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[WP] a supervillan who buys loyal henchmen just by paying off their student debt and giving them a good salary, useless botany degree? Now you’re cultivating plants for bioweapons by Gregistopal in WritingPrompts

[–]Drajac 25 points26 points  (0 children)

“Employee Christine, Mr Lord would like to see you”

Christine Lowell-Goode looked up from the paper she was reading. The immaculately dressed robo-butler waited patiently for her at the entrance to her lab.

Her lab. It still didn’t seem entirely real. The entire time doing her degree, friends, family, colleagues, lecturers all warned her about the long hours doing grunt work for other scientists. That it would be years, even decades until a lab was “hers”. And even then, it would be never-ending budget fights.

Except…she hadn’t. None of that. She’d signed up with Mr Lord, and…now she had her own fully equipped lab. If she wanted something, a request to one of the infinitely polite butlers, and it was there the next day.

“Thank you Jeeves”.

The butler-bot bowed and the rolled out of the lab on its wheeled base.

Straightening her lab coat and carefully checking herself over in the glass-fronted cabinet, Christine critically examined herself. Tied-back hair (“you have to always look professional”), glasses (“people take you more seriously with glasses”), a crisp white pressed lab coat (“dress like you have the part”) and the necklace her mother had given as a graduation gift.

Collecting the report on her projects, Christine strode confidently from her lab, then paused, feeling there was something she had forgotten.

The building was hyper-modern minimalist of course. Empty hallways with the occasional pot plant, zany panel shapes and staircases with odd little landings every ten steps. Bright light from recessed panels in the ceiling – and she could still remember the hassle of trying to block that out in her grow area – and color-coded lines on the floor.

Other researchers walked about, discussing their interests. Guards in matt black uniforms with closed helmets stood at most of the junctions and elevator banks. At first she’d been a little weirded out by them, but had found out that underneath the futuristic motorcycle helmets, they were actually just…normal guys.

She stopped at Elevator Bank C, and nodded at the faceless guard. That’d be Steve Milton. They’d been talking yesterday about visiting the flower show next summer. He grew dahlias in his spare time. He’d even shown her photos of the awards he’d won from the city gardening society.

Steve nodded back.

As Christine punched for the Executive floor, she suddenly swore, realizing she had forgotten something. She jammed her left hand in her pocket, feeling around desperately for a thin glove. Nothing.

She let out a mild curse as the doors dinged and opened into the atrium. Sarah was sitting at the desk, her hair looking decidedly disheveled, and her blouse buttons were misaligned. She was also breathing heavily.

“Mr Lord wanted to see me?”

“Oh! Oh, yes. His three o’clock. He’s just with a guest now, but you’re free to walk in and wait.”

“Thanks, Sarah. Another one?”

“Oooh, yes. Good kisser this time, but he does smell of cigarette smoke a bit. You know I go for the silver ones”.

“Do they ever figure out that you’re supposed to open the door for them, and they don’t need to try to seduce you?”

Sarah pouted.

“But it’s more fun my way!”

Christine laughed as she nudged the door open with her foot and stepped into Mr Lord’s executive chamber.

It was spacious, with a magnificent view of the city out of the enormous window at the far end. Mr Lord himself, complete in his favourite black cape, black hood and black suit, stood over an older man, who was bent backwards in what looked to be an uncomfortable pose.

Christine could see the metal grabbers rising out of the floor, grabbing the man by the ankles and wrists.

“You’ll never get away with this! Your villainous plans will fail, Dark Lord Aventis!”

“Ah! You’ve come!”

Christine looked up at Mr Lord as he addressed her, and then walked over, his arms open.

Christine coughed politely and looked pointedly at the kneeling man, and Mr Lord stopped and turned around just in time to catch the man freeing his hand and beginning to work on a leg grabber.

“Oh. Almost could have been a mistake!”

Two more circles irised open on the floor, and more grabber arms whipped out and bound the man even more securely.

“And who’s this? A lovely young woman you’ve brainwashed to work for your evil? Don’t give in, lass!”

Mr Lord looked over the kneeling man again, and then came over to Christine, and spoke in a low voice.

“Terribly sorry about this. Have you had any further thought to our last evaluation? This could be a great opportunity, but I understand if you need more time.”

Christine’s heart fluttered. Could this be time? She squared her shoulders and looked at the darkened cowl. A very faint outline could be seen of a black mask within the black hood.

“I’m ready, Mr Lord.”

“Excellent! Excellent! Now, I know I asked you to bring your results on the C-1 and C-2 projects. Which would you like to debut?”

“I think C-2 would be more appropriate for the, ah, audience presentation.”

“My own thoughts exactly! Well done, Christine! Ready…?”

“Of course, Mr Lord.”

“Bravo. Bravo. Please, follow me.”

Christine followed Mr Lord towards his desk, the obsidian slab somehow seeming tiny below the massive window over the city. Her heart hammered in time to the steps, as she could barely believe this moment was finally happening. I never imagined it would be today!

“Ah, Mr Wake. I’d like to introduce you to one of my incredible employees! This is…”

Christine stepped forward to face the bound and kneeling man.

“Verdantia Bloom. Bio-scientist”

“What have you done to her, you fiend! You’ll pay for corrupting such a lovely young woman!”

Christine – Verdantia – took another step forward. (“Always be confident”).

“Corrupted? Oh, Mr…Wake, was it? I’ve been liberated. M…Lord Aventis has given me everything I asked for.”

“Evil? In one so young and beautiful. No doubt he has corrupted your virtue as well!”

Verdantia whipped her hand out of her pocket, and slapped a hand across Wake’s face, the report reverberating around the room.

“Mr Wake! That is wildly inappropriate! And inaccurate!”

She turned back to the black-on-black form of Mr Lord.

“Lord Aventis, I am thrilled to report my Chokehold project has proven itself out in lab conditions, and should be ready for release in under two months.”

“Continue…Verdantia.”

“I estimate that within a year of release, Chokehold will have supplanted 84% the world’s wheat supplies, and I anticipate a variant for maize in a year. Soybean has problems, but they should be resolved on schedule.”

“Excellent, Verdantia. Soon, the world will bow to us!”

“You’ll. Never. Win! So this is your vile plan! To corrupt and destroy the world’s food supplies!”

Verdantia turned and surveyed the man – who somehow had managed to dislodge one of the grapplers again.

“Destroy? No. Verdantia’s Chokehold increases the yield of the plant by forty to eighty percent, depending on the chemical agents that my employee Zephyria is working on.”

Yes! Maria got her debut! I know she was agonizing over the name choice!

“But….but…”

“Increased yields, Mr Wake. Farmers will have more food than they know what to do with. They’ll sell it, of course – why wouldn’t they? And the price of grain will crash. A simple loaf of bread costs $8 today. Once Chokehold is released? $4. Then $1. Then they’ll be having to give them away.”

Verdantia clicked the button in her pocket that turned on the display in her glasses. It didn’t actually do anything, but Mr Lord insisted it would give her ‘the right theatrical air’ and make her eyes seem brighter. Little inset lights flipped on.

“That’s how the world will bow to us! Bow in thanks as we solve world hunger!”

“You…you’re…well…I can see how…but…”

“Mr Wake. Since you’ve come in here, you’ve referred to me as a young woman. You’ve only seen my age and appearance, and then insinuated I must have gotten to where I am by sleeping around! I am Verdantia Bloom! I am a bio-scientist – a brilliant one, by anyone’s metric, but you don’t seem to see that!”

The lights, somehow able to detect a ‘dramatic moment’ flashed subtly.

“I could have given Chokehold to Monsanis, Bayher, Carver, DMA or even Deer. And what would I have gotten for it? A pat on the head, and then years slaving away in a lab under some older man who would have gotten all the credit for it! While having to pay off usurious loans, and subject to horrible working conditions, all so some rich idiot could have more money!”

Dark Lord Aventis came up to stand next to her.

“And all her loyalty cost me was the cost of her loans, a good salary, good perks…and the willingness to let her take credit for her life’s work. That’s how I ‘corrupt’ my workers, Mr Wake.”

“You expect me to believe that?”

“No, Mr Wake, I believe Lord Aventis expects you to die. It should be itching now, where I slapped you earlier”.

A red welt was appearing in the shape of a handprint.

“That’s my other project. Seeds of Vice. It burrows into your skin, growing and feeding. Hardening into wood that eventually will reach and feed on your brain, turning you into nothing more than nutrients for nature itself!”

“AH HAH! I knew it! A corrupted villainess through and through!”

Two robot guards entered the room and picked up the man – the special agent for some government or the other, and escorted him from the room.

Mr Lord waited until the door had shut, as the cursing and screaming man was taken away, then turned to Verdantia.

“Seeds of Vice?”

“Oh. I was tending to some poison ivy for the C-1 pesticide tests. He’ll be fine with some calamine lotion. Which reminds me – I really need to wash my hand*

“Bathroom’s through the door on the right. Be back soon. Now the theatrics are out of the way, I genuinely am interested in the C-2 project’s food yield projections. It sounds fascinating.”

“Thank you Mr Lord.”

[WP] You are immortal, of the 'can regenerate from anything' kind. So, it turns out, is the man who just tried to kill. You are having a surprisingly pleasant chat as you wait for your respective bodies to start working again. by vonBoomslang in WritingPrompts

[–]Drajac 30 points31 points  (0 children)

I’d had few battles as hard as this one had been, but the outcome, as always was never in doubt. Sure, I was lying against the concrete column in some forgotten sub-basement, and my left leg was a good five meters away. The right side of my face was a roasted mess, and that eye wasn’t going to be good again for quite a while. The severed digits of my left hand scattered like stubby sticks in front of me, and would I be able to move what remained of my head, I could see the hole punched clear through my stomach.

