Blue Peril Part 5: Damage Control

 Before you say anything, I've never seen the show Scandal. But I do find the idea of somebody who specializes in fixing or covering up major screw-ups fascinating. Which is where Dr. Moore comes in to the Blue Peril series. We last left off with her arriving to the meeting upon the Helios station, but we never really got to see her character in action. Because of her interesting qualifications, Engineer with a masters in Mass Communication and a PhD in Forensics, I wanted to know more about about this character so I pretty much gave her the spotlight this story. So I give you Blue Peril Part 5: Damage Control.

Dr. Moore liked to carry herself tall for somebody so short. She couldn’t be taller than five foot three, but she stood at the head of the table as if she towered above everyone. Maybe it was the lighter gravity, Richard thought, the gravity on this ring is a little less than the surface of Mars. Or maybe because nobody in the room could accept the fact that the moment had arrived, the moment of admitting defeat. He liked the gravity answer better, it made sense.

“Lets get to the hard part,” she said addressing the room, “how fucked are we?”

Nobody answered.

“What are you, a bunch of pre-school children? I knew before I even got here the results weren’t good, so how fucked are we?”

“Fucked,” Richard said. Dr. Moore turned her who body to face him.

“Just how fucked, Dr. Isaacs?” She looked directly at him, her face was neutral but he swore he could feel her piercing his soul.

“As in two-hundred years of research and a Mercury Brain short kind of fucked,” he responded, his voice quivered as he spoke. “The optimism of the early days of this project died when the universe began, it is impossible to break the light barrier, no wormholes no teleportation no nothing. I hate to say this but Einstein was wrong, space isn’t just some fabric you can sow together on a lazy Sunday afternoon, it’s an immoveable object.

“It’s over, humanity is dead and we’re going to watch it happen as we slowly rot away from the inside.” He gave the IPS rep a stare as cold as the vacuum outside the portholes, he wanted her to absorb the calamity with her own eyes through his. He wanted no part in this anymore.

Dr. Moore turned away, “Now that wasn’t so difficult was it? Just like air through an airlock, once you let it all out it’s over quickly.”

“And then you die,” Ian said. He sat across the table, furthest from the door and closest to the port light, his face was half blue in the reflected light from their neighborhood gas giant.

“Precisely,” Dr. Moore said like a teacher does when a student gets a question correct, “and then you die. We at the Crisis Division already had a hunch the results wouldn’t be good, so I’m here for Damage Control.” She emphasized her last point with a snap of her fingers.

“Because lets face it,” the representative continued she spoke with her hands as much her mouth, “facts are facts, all of you know this more than anybody else, you have proof Newton would be proud of. But the average human can’t comprehend complex differentials or even basic calculus, they like simplicity and if there’s bad news they need a scapegoat. The last thing we need is our top minds to be persecuted like Jesus Christ. Thus Damage Control.”

“Why didn’t IPS you say anything about this before you arrived?” Ian asked, his arms were spread out across the table either from surprise or the urge to leap over and strangle the ISP rep. Neither would surprise Richard.

“There is no better way to approach a situation for the first time than in its unaltered purist state, and I wanted to see just how serious this situation was from your raw expressions,” once again she brought her attention to the full room. “I honestly thought my title and qualifications would have relaxed you a little. It’s that bad, huh?” Her arms folded across her chest and mouth like she had already begun thinking, she was a showman but an ammature Richard noted.

“Yeah, that bad….” Richard said his head sulked over the table as his fingers played catch with one another with the Helio’s logo. When his fingers caught it he would briefly shake it as to knock the virtual planets out of the preprogrammed orbit. “Humanity is fucked, we have everything on file for you to review but I could easily replace the entire report with a note saying ‘Fuck sentience and ambition, every intelligent species is fucked beyond their Oort cloud, signed The Universe.’”

“Jesus,” Dr. Moore said, “I honestly didn’t expect the great Dr. Isaacs to be such a downer. Is she always like this?”

“Only when it’s the dawn of armageddon,” America spoke up. Out of everybody in the room she looked the most calm. Calm in the sense that she held no expression to read on her face, just a constant stare into oblivion no matter where she looked, like a soldier who's seen one too many of his buddies stepping onto a trip mine. The last time she gazed into the infinity’s eyes happened shortly after her wife left her for a gay man, who she proudly got a STEM treatment to be with. Richard saw her staring contest with emptiness as melodramatic, but who was he to speak?

