Ib & Ob: IOP Paradox Part 7

Human Interlude #3

J: Mr President we think the incident in Turkey involved a NTI.

Mr President: What is that some form of trading instrument I have never heard of before or perhaps a currency from one of those really small countries like England.

J: Mr President please do not talk like that the walls have ears.

Mr President: I do not see any ears looks flat to me.

J: Well technically the walls in here are curved which is why everything is bent to hell.

Mr President: Language!

J: What hell?

Mr President: No 'bent' we do not want people knowing what I really...

J: But they already..err..Yes Mr President.  Mr Berg your science adviser can best explain it.

Mr Berg: NTI Mr President stands for Non-Terrestrial Intelligence.

Mr President's hair: is there any other kind. 

Mr Berg: What did you say I couldn't hear what you said. Mr President have you been putting that oil I gave you on your hair?

Mr President: I did not say anything. Lets nuke them get rid of two stones with one errr.

Mr Berg: Mr President I think nuking a member of NATO would be a bad idea.

Mr President: How about a tweet, it is amazing how much money you can make with a single tweet.

J: Mr President I think a tweet might be worse than nuking them, remember Bob sir.

Mr President: Bob that bobs around, that's pretty funny.

J: Yes Mr President very droll your wit astounds me at times. Can we get back to the matter at hand Mr President what do you want to do in Turkey.

Mr President: Let them handle it, I'm the President of the United...

J: States sir.

Mr President: Yes I know, have they delivered my new quilt yet with the stars on the inside?

Mr Berg: But Mr President I think we should address the problem in Turkey, this could be a prelude to war by the NTIs.

Mr President's  hair: Only if they are stupid. 

Mr President: I think we should play golf this afternoon if I'm not allowed to blow stuff up or send a tweet it has to be golf.

Mr Berg & J: Yes Mr President.

Fictional Entanglements - A Thought Experiment

Flotsam

Ever wondered where our imagination comes from? It must come from somewhere otherwise we would pulling ideas from nothing.  Funny thing about nothing according science down at the smallest scale that we can understand the quantum level particles pop in and out of existence all the time. 

Science has also proved and tested a theory called Spooky Action at a Distance which was originally described by Albert Einstein.  Please excuse my layman's term I am not a physicist, this theory shows how two subatomic particles can instantaneously affect one other over long distances which effectively gets round the speed of light.

The Big Bang effectively came out of 'nothing' although the prevailing theory is that it was a subatomic particle and its opposite which is called anti-matter.  When the two collide there is a release of energy and wipe each other out.  Apparently this sort of thing is going on all the time at the quantum level.

All matter in the Universe was created out of the Big Bang and science has shown the Universe is expanding at an ever increasing rate.

Jetsam

Our consciousness is made of up atoms from the Big Bang what if there are other civilisations out in parallel dimensions or just trillions of light years away from us but the atoms in our brains are entangled with the atoms of other conscious brains.  Our imagination comes from them and their imagination comes from us.  That would mean all fiction is a reality elsewhere and that perhaps all imagination just entanglements bouncing ideas back and forth.

There are many problems with this idea least of which is the issue of translating an idea from the quantum level up to an actual conscious thought.  One atom probably would not be enough you would need a lot of atoms all sending similar data.

Perhaps we are not alone and our imagination proves it.

The Town Called Dinosaur

Story by Oneyearmuse

Title by Captain Awesome

Jetsam

Ky watched the Outsiders a curious bipedal design he wondered idly who had come up with such an outlandish design, their internal organs are even in more peculiar.  Ky had long since given up on politics and external exploration outside of the home planet but it would appear that the rumours about some of the early trade missions were indeed true.  They had arrive eight cycles ago no wait that's eight days according to the Outsiders terminology, for the conspiracy to work we must always live inside the Outsiders mindset otherwise errors and holes will creep in.

Technically the conspiracy was an open conspiracy in that everybody in town knew about it, it was Ky's responsibility to maintain and refine every aspect of the conspiracy.  The outer markers signaled the implementation of Phase I eight days ago, this time it was not a drill.  The first phase was always going to go smoothly purely because it had been practiced so many times.  It was three days before the Outsiders arrived in orbit and sent down their landing parties.  Phase II was always going to be the more difficult part of the conspiracy since the Outsiders are inherently suspicious.

