Tag Archives: Edward Morrison

November 30, 2012

The Making of the Squid, Part 1

The beginning of the Aftermath series of stories. You can read the rest here or here.

The last thought that Edward Morrison had before the world ended was plastic. He was sitting on his kitchen floor, his girlfriend Ramya muttering and rocking back and forth next to him. He looked up at the ceiling, where the wooden beams had been covered with molded plastic that made it look like the ceiling was melting and dripping down.

They had been warned, of course. Tensions had skyrocketed over the last month and that day, with word of fighting breaking out all over the world, people had stayed home, cowering with loved ones and glued to their devices. The final message of the National Feed, minutes before, was frighteningly brief: Missiles inbound for all major cities. Seek shelter. Now Edward sat, looking up at his ceiling with an arm around Ramya, offering perfunctory comfort and waiting for the end.

“They say it’s nothing, just like flipping a switch,” Ramya said, rocking back and forth. “It’s quick, there’s no pain. They say.”

Edward knew this wasn’t the case. Maybe, if they were at the epicenter, but it was very unlikely that anyone in the Central Bloc had programmed a missile to land directly on Harlow. What was more likely was death by radiation, but he didn’t want to disabuse her of the hope. He looked up at the ceiling again. Why had he covered up the wooden beams? It was too shiny, too artificial, too plastic.

They heard a distant boom that grew louder and louder and continued to grow impossibly loud, as if a titanic lion was roaring to shake the stars. The house creaked and groaned and the windows shattered. Ramya screamed and threw herself against Edward. Even as he was covering her, stuffing his fingers ineffectually into his ears, all Edward could think was: It actually happened. My God, after years and decades of saber rattling and threats, it’s finally happened. This is the end. There was a slow cracking sound and the ceiling collapsed on them as outside, the fever-pitch scream of the apocalypse increased.

But then it stopped. Like a one-note hurricane that came, saw, and conquered, the roaring eventually died away into silence. Edward looked up, brushing plaster and shards of plastic off them both. The house was still standing, windowless and shaken, but sound. He looked up at the ceiling. The plastic molding had all fallen away, and the rough-hewn wooden beams stood out starkly. The original farmhouse kitchen ceiling. He almost smiled.

“Are we alive?” Ramya asked, raising her head from his chest. She reached up to her head, probing for wounds, and brushed plaster dust from her dark hair. “Is it over?”

“I don’t know if any more missiles are on the way,” he said, struggling to his feet, “but it’s not over.”

It was strange—it was almost as if he could see the clocks resetting—a long line of zeros. The first second ticked over, then the next. From now on, they lived in a new world, a world where England had been attacked with nuclear weapons. And not just England. America must have been hit as well, and France, and Germany, and Italy. And no one could attack unilaterally, so that meant that the Central Bloc was gone too, wiped clean by nuclear arsenals that men had probably been itching to fire off for over a hundred years.

“Stay here,” he said, “I’m going outside to look around.”

“Eddie, get back here!” Ramya said, grabbing his hand. “What if there are more? Don’t be an idiot.”

“I’ll be right back,” he said. He shook her off and went towards the door. She was right, of course. It wasn’t safe, but he had just survived a nuclear attack, dammit, and he thought he had earned the right to take a little risk.

The southern horizon was filled with roiling clouds and smoke and an ominous wind was blowing. Fallout, he thought, trying not to think about it. But still, above him the sky remained blue and clear. The world was a strange place sometimes.

He went back in and waited with Ramya in a silent, uncertain vigil. Twenty minutes later, there was a knock on the door. It was Rosie Dodd, who lived next door in Essex Cottage. She had her son Sean with her, bundled up in his winter coat, as if that could stop radiation.

“Thank God you’re alive, Eddie,” she said. She was sobbing but her wide doe eyes were dry, tapped out from grief. “Can you take care of Sean for a bit? I gotta go find Mason. He was in London last night, for work, you know, but—he had to have gotten out in time.”

“Where are you going to go?” Edward asked. “London is gone, Rosie, gone! Look south: everything on fire. You couldn’t get ten K before everything is blown to hell.” He saw the last tottering walls of her spirit crumbling and he kicked himself mentally. “Look, just stay here. I’m sure he got out. He’ll be back.”

