Submission Frenzy

Time to clear the to do pile:

Waterwall to The Absent Willow Review
Toby See The Stars to Reflection’s Edge
Dead To Rights to Broken Pencil

Now: with that out the way – let’s write.

Nice Rejection

Nice rejection from The Absent Willow Review

Think I may have uploaded this but am too lazy to search can’t seem to locate it.

–
Dear Allan:

We really appreciate getting a chance to consider “Noomorph”, and while we did read the entire story, I’m afraid we’ll have to take a pass. Please do not let this stop you from submitting your work elsewhere or sending other works our way.

PS – Loved the concept.

Kindest Regards,

The Editors
The Absent Willow Review
http://absentwillowreview.com
Absent Willow Publishing,LLC
–

The last line made me smile.

New Story: Toby See The Stars

Knocked up a short story on Friday evening. It comes in around 1000 words, and was born on or around 1 AM after three JDs and Coke.

It needs a little work, but I’m quite happy with it. It’s been nice to knock out something in a short period of time – and reflects how my last story died on its feet when I got all overwrought about the plot (which I was never truly happy with anyway…)

Update: Another edit. It’s all come together very nicely. A few more passes and I think this one is ready to sell. Nice one.

I officially abandoned Pizza tonight (if by ‘official’ you mean post it on a blog and on twitter) after realising I just didn’t enjoy writing it. I found myself quoting the synopsis – extended, I grant you – word for word without feeling any creativity in between.

Why?

I Just didn’t feel it. The ending is aimless and purposefully vague – and I don’t like it. Having both the apartment owner and the bosses wife drive off in the van without any explanation of what they are doing, or who the pizza guy was just sent out the wrong signals (the signals being: this writer started off with an interesting concept, and singularly failed) and that bugs me. I like my endings, and I like ‘em with impact, resonance and a good unexpected twist.

In short: the ending to Pizza is a cheat, and I know it.

And so will the reader.

A little slice of ‘Pizza’

This is a little slice of ‘Pizza’, my latest short story.

And yes, the pun works for me…

–
The pizza man lifts out a slice of pizza as delicately as a mid-wife hands over a new-born baby to its mother, and offers it to the apartment owner. His eyes are wide as he drinks in the thick meaty slice, lean on mozzarella but heavy on the tomato and thick chucks of indeterminable meat piled high on the thin base.

The apartment owner takes the slice with great reverence, as though handling a religious artefact, and guides it into his mouth like a ship being guided into a dock. He bites. Chews. Swallows.

Ecstasy crosses his face.

In the meantime the pizza man has tempted the bosses’ wife into a slice. The apartment owner grins wolfishly at her, chewing open-mouthed, face plastered with blood-red tomato sauce.
Delicately, she takes a bite.

“Mmmm, “ she moans, closing her eyes, years dropping away from her.

The apartment owner grabs another bite, nodding encouragement to the bosses’ wife. Suddenly he bites down on something hard. He grunts and fishes out whatever it is he has bitten on.

It is a gold ring.

New Story

My current story is called ‘Pizza’

Terrible title. I need to think about that. All being said it is about Pizza, the concept of which is central to the story. The question is what else would I call it?

Spent the evening writing the first half: around 2k words.

It actually makes me realise how short the story really is. For this I’m glad as I’m not feeling the story at the moment. The writing feels forced and the voice in my head is going ‘finish it finish it finish it’ so I’m just blatting it down without any care or attention in the craft. Maybe I just need to get the story done and out the way and I can start thinking about another story to write.

Yes.

Listened to a nice mixture of music whilst writing this. I started off with some rather haunting ambient music (Brian Eno’s ‘Music For Airports’) then switched over to some NYC by Kieran Hebden and Steve Reid (not my kind of music at all but is actually quite fantastic when it comes to tuning into a piece of work ) and finally Emkai’s Deep SoulCast 03 which to my surprise has Beloved’s The Sun Rising as the first track. What a great song.

January 10th 2030

January 10th 2030

What follows is a series of excerpts from on-line discussions made over C/NET weekly Monday night broadcasts. The debate ‘Are criminal’s being unleashed over the net’ mirrors hundreds of similar voices being raised by the public over the past few months as escalation against the government rise.

The show is hosted by Charles Jaed.

