So, it’s been a REALLY REALLY REALLY long time since I’ve done a story, so I stayed up to 3AM to bring you guys this one. I’m somewhat out of practice, although no one might notice since the noise in quality is so much more than the signal. Ha. Enjoy!

Edit: man, it’s really short, too. My bad.

Status update: misses California

It hit her when she was doing the dishes, flying across years and piercing the veil of the mundane such that the plate jerked to a stop in midsplash.

Her kids would never understand California.

Ever.

Not in the way she knew it: no, they would only read about it in textbooks, hear stuffy teachers pontificate endlessly on the political leverage the different political parties sought to blah blah blah such that the impact on the revolution was blah blah now, let's assess the validity blah blah blah blah BLAH.

That, and the networks had started carrying features that examined California in detail, alongside those that examined King Tut's tomb, or King Charles's left big toenail. It was really a shame, it had only been... well, it had been 9 years ago. She supposed she was getting old. But they would learn about it from there, too, history watered down and marketed to the lowest common factor.

And they had their own California, now, new cultural meccas where the weather was charming (to a point) and would-be-stars tried to make their name. She supposed she could tell them that their Peru was her California, and let that be that.

But they would know California better as a political cry, a cautionary tale, an unmitigated disaster before their time.

They wouldn't know it like she did, the way lovers know each other. A chance employment, a passionate spark, and she had fallen in love, first with the place. But it wore on her in quiet ways, and the torrid love affair came to an abrupt end. Not a moment to soon, either...

When she heard the news, though, she still cared: still cared for California, now gone. The beaches, the cities, all the people deluded, talented, vain, and brilliant. She wouldn't live there, and she now couldn't, but...

She still misses California. Even now.

The screen door clattered open, and she blinked. Somehow, all the dishes had gotten done.

Hi. Have a story. It’s rough around the edges, but I think the fundamental idea is of at least some interest. No, a foot soldier wouldn’t think like that, but I didn’t want to waste time trying to get into character.

Status: remember it's just a game! you don't have to scream like they're actually killing you every time something hits you or when you fall off the road... repeat after me: it's just a game! ;-) hahahaha!

just a game... just a game...

the controller had visited him earlier today, an unimaginably huge honor for a common foot soldier like himself. he should have been ecstatic to receive his orders directly from the supreme commander of the battlefield, but instead it had somehow left him feeling... empty.

It was very much unlike being briefed by his commanding officers, who seemingly knew exactly how to rile up the squads for battle, calling on their patriotism and honor to gird themselves against the visceral horrors. They talked at inane speeds, and knew exactly what to say at all the right moments. Once you've been through a few battle preps, the patterns fell into place, and it felt so right to cheer at the behest of the sergeants.

On the other hand, the controller seemed to stumble and hesitate over his words. He wondered at the time why this particular officer had risen through the ranks, when those less-eloquent leaders had been retired without a thought. There was something off about the controller: he didn't hold his battle implement quite right, he fidgeted like his armor didn't fit him.

"So," the controller had begun, "I need you to scout out around here" he indicated a point on the map, "and keep in areas where the live feed can make it back to base."

I was only a foot soldier, but I had just enough smarts to know a suicide mission when I saw one.

"Why don't we just use an aerial drone?" Even though he sat on the top of the pyramid, I couldn't just let him send me into the jaws of the enemy like that, especially when there was no need.

He sighed, "We need recon-"

"No we don't, we got the last feed from the area 100 ticks ago-"

"Don't talk back to your commanding officer, son."

"I will if you are going to throw away my life!"

"And I can see why Professor Williams wants to erase you."

What-

"It's all just a game. All of you" he gestured out to the trenches "are AIs running in an academic simulation, and your aberrant behavior happen to be keeping this simulation from optimizing further. We thought we would make your death somewhat useful, but your behavior seems to have gone farther than the prof knows. I'm going to-"

The controller disappeared.

It was all a game.

Just a game.

They were fighting over nothing: there wasn't a homeland, a family at home worth fighting for, leaves of absence or honorable discharge. It felt like it was all real, including the concrete wall his fist was pounding against, but it wasn't. The pain wasn't real, the blood from his knuckles wasn't real, the steel wall behind the concrete facade wasn't real, the locked door wasn't real, the pitiful dents in the door weren't real. The controller, or Professor Williams, or somebody else, had control of the world, and they would-

Two-fer-one night!

