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Post by Matteo ((Taed)) on Feb 18, 2015 0:02:10 GMT -5
Genre: Slipstream
Secret Ingredient: Gods
Due Date: 12:01 AM EST Wednesday, February 25, 2015
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Post by ASGetty ((Zovo)) on Mar 1, 2015 23:19:31 GMT -5
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Post by Jenny (Reffy) on Mar 3, 2015 16:19:42 GMT -5
“General?”
The voice of the lieutenant Victor pulled me back to the present. I’d never admit to him that I was day-dreaming about going home; back to the sweet embrace of my wife, Juliette, and her delicious food and warm bed. I didn’t start thinking about her in earnest but as usual she'd slip back in to my mind from time to time. I can still remember her crying as I marched off down the road to sign-up back in August 1914. She was beautiful beyond compare … I’d never seen her break-down like that before. She was strong, very often the rock in my busy corporate life, with dark blue eyes and her brunette hair pulled up in curls, and a girth that you could get lost in …
“General? Are you alright, Sir?” Victor had a commanding and gruff voice that often spoke about the harshness of the war and those lost to it. He was a humble man but efficient, which is why I had chosen him to take the position after Charlie.
I met his eyes, firmly. He was still quite young, maybe around thirty-three, but had lost some of that boy-ish shine from his eyes. A free hand adjusted the leather belt around my stomach. I was getting thinner, losing some of the muscle there. “I’m fine. At ease, Victor.”
Victor took the typical “At ease” position with hands clasped behind his back and feet a shoulder’s width apart. He made the tiny room feel smaller and more cramped. The top of his helmet brushed the wooden slate roof that had been constructed. The small desk between us was covered with reports of troop movements, spies, German tanks, and other such stuff. It was all pinned down by an over-flowing cigarette ash-tray. It was hard to keep track of all the reports and details but I had a knack for it. It was part of the reason I had risen through the ranks so quickly. I could list reports, details, specifics at the drop of a hat and it was all accurate.
Victor began his report. Most of it was about how many had died so far and how rations were dwindling. We would need to move north and hope to meet up with the 21st troop to restock and swap details. I agreed that much but the enemy ranks were also performing the same maneuver and it would be difficult to get around them. It was, however, worth a calculated risk. Once his report was finished I dismissed him with plans to move so he could pass it down through the ranks. It would all happen under the morning light.
With plans in place I would at last be free to get some rest. Day-dreaming would only get you so far and sleep had been nipping at my heels the last forty hours or so. I’d noticed hours ago that my eyes had become heavy but that had spread since then to the rest of my body, making it feel like lead. Even my thoughts fought to stick to one task and that was dangerous. A nap would do, an hour at most before checking the preparation, I thought as I lowered my head to the desk. Sleep came easily which was not unusual.
An almighty thud and explosion woke me quickly. The ringing in my ears was louder than any ocean-liner blowing the horn. The low based rumble was quickly replaced by a high pitch squeal that persisted.
My eyes opened but refused to focus. There was mud and dust drifting down around my desk. I could feel the specks hitting my sweaty face. It took me a while to get any sort of straight thought back. We were under attack, that much I knew, but from whom and how? My head was spinning like a merry-go-round as I tried to focus again. The words on the reports still in front of my eyes looked like hieroglyphics as they swam around the page. A headache was forcing it's way forwards. I could feel the fight or flight response zapping my nerves. Should I get up? Or hide in my bunker? Or grab a gun? I noticed my hands shaking.
Carefully I try thinking through my last moments while my eyes adjust. We were about to move out. Had I napped that long? My feet seem to activate and remember their use. With a shoulder leaning against the damp mud I lean and take a quick look out of the door. It's still night. The only light is coming from some fires. They must have been lit by some kind of explosive. Victor is running towards the make-shift office. He seems to be the only thing moving with any kind of speed.
“Sir?”
“Report,” I demanded as I haul him inside, his shirt crumpling in my hands. I'm still shaky and he knows it. I don't care that he knows it. That isn't my main concern.
“They came from the south. As many as a hundred, possibly more. Reports are vague. Movement is in the dark – careful movement,” he quickly spat it out, gruff voice not showing any sign of wavering.
The south? The south? I racked my brain. There weren’t any units south. This wasn’t something in the notes, reports, the movement trackers. The spies had never said anything about the south. “Who?”
“Germans, Sir.”
“And the move? Are we ready?” We could get away, hopefully. It's our only chance. We couldn’t continue to bunker here with the dwindling supplies.
Victor didn't get a chance to reply. Another shell went off nearby covering us in mud. It was close. The ringing that had dulled has come back with vengeance.
"Victor?" I cough on the mud. It's fallen around my legs. "Victor? Lieutenant?"
As the dust settles I catch sight of him. He's missing a left arm, most of his shoulder, and part of his face. I think he's screaming but I can't hear anything. I can see him writhing around on the floor. He must have taken the worst of the explosion. I try to reach out for him but the mud is pulling at me. I'm stuck, or at least, I can't move? I'm not injured … or am I? I try to check but I can't move. Victor is still in front of me. Nobody is coming to help him or me. He's going to bleed out. I can't see that far down the muddy valley. Nobodies around to call for help.
