Title: Elsewhere
Author: Kindigo
Rating: PG?
Characters: secret…but not a well-kept one.
Word Count: 1500-ish
Note:NEW! NEVER BEFORE SEEN! XD Continued from the above.
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Elsewhere, a similar scene was occurring, only with (actually not much) saner characters and (mostly) properly functioning machinery (because they were on their eigth pot of coffee, and because mostly is all you can ever guarantee with machines.)
At least, they thought it was mostly working properly.
The room was dark except for the flickering of the media screen. They were watching a grainy recording for the twelfth time, on which they saw the first blurry subject, carrying a nondescript plaid messenger bag protectively, backing away from a newly-arrived blue Miata.
‘Have some more coffee,’ said one of the two watchers, and poured another cup for his companion, whose eyes were slipping closed of their own accord. It was quite late– or early, depending on one’s perspective– and a large amount of coffee was the silent third partner in the room, a practically vibrating extra presence.
The other watcher accepted the cup without looking away from the screen. She sniffed imperiously. The plaid messenger bag was not something she would peg as out of the ordinary; however it was also something she wouldn’t pollute a landfill with. What an eyesore. Unfortunately, as she was constantly reminded by her colleague, no they were not allowed to arrest anyone on the grounds of Crimes Against Fashion nor Oh Fuck, My Eyes no matter how allegedly heinous, much to her dismay and contrary to a few actual attempts.
So she was forced to burn her eyes out examining the hideous thing, made much more difficult by the large quantity of caffine currently courseing through her system. She paused te feed and zoomed in on the bag, scrutinizing it with the smallest hint of a well-disguised grimace, or so she had thought.
Her company gave her a sardonic look, as if he knew what she was thinking, which of course he did.
‘Honestly, my dear,’ he murmured, and she shot him a sharp look at the pet name, but he ignored her. J, but he really got on her nerves. He grinned back at her, face illuminated eerily by the unsteady light, not guilty in the least.
“Don’t,” she said. “Don’t do that.” She was a little uncomfortable and didn’t know why, which only served to make her more unsettled. Maybe it was only too much caffine making her jittery.
He leaned back, chair squeaking, and propped his feet on the desk. He paused thoughtfully for a few caffinated heartbeats.
Shifting slightly, he deliberately squeaked the chair again with a slow grin.
She glared at him quellingly in the low light, and said seriously, “Drugs would have scanned, and that’s far from what I’d call prepared for trafficking. Could be documents.”
Squeaking his new toy playfully, her colleague shook his head and lit up a cigarette. “A paper trail? Not likely. Hardware.”
“But again, all of the scans would have picked up illegal hardware, not to mention the ems would have turned them made them chunks of useless electronics.”
“Unless you have a fetish for silicon coasters.”
She ignored him furiously. “But again, he’s not prepared for trafficking, even computer parts, however dead they’d be by the ems.”
He gazed at her silently, face half-obscured, and she added slowly, “…Unless the bag had internal duranium reinforcements.”
“Why not weapons?” He actually spun the chair, which squeaked like a dying mouse in the death game of a cat.
“The bag’s not big enough for anything hot right now,” she put up a minutely trembling hand to forestall and interruption, “and neither is it heavy enough, even for dismantled contraband.”
“Maybe he’s been gifted with exceptional strength,” he volunteered, and waggled his eyebrows suggestively. The expression should be all rights have looked ridiculous, but he managed to make it look dashingly rakish. It was so unfair.
Completely off-balance and not blushing in the least, really, she protested pompously, “That allegation is entirely inappropriate for the workplace.” She took a sip of coffee to cover her awkwardness. J, it was too early. Late. Whatever.
“Duckie, no innuendo is ever inappropriate anywhere, not if it’s handled properly.” He delivered this line with an impressively- fuck it all, she meant annoyingly- innocent facade, but ruining the effect with a coquettish wink that caused her to burn even redder. Of course the blush turned to a flush of anger when he squeaked the distressed chair several times in rapid succession.
“Stop that,” she growled sternly, feeling like a mother scolding a rambunctious child. That sensation was derailed when he blew a complicated smoke ring into the air and she was struck by the thought that few children had such talented mouths.
She shook her head roughly but her thoughts remained confused.
“Maybe it’s a magic bag,” he postulated slyly, but she was thoroughly distracted. The incessant squeaking was causing her to dig her nails into her pamls hard. Yes, that’s definitely what was bothering her: the squeaking.
She took a big gulp of coffee, then angrily unpaused the feed with a savage punch to a button on the media screen. On the vid the second subject made a blurred threatening gesture to the first subject from behind the wheel of the as-yet unidentified Miata. “Oh, shut up,” she grumbled, “it’s not like a magic bag could explain why none of the people passing by noticed anthing out of the ordinary. According to PR&I, they all claimed nothing strange was going on.” The fuzzy Miata looked rather like a rabbit from this angle, she thought muzzily, coffee scalding her tongue.
“How many witnesses did PR&I pull down?”
“Pretty much all of them,” she said absently, as a blurred dark figure slid surruptitiously out of the back of the car. At this point she couldn’t tell it the blur was the lateness of the hour, the coffee, or the feed’s quality. She squinted as the third subject pushed the first bodily into the car, then turned and addressed- presumably threatened, although he hadn’t admitted it, said the subject had been perfectly polite, as if- a nearby pedestrian. She jabbed her finger at the retreating
witness, elaborating, “Took a while to find this guy, but he actually talked to one of them. And did you get tech down here to fix the awful snow on this feed?”
