The Russian Space Program. No. 381

England. Wait for a train on the quai. Many of us. We pack in. To the museum!

Photographs. Photographs of natural environment, but strange and oddly colored. A closeup of a creature--a bacteria, an amoeba...something of the sort. Neon yellow with ultraviolet lines running through. Looks like a splat. Like yellow ice cream fallen on the linoleum. Images flash of a cosmonaut crossing the terrain. A Russian. Climbs distant mountains, icy peaks. Strange glowing orbs appear, ghosts in space. The Red Planet.

An old man cries about the end. Perhaps for him. There is no end. Everything continues. Life after death...then we are already dead. dream is the battlefield of sleep.

Underwater. No. 380

I am Sigourney Weaver. I am confined to a lake. In the lake is a large cylindrical building. An apartment building of the future. I am doing research on the building. It has been overrun by Aliens. I am at the buildings base. I free dive. I can hold my breath over twenty minutes. I am Sigourney Weaver. My hologram map linked to the security center of the building is almost sychronized. Suddenly, Aliens appear out of some sewage piping. I am chased. I swim as fast as possible to the surface. I have no weapons. I manage to make it to safety and air.

I soon build a mech-suit. I am able to remote control it from outside. I gain entry to the building. It is overrun with people and Aliens. I throw mine shaped bombs. Aliens disentigrate. The machine breaks down. I have to go in physically. I take bombs. I am Sigourney Weaver.

Once inside I see many people. They run to me for safety. The Aliens disentigrate from my bombs. I tell the people how to get out. I must find my suit. I find it behind a nest of eggs. I jump inside a manually control it. The building begins to collapse, but only internally. The exoskeleton stays intact. I cling to the roofing. Aliens jump beneath me. Snap at my heels. The cylinder begins to fill with acidic blood. I boost the rocket jets. I burn some faces off. I burst out of the roof. I fall into cool lake water. I am safe. I am Sigourney Weaver.

Brief Bullet. No. 380

A group of people. Two women, a hefty man in a light-blue collar shirt, and myself. We discuss. The man is leaning against a pole towards one of the ladies. He laughs. "Aoh". He recoils. A look of pain. He stumbles back. A woman cries out. The one he was leaning towards puts out a hand to grasp him. This replays. The second time a small something enters his chest at his cry of pain. The third time red begins to spread across the point where a small something entered his chest at his cry of pain. The fourth time he collapses. The fifth time there is only a spotlight on his form on the floor. He wears a red and blue collar shirt.

Disturbing Addiction. No. 379

I'm sent to investigate a new gaming development: A full body suit to express virtual interactions. A beta version is cycling around. Mostly Upper class people and celebrities are in possession of the apparatus. First stop is the developer: Grammatix, a division of Noblesse Oblige. I arrive at a very opportune time for a journalist, inopportune for the developer. A test has revealed some disturbing facts. A subject had been in the actuality-suit for over three and a half hours. He began to show heightened aggression. He finally submit to the slowly rising temperature and fainted. A medical team transported him to a table to operate. I play doctor.

The suit had grafted to his body. Neuro-processors had extended and curled to hook into the subjects skin. The suit itself had sealed tightly and melded the clasps together. I took a saw and began to cut open the suit. At once the subject began to scream. His muscles tensed and he began to breath rapidly. I cut along the body up to the neck. Once I reached the suits sensory network, the hooks retracted and the patient seemed to calm down a bit. One other helped me remove the remaining pieces. When we got to the boots the subject, tired from screaming, could only let out a few stifled cries. His feet were sensitive and wrecked. The soles looked like raw hide, with blood revealed in a few cracks here and there. We took the other boot off as delicately as possible with the same result. I was through playing doctor.

That afternoon I am to visit Louis Anderson's house. I am interviewing him about his experience with the actuality-suit.
"I love it. It allows me to experience the heat of battle. The suit even seems to compensate for my physical characteristics and boosts energy and performance. That's saying a lot for me."

Louis insists we play a round of war. I agree after much convincing. Of course he insists I use the suit while he uses the "guest suit", which is composed of a bracer gun-mount, a head band cum eye screen, and a status belt: a minimal experience compared with the suit. I am in the suit. It feels warm, almost like a second skin. Louis boots the system and I suddenly feel pin-pricks all over. The suit has integrated with my nervous system, my neural network. The helmet view screen displays the world before me. There is a digital map in the upper left corner with a wire frame spatial readout of my location. It emits a wave every two or three seconds: a radar I assume.

Louis screams a war cry and calls, "Let the hunt begin!" It was distant. I am in a new realm. An old warehouse gone to ruins. An old war zone probably composed of images from the warring states in the east. There is a gun in my hand. I can hear footsteps from behind. I am frightened. I forgot to ask what happens when you die. I've only the heard the pain from a stab or a shot is 25% of what one would feel in actuality, but this can be changed to as low as 2% and as high as 80% with safety measures that lower a a percentage if the infliction is severe (such as a decapitation or a limb removal). I run for cover behind a few industrial crates. Louis cries out in that damned whiny voice, "Where are you my little biscuit? Louis is hungry." I jump out as I hear him round the corner. I let out a few shots and manage to land one in his foot. Louis curses in pain, but lets off a shot of his own that lands me square in the shoulder. Excruciating.

"F***! Louis, what is my virtuality/actuality ratio?"
"50%. That's where you can begin to let imagination loose and the 'reality' to take over. That's the level where you're body begins to react, not just your mind." He laughs.

I run. I turn a corner as he lets some shots fly. I suspect they were meant to scare me. Louis is a decent shot. Then it hits me. I am running from Louis Anderson. My shoulder throbs. I grab at it. My hand feels wet and as I put it before me I see it glistening red.

