My Stuff: Longer than Eternity

Relevant Story:  The Delphi

Sorry this took so long to get out.  Life got in the way.  And work.  And laziness.  And the fact that this is really hard to write a follow up for.


This is because Quinn Lazerus is in ALL of my stories.  And I don't mean in a "well this is kind of him" way, I mean he's there, somewhere.  He may not even be mentioned, by name or other wise, but somewhere in each universe he's there.  He's also in all of your stories too.  I made Quinn a kind of ultimate meta character, his story is that he lives through every possible incarnation of reality (within a set of rules, which I won't get into).  So he's in every original piece of fiction, fan fiction, childhood dream and everything in between.

Which makes him both very easy and insanely hard to write for.  On one hand, I can just stick him anywhere (he has no locked personality, he lives too long for that) and let him do whatever.  On the other hand, I could do just as well creating a new character, and then have actual backgrounds and such that work.  And the same problems with Deborah come up with Quinn as well, only worse at certain points.  His story is basically too big to write.

The Delphi was kind of an attempt to try some bits of it, and I stopped because, well, lazy.  Still, I had fun because it let me do something about Delphi, who gets less time than Quinn story wise, but is in just as many.  As a character, Delphi is a ship that basically watches EVERYTHING, and it watches more and more as time goes on, until it knows everything all the time, thus why it is the ultimate database, recording and storing it all.

Which makes both Delphi and Quinn boring for writing stories about.  Quinn has done it all and more, and Delphi has seen it all and more.  So even in this story, I had to think of different angle, which is why I did it from the perspective of the cleaning drone 5280.  Persephone is a bit easier to understand compared to the other two, and it was just kind of fun.  The fact that the drone shows up just as much as Quinn and Delphi isn't an issue because, well, we know what she's been doing this whole time:  cleaning, always cleaning.

All in all, there isn't much to stay about the story other than it's not finished, like most of pieces.  Quinn's overarching story plays only a major role in a few of the stories you'll see from now on, his greatest impact is on the Order stuff since, well, he founded it.  Beyond that he's only a major character in his own stories, and I don't write many of those, at all.  There is one other place he shows up that you'll see, but I'll mention that when the time comes.

Next time, I should have the last completed Order story up, then I'll have to think on where to go next.  Until then kiddies.

My Stuff: The Delphi

The Delphi

Deb 0 Perf 0 Call AAAAA Section 00000 Universe Number 0

June 3, 104,235 C.E.

      Drone 5280 buzzed across the carpet, its vacuum making only the slightest of hums as it gathers up the light layer of dust that had formed. More than a week had passed since the drone had made its pass through this part of the ship, and a frustrating one for the poor machine at that. If drone 7932 hadn't insisted on an extended maintenance cycle, the dust layer wouldn't even be half as big.

      Dust, arch nemesis of drone 5280, was one of the few things the Delphi couldn't prevent. Or wouldn't as far as 5280 was concerned. All it would take would the activation of the air circulation systems and the filters would flush the particles right out of the air. Yet it refused, citing that there was no real reason to move air throughout the living quarters area as there was no crew to enjoy them, and a sly claim about their being quite a bit of dust in the smaller vents, where even the watermelon sized 5280 could not go.

      So 5280 had to settle for simply vacuuming up what dust settled on the floor and other surfaces throughout the living area of the ship. That measly ten percent of the ship belonged to the drone, and it took great pride in keeping it clean, if only some of the others would cooperate once in a while.

      The drone approached the port side docking area, running across the carpeted floor, sucking up every bit of dust it could find. Unlike other ships, there was no single door separating the docking bay from the rest of the ship, the hallway simply opened up into the docking bay, like an extended lounge. Where the carpet stopped, the docking bay began, and 5280's responsibility also ended. There was rarely, if ever, an emergency that would require the docking bay to be closed off from the rest of the ship, but should one such arise, the upper wall would simply drop closed, sealing it away.

      Of course, accidents happened, for the Delphi was like any other ship, but the crew of drones did their best to minimize and prevent such disasters. Only the asteroid strike some 2000 years ago stuck out in 5280's memory banks, and that had occurred near the rear of the 20 kilometer long ship, where 5280 almost never went save for occasional maintenance cycles. The mess that rock created was staggering, and took years to finally clean up, and it took a while for the repair drones to fix the damage too.

      The most recent transgression, and one that continued to mock the drone's best efforts, occurred only three years ago, when drone 1123 accidentally spilled a high grade solvent on its way to deliver it to the drones in the port side docking area. It spilled almost a dozen liters of the stuff right on the carpet, leaving a massive stain. Oh, 5280 did its best to clean it up, even called 5279 and 5281 to assist, but 5279 was too eager to return to the computer core and 5281 too lazy. In the end, the stain remained. Every five days, the drone would pass this part of the ship, and the stain would be there, daring the little drone to try to clean it up. Every 10 days, 5280 would try again, slowly whittling down the once massive stain to one barely the size of dinner plate. Eventually the stain would be gone, but until it was, 5280 would never, ever be happy.

      Today was to be part of that 10 day cycle, another duel with the stain, but 7923's drone maintenance cycle, which helped refurbish many of 5280's system, clean them out, lubricate them and the like, had thrown that schedule completely off, and there were other, more pressing matters. Still, the drone stopped and considered taking another crack at the stain. 5280 lost nearly five minutes staring at the stain, locked in a loop that proclaimed "to clean, or not to clean," over and over. Eventually, Delphi would shake the poor drone out of it, it always did, but something else shook the drone out of its loop, the mass approach of the security drones.

      There were five in total, numbers 2212 through 2217, with 2217 and 2216 carrying a defensive stand, a three sided wall used for taking cover during boarding assaults. Since they departed so long ago, the ship had never been attacked by anything more advanced than a piece of space junk, even so, a dozen dedicated security drones monitored the ship and repaired the weapons. A dozen may not seem like much, but all drones could and would defend the ship if it came to that, and the security drones would be the leaders.

The leader of these leaders, 2212, directed the placement of the stand, and its second, 2213, quietly scouted out the edge of the docking platform some 100 meters from the hallway carpet.

      "5280," Delphi's command codes rattled into the cleaning drone's electronic brain. It was impossible to not obey, the drones were designed to obey, but it certainly could be annoying. "We are expecting a visitor."

      "A visitor?" The stain flashed in 5280's mind. What if the visitor sees it, what will they say about me? "I should finish my cleaning quickly then."

      "Negative, I wish to use your systems to observe and communicate with the visitor."

      "But my cleaning!" The plea is ignored, the order followed. 5280 is a drone of the Delphi, and when Delphi decides that it shall do something, it shall do it, despite protests to the contrary. The drone pulls away from the stain and moves onto the shiny metal of the docking platform floor. There is no sound, the levitation disks under the flat, dome shaped body of the drone not caring what, if any, surface it travels over.

      The doors to the outside open as 5280 nears the defensive stand. 2213 orders it to move behind a support pylon on the far right, the safest place, even compared to the defensive stand. Once in position, the drone hears a click and whirr it hasn't heard in ages. The air circulation systems have been reactivated. The visitor must be expected to stay for quite some time. More than ever, 5280 wanted to finish cleaning.

      From outside, against the inky black sky, a small, rather triangular craft enters. A visitor, Delphi had said, and from the size of the small craft, there was perhaps one visitor, for that's all that would comfortably fit, especially on the long journey from wherever it came from to the Delphi. The security drone's weapons propped up over the defensive stand and horror came over the cleaning drone's mind. If they fire weapons, it may take decades to clean the burn marks off the wall. Of course, they could accidentally burn the stain in the carpet, ending the long struggle.

      For good or ill, the small shuttle stops, docking sideways against the edge of the platform, and opening a tall, gull wing type door on the side. A figure steps out, and waves briefly at its welcoming committee. "Put your hands into the air," 5280 finds itself saying, though it isn't saying it, Delphi is speaking through it.

      "Alright, alright," the figure says, raising his arms up.