EXCERPT 1

CJ – okay folks, we’ve two opinions so far; how about we go for a third? Caller 208, you’re up. What’s your name?
Caller – I’d prefer to by anonymous Charles, if that’s okay with you?
CJ – sure. What’s up?
Caller – well I was listening to your previous caller, who was questioning the media’s role in covering up several death’s relating to released AI criminals causing havoc on the net?
CJ – yeah?
Caller – well, I know for a fact that the US government have fucked up this whole thing and are doing a major cover-up. You know how many criminals are actually out there? Roaming the net?…58.
CJ – 58? That’s hard to believe.
Caller – believe it buddy. These guys are roaming the net, doing whatever the fuck they want. Jesus, these things are above and beyond the law in every possible way! How the hell do you arrest a piece of code?

EXCERPT 2 – another caller, later on in the evening.

Caller – Charles, that guy who called before hit the nail on the head. Not only is there almost four times the amount of escaped criminals on the net than the government and the press will allow, but I believe that both the media and the US government are actively covering up all incidents.
CJ – why would they do that?
Caller – Why? The real issue isn’t the amount of criminals out there. The real reason is why they are out there; why they have managed to escape. The real reason, Charles, is that an underground war between the United States and China is being fought under our very noses on the same cables and bandwidth this very conversation is occurring on.
CJ – and you’re saying that the press is in cahoots with the government to hide this fact? Sorry Caller, but I doubt the media would turn away from a story like that -
Caller – and not only that Charles. What makes you think that it’s just criminals out there? What’s stopping the FBI from putting their own people out there? Additionally what’s stopping the CHINESE from doing the very same thing?
CJ – that’s quite a disturbing thought.
Caller – disturbing it is. There’ s a new battlefield out there, one we can’t see, held right beneath our noses, propagated by shadows of our government and with no other agenda other than occupying the territory of a new country – the internet.

September 1st 2029

September 1st 2029

“Jez, you’re needed, “
I raised my head, eyes aching, the four hour info delve giving me nothing but a promise of a mother of all migraines.
I flicked off the compiler and expanded the visual cue that flicked on and off in the top right.
“Who’s that?” I rubbed my eyes under my glasses. Time for some Novocol, I thought distantly, tapping the keyboard and sending the code I had filtered to be rendered on the server, making a promise to find who’d hacked it if it killed me.
I didn’t recognise the face at first, but the hopelessly outdated brown Trilby tucked messily over the back of his head was a blatant clue. It was Filbert, the ‘Liason’ between Homicide and IT. I wasn’t keen on him, didn’t like his disposition. He probably didn’t like mine: I was two years out of state university, he was 5 years from being discharged and sent to live in the lower quarters of Baltimore. That earned a kind of jealousy that could eat a man alive.
We didn’t talk often, and especially not in person.
“Needed, where?” I replied.
“Homicide. Fancy coming out of your cupboard for a few hours? Got a corpse for you. “
IT’s didn’t do point, never dealt with the dead, only in code and numbers.
“What’s homicide got to do with IT? Especially on-site, “ I muttered, flicking off his visual with a flourish. It was bad manners to do so, but he’d picked a bad time to piss me off.
If I’d offended him, he didn’t let it show. I sat back, listening to his brittle, harsh voice, the kind only an understanding wife or mother could listen to with any semblance of love. “We’ve got a dead woman. Multiples. Blunt instrument by the looks of it.” A pause.
Get on with it, I gestured irritably, mentally slapping his bald sweaty forehead. “And?”
“One of yous did it. “ A pause. “Security auto. “ Another pause while it sunk in. “AI? Get it?”
Shit. Shit.
No doubt my non-reply amused him. He was that kind of point scorer.
“That I doubt, “ I replied, looking around for my hat and jacket and checking the schedule. It was booked for rain today.
“Come take a look. There’s been a specific request for an AI specialist. Protocol, you understand, you guys are about as useful at a crime scene as a stripper on ketamine. “
“Okay, send a car.” Neutral. Keep your voice neutral. Where the fuck was my hat?
“Get one yourself. “
Fine. Homicide being their usual friendly selves. “Whatever. Where am I going, or do I have to find that out myself?”
“Didn’t I mention? The Chinese Embassy. I’m sure the cab will know where that is. “
The Chinese Embassy. Oh shit.
And where the FUCK was my hat?