“As I suspected; it became apparent after the IPS began receiving a bunch of fluff reports this close to Escape Rope’s deadline.” Dr. Moore began pacing around the room. She would bobbed up and down almost like she was skipping in the jaws of cthulhu, her motor cortex’s aversion to a low g environment, a sign she didn’t travel often. “What I didn’t expect was a bunch of melodramatic scientist, the greatest scientists to ever live for that matter.Yet,” she walked over to a port-hole and looked out, “I guess even gods cower when they gaze upon oblivion.”

And she’s calling use melodramatic, Richard thought stopped playing with the H looking around the room to see if anybody else had noticed. Al looked at him, then Moore, then back to him and rolled his eyes. He could tell by the silence it was their cue to speak.

“So what exactly is Damage Control?” Richard and Al asked in unison.

“Many years ago my father, Henry Jacob Moore, won the seat as the Mayor of Armstrong City,” she spoke to the port hole, “he was a brilliant politician, everybody loved his carefree attitude yet serious demeanor when the time called for it. Because of him Armstrong became the modern Singapore, he opened the ports to anyone and everybody with a ship, no more ten year wait list just to just to get a confirmation that your business is under consideration. Nope, if you had a ship you got a job and you were set. The economy boomed and the historic city made its mark once again upon human history since Neil Armstrong first took step on its soil.”

She began pacing around the room again, but the bouncing had subsided, she began walking normally. “I was a recent graduate from Luna working back on Earth for ZeroK. My job duties were less than exciting, mostly consisting of basic calcs for orbital maneuvers and landings, or asteroid dances and hugs as they call them. Four years of advanced antimatter propulsion, the dissection of general relativity down to its very core, and statistical fluid dynamics went to waste as I spent my first two years doing rudimentary calculations. I wanted more. I wanted something challenging, I wanted to work here on the Helios as a member of the greatest thinkers. But everything felt routine, until my father’s secrets came out.

“He was a fraud, a corrupt politician who opened the ports as a catalyst to expand Orsis’ control outside of the orbitals. They said he was taking bribes of not just money but of illicit substances, the most notorious being hyperhead, and women. He denied everything, showing proof he was a family man with values with pathetic messages, videos and senseputs of times before he was a politician. Anytime he ventured into the public he never went unhumiliated. And you know what? They were right.”

Ian and America gasped.

“That’s where I came in,” she looked at Richard, he discarded her eyes and returned to tossing the H around. She continued on. “After his former campaign manager screwed up, and trust hanging by a thread with the whistleblower anonymous and still at large. He only wanted family in on the case. So that’s where I got called in, personally by him for his first message to me in three years. I gladly took the offer, with some resistance at first. But once I learned the truth, that he was a liar and immoral is when I finally felt alive. My head was rushed with ideas faster than a Tier 7 antimatter craft slingshotting around the sun.

“So we began our little clean up. Starting with making falsified claims that he wasn’t being bribed by the Osiris but threatened and the money was there for compensation. We leaked a senseput file onto the metasphere of me being raped by an Osiris governor and his men through MY point of view. You may recall the famous video clip of my father broken into tears over the experience of his own daughter being raped and beaten because his refusal to cooperate initially with the Osiris. All completely fabricated. It wasn’t easy by a long shot, making it convincing on both sides, paying off actors and learning to act myself, but it got the job done and within a few months he was back to normal. Armstrong still has open ports but increased security winning him over even to this day. All thanks to me. I am Damage Control. Any more questions?” She said finishing just short of the port hole where her speech began.

Richard raised his hand halfway off the table, his attention still focused on the icon.

“Yes Dr. Isaacs.”

“Yeah, just how many times did you practice that speech?”

“Ummm,” Dr. Moore snapped her head towards the ceiling then back down to Richard, she must of caught his game, “never. And it wasn’t a speech, more of a reason.”

“Right…” Richard leaned back in his chair, “so when do we begin Dr. Damage Control?”

Everything has changed pt.3 the bedroom

Hey guys its time for another part of everything has changed. It is just going along and here is the last post. If you like where it is going and want to see more please let me know. 

The screaming lasted a while, what the heck is this grown-ass man’s problem? He was just sitting there screaming one hand covering up his chest with the sheets and another just grabbing things to throw at me. At first it started with pillows exhausting them he just went for things on the nightstand: glasses, a clock, the freaking lamp. What the hell?

“Who are you? You are not my girlfriend! Where am I? Dear god did I get drunk last night and pick someone up? God, what have I done?” She screamed at me as a book flies past my head.

Then it finally clicked. We both changed bodies and we don’t know anything. God damn it; I couldn’t wrap my head around. “Excuse me.” I yelled to get his attention. “Calm down, everything will be okay. We didn’t do anything last night.” He stopped throwing things a listened. “We didn’t do anything, I promise. Now could I please put some clothes on! It is freezing in here and I am still wet from the shower.”

