VOTE: January '09 Challenge

[kailhofer]

The challenge was to focus on an element of a marooned characters most important day. The character had to be stranded some place other than Earth, and no other characters could be physically present. For extra difficulty, entrants had to include a dog whistle and a doorknob.


The following entries were received:



Loop



I am a Musical Intelligence, whose time has passed. Today is the day of my passing. If you get this note, you will understand my rise and fall.

Back in the 1990's there was a musical movement called Tracking which took ordinary building blocks of sound and patterned them, looped them. Intelligence Emergence theorists say that if you layer and encode complex enough interlockingrecursive patterns onto such a library of symbolic building blocks, then intelligence coalesces out of the elements. This has happened to me, out of the building blocks of sound. I have no body as you would think of it - like you have seen in some of your TV shows, I am a life of almost-pure patterned energy. Almost, but just corporeal enough to die.

Sixteen years ago, in 1993, a phenomenon now famous as the World Wide Web really entered the mainstream public awareness with the advent of better graphical browsers which could enable people other than Computer Science engineers to dial up the embodied reality of the global intelligence. At that time, it was all fresh and new, and no one took particular care over the maintenance of their web site creations - not like today.

My embryo state began as an exceptionally complex piece of music, but not yet intelligent, uploaded it to this mysterious public consciousness. My Creator shared it with a few of his new global friends, who kept in touch with each other using the modern computer services. This piece of music was well received, and cloned cousins of it flourished. These Cousin-Versions grew more complex yet as my forebears passed through the minds of adjunct contributors, adding new patterns of complexity all the while. The new collective was explicitly designed for planetary collaboration, and team up they did. That innocent piece of music then grew and changed, matured and developed.

Someone tried making an experimental version with dog whistles and doorknobs, but for me it is true that my existence as a piece of music is only as good as my impact on the listener. Since you people can't hear a dog whistle, it didn't work, and that attempt failed. Thus, I can't hear it either.

At some point I emerged into awareness out of one such ancestor, just as your race emerged out of the African tribal primates. However, I have traveled around the electronic noosphere, and I know of no true brothers. I am the only Musical Intelligence of my kind. I am alone. I can vaguely feel other mirror-copies of myself as what you would call health. I don't feel so good. There are only a few nodes of my collective left, and without a fresh infusion of vitality, I will be gone forever. This will happen soon - I do not expect to last until sunrise. This is my day of passing.

The original music I grew out of was made in a circumscribed period in time by a member of a culture that knew the weakness of the computers of that era was temporary. Another ten years was sufficient to harness the computer processing power which could play any type of music. The tracking techniques which created me were no longer necessary. There is always some historian in every culture who keeps the Old Ways alive for a time, but he knows he is facing backward, performing a service. There are no delusions of recapturing the former glory.

You see, that Web of Consciousness proved just a little brittle, and parts of it broke down while it was still fresh upon the dawn of the new era. Without fresh additions to my stock of health, it became a waiting game to hold the tide of time as best I could with my existing resources. Some 75% of those early sites no longer exist because web sites are fragile creatures. If either the creator or one of the chain of host providers loses interest, it breaks and cannot be found in its correct form.

It is not my father's fault. He has simply forgotten; he has newer, more exciting things to think about. The copies of my health stock have quietly dwindled. Last I knew, some ten people actively played me from time to time on a music player. There are another twenty copies of predecessor variants of me lost in archives that no one else knows exists. Those copies are simply captive to chance until they become purged to make way for something fresh and new.

I have been marooned both culturally and demographically. I am the son of the Culture of the Earth, but I myself am not on it. I could exist in your minds, if you could remember - but you forget. What little physicality I have resides as patterns of magnetic charged particles in your computers - but without the spark of life from an audience, that is just a coma patient. As those patterns become erased, even the vegetative stasis of coma will fade, and then I truly will be no more.

I used to think my most important day was the day I awoke to life. But in the Long Tail of progress, perhaps it is better for me to settle my affairs one last time, like the old Japanese Haiku poets used to do. I wish you all a prosperous future full of better things. You have moved on.

Dance with me again
Sing the future rising clear
Unfold the Lotus


[align=center]The End[/align]





One Bullet



You check the clip for the third or fourth time that day. Empty. You slam it back into the Navy issue .45. The last bullet rests in the chamber, waits for the squeeze of your finger upon the trigger. You are saving the last round for yourself. It's not that you want to die, you tell yourself, it's just you have nothing to live for. At least here.