It had been a while since I’d been in a cab. The last time was during my final semester during a drinking binge where we’d had a competition which I seem to remember involved a lot of vomiting and yelling. Either the cabbie shared some kind of collective memory with the previously aggrieved colleage or took offence at my hefty waterproof jacket (only certain members of the civil service were given notice of the weather changes) but either way he took an age to get there and ignored all my urgings to get us there faster. Even waving of my police badge (IT department true, but I covered that bit with my thumb) didn’t encourage an increase in speed, so I gave up and instead called home and ordered my oven to cancel the pasta bake and order a freeze-dried pizza in instead. I was about to hang up when the oven passed the answer phone onto me who told me Giulietta had been on the line again, spouting on about what a shit I was was and how I’d be first against the wall ya de ya de ya. It played a sample of the message. It wasn’t nice.
“Great, “ I muttered to the answer phone. “If she call’s again, tell her when I find her she’s going back to the manufacturers. “
“Hey, it’s your car man, “ the answer phone told me, “tell her yourself. “
I lay back in the creaky leather seat, ignoring my primitive thoughts on re-programming corrupt AI’s with sharp pointy objects and focused on what was coming up. My stomach told me I was nervous, but this was for a number of reasons. First thing was that I hadn’t seen a dead body before. That part I wasn’t looking forward to. The other factor was that it was a murder in the Chinese Embassy by a security robot, our security robot.
That meant many things, but the foremost thing in my head was they had done it again.

The cab breached the avenue, rising slowly through the drizzle until the sunlight broke through and washed the cab in violent yellow haze. Seconds later the visors came down, slowly adjusting until the sunglass view came into sight. Troubles momentarily forgotten I stared down at Washington, slowly slipping down into the mist, watching the evening light’s twinkle into life.
“All the way up?” the cabbie asked gruffly, chugging through the vertical gears with grim determination. This cab didn’t like heights.

He didn’t wait for the answer, muttering about licences as the taxi dragged itself uprwards. I didn’t listen, still lost on the sight of Washington waking itself up to the night. Somewhere, over by fourth and eight, was Beth, serving drunks with drinks, wondering where I was. I would call her, but I’d been doing all the chasing recently and I was tiring of that particular game. I’d rather hear my answer phone talk about my psychotic car – running around Washington in a virus induced frenzy – than hear Beth go on about how dull yet dangerous her job was.
The cab pulled up. We waited patiently whilst the visors lifted and the scanner ran around the cab. It struck me as amusing that the authorities still believed that any modern attack would come from someone arriving in a taxi, when phreakers can easily bring a bank down with 2 minutes of diligent hacking from the other side of the world.
No sooner had I stepped out when I saw Filbert. Or, rather I saw his silouhette – the sun was bright as hell up here. It took a few seconds for my shades to kick in and I could now see him in all his fat ugly Americanised splendour.
“Still aiming for the twentieth century cop thing, “ I noted.
He grunted, then: “What took you? We’ve got everyone from the cultural attaché to the military up there.“
“Slow evening, I take it?” I said, shrugging off the jacket. The heat up here was pushing 30 degrees and was quickly drying me out, a plume of steam rising from both of us. We walked up the entrance without saying anything else: we’d only be making digs at each other and in that heat I just couldn’t make the effort. My flippancy was just a cover – I was about to see my first corpse, but that wasn’t the reason for my nerves.

For the first few seconds I honestly believed that her body didn’t look as bad as I had imagined, that it was just a body and the person inside, the soul, had long departed for pastures new. When that ran out I had to turn away.
Filbert was speaking to the coroner behind me, whispering quietly. I could smell her body going bad. The look of terror etched on her face, both hands like claws, rigid, tendons taut all the way to the end told me this wasn’t going to be an open casket funeral.
That, and the gaping wounds in her abdomen and between her legs.
Head whirling, I spun around to find Fibert and the coroner, a serious looking young man, staring at me.
“You OK?” Filbert asked. His attitude seemed to have changed now that he had seen the body. Not only that, but the room was filled with several high ranking members of the military, all of whom spoke and dealt with me something like respect. I would find out why later on.
I felt sick and knew if I opened my mouth, more than words would come out. In the corner, several sharp dressed Chinese delegates muttered to each other, casting their gaze to the dead girl, and then onto us. There was insinuation in their cold, angry looks. Not surprising really. Relations between our two countries had been going seriously wrong for quite a while for one reason or another. Something occurred to me that suggested that they were kicking a fuss up about this for some specific reason; there’s been dead bodies found in the Chinese embassy before, but they had been dealt with quietly and efficiently. The Chinese way.
The young lady was Chinese, a secretary to one of the important delegates. Five and a half hours ago she was attacked and repeatedly struck in her groin area by a blunt instrument many, many times. She died during the attack.
“I’m ok, “ I lied. Damned if he was going to see me puke, feigned concern or not. “What happened to her?”
“That’s where you come in, “ said a deep, powerful voice to my right.
“What do you mean?” I turned to the voice. He was a general, shirt heavy with medals and badges, middle-aged, but with that preserved look to him which made me imagine that in ten years time he’d look exactly the same, only with more medals. There was a look on his face that told me people didn’t usually speak to him without bellowing the word ‘Sir!’ after it.
As he was about to say something along this line, a uniformed soldier burst into the room. “General, Sir, we’ve located it!” he yelled.
“Located what?” I asked Filbert as the General proceeded to loom out of the room, acolytes in tow. The fat bastard just grinned, and I was beginning to feel pissed off at being the last to know everything.
“The Security Robot, “ he said.
He caught the look on my face. “Yup. The robot that was trying to rape her. “