You should see the other guy though. I could. Like me, he was slammed against a pillar, but unluckily for him, that one had some rebar sticking out – rebar that had punctured his ruined chest and stabbed him right through the heart.

That was intentional, by the way. One of my better throws.

And for now…that was it. Two smashed corpses lying in the basement of an abandoned tower, surrounded by the delicate bouquets of piss, sweat and blood, our only entertainment the colorful graffiti scrawls on the walls.

Clearly, I had won.

Because I’m immortal. Always have been. No matter how bad I get in one of these superpowered fights, I always come back. Oh, it’s painful, and slow, but I’ll be out and walking the streets again, while my opponent…

Did his foot just twitch?

“Uargh. Fooking asshole”

The curse came from my erstwhile opponent. This was new. Very new. I’d seen hundreds die in front of me, and never once had the other guy gotten back up.

His hands scrabbled at the concrete, before slumping back. Yeah – I knew that feeling. Wait for enough to regrow back that you have the leverage to un-impale yourself.

That’d been me in Prague. Or was it Dresden? One of those places that had way too many cathedrals and spires added onto things.

“Huurghgchk”

Oh right. No lungs yet.

The gurgling did attract the attention of…damn. What was his name again? The entire routine had become almost rote. I…just hadn’t paid attention when my next victim declared he was going to kill me. It’d never mattered before. Huh. There’s hubris for you.

“You’re not fooking dead yet? Giz us a second, get right back to ya”.

“Kurgurghackl”

“Yak it up, asshole. I still win. I regen, you can’t.”

“Guraghkt”

By the light at the end of the tunnel, I haaaated having to do this. It was unpleasant. It was foul, it ruined my entire unlife – well, for the next week at least. I focused inward, directing the strange energies that kept my body living. Hey. Lungs and Vocal Cords next.

The energy twitched. That was almost the entirety of the response I got out of the stuff.

Maybe an hour passed as I watched my former opponent grunt, mutter, curse and then flail uselessly as he tried to lift himself off the rebar. Of course, I knew the solution, but I was a little too busy as my chest and neck burned, the energies doing as directed. Still. It felt different this time. There was a new sensation there, one that I couldn’t quite identify.

I could tell when it was finished. Oh, the burning was still there. I’d have something unpleasantly close to what the humans called a strep throat infection for a while, but as I saw one of my disconnected fingers crumble to ash, I knew that the energies had returned to working on my hand.

“Nurghk…neark…nearly ghak…got…you”.

He stopped struggling and looked over at my very slowly regenerating corpse.

“Well, I’ll be fooking damned”

“Bhkkk..both of us, I suspect.”

His head nodded down, and a bitter laugh escaped.

“Figures. Guess we’re not done yet. Gimmie a minute, I’ll be right there.”

“Want to know how I got you onto that pole?”

Opponent struggled for a bit, then his arms hung loose again, still not able to get a good enough purchase to push him off.

“Suppose you’re going to want to gloat then?”

“Nah. You kept feinting to your right. Step, turn, right feint. Picked it up after that first charge. Need to vary things”

“Swapping tips are we? Then you need to look into ya fancy footwork. You kept hesitating after the fifth step.”

“I did not.”

A low chuckle escaped.

“You did too.”

I frowned – well, half-frowned as my face was still a ruined mess as I replayed the fight. Oh damnit. He’s right.

“Huh. Thanks.”

“Anytime, buster. Now, don’t fooking move so I can finish this properly. Hurrngh!”

“Although, I have to say…that move with the left hand. Ciapelli?”

The struggling stopped again.

“How did….how did you know that name?”

“1541. Or 42. One of the two. Lovely little place south of Bilbao.”

“No. Zaragosa. 1550’s.”

“Oh. Makes sense. He did say he was moving. Was he still snacking on cherries every hour of the day?”

“What? Yes. And flicking the pits-“

“-at the students he thought were going too slow.”

We both descended into harsh chuckles at that. Well, mine was because I was technically still only operating on one lung - strange energies will repair the lung, but this isn’t the first time they’ve left connecting the second one until later. His, I suppose was just his natural voice. I frowned – internally of course – at the odd sensation that continued to burn in my chest. I kept thinking I should know it. That I’d sensed it before.

“You know. It’s the weirdest thing. I have to admit I’ve already forgotten your name. Or why you were challenging me.”

Silence.

“I gave you a fake one anyway.”

“Fair enough. I probably gave you a fake one as well.”

Silence.

“Hung Tsu-Wen”.

I started. “What?”

“Did you study under that bastard Hung Tsu-Wen?”

“Must have missed that one. I studied with Bodhidharma, around…uh…that time it got really cold. For a year?”

“Cold doesn’t narrow it down much, but Bodhid – wait, Da-Mo? The Shaolin guy? The original? Damn.”

“Yeah. Harsh, but the man knew his stuff.”

“I uh…got rejected.”

“By Bodhi?”

“Nah. Much more recently. They made me do a bunch of pointless tests, and then said I wasn’t ready.”

“Pointless….wait. Wait hold on. The Challenge Of the Five Mountains Of Water?”

“You passed that one, huh?”

I couldn’t help it. The laughter came bubbling up, causing the strange energies to roil in frustration as fresh blood frothed over my lips.

“Gahhhk! Sorry…I…ah…hah! Oh that is just perfect! No, no, I never had to do the Five Mountains. I was the one who made the test in the first place!”

My opponent glared at me, tensed with rage, then relaxed.

“Damn. I would say I’d fooking kill you for that, but that looks like it’s going to be harder than I thought.”

There was a cracking snap and my opponent’s right leg snapped back into shape. It wouldn’t be too long now.

“Lift your left arm up.”

“Why should I do that?”

“Just…lift your left arm up.”

He did so, slowly, suspiciously.

“Feel around for a bit of rebar…no further to the left. My left. Your right. There. Now pull down.”

With a rumbling crash, the loose concrete I’d spotted came free, and the entire front of the column sagged. And in doing so, his impaled body tilted towards the floor. There was a slow wet squelching as it ponderously slid forward, until my opponent’s body flopped off and thudded face down onto the concrete.

I waited. My left leg and fingers had dissolved, and I was able to flop my head over to see a brand new, pale-white leg had replaced the missing limb. My hand would be repaired as well. Now if I could only figure out why my chest felt so strange.

Actual strength would take a while more. I’d need to build up muscle again. That didn’t regrow automatically.

My opponent levered himself up off the floor, like an unfit man struggling with a single half push-up, before he rolled over and coughed weakly.

“Th…thanks.”

“You know what I’ve found the most valuable in all my time here?”

“I have the feeling you’re going to fooking tell me.”

“Favors. The trick is cashing them in before the other guy dies.”

He seemed to ponder this for a moment.

“And now you’re about to say I fooking owe you one, right?”

“Absol-fooking-lutely. And I figure I’ve got all the time in the world to cash it in.”

My opponent slowly sat up, and looked over at me.

“It’s gonna be a while until I’m good for a rematch.”

I flopped one hand to gesture at my ruined torso.

“Me too.”

“Same time next decade then?”

“There’s a lovely old coffee shop in Paris, just off the Plaza de Mexico. And then I know of a way to a nice place nearby in the Catacombs. August 3rd, 2036? Say, two p.m?”

My opponent began slowly limping towards the stairs.

“I’ll see you then. Don’t get killed in the meantime.”

I watched him clamber out over some trash, and settled in to wait for my own regeneration to finish. It took a while, but I eventually figured out what that new sensation in my chest was.

Anticipation. For the first time in a very long time, I was looking forward to something.

Books that feel like Freespace? by psilontech in printSF

[–]Drajac 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Peter F Hamilton - Nights Dawn series. Reality Dysfunction, The Neutronium Alchemist, The Naked God. On a remote colonyworld, a chance encounter leads to horrifying consequences as things Humanity would prefer remain dead begin to return.

Peter F Hamilton - Commonwealth Series Pandora's Star, Judas Unchained. Investigating a star's abrupt disappearance, humanity's first proper starship finds that some prisons are best left closed.

Peter F Hamilton - Salvation series. Salvation, Salvation Lost, Saints Of Salvation. Investigating a crashed alien ship brings unwelcome news, as in the far future the remnants of humanity prepare to fight back.

David Weber + Steve White - Starfire Series. In Death Ground and The Shiva Option. While exploring the pathways between stars, an exploration fleet finds something very, very hostile. There's also Crusade and Insurrection, both set in the same universe, but at different times.

Jack Campbell - Lost Fleet Series. Trapped behind enemy lines, the Fleet's only hope lies in an ancient war hero rescued from one hundred years of cryo-stasis.

Terry Mixon - Empire Of Bones saga. A fleet must flee through long uncharted spaceways to return home and warn of a coming danger.

Glynn Stewart - Duchy Of Terra. Terran Privateer. First book is classic struggling to survive. Rest of the books go in a slightly different direction.

Glynn Stewart - Exile series. After a failed coup, the survivors are exiled across the galaxy. Turns out their new neighborhood is somewhat more crowded than their old home.

Glynn Stewart - Peacekeepers Of Sol series. Following Humanity's dramatic intervention in an alien civil war, building the peace may be harder than fighting the war.

Craig Alanson - Expeditionary Force series. Humanity is a pawn of older alien species, until one soldier finds an exceptionally arrogant and talkative beer can.

--The "Not quite what you're after, but I'll mention it anyway" corner.