"Don't worry. You're not actually bleeding, but the suit will keep track of blood loss and imitate the effects accordingly." I turn and face him. He raises his gun. "But I think you've had enough for today."

Bullet to the brain.

Short. No. 376

Vague images of a musical notes. Platform of a train station. A suit uses me to stay warm. The hat grumbles about the late train. I can only stand by, patiently. I check my watch. It's half past; the lacking scent of orchids stunts the air. The hour of the Cock and all I can say is don't face the west. Only the east quarter may be traveled, until the desert is hit. Either a sea of people, a sea of sand, or a sea of blue. Nothing as far as the eye can take me. Not very far says the necktie. It tightens until My face matches the train paint. We burn across the continent, and luckily I fall naked, into my bed.

I missed the bus.

Andrew Bird.

Secret Andrew Bird concert at a speakeasy converted house. I have a ticket, there is one more on sale. A friend, "Dylan" and I race to the locative-art box office. He drives. We pull into a hotel overhang. He gets out. I back out to park the car. Free parking just around the corner. When I switch off the engine and step out, the car turns to a solid white bike. I think "oh great, I don't have my bike lock. I'll have to put it in the trunk, but I don't think it will fit!" Conveniently, the back wheel disappears. So I carry the bike towards the B.O. Dylan has purchased his ticket and he looks at the bike confusedly. I think, "where's the car?" Then I realize the car is the bike is the car and it disappears completely. We make our way to the speakeasy converted house.

When we arrive, there are very few people there. No Andrew Bird sighted yet. The main performance chamber is littered with a few couches and chairs. There is futurist art hanging on the walls, alongside classical distortion images of the International Pantheon. "Our seats are not here." We trek out the back patio, across some train tracks to a couch-table set up. Dylan heads in for a drink while I watch trains go by. I wait, and decide to head inside. NO one is in the main performance hall. I hear noise emanating from the "living room". I head in. Food, Drink, Hookah! The room is hot and smoky. Alcohol seems to flow like a river in the air. Dylan is talking with Andrew Bird. I join in. We bullshit and talk about the times. Then Bird decides it's time to perform. The lights go down to blue. A cool white washes into it. "Fits and Dizzyspells". When the song ends, the world fades to black.

Red lights aglow. Large columns surrounding. I follow the row of red. They curve around corners and corridors. An old theatre. In each viewing room is an empty space. Nothing of which to note. The roof peels back. The sky is cloud and blue. I fall and I fall.

No. 247 with No. 378

A war-field. There are turret set ups everywhere. It is a decoy. The three which make up my unit hide in the high tower. The enemy arrives, landing in ships, driving-up in vehicles. Wait til the whites in the eyes, then we fire. Purple gun waste, red-plasma sprays. Explosions spread the masses. No longer can we hold out. Jumps through the temporal shift----------- Clad in white, stormtrooper-esque. Equipped with a digital hammer with tea leaf extract in a ball soaked club. Astral pictographic planes wire frame the establishment. The Tron-scape lays out behind the alabaster halls. Every window diving into anothers mind, every door an escape into my own. Shouts from behind...I go flush with a walled corner. I fall back into the shadow-port. I fall. I land. I roll. I smell a sour stench. Flip the light switch. A whir. Wrong switch. Walls fall. Glowing figures in the dark. A scorpions nest. I dodge and roll. The glowing Delilah prances my way, a tangle of unshaven legs and manicured points. She embraces with a snap, thuds with her club. I side step and return the favor. I run for fractal land. I fall------------------------- I dream: "The 400 left for dead with nothing but the sea and Ark. There will be a day when a new hundred will join them. Rising from the sea, guided by the Frogfish . The lost of Atlantis. The ghosts of the sea, given flesh. Fire. Shouts and cries. Cold. Rumblings from the sky. Laughter of the first-class. Shapes and forms in the water. Shadows in the deep. Sinking. There is no blessed silence. There are the screaming images of words--bubbles rising from familia." I wake: Sirens. Night. Rumblings from the upper decks. I race to the door. The halls are wet with slime. A demon stands at the foot of the stairs. Painted face, bones and teeth decorating his skin. I slide to meet him and butt his head with my tridents side. I climb to the upper deck. Cool air wails in my ears, while cries spray me in the face. The wind angers the blazing fire. The water stained with pale forms. The numbers halved. The weak ousted. Demons everywhere. I fight as many off as possible. The safety bar splinters from the side and knocks me into the water. We are lost. My people. Places switched by demons. But, the sea is merciful. There is an island. We make camp. Food and shelter. For a month we live peacefully. Then the demons arrive. They come "peacefully" ask us to submit or die. They wish for everything we worked for. I refuse. I speak to their leader. Pale blue skin. Veins wrapped about his body like jungle vines. They seem to suck the very life out of him, feeding his strength with his own. A self-propelling beast. He carries an elongated heretics fork. He challenges me. We fight. I dash him with my Trident. He swings and stabs at air. Sluggish and full of meat. I am too quick for him. I catch him at his throat. He smiles a smile. I push the tines deeper into his pulsating throat. Blood black as tar oozes down the pole. He speaks to me in spurts and burbles. I twitch and jostle the weapon. He stabs. Above my stomach, below my sternum. Pinches my ribs together, twisting the his prongs. Both weapons retract and retreat on both sides occurs. They will return. In the night: my love is poisoned. She births a child in my dreams and when I wake she is dead on the rocks near the camp of Demons. I kiss my child and then place it on her mothers cheeks. Rose-tones return to her flesh, the baby is cold, but alive. A mark on her cheek: A red Gothic print A.  I do not know what this means.