fiction :: can you run a motorcycle on butane?

WORKING BOOK TITLE, NOT THE REAL ONE

It's the kind of question you wind up asking (and cracking your husband up with) coming up with futuristic scenarios. I decided one of the characters would be crazy enough to smash lighters for feul, if it came to it, but didn't know if it'd work. Since the answer was "You'd have to be @#$!ing crazy!", uh, he will.

One day I got the crazy idea that I wanted to write a sci-fi book. So here it is, in progress, broken into chapters; feedback and suggestions on this work in progress more than welcome.

Of course it's socio-political. You expect anything less?

Catastrosphic Contusory Dispondenism (CCD), Kills 20 in Atlanta

posted by snarko on Monday, November 27 2006

AP NEWSWIRE: ATLANTA, GA 2045: Catastrosphic Contusory Dispondenism (CCD), Kills 20

Twenty people now lay dead from the incurable, contagible disease, CCD.

Investigators on the scene report there are no obvious contusions; however, CCD is heavily suspected.

"I felt nothing," said a victim (identity protected by really good lawyer); "But these these bruises? Oh my god. Please save me!"

CCD, as the disease is now commonly called, is an auto-immune dysfunction in which, as we all know, does not allow the body to heal itself from otherwise normal bytes and blows as it may experience. Symptoms include, but are not isolated to:

BTW IF you have any of these symptoms, contact your doctor RIGHT NOW don't keep reading: your important existence to the elections this year of Our Lord supercede all:

depression
lethargy
zits
confusion
zits
inability to complete a sentence
zits

The twenty people now laying dead where all said to have "gone outside". This is not recommended, according to Dr. James A. Watever, from the Institute of St. U. Iniase:

"The disease is highly contagious and still on the run of our profits... we're trying to find a solution. In the meantime, don't do anything I wouldn't do. HA. Ha. ha. ha ha."

CCD has reportedly killed over 4M as of this writing, It's first noteable cases started in 2003; but data is lacking. The body is simply no longer able to heal itself from any one blow; a punch is a lifetime of suffering for a CCD victim. Bruises do not heal, broken bones don't either.

CNN recently reportedly the incident of CCD as high as 80%.

Stay tuned for updates...

CCD1.1: Black Angels and White Nothing

posted by snarko on Tuesday, December 19 2006

Sherry, Joe, Gerry, and Sharon rolled into the town with a thunder and a clap. And an echo. And a dustcloud.

Turning off her motorcycle and taking off her helmet, Sharon shook her black hair and shrugged her head generally to the left, rolling her brilliant blue eyes squinting at the bright sun a bit even further left, like a white angel might be whispering in her ear and it tickled. A bit.

But there were no white angels here. Only black ones. And it was cold, despite the burning sun. And dead quiet. Dead.

"A 7-11. Let's hit it," she suggested.

There was no discussion, but all got off their bikes and raced over to the store, kicking up more dustclouds with their heavy boots, red-handled axes in their black hands. An alarm sounded at the very first strike Joe swung (he got his in first, with a "HA!"--but it was hardly fair; he had the longest legs and everyone knew it and stopped taking bets a long time ago), blade sticking into the formaldehyde pressed plywood that covered what once was a window, splintering eight layers of enamelled graffiti what one might call art, the paint chips falling to the ground like matte glitter. All covered their noses, but not their ears. Don't know what's in that paint.

"Like they're coming," Sherry snorted. "They ain't paid enough to risk it."

Joe wiggled the axe until it was free, then swung again, hitting the "e" in "despondent depot" that should have been an "i". Sherry wondered whether or not that was on purpose; his swing hardly ever hit the mark, but then again he was also easily teed off by bad spelling, so may have been inspired. The others joined in.

The wood loosened a bit, and Sharon kicked it in. "Man! Find that fucking alarm and smash it. It's driving me crazy." She picked a splinter out of her wrinkled and scratched black hand with her teeth, and spat it to the ground. "Let's clean up."

"I hope they have Ho-Hos," whined Gerry.

"You always want Ho-Hos."

"They're always still good."

"Maybe you've eaten enough preservatives to be immune." Sherry tried not to laugh, but did, turning on her flashlight. Or attempting to; it came on a moment, then winced out.

"Maybe." Gerry headed to the snack isle, his flashlight shining bright. He got one of those solar ones in the last town, so his always worked. Sherry was jealous cuz he got the last one and was quite sick of looking for batteries that still worked, but said nothing. She headed to the cashier counter to find more batteries. Maybe they'd be good. Sometimes you'd get lucky. She felt lucky.

The store fell silent as someone smashed the alarm, but she didn't see who, but did hear Sharon's voice. "THANK YOU!!!" And assumed it was Joe. Gerry never did anything, really. Didn't want to risk it.
___

"You gonna get that?"

Officer Joel--last name not first--at least that's what he said every time he introduced himself--looked over at the computer that was now speaking.

"A-18 at 7-11, Main Street. A-18..."

"Nope." He leaned back into his chair again, but not too far, and reopened the paper, carefully.

"Oh."