The mud below me is still sucking at my ankles. I can feel a sinking sensation pulling at me. I feel hopeless. I don't feel anything else. I feel like a gnat or a flea hitching a ride on a feral cat; no option over where I am going, no future that I can discern, and a very short life ahead of me. Everything is lost and I can't stop it. All of the facts and reports in my head are for nought and can't stop me from sinking.
The mud is up to my neck. I can't breathe now. The mud is caving my ribs in. Victor is dead. I watched him sink along with me. His blood is mixed with the earth that now traps me. I'd panic but even that feeling is locked away in me. There isn't anything else to do but give up. I close my eyes and let fate take me.
When I open my eyes again the mud has gone.
I'm on some cobbled stones surrounded by what looks like a Victorian street. The buildings are typical skinny with red brick and wrought iron fencing. I'm at a junction that leads to an open road and with another glance in the other direction an alleyway. I check skyward and it's looking decidedly grey. I notice a chill in the air as well.
Where had the mud gone? Where was Victor? Where was my troop and the field and the hut? There were so many questions and so far no answers. The feeling of hopelessness was the only thing that remained but I was determined not to let it stick around.
A few people are shuffling up the street. I carefully ease my way up the wall using both hands. There's still blood and clots of mud on my uniform. Most of it has dried by now. I must have fallen asleep … but that doesn't explain the change of scenery.
"Excuse me?" I stagger to the main road, hands using the railings for assistance. "Excuse me?"
The people keep moving. None of them looked surprised to see a man stood in a British Captain's uniform. I can't help but feel like I'm not here. I heard myself talk, I can feel myself walk, I know I'm alive – so why hadn't they answered? Were they not hearing me? I was definitely here. The pain in my head and limbs told me that much. I wasn't injured in the explosion but I was exhausted like I'd just ran a few marathons and then gone a round with Sammy Langford.
"Excuse me?" I grab the first one nearby.
She's a match-stick maker; a young girl of around ten or eleven. She's got the tell-tale black fingers and raggedy clothes. She doesn't look like she was born in the same century but maybe she was just a ruffian working for anything she can get. The homeless. We had a few in Birmingham. It doesn't look like she has a home. "Can you tell me where I am?"
Her eyes seem to go right through me. I've never seen it before. Not even the shock of the war produced that kind of yard-long stare. She shakes her head.
"You don't know? Or don't understand me?" I don't want to give up. "Where are we?" I tried to keep my voice level but it didn't work. The panic was catching up.
She shakes her head again. She barely seems to be breathing. Even with my hands around her upper arms she shows me her matches. "Buy my matches?"
Her eyes focused for a second on mine. "I don't need matches, sorry. Where are we?"
"Buy my matches?"
"I don't have any money. Is there an army here? A police station? Anything?" The hopelessness I thought I'd kicked away came back.
Her eyes move away from mine again. The yard-long stare returns and scans the surroundings to find a new customer. I give up and let her go. She shuffles away steadily. All of the people seem to be headed in the same direction and from the look of the sky I probably need to find somewhere dry and warm soon. There's a storm gathering up there and my arrival is not going to stop it.
After a bit of a walk, maybe ten minutes, the thin stream of people turns in to a crowd. The street has widened into a square or sorts; some kind of market or another. There's still no sign of exactly where I am. I've heard a few people talk and it's mostly been in English, with a few different accents, but nobody has acknowledged me. It's like they're all stuck in a loop playing out a certain act or job. The little girl I stopped earlier tried to sell matches all the way here. She's near me in the crowd. I strain to find out what is happening at the centre of the throng. Something has obviously happened here as the people had stopped in silence, all watching.
There's a group of people in tired and old uniforms covering something in the middle and setting up a cordon. I recognise one or two as an old Liverpool uniform but there's another that looks like it came from the middle east. It's like a mix of forces, all of them police, but from different eras. "What happened?"
The person I asked doesn't even divert their head to look at me. The crowd is deafening silent. I push my way to the front. Even the policemen aren't saying anything. "What happened?"
"You're guilty?"
One of them looks directly at me. He's an old man with greying whiskers and thin-framed spectalces on the buck of his nose. He's got squinted, blue eyes. The sudden acknowledgement that I even exist creates a crazy rush of emotions. I can feel the well of tears starting to rise but it's halted in its tracks. "No. I don't even know what happened here."
The unknown policeman moves to the next person in the crowd and repeats the question. He gets another no. With a half-turn slouch he repeats it again to another. The act is painful to watch. If this was a murder, which I figure it probably is given the body-shaped cover in the centre, then an investigation needed to be launched. There were questions to be asked, statements to be gathered, and evidence from the body. I knew you certainly didn't go about the crowd asking about guilt. Even if somebody said "Yes" they'd need a trial.