      "Step forward slowly. Do not make any sudden movements or you will be killed." The figure obeyed, and out into the brighter light of the docking bay he stepped. Drone 5280 stared at the figure for a moment, for it was familiar. It most certainly was human, male, between 23 and 26 years old, he had a beard, short and scraggly, and longer hair the result of not being cut in many months. His clothes were in better shape, but did not appear to exactly fit him, or perhaps he preferred it that way. Beyond that, he looked quite normal, for a human. That was impossible. The drone began searching its own memory banks for the image file and found it was already being accessed. No, this wasn't the drone's memory banks, it was Delphi's. This man must have claimed something extraordinary to require Delphi to access such records. His very existence was extraordinary, of course, but there had to be something more. "Identify yourself."

      "I told you when I first arrived," he groaned.

      "Identify yourself or perish."

      "Fine. Professor Quentin A. Lazerus, Chief Designer, Delphi Project, serial number 11012."

      "That's impossible, Professor Lazerus died 70,000 years ago. Furthermore, the human race has been extinct for the last 50,000 years."

      The man claiming to be Quentin Lazerus chuckled. "Well now, that's a bit of a story."

---------

      The medical bay was perhaps fifth on the list of the largest rooms in the habitable section of Delphi, out paced only by the three "lounges" and the captain's cabin that sat right across the hall from it. For 5280, it was a mysterious room, almost unknown compared to the rest of the habitation section, for this section was beyond its boarders. It belonged to 9832 and 9833, the medical drones.

  

      Only two sections of the ship were cleaner than the medical bay, the central core, where Delphi's mind resided and the data storage cores, and both had been all but sealed at construction. The medical bay stayed clean for one reason and one reason alone: the medical drones had little else to do. There was no biologic crew to work on, so their prime function wasn't even an option, and the delicate tools they used couldn't be brought to bear on the hardier jobs, and the more delicate jobs involved the computer and data cores, and those required very specialized equipment, which couldn't be switched out.

      The drones could have been shut off, there wasn't any reason for them to be on at after all, but they refused. So they spent their time cleaning and sterilizing equipment. Well, at first anyway. As time passed, they began to want something more, and began to use Delphi's vast data banks to work on new drugs and techniques to use on future crew members. That too began to bore them, and so they branched out into the arts, painting, and writing mostly. Though 5280 never bothered to admire any of these works, it had heard from others that they were quite good, at least for drones. To 5280, the cleaning was the true art, but like everything else, it rarely admired it. Until today.

      Delphi had released it from avatar mode, but issued new orders: follow him and report anything that might indicate his true nature. So 5280 followed as Delphi insisted that the man claiming to be Professor Lazerus report to the medical bay for a full medical and genetic scanning.

      "You already ran a scan as soon as I stepped aboard," the man complained to the walls.

      "Of course," Delphi replied, using the internal communications system. "However, the fact remains that it is impossible for you to be Quinn, so I require further information." The man grumbled and looked about, as if looking for an eye to look into, but aside from the drone, which now hovered some distance behind observing, there was none.

      9832 and 9833 greeted them as they arrived at the medical bay and ushered the man calling himself Quinn into a chair surrounded by complex instruments and equipment. Drone 5280 took its time to examine, for the first time in centuries, the work of the medical duo. Every inch of the room was far cleaner than it had any right to be. The floor was uncarpeted, but the bare metal was not only spotless, but completely free of any possible containment. It was sterile, the state that 5280 so wished to achieve throughout the rest of the ship, but had been denied for the last 70,000 years.

      "This is only going to show that I am human and that my genetic markers match who I say I am because I am who I say I am."

      Delphi's voice boomed from the walls. It was its preferred method since it was activated 70 centuries before. When asked why by the United Human leader shortly before launch, it stated quite clearly that it was the ship and needed no avatar to convey its message. The drone's agreed, for most hated being the ship's voice, even for a short time, and 5280 was no exception. "No human has lived for 70,000 years."

      "Really, how long have they lived for?"

      "The oldest was a man named Derick Jameson, lived for 1,342 years, nearly a third of that in cryogenic stasis. He died shortly after being revived."

      The man smiled slightly. "You know of cryogenic stasis?"

      "Yes, however the system that was used on Mr. Jameson eventually proved deadly to all involved."

      "Could it be improved?"

       9832 quickly sent a message to its partner concerning the subject, and received a prompt reply, the contents of which 5280 neither read nor cared to read. "Perhaps," 9832 said, using the voice modulator it had been equipped with to aid in its bedside manner.

      "The issue is moot," Delphi quickly stated while scolding the drone for speaking out. "And if you are the real Quinn Lazerus, you know why."

      Another smile, this one broader than the first. "Of course, you can't produce any new equipment for the ship. It's written right into your central code."

      5280 immediately sent off a report. How could he know anything about the central code unless he had actually participated in its creation? Of course, Delphi had heard the message from the man's lips, but the drone did as it was told.

      "You are very well versed in my systems," the ship admitted. "The drones have noted a vast collection of books and manuals regarding my systems in your ship. I wish to know how you came across them."

      "I saved them, figured they'd come in handy."

      No reply from Delphi to the man called Quinn, but a rapid fire discussion lit out between 5280 and Delphi. The topic was simple preservation, could such documents, stored on the various media available at the time, especially the books, survive some 70,000 years? The drone thought about it for a moment, which in real time wasn't even a significant fraction of a second and replied that, yes, if properly stored, such items could survive and be of use. It went on to site dozens of examples of long term storage of documents written on much less viable materials, starting with clay tablets and ancient papyrus scrolls, only to have Delphi break the connection and return to the man. "So you say. A better question would be how you survived all this time. As I said, no human has lived anywhere near as long as you claim."

      "Well, that's actually an interesting story. See, it all started with this bus. . ." As the man claiming to be Quinn Lazerus, the human that not only designed but oversaw the construction of nearly every element of the Delphi from the drones to the Universal Drive, spoke, Delphi sent out a general report to every drone, getting them up to speed on the situation.

      9832 and 9833's report was quite concise, and the result still impossible. He was most certainly human, unless someone had developed a way to alter the genetic structure of an alien organism to a human one all the way down to the very cells of the brain. Added to that was that same structure was identical to that of Professor Quentin A. Lazerus. Also identical, minus the obvious ravages of time, was everything from simple finger prints and retinal patterns to the very capillaries of the face and bone latticing. Some of the wear and tear was expected, probably from injuries, but others were oddly identical, as if the cells themselves were reproducing in a way that kept the same shape and patterns no matter what. It would require further investigation, but did not discount the rest. In their opinion, this man was most certainly human, and most likely Quinn Lazerus himself, though how was still unknown.

      "And then I woke up in the hospital. I've been alive, and young, ever since."

      "So you were already nearly a thousand years old when I was launched?"

      The man nodded. "About that."

      "I see." Delphi sent a flash message to the rest of the ship and then sent it to the man. "The analysis is complete. I'm told that you are human, though how is unknown. Evidence also indicates that you may be Professor Lazerus. I cannot accept that at this time, but for the moment you will be referred to by that name as there is no other you've given us. As such, you will be given quarters and allowed to stay for as long as it takes to disprove your identity."

      "Innocent until proven guilty, eh?" Quinn replied. "Well, I guess that's better than getting thrown off."

---------

      "If I knew you were going to put me to work. . ." Quinn muttered as he handed drone 5280 another of the many, many documents he had stored in the shuttle.

      "As we cannot confirm your identity with any certainty, you will have to earn your stay aboard," Delphi replied, its voice echoed only slightly off the walls of the docking bay, most of the echo being canceled out long before it even got to the walls.

      "Yeah yeah, you're programmed to service human occupants during this universe cycle, I know."

      Another document was transferred from the shuttle to 5280's robotic arm. It quickly examined this one as the one before then handed it to 1123 to placed on a mobile cart along with the rest. The variety was quite incredible, nearly every form of documentation developed by the human race since the late 20^th century was represented, from simple magnetic floppy disks to high grade crystal storage devices. Most were in reasonable shape, though likely the bulk of the information in many of them had degraded over the tens of thousands of years since their creation. The most interesting, and obviously most well cared for, documents were those written on varying grades of simple paper, and they were also the most numerous. 5280 could not help but marvel at their state of preservation. They were perfectly readable, well, as readable as Professor Quinn's handwriting ever was, and in excellent shape. The best were those written on the high grade paper of the 31^st century, but even the very ancient wood pulp material from 1000 years before was in good shape.