Rosie nodded, but then kissed Sean on the head and propelled him towards Edward. “I gotta go, Eddie. I gotta find Mason. I know I can.”

“What are you doing? You can’t leave him here with me,” he called. She just shook her head and kept walking.

Ramya took Sean in—shooting Edward a sympathetic look over the kid’s head—and got him some food. Then the three of them sat in the living room and waited. Sean was nine and small for his age, with long hair tied back in a ponytail. He was not normally quiet, but now he barely said a word, only a nod or a grunt if a question was asked. Traumatized, Edward thought.

With nothing else to do, Edward pulled out his e-Device. It cycled for a moment, but then the page opened and Edward gave a small laugh. It was like a black joke: not even a nuclear holocaust could destroy the Internet.

The net was in chaos but Edward quickly learned that all the big cities had been hit. They were all gone, just like that: London, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds . . . the horrifying list went on and on. At least twelve confirmed nuclear hits. There were reports streaming in from all over the world of more strikes but Edward soon had to turn it off—the sheer amount of destruction sickened him.

“What should we do now?” Ramya asked.

“Just wait, I guess.”

“Until what?” she asked. He didn’t have an answer. All plans were put on hold until Rosie got back and took Sean off their hands. Then they could brush the dust off, assess the situation, plan for the future.

They waited all day and then the next. Edward went to a local store and brought back a trunk-full of groceries, the last there would be. (“Just take it,” the clerk had said. “Money’s no good now.”)

They waited five days. Ramya started throwing up. Sean got diarrhea and lost his appetite. He would lie on the couch for hours, staring off into space. Edward felt fine physically, but mentally he was getting frantic from waiting and worry about Ramya.

Rosie never came back.

(Continued in The Ma king of the Squid, Part 2)

15 Comments | tags: aftermath, apocalypse, Edward Morrison, fiction, post apocalyptic, science fiction | posted in Aftermath

October 30, 2012

Outside the Gates of Cambridge, Part 2

By David Stewart

(An Edward Morrison chapter)

Read Part 1, or the ones that came before.

In Edward’s dream, a child was crying. It sounded like Sean, but Edward could not see him. Dark men were crowding around him, but as much as he fought them off, he couldn’t find Sean.

Edward awoke. The door of the cabin was open and the blood-red stain of dusk could be seen dying slowly in the west. The boy he had called Sean was lying where he had left him, while another small boy stood over him and poked him with a piece of steel. Sean was making whimpering, puppy-like noises.

“Hey kid, stop.” The boy continued. “I said, lay off!” Edward shouted. He grabbed the kid by the back of the neck and threw him towards the door just as Hinsen walked in. Hinsen shoved the now screaming boy out the door with his foot.

“You ready to work? Sun’s down,” he said.

“What about the robot and the boy?” Edward asked.

“They’ll be okay here. Just come along.”

Screams of laughter and inhuman shrieks came from outside the cottage. Fires were blazing, up and down the street and by the nearest, men were rolling on the ground, convulsing and laughing until they were gasping with the effort. Still more were passing around a filthy rag soaked from a glass bottle. In turns, they took deep, shuddering breaths with the rag pressed to their nose. Edward caught the caustic scent of Trill, the cheapest, quickest path to total oblivion of the mind.

“You want some?” Hinsen asked casually. “You might want some, for the work.” Edward shook his head.

They ate a quick bowl of thin soup and Hinsen put them single file, ten men in all, and led them out into the darkness beyond the slums. Most of the other men were high on Trill and the dead lands around them echoed with the sound of their bestial laughter. They walked for over a mile before Hinsen’s flashlight illuminated a deserted country manor set among a stand of overgrown oak. The windows were smashed and the door gaped like a dead and rotten mouth.

“Everyone take a bucket,” Hinsen said. “Once everyone’s buckets are full, we go back, not before. Don’t stop working until all the buckets are full. Now go.”

Edward approached the door. Away from the glare of the flashlight, he could see a dull red glow coming from inside. He had seen it once before and the sight of it here made the breath catch in his throat. This was no ordinary search and salvage.

“Get going, Squid.”

“That’s chren in there, isn’t it?” Edward said. Chren was radioactive mold carried by irradiated bats. Besides attracting chinch bugs and a host of other radioactive vermin, the spores could burrow into a person’s lungs, slowly burning them from the inside out.

