Friday, October 12, 2012
Creative Challenge Treasure Hunt
Jamie lay on her side in her small hole and traced the edges of the ancient transportation device in the picture plastered to the wall, as if petting it. The picture was old, ancient. If not for the sealant coating it, it would have turned to dust ages ago. The colors were faded and distorted. What she thought may have been images of trees, once green and lush, were now brownish orange. The discoloration was made worse by the dim glow light she kept beside the image. At the center of the brow- orange trees was the transport sitting on top of a cliff, maybe a waterfall. Parts of the transport look broken but it may have just the paper.
It reminded her of the small toy Hill had had when they were little. She had bent one of the little triangles that stuck out from the side. He had broken all the fingers on one of her hands for that and then had thrown the toy away.
The implant in her wrist buzzed. She still wasn’t used to the sensation and her skin crawled in reaction. She shimmied forward in her hole until she could grip the wheel that closed the door. She switched off the light and pushed the door open just enough to let sound and any light, if present, in. There was no light and the only sound was the drip and soft murmur of water. She flicked the light back on as the implant buzzed impatiently at her.
“I’m coming. I’m coming,” she muttered as she pulled herself the rest of the way out of her hole and then closed and locked the hatch. The light stretched down the tunnel in both directions, illuminating the vivid colors. The once blood-red brick was now discolored by the minerals and chemicals of the water that dripped down the sides to the floor where it collected into a lazy, dirt filled stream. She would sometimes leave the hatch cracked just enough to let the gentle sounds in while she fell asleep.
The hole that she called home had once been a pipe of some kind that had emptied into the tunnel but she had sealed off one end, built in an air filter into the metal hatch, and had coated the walls with sealant and pictures. It was stuffy and damp, but it was safe, and hers.
By the time she reached the shop front to which she had been summoned her arm was going numb from the constant buzzing sensation. She flexed her hand, spreading her twisted fingers as far out as they would go and then into as tight a fist as she could get while rubbing the wrist with her other hand. She hated this store.
The whole front of the store was an upturned eye with a drop of colored water above it as if something had been dropped into the eye and then had splashed out. BEAUTY IS IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER proclaimed words that shimmered across the image. An optical nano shop. One of the few still operating. Probably because the owner had enough blackmail material to destroy anyone who was even a passing threat.
Jamie stepped through the eye and looked around the oval office as the buzzing stopped. The walls were decorated by the most attractive people, past and present, and beautiful, exotic landscapes. The promise of the OptNanos. Don’t like what your spouse looks like? Change how you see her. Change what he looks like to anyone you want. Don’t like the slum you live in? Then how about living in some exotic land where the sun always shines and the earth is scattered with balls of stone. Only the image was changed. If you wanted the sounds you had to go three stores down. They still didn’t have something that could change what things felt like when you touched them and the images and sounds tended to have a bit of delay. Not a good idea if you needed to be fast on your feet.
On the far side of the office was a desk and just behind that a hall blocked by a glow bead curtain. A grey man with grey skin and grey hair and grey eyes looked up at her from behind the desk.
“You’re late. Room 3.” Even his voice seemed grey. She slipped around him and through the curtain. The rest of the shop looked sterile, clean. Like you could cut someone open and pull out all their secrets and smile all the while kind of clean.
The entire facility was automated. The room she walked into had a chair at the center with a head rest that looked like it would rip her head off to keep it in place if need be while a complex machine tapered down from the ceiling to end in a point a hands length above the head rest. Her stomach twisted into a knot as she leaned back and she jumped as the head rest clamped around her skull and flat metal tongs forced her eyes open.
Her rapid, ragged breath echoed back to her off the walls as a drop fell from the machine into her eyes blurring and then blinding her for an instant. Slowly the room came back into blurry focus only now instead of blank white the walls looked like cracked paint and Murshi was there looking at her. Drool dripped down his jaw onto his furry chest while one of his wings flicked his cigarette.
“You’re late.” Murshi’s voice had a heavy accent that just did not work with the bear’s mouth it was coming out of. Too much lip movement in the voice for a fuzzy muzzle.
“So I have been told. Will you get this thing off of me?” She pawed at the head rest, feeling vulnerable and claustrophobic. Murshi smiled; at least she thought it was supposed to be a smile.
“It improves your looks.”
“I am not here to play your games with you. Do you have something for Hill or not?” She tried to lace the threat of failing Hill into her words while glaring at Murshi’s fur covered digital projection.
He rolled his eyes and his paw waved about in front of him and the clamping force on her head relaxed until she could pull her head free.
“You are no fun and Hill is obsessed.” His paw moved again and her vision wavered as streaks of orange and black swirled and streaked across it, like the pulsating surface of the sun. It made her dizzy and sick and closing her eyes did nothing to shut off the image. The swirls and lines formed into fleeting images, people, places, some words. As the colors spun once more she leaned forward and vomited on to the floor she couldn’t see and was satisfied by a stream of curses from Murshi.