You can say a lot about robots, but the resounding fact is that they don’t rape people. For one, the AI won’t allow them to bestow physical harm to anything. It’s hard wired. The Security druids are good for one thing, sureveillance and detection: beyond that they are just expensive machines that make reassuring clunking noises wherever they walk. The second factor is that sex simply isn’t a concept they understand. I suppose it’s like a dog suddenly finding a need to use a dishwasher.
This one did, however. In a big way. It grabbed that poor girl and despite the fact it had no genitalia with no hope of any sexual gratification, it had tried to have sex with her.

Until, that is, the grilled speaker where it’s humanoid-form mouth was began to scream in mandarin.

It was the first of many shocks that day. Little did I know it then but the first retaliatory shot in a secret, hidden unknown conflict had been fired. It wasn’t the droid who had raped that poor girl.: once captured and disassembled back at the lab, instead of the core security AI, I found the uploaded consciouseness of a convicted Chinese street Peddler, who had been taken from his secure on-line storage and violently inserted into this mechanical foreign body. His mind was terribly, horrifyingly bent.

He had been ‘uploaded’ (the best definition of a term not yet invented by the populist press) by a group of anonymous American vigilante hackers called Phreak2. This was a direct response to several similar attacks made on American soil by Chinese-backed hackers. The fact that this was a Chinese girl in the Chinese embassy was a distinctive and gruesome flag waved to our enemy.
Later, I would find myself being recruited by the CIA, and then the FBI.
Even later, I would find out why Phreak2 was so anonymous.

Nice Rejection from

Got a nice reply from One Story.

Dear Allan M. McDonald:

Thank you for sending us “New York Story”.

Unfortunately this particular piece was not a right fit for One Story, but we were very impressed by your writing. We hope that you will feel encouraged by this short note and send us something else.

We look forward to reading more.

Nice reply. I feel tempted to send them Warp Factory – in all honesty. Must remember to check GUDs simsub guidelines…

August 12th 2029

Nicola Halshom raised her hand up, palm facing forward.

“Stop, “ she commanded, and the cameraman cum driver, Andy, braked so suddenly she felt herself pressed forward into her seatbelt. She looked around at the crowd and the other news crews hovering around. Two men leaned on tripods, sharing a cigarette.  “This is it. O’Reilly’s.”
Andy inched the van forward and found a more natural parking spot on the opposite side of the road. He killed the engine and looked at her. “You ready for this?”
“Of course. “ She checked her face in the mirror, smoothing her long black hair over her small shoulders.  “What’s there to worry about?”
Andy chuckled. “If you’re not worried, then you haven’t been to one of these things before. “Especially now…”
With that hanging in the air without a response, she climbed out and surveyed the bar as Andy worried about the equipment in the back. O’Reilly’s was a mid-market establishment, well dressed enough to avoid Seattle’s less friendly practitioners. No doubt it attracted enough attention in the summer, if it would only stop raining and the tourists dared to leave the city centre.
The crowd was small, but a sense of self-purpose was evident in the group amassing in front of the bar, with some people queing to get in and also stood directly opposite, hoisting banners and placards, stalking in circles, all of this showing all the elements of a protest, and although she hadn’t expected this, she didn’t feel much surprise. Nicola ignored her nervousness and read the banner hoisted high above the facia on the bar.

“TONIGHT. Punishment Evening. Will Hackshaw and

(this part in bigger letters)

Enrique Miguel.”

Will Hackshaw had murdered his mother-in-law with a hedge trimmer after a failed suicide attempt. Tonight’s guest of honour was her bereaved Husband. Yet Hacksaw was the opening act: the real reason for the gathering throng tonight was Enrique Miguel, whose sideline of importing refugees from Cuba had backfired one night after a police tip-off.  In what would prove to be the most rashest of decisions in his life, he had tossed a Molotov cocktail into the back of the wagon carrying the 23 men, 13 women and 8 children – one unborn – so that they could not identify him to the authorities when intercepted.

Everyone wanted a piece of him, Nicola thought.

