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Not-so Random Musings

8th March, 2009. 12:16 am. 1) Last Ones Out

Transformers: Future Imperfect
1) Last Ones Out
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“My enemy’s enemy is just as deep in slag as me.”
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“Fifty seven.”
There was a brief lull. Then another explosion lit up the horizon and set the rubble rattling.
“Fifty eight.” When another pause proved more lasting, the speaker added, “How many have we got left now?”
The far larger mech sitting next to him stirred slightly, lifting his optics to stare thoughtfully at the middle distance.
“Forty seven,” he said eventually, “Not counting fifteen demolition charges and the one sky mine they didn’t set off on the way down.”

The small mech – who could, when he felt like it, transform into a car – tilted his head to the side.
“You know, there are days when the enemy’s ability to smash its way through our defences without blinking can be very depressing.”
His companion grunted non-committally.
“I mean,” the other continued, “being less of a threat to them than a road bump does set me wondering if I’m not perhaps in the wrong war.”
The big mech dragged a finger through the remains of the floor. He was nearly four times the size of the car and – if the wings weren’t enough of a clue – was occasionally a jet.
“Don’t forget their unholy power and that they outnumber us roughly twelve thousand to one,” he advised.
“Like I said, wrong war.”

Yet another explosion thundered out across the plane. The car sighed.
“Fifty nine. Do you think they’d listen if we told them how expensive auto-guns are these days?”
The jet turned his head, glancing up and over the ruined wall they were hiding behind. The sky was black with smoke. The sounds of heavy gunfire was not quite enough to drown out the clanking rumble of hundreds of tank-treads.
“Why don’t you go and find out?”
“You know, I’m not sure I can be bothered to.” The car rubbed his hands together. “Ok, ok, ok...what’s our situation?”
“Desperate,” the jet answered flatly.
“Other than that. I mean,” the other mech clarified, “What resources have we got?”

The jet looked around.
“The wreck of a research base. An increasing number of craters. A surprisingly effective anti-space cannon shield. A space-bridge that by now will look like it’s been turned inside out. A selection of severely diminished field rations. Forty six –” He stopped and waited for another surge in the background racket to die down. “Forty five ancient auto-guns. And three weapons grade power-packs.”
The car prodded the offending cartridges with his toe.
“How much charge you got left in those cannons of yours?”
“About enough to nearly put a hole in a very thin sheet of tin foil.”
“So you need one of them –”
“Do these look like blowpipes?” The big mech waved at the guns on his wrists.
“Two then. Mine takes one –”
“Because it couldn’t shoot through a wooden wall at point blank range.”

Pointedly ignoring this, the car picked one of the power-packs up and turned it over in his hands.
“How many kill-shots can you fire on two of these?”
“Hundred, maybe hundred fifty,” the jet replied, face impassive.
“On three?”
“Two hundred fifty, maximum. What about that peashooter?”
“Depends. We count different things as kill-shots.”
“So none, then.”
The car scowled.
“Yeah, but I can fire a lot more of them.”
The jet said nothing. The smaller mech closed his fingers around the cartridge.
“So. Either I can fire five hundred shots that’ll do nothing but annoy them or you can five two hundred shots that’ll do some real damage. Ok...how many of them out there?”
“Two ships landed, that’s maybe sixteen battalions...twenty hundred tanks...and about a thousand jets.”
The car paused thoughtfully.
“Right...so...if you take all the power-packs...and you can kill one of them with every shot –”
“Which is unlikely,” the jet intoned.
“– and they don’t fire back –”
“Which is even more unlikely.”
“– and the shield keeps on stopping that battle cruiser from blasting us –”
“Which I wouldn’t put money on.”
“– then we might be able to heroically –”
“Get slagged.”
“– hold this position for –”
“Ten microseconds.”
“– long enough for them to get the ‘bridge working from the other end and send reinforcements – ”
“They don’t have.”
“– and thus save us from ending up in our respective afterlives earlier than either of us would like.”