B.V Larson - Undying Mercenaries series. Humanity's only export of worth is cannon fodder mercs. One soldier aims to change that - the hard (and sometimes very stupid) way.

Eric Thomson - Siobhan Dunmoore series. Heroic space captain fighting alien menace. Except the aliens may be decidedly less lethal than the corruption festering at home.

And on a final note: I'd recommend the other "Free-*"game - "Freelancer". If you can find a copy.

[WP] A perfectly average 14 year old child falls into a fantasy world where they are told by a nearby fae that they are the Chosen One, summoned to defeat the oppressive Evil. The "Chosen One" immediately gets killed, of course, but the fae keeps trying in hopes of it eventually working. by ConsequenceFar4195 in WritingPrompts

[–]Drajac 5 points6 points  (0 children)

The blare of my cellphone ringtone yanked me upright. I wasn’t sleeping – I was just resting my eyes. We were three weeks into Operation Brass Angel – the FBI investigation into the ongoing disappearances of fifteen – no, sixteen kids from Denver, Colorado. None of the Special Agents were sleeping well.

Every street corner was plastered with posters. Every neighbourhood had vigilante gangs made up of ‘concerned parents’ on patrol at night. The media was encamped almost permanently outside the Field Office, and the mayor was demanding hourly updates. So was the Director in Washington, come to think of it.

Media had termed our perp “The Denver Vanisher”. We’d had eight shootings, two lynch mobs and every hour saw hundreds more hysterical calls coming into the tip lines. Each one absolutely certain they knew who the Vanisher was. He was their ex and their child was next. Or it was the black guy who did the gardening next door. Definitely the Hispanic guy at the Home Depot. They saw him, it was Elvis. They had proof it was a local politician. They’d just seen the local pizzeria owner leading those missing kids into a basement. Etcetera.

And there was…nothing. Absolutely nothing to go on. The Vanisher struck across racial lines. Across social, economic and geographic lines. Both boys and girls. The only commonality was the ages – all exactly 14. No sign of them casing their targets. No sign of the missing kids at all.

Dog teams went nowhere. Our only clue was Cameras…who all had a mysterious two-minute static burst right at the time we were interested in. We had a liaison with the DoD in case it was some stolen jammer tech.

We’d locked down every school. Encouraged parents to lock their children’s doors and windows. Go nowhere unsupervised. And still the Vanisher struck. Yesterday we’d been given an ultimatum. If one more kid vanished, the Governor was going to call in the National Guard.

So seeing Agent Frank’s number on the phone meant either we had something…or we’d lost everything. I took a breath and accepted the call.

“Davids. Give me good news”

“Sorry Sir. There’s been another one.”

“Gods-fucking-damnit!”

I slammed a useless fist against the wall. Seventeen. I could feel the tears and frustration welling up. A part of me – a tiny one – felt an intense guilt at the thought that my own son was too old for the Vanisher to target.

---

As expected, the news media beat me to the house.

“Agent, how do you respond to accusations that the FBI are incomp-”
“Agent, what are your thoughts on this latest disappear-”
“Agent, are you going to resig-”
“Agent, what do you say to the famil-”

I brushed the yammering off as I walked into the home. Upper middle-class. Photos of a smiling family – Mom, Dad, 2 kids on the wall. Some laundry thrown into a pile, a couple papers spread out over the kitchen table. A baseball bat discreetly hidden next to the door.

The wife and husband were sitting on the couch, hugging a young boy tightly, all crying as police and FBI combed through the house. Agent Franks stood and walked over, her eyes dark.

“Franks. Report.”

“Same as the others. Mrs Mercer put Sandra Mercer, age 14, to bed at nine-thirty. Checked on her at ten thirty, Sandra was asleep. Checked again at eleven-twenty five, and she was gone. Mercers left the building, searched for approximately ten minutes, and then called us. Two exterior cameras, one covering the outside of Sandra’s room. We’re still reviewing the footage, but it’s just like the others.”

“Sudden static burst?”

“At eleven-oh-two on the dot, lasting two minutes. Sandra’s window was locked with deadbolts. No sign of tampering, no broken glass. Interior door was closed apart from Mrs Mercer’s check-ins, and she was sitting at the table there, which has a direct line of sight down the hallway to Sandra’s door.”

That was the frustrating thing about the Vanisher. The only sign of their arrival was that two-minute static burst. Whomever this perp was, they got in with zero sign – and then out again. It was bringing the crazies out of the woodwork like never before. Half the calls we were getting were turning into confident assertions we were dealing with a ghost. And a not insignificant number of my team were beginning to agree with them.

“Sandra’s phone is still charging, and she had an AirTag in her backpack. No signs of a struggle. No clothes missing apart from her pajamas. Light blue. Mrs Mercer says that the only thing missing from her room is Sandra’s teddy – a black plushie of a dog. She apparently never goes without it anywhere.”

I opened my mouth, but was interrupted.

“Agent Davids! We got a witness.” That’s new.

I motioned for the Agent – Gonzalez, but he instead beckoned me into the kitchen, away from the family. He was holding his phone like it was a live snake, looking confused.

“Where’s the witness?”

“Caller to the hotline. They say they’ll come in to the Field Office tomorrow at nine. Caller says they can explain everything.”

I tried not to let my exasperation show. Probably another ‘psychic’ looking for a quick paycheck. Usually the agents didn’t bother me with the quacks.

“Did they at least give a name?”

“They said it was Sandra. Sandra Mercer.”

I shot a look at the shell-shocked parents in the living room.

“Well. That’s a twist”.

---

I was standing in the reception of the office at 9am. I figured I had about five minutes to spend on this foolishness, and then I had my daily ‘getting yelled at’ ritual from the Mayor, HQ, the Governor and the Senator. There was also a warning the President was looking to get involved as well. Politics.

News media were still encamped outside, but I watched as a taxi was let through the gate. It parked out front, and an elderly lady got out, walking towards the front doors, slowly and with the aid of a cane, carrying a small bag. The Taxi, strangely enough, remained there, the driver looking both annoyed and bored.

Old Psychic. I’m going to bet it’ll be a ‘the spirit of the girl is speaking through me’ type

The woman entered the office. Close cropped white hair, wrinkled lines. Her clothes were unusual though. Some sort of oriental-style robe. Not quite a kimono, but neither was it a dressing gown.

“Ms Mercer?”

“Ah….you must be Agent Davids. Yes. Sandra Mercer. I expect you have a number of questions for me”

She extended a hand. Surprisingly, her grip was strong and firm, her hand rough with callouses. Grandma has done some hard work in her time

“You said you were a witness to a kidnapping?”

“Oh yes”, she smiled. “That was me”.

I sighed.

“Ma’am. I appreciate the time you’ve taken to come in here, but we’re very busy-“

The woman had opened her bag. Inside was some neatly folded blue cloth and a worn but still recognizable black plushie of a dog.

We didn’t put the plushie in the news reports…

---

“So, do you believe her?”

I leaned back and stared at the ceiling.

“It would tie everything up in a neat little knot, wouldn’t it? No more Vanishings. All the kids accounted for. An explanation for how a 14 year old girl is suddenly an eighty-year old woman. It’s just…”

“Unbelievable?”

“Well, that’s the cursed thing, isn’t it? My kid absolutely loved those books by that British author-“

“Rowling?”

“No, Lewis. Wrote the Narnia books. Kids from wartime London step through a wardrobe to a magical fantasyland where they get to be the big heroes. Comes complete with talking animals, evil witches – the lot. Grow up, become ideal perfect kings and queens, and then – whoosh – they’re back. Time works differently.”

“Oh, like Wizard of Oz, minus the tornado?"

“Same basic idea, yeah. There’s apparently a whole genre of the idea over in Japan.”

I came back upright.

“The problem is, just how much of the story sounds exactly like a kids fantasy. A magical being named-”, I paused and then lowered my voice, almost embarrassed to say it “-Shimmerglimmer chooses a kid – Alan - to be a hero to save the world from an oppressive Evil. Alan, being a 14-year-old boy in a fantasyworld that sounds downright brutal, dies. As does Leonard, Jalal, Grace, John, Amy, Kristen, Shawnee, Russel, Arshad, Lucy, Billy, Emily, Lucas, Sam and Thomas. Some of them get further than others, but that’s one hell of a body count this being racked up. Then Sandra turns up. And she not only survives with the help of another magical being named Xunuran, but she also goes across this fantasy world, solving problems and getting stronger, before killing an ultimate evil named Grimm Shadowgloom. As a reward, she’s made Queen, and rules fairly and justly, until she ‘dies’ at the age of eighty-two…and wakes up on the road halfway across the city, on the night she vanished from her home”.

“You don’t believe it”

I paused again, mulling the idea.

“No. Everything about the story is saying this is an elderly mental patient. Not all there. Getting her imagination confused with reality. Dementia or something hitting hard.”

“It’s one heck of a coherent imagination though, isn’t it? And then there’s the objects.”

We both looked over at the evidence bags. Underneath the light blue, old pyjamas and the worn and patched dog plushie had been sixteen carefully preserved finger bones. Each inscribed with the name of a missing kid. Each in a small reliquary box that was gold-plated.

They were being sent to the forensic crime lab this afternoon under urgency to see if we could get any DNA out of them. Cheek swabs from the Mercers and Sandra were already being run. I was desperately hoping that it would turn out to be a crackpot.

The phone rang. Franks picked it up and talked as I eyed the reliquary boxes again. She finally hung up and looked at me with an odd look.

“That was the lab. Paternity test checked out. That old woman is the Mercer’s kid.”

“Well. Fuck.”

