petrel}

The strangeness of it all is not what gets to me, it's that ever-lasting hum from the generators. My desk is directly beneath them and everyday when I return to what I call my 'office', I have to re-acclimatize. They say that humans can adjust to almost anything, that habituation is the key to our survival, but I cannot ignore the incessant drone of those engines. After a few hours, their whine becomes a fraction duller, but still they cut through me, the lowest overtones silently vibrating my every fiber until by what counts as lunch time in this place, I feel as though every molecule, atom, electron, and quark seems about to fly apart in a massive firework-like display, scattering me about the room like so much dust. By dinnertime, I can feel little bits of myself drifting away like dust in a beam of sun, and every breath is laden with me, each gust swirling particles of me about the cubicle. Sometimes I wonder if this is the whole point of the exercise: watch Mike slowly disintegrate, see how long it takes for a living man to crumble into pieces.

Before I came here, I lived on a farm. At night, I try and remember what it was like to hear the creek babbling in the semi-darkness of a summer night, the song of a red-winged black bird by the pond, or the whisper of the wind in the long grasses of the back pasture; even the cracking lash of a electrical storm would be more endurable than the implacable, unvarying hum. The thing is, the generators don't even pulse or whirr rhythmically, it's all one pitch constantly, never, ever changing. It's not that they're overly loud, they're not; I'm guessing they'd probably fall somewhere in the range of 30-45 decibels, which is about as loud as everyday conversation, but still the noise of them is always, always present. I haven't yet figured out how a machine can stay so consistent, but it's just another mystery of this place.

My sleeping quarters are far enough away that the sound is not as overwhelming. Within the first month of my arrival, I came back to my quarters to find my Spartan room luxuriously furnished with a device called, according to my com-module, a "record player," a paper(!) instruction booklet, and what the booklet called "vinyl LPs" in a variety of colours. I listen to one of the black ones a lot: "Debussy: Arabesques, La fille aux cheveux de lin, Le petit berger et plus." Whatever that means, I don't suppose I'll ever know, but it has been my salvation, flowing like water over my frazzled body, brain, and psyche. I don't understand why they, whoever "they" are, gave the machine to me and I live in the unspoken fear that I'll return one night to find it gone. If, or maybe I should say when that day comes, I think I'll lose what's left of my sanity.

I barely remember what life outside of here was really like. I recall bits and pieces, small details, but somehow I can't manage to fit them together to form a logical picture. The farm is the only thing that remains clear. I don't have memories of people at all. I've tried to find information by hacking into the files on the com-module in my office, but every time I think I'm getting somewhere, another message comes through from "the Management" and erases all my extra-curricular work. It's like an automatic safety feature or something, preventing me from discovering anything outside of my mandatory studies. The content is always the same: "Refrain from using this module for any other than work purposes. Thank you, the Management." The ungrammatical wording of that command has always bothered me so yesterday I tried to reply, explaining what was wrong. Surprisingly, it went through, and this morning I found this message on the screen: "Refrain from using this module for any but work-related purposes. The Management thanks you." It is the first time "they" have communicated something to me personally, and though it is such a small change in the word arrangement, I can't help, but think perhaps there really is some kind of sentient personality behind all this.


[an:4cb21e56d6]More?[/an:4cb21e56d6]

__________________
A man's subconscious self is not the ideal companion. It lurks for the greater part of his life in some dark den of its own, hidden away, and emerges only to taunt and deride and increase the misery of a miserable hour.

P. G. Wodehouse, Uneasy Money

TheUberManlyMan

Yes, more. This was deliciously written. If you do decide to write more, I think you're gonna have to make something happen pretty quick before the reader gets bored. I'm very curious about the setting, and you somehow managed to write an engaging story while telling us nothing about it. All in all, it was very well done.

__________________
"And that's all I have to say about that"
- Forrest Gump

gohn67

The last paragraph of this piece really got my attention. I wonder what happened to this person. I wonder what years this in, future, present? Anyways I like the premise alot.

Though I think too much exposition without much real action. What I mean is that you start off the story just giving a quick backstory of whats happening to him.

I think you can start off with him in the office and have him trying to hack into files, while he does this he thinks about all these things like the farm and how he goes work in everyday.

What your character says is really interesting, but I get bored without having a scene, or action that is actaully happening.

Anyways I want to see more. The premise interests me alot.

__________________
The Frowning Dog Blog

petrel}

Thanks guys, here's the next part. A bit more exciting, I think. I just finished writing it so don't mind any editorial things, please.