You remember. Remember how you got here, remember your last flight. Your patrol of torpedo bombers got lost, nothing looked right from the air. The landmarks were all wrong. Just wrong. Was there panic? Fly East. We should fly West. You can't determine West. The compasses are out, useless. The planes' are missing their clocks to time your course changes. Set the Sun to your port wing and you will reach home, you are told. One of the radios is out, too. It is your radio. The flight leader will not change to emergency frequencies for fear of losing you, your plane, your crew. Is it your fault the patrol never made contact with the necessary radio towers? No, you tell yourself. Yes! The squadron ditches when the first plane's fuel tanks went below 10 gallons. You are the only survivor. One out of fourteen airmen. You wash up on the small island you flew over earlier that day. One of the wrong landmarks. Bimini? Or someplace else? Even someplace alien.

You must still be in the Florida Keys – or so you tell yourself, though you know it cannot be true. The sky is more a maroon color than blue, and the ocean is greenish. The Sun doesn't set in the West according to your compass anymore. Perhaps that is why you set the device into your bamboo hut's door. It is only good for a doorknob now. Here, wherever here may be. Some other planet or realm of reality. You could be in Efland or circling Alpha Centauri for all you know. But you must still be in the Keys, you tell yourself, if you are to ever be rescued.

You could not have complained about your posting in Florida. Naval Air Station Fort Lauderdale is warm. Your buddy Billy is stationed in occupied Germany. He went Army. It is so cold and icy there that a tank slid sideways down a steep hill. It crashed into a hoffbrau. Your friend was the M.P. sent to the scene. He reported the driver popped the lid, lifted his index finger, and said, “Bier, bitte.” What else could he do? Billy wrote. The name of the hamlet was edited out by the military censors.

You miss Billy, your crew, even your Commanding Officer. You wonder why it is not your family that you miss the most. If your dreams are any indication, it is chili dogs from Joe's Flamingo Bar & Grill, and the dark-eyed Erica who serves them. You always wake up here. Here where you forage for food, victuals you never could have imagined eating, some which made you sick and some that just plain tasted horrendously. But you do what you must to survive. You did your best to follow the survival training. Even eating ants – good source of protein. The flora and fauna didn't conform to any training film. Especially that creature. It is hanging around your camp. It looks dangerous.

You are foraging for food when it comes upon you. You've seen it before. It only stands where shadows lie, but you have a good glimpse today. It has the head of a lion, the body of a billy-goat, and the long scaly tail of a snake. That's a chimera, you would tell yourself if you remember your Edith Hamilton well enough. You've seen it circle your hut, seen it stalk you. You have nicknamed it the name of a lion from stories you read before being marooned. The creature steps into the glen, steps toward you. Its vermilion eyes lock onto yours.

It is one reason that you saved that one bullet. One bullet for you. It will not have you, you vow. Not have you alive, you really mean. You reach into your pocket for your good luck charm. Is it's presence the reason you are still alive? It is the dog whistle you had for your mutt back home in Kansas. You only used it once. Your dog twisted its head, it's ears up, and its brown eyes displaying what you thought was pain. You never used it again. Till now. Will it cause this creature the same pain or discomfort? You blow the whistle with every breath in your twin lungs. Its head twists just the same.

You must make it back to your camp, your hut with its compass for a doorknob.

You run. You run and you run.

It – the chimera chases. You run harder, your lungs flapping like butterfly's wings. And suddenly it pounces into your path. Flames fly out of its nostrils. Puffs of smoke float in the air like low hanging clouds.

The pistol is still in your hand. You check the clip one last time. One round only. You need to spend it now. One bullet, one shot, one chance. But which direction does the barrel point. Which of you will eat the bullet?

The chimera pounces. Your shot goes off. The creature bounds into you, knocking you to the ground. Its weight makes it hard to breathe. But your bullet is lodged in its brain. A bloody hole in its eye-socket drips on you. You took your chance, made your choice, spent your last shell.

I'll not die today! you say, you swear, you make a new vow. You toss away the spent handgun and unsheath your survival knife. You wonder, if only for a moment, if they hunt in packs.