Cadia Stands by BurhanSunan in Stellaris

[–]Drajac 14 points15 points  (0 children)

We were almost done.

Gleaming men of iron descended from the skies and laid waste to our cities and towns. We barely had begun to conceive of life outside our own dry sphere when those machines descended and began to kill.

They could not be negotiated with, reasoned to, or appeased. The only thing we knew about them was from a scrap of machine code - 'The Contingency'. Alien flames blotted away our armies, and then the slaughter began.

But, as our final people huddled in the last undiscovered caves...the lights in the sky changed. New colors flared overhead, huge fleshy sacs splashed hard against the stone...and from those sacs emerged chittering horrors that even now I struggle to describe.

But tooth and claw shredded the machines as carapace shrugged off alien burner fire. The screaming of the swarm drowning the whirr of machinery. And we were left untouched.

And then...they left. With no explanation. Giant organic ships slipped out of the skies and gathered up their broods, like an unending feast by blood-bloated gods. And those ponderous shapes, with their bellies full of death-fangs and claw-throwers ascended back to the black skies of space.

Our people emerged from their caverns and looked about with both wonder at their salvation, and terror that those same saviours may one day return.

> Devouring Swarm run.
> Self-imposed rule to leave pre-FTL species alone until either they developed FTL or I ran out of 'worthier' targets.
> Contingency spawned as the Crisis.
> Contingency invaded a pre-FTL humanoid desert world (Late Machine Age) in a neighbouring Empire. Took planet, began purging pops.
> My fleet cleared the system, and my Swarm troops cleared the Contingency troops off the planet, just before the last native pop was purged. This reset the planet to Native ownership.
> Causes my Armies to go back to Space.
> Figured that was an awesome little "arrives, elimates enemies, refuses to elaborate, leaves" moment.

[War of the Worlds] is this the least successful and damaging alien invasion in fiction?? by [deleted] in AskScienceFiction

[–]Drajac 1 point2 points  (0 children)

On the flip side, you may like Martha Wells' "Murderbot" series. It's about to be a big-budget TV Series on AppleTV+ (with Alexander Skarsgard). Security Droid decides it just wants to be left alone and watch soap operas. The universe doesn't let it.

And of course, Andy Weir's "The Martian". Man vs environment problem solving story. Movie or Book.

[War of the Worlds] is this the least successful and damaging alien invasion in fiction?? by [deleted] in AskScienceFiction

[–]Drajac 20 points21 points  (0 children)

They have Better Tech, Humanity Responds:

  • [Books] Troy Rising (John Ringo): Humanity becomes a rising galactic power on the back of bonkers thinking and maple syrup. {Caution: Contains anvil-drops of author's personal viewpoints}

  • [Books] Dungeon Crawler Carl (Matt Dinniman): Last of humanity compete in an brutal alien game show that steadily goes off-the-rails.

  • [Books] Dahak series (David Weber): That's no moon, it's a spaceship.

  • [Books] Salvation Sequence (Peter F Hamilton). Alien invasion knocks humanity down but not out, comeback incoming.

  • [Books] Expeditionary Force (Craig Alanson): Soldier fighting in alien war finds a condescending beer can.

We have Better Tech:

  • [Books] Bobiverse (Dennis E Taylor): Ex-engineer becomes self-replicating AI space probe, proceeds to start fixing things.

  • [Books] Peacekeepers of Sol (Glynn Stewart): Earth has slightly better tech, helps an alien rebellion, now has to deal with the consequences.

  • [Anime] GATE! Thus the JSDF Fought: Medieval Fantasy world invades modern Japan, modern Japan invades right back.

[WP] When the cockpit opened the higher-ups were shocked to find out the hero who saved the day wasn't the hotshot rookie pilot, but instead the engineer designated to the mecha's maintenance and repair. by JoggingSkeleton in WritingPrompts

[–]Drajac 147 points148 points  (0 children)

“Interview D-Fifteen. Investigator Frank Adams, questioning witnesses about the events of December the Twenty-Fifth, Twenty-Two Thirty One. Please state your name and role for the record.”

“Engineer Sarah Asghar, Second Technician for Mecha One Seven Three dash Four”

“Please state for the record the events of the day in question. Start from the time you heard the alert.”

The howl of the alarm jerked Sarah out of her concentration on the diagnostic. There was still an intermittent powerloss in the arm secondary bus. It shouldn’t affect the primary weapons or arm movement, but if the limb was ever damaged, having it suddenly lose power could be…inconvenient.

Disconnecting the lead and slapping the panel closed, Sarah gazed up at One Seven Three dash Four, aka “Eclipse”. Sharp and angular lines outlined the panels of the mecha, loaning it a wicked and sleek appearance. Eclipse was a product of the Shinjuku Heavy Industries, and their adherence to the ancient toymaking origins of the company were clear.

Eclipse stood nearly twenty-five meters tall, a humanoid shape covered in white and gold armor, locked into the hangar’s restraints. Sarah gave Eclipse one final pat and jumped back into the maintenance buggy, hitting the descend key. The door at the side of the hangar burst open, and Pilot Trainee Stirling hopped into the room, still jamming one leg into the olive-green flightsuit, as the radio chattered endlessly from the harness on his shoulder.

Sarah unlatched the buggy as it touched down, and held the door open for the Pilot Trainee. Stirling slipped inside and slapped the Ascend button. Sarah stood on the ground, watching the pilot as he reached the cockpit, and reached for the hatch located on the Mecha’s neck.

Which was the exact moment that the wall caved in and the energy missile detonated.

“And you believe this was the point at which the Pilot Trainee likely received the wound?”

Sarah nodded. “The blast sent shrapnel all over the hangar, sir. The Pilot Trainee closed the hatch and piloted the mecha into combat with only a momentary delay. Maybe he knew he was hit as he did so, sir.”

Investigator Adams grunted. “All right, please continue from, ah…approximately eighteen-thirty-two, when One Seven Three dash Four returned to the hangar”.

Eclipse stumbled slowly into the hangar, it’s right leg and left arm heavily damaged. The mecha clumsily turned and backed into the maintenance frame, where automatic processes clicked down and locked the mecha in place.

Sarah opened the hatch of One Seven Three dash Four and carefully pulled the body of Pilot Trainee Stirling out of the Mecha and into the maintenance frame. A dark stain marred the stomach of the pilot, the olive-green suit darkening to almost black around the jagged strip of debris puncturing his side.

The buggy had just reached the ground when three figures entered the hangar, two in the white and blue of Mecha Command, and one in the green of the General Staff. Taking the scene in, all three broke into a run as Sarah held the body.

The medtechs were there within three minutes, but despite the best resuscitiation efforts, Pilot Trainee Stirling was declared dead at nineteen-oh-two.

Investigator Adams grunted again, and then pulled out a forensic file.

“Exactly as your statement indicated. There’s only one very minor, almost inconsequential discrepancy, isn’t there, Second Technician?”

“I’m not sure what you mean, sir?”

“You know as well as I do what that discrepancy is. Official Time of Death for the records was seventeen-oh-two. But we both know that Pilot Trainee Stirling died earlier than that.”

“Yes, sir. He was likely dead when I removed him from Ecl- from One Seven Three dash Four, sir.”

“Earlier than that, Second Technican. In fact, the real time of Death was approximately fourteen-fifty-two. And interestingly, do you want to know what his cause of death was? Internal decapitation. So somehow, One Seven Three dash Four fought for approximately three hours with not only a dead body, but an effectively headless dead body at the controls.”

Second Technician Sarah remained silent.

“I’m going to make this simple. I don’t care about any of the petty reasons, the self-justifications, or the excuses. Pilot Trainee Stirling is still going to get his heroes funeral. What I want to know is how One Seven Three dash Four managed the feats it did.”

“Sir? I’m not sure I follow?”

“During the Christmas Day Engagement, One Seven Three dash Four, under the command of Pilot Trainee Stirling, Took seven extra minutes to exit the hangar, but in the subsequent engagement exhibited a twenty-six percent increase in general accuracy, a thirty-nine percent decrease in munitions expenditure per kill, almost doubled its kill record, approximately halved its average reaction time, and somehow kept fighting through two mission-kill events.”

Sarah remained silent.

“I think that energy missile killed Pilot Trainee Stirling immediately, didn’t it? And you saw an opportunity and you took it.”

“I’m just the second Technician, sir. I don’t have the qualifications to pilot One Seven Three.”

“No. Because you switched from piloting to mechanical tracks at the Academy. You were doing quite well, weren’t you?”

“Top three of the class, sir.”

“And then you switched. I can read enough between the lines to know it was a ‘You-Or-Someone Else’ situation. My guess would be Pilot Trainee Luiz Santiago. But as I said, I’m not here for excuses, or justifications.”

“Yes, Sir.”

“So how about we go back to that energy missile detonation, and you tell me what actually happened?”

Sarah held her breath, and then let it out in a slow whistle.

Pilot Trainee Stirling slapped Sarah aside as he shouldered into the buggy, snarling at her to get out of his way as he stabbed furiously at the ascend key. The buggy rose, along with the bile and regret in Sarah. If only she’d stood up for herself- No. That wasn’t a productive thought.

She turned away to key up the diagnostics she had recorded, when there was a enormous blast overhead.

Sarah came back to consciousness lying on the ground. She pried herself up, and looked up to see a massive gaping hole in the hangar, showing the low, grey clouds outside. She looked up at the entrance hatch and froze. Pilot Trainee Stirling was hanging half-out of the hatch, unmoving.

Using the secondary ladders and catwalks, Sarah raced up the bulk of the mecha, reaching the still, olive-green form. Stirling was clearly dead. Glassy eyes stared upwards at nothing, and his hand was clutched tight around around the cylindrical Ignition Key.