“So? The faster you work, the faster you’ll get out,” Hinsen said.

“You said search and salvage, you never said anything about chren mining,” Edward said. “It wouldn’t be worth a year of beef and bacon to go into that house.”

Hinsen drew a gun from his pocket in one swift movement. “You owe me for the food you ate, Squid. You’re going in.”

Some of the other men had already gone in, but the rest stopped to see what would happen. “You know, I didn’t choose the name Squid,” Edward said softly. “I was given it, by the good people of Free Frall. Do you know why? They said it was like I had eight hands, like I was everywhere at once!”

Edward slipped to the side and kicked up, trying to kick the gun out of Hinsen’s hand. His foot hit the wrist, but Hinsen held onto the gun. It was evidently not loaded, since Hinsen swiveled it around, brandishing it like a club, and tried to smash Edward’s face with it. Edward dodged to the side and slammed the heel of his hand up into Hinsen’s face. He felt the nose break and blood gush down his arm in a sudden warm flood. Grabbing Hinsen’s face with his huge hand, Edward thrust him backwards and hurled him to the ground. He heard a crack as Hinsen’s head impacted with the rock-hard soil.

The sudden silence was broken by a manic guffaw from one of the men. Then the rest joined in, as if seeing their employer beaten to death was the funniest thing they had ever seen. Edward took the gun and left without a backward glance.

When he got back to the town, the house was deserted and Droog and the boy were gone. He asked around, but no one had seen them or would say where they had gone. He cursed and threatened them, but it was hopeless.

The Squid was alone again. He did not need the little ‘Munculus bot, Droog, but he was valuable and had already been a huge help on the road to Cambridge. The boy, he tried not to worry about. He had not wanted to bring him anyway, he told himself. But then, the dream of Sean crying came back to him—a memory that still chilled his heart after years of hard and bitter toil. The Sean from long ago whom he had sworn to protect. The Sean who—

Edward started to hurry through the streets. He shouldn’t have called the boy Sean. He shouldn’t have given him a name at all. Now he knew he had to find him and make sure he was okay.

3 Comments | tags: Cambridge, Droog, Edward Morrison, fiction, Hinsen, post apocalyptic, robot, Sean, travel | posted in Aftermath

October 30, 2012

By David Stewart

Here is Chris’ companion piece to my Edward Morrison stories, telling what happens after the Squid leaves. It’s a great story and the mood here is perfect.

Christopher De Voss

It wasn’t about survival.

It was about redemption.

It wasn’t about existing.

It was about living.

It wasn’t about you.

It was about us.

— anonymous (spray painted on a wall just outside of Free Frall)

—–

The people of Free Frall spilled from their underground homes as the first light of day hit the garbage and stink of the world. If you were to watch from afar, you might be reminded of a family of Meerkats.

If you even remembered what those were.

Something was different today. Was the air lighter? Did it seem to choke your lungs and heart less today?

The sun was still as hot as any level of Hell. Can’t catch a break on that.

Looking around, the hues of brown useless items and grey dead skies still lingered. The air was still dry and lifeless. The ground was still cracked and plantless.

Yet…

All eyes turned to…

View original post 381 more words

1 Comment | tags: christopher de voss, Edward Morrison, fiction, post apocalyptic, science fiction | posted in Aftermath

October 29, 2012

Outside the Gates of Cambridge, Part 1

By David Stewart

(An Edward Morrison chapter)

Read the previous story, The Road to Cambridge, or the ones that came before.

Cambridge was a gulag of order, where only the richest could afford imprisonment. It stood like a candle in the ravening darkness, the afterglow of a civilization long swept away. And just like a candle, it drew the hopeful, the lost, the destitute masses to its light until it was surrounded and inundated by more souls than its walls and barricades could ever contain. Still, the people came, encircling the enclave with ghettos where people scrabbled for entry and for the means to survive.

This was the crowded, tangled scene that Edward Morrison encountered as he reached the Silver Street Bridge gate and was denied entry into Cambridge. The guards saw his tattered clothes and dismissed him summarily. Cambridge was full. Droog started to go through the gate on his own and would have gotten his circuits smashed out, if Edward hadn’t intervened at the last second.