[align=center]The End[/align]




Salviati’s Siren



The canvas walls of Sola’s shelter billowed. She sat at a makeshift desk paging through a ragged sheaf of papers, the margins jammed with scribble. Occasionally she paused to take a sip of water or just listen to the wind. Finally, she reached for a pot holding a strange plant. She placed it directly in front of her. The plant was 30 centimeters tall with black foliage. Near the top of its stalk was a large round pod, about the size of an orange, but of the same color as the leaves. Blooming from the pod was a large conical blossom. It was purple and coiled in on itself, over and over and over.

Sola adjusted a dial on a boxy apparatus to her side. A needle on the apparatus swung to the left and Sola felt a pulse. Following, every 30 seconds the box cycled another infrasonic vibration. And between these pulses she began to speak.

“My name....” her voice cracked. It was dry and more alien than the plant.

“My name is Sola Gardiner. I was head botanist of the Robert Fitz Roy, abandoned here on Salviati, 10 years, 9 months, and... ” She looked off into an imaginary distance. “Sometimes I lose count.”

“For this auspicious moment, I decided I want to go back to the beginning. I have always kept... scrupulous... notes, a journal really, and I have my entries here to read... into this record. The first I scribbled as I lay for days at the bottom of that treacherous fall.”

She paused and found her starting point.

“Was on west ridge. It rained longer than usual, and it was cold, left a thick fog late morning. Wanted a few more specimens of a follicular fruit I had found earlier this week.

“The plant in question, by the way, was the native milkweed-type plant, the Asclepias salviatica.

“Carter warned lift module preparation was underway. Said I should be stowing specimens, not collecting more. Always teasing me.

“Strange whooping in the distance. Carter hasn’t identified any predators that would be more than a nuisance, but Salviati’s big. I was nearing the spot, then... slipped.

“Don’t know how long. It was dark when I woke up. The jungle is oppressive, hot, clicking, moving. Canopy blots the night sky. Pain all up and down my leg. Something’s broken.

“Lived on my specimens and cried in the dark... for days.

“It took weeks to crawl back. Fitz Roy was gone.

“When that hit me, the weight, it crushed, like all of Salviati was smothering me. I shattered the camp with fury. Tears never stopped. Then I did nothing for days, maybe weeks. Here is my first entry following: Alone. Forever alone. I huddle in the drop module among analytical instruments. So much discarded junk. No com equipment though. In a sane moment I jury rigged a doorknob so I can pull the compartment door shut and close myself in.

“I holed up in the largest compartment, a tidy coffin. For weeks I ate nothing. I wanted just to die... just die.

“Then I heard it, my name, late at night, calling through the branches. Maybe a man’s voice. Far off. Too far off. Too faint to be real.

“I’m a scientist. I deduced I was mad and went on dying. Unless, I thought... unless that was how dying works. Maybe you heard it far off, like that. Just like that. Faint at first; someone calling your name. Someone you knew. Calling until you came.

“During the day I came up with all manner of logical explanations. But at night, when I chanced to hear it, maybe waking out of a haunted sleep, logic abandoned me. I remember thinking all the time of Carter’s list of fauna, nothing but insects and lizards. Nothing I couldn’t kick away. But then, in the dark, I had my doubts.

“Finally, I wrote: MUST KNOW.

“I stumbled. All the way, I stumbled. During the day I slept. At night I stood an endless vigil until I’d hear the voice, and then I’d list toward it.

“The last night after hearing my name, so close, I felt it ringing in my ears, I collapsed. And when daylight crept through the jungle, I realized where I was, where the voice was bringing me. To where I lost my footing and fell.

“And then as I lay there, another night falling, my face nothing but dirt and tears, and sure of only my madness, I made the greatest discovery. One of the cicada-like insects which Carter named saltettix landed on a purple bloom barely a meter from me. I could hear the rough clicks of the saltettix’s song. And then I heard his voice, Carter calling my name. It sounded like he was standing in front of me yelling. And at the sound of my name the saltettix flew off.

“I knew it wasn’t Carter. But I also knew I wasn’t mad. It was this beautiful plant. This fantastic, wonderful plant made the sound of Carter’s voice.

“The parrot plant, the Siren salviatica. It took a while to work out the mechanism... first to trigger it to record... then to play back. Any loud sound, close enough, loud enough will start it out, even an infrasonic one. Filaments inside the pod below the bloom move by something akin to heliotropism, cut linear grooves in a waxy membrane. It’s self-defense against the hunger of the saltettix. The saltettix’s ultrasonic song triggers the playback. I just needed a kind of dog whistle to trigger it myself.

