250 Words a Day

4: Reporting

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 23:19:32 GMT

Every journalist who wandered the metro waited for the good signals to come through the wire. 217 (Fire) could net a prompt newsfeed an award or two. 80 (Earthquake) always gave opportunities to show the strength of the metro citizens as they waited patiently for their services to come back on. 145 was the best, though, and it had been years. It was almost an urban legend.
Ella didn't need the wire code, she watched it all and was tapping the story into her palmtop as fast as she could. An eyewitness report of the traffic violation, the robbery, and the man falling from the sky to stop the escaping criminal, all made for a great breaking news feed. Her editors pinged her with a bonus in her account.
She was supposed to interview someone over a mural in a few minutes. She didn't bother to send a note that she would be late. This was big. She was the first to report the escaping criminals death. She didn't need the official coroner to see that the man in the Skidmore fountain was dead.
"Like an avatar of vengeance, the unknown hero fell from the skyjam, intercepting the criminal and landing him a nearby tree." She was proud of that sentence. When she checked the feed, her name was on it, but the report was different. Instead of falling from the sky, the man she saw fall was now a brave citizen who climbed the fountain and leapt from the top to stop the robber.
A censorship scandal in the editors office would be a trophy on her mantle.
The story got better when the cop showed up. Unfortunately, so did other reporters now. She hoped the typo checkers would fix whatever she sent when the cop shot the robber. Clear violation of protecting the peace.
The other journalists swarmed in for a better view, cameras hovering, zooming in.
The man from the sky coughed.
Let the piranha have the cop, she thought. The medics loaded the man onto a gurney and attached him to an emergency lung. There was the story. She ran for a Flyer to follow the ambulance, looking up into the sky. The skyjam didn't cross the fountain. Above the spikes of buildings, the black sky was clear of everything but a few clouds reflecting the metro light.
So where did he come from?
She didn't know.
But finding out would make her a hero of the newsfeeds.

2: Stealing

Wed, 21 May 2008 03:32:07 GMT

Rod knew the young, bland man behind the counter of the debt office couldn't do anything against his gun. It was big and aimed at the man's head. He licked his lips with a darting tongue, but handed over a small box full of disposable credit chips.
"Thanks, sucker." He didn't even bother to get off his hovercycle for the robbery. He just pulled up, aimed the gun, and got the money. He was a hero, proving that the nobodies served as faceless, ball-less punching bags. The system was big, sure, but he could hit them small and hit them hard. A theft like this was less than a statistical error in counting chips, but if he inspired enough people, the world would change.
He couldn't stick around. He didn't doubt the nobody had activated the alarm, but it would be small for the trouble. He steered the hovercycle away from the counter, twisting around for the final insult to whatever dignity the teller had. He waved the gun and fired a series of paintballs at them. They ducked. Wimps. Afraid of a paintball gun. Pathetic.
Rod laughed and rode out, flying above the crowd.
"Don't let them steal your life by the micro-credit," he shouted. "Free yourself from tyranny!" He flicked the lock open on the box of chips and waved it wide. "Help yourself."
The people watching him didn't react. They should have been watching but they weren't. They were looking up but not at him. The chips rained on them and they batted them away. He had no idea what could be more fabulous than free money from a real hero.
Rod looked up just in time to see a blur of something slam into the front lifter on his cycle.
The hovercycle flipped over, catapulting him forward. The box flew out of his hand. His gun flew away, knocked free from the makeshift holster on the fender.
People were screaming. He was screaming, flying, falling. He hit a tree and heard crunching carbon plastic. His bike screeched across the concrete pedway and hit his tree. He clutched at branches and squeezed his legs around others.
He hung there, watching the crowd continue to ignore him. They were surrounding something else that he couldn't see through the rising smoke of the wrecked cycle.

0: Flyer

Sat, 17 May 2008 22:40:11 GMT

The Metro One Person Flyer waited at the platform with all the others
of its kind. It registered the weight, slightly less than an average
consumer, and waited for a credit to be processed. The passenger
inserted a disposable credit chip. This generated a note in the log,
as disposable credit was officially unpopular, and possibly evidence
of criminal activity.

The credit is good for a total of three miles. The passenger directs
the flyer to rise. It scans the sky-jam above, finds a target, and
lifts.

It rose through the lowest rank of traffic, lorries and automated
delivery bots, and slowed as it approached the second level. It veered
sideways, matching speeds and aiming for a break point. The passenger
shifts, but the semi-sentient AI that controls the flyer can't
understand the movement. The passenger isn't sitting down.