~Mike!~

The voice came from nowhere as I sat at the com-module in my room two weeks later, typing another letter of complaint to the Management. Their memos had been getting gradually longer and longer, one had even directly answered one of my questions. The feeling that I was breaking through the strange bureaucracy that governed my life gave me the impetus I needed to actively work towards my freedom. Great, I thought as the voice called again, here I go; this is where I go stark raving mad.

~Stop talking to yourself and listen to me!~

Damn, if the voice didn't sound female, I'd eat my spare shorts. If this was my feminine side creeping out, I was going to learn a few things: she sounded like a perfect bitch.

~Mikale George Stanley! Shut your trap or I'll leave you here to rot!!~

Hmmm, I thought, this virago seemed a mite too feisty to be a delusion.

~Just you wait till I get my hands on you...~ The voice cut off and I was suddenly bowled over by five feet two of scratching female.

"What the...!!"

"You moron, you absolute and total moron! Say it to my face if you have the nerve!"

She was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, even bearing in mind that I had been cooped up thirty-one and three-quarter months with only myself, LPs, and a module for company. A head of short, curly black hair, rather rumpled; glaring green and amber eyes; skin flushed a delicate pink with rage; a few freckles--before I could go on, she slapped me.

"Stop cataloguing my points and listen up, you idiot." I shook the stars from about my head and started to take her seriously. She was still talking. "I never meant to come here; not supposed to. Caffery will be furious."

"Hey lady, what is going on? You obviously aren't a product of my straying mind, but how the heck did you get here?!"

"I teleported. Naturally."

What is it about women? They can make the most illogical ideas sound so matter-of-fact, like no more than sundry, and very peripheral, issues. I shrugged. How ever she got here, she was certainly solid matter; my ears still rang from that blow.

Little Miss Wildcat sighed and rolled her eyes. "I do hope that I haven't scrambled what brains you have up there; if I had known I would have aimed lower." She smirked, eyes dancing with pleasure.

"Look lady, just tell me what you wanted to in the first place and..." I stopped before I got myself into more trouble.

"My name is Miranda. Not lady, girl, sister, or 'Little Miss Wildcat' and since I've come to get you out of here, you had better learn to call me by name: we're going to be together for a while. Originally, I was only supposed to help you from a remote distance, but now that I'm here I can't leave or they'll find out what we're up to."

"You're here to rescue me?" The notion of this little wench playing knight errant struck me as an intensely hilarious joke. I got up out of my chair, stretching to tower over her.

"Sit down, if you don't mind. I don't want to strain my neck looking up at you."

"I'd rather not if it's all the same to you. I'd like to keep my face far out of range." She only barely missed that time.

__________________
A man's subconscious self is not the ideal companion. It lurks for the greater part of his life in some dark den of its own, hidden away, and emerges only to taunt and deride and increase the misery of a miserable hour.

P. G. Wodehouse, Uneasy Money

gohn67

I like how he's thinking out loud, it took me a bit to understand that though. Its a great idea.

I like the chemistry or lack of chemistry between the two characters.


This was the best part, once I realized he was thinking out loud.

Look forward to seeing where this gos.

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The Frowning Dog Blog

petrel}

Before you start getting the idea that Miranda and I inevitably fall in love, let me explain something: I am not ruggedly or elegantly handsome, not cute-in-a-boyish-sort-of-way,not lost-puppy-winsome, not stoically-muscular, nor geeky-but-cute. I am just plain gangly with a longish nose, a combination of large ears, hands, and feet, sandy hair(slightly receding), blue eyes, and a scar on my right cheek left over from a rather wild bicycle ride/shotgun chase through the Jeseth's back woods. That is a different story entirely, and one that lay on the far side of my lost memories until recently, yet now that I do remember just let me say that the ride Jasmin Jeseth provided that night far surpassed anything my eighteen year old self could have imagined. Which reminds me: I also most definitely possess everything else you would expect a man to have. Plus the added bonus (or curse) of a private sense of humour that gets me into a pile of trouble with telepaths.

In the next hour, during which time I had more leisure to look my visitor over and consequently experienced several more near misses, Miranda explained how we going to go about escaping from what she called "Containment." According to her there were cleverly hidden maintenance panels all along the long empty corrider that connected my living quarters and my 'office' workstation. Now I had been running up and down that hall 15 times a day for exercise the entire time I was there and I had never once seen so much as a hairline crack in the plasti-paint, but I sat quiet, stifling these thoughts, and listened while she told me in surprisingly few words how we were going to find the panels, pry one open, and crawl between the walls of my prison and one beside it to the "Junction."