The spirals settled in to a moving image. Jamie turned her head and shifted her eyes but the image stayed the same. Stupid, she thought, she was not really seeing this. This is what someone else was seeing. It was some place outside the cities. Low buildings sit under the chemical sky. People moved about in the orange light of the sun. The target was looking at a tree-shaped sculpture and Jamie worked to fix it in her mind. She would have to find out where this sculpture was. She was surprised when one of the figures in the image walked out of view and again tried to turn her head to watch.
“Is this real time?” she asked, noting the position of the sun and the shapes of the buildings.
“Almost. There is a four-minute lag due to the upload.” Murshi wouldn’t risk recording the POV stream. Stealing what people’s POVs was a major crime. The kind that made you disappear if you were caught. So here she was, seeing what the target was seeing and noting anything and everything that could tell Hill where the target was hiding. The image started to streak and blur, returning to the pulsating swirls that made her head spin and her stomach lurch.
“That’s it. The transmitting nanos are burning out. Tell Hill my debt is paid.”
Her vision returned slowly. Her hands were outlined with fire that streaked as she moved her fingers. As soon as she could see well enough to stand she did so and moved to the door, stopping just long enough to look over her shoulder at the smoking bearadactal on the wall. “Our debts are never paid.”
Friday, October 5, 2012
Creative Treasure Hunt
100
http://dailyartmuse.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/gordon1.jpg
Jamie clenched her fist around the necklace so hard, the edges bit into her flesh. The pain in her hand throbbed in time with her pounding heart. Her lungs and throat burned a counter rhythm with each gasped breath. And her feet pounded out yet another beat. Heart beat and lungs inside, breath and feet out, the beats of her body pounded on as she ran.
And run she did.
She ran until the lights of the food and drink establishments flattened out into the dim lights of the commercial district and the sounds of her pursuers faded. She swerved down alleys, ducked under fences, and at last slid through a tiny window that led into a dark hole.
Her arms shook as she took slow deep breaths through her nose, fighting to keep them as quiet as possible. As her heart slowed and her breathing easied she strained her hearing into the night beyond the window. Safe in the dark she could hear some distant shouts but they were well away from her. And at last she opened her hand and held her prize up to the light that spilled sluggishly through the window.
A half formed memory of pictures in a book came back to her as she looked at the strange creature outlined in blood on the pendent. The creature’s eye gleamed back at her, seeming to glow in the darkness, as the light struck it.
She would have to replace the chain that had snapped off when she had grabbed it.and clean the blood of, maybe polish it up before she could offer it as tribute. But at least she wouldn’t go empty handed.
50
http://twilightnotes.com/wp-content/uploads/Little-Dragon.jpg
Jamie eyed the crowd as it shifted, growing and shrinking, pulsating as people moved in and out of the club. The yellow lights on the brick face of the building made everyone look sickly while the bright white lights inside the door alcove washed every one out. Black and white movie characters with splashes of color merging with diseased hordes.
Jamie shut her eyes and willed away the images that thought brought to mind. Images of people rotting where they stood.
“Stop.” Her voice snapped her out of the past and she started toward the crowd. She stayed as close to the wall as she could. The doorman spotted her in the crowd and raised an eyebrow in her direction before reaching out and clearing a way for her.
There were three doors into the club, two stood open for those the doormen chose worthy while the third was firmly closed with a camera mounted above it. That door clicked open a moment after she stepped in front of it.
The corridor just beyond the door was quiet. The noise of the crowd and club sealed away by the closed door. The hall itself was dim, lit from below. The light shining up through the glass floor from small rooms,“The Collection”. A large animal on four legs with orange and black fur was next to a room with a brown pot in the center next to a room with a young woman asleep partly on her stomach and partly on her side with one arm under her head Her tattoos looked fresh and dark, swirling around her legs, up her back, down the one arm that was visible. Her black hair and pale skin gave her that same black and white illusion. It made the colors in her tattoos POP out.
Jamie moved down the hall quickly when the woman’s eyes popped up and looked up at her. She could feel her cheeks flush slightly, feeling a bit guilty for gawking at the woman.
The room at the end of the hall was simple. Four grey walls with a conference table in the center. The dim lights and dark colors made the room feel claustrophobic and far too large at the same time. She dropped the pendent on the table quickly then retreated to the doorway and stood waiting. The silver metal and orange gem seemed to glow on the table while the black leather she has used for a cord blended into the dark table.
“Her name is Sashina.” Hills voice whispered above her right ear just as his hand landed on her shoulder. She jumped and twisted so suddenly that she would have fallen over it not for his large heavy hand. He snickered as he released her and walked over to the table. The pendent looked absurdly small and cheap in his hand as he turned it over and over before turning to her and holding it out towards her. “A trinket?”
Jamie stepped up in front of him and pressed the center of the creature’s shell. Light burst out from the orange eye. Three dimensional images, streams of numbers, text files floated between them, dazzling their eyes.
“Oh.” the shocked look on his face gave way to a grin.
60
http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lyeumxE6Y91qllucco3_400.jpg
Jamie looked at the painting on the wall above the couch. She was Hills’ own apartment. She was clean, clean for the first time in a long time. In contrast to the offices and Collection rooms, his apartment was full of colors and was massively cluttered. Books and papers and data units and models covered every surface. Maps and posters and blueprints were pinned and taped to all the walls. It seemed as if the area around this one painting was the only clear spot in the apartment.