Of course the first problem for them was one of communications, it took several days for them to discover the radio frequencies.  The Outsiders had incorrectly assumed all language would be written or spoken.  They had observed the inhabitants of the town and discovered that either it was a very primitive species or that they were missing something important.

Phase II was to allow a limited form of communication enough to keep the Outsiders interested and off guard.  Always more questions than answers, phase III would begin on the ninth day.

Flotsam

Ship's Log of the S.S. Grapple Captain Roy T Thompson Commanding:

Sol Day 108

The cosmic storm designated CS/918 has caused severe damage to life support and the main drive unit.  Auxiliaries have given us limited facilities enough to give us a fix on our position unfortunately the communications array is completely shot. Which means we are currently on our own however we have had some good fortunate in that we have located a life supporting planet just in range of us.  We can achieve orbit in 3 days.

Sol Day 112

The planet has inhabitants based in one town on the northern continent, the planet's temperature is inconsistent with its distance from the star in this solar system however we have been unable to determine any form of advanced technology.  Ensign Wallace has dubbed the town Dinosaur because from the air it looks a little like a velociraptor.  Wallace's personnel jacket shows his birth place as Artesia, Colorado, the name has stuck much to the annoyance of some of the scientists.

Sol Day 114

Ensign Wallace was the first notice that the 3 legged inhabitants of the town caused an interference on the radio.  It was then spotted that the rod like protrusions from the tops (heads) of the aliens waved/moved about when the interference occurred.  Their bodies are tube like ending in 3 legs of similar length to the main body, on average they are about metre in height.  Their feet have adjustable suckers, no mouth, ears or eyes in evidence and yet they respond to our presence.

Sol Day 115

Major breakthrough in communications with the Tripods it would appear that they use a radio frequency of 27 Mhz to communicate on.  The computer is slowly creating a basic lexicon, however it has become obvious that the Tripods are perhaps just a primitive animal species and are not the original inhabitants of the town.

Sol Day 117

The Geological survey team to the west are currently overdue, they were sent out to discover the source of a heat bloom that appeared on the ships sensors at 12:42.

Ship's Log of the S.S. GreyStar Captain Wilma Jones Commanding:

Sol Day 109

The S.S. Grapple has been found drifting between the La Grange point between Io and Jupiter, it would appear there has been several explosive decompressions throughout the ship.  None of the ship's crew has been found.

The ship's log is fragmentary and much of the data banks have been exposed to heavy radiation giving us barely any indication as to what happen to the ship and its crew.  Sol Day 108 is the last ship's log that has any useful information:

"The cosmic storm designated CS/918 has caused severe damage to life support and the main drive unit.  Auxiliaries have given us limited.... enough.... position unfortunately the communications arra....   Which means.... own... life...  in range of us.  We can achieve...."

No cosmic storms have been recorded around Jupiter at least not at the magnitude to cause this much damage.  The ship will be towed to Ganymede station where the Space Patrol will have to solve its mysteries.

Jetsam

Ky looked down into the chamber containing the Outsiders stored in stasis, their discovery of Ky's home planet was always possibility which why the plan had been created.  Whilst these particular Outsiders had evolved beyond war others have not and there are always world destroyers out there.  Any sufficiently intelligent species never advertise their presence, it is a miracle of chance that the Outsider's planet has not been attacked and plundered yet.  Of course our own trade mission to that part of space may have something to do with its continued survival.

Oy was pleased with Ky's implementation of Phase III, the Outsiders were caught completely by surprise.  The ones on the planet never knew what hit them since the gas is completely odourless although the ones on the ship attempted to defend themselves which caused some useful damage. Once the Outsiders had been removed from the ship, its systems were mostly wiped and then towed into a minus nine cycle position.  Our secret is maintained.

The three legged Trilon followed its two legged grey masters from the viewing gallery.

The More You Travel the More You DIE!

Story by Oneyearmuse

Title by Captain Awesome

My honours, ladies and gentleman of the jury this case is very simple indeed, my client's business and technology has been proven in this court to not only work and be very safe indeed.  Opposing counsel would have you believe that it is anything but and the only safe method of long distance travel is via air travel and considering it is a conglomerate of Airlines and Oil companies that are paying counsel's very high salary it does not surprise me.