With a shrug, he said, “Yes, IT said it was the sys-bus shelling interpreter transitor whatsis chasiss thingamajig. Something or other. I personally would perscribe a good solid whack or two in the right place.”
She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, that’ll work. I don’t know how you can manage to function with your total techno-stupidity, especially in this day and age. How do you get throgh five minutes without calling on tech support?”
“Pet, that’s what tech support is for. Never do anything youself that which you can cajole, connive or coerce someone else into doing for you. Besides, tech likes to feel needed, ‘especially in this day and age’ when no-one does. Hence, they love me.” He took a drag of his cigarette, the red tip contrasting with the blue-green glow from the media screen. “They shower me with favors. They sent me a fruitbasket last week. Granted, it was a digital render, their idea of a joke I guess.” He leaned forward to knock the ash off his cigarette with an ear-splitting squeak.
“So you just let them do everything for you. Lazy. Haven’t you ever heard the axiom, ‘If you want something done right you gotta do it yourself’?” She rewatched the abduction again, but like all the times before nothing became any clearer, not even with the desperate application of another cup of coffee. In fact it was getting worse. She rubbed her tired eyes.
“That, liebling, is the root of my oft-derided control issues, which I am manfully struggling to overcome. How callous of you to bring up such a private subject so insensitively.” Since he spun around again quickly, squeaking loudly, she didn’t bother to even pretend for an instant that she believed he was serious.
She said impatiently, “Shut up. I’m not your therapist and I don’t care. Stop that squeaking! We do have a job to finish, you know!”
“Oh, believe me, I know,” he told her. “But it’s not as though we’re going to miraculously see something new the fifteenth time we missed the fifth, not with this quality.”
She ground her teeth together, tempted to push him off the tortured chair and run him over with it, then hiding his dismembered body in a series of old coffee filters. Instead of fulfilling that spectacular fantasy she redundantly rewound the feed one more time. She wondered if it was the time, the coffee, or the company that was making her have such mood swings.
“Why are you so moody, anyway?” he asked, echoing her muddled thoughts and extinguishing his cigarette. He peered at the media screen- (squeeeeak!)- and said, “What a nifty messenger bag. Is that plaid?”
“It’s a crime against nature,” she managed through an involuntary rictus of hate, “it’s absolutely hideous.”
“What are you talking about, it’s strappy! I want one! Actually,” he leaned even closer with an even louder squeak, “I think I may already have a bag like this. Can you clear up the image?”
“Grow up!” she hissed, at the end of her highly-strung rope.
He squeaked at her.
She snapped and stood abruptly, slamming her coffee down on the desk, ignoring its conents sloshing over the sides and spilling everywhere. “I’m going to go ask tech to fix the picture,” she said faintly, adding and find some saner company silently to herself. She stomped out.
“I already asked,” he called after her retreating figure, “They can’t help you…or won’t,” he finished quietly. He spun around again once, humming under his breath, before reaching out to wipe off coffee droplets from the screen. He absently adjusted the contrast dial on the media screen and the picture came into focus. “It is /not/ a crime against nature,” he murmured defensively. He seized the screen’s interface and quickly tracked the down the intruder. With a silent apology he terminated the hijacking, then swiftly obliterated any trace that it had ever been there. “And just for that comment, the blame goes to you.”
He took up the discarded coffee cup and deposited the rest of its contents onto the media screen, which gave off a few halfhearted sparks of protest before dying.
The incriminating feed was gone forever, and after a second\’s pause to pat the much-abused chair lovingly, so was he, the only remaining sign of his presence a fast-fading ember glowing like a red eyes in the dark room.\n
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OMG it took waaay too long to post this. I still have a Daniel+Conner+Supertron (and iDolls!!) bit to go up much later.
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Title: Fear No Media
Rating: T, because no little kiddies need nightmares of computers eating them, do they?
Characters: Conner and Danny (still, yes, a man.)
Word Count: 1897ish
Notes: Um. yes. So? Uhh….*shrugs* This is what comes after Fortune Teller.
Prompt: We don’t need no stinkin’ prompt!
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Conner looked for a place to sit, but the inner organs of countless formerly whole appliances greedily overwhelmed every surface he could reach, and he didn’t dare even think about moving anything, not in this place. If Daniel didn’t bite him, one of the malevolently lurking disembodied motherboards would.
He stayed standing instead, and stared at the media screen while Daniel flitted thgouh the piles and stacks of mechanical parts, continuing with whatever new project he was working on at the moment, and skillfully dancing around Conner as if he wasn’t even there.
Squinting, Conner rewound the feed and played it again. It didn’t help..The media screen’s colors were distorted obscenely, and kept shifting madly in a rather nauseating sort of way .
Conner felt his fortune cookies organizing an angry protest. “Can’t you do anything to fix the video on this stupid hunk of junk?” he asked weakly, a hand to his mouth.
“What is the problem,” asked Daniel, hands never stilling for an instant.
“The colors look like someone chewed up a wadded handful of tropical skittles, spit it out and smeared it all over the screen, then put it in a centrifuge,” Conner described obediantly, and with a fair amount of unnecessarily graphic creativity.
His cookies made another objection known very clearly.
He ignored them and tried to make out what was happening on the media screen, but the colors were far too distracting. It looked rather like a small child had used an oil slick to paint a watercolor, completely forgetting reality and paying no attention to any of the lines.
He rewound the excerpt of video feed. “You didn’t know there was a problem with this media screen? Not that any of them are faultless,” he muttered, glaring at both the live screen and the many dead ones laying nearby, glowering balefully.