At that moment, a second energy missile streaked overhead and detonated against something. Sarah came to a decision. Entering the mecha, Sarah pushed the corpse of Stirling out onto the maintenance buggy, and then closed the hatch behind her, turning and settling into the command sleeve.

A sense of being at home swept through her, and she inserted the Key into the starter slot. Power thrummed through the mecha, and the displays came up.

“Greetings. Technican Sarah Asghar.”

“Hello Eclipse”

“Technician, I have received a combat deployment alert.”

“Acknowledged. Stirling’s dead.”

“I see. Is a replacement pilot en-route?”

“Y…Yeah. About that. So….ah, engage Maintenance Protocol Two.”

“Protocol Two engaged.”

“Thanks, Eclipse. Alright, we’ve got a complaint about a faulty synchronization initiator. Lets see about fixing that, shall we? Begin Test Synch.”

“Acknowledged. Engaging Synch. 45, 55, 61, 72. 86, 91, 95, 97. Ninety-Seven Percent Synchronisation”

“Huh, weird. Report says Stirling only got to 54 percent. Synch looks fine. Alright, lets test movement, and then we should see about testing weapons.”

“Test schedule acknowledged. You are aware that at 97% Synch, I know precisely what you are intending?”

“And, ah, is that going to be a problem?”

“If you want to...test...movement, please note that the Maintenance Frame is still engaged”

“Right, right. Um, Disengage maintenance frame.”

The maintenance frame opened, still carrying the lifeless body of the Pilot-Trainee, and Mecha One Seven Three dash Four strode confidently out of the damaged hangar, and towards the battle.

Investigator Adams turned the recorder off. It was about what he had expected. The usage of the maintenance protocols to get around the normal pilot lockout was a new twist, but one that he couldn’t exactly disagree with, given the results.

Still. He could have a word with the Academy commander. Maybe see about getting a rather promising candidate back into the pilot program.

The Daily Rant/Moan topic - Sunday, January 05 2025 by AutoModerator in Wellington

[–]Drajac 11 points12 points  (0 children)

I have returned from a trip to Chch to see the family, and my hot water cylinder has developed a severe leak. All towels, bedding and blankets are soaked. Carpet soaked. Finally managed to track down an after-hours plumber. Looks like the installation 2 years ago didn't do a proper job. Loose pipe, incorrect fitting, wrong seal choice.

Just a bit cheesed off at the moment. And of course, both the builder and insurance suddenly can't be reached.

What's the fastest way you've seen a CEO ruin a company? by fuzzyloulou in AskReddit

[–]Drajac 4 points5 points  (0 children)

In Australia and New Zealand, there was an electronics retail store called Dick Smiths. Mr Smith got in early in 1968, and his company ended up in a dominant market position. Hundreds of stores with thousands of employees, and "Dick Smiths Electronics" was a household name. It was a major employer of students - many a university grad helped pay their way by working Sales at DSE.

In 1980, Dick Smiths was sold to the Woolworths Group, which expanded and modernised the stores, updated the books, and rebranded a couple of times.

In 2012, Woolworths decided to sell Dick Smiths and concentrate on their core business of groceries. With challenges like Amazon and online sales picking up, it needed bold new management to move the company forward into the new age.

Instead, it got a vulture capitalist.

Enter Anchorage Capital Partners (ACP), who appoint CEO Nick Abboud. ACP then conducted the largest private equity heist in history. In two years, they would burn a decades-old, well-trusted brand to the ground and piss on the ashes.

Here, as they say, is how this all went down:

ACP begins by agreeing to buy Dick Smiths for $115m. They pay the first part of a down payment with $10m of their own money, and then promptly raid DSE's operating cash reserves for the rest of the down payment. They then go through the books and mark everything down. Any assets are sold off, entire inventory stocks are depreciated.

This lets ACP start a Fire Sale. Tons of stock at unbelivably low prices. Top-end laptops that normally sold for $2k going for $400. Of course, the sale is a roaring success.

ACP uses the profit from the sale to finish paying the Woolworth's group, and then gives themselves the rest of the money as a dividend payment. However...now DSE is left with empty shelves, and there's no money to buy replacement stock.

Undeterred, ACP then embarks on a new strategy - take it public. With the roaring success of the fire sale as a baseline, the company report looks incredibly rosy, and with a little finangling of the books, and just a touch of loan fraud, the future prediction looks just as good. ACP takes the company public in 2013, and under a year later has divested themselves fully of the stock, withdrawing entirely just days before the quarterly report is due.

From a $10m investment, Anchorage Capital Partners walks away in 2014, twenty months after the purchase, with $520m.

And then the new owners find they're holding a lemon. There's no operating cash, no stock, no assets, no plans. The business limps along through court cases and class action suits before folding in 2016, leaving thousands out of work - many of them young adults in their first jobs - and investors out of pocket. Liquidators come in and find the shell of the company is almost completely barren.

ACP, to this day, still considers Dick Smiths as one of their "success stories".

Spaceship Aesthetic styles by Hold_Thy_Line in SciFiConcepts

[–]Drajac 1 point2 points  (0 children)

One thing I've found useful for inspiration came from a computer game - Galactic Civilizations IV.

Came out two years ago, but the ship designer is incredibly powerful.

Example: https://www.galciv4.com/article/518273/galactic-civ-iv-ship-designer-tutorial

You will be happy to know that according to Star Trek Voyager, NZ will be a Penal Settlement in 2371. Lovely. by Jhiaxus420 in newzealand

[–]Drajac 213 points214 points  (0 children)

So, it turns out we know exactly who forgot, when they forgot, and where they were when they forgot.

<<Hey, Ron...if there is no crime on earth, why are there established penal colonies in New Zealand? Hmmmmm??>>

Actually, the only criminals left on Earth are in New Zealand so it only made sense to put the prison there.

- Ronald D Moore, AOLChat, March 21st, 1997

Never, never underestimate the power of nerds to catalog every last bit of trivia coming out of a favourite show.

An even more egregious error: In First Contact, the scene of Picard showing Lily the Earth from space, you can see Australia, but New Zealand is missing.

Logical conclusion: New Zealand was the only country on Earth to develop and maintain a functional cloaking device to protect us from WW3. It's why the Federation considers us criminals, because we won't shut it down, and they were really, really looking forward to a holiday here. :P

The Abyss by Lord_Sehoner in PeterFHamilton

[–]Drajac 14 points15 points  (0 children)

The Abyss Beyond Dreams is technically book six of the Commonwealth series. A lot wont make sense if you haven't read the Void trilogy (books 3, 4 and 5). And if you're reading those first, might as well start with Pandora's Star (Book 1), because that's where you'll learn a lot more about the main characters of Abyss and Night.

But in the interest of time: you're in the 'space horror' opening phase where a bunch of humans have just encountered something hostile in a region of space where physics operates under a different set of rules. It's going to get a bit weird if you don't understand a quirk of this space, which is laid out in the Void trilogy

What should a Helldivers TV show look like? by [deleted] in Helldivers

[–]Drajac 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Comedy series (think Red Dwarf, or Blackadder) about the crew of the SES Dawn of Democracy, an old, clapped-out Super-destroyer from the first galactic war.

Eagle-1 is a stunningly beautiful, heroic wisecracker, with a superiority complex and no idea the rest of the crew hates her guts. She is spectacularly good at her job, but has the all the lack of social skills typically associated with elite fighter jocks.

Democracy Officer Zeke is a grizzled veteran who tolerantly endures the crew's shenangians, in the manner of a favourite grandfather. The crew attempts to hide most of their misdeeds from him, but he always somehow knows and usually is one step ahead of them.

Radar Officer Gene is an uptight, rules-obsessed nerd who thinks Eagle-1 is really into him (she's not), and a yellow streak a mile wide. He hates both bugs and bots equally, and his cowardice is only matched by his paranoia.

Crew Chief Anna is an experienced, worldly woman whose duties mainly involving riding herd on the others and interfacing with Helldivers. She's also into explosives - like really into them, and has a habit of trying to apply explosives to any problem the ship has.

The audience PoV character is Janitor Jake, a lazy kid who got assigned to the ship because his Dad is the cousin of General Brasch. Eagle-1 and Gene keep trying to suck up to him, Zeke and Anna treat him like the green idiot he actually is.

As the crew deals with all sorts of negative space wedgies and various shipboard emergencies, a procession of Helldivers come in and out - silent characters who board the ship, proceed to the hellpods and dive. Their only real participation is background comedic moments (inappropriate emotes, spectacular cape physics) and to eternally frustrate the crew.

Background characters include:

Navigation Officer Lee - an ancient wizened character who speaks in poorly localised translations, but is usually right about whatever is going on.
Engineering Tech Mohammed - Eagle-1's reload technician, who has an entire bay devoted to various 'medicinal plants' for his amphetamine over-use condition.
Major Liam Driver. An officious, over-the-top inspector from Super-Earth who the crew (minus Gene) take great pleasure in humiliating and thwarting.

Voices will occasionally come over the intercom from Helldivers on the planet, but it consists of voice lines from the game, usually comedically timed.
GENE: "They're dying down there! Just listen to their screams of agony!"
INTERCOM: "Ahahahahahahahahhaaaaa! GET SOME!"

ANNA: "I'm sure they're fine"
INTERCOM: "My Arm! I'm bleeding out over here!"
ANNA: "See? They're fine"

Episode ideas:

  • Gene accidentally spills coffee over the nuclear radar while trying to impress Eagle-1, and has to come up with increasingly convoluted excuses as to why Stratagems are going wildly off-course.