If we travel back in time to 1829 when Robert Stephenson built the Rocket which was one of the first steam engines of its period to ride on rails.  Many of the public and scientific community were of the opinion that people would suffocate at such high speeds although its maximum speed was only 28 miles per hour not much faster than a horse at full gallop.  It was not the speed that really was the issue back then it was the risk and the cost to existing methods of travel.  Which proved to be non-existent, railroads shaped much of the planet throughout much of the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries.

Since the dawn of humanity we always been at risk when we travel, in fact most of the risk has been when we meet new people and decided their patch of land was greener.  Humanity's worst creations have come from traveling across the land and killing other people.  Airplanes for instance drop bombs and fire missiles not to mention crashing.  Opposing counsel will say this does not happen anymore there are no more wars and the Space Patrol keeps us safe however whilst Jet and Low Orbit Airliners have an extremely high safety record they can carry up to a 1000 people at once.  This means when they do crash they take far more people in a single instance.  We may not have wars anymore but we still have the DST's who love to create chaos since they have become so disenfranchised with our stable world.

The Airlines are happy to misdirect the public which includes all you the members of jury and your honours from the simple truth air travel is not as safe as they make out.  Remember my earlier point about risk, when it comes to driving nearly 1.3 million people die in road crashes each year, on average 3,287 deaths a day. An additional 20-50 million are injured or disabled.  And yet people still drive everyday, all of us accept this risk as one of the many stresses of everyday living.

As you have seen in this court room yesterday my client can remove that risk at a fraction of the cost of driving, flying and sailing.  Opposing counsel has already said we are opening Pandora's box, risking the creation of new D-Shifts despite assurances by the world government there has not been a recorded D-Shift in 10 years.  My client Jane Everfall has built her business around understanding and making use of the D-Shifts.  Portal Industries has the highest safety record throughout the solar system.  The D-Shifts are gone but we have learned from them how to manipulate space to our considerable advantage.

This ladies and gentleman of jury this is a landmark case which will dictate how humanity develops as a civilisation.  As I said at the beginning the case is very simple.

Do we finally remove the risk of travel!

OR!

Do we continue to allow ourselves and those we love DIE!

Route 101 – Thunder Part 9 of 9

Flotsam

And that's the Road's history from beginning to end okay I so I left out the numerous attempts to travel the one mile of Road by various different thrill seekers and extreme sports nuts but that's a given really this sort of phenomenon always attracts the crazies.  There is of course one small fact that I have left out about the Road and that is no one has succeeded in traversing the full one mile they didn't just fail they all died.  My heart is pumping fast and I am beginning to think I've bitten off more than I can chew.  In the middle distance the dance of the lightening bolts lights up a circular patch near the school bus and I see just for a brief second the headless body of Robert Jones, the hair on the back of my neck and arms stands up straight.  If I make it I'd be famous otherwise I will be very dead indeed might even end up like Robert Jones.  This is it either I turn around now or I go hell for leather, I give my old hunker some gas it doesn't move and that would be because the hand brake is still on.

My mood shifts from sheer terror to a fit of the giggles which takes me awhile to get under control, once I've stopped laughing the Road is still there waiting for me its next victim.  The terror is gone now it has been replaced with never ending determination, I realise that I still got my foot on the gas so I drop the hand brake and my old hunker leaps away like a startled bull frog towards the chaos of the Road.

I drop the shielding into place across the windshield making it quite difficult to see out but I'm glad  to be wearing sunglasses I think would have been blinded as soon as I entered the storm zone.  I hear a number of loud thumps and I am pretty sure I can smell something burning, no point in looking in my rear view mirror there's nothing to see the cab is pretty much closed in with shielding plus I'm wearing the cloak as well which is quite warm.  Nothing truly bad has happened yet that I can see although I'm hardly into the heart of storm yet.  As I get closer to the half way mark I have to slow down there are far more wrecks in the way not many vehicles made it past this point and I having great difficulty navigating round them.  There is an awful lot of metal on metal sounds although I can barely hear that through the sound of the storm itself which like having a twenty pound artillery gun going off next to your ear every few seconds.  I'm now down to a complete crawl, I open the glove compartment to find something to stick in my ears, I don't really hear it more sort of feel it.  There's an explosion at the back on the nearside pretty sure that was the back wheel punctured I'm probably driving on at least one rim at the moment.  I see gap in the Road between the wrecks and I scrap slowly through, with cotton wadding stuffed in my ears the storm's voice is a little easier to take.

