Tempus Clausuris (4)

Part Four:  You and your Devil.


Mick Routledge changed his mind and got off the Tube train at Stamford Brook, acknowledging that some impulses made less sense in the context of threat management.
     Hitting the intercom button for flat 27A, he took a deep breath and prepared himself as best he could.
     "Yeah?"
     Male voice, no distinct accent.  Just a hint of thudding, grimy techno in the background.  Shit.
     "Hi, is Sasha there?"
     A pause, long enough for him to almost recognise the tune in the background, ended with a distinctly feminine laugh.
     "She is," replied the male voice.  "And she would like to know how men love."
     Mick frowned.  This was old school, and he hadn't been expecting it.
     "In haste," he said, "But they detest at leisure."
     "Bravo, Byron."  The buzz of the door release made his palm twitch.  "Come on up."


To say that the flat had changed since Mick had last seen it four months ago would be an understatement.  The girl who let him in introduced herself as Omni, and waved him through the incense clouds towards the now blue-painted living room, where two heavily-bearded men with shaved heads were working on high-end Linux laptops, coding God knows what.  One of them looked up as he entered the room, nodded and smiled.
     "Love nature more than Man, dude."
     "I never really find that difficult.  Maybe I should've brought flowers..."
     "Not with my allergies," said Sasha, patting him on the back and taking a hit from her E-cigarette.  "It's good to see you, Mick.  Sorry for the...formalities."
     He stared at her, taking in the now-blonde hair, the military-style clothing, and her determinedly geeky spectacles.
     "Glad I remembered my Byron," he said.  "I was going to say something about absence, but I guess you've got that covered, too."
     She smiled, ushering him towards the sofa in the corner.  The music faded out and ceased.
     "Four months, two days.  I think you're cured.  Omni, could you throw together some cocktails?  The boys would probably appreciate some enhanced coffees, too."  Omni nodded, and went into the kitchen.
     "Enhanced?" asked Mick, studying the two coders with interest.  They appeared to be working in unison.
     "There are stimulants, and there are precursors to augmented decisive action.  Right now, Gary and Hans are maximising the potential Brexit investment opportunities with a freaking vengeance, and need the latter."
     Mick laughed, and reached into his pocket for his own E-cig.  Sasha stayed his hand.
     "Try this," she said, passing him her own, "And if it hits a nerve, let me be the first to tell you that enhancement has a universal application across delivery systems."
     Mick Routledge took the device from her, fascinated merely by being in her presence again.
     "Sasha, I'm going to want to talk to your suppliers, aren't I?  What have you done?  Got THC into a heatable liquid?"
     She laughed.
     "Close, but no traditional cigar.  At least, not in this case.  Rest easy, Mick.  Time is infinitely mutable for those who appreciate how complexity can slipstream into simplicity."
     He pressed the button on the device and inhaled deeply, breathing in the vapour.  Omni returned from the kitchen with two cocktail glasses filled with pinkish liquid, setting them down on the black-painted coffee table.
     "Enjoy," she said, reaching out to Mick but not making contact.  "Don't forget your purpose."
     "Purpose?"  Mick pressed the button again.  "Purpose!  Of course."  He reached into his shirt pocket for the flash drive.  "Sasha, you need to see this.  It came in today.  Sara Ryland.  I think there's something..."  The second hit from Sasha's modified E-cig suddenly took hold.  "Holy crap, what's in this?"
     Sasha leant forward, extricating the flash drive from his pocket as Mick leaned back on the sofa, lost in his own semi-hallucinatory distractions.
     "Hans, we have something new.  Take a break and fire it up, would you?"
     They watched the .mp4 file on the flash drive - twice.  Omni was the first to speak:
     "So...many...levels."
     Gary nodded.
     "I think the poetry of heaven just gained a few more stars."
     Hans looked up at Sasha, his hands still poised above his keyboard.
     "Psytrophic animensis, Sasha.  I've seen this before, but not for a very long time."
     Sasha nodded, glancing at Mick on the sofa, now passed out and snoring.
     "Agreed.  I thought he was dead, but Phylos Cade is obviously still alive.  We need to find this...Sara Ryland."
     Omni shrugged, and headed back to the kitchen.
     "Enhanced coffees all round, then."


To be continued...

Tempus Clausuris (3)

Part Three:  You were asking where the magic went.