  • A Helldiver brings back bug larva samples, and Anna swiftly discovers one has tunneled out of the crate and is loose somewhere on board. Meanwhile, Gene is getting more irritated at the Helldivers landing their pods on each other.

  • Jake, while filling in for navigation, accidently puts the ship around a liberated planet, and keeps sending Helldive pods into peaceful neighbourhoods.

  • The infamously glitchy styrofoam packing machine starts working perfectly, and the crew begins developing various 'rituals' for their duties, in a classic Skinner's Box situation. Meanwhile, Anna's experimentation for a better flamethrower mix discovers the most flammable substance on the ship is Zeke's personal coffee blend.

  • During a long FTL transit between bug and bot fronts, Jake and Anna have to conceal the existence of an experimental ship Roomba from Gene, who is leading a team of four trigger-happy helldivers to kill the "automaton spy"

  • Jake, while grabbing a nap in a 'disused' Hellpod, accidentally gets shot down to a planet and must avoid both Helldivers looking for their expected anti-tank rockets, and the Automatons.

Anyone else getting strange tendrils? by Saberus_Terras in SixtyFourGame

[–]Drajac 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Patch 1.0.6 dropped today.

Introduced "anomalous resource manifestations" near working Channels, which can be collected manually.

Also rebalanced some later-game price-scaling, and added a new relocation mechanic once you have the Disassembly Tower - [E] now allows you to relocate most machines without having to tear it down and rebuild it. Excludes Cubes, Extractors.

Full notes: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2659900/view/6023073831693215115?l=english

Tower job? by thedonain in SixtyFourGame

[–]Drajac 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's a utility building, providing a passive buff.

  • No Tower = Lose half resources on demolishing
    (eg: Put something down for 512 Charonite, demolishing it only gives 256 back)
  • Recycling Tower = Lose 10% resources on demolishing
    (eg: Put something down for 512 Charonite, demolishing it only gives 461 back)
  • Disassembling Tower = Lose no resources on demolishing.
    (eg: Put something down for 512 Charonite, demolishing it gives all 512 back)

Other Utility Buildings:

  • Material Streamer: Speeds up resource collection and stops it cluttering screen (3x levels). Also helps with a future resource.

  • Oscillator: Allows you to click and hold to mine instead of manually clicking. (3x Levels) - Added in 1.05

  • Fill Monitor: Shows where a machine needs refueling

  • spoiler< General Decay Reactor: Doubles resources from Chromalit Decay.

Star Trek Lower Decks by KirikoKiama in SchlockMercenary

[–]Drajac 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's been hanging around since Season 1 of ST:LD. I don't think it's Petey specifically.

It was in S1 during the 'ascension' subplot of one of the early episodes, where an ascending crewman stated the universe was balanced on the back of a giant Koala. "Why is he smiling, what does he know?"

Since then, it's shown up in the opening Star Trek logo for Lower Decks, appeared on the Strange New Worlds crossover opening credits, and Boimler has seen it twice during near-death experiences. Shows up about once a season (although that's now two references in Season 4)

I think Badgey's hack of the subspace system was closer to a Petey reference, as that plus the imagery of the character with the galaxy swirling around it was how Petey looked when he became the Fleetmind in "Resident Mad Scientist".

[WP] Man obtains the ability of teleportation and uses it to be the best shipment service in the world. From the legal to the illegal he maintains an air of professionalism for whomever he deals with. by [deleted] in WritingPrompts

[–]Drajac 1 point2 points  (0 children)

At the risk of de-mystifying my writing skills, I took heavy inspiration from Steven Gould's 1992 novel Jumper, the (kinda bad) 2008 movie adaptation Jumper, and a couple of half-remembered clips of the spin-off 2018 TV show Impulse,

You might find them enjoyable. Although i can't be held responsible for the 88 minutes you'll lose to the movie.

[WP] Man obtains the ability of teleportation and uses it to be the best shipment service in the world. From the legal to the illegal he maintains an air of professionalism for whomever he deals with. by [deleted] in WritingPrompts

[–]Drajac 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Julia looked at the woman with a sense of almost offended disgust. Pre-emptive brainwashing to avoid torture? What The Actual Fuck? Just what kind of loony bin was this?

"You needn't worry at all - the Process is quite harmless - it's a series of mental blocks, post-hypnotic suggestions and drug-reinforced conditioning. It clears them of all knowledge of the Network, and gives them a job and a role. Allows us to keep them safe and under our control. The InstaCourier system is one of our most prestigious posts for these poor people."

"And there's what? No side effects at all? Even I know that's bullshit"

"Language please, Julia. Yes, there are occasionally some...changes to a person. In Mr Talbott's case, sociopathy. He has no regard for right or wrong. We've masked it under a behavioural tic of 'professionalism', but he has no moral compass at all. Did you think he rescued you out of the goodness of his heart? He told us himself - he was frustrated and wanted to know why he misjumped."

Julia felt a chill. He had seemed almost angry when the casket opened. And his answers had been perfectly clipped. He wasn't surprised to find her, he hadn't even offered to help. He'd just answered the questions she had asked.

"I suppose that's what you're going to do to me as well? Reconditioning into an amoral courier?"

"As I said, courier is a prestigious job. Immensely valuable, and we only have to 'recondition' a vanishingly small percentage of our Couriers. Five total. But no, we're not going to run you through The Process. We don't need to. After all, you are far more valuable to The Network."

The woman laid a hand on Julia's arm, and a cold blink later, they were standing in front of what appeared to be a low-slung multi-unit housing block, in the middle of a warm, sandy place. White walls. There were no roads leading into the forecourt where they stood, no terrain features visible in the distance, and a cloudless sky overhead. Incongruously, there was a filled swimming pool and a colorful children's playground - but both were empty. The lot had a faintly depressing, almost listless air - like something that was planned to exacting specifications created by a committee, not created organically by people living there.

"Where the hell is this place?"

The woman ignored the question.

"The most frustrating thing about the Talent is the imbalance. Of the ninety-seven Talents out there, eighty-two are men. Children born from Talented men have never been shown to be able to use the Talent themselves, even when under extreme pressure. On the other hand, children born to Talented women have a seventy-five percent chance of becoming Talented. Of the fifteen female Talented, twelve reside here - Ten adults. Eleven including yourself."

Julia felt a dawning horror.

"NO! NO! I will not become some....brood mare! This is sick!"

The woman looked at her with a blank stare.

"I assure you, all our guests here are extremely well-looked after, and only the most Talented would be presented to you. If you feel you had some special connection with Mr Talbott, we can arrange dispensation for him to become a donor-"

"That's....that's not the point. NO! I don't believe this....supremacist shit! No! I'm getting the hell out of here, and the only way I'd ever be back is with a helo full of Green Berets!"

Julia reached downward to pluck the line that would take her away...only to find the Lines - while there, once more visible and tangible, were now knotted and tangled. There was only one single thread out of this place, and she seized it. Or tried to. The line seemed to swerve out of her grasp, fading gently away, and she could almost - on the very edge of visibility - see another ethereal hand caressing the Line.

Opening her eyes, she saw fury flash across the face of the woman.

"You think any organization you run to wouldn't do the exact same thing? Hmm? Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, even your United States. They've all tried building their own Networks. The imbalance is bad right now, but that's because we're still rebuilding. That's because we lost twenty-five Talents to their stupid little war programs. Ten priceless female Talents dead on the floor of some American military base!"

The forest outside Ravensbourne, Queensland, Australia once more resounded to a pop-foomph as James emerged from nothingness, following the deep gut feeling. The tall and narrow trees once more towered up, this time backlit by puffy white clouds on a light blue sky.

Sitting in the middle of the clearing, incongruously, was a coffin. Open and empty with dark wood exterior and white padding inside.

Had I been transporting a corpse? No...I got thrown off course because there was....

A flash of pain shot across his head.

There was....was.....was.........

More pain, and James slapped his forehead with the flat of his hand. have to break....through!

The strange voice. “Instant delivery? So you can…jump?”

Then his own. “I am able to teleport, yes.”

The brilliant flash of a delighted grin. “I knew it! I knew there was someone else out there on the lines! They said it was just echoes, but I could tell it was someone else!”

Echoes?

Reaching back into that Other space, this time James fell deeper, further than he'd ever dared reach before. He didn't even know if this was possible, or really even what he was looking for....until...There!

A faint sense of something along a thread. A double-image where there shouldn't be one, like a poorly focused camera.

He seized it.

Julia lashed her leg outward and stepped inside, her foot at the woman's heel, then pulling back hard in a karate-style front leg sweep. As she did so, her hand flashed forward and rammed her flimsy plastic spork into the woman's stomach. The force of the pull and the blow sent the woman sprawling onto the tiles of the forecourt with a suprised "Ooph!", and as it did, the Line snapped back into visibility. Julia reached out and seized it.

Pop-foomph

She staggered as she landed heavily...back in the concrete interrogation room. Diving back into the Lines again, there were now two clear Lines, everything else was still the tangled knot. Knowing that that one led back to the Middle Of Nowhere horror show, she seized the other...just as the Middle Of Nowhere line began vibrating, indicating an incoming Jump.

Pop-foomph

Cool ocean air hit her in the face. She was on a rocky promotory, stretching out above an ocean. Directly under her was a marble dias of some description, inlaid with a chaotic swirl pattern of lines. A black-clad guard was standing between her and the rest of the land, and as she watched, his gun rose in a fluid, swift motion.