Status: I’m finally home.

Home.

You should be happy you're home.

That's what they said.

That's what they all said.

They never had to come home to empty cities.

Empty streets.

Empty building.

Empty people.

He had to fight.

Fight a war.

All by himself.

Well, that wasn't true.

The leeks were good fighters, but terrible leaders.

They needed a leader.

He led them into battle.

He won every battle except the one that mattered the most to him.

He lost Earth.

The leeks didn't know what the enemy did to their conquered worlds.

They had never regained a world from the enemy before.

After victory was assured, he took back Earth.

And now he was home.

Except home wasn't home.

People had become automatons.

They looked better, the cities cleaner as well as the people, their technology advanced, but they had lost their spark.

Why?

How?

The last enemy had been extinguished: they couldn't be asked.

He tried asking his people what had happened during the invasion.

They told him about an industrial revolution.

Then the computing revolution.

Then the biotech revolution.

Then the bionic revolution following on it's heels.

It was clear, then.

The enemy just had to teach.

The leeks invaded on his command, and he watched from the top floor of his abandonded farmhouse as fire poured from heaven.

After half an hour, he called the leeks off.

Except for one ship.

No more dusty farmhouse.

No more conquerer.

No more genocide.

No more.

No.

"You're what?"

"Yeah, I'm a dream chaser. It's my 9 to 5, you know." Wiry smile.

"Never would've thought you the type to go chasing dreams. What gives?"

"You know me, I was always the deranged romantic," he said with a bit of a smile. Of course, that wasn't the real reason: he hadn't cared much for romance or romantic ideals since the last war reduced all human or quasi-human populations below 1 percent their pre-war levels. Dream chasing was merely something that paid the bills, and was one of the jobs that the bots flat out couldn't do. More humans would chase dreams, but most people couldn't handle the crushing loneliness in between pulls. So they mostly di

A pebble glanced off his viewport, bringing him out of his temporary reverie. A pretty big scratch for a tiny pebble: must've been going almost half the speed of light. He must be close to his target asteroid.

"Hey, Jim, I'm coming up on a strike. You know how hard catching dreams..."

"Yup, haven't forgotten. Hey, we have to catch up over drinks later. I'll talk to you later."

The com snapped off, and he pointed his craft directly towards the dark spot in the middle of his view port, an interstellar asteroid framed by the brilliance of a galaxy full of stars. Lonely asteroids like this one were one of the few objects in the galaxy that still had appreciable amounts of dreams tied up into them: no one realized that dreams even existed until someone noticed they couldn't colonize the alien planets after the war. They could slap down terraformers and move in cities, but the people would loose their will to power and entire planets would become slums, with people fleeing as quickly as they could scrape together money for tickets until only an apathetic mass was left. There wasn't anything physically different about these planets with regards to planets held only by humans, so the social scientists had a field day trying to explain the phenomenon until one of them pointed out similar conditions developing on the original planet, Earth. We knew where we came from, but it still shocked us that Earth, once the hub of technology and culture, had degraded to such a level for no apparent reason: we were fully aware of the folly of the Americans and the Romans, and Earth was designed to not fall to the same effect.

But fall it did: then someone discovered dreams, and all became clear: we had used up all our dreams on Earth during our long stay there, and the aliens had used all of theirs, which played a role in how we handily defeated them. For 100 years, we put our best scientists and artists on new worlds, where dreams were abundant, and prospered.

For 100 years.

Then the wars happened, wars over the shortage of dreams. We were running out of planets in the galaxy, and the next galaxy over was farther than any of us could travel, then. Once someone found out how to extract dreams, armies sprung back into vouge, with planets invading other planets to stage massive dream mining operations. Then, the sentient bots rose up and started the last war, which was fought 10,000 years ago, when I lost my...

A firm thunk resonanted through his craft: he had surprisingly subconciously guided it into the asteroid. Well, 6000 years of doing the same task over and over was bound to build in some muscle memory. He flipped the switch to start the dream extraction process, and sat back.