“Oh, okay.” He trailed off as he lowered his defenses.

I put on some random panties and bra that didn’t match at all. What did I care? I scurried over to the man still in bed watching me a little too closely. I sat next to the shell of a man. Who could act like this? “You are going to have to trust me, I mean really trust me because there is more to this than just last night.” I said showing comfort by rest my hand on his thigh.

“And what proof do you have?” he responded condescendingly.

What did I do to deserve this? “For starters I am having lady troubles. It must be that time of the month for me. So we couldn’t have had sex with out making a mess of the bed, just look at the sheets.” I explain stalling to work out the hard part. How could I explain this mess? That is when I notice a large mirror sitting in the corner. I get up and grab it saying, “and to be quite frank you are not really you at the moment.” I show the man his ‘new’ face. The screaming resumed. Luckily I could hide behind the full body mirror to avoid his onslaught with the sheets.

It took a while but he quieted down little by little when I finally poked my head out he was panting. He was rest his face in his hands possibly crying. Laying the mirror down I sat back down with the strange black man and comforted him. The day was just getting weirder and weirder. He finally perked up.

“Wait, how do you know I am in a different body? This has to be a dream!” He realized, one step forward and two backward.

“I am really sorry but I woke up long before you and already thought of that. Go ahead and pinch yourself because you are not going to wake up.” I said as his face began to dissolve back into horror. “Look I will make it easy for you. My name is Collin Woods. I am a reporter from the Chicago Sun-times. I have no Earthly idea where I am, who I am and what happened. And I most certainly don’t know what to do with a period.” I watch as his face turned around to a laugh, a large full voice. Which must have startled him because he stopped short.

“Well then that should explain what is going on. And I guess I should introduce myself: Sheryl Wilkins. I am between jobs at the moment but I am a lesbian so I feel we could help each other out with this new situation.

My mind whirled I was assuming it was a man’s mind behind the body but a woman and a lesbian at that. No wonder it was such a trial with her waking up. This was definitely going to be a long day. Who knows who else is suffering the same as us? What else is going to be thrown at us?

Lectures [The Navigator Part 4]

It's another Fri-Wednesday Special! This time we're returning back to the Navigator. This is probably my favorite series to work on at the moment, I just love the setting, the mystery of my character, and the struggle. It's in a sense a personal story because for my first time in my life I'm having to deal with a completely new lifestyle and setting, but I don't want to bore you with my life's story so here's a fictional story about a man in a new life on a completely new planet. Enjoy!

 

Previous Chapter: Lifelines [Part 3] 

The Beginning: The Navigator Part 1 

Curiosity is one of the most useful characteristics ever evolved, without it mankind would still be running across the plains of Africa without ever looking up to the stars with the sense of awe wonder. It was the reason why The Navigator could sail from solar system to solar system within the matter of just a few weeks. However curiosity has a negative side-effect too, injury or death.

See a frog that looks really colorful like a pomegranate or freshly picked lime? Do you wonder if it taste just as sweet and juicy at a pineapple? Go ahead and taste it, it can’t be bad just look at the colors! Nope, within one bite you’re on the ground gagging on your own throw up dying a poor miserable existence just because you wondered what a frog tasted like. The words of the Ploi̱gós echoed across time from a distant memory. So many years had passed he had forgotten her face, but he remembered the way she stood higher than everybody around her, even though she was a few inches shorter than average, and her words were full of wisdom with hints of arrogance. She deserved every bit it.

Never, even once, test the waters of the unknown with your own physical self or you will die a miserable naive existence like tuk-tuk and the frog. You’re all here to navigate, the art of taking in information of your surroundings then using said information to look stuff up in charts and then making educated guesses. Never make a guess without gathering data of your surroundings, and then applying that data to others. It is the very reason humankind is where we are today. And that applies a hundred times more to survival instances. I don’t give a fuck if the waters look as blue as the flares of Zeta Puppis, don’t drink it unless you’re sure there is no contaminatanimates. If you see a creature on a H-congruous world, you might assume it’s fine to cook up because it’s carbon based and aerobic like us, but remember that frog that kill tuk-tuk?

This is why the Q-tool is one of the most important things ever invented, let me show you why….

The Navigator switched the Q-tool on, rings of emerald circled around his arm verifying it was him. Once the handshake was complete it was off to business. A red laser shot out of the gadget, hovering above the central disk a readout of the chemical compounds detected within the laser’s focus. He moved the laser across the tendril as slowly as steadily as he could fighting the very weight of his muscles, like a old and tired machine.

