Story Deluge

 In view of handing out a bunch of 'business cards' with the blog address on them, I've gone through my backlog of stories and added a half a dozen to here.  

If there is interest, I might do a 'stories only' page that highlights the stand alone narratives - as opposed to the theme journal entries and micro-blurbs.  Or I might simply tag things a bit better, I think it will be a similar amount of work either way

 

Edit: Have went with 'story' tag, as well as 'meta' and 'blog' for the others.  Longer stories (Detective Time) are still their own tag, since they are chapters rather than self-contained.

England Time

 

The vegetable soup was hot, in stark contrast to the cool and overcast day. In the middle of what used to be called the English countryside a small group of people discussed things over a mid afternoon meal.

They had missed the usual lunchtime by a few hours, but wanted some relative privacy. The small cottage cafe had a number of tables that stretched quietly into a sheltered garden away from the main building.

The researchers had made a habit of having most of their group chats there. Away from the lab, where there was so much equipment, you never knew if things were being recorded. They had nothing sinister in mind, nor would they mind discussing it, but didn’t want snippets to be taken out of context.

Their experiments had shown that some people were more anchored in time than others. Not strictly in the physical sense, though that was definitely part of it. Mostly though, they organized their minds around things that weren’t tied to specific events, or locations.

“So, do we move them or don’t we?”

Photo Perfect

 

Arlo Benington focused his camera on the distant birds nesting by the tropical flowers. “You can go closer.” said his friend Caius Dawson. Arlo sighed. He knew that, as the squirrels around his feet showed no signs of fear. However, this vantage point meant he could change subjects faster with less running around. He was going to explain it to his friend, but simply took the pictures where he stood and would show the comparison to the ones taken closer from yesterday.

Rather than comment on the pictures his friend focused on the screen, squinting, instead. “How old is that camera?” asked Caius. “One hundred and three years.” said Arlo without a pause. He could date the exact components if he wanted to, but the era was enough to describe it. “Last Push” he added when his friend didn’t seem to click into the implications. “You mean the last of the OldTech?” Caius finally grasped. Arlo nodded. “You know, if that’s your luxury item, you can probably upgrade it by now.” added Caius helpfully as he sat down in the shade. The two worked together often, but hadn’t spent that much down time together. It wasn’t quite as smooth as the in office relationship.

Arlo made a noise that meant, “Yes, but..” He took a deep breath, trying to decide if it was worth explaining the features of the camera he had now, vs the possible replacement. It had been a hundred years, but work to make devices compatible with everything else had left most of the focus on datapad cameras, rather than stand alone units. The new luxury model was available but was incompatible with the wide variety of “Last Push” lenses and other accessories. Luxury accessories were good, but hadn’t yet branched out yet to the same degree. “This one still works fine, and there’s replacement parts for it if it doesn’t.” It wasn’t the whole story, but sufficient for Caius to change focus.

Between Cases

 

The detective was between cases. He had been for months. The police scanner, once normally buzzing with dire news and dangerous predicaments, was strangely silent. New cameras with excellent face and body recognition had been installed throughout the city. In truth there was a bit more to them than just analyzing looks. They could also make a profile of people based on their movement and intercepted various bits of electronic traffic. They could identify a person 98% of the time, even with a head to toe disguise and a feigned injury.

Crime had gotten so bad that people has ceased to worry about the privacy concerns and went to the other end of the spectrum. They registered their electronic devices and accepted the 24 hour surveillance. After everything was switched online, a flurry of arrests cut crime in half overnight. The next week cut it half again, and the once more the week after. Diminishing returns, but it was enough to prove the system had skill and teeth.

Outside the city, everything was still running as it was before. The criminals who were smart enough to leave were busy in the countryside. They worked honest jobs, quietly trying to leave the country before the system went over cold cases and archived footage and tracked them down.

There was a problem with misidentification in the system and while it started as a small hiccup, it seemed to be getting worse. Any of the tests run had it pass with flying colours, so it was hard to find the source of the problem. It seemed to be linked to a change in the weather, or lighting conditions, but it was hard to tell.

The Key

 

As expected, the metal key opened the door. The house seemed normal on the outside, but inside it was obviously something else. The room they opened up was smaller than expected, with strange metal sculptures on the walls. Cars, clocks, robots, and rockets taking up almost every square foot.

There were small cubes in the room that doubled as tables. On each of them, a large glass bowl filled with gears, switches and screws. It was obvious that none of the decorations on the wall were finished. The contents of the bowls could probably fix them, but which one to start on? The wallpaper seemed oddly designed. The pattern was interrupted by roman numerals, each seemly unique to a particular decoration.