Bots cared nothing for dreams, or almost anything human for that matter. If you couldn't pay the bills, then you died. In the end, defeating death didn't matter if you were too poor to buy food, and the bots outperformed the humans in all jobs. What was left of humanity died in droves, unable to find jobs alongside the bots, until only those with fat savings accounts were left. Those, and the people with the gall to chase dreams to sell to the rich. Silicon didn't have the knack for finding dreams, so humanity still had something to keep itself occupied.

A soft beep announced the completion of the dream extraction. Not too many dreams in this pull, but he'd seen worse. He pulled the craft away from the asteroid, and pointed his craft back the way he came. With any luck, Jim would get back from chasing dreams at the same time, and they could hopefully both find buyers. Most of the young ones had already died as paupers, buying up too many dreams at the start. The older ones drove a mean deal, and hoarded their dreams, but they were the only ones left buying.

Which reminds me, he thought...

"Hey, Jim."

"Hey, two coms in 10 minutes! And before that, what, it was one com in the past 7000 years?"

"Yeah, right." It was true. "Listen, are you headed back to Solaris? I'm thinking about heading back there with this..."

"About that..."

Wait, what?

"Sorry, kid, I've had enough of this. I've been on Solaris for the past month, looking for a buyer. Couldn't find one human in this mess, and we know it's the best place to find em. I'm done."

"Wait wait wait"

"I'm waiting, kid. I'll be gone before you get here, though. Figured it out: I'm gonna overdose on dreams and go out with a bang."

You could do that?

"Heard about someone that did that once, way back when. Guess it couldn't hurt."

"What about trying to hop galaxies?" Some people had struck out for another galaxy back before the war, and some more tried after it. He had heard about a desperate dream chaser that had struck out 100 years ago...

"Nah, I'm done. Couldn't scrape up a craft that could make the distance, with the money I have now. In fact, my rent's gonna run out in 23 minutes. Listen, kid, don't worry about me. I'm gonna try to find some food, and the bots will have everything cleaned up in no time."

Moments hang.

"Goodbye."

"Yup, goodbye. Best of luck ta ya, kid."

The com snaps off.

He stared out the port, blinking into the face of a billion unblinking stars staring back. He turned up the throttle and

Okay, I just felt like I had to do one. Here ya’ll go.

Status Update: feeling lucky to be single :)

Response:

"You're doing it wrong."

He wiped some of the dust out of his eyes, probably a bit of the bank that used to be a few meters to the left. He *thought* that a city block or more had just been leveled, but stranger things have happened before when he was in this state.

"What do you mean?"

"You just have to scream it in desperation a bit louder, and it'll be true", throwing off the last phrase with a flash of a smile.

He still couldn't believe that she had survived, or that she was real; pulverized concrete was swirling around their bare ankles, settling onto the now-deserted street. Even stubborn chunks of rebar were still dropping from the sky, which meant that he hadn't blacked out for more than a few seconds, if that.

"I wasn't screaming; if anything, it was a hoarse whisper."

He was pretty sure he hadn't actually said anything, but who knew? He couldn't honestly remember his exact actions, barely a minute into the past.

"Oh, no, your intentions were quite clear, and your efforts at suppression were pretty elementary. Ya'know, you're pretty easy to read." Again, a smile, accompanying a bashful sway.

"What of it?", grating the words as they came out.

"Oh, nothing, nothing." He wondered why she was so damn cheerful. "Just, you know, it's the oldest story in the world. Separation follows a join, most of the time." Cocking her head to the side, she seemed to enumerate the violations of her on-the-spot made-up rule.

"You know, I'm okay with being single. I really am."

"Come on, say it louder."

"YOU KNOW,I'MOKAYWITHBEINGSINGLEIREALLYAM" Perhaps bellowing with all the dust in the air wasn't such a good idea: when he straighted again, he notic

"Well, the city block that you just destroyed says otherwise." Her eyes snapped into focus and it dawned on him that her summer dress actually overlaid body armor. For the first time, he felt a note of disquiet crawl into his throat. "We've decided that we need to reign in your psychic powers, and you have a decision: death or loss of your psychic abilities. Which is it? Quick, the default, death, comes."

He stared at her blankly. What? Was there no othe

Inspiration strikes, I post.

friend: milky way > boys

me: You don't expect me to seriously believe that, do you?