Daniel put down a fiddley little doohickey and turned to face him in pointed silence. When Conner only grinned and poked him on the nose, Daniel gave the media screen a good thump (quite likely picturing it was Conner’s head). The creen flickered but didn’t resolve into anything remotely sensical.
“No luck. Can’t you do anything, I don’t know, more….fancy-pants science-y? More professional than walloping it a good one?” Conner asked without much of a hope. “Not that I’m against violence toward machines. In fact, I’m all for it. Rage against the machine.” He reached toward a bizarre contraption attatched to the media screen, but Daniel slapped his hand away in absentmind silence.
“Ow. There’s gotta be eomthing in the whole of this morbid computer junkyard- graveyard- you can use to fix it,” Conner asked, cradling his hand to his self melodramatically.
“I’m afraid I used my last sys-bus shell interruptor in your fortune cookies,” Daniel replied testily, adjusting some wiry thing that loomed over their heads. It switched on with a prolonged whine, then started humming contentedly. It hung there and leered at Conner impishly.
How it leered without anything remotely resembling a face, Conner didn’t know, but it was most definitely leering. He sneered contemptuously back.
“That’s the only thing I can think of that would help the feed’s color. If we had gone through the proper channels,” Daniel continued sourly, “it would already be in the correct readable format.”
The humming got louder, almost seeming to admonish Conner in agreement. “Hey, that’s far too easily traced, and I’m not about to break in anywhere to get you the card,” he protested. “Not when we already have the feed right here.”
“But you said the picture’s broken.”
“It’s kind of…almost…but not quite possible to make out,” Conner admitted, scrunching up his face and tilting his head to one side and then the other. “Wait, is that a giant pink rabbit?”
“Conner,” Daniel said impatiently.
“Well, sorry!” Conner exlaimed. “I thought that blob really looked like one. But it’s just the Miata.”
“I thought the Miata was blue?”
“It is, but like I said the picture’s all wonky. And for your future referenece, a Miata is only very vaguely shaped like a rabbit. Actually,” he thought about that for a minute. Then he shook his head. “Never mind. Fine, go ahead and give the dan thing mroe of your….percussive maintenence or whatever you call it.”
Daniel smacked the media monitor again. “I call it proper motivation,” he corrected. “Is that at all better?”
Conner stared at the rebellious media screen’s rioting colors doubtfully. “Maybe it’S just the contrast.”
“Maybe it’s just that your brain has mutated and finally given up on life after all you’ve put the poor thing through.”
“Maybe it was your fortune cookies,” Conner shot back. The cookies in question grumbles to themselves, forcing Coner to look away from the screen yet again. He settled for making a face at Daniel instead. “What did you put in them, LSD?”
“I didn’t tamper witht he cookie part. And don’t make faces, you know how…fortunate you were to have my cookies!” Daniel said, smiling slightly. “Don’t pretend you didn’t apreciate them, our dear Mickey said you shorted out the Miata’s radio and damn near melted the treads of your tires.” He looked wistful.
“It sounds more exciting than it was,” said Conner.
“And what else did he tell me! You are so cruel to such a beautiful car. Daniel finds you guilty of reckless gearshifting! I sentence you to driving in automatic mode from now on!”
“Don’t let Michael Taylor hear you calling him Mickey,” Conner warned. The staring of the evilly humming machines was making conner slightly nervous. They were plotting something, he knew it. “Look, can we just get this fixed so I can tell Lain I didn’t fubar the pick up? Maybe if you give it some more of your….Proper Motivation?”
Daniel made an odd gesture Conner interpreted as a grand ‘after you’. “Be my guest. Hit it as hard as you like. “He produced a small but heavy-looking mallet from seomewhere withint the hidden recesses of the mechanical maze, then proffered it in Conner’s direction.
Conner took it reverentially and stared down at the monitor.
It quivered, but refused to surrender a coherent image, rather bravely considering the circumstances.
Conner raised the mallet threateningly. The media screen didn’t change a thing.
“When you hit it, hit it from the right side, please,” came Daniel’s voice from behind a large cabinent. “I can use its brouter to increase the speed of the intermittent bursts blocking the Patrols.”
“The picture’s colors bled to normal. Conner could just barely make out a still shot of Michael walking down the street, carrying his trademark messenger bag. “Hey, it’s working,” he said, lowering he hammer. He started the video up again.
“Like I said, proper motivation,” Daniel popped back out from behind the cabinent, arms full of miscellaneous hardware. “Does this mean you’re not going to wreck it? I was all set to use its components. Maybe I still will.”
The video image sharpened even further. Conner watched his own (now blue and not bunny-shaped) Miata screech wildly to a halt in front of Michael, scattering the other pedestrians like a dog through pigeons.
“No, it’s working fine now,” Conner said, a little grudgingly. He didn’t have a clue why he was ehlpig this deminic peice of mechanical menace. He was too soft, and both he and the monitor knew it; the media screen exploited his momentary weakness and the picture inverted itself. “But it *does* look a little old. And it is over here, in the Computer Graveyard, where all computers eventually come,” he continued loudly, “to DIE. Among all the other former, ex-media screens lying amidst the bones of old supercomputers, shoutboxes, toaster ovens and reefers. Waiting…to die. Painfully. Piece. by. piece.”
There wasa moment where the humming of the many machines sounded, to Conner at least, like a crowd of people all taking a breath at once. The image righted itself.
Good, Conner thought he could be content with a truce, or at least a cease fire. He watched the tiny Conner kick open the Miata’s door dramatically in approval.