Optics widening a little, the jet leaned back against the wall. It creaked ominously.
“We’re doomed.”
The car’s shoulders slumped.
“I’m trying to look on the bright side here!” he snapped.
“How’s that going for you?”
“It would be going better if someone wasn’t trying to do his best Dreadwind impression and out-do Dead End for pessimism.”
“It may have escaped your notice,” the big mech said, “but the silver lining in this situation exists purely in your fevered imagination.”
“That’s quitter talk!”
“All right, then how about this? You take one of those ‘packs. I’ll take two. We’ll take as many of them with us as we can. Etcetera.”
“That still ends up with us dead!”
“Yes, but you can hardly call it ‘quitter talk’.”

There was another explosion. Two more followed closely.
“Sixty, sixty one, sixty two,” the car growled, slamming the cartridge into his rifle.
“Forty two left,” came the reply, “There’s that bright side you were looking for.”
“Gee, thanks. Just what I always wanted. The knowledge that standing between us and utter destruction are forty two examples of our skill at sorting through junk yards.”
The jet shrugged and bent to scoop up the remaining power-packs.
“Like I said, we’re doomed.”
“I would feel a lot better about this if we were dying for a good reason.” The car checked his gun, testing that the various components were secure. “That’s the problem with fighting to survive. At least if we were fighting for something we could shout inspiring slogans at them. ‘Go away and stop killing us’ isn’t really that catchy.”
“It has a certain something...”
“You mean, it stinks.”
“That would be it.”

They sat in silence for a while, listening to the approaching tanks. The small mech smiled suddenly.
“Remember when we were actually doing something other than trying to not die? When there was a Cybertron worth fighting over? When we didn’t keep getting stuck in holes like this? When...”
“When we were on opposite sides?” the jet prompted dryly.
“Yeah...those were the days, eh?”
“Are you getting nostalgic for a time when, if we had been this close, I would have already killed you?”
“I’m getting nostalgic for a time when you would have tried.”
“A puny ground-grubber like you?” He flexed his arms. “I’d have snapped you in two.”
“Oh, please. I’d have blown a hole in you before you’d even seen me.”
“With what? You’re cutting wit?”
“Unlike you, I don’t need to us a gun that’s accurate plus or minus a city block. I can aim.”
“It just won’t matter if whoever you’re aiming at knows the meaning of the word ‘armour’.”
“I forget,” the car said acidly, “Why do I spend my time around you again?”
“You need someone to hide behind.”

The car shot to his feet, fists clenched.
“Take that back, you broken-down, rust-ridden, sky-sucking excuse for a piece of Decepticon trash!”
The jet’s voice remained perfectly level.
“Or you’ll what?”
“Or I’ll make you!”
“A short-circuited, land-hugging Autobot runt like you? Just try it!”
“Maybe I will!”
The two of them glared furiously at each other, nearly close enough to touch.

The sky brightened briefly, accompanied by the retort of an especially large detonation.

As one, they burst out laughing. The Autobot sat back down, putting his face in his hands.
“Sixty fraggin three. Prime, Primus and the Primal Program! I don’t want to die in this Godforsaken hole with only a Decepticon for company! It’s too slagging ironic!”
“Please. I was blowing innocent little Autobots to the Pit and back before you were a byte in your proto-hatcher’s processors. The irony of me being stuck waiting for certain death defending the ruins of a colony run by Autobots and fleshlings couldn’t be measured on a scale that ran from here to the galactic core.”
“Irony’s - sixty four – measured by distance now?”
“Shut up and feel sorry for yourself,” the Decepticon ordered.
The car pulled himself into a straighter sitting position and saluted.
“Yes, sir, Overcast, sir. I shall – sixty five – do my utmost to be as miserable a possible for my last few deca-cycles. Yes siree. Wouldn’t want to let you down by being ecstatically happy about my lot.”
Overcast stared down at him.
“Finished?” he asked.
“Yes – sixty six – thanks.”