"We can only search between 2 and 3am; that's the only time they turn out the lights. In the dark it will be easier for me to blur the sensors so they can't tell what we're doing."

I decided to ask her the question that had been nagging at me the whole time I had been here.

"Who are 'they'?"

She looked at me almost angrily, those strange eyes of hers seeming to look right through me. There was silence for a time and then:

~You don't know,~ I heard her voice say incredulously. I felt a tiny, feather-light sensation in my head as if a minuscule soap bubble had burst, and suddenly I was waking up on the floor.

"Whoa." My head felt as groggy as a half-empty helium balloon. Miranda bent over me.

"Shhh. Don't move."

I groaned even the small effort I made to think caused every crack and crenellation of my brain to swell and throb under unbelieveable pressure.

"I'm sorry, Mike, I didn't know you were a Latent or I wouldn't have..."

I blinked up at her, uncomprehendingly.

"Never mind, it's too late now."

I didn't even try to understand what she was talking about. She sighed to herself and moved to sit cross-legged behind me. Placing her hands, palms facing, about 3 feet apart with my head between them, she began to hum a little tune that I found vaguely familiar. Slowly, as she hummed, her hands moved closer and each time I sensed a small increase of pressure which almost immediately flowed gently away like water down a drain.

I must have dozed for a while because the next thing I remember is waking up to find Miranda still sitting behind me with her hands on my temples. I looked up into her face and she was sleeping too, with her head slumped forward uncomfortably. Experimentally, I tried to move, and finding nothing I did made any painful alarms go off, got my feet. The almost audible whoosh of blood from my head was unpleasant to say the least, but when the floor and ceiling had decided which was which, I bent down and picked Miranda up off the ground. She was surprisingly heavy for her small size-- or may be I was just out of shape--not something too unexpected, I thought wryly. I laid her in the bed alcove and dialed a cup of "coffee" and a bar of "chocolate" from the micro-kitchen. One thing about this place: they fed you adequately; well, actually, they provided the opportunity for you to feed yourself. It was all synthetic food, of course-- those back-to-nature folk would be appalled. I had never once seen, heard, or smelled any sign of life other than myself; not even a cleaning-bot showed its face when I was around, although I knew they had to be there there because my room was always antiseptically clean and I sure wasn't spreading any elbow grease around.


~Caffery?~ I looked back at the bed; Miranda was sitting up, rubbing at her eyes. ~ What is that infernal humming?!~

"It's the generators: annoying, aren't they?" My best understatement of the year. She turned to look at me, blinked in recognition, and sighed.

"Incredibly. I heard them in my sleep. What time is it?" I looked at the com-module.

"21:34."

"We've got a bit of time yet, then. Do you have anything to eat in this place?"

"Of course not. They're starving me. Naturally" I took a sip of my coffee while she glared at me. She muttered something that sounded remarkably like "Ass." I grinned. Really, my first impression of her seemed all too accurate.

~Shut up, Mike.~

"Hey, I never said anything!" I rolled my eyes-- telepaths: always eves-dropping. She threw the bolster pillow at me. I ducked, not wanting to slosh coffee everywhere; regardless of my attempt, my shirt front was promptly dripping wet. She laughed hysterically. I said nothing, but threw my now-empty cup in the compacter and advanced upon her menacingly, stripping off my shirt in a single, easy motion as I went. She backed up against the alcove wall. I was only going to get a spare shirt, but she didn't need to know that. I knelt on the bed, leaning over her. Miranda's eyes grew large with fear--or was it anticipation? Jerking the tunic out of the small cupboard dramatically, I retreated to put it on. She looked at me with venom in her eyes. I smiled with studied disingenuousness. Intimidation was rather fun.

"Exhibitionist!"

"Flattery will get you nowhere, Miran'." She snorted, but said nothing.

__________________
A man's subconscious self is not the ideal companion. It lurks for the greater part of his life in some dark den of its own, hidden away, and emerges only to taunt and deride and increase the misery of a miserable hour.

P. G. Wodehouse, Uneasy Money

gohn67

Overall I didn't see any problems with the plot, its looks to be working as far as I can see.

I think I said this before, but I like the chemistry of your two characters. That has kept me reading. They interest me.

The first paragrpah of this section was good, I liked it alot.

What they are doing is slightly blurry though.
-So apparently there is a panel in the wall that leads from his office to his room? I don't get the point of that. I thought they were trying to escape.