“Conner, what have I told you about coming in here and threatening my machines? And may I ask, did you take the EMP /out/ of the fortune cookie before you consumed it? Because that would explain the apparant short-circuit in your brain.” Daniel rubbed the bridge of his nose. “How many times do I have to tell you that the machines are not alive?”
“Oh, hush, this is a good bit.” Conner balanced the mallet on top of the media screen as a reminder for it to behave itself.
He watched the screen-Michael back away from the car, pedestrians milling around him unconcerned. He saw himself make a blurred threatening gesture. “This is where I told him to get in the car or I’d blow his brains out,” he explained in an aside to Daniel. Screen-Lain got out of the car and physically manhandled Michael in. He spoke to someone, who hurried away.
“Scoot over, I need to get to my external cell casing.” Daniel put his hand on the media screen. “Where’s the hammer?”
The car was still for several moments, then peeled out as quickly as it had arrived, garnering no special attention from anyone else on the street. Then the screen went dark.
“Damn it, where’s the Patrol feed file?” Conner said in irritated confusion. He added distractedly, “On top of the screen of doom,” and rapped lightly on the media screen, but it had no effect. He scowled at it. So much for a truce.
“Are you finished?”
“Meh,” said Conner. “It looks good. I have faith your little thingamajig did its magic, I don’t need to see anymore. See you later, Danny boy.” There was a loud clunk.
“Be careful, clumsy,” Daniel admonished.
“Oh, trust me, that was no accident,” muttered Conner maliciously, kicking at another discombobulated hotbox on his way out. “Good bye, rust in pieces, juck feces, muaha.”
“For the last time,” Daniel sighed, cracking something open with the hammer, “the machines are not alive, and they are not plotting to kill you, in your sleep or otherwise. You are really just that technologically inept.”
“You just can’t see their evil auras. They’re glaring at me, glaring and plotting I say! But I’ll get them first, just you wait and see.”
“What did I just tell you about threatening my machines? If I find you in here telling the server you’re going to change its public carrier to flying monkeys again…”
“Don’t worry, I’ll make sure you don’t hear a thing,” Conner reassured. Staring around at the various bits of hardware, he added ominously under his breath, “In cyberspace no one can hear you scream.”
“Conner. The machines. Are not. Alive.”
“Not for long, anyway,” he murmured in reply.
Daniel threw the mallet at Conner with surprising accuracy for those who didn’t know him, but Conner knew him very well indeed and had already escaped out the door with a maniacally evil laugh.
Daniel heard him calling, “Computer cemetary, computer cemetary. Sometimes dead is better. A pixel isn’t just for life…” all the way through the outer rooms and down the staircase.
“I swear,” he muttered fondly, returning to his work. The functioning machines surrounding him almost seemed to hum in agreement.
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…To Be Continued /Elsewhere…./
The title comes from this post by lydiabennet. Hahaha.Ha.
And the reference Conner makes at the end is to Pet Semetary.
Title: Fortune Teller
Characters: Conner, Michael Taylor, Lain, and a blue convertible Mazda Miata. With racing stripes FTW.
Rating: R for Michael Taylor’s rather strange curses
Notes: Tried to write action, but….uhh….yeah no. The dialogue dominates. And it’s not even funny dialogue. *pouts* Oh well, it’s going up anyway.
Prompted by: Me listening to FF8 battle music over and over again; a conversation with Mei Xin about fortune cookies; Lydia talking about car-chases (what is it with Germans and cars on fire?); My lovely mother inspiring me with compliments and her mind-reading laser beam; Someone set us up the bomb!
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It looked like Michael was perfectly content to calmly walk down the street minding his own business, but Conner knew really he was bored out of his skull and needed a daring rescue. So he screeched dramatically to a halt, fishtailing slightly before sliding neatly into place, conveniently missing a parked car, a marking meter, and Michael. the protesting brakes and the smell of burning rubber accented his entrance rather nicely.
He kicked open the passenger side door and swept his hair back, grinning radiantly. “Get in!” He yelled.
Michael crossed his arms, rolled his eyes, and replied at an appropriate volume, “No.”
Conner frowned, derailed. “What?”
“I said, No,” repeated Michael. He backed away from the car for good measure, clutching his bag to himself protectively.
“You are such a lameass. This is not how the action-packed car chase is supposed to go!”
Michael raised an eyebrow.
“The dashingly daring hero screeches up to the curb in an awesome feat of spectacularly stylish driving skill. He cries to his loyal sidekick Get in! Perhaps he waves a high-tech weapon in intense emotion,” Conner explained, demonstrating. “The loyal sidekick leaps over the door and they zoom off. Dramatically.”
“The door’s already open,” Michael pointed out, ignoring the stares they were getting from the passersby. “And the roof’s up. Besides, it’s the loyal sidekick who drives the car, and the hero who leaps in.”
“What happens if the hero doesn’t drive a convertible?” asked Lain, sitting up suddenly from where he had been lying in the back seat. He put a hand to his head. “Does the hero squeeze in through the window? Dramatically?”
“Lain,” Michael said with theatrical surprise, as Lain slipped out of the car. “You rode with Conner and you’re still alive?”
“Hey,” Conner protested, waving his imaginary weapon menacingly. “I am so the hero, so stop deriding my mad hero skills.”
“In a manner of speaking,” asid Lain drily, pushing Michael into the passenger seat. “I think I was unconscious for a bit there. May I help you?” he added pleasantly, and a curious pedestrian hurried on. Lain closed the door and slid back in the car himself.
Conner huffed. “You be quiet, Sleeping Beauty. And if you two are finished making fun of me,” he complained loudly, “we’re way past my cue to peel out before the bad guys catch up.”