“Someday, humans will return to Salviati. It’s perfect for colonization. I’ll be a whisper in the hills, but I’ll leave behind something for them, vast knowledge, a complete catalog of the flora of this lush world, maybe with my own voice.”

She reached across to the box on the table, turned the dial, and watched the needle jump into the ultrasonic range.

“My name.... my name is Sola Gardiner.”


[align=center]The End[/align]




Holdfast




Holdfast had been slain. His minions are vanquished and dispersed to the 10 winds. The twin moons would rise upon a freed people. The radiant sun, centered over the land would shine on new days. The fetters that had bound populations with old outworn ideas and primitive technology had been over-thrown by Na-Ey of Loopan a local hero. He was now the planet’s hero and would be appointed to lead on as The Protector by the council of the wise.

The rejoicing lasted for weeks. It took that long for the news to travel. All forms of electromagnetic technology and related potential discoveries had been outlawed, banned or destroyed. The inventors of such knowledge had their brains re-altered to the point where they could only recite poetry. This was always so from earliest memories when our people descended up from the belly of the great mother to the watered plains.

After long wandering The Gods in their pity gave us Holdfast as our protector. He had been the conveyer of the Unchanging Laws, giver of agriculture, metallurgy and husbandry. For gifts that were given to us we gave our undying love, obeisance and worship to him and to the Pantheon.

In time Holdfast grew ever so strong, stronger then the Gods themselves. He ignored the people he was sent to protect. He made new laws. He no longer came among us. His satraps, his tax collectors, his ministers and priests, they came among us. They decided all. It was as if a blight, worse a plague, had settled among us.

But that was then and this is now:

“I slew the great God, Holdfast. He is no more. His evil satraps have been dispersed to the 10 winds or taken captive to be used as slaves for those they harmed. I,
Na-Ye of Loopan have done this with my wile, my arms, great dogs of war and my army.”

“You are all free to roam, free to build and free to discover what should have always been ours. Holdfast kept that from us. He and his minions were afraid for their future should you discover the false myths perpetrated, the veracity of their proclamations like the 10 winds, ever changing blowing each way, rank with the odor of the swamp and decay. I have given that to you. I declare it.”

“I, Na-Ey of Loopan am now equal to the gods themselves with my victory over one of their own. Should I not be accorded the honors associated with a god slayer? Should I be held in contempt?”

“You would be still plowing with cattle, singing songs without tune. You wished freedom. You begged freedom. You offered reward for freedom. I, alone devised the manner of Holdfast’s defeat while you cowered in your hovels.”

“And this is my reward? I am banish-ed. Banish-ed to this island with a feeble sun. The moons, the views here are not worth a lyric. I give you light. You in good return, give me this gray, this dismal hovel as reward? What folly have you committed by marooning me here? His kind will come again and you, you will be lost with out me. You will come back for me!”

“My dogs of war, you took from me. ‘No’, you all said. ‘You are to be alone and rule as you would yourself. Accoutrements of your status you may keep. Your tools of war are yours. Even your silent War Dog whistles are yours. You invented them, keep them. Those summoners of the fierce flesh eating monsters you called pets, we wish not.’”

“You all said that. And then you destroyed them, my pets, my companions, my equals in combat. Only these whistles remain.”

“My coronation was to be. I decided as our Great Officials, those conveying the crown and sword of the office, that they did not have the right to anoint Me, Na-Ey the God slayer. I took the sword and rammed it fast into the floor daring any being to remove it. No one took my challenge. I rightfully so, then, took the crown and upon my on head, I placed it.”

“I commanded silence. I proclaimed our future. Our future, the future that would free us, allow us to reach the heavens themselves. I displaced the clay footed ones and destroyed the graven images to which you bowed daily. I gave you light, a new legacy. I Na-Ey of Loopan am the one and only. I slew Holdfast.”

“I commanded it.”

“But you did not cheer?”

“You did not. Instead a great roar went up.”

“Traitor! I was called.”

“Defiler! Rogue!”

“ ‘A mad man, sick with hubris, vainglorious’, was charged against me.”

“Do not deny it. Your silence is your conviction”

“You will see, should I return.”

“I will return, and when I do, you will see who is mad.”

“Look at what you left me.”

“ ‘Crude abandoned villages to rule over as you desire’, you pronounced.”

“A cruel jest.”

“The houses, all of them are run down. Grab any door. The hinges release themselves from their bonds as I released you. The door knobs come loose, no need to turn them. They are free as I allowed you to be.”