He turned the key over in his hand. A small indent on one side left a ‘53’ raised to the normal shape of the key. It was a small clock next to that number, and it only seemed to be missing a small gear on the outside. He grabbed a handful of candidates from a bowl and had a closer look.

Again it seemed like a complicated puzzle, but the reality was much more straightforward. Only one of the gears was even close to the right size and tooth pattern and it was easy enough to replace.

A small slot on the bottom of the clock opened up. There was a small coin in the space that seemed unusually heavy for it’s size. He noticed a slot in the door further in, now lit up with small flashing lights – resembling a pinball machine. He took two steps towards it when the girl grabbed his arm.

Head of Cakes

 

Greg looked at his desk. Head of Classical Cakes. Not CEO, not President, not Founder, but the current leader at any rate. Not that it had the same meaning in the Post-Event world, but it was something significant and fairly influential.

Corporations didn’t quite exist the same way as they once did, but things still needed organizing, groups of people needed a final person to make a decision and a representative who could speak with some authority. This 5 year cycle, it was finally Greg’s turn.

Not that there was strictly a competition, but neither was it a straightforward rotation. It simply ended up being the best fit of the moment. That was based on a few factors, how much time you wanted dedicate to the job, how familiar you were with the subject and if you had done enough other jobs since you last managed something. The exact how was a bit of a mystery and varied from group to group. There were a lot of votes, but it wasn’t clear how much each one was weighted.

As with anything, there were some tradeoffs. It wasn’t the type of job you could just clock out and forget. Not that people worked for a living, but they still kept track of time. There was a certain expectation of work done per week, just to keep everything running. Some people preferred jobs that ended cleanly when you stepped away, but others like to solve problems in their spare time.

Greg was very clearly part of the latter group. Even when doing more menial jobs he spent a good amount of his free time trying to find ways to optimize his job and make things better for people in his orbit.

A few friends had mentioned it would be worth it to look into the Head positions at various organizations. Initially he didn’t like the idea much, thinking it was top-down and uninvolved as Pre-Event CEOs. The previous Head of Classical Cakes, Roger, hadn’t been as visible to Greg, but only because he worked nearly at opposite times. Greg thought back to how their path’s had crossed.

The Bear

 Frank stumbled his way through the forest.  Something was after him.  

It was a blind, rushed, panicked thrashing through the woods.  The noise he made cracking branches and kicking through leaves left little chance of being missed by anything nearby.  Most of the forest creatures fled from the man, but not the bear.

It was enraged, hungry and territorial.  Frank looked back and saw it still following him.  The sight made his heart jump and he increased his speed.  If he couldn’t lose the beast by random direction, maybe he could outrun it.  

In Frank’s adrenaline filled state of mind he couldn’t remember what he was supposed to do in a bear encounter.  A sharp realization struck him – a poster at the start of the trail flashed in his mind – Don’t Run.

Too late for that.  Something about bear spray.  He felt his jacket, searching for the can, and finding only a ripped strap where it ought to have been.

He thought about what else to do, as his energy was waning and his speed slowed.  Play dead or fight?  He hoped it was the former, because he was too tired for the latter.

No. The poster from before definitely showed a cartoon standing tall with a stick-weapon, and not a small lump on the ground.

Frank’s hope sank as he heard the bear knock down a small tree behind him.  He looked for a rock or branch to try and fend it off.  The creature closed the gap while Frank scrambled on the ground, trying to stand up.

It was the bear that was standing first, and it roared as it brought it’s claws toward the terrified man.  Frank put his arms up defensively and screamed.

Everything went black.

“Congratulations, you failed!” said a cheery voice.

Frank opened his eyes and found himself at the start of the trail.  His arm woke up and he pulled back his hand from the Experience Square next to the final bear warning.

“Dad, you’re supposed to touch each of the warning instructions first, THEN do the bear encounter.”

Frank stood there in shock.  He had heard these Virtual Trails were impressive, but maybe he shouldn’t have jumped the que to get the experience when there was a lull.  He went back to the start of the line of warnings and loaded the virtual bear spray into his cyber inventory.

Spacing Speedbumps

 This is a BTS post.

(not the band but behind the scenes).

 I've been told that some of the spacing on the stories is a bit hard to read.  I've gone to various sites to try and unravel the problem.  I'm good at technical stuff and can do all of the steps mentioned.  The difficulties continue though.  The theme I have for the blog doesn't have the CSS coding referring to the line spacing. It can be added to other sections with some results. It's not universal.  No matter, there's an option to add it in another section of settings.

 The trouble with both of those solutions is that the line spacing, like everything else, is based on a hierarchy of settings.  The one that has the primary influence (and does not get cancelled out) is the html of the individual post.  So, short of editing that, for each post, there is no way to get the spacing nice on every story.