Dikas was still finding his way around the keyboard, never mind the Internet, but had already become distracted by his accidental discovery of YouTube.  Sara Ryland watched him with a combination of pity and sympathy.
     "If there's one comfort in all of this," she sighed, "It's knowing that every question you'll ask me from now on will begin with 'Why'."
     He looked up from the laptop screen and gave a little shrug, then realised he'd missed something and moved the video slider back.  She shook her head and went into the kitchen to make coffee.  It's going to be a long night, she thought.
     The e-mail from Mick Routledge at AktionHive had arrived four hours earlier, closely followed by a much shorter one from Bernie Taylor and then, almost an hour later, the shortest yet from the CTO of AktionHive himself, David Cutter.  With varying degrees of praise and further enquiry, they all concerned the animation she'd submitted to the company.  Against her better nature, and what she realised was over a decade of social conditioning, she'd decided not to reply immediately - to any of them.  Instead, she'd called Dikas to let him know that whatever they'd started had now truly begun, and that she could use some support.
     "Fear not, Miss Ryland."
     "I think you can call me Sara, you know."
     "I will be with you very soon."  There was a pause.
     "But?"
     "Adjustment.  It's required.  It's going to be required."
     "Jesus, I'm not asking you to move in with me," she said, laughing.
     "Not what I meant.  And...I will need instruction.  In some matters."
     More curious now than nervous, she'd stopped laughing.
     "Okay.  Well look, we can discuss all that when you get here.  I need to make a start on what's going to pass as my presentation.  They're badgering me for a time and date to meet."
     "Patience as a virtue knows no cultural boundaries, Miss Ryland.  They'll wait."
     Yeah, she thought, for the elephant to finally arrive in the room.  How the Hell am I going to spin this?  Suddenly, something occurred to her.
     "Oh crap," she said.  "If this is going according to plan, they may already be looking for him."
     Dikas made a 'Mmmm' sound.
     "You're agreeing with me?  Is paranoia contagious?"
     "That too, I think, we'll learn in time."
     "Very reassuring.  You really need to work on that, Dikas."
     "One hour," he said.  "I'll bring food."
     "That's really not..."  He'd already rung off.  "Necessary."


To be continued...

Tempus Clausuris (2)

Part Two:  And this is where you get off.


     "Creative structures," sighed Bernie, reviewing the latest animations with undisguised contempt.  "Basically, they're showreels for when they fuck off to Warp Zero.  Or Blizzard.  Or...anyone else who'll have 'em."
     Mick nodded.  "I hear your pain."
     "The thing is," said Bernie, "I totally get why they're doing it.  They know we're picking two of 'em to handle virtually everything Cutter wants done on the AV, and the rest of 'em will just have to float 'n' hope when they get the sorries and goodbyes."
     "You realise that Cutter doesn't have much choice about it, right?"
     "Doesn't stop me hating the system, but yeah.  Powerless dickwad.  I get it.  Hang on, what the fuck's this?"
     Mick glanced across at Bernie's monitor.
     "Woo.  What is that?"
     Bernie checked his paper manifest.
     "Sara Ryland.  She submitted late.  Jesus.  That's...involved."
     They watched for another ninety-six seconds in silence.  Then it ended.
     "Get her on the 'phone," said Mick.  "Seriously.  We need to bring her in."
     "I don't think we've got her number," said Bernie, flicking through paperwork.  "Shit.  Just an e-mail address.  Should we check with Cutter?"
     "Come on," groaned Mick, "You know exactly what he'd say."
     "Yeah, but...he's gonna want to see this."
     "Then we'll show him," said Mick, "But first, run it again, and...send me her e-mail address."
     "Really?" asked Bernie.  "You want to take a shot at this?"
     "Call me crazy," said Mick, "But I think this is one of those...divisional moments."
     As they watched the animation for a second time, an element of psytrophic animensis passed through the accepted matrix into their perceived reality.  Mick sensed it first.
     "We need to talk to Cade."
     "What?  Who?"
     "Huh?"
     "Who's Cade?"
     Mick shook his head.
     "Jesus, I think I'm going to have to Google.  That's never happened before.  E-mail her, get her in here.  I need to go and...sort some things out.  This is good."
     Bernie watched him leave, somewhat unsteadily.
     "No argument here, dude."


To be continued...

Tempus Clausuris (1)

Part One:  Why the long face, Mister Horse?


It had been a long time, and she couldn't deny it.  Lesser souls might've termed it 'decimation', but her innate devotion to the precision of grammatical precepts had knocked that particular descriptive on the bonce with little or no mercy.  "History is everything, Miss Ryland.  Everything with a pinch."
     She still heard his voice.  Here, there, and everywhere.  Much of it, she knew, was an illusion born of frustration, originally engendered by the cruelty of enforced separation.
     "We're going on a journey, you and I, and none of it foretold, nor predestined by what passes as Fate.  I hope, for your sake, you're equipped for the bumps."
     The 'bumps', as he had termed them, turned out to be nightmares in both flesh and consequence.  Removal and repair, readjustment and regret, resplendour and replacement.  They were all covered, but never in glory.
     At the interchange between Happenstance and Salvation she encountered Dikas.  He was interesting, because he professed to knowing at least one of her former associates.
     "Y'know, he's not as dead as some might suggest.  He's still there, doing what he does, but you should know he's changed."
     "Changed how?" she asked, checking her pockets for the piece of paper that would determine whether or not she was dreaming.
     "At a fundamental level," said Dikas, reaching out to stay her hand.  "He's not my friend, Miss Ryland.  He could never be that.  Truth be told, he says he got no friends, straight up.  There's a new particular upon the tapestry, something you should definitely be aware of.  Here's how it works..."
     Dikas revealed a vastly complicated paradigm in the form of symbolic structures built upon waveforms in the accepted matrix, and then he cut it all with a spike.
     "Too much," said Dikas, waving his hands like a thing possessed.  "Too much!"
     "No!" she cried,  "Not enough!"
     Dikas held his hands to his face with sadness.  "I failed you all."
     "What?"
     Dikas moved back, his hands still fusing with the power of the constrained paradigm.  "It is what it is, Miss Ryland.  All this power, all this knowing, it's..."
     The voice cut in, oblivious to the existing correspondence.
     "Unknowable."