      There was some question as to the actual age of each document, of course, and all would be given thorough tests in the near future. For the moment, though, 5280's spot analysis of each one would have to suffice. As it quickly scanned a few pages, it sent the images directly to Delphi for handwriting and information review. Most of it was beyond 5280's scope, technical details that the small cleaning drone had never needed, or in many cases wanted, access to. But some bits stood out, such as the rough sketch of the basic drone and the more impressive description of the ship's internal communication and data distribution system.

      "Still," Quinn continued to complain. "There are more than enough drones to clean out the ship. I should be relaxing, maybe taking in an actual human meal for a change. I got a hankerin' for an honest to goodness hamburger."

      "Unfortunately, the cow is also quite extinct," Delphi replied. "Though I suppose we could come up with an excellent substitute. . ." The ship's voice trailed off as if its attention was being drawn elsewhere. Purely the result of some careful planning in Delphi's communication programming, this action is just for communicating with human beings, to make them feel like Delphi is far more human than it may first appear.

      A general alarm shuddered through the communication network. Every drone went into emergency status, and most went to their stations. 5280 and 1123 put down the documents they had been moving, deployed the light particle laser every drone was equipped with and trained the weapons on Quinn.

      The human looked stunned when faced with the pair of weapons pointed right at him and gaped for a moment. "What the hell?"

      "Hands up dirtbag!" 1123 shouted. 5280 berated it for such a statement, which while not exactly inaccurate, he was quite filthy though had refused the suggestion of a bath, was wholly unnecessary.

      "Okay okay." He raised his hands up, cocked at the elbows. "Whatever you say. I just want to know what's going on." As he finished, 2212 and transport maintenance drone 8764 hovered toward them. 2212 carried a much large, more dangerous weapon and added it to the array growing around the human while 8764 dove into the shuttle. "Delphi?"

      "There are several ships on an intercept course with us. They are Graven warships. You wouldn't happen to know how they knew to come here, would you?"

      "Graven?" Quinn turned to the ship, a small Graven shuttle. "Yeah, about that. Um, the ship isn't exactly mine."

      "You stole it?" 5280 filed a report concerning the theft. It seemed out of character for the Quinn that it remembered. Not that the drone spent much time with Professor Lazerus, it had been more concerned with cleaning up the grease footprints and vacuuming up nails, bolts and tacks the workers left scattered about the inside of the ship.

      "Well I certainly wasn't planning on leading anyone here," Quinn tried to explain. A moment later, 8764 emerged from the shuttle with a small box with several wires splaying out of it. "Confirm that this is tracking device," it said quickly.

      Quinn actually appeared shaken, worried even that something was desperately wrong. The cleaning drone considered filing a report, but held off remembering that sometimes guilt may be mistaken for shock and fear. "Where the hell did that come from?"

      "Ship manufacturer," 8764 replied. "It was part of the original equipment." The report 8764 filed was filled with more details than 5280 would bother reading, but the gist of it was that the device was attached and constructed in such a way that in 8764's opinion, it was not added after construction, but during. Several of the maintenance drones, from 7932 to 8899 down in engine room concurred with the assessment.

      "It appears," Delphi said calmly. "That you have been vindicated, for now." The weapons were retracted, with 2212 lowering his last and moved off to a position from which he would have the best shot should the order come. 5280 retrieved the document it was examining before the alarm and slowly began funneling the dust and dirt off it, shunting some for later radiological dating, the rest into its pocket dumpster for disposal.

      "Well, that's good, I think."

      "Not exactly, the Graven warships are most likely locked onto our location and will reach us in less than 30 minutes. Since you stole the shuttle, I can only assume they wish to capture you and bring you to justice, and thus will not turn away merely because their tracking device is no longer functioning." Quinn sighed and ran his hand over his hair, slicking it back a bit in acknowledgement, but said nothing. "As I lack the speed to outrun them and the weapons to fight them off if they choose such an action, it may become imperative to my survival as of programming to turn you over to them."

      "You know what they'll do to me if they take me back, don't you?"

      "Affirmative." A flash report was issued from Delphi to the drones. At once 5280 could see what was so horrible about it: cleaning up all that blood would take days, and the stains would be very difficult to get out. 2212 told the cleaning drone to refrain from comment.

      "Which means, of course, that you can't do it."

      Delphi didn't reply. 5280 muttered again about the mess, but the greater problem had arisen that forced 2212 to file a readiness report which stated, quite simply, that they would be utterly destroyed in a battle with the Gravens. A suggestion from 2213 brought the ire of the medical drones as they pointed out that they had confirmed this man as human, and probably Quinn himself as well. If they left him to the Gravens, he would be killed and that would violate core programming. Delphi hushed all the drones. "Then what do you suggest we do?"

      "Well, let Oracle talk to them." There was a hush from every drone on the ship, even in the data stream. Nothing moved aside from the simple mechanical parts and the human calling himself Quinn. "What?"

      "Drone 0000 is no long functional," 1123 squeaked out.

      "She was destroyed when I was struck but an asteroid some 2000 years ago," Delphi finished for the drone. "As there was no need for an ambassador drone, I have not issued orders regarding a replacement."

      "Well, I suggest you issue those orders." A pointless suggestion for as soon as the moment of quiet had passed, Delphi issued the orders and received the estimates on construction of a new 0000, which was far longer than the 27 minutes before the Graven warships would arrive.

      "It will take too long and," Delphi seemed a bit choked up about the situation as well. "And I do not wish to replace 0000."

      Quinn looked almost as sad as Delphi and the rest of the drone sounded. "I understand. I wouldn't want to replace her either. It just wouldn't be the same." The report from 5280 followed this line of thought quickly. The cleaning drone wasn't the best at interpreting human reactions, but it did strike the drone as possible that the feelings in Quinn's voice were consistent with those that Professor Lazerus would have had over the destruction of the first drone he constructed. "Nonetheless," he continued. "We need a replacement, even a temporary one." His gaze suddenly rose up and laid itself on 5280. "Drone, what's your name?"

      The cleaning drone spat a burst message at him, which while very efficient for communication between drones, did little for human ears, and Delphi ordered that it reply at normal speed. "Unit 5280."

      "Not your designation, your name."

      There were few things that bothered 5280 more than stains and dirt, and one of them was its name. All drones were given actual names, mostly for easy identification when they reached their destination, and most were in line with the drone's profession. Drone 2212 was Ares, the Greek god of war, his lieutenant, 2213, was Athena, while the medical drones were known as Hermes and Mercury respectively and 7932 was known as Hephaestus.

      But for all the names that filled the mythology of Earth, from Hindu to Chinese, there really wasn't one that was fit for the head cleaning drone. So instead of looking harder or just not bothering with it, a random name was selected for 5280. "Persephone," the drone finally replied.

      "Persephone, that's a fine name." Quinn smiled. "A fine name for a captain of the Delphi."

---------

      "I do not think," drone 5280 said aloud, something it was unaccustomed to doing at all, and so did so mostly for practice. "That I am the proper selection for this job. Would not 0001 be better suited to it?" 0001, Odysseus, acted as the ship's navigator.

      "Relax," Delphi replied aloud also, mostly to help the nearly terrified, but most certainly irritated drone with its practice. "You'll do fine. If something comes up, I can take over for a bit."

      Persephone grunted, something that was very akin to dragging a roaring vacuum over the same bit of carpet one too many times, and that made the drone feel better. She then triggered a sequence that straightened various pins and collars on the holographic body.