For some time, the only noise came from beyond their make-shift barricade. The Autobot checked and rechecked his rifle, compulsively sliding and twisting despite the only way for it not to be in working order by the time he need to use it being his managing to wear through the casing in the meantime. Overcast gave a good impression of being asleep. He stopped pretending when another auto-gun died a fiery death and the car let out a frustrated yell of “sixty seven!”
“Hmm...Autobot?” he asked sombrely, “What do you think would happen if we turned the space-bridge back on?”
“Err...” The answer was delayed by a frown. “Kablooie.”
“What?”
“According to the lecture they gave us on anti-space-bridge technology, the pulse fired from orbit disrupts the phase alignment between the transmission and reception points, creating resonance in the inter-spatial aperture that causes increasingly frequent bursts of waste radiation. Eventually, the bursts are coming so frequently that they overload the stabilisation matrices. That exposes the bridge superstructure to exo-dimensional pressures which can catastrophically disturb its molecular make-up. If you don’t shut it down after that, you’ll get a fatal collapse in the aperture and enough energy will be released to level most of a continent. In short: it turns inside out and goes kablooie. I just figured that since we can be fairly certain it already has turned itself inside out, I’d skip straight to ‘kablooie’.”

The Decepticon was momentarily speechless.
“Amazing,” he said finally, “Your ability to give summaries that tell me everything and nothing at the same time never ceases to astonish me. That’s what I thought,” he added, “Excellent.”
“You make me feel so special,” the Autobot sneered, “What do you mean ‘excellent’? That little lot is why they had to turn the fragging thing off before we could get back to it. And why they aren’t going to be able to come back and get us. What with, you know, the whole ‘getting atomised’ thing if they try.”
Ignoring him, Overcast tapped his knee.
“How stable would the aperture be in the build up to...’kablooie’?”
“Oh, about as stable as a one-winged Seeker or a missile balanced on its nose.”
“Could someone get through it?”
“Well, it’s possible...but it’s possible that all those tanks out there are just going to send us on our way with a wry ‘must try harder’. Likelihood and possibility kind of diverge in these situations.”
“But it’s possible?”
“Possible, yes, but...” The car trailed off. “Before I agree to something that I will regret...what are you getting at?”

Overcast’s finger kept dinging against his armour.
“If we brought the bridge back online, it would take out most of those tanks. That, I think, can only be a good thing. We might even be able to get through the aperture before it rips apart. And if we can’t, atomisation is likely to be as painless a death as we could ask for. It’s a win-win strategy.”
The Autobot put his face in his hands again.
“Someday, you and me need to have a long talk about what ‘win-win’ actually means.”
“Possibly, but in either case you can hardly regret agreeing to it.”
“Not being especially religious, neither can I. But I can see several slight technical hitches that might have slipped by your keen and cutting intellect.”
“Do tell.”
“With pleasure. First, you might have noticed that the space-bridge is on the other side of the colony. And that their battle cruiser got off a few shots before the defence screen went up. How were you planning on getting past the wreckage and the tanks that’ll be inside the perimeter any cycle now? Actually, forget that: how were you planning on getting through the bridge before it goes critical? I’m no expert but I have the feeling we’ll get to ‘kablooie’ pretty damn fast once the power’s back on. Also, what about the other end? I doubt they’ll give us posthumous medals for levelling the base on New Lithone. Oh, and assuming for the moment that we can actually remotely reroute power back to the bridge, have you thought about what will happen to the anti-cannon shield? Primus knows what the power grid’s like after the pounding it took. It’s a slagging miracle the shield’s still working. We divert power and it’s probably going to collapse. Which will expose us to orbital fire, not to mention their flyers. Which would be a Bad Thing.”

The Decepticon raised his hand, folding down fingers as he answered.
“If the computers are still running – which they must be, given the auto-guns are still active – then we can divert power. The collapse of the bridge will be at this end, since that’s where the damage is. Can you think of any reason why the automatic shut-off at the other end will not protect it from that collapse?”
“No. Mostly because no one’s ever been insane enough to try this before.”
“Neither can I. It’s just another reason why we have to get through fast. Which we can.”
“How?” the Autobot demanded, “You’re talking the space of a few microkliks, if that! You’d have to be travelling at...at...ohno. Oh no! No! Absolutely not! No. Way. In. Hell!”
Auto-guns sixty eight and sixty nine expired loudly. Something in Overcast’s chest beeped. He touched the side of his head.
“That’s it. They’re inside the shield perimeter. A few more cycles and they’ll be at the west projector array. Once that’s gone, the shield will probably fall apart, exposing us to the ship’s guns and – oh, yes – their air forces.”
“But – you want me to – no!”
Overcast sighed.
“Sureshot, I assure you that I am perfectly willing to leave you to – what was it? – ‘die in this Godforsaken hole’, even if you do not seem especially enamoured with the idea. Either way, I am going to turn that space-bridge back on. Make up your mind if you want to stay or go. Fast.”

