CyberOptical Illusion

Captain Carter glared out at the steaming city. The men behind him traded nervous looks.

“The situation has moved beyond ethics. Commissioner Warton is calling it treason.”

Brand spoke up, “Seems a bit strong, boss.”

Brand was new. Brand didn’t know when to keep his mouth shut.

Carter growled. “Hacking into everyone’s cyberOptics. Defacing the king, live. Making the country a laughing stock...”

He turned and stomped up to Brand till their faces were almost touching. “Everyone thought King William had a goddamn Hitler ‘tache. Call that a prank? Tomfoolery? High Jinks?”

Brand, wide-eyed, red-faced, kept his mouth shut.

But... that title is two words!

Xeroverse 101 is one year old. To celebrate entering its second year, I've gone crazy with some two word titles (and ninety nine word stories).

Thank you to everyone who has read and commented over the past year. =)

See also: Bad Science, Shroomiversal Truth, Pig's Ear

Bad Science

Cameron stirred the weak, amber liquid with a glass rod. He watched the granules going round and round in a tornado-like funnel. It was kind of hypnotic.

He began to feel drowsy. No, stay awake. Keep stirring, stirring, stirring.

The potion was deepening and darkening, slowly, so slowly. His arm ached but if he stopped the grains would float to the top, and he never needed to hear those screams again.

If he’d known Virgin’s Terror took this long to dissolve he would never have added so much at once. The Wytch Mother always cautioned him for his impatience.

But... that title is two words!

Xeroverse 101 is one year old. To celebrate entering its second year, I've gone crazy with some two word titles (and ninety nine word stories).

Thank you to everyone who has read and commented over the past year. =)

See also: CyberOptical Illusion, Shroomiversal Truth, Pig's Ear

Fugitive

“Don’t bother with the passport. It’s fake.”

He doesn’t check, just smiles smugly.

He’s too young, too eager: immaculate suit, shirt, tie; cute haircut; sharp eyes; perfect muscles. That has to be his first body, top of the range, very expensive. Me, I’m down to cast-offs. This flabby thing stinks, but it’s all I’ve got left. That, two hundred years of experience, and a hidden blade.

“Ok, old ma—”

Evisceration. The best way to interrupt a man, or fleshwalker.

As I leave he’s trying to shove his guts back in, blabbing about how much that ruined meat cost him.

(Originally written for Lily Childs' Friday Prediction)

Apocalypse

Carl remembered cities. But ‘city’, like so many other words, meant nothing anymore. Infrastructure. Internet. Communication. Multisyllabic tendencies had become redundant. The world was turning feral, and brutal Anglo-Saxon monosyllables were a better fit.

The planet had burned and civilisation was just another unnecessary word.

He hadn’t spoken in over a year. In his head he would recite the words he could remember but the list got shorter with the days. Winter was here and you could barely tell the falling snow from the ash.

There was one word he would never forget, that would never lose its meaning...

Apocalypse.

Aeon

See our fair prince entering Pharaoh’s tomb, overburdened with delusions of heroism: rescue the princess, triumph over evil. Pitiful, really. Heroism is such an irrelevant concept, like good or evil. Time matters most: erosion, evolution.

There are traps down there but they are momentary, tripped, ineffective, then done, like a human lifetime. A good curse though, lasts forever.

The hero wins, of course. What did you expect? The princess is saved; they have many children. A grand dynasty is born.

They never suspect my sweet, lingering kiss in their DNA. I live on, insidious as decay, sweeping through the centuries.

(Originally written for Lily Childs' Friday Prediction)

Poet

Youth is fleeting beauty, rose petals on the wind.

He tells them he is a poet. He publishes verses of bliss across their skin with deft finger strokes: here teasing, almost touching, just a tingle, then gone; there lingering, languishing softly in luxurious anticipation; now rushing roughly, sacrificing subtlety, cradling them as their cries crescendo, and letting the final line drift away, draped like wrinkled bed sheets at the end of the bed, the bottom of the page. The shape of a memory.

He never stays to watch the petals wilt. He leaves them with poetry, and not with pain.




(Originally written for Lily Childs' Friday Prediction)

Switch

She held his hand and kept her eyes demurely down. She wore her shortest dress to draw attention.

Men pretended not to look but when they passed she heard their gasps at the purpling licks of wicked bruises. She knew they were hoping for a flash of lacy lingerie, not that mottled ladder leading to the whitest, cotton naivety.

All the more outrageous he had sullied such innocence.

Later, under the actinic illumination of the bathroom strip light, he would kneel before her and tenderly sponge the stage make-up from her legs. And she would laugh softly at his shame.

Parasite

Jack watches Sam and Lea from the shadows.

Sam is telling her about the tunnels, and the weapon. Of course he would tell his wife, he’s excited, damn the non-disclosure agreement.

Jack clicks the safety off.

Sam’s talking about their one chance to win this war... and that’s when the back of Lea’s summer dress explodes in a shredded mess as chitinous, jointed limbs erupt from somewhere inside her.

Jack steps out, pulls the trigger, blows wet gobs of Lea’s brains all over her husband. He hesitates, then holsters the Glock and reaches for his shaking brother.

"Sam, I'm sorry."

Vampire

She gently swirls the glass, watching candlelight refract through crimson. She takes a sip.

Her hair is jet black, her skin is alabaster white. Cliché, yes, but it’s her choice, it’s a lifestyle.

At her feet a cringing wretch of a man, barely more than a boy, licks her boots. New boots, but she cut through the park on the way here to muddy their soles; he likes it like that.

She met a man in the park. She tries to remember his face but all she gets is shadow. She rubs her neck. The expensive wine seems thin, unsatisfying.




