part, while his good eye changed direction rapidly for several seconds as he compared his favorite to the various other pieces of wax resting on Jonathan's table. It was clear from these physical perturbations that, in his opinion, none of the other figurines measured up to the one clenched in his hand. Sweeping the rest of the sculpts into his sack anyway, Plinth winked at Johnathan and pulled the drawstring closed. "This style of working will seem less threatening, in retrospect," he said in a reassuring manner. "Who's threatened?" Johnathan humored the octogenarian businessman his eccentricities. Plinth (indicating the figure that had attracted his interest moments before): "I shall require more like this one." Jonathan: "But I've completed a whole series of designs. Here, just look at --" "Only the Asiatics," insisted Plinth, expertly maneuvering the mouth of his bag away from Jonathan's pointlessly extended hand. "You aim to pick and choose between the Lord's handiwork?" inquired Jonathan, as a surprising wave of anger suddenly breached the surface of his pink face. "A man must content himself with the time that he has been allotted," began Plinth, "and so divide his attentions accordingly." He paused there, waiting for Jonathan's mind to catch up to its ears. "It should also be pointed out that you have just come hazardously close to conflating yourself with the Lord Almighty. A most unusual lapse, for a man of your breeding." This silenced the room, as Jonathan was the only other person within its walls, and Plinth knew quite well which switches he was throwing. Somehow Plinth had uncovered that Jonathan considered himself to be a sort of reincarnation of a religious figure, highly revered by the people of his home country. This fact had been carefully concealed by Jonathan's family, as the wide dissemination of same was likely to result in the excommunication of the whole lot of them from the very flock they perceived he'd come to sheppard. As more time had elapsed, Plinth began to wonder if he had perhaps flicked these particular switches with an excess of vigor. Finally, Jonathan let out his breath and once again began to speak. "I suppose you are better qualified to discern the relative, mundane qualities of my work than I will ever be," Johnathan said easily, his ears slowly fading from red into pink. "I do not begrudge you your preferences. They are the very basis of our relationship, after all. Please, take what you will." With this, Plinth relaxed and settled back into his shoes. He could see now that Jonathan had regained rational control of his limbs, and so, in this more equanimous humor, would not attempt to strike him with any of the tools laid out on his workbench. Plinth hastened to remind himself there was never a guaranteed outcome when one ventured to upset the Divine equilibrium of the religiously enamored. He was only glad he was not there to fire the lad. Behind Plinth's back, situated at the base of a far wall, a half-sized door rose up from the floor. Presently it opened, and a half-sized man crossed over its threshold into the open air of Jonathan's workshop. Plinth had not come equipped to deal with multiple assailants, and so he proceeded to spin around rather haphazardly to confront the interloper. Suddenly, his plastic cloak had gathered itself around his ankles on the floor, and he nearly tripped over it as he assumed a defensive posture. The man in the closet declined to join them in the lounge. He had busied himself there continuously since Plinth had arrived, which seemed ordinary enough on its face, but no man (in Plinth's estimation) refused free drink and the ear of a fellow such as himself. He would know the reason behind this man's abstinence, and so asked the fellow to explain himself over (at least) a less imposing (though no less expensive) mug filled with warm, filtered water. This bit of thoughtful generosity the half-sized man had not expected, and finally he agreed to it, though the wariness showed plainly on his face. "I have busied myself in that closet, without emerging, for a handful of months, and would continue in my toil without complaint if you all could but leave me alone to get on with my work," lamented the half-sized man. "Is it a comfortable closet?" Plinth asked. "I have to admit that it is not. But it is serviced by the building's pneumatic tube system, through which I procure my materials." "May I ask then why it is you tolerate such working conditions?" "Oh, and I suppose you find every aspect of your job to be ideal? I work from the time I wake up until the time I pass out. What could be the purpose of maintaining quarters off-site?" This gave Plinth pause, as he did not wish to reveal yet that it was he who signed the little man's cheques. Jonathan was again fumbling with the bristles of his beard, eyes focused upon some distant apocalypse (or perhaps it was merely the impending deadlines for his molds that he dwelt upon that evening). Reginald (for that was the half-sized man's name) had performed the series of keypad exertions necessary to extend his rolling platform to roughly chair height, and so began the process of conveying his legless body into the booth beside his companions. For his part, Plinth was good enough not to remark on Reginald's elaborate mobility contraption. Though gape at it he did. "What," sighed Reginald. "I take it you are the man who operates the molds," whispered Plinth, eyes fairly glazing over as he avoided focusing on Reginald's... stroller. "Man who designed them. Now operates them. No one else seems to be able to get the hang of the control interface." Here Johnathan joined in, playing along, and recited the well-worn narrative. "All the data backups of Reginald's original design templates were lost in a catastrophic fire that cleaned out the company's central datacenter back in '86." "The company opted to rescue what was left of my code instead of what was left of my legs." "Reginald was caught in the fire," Jonathan continued, toward Plinth. "Falling machinery bisected me into hemispheres. With the loss of my templates, I've no way of growing a new interface. None of the company's people have been able to figure out how to run the thing without me." "But we get by," Jonathan insisted. "Yes, recognizing that losing me meant losing their investment, the company chipped in on this mobility rig, and built a special room for me so that I might be close enough to the mold internals to lend my expertise when minute adjustments were needed. Eventually I just made the space over into an office. The molds are too expensive to replace, so this is the state of affairs until they rediscover how to map the controls to other mindforms." "I had no idea," said Plinth, now sincerely embarrassed. Reginald tilted his head toward Jonathan, and took a sip of his water. "I tell the kid here it's all God's fault." |
creative.commons.attribution-noncommercial-noderivs.2.5
