Clearly, this genre is far from exhausted.
Continued from Muse Fanfiction, v. 2008.2.
These are not RRRs but solo projects which share the same thread. Start your own, or just stop by and visit.
Patience, Please
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OK, I’ll post something as soon as I find a frame of reference on the previous thread…
[Later] OK, got it.
Martin trudged over to the base of the tower and reached into the snow. After a fair amount of clunking and cursing in Esperanto, he finally managed to turn the hidden dial. A round wooden trapdoor swung inward, and the trio faced a large, dark hole.
Lucia nimbly leaped into the passage, Sebastian and Martin following closely. The tunnel was almost vertical at first, with rough stone walls, but after passing a few doors, it became more reminiscent of a hobbit-hole than a troll’s lair. True, it was somewhat shabby, but it was warmer and more comfortable than many of the catacombs.
Well, I’ve never written a Muse FanFiction before, and I really don’t have the time to write one….but I’ll try it anyway!
*starts thinking*
My, these threads go by.
Hey, wait a second….I have written a Muse Fanfiction before — My NaNo!
The tunnel came out behind a wall panel, from which all three emerged into the Hare and Hedgepig.
It was a rather large space, but it was made cozy by the great profusion of things in it. The formal dining table alone took up a third of the space, while the comfortable armchairs and the piano accounted for most of the rest.
A wung scuttled up to Martin. It was one of the Green variety, the most intelligent. Although they weren’t in the same league as Crraw or Bo, they could understand complex commands such as “Fetch me a crumpet” or “Eject en from the premises.” Of course, those orders weren’t likely to get you a response. They preferred you to ask nicely.
The wung held up three fingers. Sebastian, who was accustomed to their code, nodded. “Yes, for three. We’d like to sit at the Paker table.”
The wung nodded and led them to an octagonal table with bizarre designs drawn on its green felt surface. The table had only one other occupant at the time.
He was very old, at least eighty, but his eyes shone with the same playful intelligence they’d held decades before. “Good evening. Here for Paker, I presume?”
Lucia nodded. “Good to see you, Mr. Baker.”
He smiled. “Please, just Paul. Or Argolath the Magnificent works, too.” He picked up the mountainous deck and cut it. “I’m Bailiffing. Any cards you’d like me to shuffle in?”
Martin pulled out a wad of homemade Specials and put them down. Paul’s hands became a blur as the now over 100-card deck was thoroughly mixed up. He stopped after half a minute and dealt each of them nine cards.
The wung hopped up on the table. Its meaning was clear.
“I’d like a thick slice of bara brith with China Gunpowder tea,” Sebastian said. After Martin and Lucia had placed their own orders, the wung scuttled off and vanished into the flap on the kitchen door.
Paul examined his cards. “Three of herons,” he said, “and I strongly advise you not to play a Pasteboard Court.”
Martin grinned. “That was the last thing I had in mind. Larsen’s Gambit, with an eclair backing it up.”
Paul uttered a quiet oath in Middle English and tossed down three blue chips with small wungs engraved on them. Martin gathered his wung points up. “Null widdershins.”
Lucia studied her cards. “OK, I’m playing a basic inversion. Three CCs in conjunction with Queen of Hedgepigs.” She put down three red chips engraved with miniature maps of Sri Lanka.
In my fanfic, Green Wungs are sort of like the Nac Mac Feegle- immensely strong, incredibly fast and totally loyal. The only difference, in fact, is that they’re quite fastidious- Rebecca would never allow something as dirty as a Feegle in her kitchen, but the wungs keep themselves very clean.
“But if there is an unknown creature on this guy’s land- I’m not saying a dinosaur, just something unknown- this would be the biggest case of our lives!” POSOC said
“Well, I guess so.” Groundhog said
It took about half an hour to load all of our equipment into the hybrid van in the garage, and another half hour to get to the address POSOC had been given.
Finally, the four of us, dressed in our semi-professional uniforms of blue sunglasses and sports coats, stepped out of the van,.