To be continued...    

The Changed - Running Order.

By way of an introduction, "The Changed" is a six-parter originally envisioned as a gap-filler in BBC3's schedules for the New Year.  Something very odd, however, has happened to their commissioning policy since the decision to shift that part of the network entirely online (due in 2016, but contingent upon improvements to iPlayer, blah blah blah).  Everything seems to be up in the air, so I've determined to get my six slices of fiction out via a different Internet medium - this blog.
Originally, I thought "The Changed" might make it as a reasonable novel.  Structurally, it was both sound and neatly contiguous - a well-defined beginning, progressive development, and a good, solid conclusion.  However, then some real-world interventions occurred.  Not to bore you, but they resulted in a semi-fortuitous reconsideration of how to effectively break up the narrative.  Thus, six parts:

1.  Alpha Minor.
2.  Impatient Zero.
3.  An Exercise in Cruelty.
4.  Curious Georgina.
5.  A Watched Pot Never Boils.
6.  Omega Major.

Part 1, "Alpha Minor", should be with you in the next few days.

They were...

...the boots that got me across America.  Simple as that.  I was gone for a month, and had one item of...is 'footwear' a word?  Sturdy, leather, fat soles, and laces unprepared to take prisoners.  Boots you couldn't mess with.  Boots that garner respect with zero effort.  Boots you could rely upon.
     They're as fucked as Kacey now, but not dead.  Not consigned to landfill, nor a homeless collection point, nor some undefined fate seemingly appropriate for legendary pairs of boots past their earnest time of wearing.  No.  Now?  I wear them in the garden.  Performing Herculean tasks of impossible maintenance and well-intentioned control.
     They are resplendent.  

The Reality Curve

"Oh, God," she said, sniffing my drink.  "Vodka for breakfast?  Really?"
     "Get your nose out of there.  And go away.  I'm trying to work."
     She peered at the laptop screen as I waited for the inevitable recriminations.
     "You call it work, I call it aversion therapy.  What happened to the last two parts of that other thing you were writing?"
     "In process.  Or progress.  One of the two.  Have you seen my MP3 player?"
     "Why?  Have you decorated it with my nail varnish again?"
     This clearly wasn't going to end, at least not pleasantly.  Surprisingly, though, she came back with something helpful.  "I think it's still plugged into that cheapo speaker dock thing of yours in the kitchen."
     "Thanks.  You know I can't cook without music, right?"
     "Right.  Are you reminding me of that for a reason?"
     "Possibly.  I'm a reasonable man."
     "No.  You're not.  What the Hell are you writing, anyway?"
     I scanned the text I'd already typed, looking for clues.  Questions demand answers, however painful.
     "I'm not sure.  I keep thinking about Chuck Lorre's vanity cards at the end of each Big Bang Theory episode.  This isn't like that, at all, but something about the way broadcast media counteracts authorial intention...that's significant.  It's even worse on this side of the Atlantic.  E4 show the episodes, but often split the screen at the end to promote whatever tragic bilge they're showing next, so the vanity cards get squashed.  They're impossible to read anyway, given the nanoseconds they're on screen for.  The whole thing is a shout-out to people who download the show, and have the chance to freeze-frame the fuckers.  Or at least buy the DVDs."
     She stared at me, fascinated.
     "You just said all that.  Out loud."
     "You're impressed.  I can tell."
     "Actually, I'm wondering what solipsistic crap you're going to come out with next."
     "Then read the blog."
     Unexpected defensiveness - a rare moment, so I immediately cherished it:
     "I do, and I will.  But I'll need half a bottle of Chardonnay inside me before I can appreciate it."
     I typed another five lines.
     "Vodka's better."
     "I can't handle spirits, you know that."
     "Except gin."
     "Yeah, with eighty per cent tonic in it.  Oh, and I had some Pimms last month - you didn't know about that!"
     I smiled at her.
     "Alcopops have made a comeback.  Good to know."
     Impasse.  But hardly a draw.  She'd wandered off into the kitchen, and I suddenly realized that I'd totally failed to find a free MP3 of Are You A Ghost by B*Witched.  If you need reasons to hate the Internet, look no further...