Also I skipped the lyrics.
Maybe only include a small excerpt of the part that is supposed to be important.

One thing you did format wise that confused me alot was, in your dialogue.

The way I read this was that Miranda said this. But obviously she is not. To avoid confusion you have to make a new paragraph if the action is not of the speaker.

You did that a few other times in the dialaluge parts of this section.

__________________
The Frowning Dog Blog

TheUberManlyMan

Regrettably, I don't have anything constructive to say . Things are almost starting to fall into place, and I'm excitted to see where this is all going to go.

__________________
"And that's all I have to say about that"
- Forrest Gump

TheUberManlyMan

What exactly does Xibix mean? I googled it cuz I was bored, and discovered www.xibix.com. Rather creepy keeping this story in mind .

__________________
"And that's all I have to say about that"
- Forrest Gump

petrel}

Thanks gohn: I think I've changed all the confusing spots. Just so you know, in the second paragraph Mike says what's going on: Miranda is explaining the escape plan which yes, involves panels--in the long(not sure how long as yet) corridor which connects Mike's living/sleeping quarters and his "office".

Uberly or UMM:
Well, Xibix doesn't actually mean anything at the moment--but it will, let me assure you. I just haven't quite figured that out as yet. It most definitely is not connected to that site.
The "Cube" part of it is going to be a puzzle cube, but other than that things are extremely vague. Even coming up with this title has been terribly hard and that is unusual with me--normally the title is one of the first things that springs to mind, but not this time. I've been wracking my brain all week--I hate my stories to go around without names--just like people calling their children "Baby" for the first months 'cause they can't think of a name. Ugh.

Thanks to you both for reading--it means a lot to have interest--keeps me going.
petrel

__________________
A man's subconscious self is not the ideal companion. It lurks for the greater part of his life in some dark den of its own, hidden away, and emerges only to taunt and deride and increase the misery of a miserable hour.

P. G. Wodehouse, Uneasy Money

shabi

Well, this seems to be going along really well, so I'll just put in a couple of little remarks...

Firstly, I thought the "Naturally, I teleported" sentence would sound better if it was "I teleported, idiot". I don't know why. But that would mean you'd have to change the first thing she says and take out the 'you idiot' there so it's not repetitive. So I guess it's personal preference.

Secondly, the "I stretched to my full height of whatever" kind of sentence annoys me, because it's so obviously an excuse to introduce the character's height and I don't really care about the character's height unless it's a really unusual height that actually has to do with the plot.

Lastly...honestly, I instantly thought WTF with the whole Barbara Allen thing. Why the hell would she be singing Barbara Allen? It's just really random, especially in this context.

Now then...the plot is interesting, and while I thought the beginning was a little slow, it seems to be moving along well now; perfect pacing and all. The characterization so far is pretty good. It doesn't totally hook me but it doesn't drive me away either. The best part of the whole thing is the way you put together words and sentences in general. The beginning especially had amazing wording in it; showed me this wasn't no amateur hour thing
Well done, overall.

petrel}

thanks shabi. It's amazing, you've picked at the same spots which have been bothering me. I've dropped those things or revised them so it should be better. I realize that the beginning is rather slow, but I figure that since it's only four paragraphs and sets the mood and scene, getting the reader into Mike's brain--it's excuseable, at least for now. At the mo' I'm just worrying about the story line and getting places with that--changing the beginning will have to wait or I'll never get anywhere.
I always get lost in the details and get bored and leave my stories alone to rot in the computer. It is something that comes with having an insanely logical brain--though I hate math so how that works I don't know. It has to make sense or it bugs me to no end!!

Thanks again. I've got another section almost ready for your perusal so keep your eyes open. Your critique means a lot to me.

__________________
A man's subconscious self is not the ideal companion. It lurks for the greater part of his life in some dark den of its own, hidden away, and emerges only to taunt and deride and increase the misery of a miserable hour.

P. G. Wodehouse, Uneasy Money

damien_frosst

I like the story so far. It's definatley different and interesting. There are a couple spots in the early paragraphs that made me think, "too technical." Descriptions of the decibel levels of sound, and the part about "...I feel as though every molecule, atom, electron, and quark...." are both very heavy reading for someone who isn't interested in physics at all. I'm sure you could bring this down just slightly to keep from alienating readers early on. Fortunately, the paragraphs after those initial ones don't seem to be nearly as technical.