After an intense debate with the owner of O’Reilly’s and the obligatory police presence, she managed to persuade herself an introduction in front of the bar. Andy counted down from five whilst she wondered if anyone watching would notice that this was her first time, and whether she should take off her glasses.
“Tonight, Channel 8 brings you to O’Reilly’s, a popular Irish bar in downtown Seattle. Ever since the Applied Justice act of ’25 and the digital storage of criminals now established through the US, growing support for digital punishment has manifested in the form of these theme events, such as Punishment Night, held here, tonight, in this establishment – “

She raised a hand and indicated the queue lining up towards the main door, eliciting curious gazes from the people in line. Some waved. The camera passed right onto the small yet vocal group of protestors stood on the pavement. It panned and zoomed in on some of the signs they carried:

TAKE OUR CRIMINALS OF THE NET.
SUPPORT BECKY’S LAW
DO YOU KNOW WHO YOUR CHILDREN ARE TALKING TO ONLINE?

A few moments of focus, and Andy pulled the camera back to Nicola, unable to suppress a small, secret smile. She looked beautifully pale in the dusky sunlight.
She brought her arm back, a little artificially (Andy’s smile turned to a sympathetic wince) “ – and as you can tell, feelings are running high amongst the community. It’s been only six weeks since Rebecca Burns killed five people, including her own father, and after the horrifying discovery that she had been ‘possessed’  by Dwight Schultz, a convicted and uploaded serial killer who had somehow managed to break out of his storage confinement, the country is now split down the middle with two important questions: One; despite the legality of these events, is it morally correct to publish criminals through such public events and two, if there is a potential for criminals to escape their confinement, should we not be seriously considering removing them from the ‘net altogether? “
This was interrupted by a growing chorus of boos and jeers that filtered through the queue and she found herself derailed, too focused on the crowd and not her narrative. Andy cut the recorded transmission, lowering his camera whilst Nicola wheeled around on the mob, belatedly realising this wasn’t the ideal spot to voice these particular concerns in front of such a partisan crowd.
She crept up to Andy, who was viewing the report on the camera’s VDU. “It’s ok, we can use the first part and re-film the rest elsewhere.“ He raised an eyebrow, remembering to differ to her, “if that’s ok with you?”
“Sure, “ she nodded distractedly, chewing her hair, “how was I?”

Inside was barely controlled mayhem. Whilst none of the protesters had been allowed in the bar, they were still managing to make themselves heard over the PA which bravely pumped out cosy Irish country music to the accompaniment of the thronged masses inside. The place was packed to capacity.  Nicola and Andy worked their way to the far corner of the bar, only yards away from the focus point of tonights entertainment: the dance floor, empty, with a solitary punch bag in the middle. At the back of this area, set on a huge LCD screen that filled the wall, was the famed IN-SECURE logo with a clock counting down the time before broadcasting. There wasn’t long to go.
Taking the camera into O’Reilly’s was strictly off-limit, Nicola resorting to a digital recorder , whilst Andy had a pocket-cam secreted into his shirt pocket. Not that this would count as broadcastable material but there was nothing in the rulebook about research material.

The show began.

Half an hour later, and Nicola found she couldn’t stop shaking, even as IN-SECURE cut the link and the crowd started to slowly disperse. All she could hear was the screams from the LCD, the ghostly, green and white images of both Hackshaw and Miguel’s faces, tortured, writhing, contorted beyond physical means, their digital representations fielding all the pain they were suffering. And before them, the punchbag, having taken it’s own battering from angered victims, relatives of the dead, anyone willing to line up and deliver a fevered punch that delivered the equivalent of a huge electric shock to the intended criminal. Turn after turn they took, the digitised, real screams and pleas for mercy – all ignored.
She bit her lip, nursing the whisky and water continuously sloshed around her unsteady grip.
“What’s up?” Andy asked.
Taking another sip, she cocked her head, trying to articulate. “What do you feel about this?”
“About what? Punishment evening?”
“Not just that. The report.”
Andy looked into her eyes, magnified and openly beautiful through her glasses, and in that moment realised that she wasn’t cut out for this job. He smiled.
“Well, “ he mused, “from a news standpoint, this is a goldmine. We have conflict from both sides, and, as you said, the whole country’s struck down the middle on this one – “
“ – but personally?”
Andy had a strange feeling that he was being tested. “Personally, this is all wrong. This – “ and he waved his hand derisively towards the screen, a gesture that told Nicola more than his words ever could, “isn’t punishment. This is revenge, plain and simple. Those guys should rot in hell for all I care, but what we’re doing, well, it just makes us the same as them, surely?”
Nicola smiled at him, and they both sipped at their drinks reflectively in silence,  moments before somebody ruined it all by throwing a petrol bomb through the window.