Your first catch is going to be completely inedible, always. Not because it might kill you, but because you are going to dissect that creature down to its very molecule, leave no chemical compound untouched, I want the creature to look like a cattle mutilation that has been mutilated again and again and then left to rot in the sun for a few days only to be mutilated a few more times. I don’t care how hungry you are, as you all may remember the human body can live for three weeks without taking a single bite so you’ll have plenty of fat to burn, you don’t fuck around when dealing with an unknown species.

Twenty minutes passed before he was finished with the surface, the tendril was mostly inedible, not poisonous just little to no nutritional value except as a fiber. Taking his knife he began dissecting it, one layer at a time.

Two hours had passed, his ration remained by his side untouched. He finally had reached the suction cup, still clinging on the rock even when ninety-five percent of its body was ripped to carefully calculated shreds. He figured he could let the cup slide, he was growing bored of this analysis, he already found three parts that were edible and that’s all he needed. A long muscle fiber that made up the layer right below the skin had a similar chemical structure to that of terrestrial squids, a starfish shaped organ that he assumed to be the central nervous system was next on the list, and then the skin he could use to wrap it all up in like a bacon-wrapped jalapeno.

He removed the suction cup from the rock, the laser switched off. Where the creature hung for its dear life (and death) was a barren spot, completely at loss from the moss that used to inhabit it. Small fibers not much thicker than a strand of hair dangled from the suction cup, it must be how the tendril fed he thought. He now had a hypothesis on how to catch the tendril, his work was done. One step closer to being the next Magellan.

An hour of rest and gagging on the last of his ration had passed when he decided it was time for round two. His arm had plenty of time to rest, and he was ready for the second half, and this time he had a secret weapon, a suction cup.

The suction cup was fastened to a new rock, completely barren of moss so a tendril wouldn’t snatch it from him, this rock was heavier just the perfect weight to apply pressure to grasp on rocks or ice, he made sure by catching a few rocks on land. He was ready to get the hell away from here once and for all.

It doesn’t matter how good your tools are, if you can’t throw a makeshift grappling hook properly you’ll be stuck on the shorelines for a while. His tools were better, but the added weight made the throws equally more difficult. It was reassuring that his accuracy looked better, most of his shots would splash around the general region of the iceberg.

One, two, three throw, he would think and occasionally mutter under his breath. It was reminiscent of his career.

Accuracy, the Ploi̱gós’ memory continued to lecture on, is the number one rule in navigation, the slightest initial calculations can throw off your entire course delaying your trek, or getting yourself fired. Unlike the navigators from long ago on Earth there’s nothing stopping a spaceship with the mass of a city. Sure recalculations can be done, and are performed every day of the trek. A good navigator is measured by the amount of readjustments in a single trek, the longer the trek and the small the adjustments the better, simple as that. Once any of you can make it halfway across the galaxy with no adjustment will you be able to achieve the rank of Ploi̱gós.

This is how the Navigator felt right now, the initial conditions have to be ninety-nine-point-ninety-nine to a hundred percent correct, and right now he was feeling about at sixty-five percent. He continued to throw.

However balancing logic and primitive instincts isn’t easy, especially on a tired mind and a fatigued body, the frustration seeped from somewhere deep within his brain stem overriding his frontal lobe and flooded his body from neck to feet. The frustration leaked into the their calm frozen air through screams of pain and rage. Why is this so fucking hard? He cried and cursed with every throw. His shots got flying way over the ice. The consciousness of what made him a navigator, the very essence of his life, was being evicted by a part of the brain that should've been left back on Earth.

    The human, he swore the Ploi̱gós spoke as the Navigator overshot an iceberg again, just a little bit too far behind and way over where the ice drifted. He swore the Ploi̱gós spoke more in his head than she ever did in lecture, is a curious creature. No lifeform has conquered the stars like we have....

    The navigator took a rest, another iceberg was a few meters off he could spare his energy for a few moments. He took a deep breath and recounted the lecture.

    …. all observed life has destroyed itself through war, eroding its own environment, or wasting all their fuel elsewhere before reaching the stars. As far as we’re concerned, humans are the only species to ever leave their own solar system. That was eons ago, and now we’ve conquered the entire Orion Arm. If we can do that then the universe is practically ours, manifest destiny in its rawest form.

    The iceberg was within throwing distance now. His head still clouded in frustration, the only thing keeping him sane at the moment was the Ploi̱gós’ memory. A simpler time when he was ambitious and naive, before he had been rejected by the Expanse time and time again. He prepared his suction cupped rock and carried on.

    Now can anybody tell me why humankind is the anomaly?

    He decided to try something different, instead of just throwing he began to spin the rope above his head, it was like a small rocky body spinning about his massive coat’s gravitational pull. It continued to spin upwards as it picked up speed.