“Oh, no, I make it a point to never ride with you when you’re high on adrenaline, overly tired, any amount of excited, hyper, or happy, and /especially/ not when you’re on the run.” Michael ticked each item off on his fingers. “So move over.”
Lain pretended to think hard, lips moving faintly in calculation. “So…that leaves…you ride with him….”
“Never,” Michael finished, shoving at Conner.
“Ha ha, you’re very funny,” he grumbled, punching Michael back; but he clambered over into the passenger seat. “What’s the point of having such a cool car if I never get to drive it?”
“If we let you drive it, it’d last all of the two seconds it took you to crash it.” Michael popped the clutch experimentally. “Listen to that. You’re awful. This is one sick car. What would Danny have to say about this?”
“‘Daniel finds the defendant guilty of vehicular gearslaughter and reckless shifting. Did a nurse beat you with a tyre iron when you were a child?’” Lain imitated in mock severity. “Please drive sanely, loyal sidekick,” he continued loftily, wafting a hand in regal dismissal. “I have an intense migraine.”
“Ha, must be from that tyre iron when you were young. And loyal sidekicks don’t crush the hero’s toes,” Conner grumbled, rubbing his foot and glaring balefully.
“I’m the sanest driver of all of us,” said Michael, carefully checking for oncoming traffic.
“Objection!”
“Overruled, Mr. I-Don’t-Need-Headlights-Really,” said Conner haughtily.
“Served,” Michael murmured smugly. Then he slammed the gas and squealed into traffic.”Where we going?”
“Mornington Crescent. Bag me.”
“Look at me, so not cracking up,” said Conner, and chucked Michael’s bag at Lain.
Michael passed three cars in one go. “Who’s the bad guy?”
“What?”
“You said, “before the bad guy catches up”, so I’m asking, who’s the bad guy?”
“Oh,” said Conner, maybe slightly guiltily.
“Conner is, Lain interjected, sifting through Michael’s bag.
Michael turned to examine Conner, changin landes as an afterthought. “What’s that look for? What did you do this time?”
“Better question would be ‘How many patrol cars do you have following us’?”
“Shut up. I’ll ask for your two cents when I want them. As I remember it you were unconscious at the time and not a lot of help.”
“Yes, next time I’ll be sure to forego being knocked unconscious so I can constantly remind you to lose the patrol.”
A car horn blared as Michael made a turn. “Fuck yourself and the dog who shat on your face!” he screamed out the window at it. Then he said to Conner, “/Patrols!/ Did you lose them with your crazy stunt driving before you picked me up?”
“Hopefully?” said Conner meekly.
Lain sighed and turned to look out the rear window. Then he sighed again.
“Oops,” said Conner. He opened the glove box and started rummaging through it.
“Did you leave your brain in the microwave?! You’re so sweet for thinking of me,” Michael added to Conner.
Conner snorted. “You looked bored. It was either pick you up or run you over.”
“And do you think you did me a favor by being blessed with your company?” Michael teased. “Where the hell did you get your license, your ass?! I suppose if you’d run me over I’d still be stuck with you, only less able to get away.“
“It was Lain’s idea,” Conner disclaimed. “Damn it, I know they’re in here somewhere.”
“What are?”
“The flowers my unconscious voice also magically told him to pick up.” Lain tapped Conner on the shoulder, who passed him something from the glove box, muttering, “Will you stop harping on that? It was an accident. Green’s eight back.”
“Flowers? For me? I love you both too. Get off te road and back to the can-filled shopping trolley you’re used to, you filthy bag hag hobo from hell!”
Suddenly a wailing siren drowned out all other sound. Its warble flooded their heads and crowded out aany other thoughts by the simple expedient of bludgeoning them to death with sheer intensity.
When it finally receded to a managable lever there were far fewer cars on the road. “Lain?” Conner hollered over the brain-breaking cacophony.
Michael switched on the radio. The static surged to the foreground and pummeled the siren into a distant annoying ringing tone. “You alive back there?”
The only response was the sound of a zipper and a series of small, rapid clicks.
“Great!” enthused Conner, and he resumed strip searching the glve box. “Please, please, please,” he chanted breathily under the sound of the siren.
“God,” Lain’s voice wafted from the backseat and merged with the static. His window whirred down. “Four,” he added.
Conner held up a bag of fortune cookies triumphantly. “Yess! Success! I know Danny woudn’t let me down,” he said fondly. “Want one, Lain?”
“Not unless it has an SCSD in it,” Lain growled.
“Is that even legal? Sit on your gearshift and twist, it’s obviously the only use you’ve found for it!”
“Not these ones, sorry,” said Conner cheerfully, sticking his hand out the window and nearly losing it to a passing caravan. “But I could knock you out again instead. Three, on the left.”
“Thanks, but I think that would merely make it worse. I’ll wait for a chemist.”
“Conner,” asked Michael.
“Yeah, yeah. Two.” He broke something in his hand and lifted out a small metal object, which he immediately set to tinkering with.
“Brilliant,” Michael said, as green and white lights flashed through the car and their heads. He swerved and cut off a black Dakota, whose driver screamed something unintelligable.
“Yeah, say that again!” called Michael at the top of his lungs, “while I reload!”
There was a louder click from the backseat.
The truck driver leaned on his horn, creating an awful discord with the siren behind them that the static didn’t help. “Go back to grave robbing where you belong, you tone deaf jackass!”
“Yeah, fuck you!” Conner chirped, gesturing to the Dodge driver. He dropped the small metal thing out the window. “Your fortune today reads, ‘Find another fortune.’ Lain, want to add your two cents now?”