 That said, if there is a particular story that is hard to read and would benefit from a quick spacing edit, let me know.  Otherwise you could copy the story into a word processor of your choice and adjust it that way.  Or just slog through them as-is where-is.

 I've grabbed a few myself, copy paste to word processor and changed spacing to 1.5 and copied back.  Not too slow but a bit of a pain for lots and lots of posts.  

Copy/Pasting the line breaks also turns them into nonfunctional lines.

Old Memories

She woke up with a start. The old woman had a vague impression of her age, but not much else to go on as the last clouds of sleepy disorientation left. A wave of panic set in as she had no idea who she was or where this was. Her eyes scanned the room looking for clues, but everything was blurry. She looked down and saw glasses hanging from a necklace. She struggled to put them on, crying out in frustration when her arms shook too much to make it safe to put them near her face.

A woman rushed in from a hallway and seemed almost thankful it was not something more urgent. She smiled broadly and helped with the glasses. The old woman looked around again, but saw nothing more helpful when things were in focus. The younger woman, ‘Terry’ on her large nametag, was still waiting, smiling.

“Where am...” the older lady began. “Park Meadow Retirement Home” said Terry, before the question was entirely out. “And...?” said the weak, seemly embarrassed voice. Terry pushed the old woman’s wheelchair to another corner of the room, startling the seated occupant as they had forgotten again about the chairs mobility.

“We’re not going far.” said Terry, stopping in front of a decorated mirror. Her reflection gazing back at her, wisps of memory finally coming back to her clouded mind. “Gladis” said the old woman, pointing at herself with unsteady arms. Terry flipped open the paper stuck to the mirror, showing her patient her name spelled out in large cutout letters. “Got it pretty quick today.” said the nurse, still smiling.

“Is there anything else Miss Gladis? Hungry?” “No, nothing” replied the old woman. Terry pushed Gladis back toward the middle of the room, smiling extra broadly as she waved goodbye.

Gladis looked around the room a third time, pieces of recollection slowly falling into place. She reached out toward a small table with a black remote on it. All of the buttons were taped over, minus the red glowing power circle. She stabbed at the only available option with sore bony fingers.

After a third painful press she realized that it wasn’t pointing toward the TV well enough and kicked her legs till she pivoted in the right direction. One more press and the small set roared to life, inane banter from an enthusiastic game-show filled the room.

Time Blocks

 

“Path Generator error 402. Target not found. Try again?”

Time travel was never meant to be mainstream, but eventually it was. It took a while for scientists and experimenters to standardize everything, making it safe and easy for just about everyone to travel.

The process had been distilled down to blocks. Start with Goal blocks, or rather targets. A certain person and a time. Get a few blocks for a Time Corridor to have an interaction window with the target, then a Cleanup block to wipe out the incursion.

She wasn’t sure what was wrong. Her help bot suggested that a Rescue block wasn’t valid as an end point. “You’re just a Gen 1 bot, you don’t do the non-standard blocks.” was her response. The trial had worked regardless and the actual mission was in que, almost. As soon as she put it in the Path generator it froze with the error message.

The bot might be right anyway, but when she tried to append a Cleanup block to the string it erred again.

“Path Generator error 850. Rescue missions should not need cleanup. Cleanup is already part of the original Time String.”

‘What?’ she thought. ‘He isn’t part of a Time String, he’s being Rescued’. Her bot prompted her again. The Rescue was supposed to be used as a part of another incursion. To rescue another time traveller.

A Kobo Experiment

 As you have hopefully already seen, I have a number of short stories on Kobo.  I am in the process of recording reading/performance for audiobook versions, but haven't quite got there yet.  Today though, I have uploaded another short story, and have done a few things differently.

 Firstly, I have started with a price.  Initially the first dozen stories were free, but some of the Kobo infrastructure doesn't kick in with that model.  It still hasn't kicked in for the now $0.99CN books.  Second, it is the first offering which is in the same series as something already up.  That should be another way to link stories on the same page - vs hoping people click the author name and search that way.

 Right now I'm just filling time till the words are checked against the guidelines (not hateful or pornographic).  A process that can take "up to 3 business days" but for me so far is usually done in 2-3 hours. 

As far as 'sales' go, it depends which dashboard I look at.  It's either 20 or 26 - all of which from the 'free' era.  Minus the fact that I've downloaded all of my own so minus 14 from that.  So far scifi and detective genres seem to be doing the best. 

45 minutes later:  Well, it looks like the story has passed the check, and it's only showing the series link, but at least that bit works.  It might be an idea to link all my short stories into an umbrella 'One off' or something.  Unfortunately the preview is only showing the title graphic, and the length estimate is still not showing.  And now since it's not free, I have to run around a different way if I want to get it on my own ereader...

 Phuture Pharaohs