Sebastian looked over his own hand. There was a Seven and Ace of Hedgepigs, which could give him a Four-Step Bastion and possibly access to the Creativity Ceylon points. He’d need something to back it up, though…
His eyes fell on his bara brith, and he remembered a trick his Dad had taught him. Quickly, Sebastian laid down the Seven in the West, the Ace in the South (with the Queen acting as proxy North) and a bit of bara brith in the West cardinal. “A Four-Step Bastion with Welsh inversion. Hedgepigs are trumps with comestibles secondary.” He gave his hand one final look, then nearly jumped out of his skin. He made sure he wasn’t hallucinating. Then he laid down the card. “Silver Wung,” he said, hardly daring to believe it. “Centered on the bastion.”
That was when all the lights went out.
A pause, then Lucia’s voice came whispering out of the darkness. “You didn’t do that, did you, Sebastian?”
There was a clunk as Paul stood up, knocking over his chair by mistake. “No, this isn’t like the virtual games. The cards don’t interfere with the space-time continuum. It was something else.”
“Power outage?” Martin asked.
“No, you neophyte, we’re geothermal!” Sebastian exclaimed. “And all the lines are underground, so the blizzard can’t have taken them out…”
The kitchen door rattled, but didn’t open. It was stuck. It rattled again with a distinct air of frustration. Then it blasted open in exactly the way you’d expect a flimsy kitchen door to blast open when kicked by a purple size 11 boot, and light flooded into the room.
Rebecca Lasley was standing framed in the glow of the battery-powered emergency lights, a skillet in one hand, a large and businesslike toasting fork in the other. No less than seven wungs were perched on her- two on each shoulder and three on her chef’s hat, all chirping and gesticulating in a warlike manner, their claws extended.
“Get out the arquebus,” she said to Paul. “Muse Academy is under attack.”
Audience: Ooooh.
I really should stop trying to juggle so many people at once while still attempting to keep them at least partially true to life.
Oh, dang it. I had such a nice plot twist worked out but then I went and forgot it.
(8) *brushes tears from eyes*
Oh, I do love a grand entrance. I have to say, POSOC, you’ve written me two of the best.
I think, after the Blizzard story arc is finished, I’ll write something about Muse Academy Lunar.
10- Are you referring to my abortive attempt at an alternate* universe Muse story where you appeared as Becky Lassen? The one with Benjamin Franklin? Your entrance in the Muse Schism epic was rather unremarkable.
Or are you referring to Muse: Omega? That prisoner in MOGRADS who saved Jadestone wasn’t you- it was Rosanne.
In any case, thank you for the compliment. I do my best.
* “…abortive attempt at an alternate…!” Don’t you adore alliteration?
(12) No, I was thinking about the Ship’s Logs. (But I enjoyed Becky Lassen.)
14- Oh, the one where you fell out of Moderation Space and landed on top of me in the distant future in the middle of a pivotal battle between mutated Limburger cheesies and the Feather-Tupisodaloric Freedom Alliance? Yeah, that was rather dramatic.
Grand entrances rule. They give me a little thrill to read, particularly if I knew it was coming but the characters didn’t. *swoons* Oh muses, it’s been a long time since I read something like that.
*wanders off to find something heart-stopping-ly dramatic*
*comes back*
Why don’t I just write something heart-stopping-ly dramatic?
15- That was good.
*eagerly anticipates POSOC’s writing more*
16- I will do my best to include one of those.
19- Yay!
I feel that really I just want to end my fanfiction, and so I will say this:
I’ll continue to work on it when I feel inspired, and when Gim returns, I’ll post it for him. But I won’t try to continue with it right now.
“Under attack?” Lucia squeaked. “But how?”
“I don’t know,” Rebecca said grimly. “TMFA radioed me. He didn’t give me all the details, just that we can’t split up. We have to get to Muse Tower at once.”
She pressed a spot on the wall, and the panel sprang outward. Then she handed a large cleaver to Paul. “Just in case you miss with the musket.”
“Thanks. Bessie takes a while to reload, so it’s good to have a failsafe.” Paul reached under the table and pulled out an antique 18th-century gun.
“He named his musket?” Martin whispered.
“He just uses it for historical reenactors’ conventions,” Lucia replied. “It’s not like he’s actually shot anyone with it… ” She trailed off, leaving the second part of her sentence- but he might have to soon– unsaid.
“I know, but that’s just so… Clint Eastwood!”