    Some say it’s luck. Others say it’s our passion for exploring. Generals say its our desire to conquer. Scientist say we’re curious. Economists think it’s because we had a great amount of resources. The few religious sects out there thank God or Cthulu or whatever they worship. Nobody knows for sure, we’ve seen all of this before on other planets, yet we’re the only ones up here. So why us?

    The rock was far above his head now, the iceberg a few meters upstream still. He counted his breadths. One, two, three...

    I have seen humans on every habitable planet from here to Sagittarius A, and have observed those less fortunate societies die as we roam the skies. And you know what I think is the reason why?

    The iceberg was near now, it was smaller than the others. He wound up the throw, faster and faster. fifteen, sixteen, seventeen,...

    It’s because we’re irrational creatures. Now you might be saying that every creature is, it’s just nature. Irrationality is important for survival after all, reflexes are important for times we can’t think. But there is something fundamentally different about the human brain than any other.

    He pulled his arm back, twenty-six, twenty-seven,, and threw it forward. Twenty-eight, twenty-ni…. The grappling hook flew through the air just like it always had so many times before, he his hopes slipped away with the rope.

    During times of irrationality, when our brainstem takes complete control of our minds and like a ghost of a caveman, we may want to fight whomever is near us, snap at our loved ones, murder, or rape.

    He saw it before the rock ever got there, the arm was too high it was going to overshoot and then he was going to lay down and wish there was something near by to punch.

    But those who actually act on those impulses are a low percentage, no matter how many drugs we fill our brains up with we have on average an astounding amount of restraint on our brainstem. More than any other alien life form. So what is it?

    The iceberg drifted near the rope’s trajectory. That was when he saw the solution!

    It’s that no matter how angry we get at the universe, we can take a few moments break, relax, come back to the problem and see it with different eyes.

    The rock had already arched over the iceberg, but that didn’t mean it was over. Infact it was best it did. He yanked back on the rope, shifting the flight path back towards the shore. It flew until he heard the satisfying sound of it sliding, Shhh, clack, and, stttt. He pulled the rope, it felt nice and taut. The suction cup had gotten grips with the ice! He let out a huge laugh filling up the desolate landscape, he was still coming to grips with the reality of his situation. He laughed the entire time he pulled. Finally the Inner Circle was conquered, he was getting the hell out of it.

STAG Case #1: The Harrison Family

Imagine you can become anybody in the the world, one day you can be your normal self one day, then the next you can rearrange your cells to look just a movie star, the president, or even your boss. You could get away with anything, or frame anybody. There's a reason why we're only given one body. Now imagine a world where a small percentage of people have that ability, they can alter their appearance in any way they want, it would be chaos. I've read stories and seen TV shows that use shapeshifters as a plot device for suspense on "whose the real one?" X-men's mystique is a great example.

In today's story I imagine a world where somewhere down the line a mutation occurred allowing a small percentage of people to alter their form in any which way the please. But there has always been one thing in fiction dealing with shapeshifters that has always bothered me: conservation of mass. Mystique for instance can change her form from a little girl to an overweight politician but where does all that mass go? It has to go somewhere. So I made a few alterations as if shapeshifters existed in our world with working physics.

Seriously, where does it all go?

This story is about a STAG unit's everyday case with these shifters. STAG , which stands for Shifter Tracing & Administration Group is a UN Initiative to control and detain any shifter deemed a menace. Here is their story:

    A shifter’s value is determined by the amount of shit they leave behind, or take in. No matter how many cells you rearrange to take on the form you want, you’re always going to shit out pieces of yourself into woman’s restroom of a local Goody Mart for an hour just to become that trophy wife with double D breast and a slim midriff; or maybe you’ll make a trip to Lil’ Kim’s chinese super buffet spending only upwards to thirty bucks over the course of three days to assume the form of an NFL player. It’s physics one-oh-one, conservation of mass.

    It’s a dangerous life to get involved in, too. Back in the old days con-men would have to fake professions to take money from the naive. Easy work: pretend to be a confident businessman, sell a product or property that doesn’t exist, and presto, to the persuasive goes the spoils! Faking a profession is easy, faking an entirely new life is difficult. Try pretending to be another human being with their own imperfections, their own emotions, and personalities for more than a minute; it’s fuckin’ difficult unless your address is in Hollywood, California. As a kid I could pretend to be any profession I wanted to be, sometimes a police officer, other times a maritan cowboy, easy as cake especially with the right clothes, but once I joined theater in middle school the role of Sherlock was beyond me.