I'm past the half way point and Road is almost clear and I can see further down to the shadow of the over turned bus, I know I could scrap past the front of the bus at a reasonable speed which should give me enough momentum to make it out of the storm, there is another muffled explosion to right. The back of the hunker skews to right I do my best to turn into skid and just when I think I lost control my old hunker rights itself and I gear down to get some speed up.  I'm nearly up to fifty miles per hour when by the light of three simultaneous lightening bolts that hit close to the school bus whilst all around goes dark I see Robert Jones's headless body directly ahead I am mere yards from him, despite the fact he is most certainly dead I cannot bring myself to drive through him and I yank the steering wheel in attempt to swerve round him.  I must have missed him by mere inches however my swerve didn't end there as my hunker spun into a skid I heard the sickening crunch of the front axle tearing loose under the sudden collision with the bus but the bus did not stop the motion of my hunker but caused it to spin and then slide down off the side of the Road into the ditch.  The hunker starts to roll and I am tumbling over and over fortunately I have had the sense to wear my seat belt.

The hunker finally stops rolling and lands mostly upright, I can still hear the sounds of the storm outside but I cannot tell if I was far enough off the Road to attempt getting out of my hunker and walking the last two hundred yards or so. Still alive despite considerable bruising to my ribs, just as I was contemplating getting out the driver's airbag went off a little late and the sudden crunch in my nose leads to me suspect I now have a broken nose but compared to the pain in my ribs I barely notice it.  I pull a hunting knife from my boot and deflate the airbag, the driver's side door is completely buckled inwards no chance of leaving that way and it is closest to the storm so probably best to try leaving via the passengers side.

This door isn't bust however feels like something is blocking it so I roll down the window,  then lie on the bench seat and start kicking at the shielding I had attached to my hunker.  The fact that it survived the roll down the side of the Road is testament to my hardware skills but at the moment I want it to break very soon indeed.  It takes about five or six smacks of my heavy boots to knock the shielding loose at which point the light of the storm explodes into the cabin and not even my sunglasses are doing much good.  I squeeze my eyes shut as tightly as possible and pull the hood of the cloak close over my head, okay as clever ideas go not so good but it is still my only option of getting out alive.

I figure my best hope is to go feet first and head away from the storm which despite my cotton wadding is very loud indeed.  Fortunately I'm not an unfit guy, quite slim in fact and going through the cab window is fine then I land awkwardly on my left foot, I feel my ankle twist so I purposefully lean to right and promptly fall over but at least I out and no bolts have hit me yet.  I use my hunker as a base to work from and on all fours I ease myself slowly out onto the plain.  I risk a brief look back, the light from the storm is very bright indeed but it is probably a safe enough distance to stand up and run like hell.  Whilst running I trip over what I assume is a big ass boulder which sends me flying, I put out my hand and there is definite crack as I hit the ground along with the sudden increased pounding of the storm's voice although the pain in my ribs still getting most of my attention.  My breathing is very difficult, there is a very sharp stinging feeling in both of my hands and to cap it all off my left foot feels far to big for my boot.  The boot is probably the only thing that is keeping me walking well it is more of a limp now.

And then as if by magic the noise ceases and it is completely quiet, I change my course and head south back towards those who sent me into this damned Road in the first place.  I see their lights, they obviously can see me because they are pointing in my direction and gesticulating but I hear nothing. I get within perhaps a hundred yards and then the lights go out.

Jetsam

Opening my eyes I see I am in a hospital room both my hands are bandaged, I can barely breath due to the wrapping around my ribs and the breathing is still quite painful.  Pretty sure my head and neck are in something of a neck brace, I fumbled around until I find the button to call the nurse and give good ten second push.  For a hospital it is damn quiet almost deathly in its stillness, I would click my fingers if they weren't so bandaged up, my mouth won't open but I don't remember any injuries to my face during my stupid adventure down that Road, holy hell what was I thinking.  The door opens in walks a nurse and doctor they seemed to be speaking but nothing is coming out out of their mouths, is this death did I die? Definite feeling of panic trying to get up out of this nightmare what happened back on the Road have I become trapped like Robert Jones.  Two nurses in the room now gently pushing me down, the doctor has pulled out a notebook and is writing on it.  He turns the notebook round and shows it to my face.  It takes a while for me focus on it but when I do I stopped fighting and lie back on the bed, although I don't think the doctor's professional bedside manner really let me down easy with those three words he wrote on the notepad.

