I know that it's been a long-ass time since I wrote on the whole Greek mythology thing, but I thought that I should at least announce that I'm also planning on getting back to it. I'm not sure how much will get done in March, since, per my previous post, I've got an entertainment focus then, but I'm definitely going to work on it at least a little.
Sorry for the short post, but it didn't really fit in the previous post.
Saturday, February 28, 2015
Sudden Short Story 71
Ours was thought to be a lost cause, back in the day. Thankfully, tourist groups are just as lax among the supposedly enlightened species as they were back on Earth. We've managed to sneak enough humans off of the preserve planet to expand our outside population when we need additional or replacement agents. The fact that immortality can be gotten for cheap handles everything else.
Working on planets from the lower strata of interstellar society is strange to say the least. They have an Earth-like quality, though they have far less surveillance, since they actually managed to realize that it's impractical on the large scale. This works for us: Not only are the surroundings of a technology level with which we're familiar, but we can work without being detected, so that the Occupants, as we've come to call them, won't know that any of us have gotten loose.
We've all memorized the Five Century Plan. The duration is the worst part, but we have to make sure that it goes right the first time; the Occupants will make sure that we won't get a second chance, one way or the other. As it happens, it's more like four different plans, each a fail-safe against the others. I kind of hope that we get to the last part, though: Normally, I'd be opposed to genocide, but it'd be an eye for an eye, and they did take Earth from us, after all.
Working on planets from the lower strata of interstellar society is strange to say the least. They have an Earth-like quality, though they have far less surveillance, since they actually managed to realize that it's impractical on the large scale. This works for us: Not only are the surroundings of a technology level with which we're familiar, but we can work without being detected, so that the Occupants, as we've come to call them, won't know that any of us have gotten loose.
We've all memorized the Five Century Plan. The duration is the worst part, but we have to make sure that it goes right the first time; the Occupants will make sure that we won't get a second chance, one way or the other. As it happens, it's more like four different plans, each a fail-safe against the others. I kind of hope that we get to the last part, though: Normally, I'd be opposed to genocide, but it'd be an eye for an eye, and they did take Earth from us, after all.
Entertainment Plans: March 2015
In case anyone was wondering, I haven't made any Pokémon progress at all lately. What little time I've spent on the handheld has been on Pokémon shuffle, largely because of its whole heart recharge system. It's a fine little match-3 game, but I'm not writing to talk about that today.
I realized that, even for my personal entertainment, I won't get anything done unless I specifically set out to to it. These aren't exactly great aspirations, but I figured that I'd post them here, for what it's worth. For one thing, I'm hoping to make March be the month that I finally re-play Myst. For another, I'm hoping to watch some anime. I haven't watched anime in ages. I've got one on loan, and I'm hoping to watch any one of a short list of other anime. (Maybe I'll post details once I decide what to watch.) Furthermore, in addition to those, I saw the first few episodes of Gankutsuou AGES ago, and saw them again slightly fewer ages ago, but I figure that I can set aside some time and actually watch the whole thing. (For the curious, Gankutsuou is currently available, both subbed and dubbed, on Funimation's YouTube channel.)
Oh, and I suppose that I'll have to make some more progress on Pokémon, too. ;)
I realized that, even for my personal entertainment, I won't get anything done unless I specifically set out to to it. These aren't exactly great aspirations, but I figured that I'd post them here, for what it's worth. For one thing, I'm hoping to make March be the month that I finally re-play Myst. For another, I'm hoping to watch some anime. I haven't watched anime in ages. I've got one on loan, and I'm hoping to watch any one of a short list of other anime. (Maybe I'll post details once I decide what to watch.) Furthermore, in addition to those, I saw the first few episodes of Gankutsuou AGES ago, and saw them again slightly fewer ages ago, but I figure that I can set aside some time and actually watch the whole thing. (For the curious, Gankutsuou is currently available, both subbed and dubbed, on Funimation's YouTube channel.)
Oh, and I suppose that I'll have to make some more progress on Pokémon, too. ;)
Friday, February 20, 2015
Sudden Short Story 70
"You're behind schedule," came the voice over the commlink.
"This from the 'time traveler'," Breaker said sarcastically, with his subvocals. "Relax, I had to be fashionably late."
"Grid, what's your status?"
"Brilliant," said Grid, "That quantum rig's brilliant. I already own everything. I'm working on the loop footage for the cameras on the path to the master bedroom. Just say when."
"Don't forget to do the other sensors. White hats are always on duty for these affairs. Octopus, be ready, I don't want any of the outside guards coming in if this goes foul."
"They won't even know what happened," she replied. Noise cancelers were as much a godsend to assassins as chameleon suits.
"Grid, give me a status on Breaker."
"He's schmoozing with the guests," said Grid, only mildly annoyed at the degree of micromanagement. He couldn't complain too much - his job was safest of all, really, being off-site. "I think that he's trying to extend his network of ... personal contacts."
"Confidence is a virtue in your line of work, Breaker, but there can be too much of a good thing. Schweitzer is as paranoid as ever. You need to have finished your transport before he checks his room. Please make haste with the lady and resume your duties."
It took almost a minute before Breaker walked away. "Relax," he said, "This gave me half an alibi. I'm off to the washroom, aren't I? Grid, did you get the guards by the corridor?"