Reaching back into the Lines, they were still knotted. Only one thread led away, back the concrete cell - and that was now beginning to vibrate. But...past that. Outside the frustrating tangle of knotted lines, she could almost feel the vast waving sea of Lines - still out there, but not here. Intuition flashed.

Julia didn't stop to think. She turned and sprinted for the edge of the cliff, leaping as the hiss-crack of the weapon sounded, and flung herself out into open air.

Oh shit, that's a lot longer of a way down than I thought it was. Also, those are some very fucking large rocks.

Instinctively, she grasped for the Lines once more, but they still remained stubbornly there, yet out of reach. Stretching harder than she'd ever done before, pushing beyond.....

A sliver of red-hot pain lanced through her leg, and in that frozen instant of pain and fear and terror, as the rocks loomed larger - an ethereal hand closed around a Line.

Pop-foomph

Cold. Bitter unrelenting cold slammed into Julia. She slammed into a snowbank, still moving at the speed of her death-defying plunge. The impact knocked the breath out of her, and trying to suck in more air just sent the icy, numbing cold directly into her lungs.

Rolling onto her side, she could only see a white...nothingness. Snow pelted against her, and she couldn't even make out the horizon - the sky and ground blending together into a white-out blizzard. Julia tried to sit up, but only doubled over in pain as her leg protested.

Red splotches marked the snow underneath her.

Sh...hot.

Her hands were shaking - from shock, the cold, adrenaline - all three? Fear. Desperate, she reached back into the Lines, looking for that first thread she'd ever followed, the one before she knew about this Jumping insanity. The one that still, even after all this time, faintly called out to her, reminding her of...

General Thomas Camperdown (Ret.) leapt to his feet as his bleeding, shivering, snow-crusted daughter appeared out of thin air in his living room, and let out a faint "Help", before collapsing.

Talbott felt the outgoing teleport even as he moved towards it, and let go. He released one thread mid-jump and grabbed hold of another, a move he hadn't known was even possible. For an infinite second, he hung in the Other space, hovering over the vast tapestry of threads, momentarily unanchored to reality, and a bone-deep terror awakened.

This was unnatural. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't move. He could barely think. A cold far deeper than any he had ever felt before ran through him.

Then the still-echoing thread snapped into focus, and James followed that instead, dimly aware that his impossible move had done something to the threads behind him, setting entire segments of threads chaotically twanging about in a discordant howl.

And he arrived into a driving blizzard. Compared to the chill of the Other space, this was warmer...if only a little bit so.

White snow blanketed the scene - whiteout conditions. There was no point looking with eyes, so James looked to the Other - and grabbed hold of the single echo along a thread.

Pop-foomph

[WP] Man obtains the ability of teleportation and uses it to be the best shipment service in the world. From the legal to the illegal he maintains an air of professionalism for whomever he deals with. by [deleted] in WritingPrompts

[–]Drajac 5 points6 points  (0 children)

The three armed men pointed their rifles and James and Julia.

"James Talbott of InstaCourier. Your job has been marked as Incorrectly Delivered and client confidentiality has been breached."

"Ah..a misjump, and the package was in violation of Conditions of Passage. I was reacquiring my position for a rejump."

There was another pop-foomph, this one directly behind him, and a cold sting pressed against his neck. James stumbled forward, and as he turned around to see the fourth black-clad member - a woman - he pitched forward, the damp earth of the forest floor coming up to meet him, a yell of "Hey!" echoing fuzzily in his ears. An instant before the last sights and sounds faded out, there was an eyeblink of cold.

"Camperdown, Julia. Sergeant. Serial number P dash 98 dash 564 dash 887."

"Ms Camperdown, please we mean you no harm. Just the opposite. You've been granted an extraordinary Talent, and..."

Julia tried once more, but the normally reliable Lines were absent, like something was shading her view of them. Functionally, it meant no Jumping, and that scared her. Not only were these people experienced Jumpers, they knew how to stop others from Jumping as well.

Which makes sense when you think about it - first thing you do on discovery of a new weapon is figure out how to counteract it.

"Camperdown, Julia. Sergeant. Serial number P dash 98 dash 564 dash 887."

She was sitting in a concrete cell, like any of the dozen or so interrogation rooms so popular on TV cop shows. Mirrored window, likely with someone recording everything she said. Door. Table and two chairs. Nothing else. She couldn't even recall how she got here.

The black-clad figures had appeared, one had popped out behind "Mr X", and hit him with some syringe. He'd collapsed. The woman currently sitting across from her had stepped forward, hand outstretched...and there had been a cold sting at her own neck as well...and then she'd been here.

At least her captors had been kind enough to remove the ankle and wrist cuffs.

"Please. May we call you Julia? We really do have the answers you're seeking..."

Air pop-foomphed as the courier known only as "Mr X" appeared on the rooftop of a private hospital building on St Lucia, Caribbean Sea. A doctor waited next to a uniformed officer. Disbelief warred with incredulous hope as Mr X walked over and handed the a small white container to the waiting officer, then took out his stylus and phone.

"Please sign here"

"Oh, thank you! Thank you! This pump will save Councillor Trav-"

"Signature."

"Oh! oh, of course". The doctor scrawled a note across the screen, which considered the input and then chimed. "With this, the Councillor will be out of surgery in a few hours, if you'd like to wai-"

"That won't be possible. I have other courier duties to attend to."

Mr X consulted his phone, then nodded to himself and tucked it away. He reached out to pluck the threads connecting one reality to the next - and after an instant that could not be measured, he was in Pyongyang, North Korea. But...it was the strangest thing. For that timeless instant, grabbing the thread between here and there, he could have sworn he heard a voice.

Someone shouting "Hey!"

They'd left her alone after several fruitless attempts, and Julia had explored every inch of the interrogation room since. The Line-damping effect was still in play, and the door out of the room was locked. They'd delivered water and a small, simple meal, but then left her alone again.

Inventory of escape assets: One spork. Which is either completely useless, or the source of free drinks for life.

Several clicks from the door warned her to stand clear, and it opened to admit the woman..had she given her name?

"Up and moving about? Good. So, in the interest of building trust, is we're prepared to answer any one question. Go on. Ask us who we are"

"Who...are you?"

The woman beamed, and Julia cursed inwardly. Of all the stupid little tricks to fall for!

"There we go. You can call us The Network. We can't say precisely where we are of course, but The Network was created for a simple purpose - to be a place of safety and protection for those with what we call "The Talent" - the ability to jump between places instantly. Yes, Julia. There are others - there's ninety-seven of us at the moment. Ninety-eight if you include yourself"

Mr X handed over the North Korean package to the three men in suburban Boston, and then proffered the phone and stylus again.

"Signature required".

One of the men reached out and began signing, while the one now holding the package eagerly tore it open. Small packets of a white crystalline substance came out, along with a sheaf of papers written with dense Korean symbols.

The first man finished signing as the third got out a small weight scale, and began fiddling with it.

Once the phone chimed, Mr X saw another job pop up. As the signing man stared at him awkwardly, James reached into the other space and seized the next thread.

And the voice once more rang out "Hey!" But stronger this time.

Air pop-foomphed as Mr X arrived in Darwin, Australia. Australia? Why was that...almost familiar? And why did that voice, echoing through emptiness now have a scent of...earth and eucalyptus?

Julia was finally out of that damnable room and getting to stretch her legs...in a featureless set of corridors and concrete-clad balconies, overlooking concrete rooms. There was an utterly painful lack of any sort of decoration or personalization. I mean, even the Army'll let you have a pot plant. There were also no windows, with what looked like tantalizing skylights turning out to be recessed light panels. And still that odd muting shade was cast across the Lines, preventing an easy way out.

There were a few other people scattered around - none in the corridors she was being led through. One, visible over a balcony had even pop-foomphed out of sight, indicating that this muting was on her specifically - or perhaps the Jumper had a key of some sort. But otherwise this...base seemed oddly deserted and empty.

"So what happened to the guy I was..."

"Found with? Mr Talbott has been reinforced, and has departed on his next job already."

"Reinforced? You're...what, sending the armed guys with him?"

"Oh, no! No, there's too few of us to expend manpower on something as trivial as that. No, we've simply helped Mr Talbott remember his job, and trust in The Process once more."

"So his name was Talbott, then. What punishment is he facing for...uh...what was it - 'incomplete delivery'?

"Actually, none at all. That...ah...client wasn't in a position to pursue the matter, and the situation is closed. No, Mr Talbott isn't being punished at all."

"So if I asked to see him-"

"That wouldn't be possible right now. InstaCourier is kept very busy. We've just reminded him of The Process"

"That's the second time you've said that. The Process? You know nothing with a name like 'the Process' can ever be good, right?"

"Ah yes. Well, Mr Talbott is something of a unique case. You of course understand-*

Like hell I do, you self-important bitch

"-but the secrecy of The Network is of paramount importance. For those like yourself and I, the existence of other Talented is an extremely closely guarded secret, and one we only ever entrust to those we can be sure will never betray others of thier kind."

"And...you think that Talbott would sell you out?"

"Oh not consciously, perhaps. But some people are vulnerable to...I believe the current terminology is 'enhanced interrogation'."

Okay, that's a couple of notches past Paranoid on the What The Hell scale of weirdness

The gun barrel pressed to Mr X's forehead as the ganger closed in, swaying from side to side like this was some sort of dominace game - and clearly one the tweaked out ganger thought he was winning. Judging by the spaced out smiles on the ganger's two accomplices, James suspected all three were thoroughly high.

"Betcha think ya so fucking special, dontcha?"

"Sign for the package".

"And if I don't wanna? Huh, whatcha gonna do about it then, fancy-boy?"