He stood up, rising to his full, towering height. His engines began to hum and his wings flexed, opening out.
“I’m coming, I’m coming!” Sureshot yelped, scrambling after him, slinging his rifle over his shoulder.
He skidded to a stop by the giant’s side, arms flailing in an effort to express himself.
“Just...please, for the love of Primus, no aerobatics.”

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“AAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”
“The power grid’s responding. The bridge is online. Destination input. Spool-up commencing.”
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!”
“One cycle to full power. Ah. The west projector’s gone and the shield’s beginning to fail. Half a cycle ‘til it goes down.”
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH – unk!”
Overcast dipped and banked sharply, weaving through a volley of shells from below. The tanks had spotted them the moment they’d taken off and, unfortunately, while his jet mode offered greater manoeuvrability, it also presented a larger target profile.
“This is getting tedious.”
Sureshot, holding onto the jet’s back with the determination of one all too aware of how much the result of letting go would hurt, made an incoherent, strangled sound.

The Decepticon’s attention briefly turned to his ‘passenger’.
“Something wrong?”
“Being this far off the ground is freakin’ UNNATURAL!”
“Ground-hugger.”
“Abso-fraggin-lutely!”
“I thought you were trying to ‘look on the bright side’ of life?”
“Do you have ANY idea how hard it is to find a bright side to hanging onto the back of a JET that likes to play CIRCUS TRICKS at thirty thousand feet?!”
“If you had had the foresight to take an alternate form that could fly under its own power, you wouldn’t be in this situation.”
“Oh, yes, of course – except my PROTOFORM CAN’T SUPPORT AN AIRFRAME!”
“I’m sorry, is that supposed to negate my previous statement?”
“It’s not my fault I was BORN AN AUTOBOT!”
“Hmm,” Overcast responded, “I feel honour bound to disagree.”
And he went into a barrel role.

Sureshot’s scream was drowned by the roar of jet turbines.

Tiny flares burst from Overcast’s gun pods, spreading around him in a hot fog that engulfed the three missiles that had been coming up on him fast. They shattered in flashes of white light.
“The shield’s down.”
“YOU THINK?!”
“Multiple aircraft on approach to the colony. Full power in point two four of a cycle. Hold on tight.”
“WHAT DO YOU THINK I’MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!”

The jet nosedived, streaking towards the ring-shaped building that dominated one side of the wrecked city. The space-bridge was shuddering ominously, the already buckled superstructure warping further as streamers of energy lashed at it from within. The sky above it writhed and twisted, the bridge aperture fighting madly to be free of the constraints placed on it by the failing machinery. Dust and dirt billowed up in Overcast’s path as he levelled off a few bare metres above the long, straight road leading to the bridge.
“Full power in point one two,” he commented blandly.
Above and behind them, dark delta shapes hurtled across the sky, shrieking after the last of their enemies.
“Point zero nine. Energy build up in upper atmosphere.”
The clouds began to churn.
“Signature matches battleship grade cannon. Point zero five.”
The bridge aperture flared suddenly, as layers of the universe were ripped ever so slightly apart.
“Point zero two.”
The pursuing flyers loosened another wave of missiles.
“Point zero one.”
The clouds parted, shoved aside by a column of blue fire. Sureshot pressed his face to Overcast’s skin and shut off his optics.

“Point zero zero. Full power.”

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On the command deck of the orbiting battle cruiser, the task force commander frowned disapprovingly. The tactical display before her was monitoring the obliteration of the major landmass directly below them, the blast of released energy searing the planet to its mantle.

She ordered an immediate assessment of the consequences and began composing a report to her superiors. The Liege Centuro would need to be informed of a slight delay in the expansion of the Hub into Sector Fifteen Forty.