Rebecca strode over to the small group of students. “I’ll lead. You follow me, single file. Paul will take up the rear. The wungs will guard our flanks. Come on. Wungs- assume defensive positions.”
Tense and alert, the party filed into the passage. The panel shut with a click behind them, leaving the Hare and Hedgepig silent as an abandoned cathedral.
Every Couple in the Audience: *grasps eachother in fear*
Booogy Booogy Boogy. I luv it, POSOC. You could publish these. Really. You should.
22- Yeah, and who would buy them? Only Musers would get the references, so that would make my target audience about 200 people. *thought strikes him* Maybe I could get them serialized in Muse! It’s not impossible- Kiki the Great co-wrote an article, after all.
On the other hand, it’s not the sort of thing they’d usually publish. It’s not educational at all, and it seems on the whole like a blatant advertisement for MuseBlog and glorification of the MBers. No, I think the natural habitat of the Schism stories is on this website.
15- *Doubles over laughing*
POSOC, I love it! *Thinks about starting FanFic*
20-so I’m the only thing holding up your fanfic…?
Yay! Most Optimistic! *thinks about next installment*
As soon as my debate is over, I will write more. *coughMondaycough*
I ♥ POSOC’s FanFic.
26- Basically. How does that make you feel?
Next installment:
“How did you find us?” asked TMFA wearily.
“Did you really think we’d launch an attack without investigating the headquarters?” she asked.
“We never expected you to launch an attack,” said Kokonilly, glowering at the woman.
“Well, I guess you’re right. Anyway, you might as well come with me. I’ve got a radio, and a few dozen people ready to back me up. Resistance is useless, and all that.”
The MuseBloggers gasped collectively. “What did you say?” demanded POSOC.
“Resistance is useless. Why?”
“What’s your name?” asked speller.
“Sianna Swann,” she said. “Miss Swann to you.”
“MissSwann!”
“Yes, what about it?” She was wearing a confused expression now, and her easy smile had vanished.
“You remember MuseBlog?”
A moment of hesitation. “Why?”
“Because we’re the MuseBloggers. What’s left of ’em.”
The snow at the base of Muse Tower was mainly undisturbed, despite the commotion all around it. However, the pristine surface began to shake. It vibrated violently until, with a thump, a round trapdoor flew open.
Snow fell back into the passage below. “Cake it!” a feminine voice exclaimed, and a toasting fork thrust up through the slush.
Rebecca emerged first, with Martin and Sebastian following, wungs scampering around them. Paul boosted Lucia out of the hole before hauling himself up with the aid of Bessie.
The first thing Sebastian noticed was the weather. It had taken a turn for the worse. Thick flurries of snow dashed wickedly round in the howling wind, so that the crowd of hundreds of students was hard to see. They were all agitated, stamping their feet to stay warm, talking in loud voices.
Sebastian’s eyes fell on Coontz Tower. Smoke and flame were billowing out of the lower windows, undeterred by the whirling snow.
Beside him, Rebecca was talking loudly with The Man For Aeiou, head of Lasley House, and Kiki the Great, head of Spector House. The other two Heads, Karl Lindstrom (Baker) and Cheryl Lee (Coontz), were hurrying towards them.
“…sure it wasn’t an accident?” Rebecca was saying.
“Positive,” Kiki replied. “The outage came at almost the same time that the chem lab exploded, and somebody deliberately dug down and sliced the main power line in half. It’s got to be an attack.”
“Is everyone all right?” Paul cut in.
“Yes, all the Coontzites got out safely. They’re over there with Cheryl,” TMFA replied.
Karen dashed out of the purple-cloaked group approaching. “Seb! What the cake is going on?”
“I haven’t a clue,” Sebastian answered. “Martin’s right over here- have you seen Felicia?”
“She’s with Miss R********. Over there…”
Kiki was speaking again. “Aeiou’s frantic. She obviously knows something about what’s happening, but we can’t find Crraw…”
“And nobody else can understand her,” TMFA finished.
Ooh, Misswann! Verrrry interesting, Alice…
I just finished my debate brief. That’s why I woke up so early. I’m wearing formal attire for the debate. Yuck.
I’m still contemplating my next installment. It will either come later this afternoon or tomorrow afternoon.