He had been walking for three nights along the M11, carrying the little boy he called Sean in his arms or on his back. The boy had woken up long enough to eat a little and drink water, but he never said a word, even when Edward asked his name and where he was from. Edward gave him what food he could spare, but saved most for himself, so that he would have the strength to keep walking. After the first night on the M11, he avoided other people, instead finding protected hollows to shelter in.

“Please, can I get a place to stay for the day,” Edward asked a woman at a cottage nearby. Dawn was near—already the eastern sky was lightening with omens of the sun’s approaching wrath.

“You got any food?” the woman asked, looking at Edward disdainfully. “Don’t bother offering the kid—we don’t eat ownflesh here.”

Edward soon found that everyone wanted food; even technology was worth almost nothing. He saw someone trade an e-device for a small meal of shrunken vegetables. He felt unarmed and alone. In Free Frall, he had been the king, with anything he wanted at his fingertips for barter, extortion or theft. But here, everyone was smarter and more ruthless than he had ever been. He had nothing left to trade, no threats to use, and dawn was coming.

He went back to the gate. The guards were already locking the gate and moving the day barriers in place on the near side of the bridge.
“Please, I’m friends with a citizen of the town. His name is Blake. He traded me this robot.”

The guard looked unimpressed. “Blake who? If he’s expecting you, then he should be here to vouch for you. If not, you don’t have a chance of getting in.”

A man had been watching them from a canopy on the side of the road and now he approached Edward. “Do you need a place for the day? It won’t cost you no food, and I can give you a bit too, for you and your boy. You look strong—just work for me during the nights and you can stay as long as you like.”

On the surface, the man’s expression was caring and sincere, but Edward could see the greedy look in his eyes. Swindler, he thought.

“What kind of work?” Edward asked.

“Search and salvage,” the man said. Theft and digging, Edward thought, if he was lucky.

“I’ll try it one night. What about the boy? He’s not mine. Can you give him a home?”

The man shook his head. “He’s too small to do work. Get rid of him now, if you want. If you bring him, my girl’ll take care of him while you’re out working, but his food comes out of yours.”

“Fine,” Edward said.

The man grinned and stuck out his hand. “Hinsen,” he said.

“Squid,” Edward replied, not smiling.

The cottage Hinsen led them to was tiny and already held eight people, but it had thick walls and kept out the sun. Two women were serving out thin soup when they got there. Edward got half rations since, as Hinsen explained, he hadn’t done any work yet. Then they all lay in rows on the dusty floor and went to sleep. Droog stood in a corner near Sean, watching over him.

Edward had trouble sleeping. Mosquitoes and burn flies came up through the floorboards and through chinks in the walls, buzzing around and biting. The air was stifling and smelled like filthy people and excrement. He wondered if he had done the right thing. He had abandoned Free Frall and his life there because of a song that had captivated his imagination, but now he was hungry, out of his depth, and sharing a filthy hut with nine other people, with prospects of doing manual labor to earn his keep. He considered leaving everything and fleeing back to Free Frall.

Outside, the sun climbed higher in the sky and before it reached its zenith over the blighted world below, Edward had slipped into a troubled and fitful sleep.

(to be concluded tomorrow)

8 Comments | tags: Cambridge, Edward Morrison, fiction, journey, post apocalyptic, road, robot, science fiction, Sean, travel | posted in Aftermath

October 15, 2012

The Road to Cambridge

By David Stewart

(An Edward Morrison chapter)

Read the beginning of the journey: Saturday, 4am, Droog’s Story

The road was there, waiting for him. He had dreamed about it for the last two nights, eager to set out, but reluctant to start. But tonight, the time had come.

The sun was almost down; it would be time to head out soon. Edward Morrison had his pack on and was waiting for the last blistering rays of the sun to disappear behind the western rubble heaps.

“What do you think, Droog? Can we leave yet?” he asked the small robot next to him. Droog went out into the twilight, did a scan, and hesitated, as if thinking. Then a green light on his shoulder went on and Edward joined him.

This was the night, the night he would set out on his quest to find those forgotten pearls of the world Before. He had spent the last two nights borrowing, extorting and just plain stealing supplies and food. He would set out for Cambridge, the only vestige of civilization that he knew of. He had never been there, but the road was long and barren. He had never heard anything good about it.