Everyday since the dawn of the mutation spawned its way into the human gene pool years ago we’ve arrested hundreds of shifters throughout the globe. Mostly it’s the petty criminals who impersonate their acquaintances to rob a bank or frame their boss by sleeping with their secretary in with their boss’ skin. We’ve gotten everything from white middle aged women living on the edge of poverty taking the form of their slightly more fortunate neighbors to rob a bank all the way to pigs on Wall Street taking the forms of other CEOs to eliminate competition. Then there’s the most pathetic, celebrity impersonators. Oh god they are the scum of scum.

Which reminds me that just three weeks ago we brought in a family of shifters, mom, pa, teenaged son and daughter into STAG. We found them leaving their hotel room at the Freeside Resort wearing the skins of the Marilyn Girls, and boy their act was pathetic. The Harrison’s that is, not the Girls, I love their song “We Live or We Die,” I even jammed to it with Martin on the way to arrest.

The father, Jim Harrison, wore the skin of Michelle Ohmer, being the leader of the house I guess it came naturally to him to take the form of a tall and dark amazonian woman, she is the front woman after all so it makes sense I guess. I don’t know why he didn’t shape himself into Car Malla, she’s the one who everybody cares about. Maybe his wife didn’t let him become the essence of sex.

His wife, Harriet, showed her lack of creativity by wearing the skin of Harriet Reeds, shows for a lack of skill if you were to ask me. Taking the one member with the same pale white skin as yourself and name is like an actor playing himself, an easy roll to fill. Avery disagreed, naturally. He reminded me once again of his early days where he would only take the form of people who resembled him, like his brother to get with his girlfriend. Avery’s too damn forgiving, I mean I get a noob shifter taking the form of somebody close to them but Harriet Harrison is forty-one.

Their daughter, Jamie, a larger girl in her birth-skin, must of shat out the most of her organs since she wore the face of Franni, the fuckin icon of anorexia skin was worn by a fuckin heavy weight. If I were to guess how long a two-hundred-and-eighteen pound sixteen year old girl spent on the toilet to become a ninety-eight pound asian woman I’d put a hundred bucks on a week at least. That’s more patience and dedication than turning a cinder block into a feather. Why she didn’t shed all that weight before their little get away beats me, most shifters like to keep on a little extra weight just incase its needed, but she was a good seventy pounds over the average.

And finally there was Matt, the youngest at the age of thirteen. Like a typical thirteen year old he took the form North America’s sexiest woman for two years straight, that’s right Sandra Regalado, or more commonly known as Car Malla. A woman with more looks than talent if you ask me, a body any woman would kill for (any plenty of self conscious shifters out there have worn it), and any man would instantly drop their pants if they were to even be touched by her. What most didn’t realize during their stay at the Freeside Hotel was that Car Malla’s skin worn by a thirteen year old boy. To Jim and Harriet, you two are disgusting parents allowing a boy whose balls just dropped a few months ago and just discovered the strange feelings between his legs whenever he spies the slightest hint of cleavage the fact that you allowed him to wear the body of a modern day sex symbol is atrocious. I hope the judge sentences those two to a long stay in prison.

They were a clever bunch though, doing way more homework than most impersonators ever do. They certainly did their homework, fake ID chips implanted with up to date information on the Girls. Down to the very last meal each member ate the day before the Harrisons arrived at Freeside. Jim and Harriet’s vocalization was perfect, fooling the sonic sensors, Jamie’s was alright but could be altered, a prodigy Avery called her. Avoiding their car from being scanned the Harrisons took a limo instead, the Marilyn Girl’s very own chauffeur service too. Online data was planted two months in advance across smaller forums in the net to announce the Girl’s secret vacation to the Freeside. Why go through all this trouble? Well if you were to ask Jim and Harriet themselves they’d say it was too take a harmless family vacation for free. Bullshit, I know something else is up, I just don’t know what yet.

After all their homework and decoys planted, all that attention to detail and the Harrisons failed where every goddamn shifter fails: playing the part. It doesn’t matter if you have every detail down from the color of their eyes to their hair follicles on your form's ass, if you can’t play the part, it’s over. Jim did alright, he radiated Michelle’s confidence like a lightbulb filling up an empty room, which was good for all the small talk he had to make with her lips. But like the light bulb, once it’s brought from a confined space to the outside the light is blinded by the sun that is the real Michelle. Michelle has a thing for looking content in no matter what context she could be held over a pit of broken glass by a deranged fan and still look like she was in control of the situation. Jim couldn’t walk like her or sit the way she sits without looking a bit akward.

The rest of the family did even worse: Harriet drank the drinks that only Harriet Harrison likes, not the Harriet she was pretending to be. Reeds’, the face of Kissinger Light, only drank Kissinger when she was out in public because her contract said so, Harrison would always go for the margaritas. Jamie ate more than Franni does, even hitting up the hotel buffet once. And finally there’s Matt.