"Excuse me. That's not how you do it," I break the line. It isn't hard. The police aren't even taking up a proper guard along the line. "You need to find out how the person was murdered and who the victim was first." The policemen stare at me with lost eyes. "Who's in charge here?" The familiar Captain voice returns to me as I assume charge of the situation.
The greying one steps forwards. At least these zombies appear to have some sort of reaction, compared to the others on the street.
"I want you to get the body back to the office," I'm making it up now but it feels good. I'm back in the driving seat even if I don't know what type of vehicle I'm driving. "Find out how it was murdered. I want reports on who found the victim and the names of everybody here now." I point to the others setting the wheels in to motion.
They seem to hop to it as I make waves. Suddenly this place seems to have an order, a pattern, a meaning. I follow the body back to the office. It's not hard for me to pretend to know what I'm doing. The policemen make it easy for me as they follow in my slipstream. The body is recorded, the wounds analysed, and the victim identified as much as possible. While I'm at the office I even manage to do a little digging. This place, the city, it's called "The Mad City" and I can see why.
For now I'm not worried about getting home. The thought doesn't even touch the shallow part of my subconscious as I'm consumed by the organisation details of the city. Over the next few weeks I work at getting everything working again. There's a supply issue here that is sweetened by another deal made with the market. Suddenly warrants are signed and bills issued. We even catch the murderer for little Alice.
It feels good. It feels normal. It's my pattern. I own it and it owns me. I become known Captain Tick-Tock; a name the police gave to me a few months into the service. It was a credit to how I got everything back in order and working like clock-work. The top dog of the police quarters.
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Post by Matteo ((Taed)) on Mar 5, 2015 19:29:48 GMT -5
Zovo: Why is the gentle giant stereotype so goddam endearing? I shed tears for Koanalei. One thing I would have liked to see, though, is some proactivity from Mauwale. He never really chafed at their quest, even after his friend died for it. I feel like in order to have the response wherein he mans up and takes control, there should have been a scene where Koanalei tried to impress the (perceived) importance of their mission upon him. Then he would have really been doing it for Koanalei, and it would have made the ending even more of a kick in the balls. Speaking of, you really did quite a good job keeping the reader guessing on the ending, right up to the end. I mean, I was pretty damn sure he was gonna die, but I wasn't positive, and I consume enough fiction that I can usually see these things coming. Given how well he speaks the language at this point, I find myself wondering why he doesn't share his shipwreck story Love the mystery, and love that it doesn't get solved. This was confusing. Was it supposed to be Koanalei speaking? Very cool word choice. "Actual" is evocative and ambiguous enough that it gave me lots of ideas on what her true nature could have been. Is this a worldbuilding detail? It doesn't really seem connected to anything, especially since it's coming from the mind of Mauwale: an outside. And yet the capitalization remains. Reffy:I liked this. I was actually dubious about the beginning at first, but the intro bit helped me remember some of the setting's rules, so it turned out to be helpful. I realized a few lines in, "oh right, he's going to have a psychotic break. This is probably a character intro." Good signpost, that. I do still have a lot of question about how The Mad City actually works; I'd been picturing Tick Tock as some sort of native, conceptual entity, but apparently he immigrated as well. The divide between humans, zombie-humans, and imaginary creatures remain a bit loose for my liking. Partly that's a result of my own preference towards narrative structure, but I think it's still something to think about. I don't believe people can entirely love a setting if its rules appear arbitrary or subject to change. Ironically, this was the least slipstream of all your entries, and you're lucky that I play fast and loose with what constitutes a god. Zovo dropped the ball on that too, though so I figure you cancel each other out. The piece made me curious, so that's certainly good; although it is a little late in the game, and I'm still a little dissatisfied at the answers we've weaseled out. Still, I'd actually like to see more. There's a lot of potential here. I'd honestly like to see what you come up with entirely on your own, as I get the feeling that none of the topics have really been your friend. I think he's a general.  Winner: Zovo
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Post by ASGetty ((Zovo)) on Mar 5, 2015 19:51:03 GMT -5
Zovo: Why is the gentle giant stereotype so goddam endearing? I shed tears for Koanalei. Hard to say on the gentle giant thing. Koanalei's death actually came as a surprise to me as well. I just got to that point and it felt right. I had no intentions of killing that character when I started the story. It's one of the places I rushed it. By this point I felt as though i was too far into this story to suddenly go back into backstory. I wanted to stay objective oriented. But your notation here hasn't gone un-noted. My mother in law brought me a stick chart back from th Marshal Islands and I just fell in love with it. I wanted to use it really badly in the story. The mystery is partly because -I- don't totally understand how to read one. I just have a loose understanding of what the various parts are. That's a typo. Good catch. There is another line immediately following, "She is as real as you." which is intended to be a nod to Koanalei's perception of Mauwale. It is believed that he, too, is ailia. A spirit, like Hanakoloa. That is world building and it gets into the sciencey stuff I mentioned I wanted to ask you about. It's stuff Mauwale definitely would have been aware of, but his use of the capitalized term does seem out of context for his character; I agree. Thanks for the review. |
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