“Power outage?â€
“No, you neophyte, we’re geothermal!â€
Now THAT’S funny!
23-Bah. So what? You could still submit it, at least. I wouldn’t say that amazingly good writing is not educational, either. If you wanted to publish it, you could do an author’s note and glossary explaining some of the Musey parts.
31-I particularly enjoyed that part as well.
28-fine. if you really hate your own story that much, you don’t have to write it.
33- Actually, I have had a new surge of inspiration. It helps to not want to disappoint my audience.
Here’s the latest installment:
She gasped. The radio she had been holding fell from her fingers and smashed on the floor. “I had no idea!” she cried. “I thought you were all…gone.”
“Pretty much…” said Gim.
“We’ve got to tell Karinnn Tayyy.”
“She’s alive?”
“Yup,” said MissSwann, fumbling in her pockets. She pulled out a cell phone and with shaky fingers, began to dial.
In a flat in Chicago, Karinnn Tayyy picked up her phone. “Hello?”
“Hi, Karin,” said a breathless but familiar voice on the other end. “It’s MissSwann. Guess what?”
“What is it?” asked Karinnn, putting down her cup of tea. “What happened?”
“Something wonderful. Wonderful and awful.”
“Good news first,” Karinnn said.
A dramatic pause.
“I’ve found the MuseBloggers.”
The cup crashed to the floor and tea began to soak into the carpet. Karinnn Tayyy didn’t even notice. “You WHAT?”
“I’ve found the MuseBloggers. Some of ’em, anyway. There’s Gim, and Kokonilly, and TMFA, and Kai, and speller, and POSOC, and Beavo. And…”
Voices on the other end.
“And a little girl named Lena.”
“Where are you?”
“Their secret base, which we just launched an attack on. But they won’t be safe here, ‘n’ I won’t be either if I’m caught talking to ’em.”
“Are you coming here, then?”
“Could we? Please?”
Karinnn smiled. “A kokon at last. ‘Course you can.”
Five hours later, they were all sitting around Karinnn Tayyy’s living room. A fire was roaring in the grate, and almost everyone had a cup of tea, except for Lena, who was asleep by the fire with one of Karinnn’s blanket’s wrapped around her shoulders.
“So, how have you all been?” asked MissSwann, her eyes traveling from Beavo’s mechanical hands, to Gim’s metal arm, to POSOC’s deep-brown eye.
“Bad,” said Kokonilly.
“For some reason, that was the answer I expected,” said Karinnn.
“We were fighting them for a while,” said Beavo, “but…”
“We’ve gave up fighting a few years ago, after the last death. Now we just hide.”
“How did you two make it?”
“Joining the enemy,” said Karinnn grimly. “Or at least obeying their laws. We were on our own for a long time, till we found each other. I suspect there’s a lot of MuseBloggers out there who couldn’t find the others.”
“How are you supposed to fight all by yourself?” asked MissSwann.
Nice work, POSOC. Well-written.
I can never stay committed long enough to post in installments, so I’m just going to post the whole darn thing now. It’s rather long, it’s barely the first chapter, and there are several changes I plan to make to the plot and location…but whatever.
The moon was full as I hurried across our dew-covered lawn, a slight moist breeze whispering through my hair. I broke into a slight jog at its touch and, even though it was dark, changed my course to head for the jungle, for the darkness encroaching on the edge of the wet grass.
I needed to get away. My dad and brother were arguing—again—and tonight it was simply too much. I’d lain in bed for a few hours, trying to sleep over their raised voices, but I was upset already from school; finally, knowing my dad wouldn’t be too happy with me wandering the mountain at night, I’d slipped out my window, as I had many nights before, to sit in the rope swing on our lawn. But once outside, something had made me change my mind; now I was approaching the dark rainforest.
I reached the trees and hesitated. Dad had warned me against going into the jungle at night—it was too easy to get lost, and there were snakes and other creatures lurking—but that wasn’t what was holding me back. I was seventeen, old enough to know better, but still, shadows lurked in the back of my mind. I was afraid of the dark, simple as that. I debated turning back and just listening to my iPod until sleep set in…but angry voices floated across the wet grass, and I plunged into the trees.