Matt, oh man I feel so sorry for that poor kid, he never spoke when they family left the room; when he did he would whisper to his family and no one else. Sure he could dress himself up in the way any way a teenaged boy dreamed all girls dressed: high heels and a  bikini on all the time, push-up bras for every other occasion, but if a man ever looked at his breast or directly in the eyes he would shy away behind a towel covering up himself. There are even accounts of Car Malla hiding behind Michelle and Harriet whenever the quartet walked down the beach holding their hands.

At the scene I spoke to a witness who told me the funnies thing. After a few drinks he went to break the sea when he had his mind blown: Car Malla walked straight into the mens room, and stood directly up to the urinal next to the one he was using.

“My heart stopped pumping all my blood to my brain,” the witness said, “and diverted directly between my legs. I didn’t know what to do, right next to me was the woman that every man would kill to even touch, I didn’t even find it weird she was attempting to use a urinal. I’ve had dreams about this, Car Malla walking into a room with just me and her, not her using a urinal though, that’s some fucked up shit. Anyways, I nearly lost control of my legs because they were trembling so much. Once Car Malla, well I guess the shifter, realized he no longer had a penis though is when she - he - gave me a look of embarrassment and dashed out the door. I had no idea just happend, so I did what every man does when he gets close to a dream girl: I told all my buds at the bar.”

Poor, poor Matt. If it wasn’t for that simple mistake the Harrisons might have spent at least another night or two at Freeside before my unit at STAG caught them.

As I mentioned earlier, Matt never spoke a single word. Initially I thought it was because he was shy and self conscious. Most teenaged boys aren’t used to having breast perkier than a cheerleader’s personality, and an absurd amount of attention twenty-four-seven. It was the bartender who called us in that night, and in thirty minutes the family was in cuffs in the back of a STAG van. Matt broke down, whining and throwing a fit, apologizing to us and his parents all with the voice of a prepubescent boy. I won’t lie and say I kept a straight face during their apprehension. I tried my best, but like remembering a joke in the middle of a church service it was impossible to contain, the voice of a boy going through puberty was coming out of America’s biggest sex symbol, completed with the crackling from low to high. The irony was so much, once Martin and me hopped into the van’s cab we let it all out between Freeside and dispatch, even Avery chuckled a bit too.

Necrosia

 Oh man life is getting busy right now, and I love it! Call me a bit of a workaholic but if I'm not doing something I will go crazy. When I'm not at work a lot of my time is spent with outside organizations, such as two running clubs, and a Toastmasters branch down here. I even took up the leadership role as Vice President of Public Relations which is going to be fun! Now on to the blog.

As you know we are on a new format now, something I'm really excited about. So as my debut story upon this new format is a sequel to Swamp Eyes, a side story within the greater story I'm working on outside of this blog known as Project Fields. This edition she is arriving at Hetrago, a misogynistic civilization located within the valley.This is why happens when you piss off a demi-goddess who wonders upon your civilization.

Part 1: Swamp Eyes

“Hetrago, the land of the riches,” she says as she walks into the valley, the stone wall encasing the city is still a few miles west of her. “Hetrago, the only place upon this godforsaken wasteland who have some sense of civility, except for the misogyny. Fuckin’ fuckbags.” She speaks to the dry air as if she were delivering a sermon; the only life sentient enough to pick up on her speech lied within a guard post a few meters upwards on the valley slope. She is uninvited here, like everywhere else upon this world. What were they going to do? Tell a demi-god she couldn’t stay a few nights? That would be like telling Zeus he could no longer throw lightning because it was a ‘danger’ to the Earth, or more so like begging God to never unleash the great flood. You can’t argue with nature. A small squadron of guards advances from the outpost, a routine inspection of travelers. A routine until they notice how her hair dances in the wind like the wildfire fed with the spirits of the damned; and her stare bright as emeralds gleaming beneath a supernova.

That is when they stop, and draw their rifles. The commanding officer readies his handheld transceiver, along with his .75.

The air is filled with the soft humming static of the transceiver, a comforting white noise in the silence of death. The occasional panting is heard as tiny red misquotes take turns tangoing across her torso moving at the rhythm of their hearts. A glare of a sniper strobes across her line of sight as if to add flare to the light show. They’re trying to scare her, she finds it cute.

Before any of the guards say anything she scrambles across her memory banks to recall which nickname she collected here, it’s been a while, a seventy-five years long while. Is it Malicious Mallory? Nah, they’re smarter than that. The Risin’ Demon? Hmm, maybe. Or -

“Necrosia, what is your business here?” A the commanding officer speaks up, his fingers more tense around the transceiver than his pistol. His face is aged both by time and the sun, given his age he must have been just a boy the last time she came by.