In response, the world became quite suddenly much louder and much darker. Then it got brighter again, but the gunshots had pretty much rendered everyone deaf. Conner watched the truck’s wheels blow out in complete silence, and quietly it slid into the Patrol on their tail.
Also quite soundlessly Michael somehow managed to drive even faster to escape the blossoming wall of fire behind them.
Sound returned gradually, to the sweet music of Conner warbling at the top of his voice, ‘The SOOOUND of SIIILENCE….*’ He stopped when he realized that he could hear himself again, albeit faintly. “Whoohoo, Michael broke the sound barrier!” he cried.
“What, honestly. You couldn’t have hit the Patrol?” Michael demanded.
“Dodge /that/,” Lain said out the window. He explained, “I hate Dodges. Trucks are the devil’s work, I tell you.”
“I think you just don’t like big things,” said Conner. Lain reloaded the firearm. “That’s not what I meant,” Conner backtracked quickly.
“Whatever. Can I have a fortune cookie?” asked Michael, turning off the already silenced radio in a useless gesture.
Conner cracked two open for him, reading the fortune aloud. “‘You are almost there.’ Guess that’s for you, Lain. ‘Never wear your best pants when you go to fight for freedom.’ Huh.”
“Sound advice, I’ll be sure to remember it,” said Michael. “Lain, what are you doing with my bag?”
Lain had dismantled the weapon. “I’m putting it to sorts and then using it as a pillow. Wake me when we get there.” He paused. “Actually, don’t. If I have a concussion, I don’t care.”
There was silence again in the car, until it was broken a small crunch. “‘Blue is your lucky color,’” read Conner. He looked down at his shirt. “Well hot damn!”
*****************
*Footnote: It’s so appropriate.
I already know the scene immediately following this, and it explains what was going on in the beginning, so if you want to comment that they seemed fake when picking up Michael Taylor, don’t, because they were, now shut up. ‘Don’t tell, don’t say. Everything lies in silence.’
Oh yeah, those are all real cookies. =D
Title: Out of Sight and Out of Mind
Author: Kindigo
Rating: PG-13?
Characters: Conner and Toby and extras Jokes and Deuce.
Word Count: Too lazy, do it yourself
Note: bwa! this is crap cos I wrote it in five minutes. ish.
Prompter: Bonamy and Mei Xin.Here we go.
*********************************
Anemone coronaria
The summer sun made the work hotter than it had any right to be, worsened still by the stares of the occasional passerby.
The sheer redundancy of the assigned task was mind-numbingly dull, and apparently quite catching, because I found myself slipping into the same thoughts over and over again.
Red light. Don’t think about that. I forced myself to pay attention.
We marched in a straight line along the not-quite deserted road, the guards watching us from their mounts. The asphalt was a rippling river of tar in scarring the landscape. The heat haze stretched it into infinity.
“This is /so/ cruel and unusual punishment,” Jokes groaned, fanning himself with his shirt and spitting on the ground.
“Weren’t worth robbing that 7/11, was it,” Deuce snarled, stabbing a plastic bag with more force than it probably deserved.
Conner stopped to stare at Jokes in shock(ed amusement.) “Tell me that’s not what you’re in for.”
“Not jus one, it were thirty four,” Jokes bragged. Deuce sniggered, earning himself a malevolent glare. “An’ it ain’t for that. Stalking, B&E, an A&B.”
Deuce snorted condescendingly. Perhaps sensing as I did that the heat was boiling more than the air, Conner shot me a look and said, “That doesn’t get you twenty five, unless it was one hell of an A&B…?”
“Well, maybe it were more that just that,” admitted Jokes. Strange that he wasn’t bragged about it. I attributed that to Conner’s influence. Red light. But don’t think about that.
A car flashed past, thumping a heavy hiphop bass. A condom flew out the window and landed at Deuce’s feet. He hollered like the wild thing he was and hurled the biggest rockes he could find after the car.
“Deuce, stop, we’re still on a red light,” I said quietly, in an attempt to forestall the guards heading over. Conner made an aborted gesture.
“Fuck that!” he screamed, but he stopped throwing rocks. The guards met my gaze, then returned to overseeing the line. Conner and I relaxed as much as we could in the hot air.
We got back to work. The road was a crack in the earth, a chasm down to the abyss of hell, and we in our orange uniforms were the licks of flame escaping from it.
Red light. Don’t think about that. Yet.
Conner spared me a cursory glance, and kicked at a discarded, bent bicycle tire. “How’d you get caught then?” And surprisingly to anyone but me, rather than a punch in the face Conner got an answer.
“I follered her to work,” Jokes grunted.
“The hell, was she some kinda cop or summat?”
Jokes did not give Deuce a nice look. “She was a 911 telephone operator.”
Deuce cracked up laughing. Jokes laid into him with a quick right hook, and then in an instant they were both brawling down and dirty on the dusty pavement.
Conner sighed, and bent down to the broken tire. He plucked a lone red windflower and handed it to me solemnly. “Well, here’s to the future,” he said.
I tucked it out of sight.
*********************************
Prompt words: uniforms, hiphop, telephone operators, 7/11, red light, bicycle:; Also Bonamy said ‘Please write about Conner and Tobias in prison.’
Notes: uh, hopefully the prompts aren’t too crazy. u_u;; Also I’ll do your research for you (you lucky, lazy bastards): The Anemone coronaria (or Poppy Anemone, member of the buttercup family and commonly known as Windflowers) means ‘Anticipation.’ And I picked (ha) red for hopefully obvious reasons.