It wasn’t as dark as I’d thought. The moonlight filtered down through the mist, covering everything with a sharp silver light and creating unnaturally dark shadows. Moonlight is a strange element; with the sun, everything reflects, and even shadows have hints of light. But the moon’s sharpness makes shadows are deeper than night, dark as—nothingness. I shuddered and continued down the faint silver trail leading over the tree roots.
I continued until I reached a moss-covered fallen tree. Wary of spiders and other unpleasant creatures, I sat down gingerly, then curled my legs up underneath me. It was fall, but the rainforest was still hot; the humidity rose in plumes from the moist forest floor. All was still around me.
I took off my jacket—the air was too warm—and spread it on the log, laying on it. It was so peaceful here, even with the dark ideas of lurking monsters in the back of my mind. It was easy to close my eyes against the bright moonlight, and dwell on what had happened today.
It wasn’t a pleasant subject, really. But to think back on something always gave me comfort, because then I could justify my actions—or the actions of others, occasionally. Today had been dismal, although it wasn’t my fault. First my crush had walked in with another girl—who just happened to be my mortal enemy—clinging to him like a sock from the dryer. Then I’d failed a pop quiz in math for the third time, successfully dropping my grade to a D, and checked the cast list for our school play to find that I was absent from it. As I’d stormed off to track practice, I’d discovered that my socks were at home, so I’d had to beg a pair off my friend—for the fourth time this month. Running usually made me feel better, but this time, I’d stepped in a gopher hole and twisted my ankle. It still ached, and I knew I probably would have to beg off on practice tomorrow, something I knew my coach wouldn’t take kindly to.
All in all, a rather bad day.
And now my dad and brother were fighting again. I knew I should be used to it by now, but it still pained me to hear their raised voices. Dad was an ecologist, a caretaker of the rainforest. After my mom died, Dad took my brother and me from our home in California to here, Rancho Escondido, Brazil. Needless to say, it was a big change; but I’d been too young to know what was happening. Only my brother—three years older than me—remembered Mom, and our move. I could only guess at the amount of pain he and my dad must have felt then—even now, dad was silent for days at a time, and my brother, Damon, was growing more and more reckless—and I worried about them. But that was no excuse for their constant battles.
They argued about everything and anything, from my dad’s annoying habit of tuneless humming to my brother’s more serious addiction to late-night parties. Tonight they were fighting over his new girlfriend, a pretty Brazilian girl he’d met a few weeks ago. Damon had brought her home, and my dad hadn’t been impressed. As I’d been leaving, he’d let slip a rather demeaning word about her and my brother had blown up in his face. I wondered whether Damon would leave tonight—as he had many nights—to take a late-night swim in the river and cool off. I worried about rapids and curled up into a tighter ball on my log.
A sharp crack from my left brought me back to the present. Something was moving in the jungle. Horrible images of brain-sucking aliens popped into my mind, but I suddenly saw a shape through the trees, and sighed as I realized it was only a peccary, a small relative of the pig. Safe on my log as I was, I watched him wander by, relieved. My imagination was too much for me sometimes.
The peccary froze suddenly, turning in my direction. Uh oh. I didn’t think it could jump up to my wooden perch; but an angry hog was not something I particularly wanted to face. Slowly, I gathered my jacket, hoping it would offer some sort of protection.
But the peccary squealed and ran off in the other direction, more afraid of me than I was of it. I heaved another sigh; it was time to go back home. I stood and jumped off the log.
It was then that I heard the heavy breathing behind me.
The hairs stood up on the back of my neck. I froze, too scared this time to even imagine what sort of creature it could be. My head turned against my will, and I saw two glowing eyes above the log—it was a nocturnal animal, with eyeshine. I heard a low growl; it was a carnivore.
I remembered suddenly one day at the zoo, way back in LA, with my dad. We were at the big cats exhibit; my dad was talking about the most beautiful—and dangerous—big cat in the Western Hemisphere. “You always hear about lions and tigers and leopards,†he’d been saying. “But the jaguar’s way cooler. Did you know its jaw is so strong it could bite through another animal’s skull? And they can see in the dark…â€
I was done for.