Officer Keaton--first name not last--looked out the peephole of the door with his one good eye--if you could call it good, as it was encircled in black, blood vessels broken, and you'd have known it had changed to brown if the blue eye'd still existed--but it did still work--as if he could see the 7-11 from there.

It was six blocks away.
___

Marilyn Gausman rang a golden bell shaped like an apple as she sat in bed. She'd forgotten where she'd got it.

"Yessem?" A black man with a white coat stooped at the door. She also couldn't remember the last time she'd seen him stand straight. But it hardly mattered. She could still sit straight; that's all that mattered. She could always get another one.

"Could you change the channel please?"

Warren looked at the screen. It was the news. Again. The news broke into just about every show these days, and it was truly annoying. This time it was children in some place far away with bruises all over them. But they weren't crying. They were just standing there naked.

"It's depressing."

"Yessem."

The television soon fell silent. And Warren shuffled back out the door, as Marilyn obviously had no further use of him at the moment. She'd gone back to putting on her Response Cream? (she secretly preferred the Solar-Enabled CoQ10?, but couldn't afford it these days as her healthcare wouldn't cover it. Actually, she could afford it, but that'd be real money, and this stuff she just had to sign for. Was her dead husband responsible for that? She'd forgotten that, too. He died of complications years ago when a wound wouldn't heal), which she did religiously eight times a day, just like the visiting doctor had told her to do.

She sighed.

CCD1.2: The Mall

posted by snarko on Monday, April 23 2007

"Where is your suit?!"

Marilyn hadn't risen from bed yet, but made that face. The one that said she wasn't exactly happy, and her happiness was everything.

"Don't need it."

"YES you do. How many times... and get mine... uh... Delores's gonna be there? The one with the fish."

"But the fish are..."

"JUST DO IT!"

"Yessem."

Warren returned in his manilla-yellow foamcore suit--that made him look, in his opinion, like a dirty marshmallow--a plastic bag of Hyperborean Basin piranhas and Life™ water in one hand, and the Speedy EaseInsurance Inflator™ in the other. He placed the toothed fish next to the comb and Response Cream™ on Marilyn's bureau, the Inflator next to the bed, and then fished her gown off the hook from the closet.

As it was crinkled and sticking to its three layers of self, the film of the last wearing still clouding its outer layer, Warren suggested another apparel, but Marilyn wouldn't have it.

"It's Delores."

Warren worked Marilyn into the gown--which, in his opinion, looked like a plastic donut--the only thing he wasn't sure of was if the filling was a tart, fruit, cream, or just hotter air--the near-clear plastic folds sticking to her thighs and back a bit. He plugged it into the Inflator, and when it reached 45psi, detached it, and poured the fish and Life into its outer layer, with the help of a funnel to get the creatures into the 3" layer without actually touching the vicious things.

For some reason, the fish always swam to the left.

"I could replace you with an android for this. It obviously isn't blue enough. Where's my Enhancer™?!"

"Oh, it's blue, ma'am." But Warren added the Enhancer from the bureau to make it every so slightly bluer, then fastened the closures of the inflatable gown--which now, in his opinion, looked like a giant fishbowl--sealing the fish in to up to four hours of swimming around her waist like a mad rabbit on a dogtrack before they could suffocate. He closed his eyes, briefly, while she bumped her way like a swishing bouncing ball onto the floor and over to the bureau for her purse before he could pick it up himself.

He had to carry it anyway.

___

Delores Thompson-Tilbury-Henderson was waiting impatiently on the other side of the tram.

"Nice to see to you," she shrugged. But she couldn't give a damn.

She honestly looked stunning. The birds within her bubble falling and leaping over the inside track like a dancer with her dusty pink points pulled off.

Her toes almost naked. She just felt like it.

"Marilyn," she continued, "How gorgeous!"

The piranhas kept swimming, left.

But she was bullshitting: her hair was in falls, extended by the best humans left; her face a remarkable resemblence to Frida Kahlo, and created by the best of artists; her gown a shining example of 2050 fashion design, which no one else could own; they hadn't bought it.

Any which way.

CCD 1.3: Robert (draft)

posted by snarko on Wednesday, July 18 2007

"Take that!"

Robert Gausman didn't blink anymore. That was his secret. His eyes would just swell until he hit them with Life™ again.

"Whoo hooooooo... Mom?!"

Robert laid down his gun to address his mother. She'd been standing there, watching now, for over twenty minutes; he felt that flutter coming off of her spine like a razor blade scarcely nicking a zit on his chin.

She was a bit put out.

"How are you?"

"Okay, I guess."

"You guess?"

"Yeah, I got like 20,000 credits, but I need more to get the Sonic™ Boom Boom™."

Marilyn snapped her fingers, and Warren brought her purse.

She nodded; Warren fished out the AmerimEx, and touched it to his.

"Thanks, Mom."

"Prego."

He didn't notice as she baubbled away; one eye stayed fixed on the policeman shooting...

Pandemonium.

Robert didn't blink. He just kept shooting. Only 10,000 more to go. He heard something, but didn't really notice: he was too close.