      All drones were equipped with hologram generators. Though they had many tasks to perform, the all were meant to be ambassadors for the Delphi, and it was assumed that the drones would be in these forms for as long as people roamed the hallways of the ship. To keep up the illusion, a great swath of human reactions and movements had been programmed into the hologram files, from expressing complex emotions to simple, involuntary actions. While they were not in use, Delphi kept these files stored away. For the first time in 10,000 years, they were distributed once again to the drones.

      Many drones enjoyed the holographic images, and had great fun practicing being human again. Persephone disliked it greatly. For one thing, it lifted the drone's body into an inefficient position so cleaning was made much more difficult, and for another, it took energy and time away from 5280's normal work schedule. In fact, being human slowed the drone down so much that it normal gave up on it and returned to normal status when doing just about everything.

      Now, however, the situation had changed and not only would 5280 be forced to return to holographic form, but would have to remain that way probably for the duration of the crisis, if not longer, and be completely unable to clean anything for hours on end. All this was capped by the fact that the simple clothing the drone had chose to put on her original holographic form had to be replaced with that of a well decorated United Human ship captain.

      "Graven ships are now within communications range," 0004, Lynceus, reported. It wasn't strictly necessary that the drone make a verbal report, Delphi had done it well enough via standard information broadcasts to all the drones, but Lynceus was practicing as much as anyone else.

      "Wonderful," 5280 replied as she moved from the mirrored consol and back to the captains chair at the center of the bridge. The sensor display appeared in a spherical bubble just in front of her, highlighting the relative positions of the Delphi and the approaching Graven ships. The cleaning drone shook her head again and sat down to wait, as per Delphi's orders. The Graven's would make first contact, with luck, they might just give up. 0003, Legba, announced the hail, and Persephone replied with the order to put it on screen. Now the game would begin.

My Stuff

Before I get into posting a lot of my fiction, well more of it than I have, I think I need to give you guys some idea what to expect.

Which is a lot of incomplete work.  Seriously, Dreams of Stars is one of the few pieces I've actually completed, and that took a LONG time to do.  Most of my story ideas usually don't get even a fraction as far as that.  The reasons are many, but mostly because OOoo Shiny!

That said, there are a lot that is written, just not finished.  Most of it is opening stuff, the start, which is part of the problem in writing my stories as I think of the beginning and the end, not the middle so much.  That's why I stall out, the enormity of some of these project is, well, enormous.  Some stories are so big that the very prospect is terrifying (Dreams of Stars tops out at about 105 Word pages, many of the others should take even longer).

I also have a tendency to keep going with the story long after it should stop, so the goal posts keep getting further away, and I give up on it in despair.  I'm surprised I managed to lock down Dreams of Stars so well.

I will say this though:  Don't expect any poetry.  I have a little, from when I took a Creative Writing course (I went for the prose, they made me do poetry), but nothing worth sharing.  Little of what I wrote in that course will be posted, but some will.

Do expect a whole lot of ideas that didn't actually get made into stories.  These are like Brainstorming articles, only MORE, a lot more in some cases.  Mostly it's just ideas, trying to get my head around concepts and worlds to play in, some of them are more involved.

There will be some fan fiction, but not much really.  Most of my fan fiction is for Freespace, and it's mostly not very good.  That said, it did help me learn HOW to write, so I might post a little of it, just to poke fun at myself.

And I'll be talking a lot about the different stuff.  Why I chose certain things, the origins of different ideas, and my own journey through creative writing and such.  Nothing super exciting, but if you want to know more, it'll be here.

One of the three, either a story bit, an idea bit, or me talking about one or the other.  I'll try to keep them interesting, and alternating as much as I can.  I don't guarantee every week, the webcomic stuff will generally take priority (assuming I'm not too tired or bugged by something).

In any case, I hope you enjoy them.  Until next time kiddies.

Post Dreams of Stars: Sequels and Spinoffs

As I said before, Dreams of Stars was meant to be an origin story for Deborah, but I quickly found that writing new stories for her was, um, basically impossible.  The root of the problem was her nature: she was just TOO damn powerful.  There was never any danger for her, any drama.  The only way to tell any story with her was to reduce her power in some way.

Dreams of Stars was the easiest, because it was set BEFORE she was fully powered, and I found ways to limit L'lorne and Ritch 'arrd in the process.  After that, things got hairy.  One story had Deborah deliberately cutting herself off from her power and most of her memories, but really that was just interesting for moments, nothing more.  Any other story could easily swap out any member of the Order with Deborah and have the story work exactly the same, so there was nothing unique there.

I did come up with a sequel to Dreams of Stars, however, a direct one even.  Hawk Wings is the current title and it is not the same story as Dreams of Stars, at all.  So much so I suspect that if you really enjoyed Dreams of Stars as a story, Hawk Wings would probably be a disappointment.  Still, it's goal is very clear:  wrap up Deborah's life on Earth before moving on.  It fills in some holes, solves some mysteries and helps better define her relationship with L'lorne.  When I get to writing it is another story.

Of course, I never really viewed Dreams of Stars as a pure standalone story, it was meant to be grouped with two others.  The first is What We Leave Behind, Roxanne's story.  My problems with this story are many fold, but primarily attempting to fit the description of it that L'lorne and Ritch 'arrd each give, as it is meant to be a love story in a sense.  It is far more actiony than Dreams is, by a lot (Roxanne fights off aliens invading her version of Earth), but it also needs to be more subtile and emotional than Dreams.  Roxanne is NOT the same level as L'lorne in this story, as it is merely the first chapter of the the much larger in-universe book that is What We Leave Behind (the version I write is the "short-short" version).  I have found some ways to make it work rather recently, so I hope to be writing it soon.

The other is currently called Unconditional, and takes place far into the future.  Deborah is actually in this story, but isn't the main character, though she does play an important role, a mentor/parental figure to young Maia, who was born into the Order.  Maia describes herself as having "the body of an 8 year old, the mind of a 30 year old and the powers of a god" but she isn't happy, at all.  The story is how such a person finds how to grow up and be happy.  It is actually more like Hawk Wings than anything else, but not quite.

Then, of course, is the larger collection of stories about members of the Order, of which currently there's only one complete, and I'll post that in the coming weeks.  There are other ideas for stories, including ones that originally featured Deborah but really don't need her, stories about the philosophy and power of being part of the Order and other things like that.  World building stuff.  Don't expect to see much of that any time soon, it was hard enough getting Dreams of Stars out the door.

Finally there's the larger meta-universe in which the Order, Deborah and everything else takes place, the story of Quinn and Delphi and the grander journey they're both on.  It's all about the nature of immortality, multiple universes, alternate realities and how it effects the one person that has to suffer it alone.  Quinn's story is something that I can't really write as it is, effectively, a string of self-insert fanfictions (Quinn is a replacement for me) that takes place over a portion of time that makes Deborah's insanely long lifetime look short by comparison (seriously, her lifespan covers 1/12th of Quinn's).

But we'll get to some of those stories in the future.  Next time, I'll have something up in the story part, I've got enough bits and pieces to do it pretty regularly.  In the meantime, I need to get back to writing webcomic stuff.  Until next time kiddies and thanks for reading.

Post Dreams of Stars: The Writing Process

Dreams of Stars has been in the works for a LONG time now.  Well over a decade, perhaps more, which probably makes it seem like I'm a lazy writer or something.  Well I am to the point that sitting down and writing (even this thing) is something I really have to force myself to do, and be in the mood for.  It also helps if I have a computer with a terrible net connection, I get a lot of work done then.

That means, though, that the early parts of the story came LONG before the later ones.  Much of my work in editing it to the condition it is now is to bring one half of the story up to speed with the other half.  I think I've done a pretty good job of it so far, but there are things I do want to get back to.

For example, at the end of nearly every post I put here, I asked the question:   Does the setting seem fitting? Would you like to know more?  The reason for that question (pair of questions) is that I have issues with settings, and back when I started the story, it was even worse than it is now.  But I wanted the story to go through, so I made the decision to forgo writing details into the setting and leave it as, well, generic and empty as I could so I could focus on the action.  As the story went on, you do see more setting details fill in, but often it's very brief or not very detailed.  I could argue that its a stylistic choice, of course, as for L'lorn and Ritch 'arrd, the world around them really didn't matter and was unimportant, but mostly it was because I didn't want to get bogged down.