The jaguar’s eyes tipped so that one was higher than the other—it was cocking its head. I hoped that was a good sign; my dog did that when it was curious, not when it was hungry. But maybe it was sizing me up, deciding whether to eat me…
I remembered my mountain lion training from California suddenly. I began shouting and yelling as loud as I could, raising my arms above my head so I looked bigger than I really was. The eyes dropped—it was crouching—I hoped in fear, not in preparation to spring. I let out another roar, and the eyes suddenly popped back up to standing height. The sudden movement frightened me; I gasped and dropped my arms.
And then I heard the strangest sound. It was like a cross between a growl and a laugh—a human laugh. I stared, startled. The eyes blinked.
And began to rise.
They drifted upwards like twin balloons, until they towered above me by at least a foot, far too high for a jaguar. It’s just jumped onto the log, I thought to myself, it’s not a giant monster, it’s not some freak of nature…but then I heard the frightening huffing laugh again, and I let out a scream.
Instantly the eyes vanished. There was a crashing sound from the brush, and I knew the creature had run away. But I didn’t stop screaming my head off until more crashing came from behind me, and my brother emerged from the trees, wide-eyed. “Kyrra?â€
“Damon!†I ran to him, and he grabbed me by the shoulders. He was wet—I’d been right about the river. His face was astonished, but turning angry.
“What the hell are you doing out here?†he said, giving me a shake. I couldn’t speak, and he seemed to sense my fear, because he said, “Come on,†in a disgusted voice, and led me back through the trees.
By the time we’d gotten to the lawn, I’d gathered my scattered brain a little, enough to answer Damon when he’d asked what I’d been doing. He didn’t apologize for the fighting; but his voice sounded less angry.
“I can’t believe you went in there alone—hasn’t dad told you not to do that? And without even telling anyone—â€
“Where were you, then? You always go off alone to the river—that’s way worse—â€
“It’s also none of your business,†he growled. “I’m almost twenty. I can fend for myself. But you—you’re not even seventeen. You could get hurt, or—or picked up by a strange guy—or eatenâ€â€”I shivered at that one—“or anything. You’re more vulnerable than me.â€
“I’m not the only one who sneaks out,†I retorted. “Don’t you dare preach to me, Damon. I get it enough from dad.â€
He could understand that one. But as we neared the house, he stopped me, grasping me by my shoulders once more. “Kyrra…will you just promise me something?â€
I scowled. “What?â€
“Just…be more careful. I heard you screaming, you know.â€
Woops. “It’s none of your business,†I said, mimicking him. “Listen, I won’t go into the jungle if you won’t go down to the river.â€
“No way.â€
“Well, I guess we’re at a stalemate then.â€
I wrenched my shoulders out of his grip and stalked towards the house. He followed silently, and I knew that we were at an understanding. So long as he didn’t tell dad…
He did, of course; apparently my safety was more important to him than giving information to the enemy. My dad freaked out when he heard—he would have grounded me, except I told him about the frightening creature, and he turned into the ecologist, all traces of parental anger gone.
“You say it had night eyes?†he asked excitedly, flipping through his encyclopedia. His fingers flew down the page to the jaguar entry; I knew that there was no mention of strange laughing noises, because I’d looked already the night before. He slammed the book shut and pulled out an older volume, only to close it and toss it back onto the shelf. “Can you make that noise for me?†he asked.
“Um…†I made an embarrassed sort of coughing noise, not even close to what I’d heard. My dad frowned, apparently deep in thought, and I took advantage of the lull in his excitement. “Listen, dad, it was probably just my imagination. I was tired.â€
He nodded distractedly, skimming the page with the tip of his finger. I rolled my eyes and left–it was time for school, and I didn’t want to be around when my dad remembered my late-night excursion.
Everybody turned to Hypatia.
“You all right?” Alice asked.
“Yeah, I’m fine — EEK!” she yelped. She took a closer look. “TMFA? Is that you? What happened to your eye?”
Nobody had seen anything wrong with his eye. They took a closer look. “By golly, she’s right,” Beavo murmured. “They’re two different colors.”
“They weren’t like that thirteen years ago,” breathed Kokonilly.
Karl Lindstrom approached in a whirl of cloak, snow and puffin puff breath. “No luck,” he reported in a thick Scandinavian accent. “Whoever attacked cut all of the land lines leading to the mainland, and the blizzard took out the broadcasting tower. I called both the Iceland military and DODECAHEDRON, but no dice. We’re completely cut off.”