He set out walking, letting Droog go slightly ahead to scan the way. The little robot could not speak English but Edward told him what to scan for and to have the light go red if he found anything suspicious. The robot whirred quietly along, his little green light blinking every few seconds.

Edward left the Burrows of Free Frall—where most of the people lived huddled together in underground tunnels—and took the Cleanway north out of town. It had been picked clean of all useable material and was the clearest road in the area. Here and there, he could hear people coming out of their houses to forage for sickly leaves and sour berries to eat. It would hurt them, what he had taken from them. A going away present, he thought. They would be happy enough to see him gone.

Edward left the Cleanway and entered the wide highway known only as the M11. Now it was a twelve-lane graveyard.

On the day the world had ended, the M11 had been filled with cars. They were sitting there still, lined up in neat queues as they had been when the first missiles had hit London. They were ransacked, vandalized and slowly rusting away now—the home of strange creatures and dangerous men who preyed on travelers. Or so they said. Edward had never been far on the M11, just far enough to poke around a few of the cars. Now he started walking north on the left shoulder, with Droog going in front of him.

They had been walking for twenty minutes when the light on Droog’s shoulder blinked red, meaning that he had detected some life form close ahead. Edward froze. He could hear reaper birds shrieking out in the darkness somewhere and the air smelled like dust and decay. He took out his device and turned on the small light, at the same time taking out the length of steel pipe that was his only weapon.

A triple-decker cargo transport had collapsed across a line of car and just underneath, he caught sight of a tiny body, lying curled in a pile of dust. It had to be alive or Droog would not have detected it.

Edward wanted to leave it and was on the point of continuing on, when Droog approached the body and scanned it. Then he did it again and again, scanning it over and over until Edward thought that there must be a problem with the little robot.

“Droog, cut it out,” he said. He knelt down and saw it was a little boy—about six, he guessed, although by his size he looked about four. Edward could see the bones of his skull pushing out against the thin, stretched skin. He was probably about to die anyway. The boy moved a little when Edward prodded him, but did not open his eyes.

“So what do we do, Droog?” Edward asked.

Droog said something in his incomprehensible speech and tried to pick the little boy up, something impossible for the 3-foot high robot.

“Great, a robot with a social conscience,” Edward said. He sighed and picked up the boy, trying to knock some of the dust off the rags that he wore as clothes. The boy was little more than bones wrapped in dusty rags and Edward carried him effortlessly. He set off again, unsure what he was going to do with him next.

The boy stirred and tried to speak, so Edward gave him some water. He would have drunk the entire container if Edward had not stopped him. Then he put his head on Edward’s shoulder and fell asleep.

After another hour of walking, a point of light appeared in front of Edward, and grew into a campfire as he drew nearer. There was a barrier of derelict cars built across the road, the fire behind it. Several men were sitting on the barrier, playing a game with carved bones. They turned as Edward and Droog approached.

“Windrin,” one of the man said.

“Iffa please,” Edward replied. He had never used the wanderer ritual greeting before, but he knew it. The man nodded and opened a small opening in the barrier for them to enter.

Inside was a ragged group of men and women sitting around the fire, cooking rats and squirrels over the flames. They nodded unsmilingly at Edward.

“You’re welcome to stay with us for the night and tomorrow, if you wish,” the man who had greeted Edward said. “All it will cost you is half your food.”

“Half my food?” Edward wasn’t sure he had heard right.

“That’s right. Don’t worry, we won’t touch yer gadgets or anything. Just the food.”

“It took days to collect all this,” Edward said. “Why the scryg would I give it to you? I’ll keep going, if you don’t mind.” He turned, but the gate was now closed.

“The food is the price for passage, as well as lodging,” the man said. He was holding an object in his hand. It had a black metal tube sticking out of it that was pointing at Edward. Edward had never seen one, but he had heard stories. He took his pack off.

The men took out everything from his pack, put back the inedibles and divided everything else exactly in half, down the last withered lettuce leaf. Then they took half away and put half carefully back in the pack.

“I found this boy a while back,” Edward said as they settled back around the fire. “I shouldn’t have taken him, but I can’t take him any further, especially now. Can I leave him here with you?”