The result is the fact that there are no names for places.  The capitol is just that, and nothing more.  Hell, I don't even have a name for the city where Deborah, the character the entire story was built to support, was even born or lived.  There's no background and outside of a few references to places that might exist, for all practical purposes, the story could be anywhere.

The only real hints as to where is the clues to where L'lorne is from (the answer is Cahokia, BTW), and the fact that it's "out west" from where Deborah lives, but close enough to appear on a TV weather map.  It could be anywhere along the east coast of the United States, if there is a United States.  Eventually I did work up a quick alternate history for Deborah's world, but I have yet to decide whether or not to include it in the story, and if so, how.

As the writing went on, scenes developed almost independent of the plot.  The scene at the farm, the ghost, the CDPC (I love that name, BTW), all were built in my mind long before they went on paper and grew up as the scene went on.  There's several scenes that had to be rewritten from the ground up because they just weren't very good (including the last scene between Deborah and Delphi).  The fact that the story flows so well, thanks in no small part to the flashbacks to L'lorne's past, is amazing to me.

And I had fun writing many scenes.  The invention of Bar Theory, which starts the story, was a fun exercise (I was mostly thinking of Lord of the Rings there, BTW), but more fun was including little things L'lorne does long before the reader is told outright that she has amazing powers.  Her first act in the story is not freezing the poor drunk in place, for example, but looking through the floor of the bar and noting there was no basement.  The whole nature of L'lorne's power was gradually ramped up as the story went along, so that when the final description of it came through, it wasn't exactly a surprise, but still shocking how much more powerful she really was.

I also built mysteries into the story.  Who is Deborah's father is a good example that I don't even approach in this story (see next week for more on that).  Also who and what Quinn and Delphi are isn't really given more than a brief moment of conversation (again, next week).  The big mystery though, and one that really only stands out for me because even I don't know the answer is why did Ritch 'arrd die?

L'lorne is clear that they can only die when they want to, and it's pretty obvious a little pinprick like what the axe caused wasn't likely going to kill him, yet he died anyway.  I leave this as a mystery because I'm not quite sure of the answer, and in-universe it is just as much a mystery to those who are far more powerful and knowledgeable than me.  Only Deborah in her advanced years might know why, and she never says.

I took my time to write this, too much time perhaps, but even in it's current form, which still has several small edits to make (I want to switch a scene and a flashback during the deaths of the mothers), I am happy with it.  Will I write more?  Well, let me talk to you about that next week.

Until then kiddies.

Post-Dreams of Stars: Back to the Point

Back in May I brought up, briefly, the original point of my story Dreams of Stars, but there was always more to the story than that.  The grand quote at the beginning of that article was the original point, but not the sole point and in the end, not really the point of the story at all.

As I said,  the idea was to define the bounds of power, extreme power, power beyond what most people can possibly imagine, including me.  And it all began because of the forums for a site called Spacebattles, where they love to debate various fictitious elements fighting each other.  There's also a tradition of one-ups-man-ship, and people tend to add their own fictional creations to the pile in an attempt to outdo everyone else.  I decided I wanted to join the fray and started designing a character that was unbelieveably powerful, one that wouldn't even need to fight to win, but couldn't be beaten, ever.  Then I gave up on introducing it to the board because I realized it would be outdone by someone else.  Still, I went forward with the character and gave it a name:  Deborah Ignigus.

Which means, effectively, that Dreams of Stars is actually an origin story for that one character, but it was also meant to set up a baseline in which Deborah's full power could be established.  The problem is that as the story went on, I started thinking about what adventures Deborah would go on in the future and ran into a stumbling block:

She was too powerful.  Even if she was only at the same level as L'lorne (and she's much more powerful at her peak), what could stop her?  The only thing keeping L'lorne in check is the fact that everything else didn't work, but for Deborah, that wouldn't be an issue.  She basically could NOT lose, making any story featuring her kind of dull, with no mystery, no suspense, no danger.  Mary Sues face greater dangers than what Deborah would have faced.

So the point of the story was to establish a character with an origin story, a character I couldn't really do anything with without making some serious compromises and even then, it wouldn't work.  By the time the story was finished the point of it was, well, gone.

With the original point gone, what is the point of the story now?  I don't know.  I know what I originally intended, but it's not there much any more.  It's just a story, a story that really has no point other than simply being something I wrote.

Even without a point, I'm still glad I could finish it and share it with those of you who read it.  Next Wednesday I'll have more to say about Dreams of Stars, and the Wednesday after that, but in the future, I think I'll post some more of my writings.  Very little is as complete as Dreams of Stars, so expect half finished pieces, or fits and starts.

Next week, back to webcomics.  See you then kiddies.

Dreams of Stars Part 36

This is the end.  It'll run a bit long, but that's alright.  I'll have a few questions here, but I'll talk about it more on Friday.  Enjoy.

      The last week of accelerated time had been spent maneuvering into and within the pool itself. L’lorne frequently forced Ritch ‘arrd into the pool for short clashes then back out again, testing to see how much and how far he would follow her, and he had done the same. There was no more adjusting the way time flowed around them, they were moving at the same speed now and it was slowly becoming apparent that they were evenly matched.

      He could break the stalemate, one flinch and a release of power that would shatter the planet underneath them, cause gravitational tides that would scatter the planets and sun to the galactic void and crease then tear space and time itself. L’lorne wasn’t going to do it, she had decided that long ago now, she didn’t think she could win such a match anyway. Only Ritch ‘arrd could bring this fight to a final violent conclusion.

      Then Deborah had jumped.

      Perhaps he had expected that all along, and had been waiting for it. Now each knew the fight would break down to who could be placed under the falling girl first. Then what? The fight would end, that’s what L’lorne figured. What kind of ending would it be? Fractions of a second passed for Deborah, while L’lorne had days to think on it. There wasn’t a lot of time for thinking, though, between rounds of strike, parry and counterstrike. There was so much effort needed to focus on the moment, the battle, that it left little time for anything else. So what time L’lorne spent thinking on the next step was focused on the worst case scenario: that she would lose.

      She should have lost already, actually. Ritch ‘arrd was older, by far, and age meant experience and skill. Power, power didn’t matter, it never mattered, it was only how one used it that mattered, and he was much better at using it than she. She had gambits, methods she could use to win, of course, and plans on top of plans. Deborah had been her last plan, the one that could win this for her. Once she had abandoned it, however, the options of victory had been greatly reduced, to the point that only way out was to fight him, and lose. She would lose, she would die, and she only hoped that in her death, Ritch ‘arrd would know the pain of loss that she felt. That was the only revenge she had left.

      In their accelerated time frame, they had 10 hours left. In 10 hours, Deborah would fall far enough to make contact with anyone standing under her. The glasses, sensing the time dilation field, would grab it, drag it around Deborah’s body and she would join them in the time frame. Then the fight would end.

      The intensity of the battle between student and teacher had cooled considerably as the hours counted down. L’lorne felt more relaxed the last day of fighting than as far back as she cared to remember. A strange calm of knowing the dice had been thrown and fate had been decided had come over her. So odd considering she spent the majority of her life directing those dice to come out exactly how she wanted them. To have chance and fate actually working again had a calming influence, and though he never said it, Ritch ‘arrd must have felt it too.

      Weapons clashed in the pool, where they now spent the majority of their time. She held the axe tight against his light blade, the handle of the axe near the head pinning the blade. They held this for several minutes, a relatively short amount of time, each staring at the other. She looked into his eyes, remembering, briefly, how she had once marveled at them. Did he see the same thing in hers? They had time left, of course, they’d do this again at least once, but still, it could be the last time they ever did it.

      Had he ever really loved her?

      L’lorne shoved hard, forcing Ritch ‘arrd back. She pushed the thought of love out of her mind and swept the axe in front of her, forcing his counter strike to be aborted and him to pull to the left. Twisting around with the sweep, she spun the axe up and back down in a driving slash, the impact of which on the pool side wouldn’t be felt for another hour or so. Ritch ‘arrd dodged back to the right and as she brought the axe back up, he attempted a lunge at her midsection.