Make Notes

13th September, 2008. 11:22 pm. 4:Solstice Rites

4: Solstice Rites

He watched the smoke go drifting out across the green, writhing about in the air, a fickle wind sending it this way and that. Everything was cold and damp and miserable, up to and including all the village’s inhabitants. The Christmas Spirit consisted solely of a few neon decorations and the drooping miniature pine trees hanging from the front of the post office. It was as if the hard weather of last year had decided that one gig was enough and had deferred instead to the standard British climate.

Gavin wasn’t paying attention to any of that. He just sat in front of the war memorial, watching the smoke. And thinking.

Thinking had been his main activity for the past couple of weeks. Vaguely, he was aware that this had made him incredibly frustrating company. His parents were worried. He knew that. He wished he could say something to reassure them. But he didn’t like lying to them. They were probably damn right to worry about him. For many, many reasons.

Having the way you looked at the world turned upside down once in a year was bad enough. It had been a warm June evening the last time, when, in the grip of an attack of drunken courage, he’d been astonished to find himself being kissed back. Then, everything changing had felt good, like suddenly being able to fly. Now, it was different. It felt like falling.

Cin had stuttered at first, tripping over words as if unable to get out something he’d been rehearsing in his head for ages.
“There are…things…like forces…though…that’s wrong…in about every way possible…” He had struggled on, sitting there in bed, obviously knowing that he was not doing a very good job of explaining anything. “Some things just are. We’re one of them. We’re…we represent…”

Gavin had waited patiently. At last, Cin had taken a deep breath and aimed for more coherence.
“We’ve been around forever. To begin with…we just existed, without form, I guess. Then mankind came along and started imagining and…anthropomorphising. They gave my kind form, gave them their form. Least, that’s what the stories say. Could all be some stupid crap that someone made up to explain things. Though…I guess if it’s true…that’s what we are. Stories…”

That had been the start. It had only gotten worse.
( Read on )

Make Notes

12th August, 2008. 4:07 pm. 3:Just Three Words

A/N: Yes, updates remain spasmodic and irregular. This is only because I'm trying and failing to write some focused dissertation notes. Probably going to be more soon...

3: Just Three Words

Gavin prodded his cornflakes without enthusiasm. They had the distinct advantage of not being college food and were, therefore, more than just technically edible but he seemed to have left his appetite somewhere. Perhaps it would come back to him if he whistled… He sighed and scooped up a spoonful. No, his appetite was not within whistling distance. It was somewhere much further away.

He had had the dream again, the one that was unimaginably vivid until he tried to remember what it had been about. It hovered behind his mind, tantalisingly close in every sense. The moment he moved towards it, it was gone, drifting out of reach. True, it seemed a little closer than it had a couple of weeks ago but that was small consolation when not being able to grab the damn thing meant you were starting to go OUT OF YOUR MIND –

Realising he was trying to drive the spoon through the bowl, he stopped and took a deep breath. Clear head. That was what he needed. A clear head and time to think. And probably a full stomach. So, appetite or not, he was going to have to finish the cornflakes without breaking something and having to pick them off the floor. With that in mind, he started to shovel determinedly.

So determinedly, in fact, that he didn’t notice anyone come in until they moaned practically in his ear.
“D’you mind chewing a bit quieter, mate…?”
It was a good thing Gavin had nearly finished. Any earlier and the kitchen would have been redecorated in a nice shade of supermarket cereal and almost-but-not-quite off milk. Having caught the bowl again, he turned round. The new arrival looked like he had had a really good night. His wild blonde hair stuck out in interesting directions and his eyes didn’t seem to want to open properly. He’d also managed to put a spectacularly bright tee-shirt on inside out and back-to-front.
( Read on )

Read 2 Notes -Make Notes

1st April, 2008. 4:17 pm. 2:All Hallows

A/N: Ok, so not as soonish as I thought but another Cin and Gavin story! It's set about 11 months on from the last...and, yes, read on!


2:All Hallows

It was the day after Halloween and Gavin was slightly astonished to find that he did not have a hangover.

He was sitting on the floor of Cin’s room, trying to tune his violin and tune out the cathedral bells. Based on the low growling noises coming from the vicinity of the bed, his friend was plotting the retroactive murder of whoever had invented campanology.

Cin did have a hangover, a state of affairs not helped by the sadism of the physics department.