It's good so far, keep posting

__________________
Damien

In my world, there are no heroes, only really polite villians.

petrel}

By the time 2am came round, both of us were getting antsy. We had played through all of the LPs and for the last hour the room had been filled with tension. Miranda was intensely irritable and I was not much better. Waiting seems to do that to people. I sat in my only chair by the com-module while Miranda lounged on the bed in various distracting postures--not that she was doing it on purpose, but ignoring her was next to impossible. Having lived alone for so long, even the mere presence of another person in the room was unsettling, but I could smell her from across the room and that was past disconcerting, and rapidly metamorphosing into a refined sort of sensual torture. It was a complication I didn't need at this point and I wished my gonads would just go on vacation until we were out of here. Of course not. Finally, though, it was time. I rose, stretching leisurely, and said,

"Well?"

Miranda jumped up and headed eagerly for the door.

"We've only got an hour to find the panel and get to the Junction before the lights turn back on and they discover you're missing," she said over her shoulder as we walked down the dark corridor.

"Do you know where the panel is?"

"Well, according to what we have observed about Xibian architecture, they always use increments or divisions of seven. Hopefully, the panel in the exact centre of the hall will be the one we want, but there are several other possibilities if that is not the case. We've been planning your release for quite sometime, but until yesterday the timing has not been right. We had to wait for summer." She stopped suddenly. "Here."

I could see nothing in the darkness, but did as she told me. What the heck was Xibian architecture?

~I'll explain later. OK?~

She seemed to be feeling around the wall. She stopped and said, sounding frustrated, "I can't reach high enough."

"I'll do it. What do I have to feel for?"

"It's hard to explain. But when you feel it, you'll know."

"Wow. That's a ton of help. Thank you so much."

She kicked my shin. "I could leave you here."

"No, no, that's fine." What great manners you have, Granmama! I thought, rubbing my injured leg. Miranda said nothing at all, but I could feel her standing there, quietly fuming.

I ran my finger tips over the wall from top to bottom. Nothing. I told Miranda so and she sighed with disgust. There was silence for a while and I could almost hear the cogs turning in that moppy head of hers. Then she exclaimed something I couldn't quite make out and went to the other side of the hall. Almost immediately, I heard a small hiss as the panel's hydraulics released.

"Take this and follow me." A small, cold, cylindrical object was thrust into my hand, flaring into red light as my hands warmed its surface. I pointed the beam at the wall in time to see Miranda's shapely behind and legs disappearing into the hole. I clambered in behind her and pulled the panel closed.

Inside, I found that it was uncomfortably crowded for a man of my size. Crouched like an over-sized praying mantis, I waited for Miranda to decide which way we were supposed to be crawling.

"Well?" My legs were beginning to go numb.

"That way." She pointed behind me.

"Wonderful. And how do you expect me to turn around?"

"I'm sure a man with your resources can figure something out." She began clambering over me as she spoke.

"Hey!--"

"What? Does being used as a ladder offend your male propriety and pride?" Her sarcasm was getting to be annoying.



"On the contrary, my 'propriety' well appreciates it and you are more than free to offend me any time you like. I was just concerned for your maidenly modesty."

She stopped halfway. " What are you implying?" she asked suspiciously.

"Have you been keeping track of exactly where you have been placing your hands, feet and other...ah... appendages?"

She thumped me one on the back, but hurriedly scrambled the rest of the way over.

After I had disentangled my various limbs from one another and disposed them in a more conventional fashion, we headed off down the conduit on hands and knees. Several times, I almost remarked on the excellent view Miranda was providing, but each time I suddenly fancied that I heard her growling angrily and thought better of antagonizing her any further. The conduit was surprisingly clean, hardly any dust at all and no grease or grime. The cleaning-bots must come through regularly. At a few points we came upon great tangles of coloured wires which blocked the narrow tunnel and took a seeming eternity to get through. Miranda got a bit too impatient one time and nearly strangled herself. However, when I had carefully extracted her from this snarl, she didn't seem all that pleased with my rescue efforts and delivered a rather resentful tirade. Yet, I must admit, she did restrict her comments to merely cursing my clumsiness and the ineptitude of mankind in general, as well as outlining several salient points regarding the doubtful utility of my manhood.

__________________
A man's subconscious self is not the ideal companion. It lurks for the greater part of his life in some dark den of its own, hidden away, and emerges only to taunt and deride and increase the misery of a miserable hour.

P. G. Wodehouse, Uneasy Money

gohn67

This is going very well so far. I really like the story. The characters still continiue to work well.

This is a very good and clear image.

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The Frowning Dog Blog