“Throw that one in a ditch outside,” one of the women said. “Far enough away though—we don’t want no reaper birds or wulps sniffing around here. We can’t spare no food for’em.”

Edward looked down at the frail form lying next to him with his head on Edward’s pack. He reminded Edward of someone he had known, long ago, back when . . .

“Maybe I can give him away in Cambridge,” Edward said. “I’ll take him that far at least.” He put his coat over the little boy and Droog took up guard at the sleeping boy’s head.

Sean, Edward thought with a mental sigh, as old pains long-buried resurfaced. I guess I’d better call him Sean.

9 Comments | tags: Cambridge, Edward Morrison, fiction, journey, post apocalyptic, road, robot, science fiction, travel | posted in Aftermath

September 25, 2012

Droog’s Story

By David Stewart

(An Edward Morrison chapter)

The first story: Saturday, 4am

If I cannot speak, then I am nothing more than a machine, Droog thought. He could speak of course, but only in Russian, a language spoken by no one he had ever known. Androids are already half machines and people think of us as less valuable than themselves. He understood the idea of value, but had no way of determining it himself. I, who cannot speak, might as well be an E-device or a door-opening motor.

Droog was standing by the door of a crumbling police station. His new owner, Edward Morrison was sleeping just inside. He had ordered Droog to keep watch and so Droog stood looking into the darkness, scanning for life and movement every few seconds. As he did every day, Droog thought back and replayed his entire life, reliving memories as clear now as they had been when the events occurred.

Droog was activated on March 9, 2083. His first thought was 132 since that was the number of rivets he could see on the ceiling above him as his eyes circuits turned on. Technicians directed him to a line of other ‘Munculus Bots where he stood, activated but unneeded for several days. He did not speak, but he took in his surroundings and thought about them, remembering everything.

Three days later, two men walked by. “The London shipment is ready, except because of the lang-pack glitch, we’re one short,” one of them said.

“Here, just take one of the others. By the time they figure it out, it’ll be too late. What are these, Russian? That’ll do.” Droog kept this conversation perfectly preserved in his brain for years until he learned English enough to understand what had been said. Then he knew that he was Russian.

The man directed Droog to a crate where he stood with 99 other ‘Munculus Bots in foam stabilizers. They had all been deactivated for the voyage, but the man had forgotten to deactivate Droog and so he stood for weeks in the dark, listening and thinking. He kept every thought and sensation in his memory and later, when he learned more about the world, he knew that they had been loaded onto a truck, and then onto a ship. The ship had sailed for 18 days and then they had been unloaded again and put onto another truck, and then finally, brought to a warehouse.

The men in England were not happy to find that Droog did not know English. He stood motionless, listening and recording their incomprehensible words while they shouted at him and then shouted into the phone. He stood in the back corner of the warehouse, while other bots came and went by the thousands, staying no more than a few days each. He talked to them all, since all bots can communicate without having to use human language. They were friendly, but they were all babies and knew nothing more about the world than he did.

Then came the day that crushed the world.

In the warehouse, Droog heard a roar so loud that it overloaded his circuits. When he restored his programming, most of the warehouse was gone, crushed into oblivion by another building that had collapsed on it. Through a hole in the wall, he saw daylight for the first time in his life. The light was chalky with dust and was tinged blood-red. He went outside—his first action done on his own inclination—and saw the world for the first time.

Destruction and chaos were everywhere. Fires raged and he heard screams coming from all around. Droog had never heard the sound before and went to investigate.

With the help of his scans, he soon came across a boy curled up by the side of a car. He was whimpering and seemed to be having trouble breathing. Droog could not tell what was wrong with him.

Droog touched the boy’s arm. “Ya tvoi Droog,” he said. I am your friend.

“Droog?” the boy said, looking up at him uncertainly.

“Droog,” Droog said. “I will go get help for you and come back. Do not worry.” The boy nodded blankly at the Russian words and Droog left to find help.

There was none. The only people he saw were either injured or fleeing and none would stop for him. A building collapsed behind him and the road back to the boy was blocked. It took him almost a whole day to pick his way through the rubble to get back to where the boy had been, but when he got there, the boy was gone.