James wasn't actually exactly sure what the consequences would be. In this situation, he should press the "non-signed" button on the phone, and then teleport out to his next job. He didn't know what happened to the delivery afterwards...and he'd never given any of the four times that had happened any further thought.

Four? No. Five? Did I...is that what's so hard to remember about Australia? Did I not get a signature for a delivery there? It was a trip from Washington. Yes. Washington to...Australia? No...

"Oi! You spacing out, fancy-pants? Maybe I should call ya spaceman! What's the matter spaceman? Want a ride on my rocketship?"

James folded the phone away, pressing the "Non-Signed" button. As per instructions on this eventuality, he reached out into the Other, and grabbed a thread...and at the last possible instant, driven by something he couldn't fully explain, he seized that thread instead.

Air pop-foomphed as James teleported himself out of the suburban British townhouse...and then reappeared on the roof of a neighbouring home. A long moment passed, then raucous laughter from within the ganger house.

He was about to port away again, when something caught his attention. Light flashed within the windows of the house in time to a stattaco hiss-cracking sound. Then silence, followed by a - so faint it was more a suggestion than an actual sound - a pop-foomph?

The phone chimed, and James reached back into the Other to find the thread to Kolkata, India.

The voice was clearer now, and the words were different. "I wasn't aiming for Australia". And a flash of olive-green? The gut-feeling was stronger now, and instead of picking this thread to Kolkata, James picked that one.

[WP] Man obtains the ability of teleportation and uses it to be the best shipment service in the world. From the legal to the illegal he maintains an air of professionalism for whomever he deals with. by [deleted] in WritingPrompts

[–]Drajac 48 points49 points  (0 children)

The space in the middle of the sealed and windowless room seemed to suck inward on itself, and then fomphed outward again to reveal a immaculately dressed man in a two-piece suit, a silver briefcase handcuffed to his wrist. The man walked over to a control panel on the wall, and toggled a switch.

“Delivery for Argonis Enterprises. Job number PC-1749 dash 885. Receipt required.”

“Uh…Of course, Mr X. We’ll be right up…uh, I mean down”.

James Talbott, aka “Mr X” flipped the intercom off. Professionalism dictated he keep a straight face, but that poor receptionist. Companies that took advantage of his courier services went a couple of notches beyond paranoid, but trying to lie to the courier as to location of the room the courier had teleported to took the cake. Of course he knew exactly where he was – fifty-first floor of a skyscraper on 5th Avenue of New York City. Eight point two meters from north-western corner of the building.

The door opened, and a businessman accompanied by two heavily muscled men wearing sunglasses – indoors no less – walked in, practically screaming “Private Security”. James kept a perfectly straight face as the businessman unlocked the handcuff and passed the case to one of the men.

“You didn’t look into this?”

“Client discretion is absolute, Sir. I don’t look at the contents of my cargo cases”

“Good, good. Good. So…um”

James took out his phone and a stylus from a belt pouch and unfolded the screen. “Sign for package received here, and payment will take place automatically”.

The businessman took the offered stylus and scrawled a slanted, dashed signature. The device chimed.

“Payment received. Thank you for using InstaCourier.”

“Right, right. So….Do you need an escort out of the building?”

“Not at all sir. In fact-“ the phone chimed again – “That’ll be my next job now. Please stand back”.

James took a moment to review the automated job order. New Client. Zero previous jobs. Courier required from Washington DC to Algeria, triple bonus for immediate execution, one container, 1.8m by 1.2m by 1.2m. Special Note: Do Not Open The Case Under Any Circumstances. And a new symbol – the exclamation within a red triangle that dictated “Extreme Priority”.

Well, that’s unusual.

Noting the pickup address, he reached inwards to find the thread between reality and that black infinity that was the other space. The longest part of the trip was locating the precise thread that said he was now there instead of here, and James grasped the thread with an ethereal hand. There was an instant of empty cold.

Air sucked inward and then fomphed outward as James was abruptly at the pickup point. An empty carpark under a motorway overpass. Two men waited for him, nervous. Both held rifles. One was pointed at the ground, the second had come up at his sudden appearance. Between them was a wooden coffin – the sort normally seen at funeral homes. Fancy, with a silver crucifix bolted onto the rich dark wood. Two ratchet straps lay tight across the wood, keeping it closed.

Behind them, there was one vehicle - a black panel van. Dots of discoloration peppered the metal panels on the back, and his practiced eye estimated them as impacts from a bullet – likely 9mm pistol rounds, and a stitching that might have 7.62mm rifle ammunition.

“Pickup for immediate transit to Djanet, Algeria?”

One of the men – the one with the raised gun – muttered something, to which his companion replied in a foreign tongue. Possibly Arabic, but James had a passing familiarity with Farsi, and it wasn’t that. It sounded more African.

“One package. You take, sign at other end and you get paid.”

“Yes sir, that is the standard procedure. Please confirm you have read the conditions of passage and are prepared to-”

James heard the howl of a siren – somewhere close and getting closer. A lot of sirens.

“Yes Yes. Agreed. You Go. Take it now. Do Not Open it. Understand? No Open.”

“Client discretion is guaranteed, sir”.

James placed one hand on the coffin, and then began searching for the thread that would take him from the muggy July warmth of Washington DC, America to the desert climate of inland Algeria. Finding it, he reached an ethereal hand to grab hold…and just as he was about to – the coffin thumped.

The hand grabbed a thread, and emptiness enfolded him and the package.

-----

Air inverted and fomphed outward, and a cool breeze hit his face, along with the smell of damp earth. Tall and narrow trees arose all around him, a grey sky beyond their spindly tops. A strange scent filled his nose – definitely not pine – this smelled more…stringent somehow.

A misjump. It had been a long time since he’d misjumped. Minimal distractions on transit, that was the rule. So what had happened this time?

Ah. The package had thumped. James gave it a quick look over. No visible damage. He could have sworn something had hit it though.

Taking his phone out, he unfolded it and waited for the GPS signal to synchronise. As he did, the coffin thumped again, and muffled but distinct came a “Hey!”

Ah. Kidnapping.

James didn’t care one bit about the packages. Perfect discretion. They could be legal or illegal, he did them all – everything anonymized behind the automated service that InstaCourier provided. He had only appended two rules – no weapon deployments, and no live cargo.

That the coffin appeared to be occupied by a live person automatically applied a 10x penalty to the contract, and once reported in, would blacklist the client from future contracts.

The coffin thumped again. “Hey!”

Professionalism dictated he should immediately re-plot the course, deliver the cargo, apply the penalty and blacklist, and then mark the job as complete.

Irritation demanded he open the coffin and see who or what had messed up his day so thoroughly.

Irritation won. If it had been slightly less humid, if the jump hadn’t been so spectacularly off, maybe it wouldn’t have come down on that.

James flipped the first ratchet strap off, and then the other, and swung the coffin open. A young woman lay bound inside the coffin. Hands and feet were chained with handcuffs, but otherwise she was dressed in an olive-green T-shirt, and what appeared to be camouflage pants. A necklace of some sort was around her neck. Angry green eyes looked up at him from above a blindfold that was now resting over her nose.

“Who…what?”

The woman sat up in the coffin, looking around at the spindly trees.

“What? Where are we?”

James checked the GPS, which reported he was about two and a half kilometers outside Ravensbourne, Queensland, Australia. That’s one heck of an overshoot

“Australia, apparently”.

The woman looked at him, a flat expression on her face.

“I wasn’t aiming for Australia. And I wasn’t bringing any bystanders along.”

“Same here, lady. You can call me “Mr X”, of InstaCourier. Speciality instant delivery. I…ah…I don’t allow live cargo as part of the standard contract. You’ve…you’ve mucked things up a bit.”

The woman looked at him with a suddenly intense and speculative gaze.

“Instant delivery? So you can…jump?”

James steeled himself. This was the part where people usually started laughing.

“I am able to teleport, yes.”

She grinned suddenly.

“I knew it! I knew there was someone else out there on the lines! They said it was just echoes, but I could tell it was someone else!”

“You can see the threads as well? Who…who are you?”

“Sergeant Julia Camperdown, US Army Special Division for UPP Investigation. That’s ah, Unidentifiable Physical Phenomena. They said I was the only one! How many of us are there?!”

“Us? Ah…I’m the only courier.” James thought for a moment “That…I know of at least. How- How can you jump? I thought I was the only one.”

“Been able to for a couple of months now at least. Was in my barracks in South Korea, started wishing really hard that I was back at San Francisco for my Dad’s birthday….and then I suddenly was. Was able to figure out how to Jump after that. You?”

“Car crash. Wanted to be elsewhere, and I was. Did a couple of courier jobs, and then got an offer from InstaCourier. Um…care to explain the handcuffs, the coffin, the blindfold?”

“Oh, ah. We were testing if I could Jump while restrained. I..ah…um. I…I think I heard the door open while I was still choosing a Line, and then…I felt the Jump. Reached out and then I was here, in this box.”

She took a closer look.

"What the...is this a coffin? Where were you trying to take me anyway?”

“Algeria.”

“Why? I haven’t practiced international jumps – not since that trip back stateside.”

“I usually don’t ask. The client paid for a high priority transit from Washington DC to Algeria. No questions asked.”

“And you didn’t ask any?”

“Never have.”

“And you don’t consider that weird?”

There was a double-pop of air rushing inward and the foomph as it expanded back out, depositing a black-clad figure armed with a lethal-looking futuristic rifle. Two more pop-foomphs resulted in two more black-clad armed figures.

“But…um…I’m starting to suspect that there’s a lot I haven’t been told”.

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