“So if you integrate between a and b…and if you substitute in the function given, it must be…positive. Positive? What the hell…oh, sod it.”
A fountain of lined paper fluttered across the room.
“Not going well?” Gavin asked lightly.
“Bohr should be atomised, Schrödinger should be introduced to a lion and every damn Christian who feels the need to announce their presence to the entire county should be hung with their own bell-rope.”

Experimentally, Gavin ran the bow across the newly tightened strings. Cin glowered at him.
“And the violin should be banned on the grounds of human and possibly feline rights.”
“All right, all right. Just testing. I won’t torture you any more than necessary. And what is it exactly that you have against Christians? You’re always banging on about them ‘getting it all completely wrong’. What they ever do to you?”
“You mean besides the constant force ten attention seeking at the crack of dawn?” Cin stretched. “Exactly the same reason I can’t stand any religion.”
“Which is…?”
“They annoy me.”
“I’d never have guessed. Why?”
( Read on )

Read 2 Notes -Make Notes

13th November, 2007. 7:40 pm. 1:Christmas Bells

A/N: I know, I know. Out of season by about a month but... The Christmas lights are already up here in Durham and this is a year old now. It was written as a competition entry for the Durham Uni Sci Fi and Fantasy Society's Fanzine - a simple competition: write a story entitled 'Christmas Bells'. So I did. And I won, by virtue of being the only non-disqualified entry! And, now I think about it, I still haven't got the 2Kg of chocolate that was the prize. Anyway, I hope you find this entertaining. The characters are currently sitting in my head and making me write more of them so there will be more stories soonish.


1:Christmas Bells

“♫Ding dong merrily on high, in heaven th’ bells are ringing!♫”
“Be quiet.”
“♫Ding dong verily the sky, is riv’n with angels singing!♫”
“Shut up.”
“♫Gloooorrrrrrrooooorrrrrroooooorrrrriaaaaaaa, hosanna in exchel – mmmpphh!”
Gavin sat down hard, spitting cushion.
“Hey!”
“I don’t like carols. Sing something else.”
“Oh really? Well I do. And since I’m the music student around here, I get to decide what gets sung.”
“One more line of ‘Deck the halls’, ‘We three Kings’ and especially ‘Ding dong merrily’ and it won’t be a cushion. It’ll be Tipler.”
Now back on his feet, Gavin glanced at the brick-like textbook.
“Like you could actually throw that thing.”
“I can. Just one more note and I will. I am trying the work here.”

There was no point arguing with Cin. He might look like a ‘Dungeons and Dragons’ addict who ate too little and drank too much but he could be…creepy when he wanted to be. You’d be trying to tell him something and you’d suddenly realise that he was staring straight at you. Not through you but straight and unblinkingly at you. You’d just trail off helplessly. It was amazing how two sharply focused brown eyes under a mess of black hair could throw you completely off balance.
“Alright.” Gavin stretched and went over to the window. Grey. Everything was grey. The sky, the road, the houses. Even the grass seemed to have stopped being green.
“God. Five days ‘till Christmas and everything’s just…cold.”
“Winter is supposed to be.”
“No…I mean yes. But…it hasn’t even rained, let alone snowed. Just frosted.” He glared back at Cin. “At least singing might make things a bit more cheerful. This place could use it. You haven’t even got any decorations up.”
“Decorations go up on Christmas Eve. Not November the fifth. Most people forget why Christmas is where it is.”
( Read on )

Read 2 Notes -Make Notes

13th November, 2007. 8:18 am. AWOL

It occured this morning that, as I haven't posted anything for over two months, a touch of explaining might be in order.

That mythical entity 'real life' is partly responsible: university studies, three philosophy essays, weekly sadism on the part of the physics department and a general need to keep myself alive have sverely depleted my time for writing. The time that remains, I'm afraid, is currently being given over to writing projects outside of Transformers. It's not that I don't want to continue or that I've got writer's block on the thing, just that other stuff is taking priority. I'll post some of those stories eventually, whilst others are very much in the 'to try and get published properly' folder. Other Fronts et al will be resumed some time in the future, but even I don't know when.