      Instead of attempting to pull the axe into to block, she dropped the head back down and vaulted over it, completely avoiding the lunge. She landed, the axe now held in attack position and did her own stabbing lunge at the slightly off balance Ritch ‘arrd. As it shot forward, L’lorne squeezed the handle just right, releasing the small, sharp blade from the very head of the axe, and pointing at Ritch ‘arrd’s chest. He recovered quickly enough to slap the axe away, and quickly rolled away and right underneath Deborah.

L’lorne smiled, the entire sequence worked better than she planned. Sadly, she’d have to work up another one in the next 10 hours to win. Still, the experiment worked well, and she fully expected Ritch ‘arrd to perform a similar one on her before time was up.

      Ritch ‘arrd for his part gave no sign of frustration at the fact that he had been placed into position relatively easily. Nor was there any sign that he was pleased his student had managed such a sequence of moves, something that L’lorne had been used to until this fight had begun. They had each stopped moving and studied the other for only a moment before he moved into an attack position, bending down low to avoid hitting the girl.

      Deborah twitched. That was impossible, and L’lorne only barely recognized it when it happened. That twitch almost instantly turned into full fledged movement and Deborah’s scream began to echo as she crashed down around Ritch ‘arrd’s head. Her arms wrapped tightly around him, pulling him off balance and causing him to throw his weapon to the ground where it deactivated. With a twist, he pulled Deborah’s arms from around him and tossed her across the pool. She hit with a grunt, the glasses flying off at the same time.

L’lorne thrust forward. She didn’t think about it, she didn’t process what had happened, only taken advantage of it. The sharp spike the projected from the head of the axe moved fast and true. Ritch ‘arrd had only just begun to turn as it hit him square in the gut.

---------

      There was an explosion of sound as all three returned to normal time flow. Explosions, only partially created just moments earlier, now erupted, debris falling to the ground with cracking thuds. Then there was silence.

      L’lorne still held the axe, its tip now embedded in Ritch ‘arrd’s gut. Once the sound was gone and stillness came over the room, she pulled back quickly and returned to a combat position.

      Ritch ‘arrd quickly pushed his hand onto the wound, causing some greenish blood to seep out through his fingers. “Well done,” he said with a cough. “You won.”

      All of his defenses dropped away and L’lorne instantly got a full scan of the man. It hadn’t been on purpose, and the surprise that it happened at all had only a moment to register before another surprise made itself clear. “What are you doing?” she asked more curious than anything else. It couldn’t be, it had to be a trap.

      Deborah was slowly getting back on her feet. She rubbed at the back of her shoulder and moaned slightly. “Sorry about that, I wasn’t expecting you until later,” Ritch ‘arrd said to her, coughing again. He tipped slightly to one side before pulling himself back up, but only to stand stooped over.

      Deborah snapped her head up and looked at him. “Wha?

      “Ritch ‘arrd,” L’lorne repeated. “What are you doing?”

      He didn’t respond to her, but grasped at his chest with his free hand, held it there, and then began walking towards her. His walk was slow, almost a touch meandering, the blood from his wound was now dripping on the pool floor, leaving green specks on the blue sealant. L’lorne folded up the axe and quickly slipped it back into its pouch as he came nearer, he wasn’t planning a fight, but why this? Why now? “Ritch ‘arrd.”

      He smiled, then stumbled a bit. L’lorne reached out to catch him, but he caught himself quickly. His free hand then shot out and clasped across hers. She knew what it was before she even felt it.

      “It’s all yours, L’lorne.”

      He fell to the floor. Deborah, now more or less out of her daze, rushed over and bent over him. “We need to get him to a doctor,” she started saying as she looked over the body. Her hands paused over him, hovering, undecided on the next course of action.

      “He’s dead,” L’lorne said simply. Her fingers worked over the object in her hands, a twisted, pretzel shaped circle of an alien metal, the symbol of the Ritch ‘arrd.

      “No no no,” Deborah said quickly. “Help me and we’ll. . .”

      “We choose when we die,” L’lorne said. “That’s the only way we can.” L’lorne reached to her chest and pulled off the pendant of the Tar 'nisl, pulling the string that held it around her neck through her neck as if it wasn’t there at all and held the two pendants in one hand together. She bent down and rolled him over, then carefully placed both on his chest, covering them with one of his hands. “Keep them,” she said.

Deborah said nothing as L’lorne stood back up and looked around the room. “We should go now,” L’lorne said.

      “Go?”

      L’lorne nodded, looking away from both the girl and the body. Debris started floating up around the room and moving in a carefully choreographed dance towards each other. She dug deep, her energies weakened from the extended battle, but she had more than enough to reverse the entropy in the room. “Someone will be here soon to check on him,” she continued. “I’ll have the room fixed up by then, but we really shouldn’t be here when that happens.”

      “But what about him?” As she spoke, L’lorne took a moment to grasp the body with her power. The blood, tinted green by the copper that transported oxygen, faded into red as she disassembled the copper atoms and rebuilt them as iron. Organs, mutated, and unrecognizable to human eyes reshaped and reformed, their natures redefined in terms of human anatomy. The wound was healed, and the newly forming lungs were being filled with water.

      “Minister Donalds drowned. His foot got caught in the vegetation of the pool, and he was unable to get free.” As she spoke, plants began to re-grow along the pool floor and up the walls. Above, a cloud had begun to grow larger, darker and more threatening. L’lorne glanced over to the far wall of the pool and a set of steps rose out of the floor so they could easily climb out. “The pool is going to fill soon, don’t want to be here when it does.”

      L’lorne moved up the steps, leaving Deborah behind over the body of the man she once loved. Most of what made him, though, was gone. The human shell had merged seamlessly into the newly developed human innards and that green blooded man she knew was truly gone now, his people truly extinct. Halfway up the steps she heard the tinkling of metal, first against each other, then against the side of a cloth pocket. Deborah stamped along the ground toward her after that. She considered asking the girl why she had done that, but realized even she might not know exactly why. Maybe L’lorne would ask some other day.

      The diving board had reassembled. There was a rumble of thunder and rain began deluging into the pool, filling it rapidly. The plants and algae that had begun re-growing found a burst of growth as the water filled in the pool, and one plant grasped out the man’s leg and wrapped around it just so.

      As L’lorne and Deborah exited the building, the last sign of any conflict, the cracked glass of the door, healed itself over and it was as they had found it an hour earlier, with one lone exception.

--------- 

      The glow of the capital hung just behind a small rise several miles away. A thin, and not particularly chilly wind rustled along the grass of the hilly rise and through their hair and clothing. Lcorn L’lorne and Deborah Ignigus laid out on the grass, their gaze fixed on the stars. Most were hard to make out, the red glow of the city overpowering the weak light, but the hill helped shield most of light from the city and let enough starlight through to see the major groupings.

      L’lorne’s hand reached up for a moment. She held it there for a bit, as if the hand itself were rethinking its decision to rise in the first place, and then she pulled it back down and swept it up behind her head with her other hand.

      “So,” Deborah said after a long silence. “What happens now?”

      L’lorne pursed her lips in thought. “I don’t know,” she said honestly. “I never exactly planned this far ahead.”

      “Oh.” More silence. Deborah shifted along the ground, moving the now much heavier pocket on her side so that it didn’t lay directly on her. A slight clinking noise came as she moved it, causing L’lorne to look over to her for a moment.

      She turned back to the stars and stared at them again. “It’s been a long time since I’ve done this.”

“I imagine.”

      Chirping insects echoed around them. Not too far in the distance was the sound of cars passing by on a highway, though they were getting fewer and fewer as the night grew older. “Are you going to go home?

      “Don’t exactly have one to go to.”

      "You could come with me, I suppose.”

      Deborah didn’t move. “I’m not going to be your daughter.”

      L’lorne’s eyebrows went up in surprise. She smiled. “That’s fair enough.”