Route 101 – Thunder Part 6 of 9

Flotsam

The next D-Shift to set up shop was at the south end literally just a couple of yards from the side of the Road, it was initially stationary like the 'Sweeper'.  Remember Billy the bus driver well he wasn't always a bus driver when he was younger he was an up and coming actor.  Set on the gravy train for life until he was caught with the  director's wife of the film he was in, in a very public incident with a recently printed giant banana.  It basically put his career in the toilet, so he chose anonymity as a school bus driver and became well known in the local bars as 'Only-if' a man of many regrets apparently the incident with the director's wife was just the tip of iceberg when he got drunk which was pretty every night he would bang on saying over and over again only if he done it differently he would be so rich not stuck out here in the sticks.  Billy did however have one redeeming feature he took care of his Mum and the locals knew this so they always made sure someone drove him home if he was too drunk to drive.

It was on one of these nights that Howard James one of Billy's friends was driving him home, they had literally just turned onto the Road when Billy said he needed to take a leak.  Howard stopped the truck and let Billy out who wandered in a less than straight line off the edge of the Road.  Ten minutes later Howard was still waiting for Billy to return, he grabbed a torch and walked off in the general direction Billy went in.  I've met Howard and he said to me it was pitch black out that night even with his flashlight he couldn't see a lot.  He spent about half an hour looking for Billy until he tripped over Billy's body lying face up, he was alive but with an odd calmness about him that Howard had never seen in Billy's eyes before.  He couldn't work out what Billy was looking at until he looked up and for a moment he couldn't drag his eyes away from the spectacle above him.  Unlike Billy Howard was not a man many regrets so he was not drawn into what he saw above him, he knew it must be another D-Shift probably something to do with time he supposed.  He dragged Billy's body back to Road and back into the truck, fifteen minutes went by before Billy blinked his eyes and asked if he had beer in the truck and that he just had a really odd dream.  Howard gave him a light beer then drove Billy home and didn't mention anything to Billy about what he saw.  In hindsight Howard regretted that particularly decision although he never went back to what became known as the Oracle of Madness.

Unlike other D-Shifts known at the time this particularly one was spherical in nature hovering some twenty feet above the ground and was approximately twenty feet in diameter.  To get a proper look at you really needed to lie under it although that wasn't always easy because it tended to wander across the land, at first it was thought that its route was random but when it was plotted it always took the same route across the plain and always ended up where it begun.  It did however make stops during its journey across the plain and took exactly nine hours from beginning to end.  The land that it traveled across was owned by a local entrepreneur called Jake 'River' Hook who instantly saw the D-Shift's money making potential and despite many attempts by the government boys was unable to stop him from raking in a fair bit of cash on the tourist ride he called River Futures.  The government boys did managed to force some health and safety regulations into Hook's operation but it didn't stop several people losing their minds to the Oracle including Only-if Billy before the government boys shutdown Hook down permanently.  Hook himself disappeared shortly after the shutdown he was found lying face up on the Oracle's route chained to ground, dead from exposure.  It was written off as a revenge killing however not enough evidence was ever found to point the finger at a viable suspect.

What you saw when you looked into the Oracle according those big scientists from the City was all your possible futures based upon your past decisions made differently.  The only problem is that you are effectively staring into an infinite number of realities all at once though according the scientists it appeared to affect people differently.  Not everyone looking into it went mad which according to the government boys was why it took so long to shut Hook down.  With Hook gone with no heir apparent the government took over and installed forty foot high fences around the Oracle's route and a daily security patrol.  The same D.S. Agent that visited the 'Sweeper' on a monthly basis also monitored the Oracle.

Route 101 – Thunder Part 5 of 9

Flotsam

The D-Shifts had just arrived around the time of the ozone hole but many of them were appearing over water except for the pigeon incident and there was a big one in Rome was well (an Escher type I think).  It was the early days of the D-Shifts and government boys hadn't even begun to categorised them.  The Road itself runs due south although when it was still open to the public it was a two lane highway so I suppose you could travel north too but back when it was used it had already acquired a bad name and most people drove around it.  However it was on the local school bus route and gas prices back then were still quite steep so the local high school home of the 'Thunder Rams' I might add, spent a little cash on UV shielding to avoid the larger spend of going the long way round.
Whoever came up with the name Thunder Rams must have had considerable foresight.  If it hadn't been for the somewhat cheap nature of the high school it is possible that the D-Shifts that appeared around the Road would never have been reported.