I know there probably aren't many people who were holding their breath over my TF stuff but I thought I ought to explain. :)

Read 6 Notes -Make Notes

10th September, 2007. 4:35 pm. Allspark September 2007 Competition Piece

Note: I should explain that the purpose of the competition was to write an encounter between an OC and their writer. I am not actually receiving visits from giant transforming robots. And I still don't own Transformers.


Darkstar Meets His Maker

You know it’s going to be one of those days when you glance up from the screen and find a giant maroon mechanoid frowning over your shoulder.
“Now what are you doing to me?”
Not entirely sure of how to respond, I waited for him to read what I’d just written.
“Not more angst!” A petulant look crossed a face half as big as I was. “Enough with the self-absorption already!”
“Angst is part of your character. I can’t very well write you without it.”
“Yeah, but…”

He sat down heavily. Fortunately, I’d just lifted my drink so it slopped down my shirt rather than over the laptop. My companion gestured vaguely at what was left of the ceiling.
“Can’t I get a break? So far, the only time I’ve been anywhere near happy is stuck on my own in the middle of nowhere. And that gets boring after you’ve finished counting all the stars you can see for the tenth time.”
“Sorry. What would you prefer? An empty jungle planet? A desert?”
“How about a luxury hotel?”
“That might defeat the whole purpose of the ‘self-imposed isolation’ aspect of your plot strand.”
“Oh.”

If he’d had a navel to contemplate, he would have.
“I’m still not sure about this identity crisis/guilt-trip you’ve got me on…”
“You’re a clone who’s had very little control over his life up to this point and you just annihilated an entire army. It’s kind of the logical consequence…”
“I know… But… Why do I have to be a clone anyway? You’ve got three versions of Starscream running about, for Primus sake! Isn’t that a bit excessive? People might talk…”
I sniffed, slightly self-consciously.
“He’s a very interesting character. Just be grateful you’re the good version.”
“Good version?! I’m a depressed, mentally unstable mass-murderer with previously cannibalistic tendencies!”
“And he’s an arrogant, narcissistic sociopath who wouldn’t bat an eyelid over wiping a planet out. You have the advantage of feeling guilty about what you’ve done. Besides, you don’t get stalked by rabid fan-girls.”
“I remain unconvinced that that’s a good thing…”

He trailed off, muttering semi-coherently about aerospace commanders hogging the spotlight. I tapped out a few more lines.
“Couldn’t I…I don’t know, get a girlfriend or something? Starscream gets to strut about playing the pantomime villain – and then goes on and on and on about how marvellous his performance was – and you keep giving Nightscream all the good lines so…”
“Again, you’re supposed to be cutting yourself off from the universe.”
“But then all I get to do is float around looking moody and occasionally rail at the Star Sabre!”
“Careers have been built on less.”

His shoulders slump further.
“I know, I know… Can I at least get to single-handedly save the day at some point? Isn’t that what characters like me are for?”
“You want to be relegated to ‘plot-device’ level?”
“Well, no…”
“Or how about doing a Dreamwave Sunstorm?”
His shudder was emphatic.
“Primus, no!”
“Well then.”

There was a thoughtful silence as he mulled things over.
“I guess…it’s not so bad. Unless…hey, you are going to bring me back into the main story soon, aren’t you? Not just leave me to drift about?”
“Don’t panic. I’ve got plans for you.”
He gave a sigh of relief.
“Phew. I was getting worried since I haven’t made an appearance for a whole story arc.”

“Well, if that’s all, I’ve got to get on. What with you lot, the original stuff and that Fullmetal Alchemist fan fic, I’m quite busy at the moment.”
“Fullmetal…? Does that have something to do with the blonde pipsqueak who’s been running around having fits whenever he meets one of us? ‘Cause I think he thinks you’re making fun of him…”
I gave him a pointed look.
“Alright, alright. I’m going.”

Halfway through getting up, he paused.
“Look…is it too much to ask for me to get cleaned up before I come back in? I mean, I’ve still covered in grime and oil and…”
My look went from pointed to razor sharp.
“Um, guess it’s not too much of a problem…”
“Out.”
In a puff of sub-consciousness, he vanished.

I turned back to the computer and opened a search engine, wondering which took priority: psychiatrist or roofer?

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5th September, 2007. 10:58 am.

Borrowed from sf-dtail-49


You are The Magician


Skill, wisdom, adaptation. Craft, cunning, depending on dignity.