Days and nights came and the fires eventually went out, leaving a deadly calm. People left but did not return and Droog was left alone. For months, he searched for the boy by the car, but never found him. Finally, having nowhere else to go, he went back to languish in the warehouse where he had been stored. There were thirty other bots that had survived. They were deactivated, though, and never replied when he spoke to them.

Years passed, then more years.

Droog waited and thought and walked around outside, searching for the boy. He learned about weather and matched experiences with the words stored in his programming. Then one day, a man came to the warehouse and got very excited when he saw Droog and the other bots. His name was Blake, Droog learned later, and he took Droog with him to a place with other humans and for the first time in his existence, Droog became useful.

Droog helped to find things. He was a scanner, although he could not report what he had found. There were other bots there, and sometimes they tried to translate for him. In this way, Blake rigged up lights on Droog’s shoulders to show the results of his scans. He lived in the community for a long time and during all that time, he kept searching for the Boy-by-Car, as he called him now, that first injured boy he had seen. He never found him, but he scanned every male of the approximately right age. He knew the boy’s bio-rhythmic signature and would know him, if he ever found him again.

Then Blake traded him to a man named Joseph Watson. By this time, Droog could understand English, but still could not speak it. He tried to force himself to speak but the knowledge of what he heard was stored in Russian and came out that way. He did not have a speaker that could have played the recorded bits of conversations he had heard over the years. And so, he heard and understood and languished in silence.

Joseph Watson lived alone and rarely saw other people. He mostly ignored Droog, treating him as just another machine. Droog would not have thought this was strange, but he saw how the other bots had been treated, those who could speak English. They had been companions, not tools. He tried every day to make English sounds, but the only things that come out were nonsense sounds or Russian.

Then came the night when Edward “the Squid” Morrison barged in at 4am and Joseph gave him Droog to save a disc of music. Droog went as he was ordered, exiting the cellar to wander with Edward out in the cold, hard world. Droog did not have emotions or preferences, but he understand, on some level, the idea of liking things. To the point that Droog could like anything, he liked traveling with Edward. Edward had a mission, although Droog did not know what it was. Droog had a mission too. He still searched for the Boy-by-Car. He had said he would come back with help and he still intended to.

9 Comments | tags: Droog, Edward Morrison, fiction, post apocalyptic, robot, science fiction | posted in Aftermath

September 22, 2012

Let the Cast Assemble

By David Stewart

If you read my blog regularly, you know that I tend to write a wide variety of stories with many different characters. However, if you were really paying attention, you know that a few characters have come up more than once.

The first of these is Klista. She first appeared in the story See the World Through a Cardboard Tube! and then recently in The Recruitment of Bruce Riansson.

Klista is a mysterious character. She is a woman who apparently has no trouble traveling between worlds or even quickly in space. Where she comes from is unknown. She often wears a red cloak and carries a bag of strange, possibly magical, items. As for what she does, she tells Bruce Riansson to “think of me as a type of guide. I show secrets to people who need them and who are worthy.” What this actually means, will be explored in later stories.

Joining her is Bruce Riansson, a former innkeeper who was exiled from his home country of Indrake for harboring a fleeing traitor. Because The Recruitment of Bruce Riansson occurred first, Bruce is actually the unnamed male assistant in See the World Through a Cardboard Tube!

The second recurring character is Horus Vere. He was the main character in The Mermaid’s Kiss and I Was on Trial Once… He come from the same world as Bruce Riansson and is a professional traveler, who seeks adventure and whatever profit he can make along the way.

A third character who will become a recurring character is Edward “The Squid” Morrison, who appeared in the recent story Saturday, 4am. He is an extortionist and scavenger in post-apocalyptic England who is out to find what he calls “hidden pearls” of the old world, the time Before. He is accompanied by his recently-acquired android follower, Droog.

I will still write unrelated stories, but I will write more stories to expand these three story arcs. Let me know if there is one character whose stories you particularly enjoy and I will try to do more with them.

