Royce's Random Thoughts

Continuing work on Wake Up Call, and I've just gotten to the bit where our still unnamed protagonist is guided to his new apartment. Which leaves the question of what kind of physical security a place with 24 hour Panopticon level monitoring would really need. Which actually brings up just how much monitoring there is.

Not sure about this yet. Especially since the story is starting to get a cozy murder mystery vibe.


Potential Monitoring Levels

No Privacy: Cameras outside the home, cameras inside the home, and your morph is constantly watching you either directly or via remote monitors. Yes, even in the bedroom and bathroom. With fifteen billion humans to monitor the Groupmind is pretty much beyond shock at this point. Rather unmerciful and it kills any chance at real rebellion.

Limited Privacy: Even if it isn't true, everyone assumes that they're monitored 24/7 once they step outside their home, especially with their morphs tagging along. Inside their home there's some privacy. Aside from cameras associated with their home's com/entertainment system, there's the morphs, but otherwise bathroom and bedroom privacy is somewhat guaranteed (though more than one attempt at either suicide or spousal abuse has discovered that morphs have both excellent hearing and the ability to monitor stress levels in someone's voice.)


Which leads to locks on the doors...

Standard Locks: Operating on a failsafe system, all locks are electronic in nature, opening on detection of proper biometrics (facial, hand or thumbprint, or voice recognition). In the very unlikely event of a power failure, any lock releases automatically. Locks requiring physical keys no longer exist, and if some bright tinkerer tries to recreate them, they're going to get the Groupmind's negative attention shortly.

No Locks: None. Seriously. Assuming No Privacy mode and a Post-Scarcity society why would you even need them? Anyone trying to steal anything would be caught immediately, and the morphs are smart enough to keep Billy out of the medicine cabinet, or the bedroom when mom and dad need their non-existent privacy.

What could possibly go wrong?

With a mutual yelp of surprise, they both hopped back away from the… Yes indeed, it was a tentacle, rising up out of the sand to form a curved, rubbery bar about a meter in the air in front of them, one end still leading into the ocean, the other into the trees, with lots of noisy rustling as it pushed aside more sand, leaves and fallen branches.

Melanie was the first to act, her fatigue suddenly banished in sheer terror. Grabbing Rolas by the wrist, she started dragging him into the trees, well clear of the tentacle, as the sound of something crashing through the undergrowth reached their ears. She dropped flat to the ground, Rolas beside her, as a figure emerged.

( From bad to worse )

No, seriously. Someone is rEmAsTErINg (pun very much intended) the infamous z-grade movie that almost broke Joel and the bots Manos, the Hands of Fate, after miraculously finding the original workprint in an ebay auction of 16mm films.

Why? Well, no one can deny that thanks to MST3K, the film is certainly well-known to cinema buffs, if only as an example of just how hard it is to make a film when you don't know what you're doing, and as the restorer states, even a film as bad as Manos deserves to be seen in the best presentation format available.

As an aside, I recently saw Star Wars in HD on my mother-in-law's big screen LED set. Does HD make everything look like it was filmed like an old Doctor Who episode?

For mmegaera: “This plant is going to strangle me.”

* * *

He plucked at the plant gingerly, leaving bits of nanosteel glove stuck as he pulled back. Which should not be possible. “Okay, just stay calm.”

“You stay calm,” his partner said. The plant had her bound into a tight ball, her helmet forced back as three vines wove around her throat. “I'm gonna panic.”

“Look, it can't penetrate your suit.”

“But it can... crush it.” she wheezed.

He pulled a nanocrystal from his pocket, chucking it. Quicksilver flowed over the vines, freezing the creature in place. “There, it's sealed permanently.”

“So am I.”

“Oh, dear.”

For stasia: “Aliens among us.”

And with this, the 365 Days of Drabbles project goes on hiatus until January 1st, 2014. Thank you to everyone who participated so far giving me prompts to work with and feedback on the results.

* * *

He stared at the water... thing.... that had once been a man. “What are you now?”

An advancement. We are merged now. Our numbers grow, now that we can leave our water prison.

“'Prison?'”

They would have held us there, but we walk among you now. Preparing...

“Preparing for what?” the analyst demanded.

His rising! The humanoid shaped collum of water flowed/walked away, heading towards the apartment's kitchen. The officer fired, his round leaving a hole which wavered, then sealed itself as quickly as it opened, as the creature flowed into the kitchen sink, down into the drain.

For stasia: “In hiding.”

* * *

“This is it?” the FSS officer asked. Two months of searching and they'd finally located one of the holiday camp owners, in a run down apartment complex in Star City of all places.

“Yes, sir,” the analyst, his only companion on this bizarre hunt, agreed.

The officer pulled his pistol out and knocked hard on the door. “Gregor Lysenko, this is the Federal Security Service! You are wanted on suspicion of arson and multiple counts of manslaughter. Unlock the door and prepare to surrender!”

A high, keening wail that went up their spines came from behind the door.

For ankewehner: “D/s relationship with a human Dom and werewolf sub.”

* * *

She loved seeing her Boy in pain, but not like this, not when he was fighting the Change for her sake.

“Let go,” she ordered.

He shook his head in desperation, incisors lengthening to fangs. “Mistress, my cage... please... I need it.”

“No.”

“I'll hurt you!”

“You won't. Let go.”

He howled, dropping to all fours as he tore off his clothes, her boy Changing to the dire wolf that was his soul. It crouched, growling, tensing to spring.

“Down!” she snapped.

The wolf dropped to its belly, nose between its paws.

“Good Boy.”

For rix_scaedu: “More comets and meteorites”

* * *

“Okay, the bad news we have three previously unknown asteroids between the sizes of one hundred to five hundred meters, and two Tunguska sized comets all on course to land in Russia in the next four to ten days.”

“And the good news?”

“There isn’t any. Any one of them even near-misses the Aral Sea and…”

“Wait, they’re not just all going to hit Russia, they’re going to hit the same lake?”

“Sea, sir.”

“Whatever. What about the StarGuard?”

“It got scrapped after the Soviet Union broke up. I think the bunker is owned by a Mafiya don.”

“We’re screwed.”

For avanti_90: “Schrödinger’s Cat escapes from the box”

• * * *
“Damnit Higgins, have you figured out what’s going on yet?”

“Um, sorta. The cat is still in the box.”

“But the readings say that it escaped.”

“That too.”

“You’re not making any sense.”

“You’d better look behind you, sir.”

He turned. Standing in front of him was the cat. Or maybe it wasn’t that cat. Its form seemed to waver. Though it stood, it didn’t breathe, and a smell of decay rose from it. It smiled, or perhaps snarled, though at any rate it bared its teeth at him.

“Higgins, is it dead?” he asked hoarsely.

“Yes and no, sir.”

For aldersprig: "clean-up after Yet Another Disaster"

Note: I have mint copies of the original Damage Control mini-series in a box in my attic. ;p

* * *

"Omni Insurance, thank you for holding. Hello Mrs. Henderson. I understand you're still waiting on your windows to be replaced. Yes, I know ma'am, but a lot of people lost windows when that asteroid fragment hit. At least you don't live on the coasts. Yes, those poor astronauts did the best they could."

"Omni Insurance. Your car was eaten by a what? Let me transfer to an agent in the Cryptozoological Dept."

"Omni… sir… sir, please slow down, I don't speak Japanese. Please hold for a translator." Pushes button. "I wish the fucking JDF would just kill that stupid lizard!"