Eleoquent and charismatic both verbally and in writing,
you are clever, witty, inventive and persuasive.


The Magician is the male power of creation, creation by willpower and desire. In that ancient sense, it is the ability to make things so just by speaking them aloud. Reflecting this is the fact that the Magician is represented by Mercury. He represents the gift of tongues, a smooth talker, a salesman. Also clever with the slight of hand and a medicine man - either a real doctor or someone trying to sell you snake oil.


What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.



Which is nice, if unexpected, really...and possibly a little worrying...

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9th July, 2007. 11:45 am. Other Fronts: Part 1: Pirates! (Bonus Track)

Other Fronts: A Three-part saga from the planet Cybertron
Bonus Track: Siren Song

I am mutilating myself. And it is not helping. Every bite the laser scalpel takes from the scaly hide that covers my forearms heals an instant later. Every hole is sealed before I can make use of it. Every damned cut vanishes like mist before the sun.

My tools have been snatched away and now it seems I will never be able to replace them. I have no control over the nanites. They react like lightning and there is nothing I can do to rein them in. Perfect for a savage world where a festering wound means death. Utter torture for me.

My claws are ripping through the workbench and a howl of agonised fury is escaping my lips. I barely notice.

“Scorponok?”
Draco stands in the hatchway. The hulking mech manages to appear humble and subservient in a way that should be impossible for one of his stature. I round on him but manage to force the haze of anger to one side before I can do something regrettable.

He has proven to be surprisingly companionable. The primitive traditions of his world mean that he considers himself as walking dead and jumps to do whatever I tell him to, but he is also infinitely inquisitive and an excellent learner. Given enough time, I think I could make a decent engineer out of him, despite his habit of putting his newfound knowledge in colloquial terms.

“The computer is singing.”
Clamping my self-control into place, I throw him a curious look.
“What do you mean ‘singing’?”
( Read on... )

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9th July, 2007. 11:42 am. Other Fronts: Part 1: Pirates! (Side 2)

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“Let’s take a trip into the past. In fact, let’s start right back at the beginning…

“Megatron. Remember him? General Commander of the Cybertronian Military? Late of the Planetary Defence Force? The mech everyone respected for his intellect and strategic genius, not to mention his charm and charisma?

“Remember how he looked at a failing world and saw how to make it great again? Remember how he gathered those who thought like he did? Remember how he collected the dispossessed, the hateful, the aggrieved, all those nascent psychopaths just waiting to be used in a good cause? Remember how he found a use for the weak, be they Minicon or Vehicon?

“And remember how he set them loose across the world. Remember how he tore the decaying city-states apart one by one, imposing total peace through total dominion, carving a Cybertron in his own image. Remember Kaon and Tarn and Polyhex and Revnen and Protihex.

“Remember how he stormed the gates of the Capital and crushed the life out of Guardian Prime with his bare, Minicon-power-boosted hands.

“That’s how the Decepticons were forged. Megatron set it all in motion, the Great War, the razing of the Seven Systems, the Exodus, the discovery of Earth, the Fall of Iacon… By the end of his reign, he had subdued not only Cybertron but a score of other worlds. His forces stood proud, conquerors, warriors, bringers of order. It was magnificent. An achievement to be held up on high and against which all others must be judged.

“And then it all went wrong. Didn’t it? All because of one little shuttle and one set of stolen codes. Oh, and an arcane super-weapon that appeared out of nowhere. One instant, king of the world, next so much molten metal. Down came Megatron, shield and all. In one fell swoop, the Autobots retook Cybertron and sent the vaunted Decepticon Army scattering across space.

“But that didn’t have to be the end, did it? The Slagmaker was far from an idiot. He laid down specific, calculated plans for what to do in the event of his death at the hands of Optimus’ merry band. He always, always kept a part of the space fleet in reserve, commanded by at least one of his inner circle. He ensured that said inner circle had the resources to maintain the empire. He even provided them with an heir, manufactured from his own physical template. The behemoth should have kept rolling, should have launched a counterattack to end all counterattacks. The Autobot’s victory should have been turned into a trap to destroy them all.

“Given all that, how could it have gone wrong? Well…
( Read on... )

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