Round 2 - The Picture Round (Taed vs. Dragon)

[ASGetty ((Zovo))]

[Matteo ((Taed))]

Adam sat alone at the end of the long wooden dock and thought about life.

More accurately he thought about death, but more and more he was reminded of the fact that those two states were intended as something of a package deal.

The sunset before him was, without question, the most beautiful sight he had ever seen, although in keeping with the theme of dualism it was also the saddest. A deluge of wide-band radiation and energetic massive particles was sluicing obliquely through the upper atmosphere, stirring up cauldrons of ionization and in some places quite literally setting the sky on fire. Those same particles slammed into the ocean waters with ballistic intensity, conjuring subaquatic flares of Bremsstrahlung, and Cherenkov, and other charming Europeanisms from the dawn of high-energy physics.

To Adam's eyes the spectacle was particularly breathtaking, although as the organs in question grew weaker with each passing second, a little more colour faded from the scene, contributing in small part to the poignancy of the moment.

Somewhere up there, he knew, the Genuflected Hierophant was dying. Her brain, too large to be divorced from its processing substrate, was locked inside its doomed eight kilometer housing of disintegrating iridium and diamondoid composite. He pictured her casting out a tangled grappling hook of miniature light sails on long carbon ropes, in a futile effort to halt her decaying orbit. Each tiny mirrored pennant contorting painfully in the solar breeze, trying to eke the most captured energy into upward momentum; bloody fingertips clawing against the lip of the sky.

There were many gods in the world, but the great ones could generally be divided into two main categories. There were gods of personality, and there were gods of finance. The Genuflected Hierophant belonged to the former variety: she thought in different and interesting ways, and this uniqueness of thought had garnered her a certain celebrity, as well as the benefits concomitant with such status. Unfortunately, subversive poetry and ambiguous kōans had counted for little when the Nashville Revenant and Equity Sheikh Mahmud al-Rashid ibn Mahmud had come calling out of the inner system, coffers overflowing with joules rather than jewels, and spoiling for a fight.

Adam absently scratched the bulb of scar tissue at the base of his neck. Hierophant's throes were one in a multitude that contributed to the evening's spectacle. In addition to the numerous imitation stars and planets currently undergoing deconstructive apoplexy across the System, even the Sun itself glowed in a reddened frame-shift of its ordinary spectra.

As the great 15 by 30 arcminute cage of the Starberth Polities dissolved, their geometric lattice warped and cast out vast occluding clouds of exotic monomolecular dust. The Sun's light, passed through this prism, emerged coated in a bloody caul of interrupted computation: the halted and garbled phase states of uncounted autonomous and thinking systems. These photonic messages in bottles persisted almost eight minutes in stable vacuum before shattering on the beach of Earth's atmosphere, where they were quickly lost in the shuffle of electron quanta.

"Still, however, a very pretty sight to observe."

Adam inclined his head to the ghost on his right: a dapper older gentleman in elaborate privateering regalia from a previous millennium, his windburned face vanishing beneath startlingly bushy white eyebrows and moustache. The gentleman stood floating above the water, the bottoms of his feet level with the surface of the dock.

"Can't believe you ran," he said.

Adam sighed. "We," he corrected.

The old man harrumphed and chewed his jaw noisily.

Adam had generally subscribed to a Human+ model of cognition, choosing to think in a syntax approximately congruent with his baseline forebears. The package included causal logic, linear chronology, an internal linguistic narrative, subconscious motivators, a risk/reward goal hierarchy, 3D spatial processing, and a centralized personal identity. It also used many of the same semiotic and archetypal pattern sets as old humanity, although obviously not exclusively so; Adam was a conservative, not a masochist!

As such, his head played host to a colourful dramatis personae of semi- and sub-sapient characters, who managed the more abstract and specialized portions of his intellect. The old sailor was one of several strategy constructs, working in concert with a tweed and bespectacled game theorist, and a kawaii schoolgirl weapons expert to run battle tactics in the recent conflict.

Adam had a brief remembered flash of himself as the nexus of a dandelion cloud of sleek combat craft, heavy with carefully ordered matter ready to spring into any of a thousand destructive shapes. He recalled the cold of Oortian space and the heat of foam hydrogen munitions, as well as an inside out memory of the period between infiltrating the enemy's sensor net and infiltrating their control infrastructure, where it seemed as though he was shooting at himself. The images mushed into high-bandwidth noise quickly, as his new brain failed to grasp even this abstraction of an abstraction of the truth.

"So what's the plan now? Sit tight in your little monkey body while the world burns?"

"Burned," Adam corrected again, looking up at the incandescent sky. "Past tense."