First came the 'Sweeper' due east of the Road, it appeared two hundred yards away from the crash barriers roughly in the center, it must have been an amazing sight for the school kids as they drove past it.  According the then driver of the bus one William Paker, Billy to his Mum although most of his friends called him 'Only-if' one moment there was nothing and the next a blue shimmering tornado spinning eastwards away from the Road.  Billy stopped the bus, he said he wasn't sure whether it would be safe or not.  When he and some of the older kids got out they discovered there was no wind whatsoever.  This tornado was also acting very weird according Billy, it was pretty much stationary apart from the fact it was spinning clockwise, was about eighteen to twenty feet across and there were blue sparks appearing all through it.  Billy could see that there was debris within it but upon closer inspection by the science team it was discovered that most of the debris was very small indeed.  A leaf is probably the largest object a 'Sweeper' will allow inside.  Billy waited about half an hour before he decided it was safe to drive past but he did as fast as he could.

The Road was closed temporarily whilst government boys investigated this new phenomenon when the Road was reopened the locals found the 'Sweeper' still there except with heavy duty razor wire round it with signs stating that the phenomenon was not dangerous had been categorised as a 'Sweeper' D-Shift but is under government jurisdiction and is a federal crime to attempt entry without permission.  A D.S. Agent will visit the site on a monthly basis to confirm that all is in order.

I met that same agent several years later when I first came to this neck of the woods but I'll tell you about that later.  There are quite a few 'Sweeper' D-Shifts around the world nowadays quite excellent for storing dead leaves although there has a been few lazy gardeners out there that have died when a 'Sweeper' departs for sunnier climes.  The field of energy that spins a 'Sweeper' doesn't slowly dissipates over time it just vanishes all at once leaving the debris it has collected explode outwards normally taking several innocent people in its wake.  When the first 'Sweeper' dropped its load so to speak the razor wire around the Road's 'Sweeper' was upgraded to heavy metal fencing and several outer fences to stop even the most determined tourist to get too close.

Route 101 – Thunder Part 4 of 9

Flotsam

Fortunately the Paris incident was probably the worst one for causalities and these events just seemed continued on at apace although the government says they are slowing down now.  Incidents on the Road however didn't stop with the Greys's landing hell no, after the D-Shifts started it became the new tornado alley but without the wind.  Both sides of the Road were originally used for cattle ranching although the slight radioactive nature of the then water table put to question as to quality of meat back then, of course most of the rich folk even then were printing their food.  What the rich folk don't know or care is that in order to print the food in the first place you've got to have some raw material to put into the printer, many so called synthetics come direct from nature.  Being a farmer you tend pick up on things like this you see.

I'm sure you have all heard of Black and Blue Meats, eaten their steaks in restaurants not to mention their chain of burger joints but I bet you didn't know the origin of the meat in the first place.  Many people believed that it is actually printed food not using beef at all but they would be very wrong there well originally they were wrong not so sure now of course.  The land on either side of Road had become tainted but the cattle didn't seemed to be affected by it at all in fact they seem to thrive on it.

Most people in this age think all cattle are black and blue coloured not so, many were brown and white or black and white or just plain brown, that shows the power of marketing nobody seems to remember the days before Black and Blue cattle.

The cattle along the Road seemed fine except the ranchers began notice little of patches blue coloured skin which slowly spread until the entire herd was black and blue.  Edward Black the owner of the cattle was half an honest man, he'd spent an awful lot of money on his ranch and cattle but he didn't want to poison people with his tainted herd.  He decided to butcher one of this cows and try out the meat himself turns out it tasted absolutely amazing, he then got some scientists in to test meat which proved to be negative to anything bad in the meat.  This however was the first generation of cattle on the land the originals so to speak, the second generation were not so lucky in their lack of effects.  Some of the calves were born with no legs but hovered a foot above ground but appeared to be in no distress whilst others just walked backwards however the meat itself was toxic.  This would have been Edward Black's downfall however he was quite a clever man, he had taken organic cells from the original cattle before they were slaughtered.  Dolly the Sheep may have made history so many years ago but its Edward Black that turned it into a stable industry of course some old guys say that the quality of a Black and Blue steak has dropped off of late and there are many conspiracy theories regarding the possibility that the meat is now printed too.