7 Comments | tags: Edward Morrison, fantasy, fiction, Horus Vere, Klista, outside the tower, science fiction, writing | posted in Uncategorized

September 22, 2012

Saturday, 4am

By David Stewart

This is the second story in the Open Prompts series. Because of the length constraint, it is not a full story, on the beginning. More will come, I promise. Here were the story elements suggested:

1. Title: “Saturday, 4am” (suggested by me)
2. Length: about 700 words (suggested by Reality of Christ)
3. vinyl records (suggested by Alastair)
4. A character named Edward “the Squid” Morrison (suggested by Christopher De Voss)
5. Genre: post-apocalyptic sci-fi (suggested by jomiddleton)
6. an android sidekick (suggested by Exit Fresh)

Edward Morrison was the unofficial king of the decaying residential area known as Free Frall. He worked alone, by night, collecting and gathering and making his influence felt among the ragged collection of survivors that haunted the rotting suburb. They would pay him a share of what they found by virtue of what he called “personality”. They called him the Squid, and he liked it.

Free Frall was in the wrong place for revival. It was too close to the bomb-blasted epicenter that had been London, but too far from the enclave of Cambridge, where a determined remnant tried to piece a civilization back together.

Edward checked his device screen. It was Saturday, 4 am. It was funny—five billion people dead and most of the rest living like trolls, but they still knew the day and the time, thanks to Cambridge. Technology galore, but no food.

He was in an area he rarely went to—the rusted sign named the cul-de-sac Brighton Circle. The last stop of the night. There was a house he had his eye on.

***

It was 4am and Joseph Watson was just getting ready to go to bed when he heard a creak from the stairs leading down to his cellar home. Droog, a dwarf-sized robot, whirred over to the door and did a scan. The light on his shoulder went red. Joseph was just reaching for his gun when the door flew open and Edward “the Squid” Morrison stepped in.

“What do you want, Squid?” Joseph said, trying to sound unconcerned.

“Joseph, so this is where you’ve been hiding!” Edward said, with a big smile. “I heard you were dead, but then I kept hearing rumors. I’m glad to see you.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet you are. You always took whatever you wanted from me,” Joseph said. “What—what can I get for you?” he added quickly, as Edward started to walk around the cluttered room with an appraising eye.

“Just seeing what you’ve found—you always did get the best junk. Where did you find this thing?” He toed Droog, who was following him around, still scanning him.

“It’s a ‘Munculus Bot. A guy in Cambridge found a bunch and is fixing them up and trading them. His name is Droog. He doesn’t know English.”

“I wouldn’t think you’d be too attached to it then,” Edward said. “Hey, what do you got here?” He picked up a thin, black disc and was rewarded when Joseph jumped up, fear plain on his face.

“You don’t want that, Squid. Here, take Droog if you’d like. Please, just—put it down.” Edward raised his eyebrows and started to twirl the disc in his fingers.

“Okay, I’ll tell you,” Joseph said. “Just—be careful. It’s music.”

“Music? Like hum-tunes? Why would I want that?”

“This is music from Before. There are tiny grooves that hold the music. No, not like that,” he said quickly as Edward held up the vinyl record to his ear. “I wrote an instruct for the scanner on my device to read them. Here.”

Joseph set the record down on the desk and placed his E-device in a wire frame that suspended it above the record. Then he turned it on and a tiny laser flashed rapidly around the black disc.

A sound unlike anything Edward had ever heard started to pour from the device’s speaker. It was a woman singing strong and clear in a strange language. It had such tragic and haunting tones that Edward involuntarily closed his eyes. It was as if a window had been opened out onto another world, but it was too dark to see more than an inch beyond the frame. And he so desperately wanted to see. The music soared and dipped and finally, faded away.

“What is she saying, in the music?” Edward asked.

“It’s another language,” Joseph said, with a shrug. “They say there were hundreds of them, Before. Maybe there still are, somewhere.”

“Where did you get this?” Edward asked. “Tell me, please.”

“I traded the four I have from a wanderer named Ryan. He makes runs from here to Cambridge and around. I’ve asked for more, but he hasn’t gotten me any. Please, take Droog if you want, but not the discs.”

“Fine, I’ll take Droog instead, but only if you give me the instruct for playing the music.”

“Okay, I guess. You’re going to go find more?”

Edward was, but that wasn’t all. Hearing that song at 4 am on Saturday was like uncovering a pearl in a mound of filth. It was something that for years had remained unsullied by the decay around it. There must be more, and he was going to find it.

(Mireille Mathieu – “Exodus”)