The ghost harrumphed again and squinted at the sky himself. "Hard to argue with, actually. I suppose that's why you're the live one, and we're just along for the ride. How long can we expect to enjoy a continuation of that circumstance, by the way?"

Adam sucked on his teeth and rubbed his scars again.

"Not long. These mites the good doctor whipped up work quickly. I feel less extraordinary by the moment."

A second ghost briefly popped into existence on Adam's other side--a man in high-necked labcoat and black rubber gloves to his elbows, with a sardonicus grin stretched under opaque glasses--but there was something palsied and corrupt about his image, and the small nod/bow/salute gesture he attempted to make turned into more of a Hitlerian heil. He poofed out in a flurry of stuck pixels, and did not return.

When Adam had finally realized that the war was not going to have a winner, he had strongly considered the blaze of glory route. The logic of fight or flight gets rather muddled when the choice comes down to between apocalypse and post-apocalypse. Eventually, however, he had realized that living was a difficult habit to break when you'd been doing it for a few hundred years, and settled on discretion being the better part of valour.

Even as countless other transhuman and posthuman and not-at-all-human geniuses insisted that no war could be total war at this society's level of development, Adam popped himself into a factory model body and scurried out of the nutrient vat with his freshly minted willy between his legs. He'd burned out the various antennae that came standard with the unit, and set a strain of virulent nanotech to the busy work of stripping out his more advanced, and therefore vulnerable, systems.

With his more nuanced literary and historical ghosts already melting into undifferentiated neurochemicals, he'd selected his name from a particularly obvious and banal memebase, and already regretted the choice (although he supposed it was better than Prometheus or Gilgamesh or something equally cumbersome).

Sitting here on the rough wooden dock near his rough wooden cabin (part of a historical preserve for tourists with a reality fetish), looking out at where the bruised red sun met the waves, Adam was struck with the thought that the simple, rustic pleasures of natural biology were woefully overrated. He looked up at the nuclear fireworks of heaven, and quietly dreaded the prospect of splitting wood or some such media-fashionable regressivism.

He turned to make this comment to the old sailor, but discovered that there was no longer anyone there. A quick self-inventory revealed that this held true internally as well as externally.

Adam drummed his fingers against the wood of the dock even as, above him, a veritable blizzard of material and energetic spall drummed against the atmosphere. A long shadow was creeping in from the East, rent by thunderclaps and aurorae and the beginnings of a long lurid scar as Hierophant's leading edge began to scrape against an environment she was never meant to touch.

Adam leaned back on the rough wooden dock and took it all in with eyes that no longer reached below 400 nanometers.

"Well shit."

[J.O.N ((Dragonwing))]

I was very young when I met the boy at the end of the Pier. Barely five cycles had passed since I had spawned. Yet he intrigued me so badly that I always made it a point to be there every afternoon to watch him. Even though my father was concerned about me straying so close to the surface, where humans might see me, he was all I cared about when I was that close to land.

Father says the place where he sits is where humans journey out to the ocean, their last desperate attempt to bring the sea to their land. He says that humans are arrogant creatures and believe they have a right to rule all on the planet. I don’t see it as such; I think it is a sort of meeting place between those bound to the surface and we who are bound to the depths. Something humans built so they could reach out.

It was hearing stories of these places where humans encroached on the sea that got me so fascinated in them when I was young. When I laid eyes on my first human boy I was enraptured. He must have been as young as me, at least he looked as so. His bright green eyes looked like dazzling coral along with his brown hair, like the very earth he came from. Every week once or twice he would come down and sit at the pier, sometimes even fish off it.

Weeks became years and even if he didn’t visit as often as he used to, I always see him, now a young man, come and sit and stare out across the water. I just wish I knew his story.

…

The alarms piercing screeching began its slow but inevitable assault on Ryan’s ears. It was a screech that managed to drown both the seagulls cry and any possible rational thought. By the time he could roll over and drag himself out of bed, Ryan swore his ears were bleeding. Peace and tranquillity could only be archived once he had stumbled across his room and turned the alarm clock off.

Shivering in the early morning air, he cursed himself for making it so he had to get up. Unfortunately if he didn’t set his alarm like that, he would have hit snooze and rolled over; now he was too cold to sleep. Grabbing a pair of jeans and long sleeved shirt, he half-dressed half hopped into his ensuite. A few minutes later he was properly awake after splashing cold water on his face.

Ryan wasn’t much of a morning person, but it was Monday and he had plenty of chores that needed doing. It was also best to be awake before his mother, or she would chew his ear out about being lazy. Living at home at the age of twenty wasn’t exactly pathetic by any means in today’s society, but his mother was always going to treat him as her child.