When the cattle farming upped sticks it was just a Road for a short time until some big scientists from the city discovered an ozone hole directly overhead.  You may remember back in the eighties when all those green folk were worried about the ozone hole over the North Pole we had maybe a decade of people banning chemicals (CFCs) that's bad for the upper atmosphere and then it all went quiet but the hole is still there but no longer news worthy.  The hole above the Road had been marked for the fringe press only, at one point the Road was known as Sun Tan Alley despite the lack of sun you could still get a tan and in really bad cases skin cancer.

Route 101 – Thunder Part 3 of 9

Flostam

Even before the D-Shifts started up, this Road has seen its far share of history, originally it ran up to the take-off fields of the Space Patrol of course they didn't last long what with the war between Dwells what a nutty bunch of aliens they were.  They blew the Space Patrol right out of its socks and then surrenders for absolutely no reason known to man.  There's still a big crater at the end of the Road some big scientists say it created a negative pole of instability at that end of the Road whatever that means.  The Dwells didn't stay long but they did give us star-drive capability not that it helped us to travel to other stars of course, theoretically we could as long as we were at least four light years away from the Earth.

Then came the Greys, aliens with zero dress sense and I do mean zero.  They landed at the end of the Road I'm currently sitting stationary at in my hunker about three miles northeast in fact.  Turns out the Greys tended to follow the Dwells everywhere not to patch up their messes like my old Dad no such luck not that I believe in luck of course.  Apparently the Dwells are drawn to highly radioactive materials and the Space Patrol had one of the old G-Reactors that belched the stuff on a regular basis of course back then the bulk of the Space Patrol was completely automated using those daft IA series robots. I mean come on, difference engines make terrible cops.  We sold the Greys plans for the G-Reactors a completely unstable technology for a yet more unstable technology to help with the star-drive the Dwells had supplied us with.  The government was apparently on their game that day because they asked for a demonstration so the Greys put a man in a shuttle craft east of the Road and used the tech to travel to the west side of the Road without apparently moving.  Then they left quite quickly not to be seen again I might add and so did the government boys although we seen them all the time.

Five years later came the first of the D-Shifts and no one even noticed it for another year, it was right in the middle of the Bermuda Triangle so who is going to notice something strange there.  Of course when an ocean liner that has been wrapped in a complete circle appears drifting off the coast tends say something was up, it was a bloody miracle no one was hurt.  The incident in Paris however really made an impression particularly I assume on the French since it was their tower that had the make over in pigeon, I'm sure you've seen the video feed that one moment a very small pigeon in the middle distance flying above the tower and the next a twenty ton pigeon failing to fly and falling on top of it.  Speared quite spectacularly by the tower itself not that the tower managed to support the extra weight for very long, which then bent down before snapping completely in two, only two hundred and seven people killed.  One of the worst disasters the city had faced since the last war, I mean to have survived five wars and then to be destroyed by a twenty ton pigeon.

Route 101 – Thunder Part 2 of 9

Flotsam

Here I am hung over looking down a Road which is effectively a deathtrap to all those unwary enough to travel down it and stubborn folk like me who doesn't like to back down from a bet once made.  I can just make out the blonde lass a mile in the distance they got a bunch lights all set up, I'm not sure a piece of tail is really worth risking my life over.  Its not like the bet is for much in the way of credits either.  I know what you are thinking and it isn't pride either,  its more to the wipe the smug smile off that old boy's face.  Still that mile just seems to be getting longer the more I look at it, fortunately or not depends on how you look at it there's only me here at this end.  They've probably thought I've bottled it, not me I maybe a little slow sometimes but I'm not stupid got me a secret weapon.

Okay so as secret weapons go it isn't too secret just a sheet of second hand syntho-shield which I managed to bend over the more weaker points of the hunker and then I also I've got a cloak of the stuff.  Didn't come cheap either the guy that sold it to me says its just like the shields the government uses for rescuing people from unexpected D-Shifts.  Thing is the shields don't last long and government always throws them away after one use so there is quite a trade in them.