It's not a question of belief, it's a question of whether you're capable of debriefing her. She's covered around a million parsecs crisscrossing the galaxy over 90 of your years, so she'll be out of touch with current events, and you're the only one she knows and trusts that's still alive.

But, shit, she took off to see the galaxy? I mean, we thought she was dead!

Sorry, we weren't going to be in the sector for long, and once she told us you wouldn't be coming, which was probably for the best, we had to leave somewhat abruptly. Deadlines, you know.

She told me?! Wait, shit, I guess she did. That was pretty confusing. One moment I'm playing some fps, the next she has a huge smile plastered on her face, babbling about something like wormholes or variable cee, and asking if I want to go see some Pleiades up close. Hell, I thought she was talking bout sitting close to the screen for some movie I hadn't heard about. Told her no, didn't think nothing of it.

But this has nothing to do with whether you can reintroduce her to your current society.

Why's it have to be me? We left on bad terms 90 years ago, although I guess someone leaving for 90 years would put a strain on any relationship-

Ah, she could have been gone for much longer. She only biologically aged about a year since we left, so she could have continued with us. It is her good luck that we received an assignment in this sector with enough leeway to let us drop her off.

-anyways. Go talk to some government official or something, right? I'm not really qualified to talk to someone that's just been traveling around with a bunch of aliens, you know?

She specifically requested that, ahem, you show her around the 'new Earth'.

Hell, I guess I will. Nothing much to see, though. We're still fighting for the same godforsaken hunk of rock we've always been on, being shitty to each other. Heck, if she's coming back, I guess I could take back some of those, erm, not so nice words. And retroaging might be a surprise to her.

Ah, we're sending her down now.

Say, how did she get into contact with you in the first place?

We contacted her. She was in the best position to deliver a certain artifact to us, a shipment of (digs in pocket) these.

Milky ways?

Ah, yes, that is their name?

Huh, no wonder she seemed to be hoarding them. And why the suits called about some boat after she disappeared. Huh.

Ah, she's here.

Oh, um... hey, honey! It's been such a longOHMYGODISTHATALASERCANN-

EAT SHIT AND DIE YOU SAD SACK OF FERMIO-

Instead of sleeping, I wrote a new story. Here’s an older, experimental one:

Friend: feels highly unmotivated - no inspiration right now.

Me:

I know just what you need! How does a juvenile sea dragon sound?

The salesman came from behind: facing the wall, there was no way out without breaking several generally held social contracts. Escape would have to wait until he made a mistake.

Such a pet will highly motivate you! If you don't feed it, it will eat YOU! Ha! Ha! Is that not hilarious?

Maybe such an egregious man was not bound by the contracts, and striding off would be a possibility. Or not. Better not find out. If only she were here

Eh? Juvenile sea dragon not good enough for you? Well, adult sea dragon wont be good, too violent. Gotta get em young!!!!

So young. Excited, able, fascinated. the world seemed to slow its spin, and nothing was impossible Knowing is one thing: experiencing is another. It was so long ago when she left, when, looking at the calendar tells only a year of passage. Damn hounds.

Gia't man-eatun sea slugs?? Dem shore can make yer busy!!!!1 Deyal sukers ur brains straight out if you dunt keep bobbin!!1!

So this is what it comes down to A hollow shell Trying to keep secrets closed and keep the weapons out of the wrong hands. the hounds are closing in though and nothing will keep them back when they find this city Maybe she got off easy.

YUPPERS!!!! WEZ SHURE GOTTEM! KILLUR CHIHUAHUAS!1 YESH SHUR REE!% WE GOSH DURN LUVS!!! DEM 2 DEZ!$2 HAR HAR HAR KEEP UR 0N UR TOS!!!!!!!!11

spark of inspiration to fight to protect she would have done it but inspiration runs thin and drips drips drips from the eaves and the hounds come maybe it is not so bad they will wash the world and make it new and make it new where she died just before safety but now no one is safe why did none of the agents know she was the only operator

OMGWZTFFF IGUSNUTIN%%LIK3#DISMANS SHERATA!!!NGABEA!UTSHOR3 3333N0UMMYUPHAYITZ R HOUNDZUPUPOMGWTFBBQWAI WUTIZDATOMGWHATAR e

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