The family of two lived in their own private house, on the outskirts of Narooma. It was a small seaside town on the Eastern Australian coast, not far south from Sydney. It was best known as a local tourist resort and for its chartered fishing. For Ryan and his mother, it was home and had been since the older woman was a child.

Making breakfast could be a rewarding experience to anyone up early enough. The kitchen window gave a beautiful view of the sea as the sun rose up from the east. It also gave a view down their back garden towards their small personal jetty. Ryan had decided that they would start the day with pancakes.

“Are you up Ryan?”

The voice was loud and strong, but there was breathlessness to it and a few moments later there was a harsh coughing.

“Yes mum! Just getting breakfast, you can stay in bed.” Ryan called back, he had gotten used to the coughing.

Smiling while he slid the pancakes off the pan on to a plate, he dressed them in some syrup before pouring two glasses of orange juice. Finally he put them on a wooden bed tray and carried the lot in to the nearby room.

“Breakfasts served.”

His mother’s room was not much different from his. It contained a cupboard and dresser, with a single bed up against the wall. Beside it was a small desk.

“Well, at least you didn’t sleep in” his mother croaked, her voice sore and rough from the coughing.

Ryan’s mother was sitting up in her bed, a pillow behind her back to rest on. She looked like her son with her long brown hair and bright green eyes. Yet she was much frailer, with gaunt eyes and little more than skin and bone. In the bed she looked like a wraith with little tangibility and Ryan was careful as he placed the tray before her, taking his plate and glass to the bedside desk.

“I hope I didn’t wake you early, while getting up.”

“It’s no problem, you’re a good boy to get up early and make your mum breakfast.”

Ryan was already stuffing his face with the food as he guzzled down the juice; his mother on the other hand picked at it slowly, taking her time to swallow small bites. As she reached for her glass, her hands shook and Ryan had to hold the glass for her as she took a sip.

“I was going to start on weeding the garden today and repairing the fence. “

“Last week’s storm banged a lot up; didn’t you say the pier was wrecked as well?”

Ryan nodded with a full mouth before swallowing.

“Yeah, but I wasn’t worried about it, we never use it much now.”

His mother smiled faintly, her eyes seemed to glaze over a bit before coming back into focus.

“You liked it a lot when you were younger, always sitting out on it. Worried me that you were going to fall off it and get swept away.”

“It was where my imaginary friend was, and I liked fishing off it, it was peaceful”

His mother smiled in reply.

“You were never really big on making friends… You still aren’t I guess.”

“What do you mean? We’re bro’s… Well you’re my mum-bro” Ryan said with a grin.

Laughter tried to escape from his mother’s throat, but it got caught up in a coughing fit and all she could do was shake her head.

“Why don’t you work on the chores, I’ll see if I can try and do the washing up.”

Ryan nodded and stood up, making sure to check to see if she had warm clothes to wear before leaving her room. Getting his work boots, Ryan left out of the backdoor and made his way to the garden shed. In only a few minutes time he was hands deep in weeds, with the day beginning fully. He made short work of the garden and soon he was onto the fence.

They had a bad storm a few days before that had knocked down trees and almost blew over the shed. Unfortunately the entire fence had been knocked down and it was going to take Ryan several hours to get it all corrected. The fence itself wasn’t that special, just green metal that surrounded their small property. He remembered helping his mother to put it up when he was much younger, maybe six or seven.

Noon became evening as he slowly made his way around the property, turning the metal sheeting up and driving it back into the ground. By the time he had finished, the sun was setting and its golden rays were casting across the sea, slowly disappearing behind the mountains. Ryan found himself standing at the pier, looking down at it.

The posts still held firm, but much of the planking had been washed away. It would be annoying to repair, and he knew that it would probably be easier to leave it. But his mother was right, he did like the wooden structure when he was younger, it would be a good pet project maybe. Standing as far out on the remaining planks, he looked down into the greenish blue water. The sun was casting intricate colours throughout the small waves that lapped at it.

…

Staring up at the man, I could see that he was observing the pier with thought. I hoped he was going to repair it. But he just seemed to be lost in thought and instead he sat down on the edge of the remains of it. I couldn’t get very close to him since it dramatically shallowed out. Instead I just reached out at him, hoping he would reach out to me.

Suddenly, his head jerked up and stared back to the house, his face a mix of fear and surprise. Leaping from his spot, he sprinted back up to the house, flinging the door open as he entered. Downcast I headed back into the ocean.

…

The doctors said she probably wouldn’t make it through the night and suggested that she stay at the hospital. But Ryan insisted she would want to be at home when she went. So they relented and in the late evening he had them take her into her room and lay her down in bed. Unlike yesterday, she was much frailer, almost skeletal, with very little of the strong fire she had.