“It was mother’s” He stood in the doorway looking at her, he seemed less massive and terrifying now. A totally different person almost. “At night we would sit in front of it and she would tell me stories. Stories about spaceships, other worlds; some were true, some were fake. No matter what we collected, or lost, or sold, she kept this picture.”
“I don’t remember it.”
“It was never for you. Be gone in the morning” He said dismissively before turning and leaving the room. She wrapped her arms around herself and did not look at the painting again.
http://dailyartmuse.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/gordon1.jpg
Jamie clenched her fist around the necklace so hard, the edges bit into her flesh. The pain in her hand throbbed in time with her pounding heart. Her lungs and throat burned a counter rhythm with each gasped breath. And her feet pounded out yet another beat. Heart beat and lungs inside, breath and feet out, the beats of her body pounded on as she ran.
And run she did.
She ran until the lights of the food and drink establishments flattened out into the dim lights of the commercial district and the sounds of her pursuers faded. She swerved down alleys, ducked under fences, and at last slid through a tiny window that led into a dark hole.
Her arms shook as she took slow deep breaths through her nose, fighting to keep them as quiet as possible. As her heart slowed and her breathing easied she strained her hearing into the night beyond the window. Safe in the dark she could hear some distant shouts but they were well away from her. And at last she opened her hand and held her prize up to the light that spilled sluggishly through the window.
A half formed memory of pictures in a book came back to her as she looked at the strange creature outlined in blood on the pendent. The creature’s eye gleamed back at her, seeming to glow in the darkness, as the light struck it.
She would have to replace the chain that had snapped off when she had grabbed it.and clean the blood of, maybe polish it up before she could offer it as tribute. But at least she wouldn’t go empty handed.
50
http://twilightnotes.com/wp-content/uploads/Little-Dragon.jpg
Jamie eyed the crowd as it shifted, growing and shrinking, pulsating as people moved in and out of the club. The yellow lights on the brick face of the building made everyone look sickly while the bright white lights inside the door alcove washed every one out. Black and white movie characters with splashes of color merging with diseased hordes.
Jamie shut her eyes and willed away the images that thought brought to mind. Images of people rotting where they stood.
“Stop.” Her voice snapped her out of the past and she started toward the crowd. She stayed as close to the wall as she could. The doorman spotted her in the crowd and raised an eyebrow in her direction before reaching out and clearing a way for her.
There were three doors into the club, two stood open for those the doormen chose worthy while the third was firmly closed with a camera mounted above it. That door clicked open a moment after she stepped in front of it.
The corridor just beyond the door was quiet. The noise of the crowd and club sealed away by the closed door. The hall itself was dim, lit from below. The light shining up through the glass floor from small rooms,“The Collection”. A large animal on four legs with orange and black fur was next to a room with a brown pot in the center next to a room with a young woman asleep partly on her stomach and partly on her side with one arm under her head Her tattoos looked fresh and dark, swirling around her legs, up her back, down the one arm that was visible. Her black hair and pale skin gave her that same black and white illusion. It made the colors in her tattoos POP out.
Jamie moved down the hall quickly when the woman’s eyes popped up and looked up at her. She could feel her cheeks flush slightly, feeling a bit guilty for gawking at the woman.
The room at the end of the hall was simple. Four grey walls with a conference table in the center. The dim lights and dark colors made the room feel claustrophobic and far too large at the same time. She dropped the pendent on the table quickly then retreated to the doorway and stood waiting. The silver metal and orange gem seemed to glow on the table while the black leather she has used for a cord blended into the dark table.
“Her name is Sashina.” Hills voice whispered above her right ear just as his hand landed on her shoulder. She jumped and twisted so suddenly that she would have fallen over it not for his large heavy hand. He snickered as he released her and walked over to the table. The pendent looked absurdly small and cheap in his hand as he turned it over and over before turning to her and holding it out towards her. “A trinket?”
Jamie stepped up in front of him and pressed the center of the creature’s shell. Light burst out from the orange eye. Three dimensional images, streams of numbers, text files floated between them, dazzling their eyes.
“Oh.” the shocked look on his face gave way to a grin.
60
http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lyeumxE6Y91qllucco3_400.jpg
Jamie looked at the painting on the wall above the couch. She was Hills’ own apartment. She was clean, clean for the first time in a long time. In contrast to the offices and Collection rooms, his apartment was full of colors and was massively cluttered. Books and papers and data units and models covered every surface. Maps and posters and blueprints were pinned and taped to all the walls. It seemed as if the area around this one painting was the only clear spot in the apartment.
“It was mother’s” He stood in the doorway looking at her, he seemed less massive and terrifying now. A totally different person almost. “At night we would sit in front of it and she would tell me stories. Stories about spaceships, other worlds; some were true, some were fake. No matter what we collected, or lost, or sold, she kept this picture.”
“I don’t remember it.”
“It was never for you. Be gone in the morning” He said dismissively before turning and leaving the room. She wrapped her arms around herself and did not look at the painting again.
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