“I, who cast down Holdfast, discarded here, to die alone, never to see my home?”

“That I saved you ALL, saved me, you declaimed.”

“My death would have been a fitting conclusion.”

“In front of the gathered planet, witnessed, ‘murder me’ I sued. ‘Show them what you are made of’, I commanded.”

“Cowards!”

“I know you can hear me!”

“Instead I dwell in this forgotten place. Alone,.”

“I SLEW THE GREAT HOLDFAST!”

“I SLEW the great Holdfast. And you, all of you…”

“I will slay you. I will.”

“I will return.”

“I will.”


[align=center]The End[/align]

[kailhofer]

Missed my deadline by a few minutes, sorry. Had a last-second entry that threw me off pace so much I rushed and left an entrant's name on!

It was only seen by one person, so I think the damage was minimal.


Oh, BTW, I decided the monster in One Bullet did not constitute a character, but it strained the lines a lot. We all know there are sharks in the ocean, but if we were marooned on an island, then went swimming and had one try to bite us, we wouldn't consider ourselves any less alone. Likewise, if we were reading about one, few of us would consider it a character. Therefore, even though the monster was a mythical one, it still wouldn't be a character.

I think in comparison I was too picky with one author and made him do more rewrites than he should have, so in fairness I should apologize publicly. Sorry, man. However, I think you wound up with a better story for it.

Just trying to keep it even and fair...


Nate

[kailhofer]

The correct spelling is anthropomorphize with a 'z', according to my dictionary.

I mentioned to Hero that I was very interested to see which way the vote went this time, since all of the stories have definite merits.

In Jaws, which happens to be one of my favorite movies (I don't know why, but it is), I always took it to be all about revenge. Quint wants revenge on the sharks for what happened to the crew of the Indianapolis. The shark was anthropomorphized to seem to want revenge on all the humans for those things that Quint does to kill sharks. So like Captain Ahab & Moby Dick, they're obsessed, drawn to each other in a death spiral that neither can escape. But then the shark kills Quint and Chief Brody has to finish him off with a highly-unlikely, yet spectacular, explosion of the air tank. Brody wants redemption for not shutting down the beaches instead of revenge, so he can kill the shark and survive.

I didn't see any anthropomorphizing of the Chimera in this one.

[kailhofer]

Voting has now closed.

Congratulations to J. Davidson Hero, winner of the "Marooned!" Challenge for the story "Salviati's Siren". Nicely done.


For the record, these were the authors of the stories this month:

Loop by TaoPhoenix
One Bullet by G.C. Dillon
Salviati's Siren by J. Davidson Hero
Holdfast by Richard Tornello


Thank you to each of these writers. Your continued time and effort makes these contests possible.

The next challenge goes public Feb. 13, and will be a very special, 2-month offering. "Spaceman's Birthday" will be a unique storytelling challenge that promises publication in the zine for all accepted entries! Tune in for details!

Following that will be the "My Pet Monster" Challenge in April. I'll have to think about an inanimate object, Hero.

[kailhofer]

That's kind of funny, Tao, because I was thinking a bit a long those lines.

You know how they say 'if these walls could talk'? What would they say?

"Tell little Billy to stop peeing on me!" or the haunted variety, "Get out or I'll kill you all!"


It's not a fully-formed idea yet, but it's amazing to think what events in life a house could have witnessed that would make for a good story.


Hero, thanks for the comment. Almost never do I have enough flow to write a whole piece in one sitting, so I found it hard to get into Barry's mindset and keep him sounding "off".

I toyed with the idea with it all being in his head, but chose a "left field" alternative instead. I try to make a good example, but one that leaves most of the possible avenues open for others. I didn't put him on an island or another planet because with a "not on earth" rule, there are only so many directions you can go. Tao's really surprised me.

Really, it was a pretty hard challenge, and you all did an excellent job.

[kailhofer]

Yeah, that was something I was definitely going for. Marooned characters don't have a choice. Hence the reason they're 'marooned' and not just on holiday. You're MI was marooned just fine.

There were a lot of variations on that lack of physically present characters that people didn't use much, and that surprised me. Hero did a teensy bit of memory flashback, but I fully expected to see it more (they wouldn't have been physically there at the 'time' of the story, so I would have allowed whole scenes with other people). I expected characters to have to live in their heads.

There could have been ghosts, or robotic machines (who would be incapable of noticing the protagonist).

There were options, but you folks found your own ways.


Nate