As the doctors left, Ryan pulled up a chair and sat down beside her, holding her cold hand. Reaching out he pulled her blanket up over her, causing her to stir a bit. Cracking her eyelid a bit, she stared up at him and smiled weakly.

“Did you fix the pier?” she whispered.

“Of course not, I had no time yesterday” Ryan gently replied, surprised she was concerned about it.

“You should get it fixed, so you can meet your friend again.”

Ryan gave her a puzzled look, worried that she was becoming delusional.

“She was just an imaginary friend, I don’t see her anymore…”

“Ah, that’s a shame, you need more friends.”

There was a moment silence in the room, only disturbed by the rattling breathing coming from Ryan’s mum.

“You can’t stay here forever, you need to go out and meet more people. You’ll be lonely, here alone.”

Ryan didn’t say anything, it was too hard to. Instead he just sat in silence for a few minutes. Outside the sun was setting and once again the sea came to life with colour.

“It’s getting dark…”

It was his mother, her voice now barely a gasp. Looking down at her once more, his eyes began to well with tears.

“Please don’t leave me; I don’t know what to do.”

She just looked up at him and smiled, slowly her eyes began to glaze over and her breath left her in one final whisper.

“Love you.”

Silence hung over the room.

Ryan wasn’t sure what he was doing. He just remembered getting up from the bedside, kissing his mother on the forehead and then staggering down through the garden to the pier. Ignoring the broken planks, he somehow managed to get to the end of it, where there were still some intact. Sitting down, his legs dangling over the edge, he stared out into the horizon.

Minutes became an hour and all he could do was watch as the sky became golden with colour, reflected by the ocean beneath it. Waves lapping at his feet caught his attention and he looked down into the water.

He saw her.

It was barely more than a glimmer, like the scales of a fish. But he was sure he had seen a young woman looking up at him. Wiping old tears from his eyes he leant forward and tried to make her out once more. With a gasp he watched has her face came back in view.

He wasn’t sure but she looked like the imaginary friend he once had. Staring into her face he felt himself let slip from the pier and dive forward into the depths. There was barely a splash as she reached out and caught him, pulling him down, away from the land.

Once he was gone, the seagulls continued to screech and the small cottage slipped into the darkness of the night.

[ASGetty ((Zovo))]

Taed’s Review:
As much as I enjoy the almost poetic way you weave high-dollar techno babble into your prose, I think you need to put a little more consideration into the scope of your work. In just a few paragraphs you created a world of massive scope; far too large to be properly explained in less than 2000 words. I was glad to see that the story eventually boiled down to one individual contemplating his end because as I progressed and things got bigger and bigger I was really expecting that bubble to burst and the end to be a chaotic mess. I guess what I’m saying is, maybe try to refine your short fiction to just the essentials needed to tell the story.

The beginning of the piece was very dense and a little overwhelming, which is unfortunate because a solid chunk of it was hard-to-chew fat that could have been trimmed. I hate to say “think smaller” because I love the big ideas; but when you cram so much into so little space it becomes really hard to follow. This is two pieces in a row where I’ve had to essentially tell you that your submission is essentially too large for this format; albeit in different ways.

That said, I really love what you did with the image presented. You took a colorful image and incorporated that color into your word choice and sentence structure. If I’d never seen the picture prompt, I suspect the image in my mind wouldn’t have been far off. I think one of my favorite parts was the pacing, and the way in synced up with my thoughts. As I read I kind of started to think, “If this is so far into this technologically advanced future and we’re talking about a software program which has downloaded itself into a body just to die… Why is there an old-timey wooden dock?” And right about the time I asked the question your explanation came and that was really satisfying.

Overall a really strong piece which I enjoyed greatly.

Dragon’s Review:
You approached this challenge differently from Taed. Where Taed opted to re-paint the picture with words, you allowed the picture to create a story for you. Both ways are fine and I like the little tale you told here. I have some questions about the choices you made though most notably; why did you go with the split perspective? It seemed needless and never really coalesced into anything. It ended up reading like spoilers; the discussion with his mother about friends and his childhood imaginary friend and so on, all the anticipation and foreshadowing that -could- have been there was spoiled because I already knew there was something in the water.

If I were you, I’d have chosen either one perspective or the other and stuck with it. If I had to reformat the story myself; I’d cut out all of the stuff told from the aquatic perspective, and maybe fill out the end a bit with what happens once he hit’s the water. Does Ryan get dragged off into a mystical wonderland beneath the waves? Or does his imaginary friend inadvertently drown him?

It was a simple, heartfelt story, but it needed restructuring and a little more meat to achieve the potential that it had.

Taed is the Victor.