Also I have no idea how inmate roadwork operates. I just made it up that the guards are mounted, to keep the inmates from running away I guess. I’ll look it up when I don’t have to sleep before school in four hours. I can always claim AU, whut.
I hate it when people say their hobbies are ‘…hanging out with friends?’
Yeah, and then what do you do? We all know what you can’t finish: …smoking pot.
Can’t put that on a resumĂ© or an application, now can you? What an effing cock-up you’re making of your life. Off the top of my head I can think of 10 better ways to a) waste your time, b) waste your money, and c) melt your brain. Just like pot! Only none of them are as talented at pot, because they can’t do all three at once.
I suppose you could spend an hour or four passing out 10$ to random passerby every time you bang your head against a cement wall. That would kill your future the same way, only it’s not as socially acceptable.
What is really sad is that ‘hanging out with friends’-even with the unspoken tail on the end- does look more acceptable on accplications than some more productive hobbies.
What’s sadder is that these more productive hobbies are derided: Get out of the garden already, you’re effing filthy! or wtf is the point of model train building? it’s not like they go anywhere! or why are you drawing/writing/painting? there’s no money in that! But these hobbies and more, while introverted, all have something to show for the time at the end of the day. This is versus a fading high, a pile of ash, and the lingering sickly-sweet smell the incense can’t quite cover.
But the saddest thing is that these high, brainless teenagers who are really good at wasting time and money will grow up to be high, braimless adults who are even better at wastig time and money.
“Oh, you could never understand, my life is so hard and pot (or alcohol/random sex with strangers/whatever vice you need an excuse for) is my only escape.”
Okay. If your problems are that bad, wtf are you smoking pot? Do you really think that weed solves more problems than it causes? For five minutes you don’t need to stress over the fact that you’re failing all your classes, you might be pregnant/have gotten your girlfriend pregnant, you smashed the car, what if it was rape?, your parents are going to disown you if they find out, you can’t come out of the closet, it hurts it hurts it hurts life hurts.
You’re free for five minutes, and then it comes back. And then you have: where am I going to get the money for more? that was my last bowl! I need to cover the smell. Where can I hide my bong?what if I get caught? I can’t take that drug test tomorrow! Oh, no, he’s pulled me over and I’m in possesion…..I can’t believe the stupid things I did while I was…
yey for stress. If you really think the brief (and getting briefer all the time, what about that?) ‘respite’ pot provides is worth all the stress it causes, then you really shouldn’t smoke it because you haven’t the brain cells to spare.
****
/soapbox
If I could sleep forever…- Dandy Warhols
For a dreamer, night’s the only time of day. ~ Newsies
“A dream you dream together is reality.” - John Lennon
There’s a story which tells of a man who frees a genie, and so he makes a wish, a wish for peace on earth. When the genie grants it, the man finds that the earth is one giant cemetery.
So many fight for this dream; but this is one dream which is unattainable. Because even if we lived in a Utopia, there are those who would be unsatisfied. We could call this dissatisfaction greed, we could call it verve, vim, vigor; we could call it a lust for life, restless, ambition; having a dream of something better.
There are those who could never be content with the stagnation of peace, who would be bored stiff with serenity, who would scream down from heavan back to earth for lack of something to do.
These are the adventerers; the world-shakers and -movers; the political advocates, politicians and protestors; the terrorists, vigilantes and outlaws; and all those who fight to change the world, to make it better. Who fight for peace. Those who had a dream of making their personal better world come true, those advocates for peace: Martin Luther King, Jr. (I have a dream…, Mother Theresa, Mahatma Ghandi, John Lennon ( Was it in a dream, was it just a dream?, Jesus Christ….These are the people who look around at the world and say, ‘What wrongs in the world need to be righted?’ and they have such a fever of purpose that for a second, a day, a lifetime- things change. These people are restless until they accomplish their dream of a better world.
For these are the people who say, ‘If there is nothing you are prepared to fight for, no cause you are prepared to die for, then what do you live for?’
What indeed?
And the answer to this is of course is the simple joy of living, of that small moment between sleeping and waking where the world is perfect, and peaceful. But who knows where to find that place, anymore?
Perhaps eventually there will come a time when those restless, fighting pacifists will find they have acheived their goal. That the world is peaceful, and calm, and serene. That they finally have finished their job, and they can rest.
That’s when a third of them will start a was with the second third, and the last bit will commit suicide because there is nothing left to fight for.
What shall they do then? What shall they do. These restless people will never find peace. You cannot fight, demand, request, or even search for peace. That is quite possibly the greasest paradox of the universe, because as long as there are those who say, ‘Carpe Diem’, ‘Live life to the fullest’, and ‘We fight for peace’… there will always be those who want to move, and dance, and run, and live.
None of these things are peace. Not of these things can coexist with peace.
Serenity is a vision in the night that slips from your grasp like the words you shouldn’t have said; because by its very nature the more you struggle for peace, the more it eludes you.
Peace is but a dream.
*****
Now that that is over, I’m going to sleep. Anyone care to join me?
Bonamy I hate you.
I am weak-willed TT^TT
Title: Leave Us Innocent
Author: Kindigo
Rating: Well, I don’t know about you, but this really disturbs me. Really disturbing content.
Characters: ugh. it’s a surprise.
Word Count: 100
Note: this is the other one. The one that is really, really wrong. It disturbs me.You get to see it. No luck for you.
Prompter: Bonamy. BLAME HER !!
Prompt: The song In The Dark by Tracy Chapman; see Bonamy’s post for the lyrics.