The flyer slid through the second rank, a thinner grouping of sedans,
and aimed for the upper ranks of traffic. The third rank was getting
thick with limousines ferrying the most valuable society members
towards the opera houses and symphonies, but the flyer managed to pass
through. It was a public vehicle, allowed to roam wherever the
passenger's credit allowed.

The passenger did not change course. The flyer warned it that it could
not maintain a direct line straight up at this altitude. It's motor
was not strong enough to compensate for the wind. The passenger
pressed the AFFIRM button with more force than necessary, the flyers
blind brain thought, but it continued until it reached the maximum
altitude it could safely handle, and descended to safer heights
automatically.

It's control panel cover popped off. It sent an alarm, but felt
something cross the circuitry and it knew the alarm failed. The
passenger, now a criminal for violating the property of the Metro
Flyer Corporation, unplugged more wires.

The flyer didn't know how high it was.

The passenger told it to go up.

It went up, worried about the strong wind conditions, but it complied.

Something sizzled and it knew a heat sink had been removed, and more
information disappeared.

The locked security railing unlocked.

It noted the door was open. It flashed warnings on its screen but the
AFFIRM button stayed unpressed. It's gyroscopes screamed a warning
that the flyer was off balance.

The scale blanked out.

The AI didn't hesitate to drop as fast as it could. It could sense the
sky-jam beneath it and navigated its way to the nearest repair
facility.

Dear Friend

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 23:50:58 GMT

Josh,

This letter may shock you, seeing as I passed on so many years ago. I understand you still read my books (for which I am eternally grateful. At least, until you get here) and still idolize me a bit. I don't mind idolizing, it's a healthy thing to do with the right person in your sights. Had you chosen Harlan or Silverberg or Hubbard, I'd be worried.
I also know that you are trying to emulate me, and this must stop. After all, there was only one of me and I'm impossible to replace, and I don't need a successor. People are taking care of that for us. No, emulation of a great writer, even one such as myself, is not enough to build a career.
It is also difficult to you to see that my stuff wouldn't get very far, even in the magazine I lent my name to! I'm history. I've done my bit. You need to do yours.
Thanks for the support over the years, though. It's nice to hear that someone out there is trying to track down my old out-of-print stories. And thanks for ordering my books through libraries to keep them in the catalogues, but you need to read the modern stuff now, and you need to write your own things.
You struggle with voice, I know. I never worried about it, and you shouldn't either. My voice, natural as it is, still took time to hone. Just because I got there faster than you doesn't mean I'm a better writer, just a luckier one. I worried about a lot of things, and I worked them out in stories. You do that to, but you get too preachy. Just tell the story, and let the critics find whatever meaning they want in your work.
But keep writing. Remember, there is no better way to go than to collapse into your keyboard.

Love,

Isaac

Fingers

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 21:38:58 GMT

Magic is lucky. Very few people notice it. The worst thing that could have happened at the start of his life was the nurse who bathed him for the first time had screamed "oh my God" and dropped him or something.
The doctors consulted for a very long time, but mostly because they didn't know what to call the condition, and since Magic was a baby, they couldn't predict what the effect they would have on his life. They chose to wait.
Eventually his mother stopped noticing, until he started exploring the world. His grandmother didn't like it one bit, but she still knit extra long mittens for him all through childhood.
Surgery wasn't an option. Four, most people could deal with or overlook, but five?
Magic types faster than anyone, keeping his hands high off the keyboard and taps keys delicately. The doctors worried that the extra phalanges on each finger would be too weak to be effective, but short of a few name calling incidents in grade school, they've turned out fine.
The one fight was pretty bad. Magic got tired of being called a phalangeal freakazoid and balled his extra long fingers into a fist and hit the biggest offender. A fist curls up nice and tight on most hands, but those extra phalanges forced his fingers away from his palm, and he broke three of them it the one punch.
Luckily, they healed, and he never had to fight about it again. He couldn't play basketball. He could wrap his around a ball quite well, but one jammed finger was enough to stop his game.
Luckily, he learned how to give a massage, and there are tricks only he can do. He stretches his fingers across sore shoulders and slowly tightens his grip, then relaxes them again. He drums his fingers full length across muscles so fast some people think he's using some electronic vibrator or something.
It doesn't appear to be genetic. His daughter wasn't born with extra long fingers, but she loves all the crazy cat's cradle games she can play with her Daddy and his magic fingers.