      A few stray clouds floated over them, partially blocking the already dim stars. There was no moon, and so the only weak starlight and the glow of the city was available to see the cloud. “Could you really have saved my mama?”

      “Yes,” L’lorne said without hesitation. “I still could, if you want.”

      The girl sat up. “What?”

      “Bringing the dead back to life isn’t as hard as it might seem at first, I could even show you how to do it.”

      Deborah stared through the dark gloom at L’lorne for a bit, her breath increased to match the faster beating heart. Then she closed her eyes and laid back down. “I don’t know.” More silence as she calmed down from the initial surprise. “Would she even want to come back? Could I go back?” She trailed off in thought, leaving them with the silence of chirping bugs and rustling wind.

      L’lorne said nothing, let the girl think for a while. Finally she spoke again. “Well, if it’s that hard of a decision, we could go ask her?”

      Deborah shook her head. “Delphi said she moved on.”

      “Doesn’t mean we can’t still go ask her.”

      Deborah was still looking up at the stars, though even through her open, staring eyes, a racing mind was at work. “It would be that simple, eh?”

      “Simple as breathing,” L’lorne said.

      “Let me think about it.”

      L’lorne nodded. “Take your time, we’ve got all the time you could ever need.”

THE END

---------

Questions

1. What kind of person is Lcorn L'lorne? What does she look like (in your mind)?
2. What kind of person is the Deborah Ignigus? What does she look like (in your mind)?
3. What kind of person is The Ritch 'arrd? What does his human form look like (in your mind)?
4. Does the setting seem fitting? Would you like to know more?

5. What do you think the future holds for them?

Thank you for reading.  Friday, I'll have a bit more to say.  Until then kiddies.

Dreams of Stars Part 35

      Deborah shivered as she finally got up on top of the platform. A new family? Was she really that desperate? No, she wasn’t, at least she hoped not. In either case, she was still stuck without a clear answer to the problem. She pulled the glasses from her pocket and cradled them in her hands. The answer, it would seem, would have to come through another means.

      The actual diving board had been sheared off earlier, leaving the platform and a couple holes behind for the bolts that were also gone. There was no sign of the board either down in the pool or elsewhere. The pool looked strange now, and it took a moment for Deborah to realize why. Before, when she had first come in, it was not only full, but green and full of plant life. Now, though, it was completely empty, the few remaining plants had been cooked brown or black and the sealant material that was blue, but severely pitted and torn by the fight now raging.

      Deborah put inched toward the edge of the platform and looked down. Explosions were occurring everywhere, rattling through the building in an almost continuous rumble of thunder. Up now on her feet, but still crouching low, almost uncomfortably so, she put the glasses on and looked again. Now she could see L’lorne and Ritch ‘arrd in their static poses of combat. With a sigh, Deborah began to let her eyes follow the action on their own.

      The flashes rumbled across the floor, but Deborah held her head steady, trying not to follow the action with anything more than her eyes. She could only see them in glimpses as her eyes quickly moved to the next flash, but she could see their faces. L’lorne didn’t seem angry, but she was intense, in poses where her weapon was being swung, she seemed to be yelling. Ritch ‘arrd was almost calm, but stern, scrunching his face only when forced to hold back a blow as if it were a heavy weight.

      Back and forth across the floor they went, down into the pool, up onto the remains of the blocks Ritch ‘arrd had, long ago it seemed now, lifted out of the ground for cover. They barely looked like blocks anymore, just piles of sand that seemed to explode randomly. They weren’t randomly placed either, now that Deborah could see them from above, they were rather regular, almost looking like the pieces on a chessboard, though not quite.

      Actually, the whole thing looked like a game of chess in a weird way, and as Deborah thought about it, she realized she was looking at it very much like she did when she was playing. Like that day in the park with L’lorne, as she stared at the board, trying to figure out the next move and then suddenly knowing it and all the subsequent ones. All back to that again, chess in the park. What if she hadn’t done that? Hadn’t chased L’lorne through the city, what if she had simply never met L’lorne at all?

      Would she have been beaten up by that drunk in the ally? Maybe, hard to say. Definitely she would have gone for help, probably dragged to some orphanage or foster home somewhere. Dropped into the system just as Ritch ‘arrd said he had originally planned. A foster family would probably have followed, a relatively well to do one, and a higher class of education would come out of it. Her own aptitude for chess would probably come out soon after and off to schooling for that.

      Mr. Davis, the man who taught her chess in between sessions with her mom, often talked of tournaments for chess players, though never if he had ever participated. After a spell learning chess specifically, she could see herself at such a tournament, probably stunning the crowd with her almost unnatural talent. Would she see Mr. Davis at one such tournament? Would he even recognize her? Probably better if not, but even so, it’s unlikely either would say anything. A championship or two later she would likely be introduced to the Minister of Education, Malcolm Donalds. From there. . .

      Deborah grunted in frustration. Why was she still going over all this in her mind? She should focus on the now, not on what might be, what could be, and what might have been. In mere minutes none of that could matter, the world would be gone in a flash. Even as her mind had wandered, her eyes had not, and suddenly every muscle in her body tensed. She felt it and her heartbeat shot up in anticipation.

      Deborah jumped off the high dive platform.

      A split second later the surprise of having jumped hit her and she nearly screamed. Her arms shot out from her sides and she charged the ground at the speed of gravity. The wind of the fall blasted past her face, the ground shot up near her and all she could think of was if this was the end.

      Suddenly, it was all gone. The fast moving wind was replaced by a slight breeze, chilly but not terribly so. The oncoming floor of the pool was replaced by a view of clouds off into the distance. What was out there? As if on command, the clouds parted revealing a vast field far, far below. She turned around and looked up. A mountain, huge, dominate and vanishing into the clouds above her stood looking back. It seemed to go on into infinity, disappearing only as the cloud density grew tighter.

      She turned back to the field and looked out. From here, she could just see specs moving against the green hills. People, she supposed, going about their daily lives. How did she get here? What was this? Then she heard a voice from behind her. It was young, but old, oh so very old. She could hear his age in it, and knew, without knowing why, that she understood that age better than anyone else had ever understood it. She felt old now, so very, very old, older than she could ever imagine. Worse yet, she could feel that however old she felt, he was far, far older. Despite that feeling, it was the words that shook her most.

      “Are you going to jump?” Quinn asked.

      She turned to reply, but before she saw him, the mountain was gone and she was falling again. She knew to start closing her arms, and did so, but something else caught her attention. It vibrated beneath her, back and forth, and she stretched out for it with something she had never felt before. Catching it, she pulled it close and knew this was the answer she was looking for.

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Questions

Not this time.  Let's leave it for the finale.

Dreams of Stars Part 34

Long section, and a bit different.

       L’lorne didn’t notice Deborah until a mutually agreed break had started. Fighting for two weeks straight was a difficult slog and made for a rather boring fight on the whole. An agreement for a pause in the action was done silently, through the movements of the eye and position of the bodies. L’lorne estimated that she had three days before the fighting would begin again and was planning what to do when she saw that Deborah had reentered the room.

      She was maybe three steps in, which meant L’lorne had missed her entrance by a couple of days, and the door was just reaching the point of closing. Why was the girl in there again? Throwing her out had been, at best, a temporary move. It moved her out of the line of direct fire, but meant little in the long run. The plan had called for her to stay, but the plan had long ago been scrapped, and L’lorne had to wonder as to what Deborah was planning to do. Not that it mattered. The only change in L’lorne’s strategy for now would be to avoid Deborah as much as possible. She may die, but L’lorne wasn’t going to be responsible for it.

      It was warm in the natatorium, warm and sticky with humidity. So warm Deborah considered taking her coat off, but with the air around her swirling and explosions of tile rippling along the floors and walls, she was afraid of it being caught in a gust of wind and torn apart. No, she wasn’t going to let her mother’s old coat get destroyed, not now. It was all she had left of her besides the picture and the memory. Everything else had been traded for food, shelter and protection on the streets, and she wasn’t about to lose all this now.