The real problem is that The Storm itself isn't a D-Shift, more sort of the waste product of one so I'm not actually sure how good the syntho-shield is going to be against The Storm's effects and there are many.  You see I accepted the bet before I read up on the history of the Road, okay I admit that was stupid.  Though I suspect the whole thing was a frame up, I mean they all know about the new protected zone being built right next to my property.  They were just jealous and this is how they've managed to get back at me.  Its not my fault that I'm risking my life not one bit of it.  I bought that piece of land from one of the local widows two summers back apparently been in the family for centuries dating back to before the war of independence.  Of course the locals didn't like a limey like me buying their land, its good farming land not sure why its never been turned.  The soil is thick and black, had one of them big scientists from the city to test it before I bought it though just in case.  They said it was high grade you could grow anything from it, I think that is why the government blokes decided to build near it so they could use me to farm for them but the locals say the land is protected and its bad luck to farm there.  I don't believe in luck what happens happens, of course the locals tried to stop me from doing any work on the land straight off.

First it was none of the local farm-boys would hire out to me despite the high rate I was offering, then I had the cops down on a tip that my trailer contained government controlled plants and then the local hardware store refused my credits.  I've had bring everything in from hundred miles away at considerable cost I might add, for the amount of credits I've spent so far on this shindig I could of bought myself a nice little flat in a protected zone.  Of course that isn't me, I'm a farmer through and through don't like the indoors too much.

Its the government's fault again I had good farm back in Blighty, saw me a government sign about big money to be had in the land of the yanks.  Lots of spare land since the population drop after the D-Shifts started.  Apparently it effects your manhood not that I've ever had any trouble myself in that direction but since the D-Shifts the birthrate has dropped off quite bit.  Blighty seems fine for that sort of thing but the government says it because there's more D-Shifts in the US,  I'm not so sure on that front.  Still that's why I here looking down that stretch of road cause the locals obviously want me dead and away from their land.

Route 101 – Thunder Part 1 of 9

I am currently a bit fed up with politics so I have decided to post up a short story I wrote in 2014/15 based upon another story I wrote whilst in school.  I have split it up into nine parts and epilogue, Enjoy.

Genre Locked

During my teens the first book I ever read that was more than 50 pages was War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells which is about 200 pages.  It was also mostly likely the book that got me hooked on Sci-Fi but I digress, this particular novel took me several months to read not due to the length but it was down to the way it was written.  Basically it was hard to read, as I read more of Well’s books I discovered he had different styles of writing,  The Time Machine for instance was much easier to read than War of the Worlds.  Similarly C.S Lewis’s Sci-Fi novels which were only 200 pages each are heavy on philosophies and little on the action where as his Narnia Chronicles (written for kids) were a doddle to read admittedly a more extreme example of style of writing.

The problem I have had with books like these and I have read quite a few over the years is that they are locked into their specific genres there is no link to real life I suppose you might say ‘Duh!’ its fiction why should it do so.  To be clear I have read number of horror books by Clive Barker and James Herbert none these contained any humour which happens in real life all the time even in the most dire circumstances it is integral to way humans are wired although James Herbert’s Domain did contain some black humour.

Moving on from books to movies, until perhaps in the Die Hard films action movies contained very little humour similarly horrors contained zero humour whatsoever.  The more recent Marvel movies do contain limited amounts of humour whereas DC movies are quite dark and detached.

Apparently if the genre is of a serious nature there seems to be unwritten rule that no humour is allowed.

Should war films for instance been limited to only serious scenes to avoid detracting from the horrors of war.  I think it dehumanizes the fiction and makes it easier for people to watch that being said a film like Saving Private Ryan brought back some very bad memories for veterans of WWII.

Heroes are not allowed to laugh otherwise they would seem like everyone else in the minds of the readers/viewers.

Is this a purposeful detachment for fiction from reality?  Perhaps fiction should never be too real, I am aware totally aware this opening big can worms.

I have always found book/movies that contain humour far easy to read/watch, some of the more recent TV series have added humour into single episodes to offset this possible of loss viewers, to name a couple X-Files and Supernatural and curiously enough The Simpsons managed to do a wonderful Halloween special using Edge Allen Poe’s poem The Raven which reversed the humour beautifully.

These unwritten rules are slowly being broken however creators of fiction love to go retro, Crimson Peak for instance was a return to the Gothic Romance which had almost died out in the movies but still exists in books.

My own stories always contain an element of humour in order to anchor it and keep my readers awake or interested.

Perhaps people just cannot cope with multiple genres, ironic considering what is in the News everyday.