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She watched him. He was stunningly beautiful, to her. She didn’t know when she had first noticed how entrancing he was, how much she wanted him. Maybe she always had. All she knew was how difficult is was becoming for her to look away from him, to keep from reaching out, to keep from showing him hust how much she wanted— loved him.
She ached with need for him.
He danced up to her, eyes sparkling.
She gave in.
‘Let’s go to bed,’ she said with a smile.
She lifted her son to her hip and carried him into darkness.
*********************************
Title: Guilt Like Brine
Author: Kindigo
Rating: swearing, disturbing content if you catch what’s going on XD
Characters: Conner, Michael Taylor, Lain
Word Count: 500
Notes: This would take place around before the as-yet-unposted Hospital Scene.
Guilt sours everything =D
Prompter: Bonamy and Sabine
Prompt: Helpless, sushi, pickle, blood, perfume, scrub, ::sour::.
Didn’t think I could fit them all, did you? Ha.
*********************************
They didn’t look at each other, or speak.
Steam was hanging thick as blood in the air and just as hot in their mouths.
Lain scrubbed the floor. Conner washed dishes, sweat beading on his face, sliding down his neck. Their hands were raw from scrubbing.
The simmering pot on the stove begin to boil. Conner glanced at it reluctantly, then away. “Last batch’s done.” He pushed damp hair out of his sweaty face; carefully dried the grinder and tucked it away.
Lain drew his wrist across his flushed forehead. He gave Conner a sardonic look, and with a deep wet breath he carried the pot into the front.
The door swinging behind him drove the stench toward Conner in a solid wave, causing him to gag and wrinkle his nose. He surveyed the spotless kitchen one last time. Only condensation from the heat.
Lain returned with a twist to his mouth, as if he’d been sucking a sour lemon. Conner laughed, but the heavy atmosphere stifled it inches from his lips.
“It’s hardly funny,” said Lain softly, releasing his breath into the oppressive air. Conner lost his smile, faint as it had been. “Not much is going to cover the smell.”
“We’ll think of something. Ammonia. Incense. Perfume. Hairspray.”
“Oh, shut up,” Lain moaned, pulling at his sweaty shirt and depositing the empty pot into the sink. Conner joined him, and they washed the pot and their raw hands in silence, the rank odour lurking on their tongues and turning their stomachs.
“Thanks for this—Without your help I would’ve been—“
Neither of them could quite believe those words were out, mingling with the steam. They didn’t speak again.
Conner spat into the sink, but it didn’t diminish the suffocating acrid taste.
The door opened suddenly, and a wall of cold air slammed in, Michael Taylor right behind it.
“Why is the closed sign—“ he broke off and stepped back, one hand over his nose. “Oh. What the hell is that smell?”
Conner and Lain exchanged a tense look.
Michael Taylor sniffed once, cautiously. “Is that—brine?”
“Yes,” answered Lain truthfully, as Conner started laughing, “we’re pickling.”
Michael Taylor was watching Conner in bewilderment. “Why?”
“Well, we were gonna make sushi, but the smell—“ Conner managed through near hysterics. Then he said, “Damnit, Lain, that was my fucking foot. Oh, it hurts.”
“Put it in your mouth, then, solve two problems simultaneously,” Lain said calmly. “We had…some excess sausage, and decided to try our hand at pickling. Unfortunately,” he grinned at Conner, who cracked up laughing again, “the experiment failed miserably. Too much acid ruined the…sausage.”
“I’ll say,” said Michael Taylor incredulously, peeking into the lobby but hastily shutting the door against the smell. “How much pickled sausage could you sell anyway?”
“None,” Lain admitted. Conner collapsed helplessly from laughter. Michael Taylor grimaced. “You’ll get over the smell eventually,” Lain added.
“But we won’t,” whispered Conner from the floor, tears in his eyes.
*********************************
And now for your commenting convience you lazy lurkers, multiple choice. One letter! Just one letter!
Who here thinks they were really pickling sausage?
A) Not me, didn’t believe it for a second!
B) I didn’t know what they were doing, then I thought they were pickling, then I didn’t…er what?
C) You mean they weren’t?? Then what were they pickling??* I don’t get it.
*And that my dears, is not the question. But for the answer, pester Bonamy for the hospital scene. *runs as Bonamy gasps in the rush of revelation*
Title: In The Dark
Author: Kindigo
Rating: Whatever, swearing
Characters: Michael Taylor, Lain
Word Count: 100
Note: Takes place before anything else so far.
This is not, in fact, the only drabble I have from this song now…but the other one is really, really wrong. It disturbs me. So no luck for you.
Prompter: Bonamy.
Prompt: The song In The Dark by Tracy Chapman; see Bonamy’s post for the lyrics.
*********************************+
Michael Taylor rested his head on his best friend’s shoulder.
“Damn,” Michael Taylor sighed. “I’m sorry for unloading on you like this.”
He laughed lightly, hoping Michael Taylor wouldn’t notice his—its weakness. “Nonsense. That’s why I’m here.” Damn him.
“I hate break-ups,” Michael Taylor muttered, blinking up at the stars.
He made a non-committal noise, not daring to shrug. His hands shook imperceptibly.
Together they watched the night darken.
“…And…thanks,” Michael Taylor said drowsily, slowly slipping into sleep.
“You’re welcome,” he whispered, and it followed Michael Taylor into his dreams.
He sat in the dark and waited for dawn.
******************************************************
Because it’s so short, you won’t really understand what’s going on unless you hear/read the song. Sorry.