      Though what she was doing exactly she wasn’t sure. She needed a place that was relatively safe for her to watch the battle. There weren’t many places like that left. The blocks were nearly all gone, the doorways to the showers were shattered and looked ready to topple over, and the furniture she had sat on only a few minutes ago was a pile of burnt dust. The only thing left standing was a high diving board over the deep end of the now empty pool. It looked alright, stable and intact even. Well, at the very least, she would get a hell of a view.

      Why hadn’t he said anything? L’lorne ran a combo strike, trying to catch Ritch ‘arrd with the axe head, but missed during the three attempts to connect. Normally having an attack like that, he would have commented on it, telling her how to do it better or why she had messed up, but this time he said nothing. He hadn’t said anything since the fight proper had begun, and it was starting to get a bit unnerving. It was probably part of his strategy to throw her off, and it was working. With a yell she swung up the axe and pulled it down hard into the ground, ripping a crevasse into the ground that would have kept growing if she were still moving at normal speed.

      It was what made using her time dilation effects so awkward. Momentum was a constant, but as soon as it left the time field immediately around her, it would settle into the natural time line of the universe. Explosions of concrete from the walls wouldn’t exist for hours in her time, making the effect of a massive strike seem pitiful. At least Deborah was getting a bit of a show.

      The sudden rip of concrete in the ground barely startled Deborah any more. The explosions of the walls were so common and typical now she could almost tune them out. Almost. The best she could do in the face of them was to focus on other things. Which was really better? L’lorne was a confessed mass murderer, had killed dozens even in the time she had known her, and had lied about all of it up until Deborah learned the truth. She also seemed to rather enjoy the act of killing, like it was a hobby of some sort. Killing for the sake of killing and a little bit of fun as well. It made her shiver to think that she had followed her for hundreds of miles.

      Not that Ritch ‘arrd was much better. He killed his own child, and indirectly her mother, and for what exactly? Because the child was too weak and humanity was too stupid? On top of that he taught L’lorne everything she knew, taught her how to murder a planet in cold blood. To him, it was all a game, and even now, as she stumbles through the explosions and chaos, he was still playing a game, treating her like another pawn. Another explosion rattled, but she was already turning toward it, half expecting it. A rather large piece of debris was heading her way, she would only have enough time to lift her arm and hope for the best.

      Their weapons were locked together and they held their ground. There was no grunting or grinding of teeth, but there was still that firm glare each held. They had been at this one for three days now, though that was rather short. Often, the only way these broke up was with an underhanded strike, to the crotch or a headbutt of some kind. Ritch ‘arrd’s eyes blinked over, looking over L’lorne’s shoulder and he raised his eyebrows. L’lorne ignored it, figuring it was just another attempt to throw off her concentration. Still, Deborah was behind her, and if he saw something interesting, then she would need to see it soon. Another day or so, however wouldn’t matter.

      Later the next day, they had switched sides, and now L’lorne could see what Ritch ‘arrd had raised an eyebrow at. A piece of concrete, about the size of a fist, was flying toward Deborah. The girl was just reaching up, probably having just noticed it, but there was not time to dodge. If it hit, she would be seriously hurt, she might even die, her skull crushed. L’lorne let herself fall backwards, then flipped Ritch ‘arrd over her then reset for another stalemate. The next morning, they had moved next to Deborah, and L’lorne managed to push Ritch ‘arrd away, then she reached out with the head of the axe and knocked the offending piece of artificial stone straight into the ground. Then she charged at Ritch ‘arrd.

      And suddenly it was gone, smashed into the floor with such force that it created a crater and spit out pieces of tile and concrete that flecked off Deborah’s coat. She looked at it for a moment, then turned back toward the diving board. One of them had saved her, or perhaps it was both of them. Which one? Ritch ‘arrd seemed most likely. Despite what he had done to her mother, he had made an effort, an apparently honest one, to apologize for it. He didn’t need to, he could have been like L’lorne and shrugged his shoulders at it, but he apologized. Deborah didn’t know for sure if he had ever done something like that before, but what he had seen of him indicated he wasn’t a straight up murderer. He even admitted to being against the policies of his own people, ones that would have mutated everyone on the planet into something resembling what her mother looked like. On top of that, she was his game piece, and if he wanted to win, he couldn’t just have the pawn sacrificed in such a non-productive way.

      That felt cold, cold and calculating, just like L’lorne had been. Had been, she wasn’t that way anymore. Could the knowledge of her child’s death have changed L’lorne for the better? It wasn’t impossible, Deborah had managed to get her to free the diner and its prisoners, so L’lorne could do good things. She also had thrown Deborah out of the room right before the real fight had begun, and why? To, in some way, protect her, that was all Deborah could figure. Delphi had said L’lorne might be trying to win before the end came, and that seemed possible, so keeping Deborah out of the way would protect her until then at least. If that were true, saving her now wasn’t unthinkable at all, though why she hadn’t thrown Deborah back out of the room was hard to say. There was a third possibility Deborah considered as she put her hand on the ladder: They both did it, together, for their own reasons but as a kind of team. Maybe there was hope for both of them, maybe.

      That last dodge was rather slow for him. L’lorne pulled back and tried to maneuver over a pile of debris and mid creation explosions. He had done that a few times now, that last time was most apparent. Slow was not like Ritch ‘arrd, so it meant something. She shot a quick scan across the room, trying not to make it seem obvious that she wanted a detailed power distribution of Ritch ‘arrd. As expected, he smacked it down quickly, but she had just enough information to build a hypotheses. He was moving slower, not just for immediate actions, but just generally slower. Time state was alright, set even with her currently, but his base speed had dropped by almost 20%. For all practical purposes, he was only minutely faster than she was now.

      Why? He was conserving energy. Actually, it was more like saving it up for another time state boost to match her next one. He generally stayed away from time manipulation, while L’lorne had practiced it frequently. That meant as the levels went higher and higher, it took more and more energy and concentration to push it up to the next level, and without practice, it could take even more. She had expected that he wouldn’t have let the battle go this long, he should have switched to a power setting, triggering the battle that would surly destroy this planet, but he hadn’t. Over next to the diving board, her foot just up on the first rung was Deborah. He was waiting for her, buying her time. Time for what? She didn’t get a chance to consider that as Ritch ‘arrd attacked.

      What about hope for her? What did Deborah have to look forward to after this? She hadn’t considered it much before, at least not since her mother had died. A quarter of the way up the ladder, a hard wind blew past her, fluffing out her coat for a moment. Going home wasn’t much of an option, not unless she wanted to “make a proper living” as Danny always said. She couldn’t and wouldn’t do that, not now not ever. That left either going off on her own, or going with them. Already she could see how L’lorne would treat her: As a replacement child. Maybe she wouldn’t have before, but now, most definitely, and Deborah did not want that. She had a mother, though now dearly departed, and she would be damned if she got another. Any relationship with L’lorne would have to be Deborah’s terms, and that would be very hard.

      Ritch ‘arrd was a different story. What would he need with a game piece if the game was over? More than halfway up the ladder of the high diving board, the obvious though occurred to Deborah: Promotion. The pawn in the game reaches the other side of the board and gets promoted. Deborah would be Ritch ‘arrds new student, that’s what he probably wanted. And what of L’lorne? Death, knowing what she did about him. She didn’t want that, L’lorne had done a lot of terrible things, and probably deserved it, but neither of them should die. No, death wasn’t the answer. Maybe, just maybe, they could all live together, almost like a family. As much as she didn’t want L’lorne to be her mother, or Ritch ‘arrd to be her father, if both were spared, maybe she could help them. As she crawled up onto the diving platform, she finally let her hopes get high. Maybe, just maybe.

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Questions

1. What kind of person is Lcorn L'lorne? What does she look like (in your mind)?
2. What kind of person is the Deborah Ignigus? What does she look like (in your mind)?
3. What kind of person is The Ritch 'arrd? What does his human form look like (in your mind)?
4. Does the setting seem fitting? Would you like to know more?

5. The formatting for this section is very different than previous ones, does it make sense or seem difficult to follow?