"I got them. Both had cyber-eyes, but one didn't have a cyber-occipital, so I'm editing you out of their optical streams live. Hop to it, I can't keep this up forever, even with the q-box."
Once Breaker got to the master bedroom, he easily found the secret switch that opened the secret passage. It was an old mechanical, so it was mostly a matter of knowing for sure that it existed. Within the secret passage, finding the other secret switch was just as easy, though it would've fooled anyone with worse intel - who would suspect a secret door within a secret passage? It wasn't a door, though: The panel revealed a palm reader, though Grid had hacked it to interpret any palm as Schweitzer's.
"I don't believe it," commented Breaker, perhaps not on subvocals.
"I don't recall writing your belief into the contract either way," retorted their boss for this job. "Get in, but be ready. There may be guards on the other end, though I doubt it."
Breaker got into something that he thought passed for a fighting pose, then activated the transporter. Before he knew it, he was in a darkly-lit facility of indiscernible purpose. "There's nobody here," he reported, once he'd turned on the satellite link. It was only just barely powerful enough to get a signal out, but it was necessary, since the facility was off of every grid possible.
"As I suspected," said their boss, "he doesn't want anyone to know that this place exists, so he hasn't even hired guards. Now, get the package to the time nexus and get out."
Breaker found the area containing the time nexus easily enough. "Boss, it's moving around quite a bit. How am I supposed to get the package to it?"
"That's why I put it on a line," came the reply, "It's bound to this location gravitationally, so it and the planet move at the slightest perturbation. The relative velocity doesn't matter, though, so swing the package around in a circle at high speed and try to get the circle to intersect the nexus."
"Tell me again why we have to do this?" asked Breaker, as he got the package up to speed. "Why couldn't you just do it yourself?"
"To alter a timeline in the past, one must be outside of it."
"Yeah, but once I change it, how will you get back in? When you jump in, won't you be a new arrival rather than a native? Surely that's gonna create some problems for you."
"You are working with the faulty assumption that I ever left my home timeline in the first place."
The package intersected the nexus, and an empty loop of string emerged from the other side.
"This from the 'time traveler'," Breaker said sarcastically, with his subvocals. "Relax, I had to be fashionably late."
"Grid, what's your status?"
"Brilliant," said Grid, "That quantum rig's brilliant. I already own everything. I'm working on the loop footage for the cameras on the path to the master bedroom. Just say when."
"Don't forget to do the other sensors. White hats are always on duty for these affairs. Octopus, be ready, I don't want any of the outside guards coming in if this goes foul."
"They won't even know what happened," she replied. Noise cancelers were as much a godsend to assassins as chameleon suits.
"Grid, give me a status on Breaker."
"He's schmoozing with the guests," said Grid, only mildly annoyed at the degree of micromanagement. He couldn't complain too much - his job was safest of all, really, being off-site. "I think that he's trying to extend his network of ... personal contacts."
"Confidence is a virtue in your line of work, Breaker, but there can be too much of a good thing. Schweitzer is as paranoid as ever. You need to have finished your transport before he checks his room. Please make haste with the lady and resume your duties."
It took almost a minute before Breaker walked away. "Relax," he said, "This gave me half an alibi. I'm off to the washroom, aren't I? Grid, did you get the guards by the corridor?"
"I got them. Both had cyber-eyes, but one didn't have a cyber-occipital, so I'm editing you out of their optical streams live. Hop to it, I can't keep this up forever, even with the q-box."
Once Breaker got to the master bedroom, he easily found the secret switch that opened the secret passage. It was an old mechanical, so it was mostly a matter of knowing for sure that it existed. Within the secret passage, finding the other secret switch was just as easy, though it would've fooled anyone with worse intel - who would suspect a secret door within a secret passage? It wasn't a door, though: The panel revealed a palm reader, though Grid had hacked it to interpret any palm as Schweitzer's.
"I don't believe it," commented Breaker, perhaps not on subvocals.
"I don't recall writing your belief into the contract either way," retorted their boss for this job. "Get in, but be ready. There may be guards on the other end, though I doubt it."
Breaker got into something that he thought passed for a fighting pose, then activated the transporter. Before he knew it, he was in a darkly-lit facility of indiscernible purpose. "There's nobody here," he reported, once he'd turned on the satellite link. It was only just barely powerful enough to get a signal out, but it was necessary, since the facility was off of every grid possible.
"As I suspected," said their boss, "he doesn't want anyone to know that this place exists, so he hasn't even hired guards. Now, get the package to the time nexus and get out."
Breaker found the area containing the time nexus easily enough. "Boss, it's moving around quite a bit. How am I supposed to get the package to it?"
"That's why I put it on a line," came the reply, "It's bound to this location gravitationally, so it and the planet move at the slightest perturbation. The relative velocity doesn't matter, though, so swing the package around in a circle at high speed and try to get the circle to intersect the nexus."
"Tell me again why we have to do this?" asked Breaker, as he got the package up to speed. "Why couldn't you just do it yourself?"
"To alter a timeline in the past, one must be outside of it."
"Yeah, but once I change it, how will you get back in? When you jump in, won't you be a new arrival rather than a native? Surely that's gonna create some problems for you."
"You are working with the faulty assumption that I ever left my home timeline in the first place."
The package intersected the nexus, and an empty loop of string emerged from the other side.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)