“Necrosia, I love it!” She says with the grace of a hyena. “How could I forget a beautiful name? Say it again!”

They say nothing, the older guard retreats a step back. The static on the transceiver dissipates.

“You,” she says pointing to a younger guard, probably no older than thirty and no less than a year on the force based on the fairness of his skin, “what do the people call me here?”

“Ne- Ne - Necrosia,” he says withdrawing his gun away from her. Such terror in his voice, she finds it adorable. This must be his first time he has been intimated by somebody without an extra limb between their legs.

“Again!” She says her hands rais into the air like a conductor.

“Necorsia.”

“I can’t hear you.”

“NECROSIA,” she can almost hear him shit his pants this time, her name is the fucking brown note to these people. Adding more to the irony of the situation this young guard is nearly the prefect solider based on appearance. His is clean shaven, his shoulders wide like a brick wall, chest accentuated by the armor she bets his pecks could withstand the blow of a .22 easily, and whatever muscles his body couldn’t fit within his torso extended to his neck. His body was ideal for both picking up any woman he chose in Hetrago, and beating them into submission if they didn’t do a simple chore like cooking or sucking his dick. And yet here he was panicking before a hundred-and-thirty-two pound girl. She finds it arousing.

She soaks in the moment like a sponge, then calls out to the crowd.

“Now all of you!”

“NECROSIA,” they obey like all god-fearing church choirs should.

“Ahhh, I like the sound of that, way better than Swamp Eyes. Now you were going to say something child?” She locks eyes with the commander.

At first he says nothing, he wants to go back home to his mommy whom she may or may not have spared on her last visit, she feels it in the air and by the way he hugs the transceiver. Either way she would be dead by now given his age. Finally he speaks up.

“W-what brings you to Hetrago, Necrosia?”

“Oh you know,” she says her green eyes locked upon his browns irises, “I’m sure your legends say something about me being a roving beast of the wildlands who comes here every so often to wreck terror upon your precious society, maybe because it will get your wives and children to behave, or maybe because that’s the way things are. Both of which I feel flattered you think of me that way, but I assure you, you can withdraw your weapons. I am not here for death and destruction, honestly I’ve become quite bored of it.”

She pauses waiting for them to respect her wish, and none obey.

“You call yourself soliders? You can’t even take a fucking command, go ahead open fire upon me, I’m pretty sure your friends in Gel did ohhh so much with killing off Swamp Eyes. I’m sure you heard the stories. If not here’s an abridged version: they didn’t! I was going to spare them, afterall they were oh so kind to let me have a few drinks, but they should of stopped me after my first bar. You know me and alcohol.”

The guards silently consult each other then lay their weapons. A sniper is still focused upon her, she decides to let them have their false safety. She gives the young guard her signature wink test after he lays his arms down, he only flinches a little. She gives him a C+.

“So what do you come here for?” The commander speaks again for the squad.

“Business, mostly.” She says then catches the young guard’s eyes with hers and waves, “And maybe a little bit of pleasure.” He looks towards both sides like he was trying to avoid an awkward wave when one waves at somebody nears them, always leading to an awkward returned wave. His legs almost give when he realizes the truth.

“Now tell me, commander?”

“Collenwhealth,” the old guard says.

“Mister Collenwhealth,” she speaks flamboyantly. “Would you kindly please escorte a woman my stature to the city gates? I hear you have Rickshaws for women such as myself who simply cannot walk on their own for just a few feet, I don’t think my thin and weak legs can handle a few more miles upon my journey.”

“Why would I ever-”

“I’m helpless can’t you see?” Nacrosia’s legs begin to tremble. “I need a big strong man to protect me, as your culture says clearly within its doctrine, ‘A woman is incapable of going anywhere by herself outside of her master’s property, due to her weaker physique and valuable ability to produce heirs.’ Now how my uterus affects my ability maneuver on my own I don’t understand, but I didn’t write the doctrine. I just believe in respecting other culture’s customs.

“Now fetch me a rickshaw please, my legs are about to give-way under my empty womb’s weight.”

Collenwhealth points at one of his men then the outpost. The guard begins to leave when Necrosia interrupts. “No, not him. I want you.” She says pointing at the young guard. Like a fly being swatted at he dashes away towards the outpost, his rifle thudding on the soil stirring a cloud of burnt orange dust behind his pace. She watches him the entire way, not to make sure he obeys her, she knows he will, but to admire his rear.

“Yep,” she says to no one but herself, “just a little bit of pleasure.”