Halloween double bill: A curse catches up with Professor Hamilton in Beetles.

Beetles

Professor Hamilton pressed his back to the sandy wall. Scarab beetles scuttled up his bare legs. He grabbed them. Shovelled them into his mouth. Crunched down to a burst of viscous, rank ooze: shards of chitin in a musty soup. Swallowing grew harder and harder.

He woke sweating, heaving, his stomach convulsing. Every night since Egypt. No pharaoh’s treasure was worth this.

He swept the lank, wet hair from his forehead. His hands were trembling, they were thinner, he was sure. His fair skin looked unhealthy, translucent; something black bulged and crawled beneath it.

He grabbed for his monogrammed letter-opener.





Halloween double bill: She's a lifestyle Vampire.

(Beetles originally written for Lily Childs' Friday Prediction)

Eden

You can see all the world’s churches from here, every grand cathedral. All those phallic spires, thrusting impotently at heaven. Don’t they know it’s rude to point?

Besides, heaven is beyond, not above.

You can see the filthy humans, too. How they roam, pathetic grubs crawling through the fetid dirt of their lives. No use glossing over the truth, they have wasted what they were given. They have cut down, dug up, burnt and buried The Garden.

The Old Testament is prophecy, all that is to come. First things first: they will be driven from Eden, that they call Earth.






(Originally written for Lily Childs' Friday Prediction)

Doom

I have infiltrated the Darkling megaship.

They are powerfully single-minded creatures; once an idea strikes, they follow it to its fullest. They have no fleet, just this one mighty warship. And quite aptly, they have named it Doom.

It carries their army, their entire race. They come to invade Earth, they call this Operation Doom.

I have seen what the megaship carries, deep in its hold: their ultimate weapon. To be used only if they cannot have Earth for themselves. Its blast will crack the ground, ignite the atmosphere and boil away the seas.

This bomb, also, is codenamed Doom.

Minions

“You... Bob.”

“Brian, sir.”

“Right, you’re on lever duty.”

“I thought I was on shark duty.”

“The sharks can look after themselves. Apparently. That’s why I need someone new on the lever. That someone is you, Bob.”

“Brian.”

“Exactly. Now. You, Bob.”

“Yes, sir?”

“Wait...? Your name really is Bob?”

“No, sir, just wanted to make you feel better. Sir.”

“Your job is not to make me feel better. Your job... what is your job?”

“Calibrating the elephant trebuchet, sir.”

“Right, right, carry on. So... you, Bob.”

“Emily, sir.”

“Right, Bob, clean that big, red button there. Very, very carefully.”





Having reached a hundred followers on Twitter, I asked for prompts. @gingerkytten suggested 'Minions and their many uses (for profit and fun)'. I had to edit out the minion who was waxing the war turtles.

Feud

“YEW, triple word score. Surprised you left it open.”

“Well, I don’t feel good. What did I just drink?”

“Herbal tea. It’s good for you.”

“It tasted like arse. ZIG.”

“That’s how you know it’s good for you. ZIG isn’t a word.”

“It is, here, look. Awrr... Never give me that again.”

“I won’t. ZIG’s a stupid word.”

“Still a word. Nnn.”

“TAXINE. ‘X’ on triple letter.”

“Mmp. I don’t, uhh, think that’s a word.”

“It certainly is. Here: noun, a poisonous alkaloid extracted from the leaves and seeds of the European yew. Apparently you brew it as a tea.”





Having reached a hundred followers on Twitter, I asked for prompts. @europeangirl was getting annoyed at Wordfeud (Scrabble) for allowing words like 'ZIG' and 'ZAG'. She wanted REVENGE...

Orbital

A tiger stalked the empty corridors of Genesis station. His name was Flame and he had been a tiger for almost a century.

The underside of the station was transparent and from here he liked to watch the tranquil planet below with his own eyes. They had named the planet Gaia, the people who had transplanted his brain from his wasting body into this marvel of technology, this immortal, cybernetic tiger-form.

Later, he would network with the station’s sensors and search the deep seas for Sula in her dolphin-form. He might send her another message; this time she might reply.





(Originally titled 'Orbiting Body' (which obviously doesn't fit the one-word title remit here. ;) ) A friend requested, for her birthday: "drabbles. If I could beg one thing of you, it would be: robots and tigers and deep under the sea and unrequited love and faraway planets with lonely astronauts." And this is what happened...)

Hive

Carl knew cults, cults were the job. Tied to this honeycombed altar, however, he was wondering if the Agency had maybe neglected to adequately brief him on this one.

The robed men chanted as their ‘Queen’ smeared some kind of sweet, viscous goo on Carl’s face.

The Queen opened her mouth wide, wider. Something moved inside, something that buzzed. Bees swarmed between her teeth in a ragged, angry cloud.

Carl clamped his mouth and eyes shut. He felt their horrible, furry bodies crawling through the syrup on his face. Then he felt them pushing into his ears and his nose.





(Originally written for Lily Childs' Friday Prediction)

Witness

Putting the pieces together. Trying to capture the crime. Recapture.

Spilt vodka, broken bottles, Smirnoff, shot, shot, have another shot, glass shatters. Fat fingers select a suitable sliver, a sharp shard to stroke her soft, shuddering skin.

The machine stutters with staccato bursts of frenzied freeze-frames, too fast, faster.

Green olives, red pimento pips, cocktail sticks, stuck, pricked. A rash of red on flinching flesh. Blood beading, bleeding.

The doc adjusts the dials, drips adrenalin into the brain bowl.

The murder victim’s mind is a jagged jigsaw.

The screen slows, shows scenes...

Flickers... Flashes... Finally... A face.

Fucker. Found you.



(Originally written for Lily Childs' Friday Prediction)