Aeiou dashed through the crowd, obviously distressed. Her long, agile hands waved in complex patterns. “Where the cake is Crraw?” Lindstrom bellowed.
“Why doesn’t she write it down?” Lucia piped up.
Cheryl Lee turned around. “Well, she can understand English, and could probably speak it if she wasn’t mute, but she can only write Mongolian.”
“That monster Tardiff.” TMFA’s jaw clenched as he thought back to events before the Republic of Muse had been founded- endless cans of Urani-Blast, Alice dressed as a janitor, the Editor-in-Chief of his favorite magazine detailing plans to nuke Northern Europe. “He was always more concerned with following the blueprint than with practicality- or with compassion. He deliberately engineered Aeiou with a defective voice box that nobody has been able to cure.”
Alice, you should keep on writing. I’m still reading your stories. You can’t just LEAVE us. That would be cruel and unusual punishment.
38- Oh, I will. I’m thinking.
39-When I looked at the recent comments bar, it looked like just “Oh, I will.” I was about to say *ominous music* or *maniacle laughter* or something like that, but the rest of your post kinda wrecks the creepish mood.
40- Sorry ’bout that.
Kiki pulled a megaphone from under her cloak and turned it on full volume. “Attention, please. Everyone must enter Muse Tower immediately.”
When TMFA looked quizzically at her, she explained. “There are no secret passages in or out, and the door is reinforced with steel. There’s no way anything short of a bazooka could break it down, and we have all the keys. Also, it’s the tallest thing on this island, so if we broadcast a distress signal from the top of the tower, there’s a chance a roving DODECAHEDRON air patrol might pick it up.”
*sighs emphatically* I love reading fanfics. They’re like superb thrillers, only, instead of swallowing them in one gulp, you get installments, which build up the suspense.
I’ll start one this weekend, I think!
Ah, idea…
“No known secret passages,” TMFA said uneasily.
Kiki winked. “Trust me. If we don’t know about them, nobody does.”
45-*ominous music* There we go!
37- I’m great in the fanfics.
The milling mob of students poured in through the door, and despite their fear, many were eager to see the inside of Muse Tower for the first time.
The bottom floor was taken up entirely by one room, floored with dusky sepia carpet and with murals of Monument Valley on the circular walls. A few framed Gonick comics hung from the ceiling in a mobile. A freestanding, faux-wood spiral staircase led upward to the next floor.
Inside, it was clear that not all of them would fit. With obvious reluctance, Aeiou led a group of Muse-Academics up the stairs.
A little more of the Atlantic Ecological Investigations story:
A man dressed in red met us.
“You’re the investigators?”
“Yes, I’m POSOC, this is Groundhog, and Kokonilly, and Kai.” POSOC introduced us
“Glad to meet you. Now, let me show you my photographs.” The man motioned towards a modest house nearby. We followed.
Kokonilly pointed to the man, made the “crazy” sign, and then the “question” sign.
“Too soon to tell.” I said
Sebastian saw Karen and Lucia following Aeiou, as well as a swirl of other people he didn’t know.
He turned around and found himself face-to-face with Felicia and Martin. The short, blond-haired girl spoke first. “I can’t believe this is happening, Seb. Who would attack Muse Academy?”
“Remember,” Martin interjected, “Muse was unpopular in the early years.”
“The early years?” Felicia shot back. “You mean the double 0’s? As in 2000? People were crazy back then! I mean, they thought being stupid was somehow ‘cool!’ ‘Nerd’ was an insult!! It’s no surprise that state of affairs didn’t last long.”
“Felicia’s right,” Sebastian mused. “People look up to Muse now. And why wouldn’t they? After the Council of Five took power, crime dropped, literacy rose, we’re well on the way to halting global warming… ”
“There are still a few radicals out there,” Martin argued. “People who consider us some sort of weird cult that’s gotten way too much power and should be taken out. This could have been a terrorist attack or something.”
“No way,” Felicia stated. “DODECAHEDRON keeps a constant patrol outside Muse Academy waters. Their surveillance and technology is the best in the world. This has to be an inside job.”
A steamroller passed over Sebastian’s gut. “A traitor?”
50 – Wow. I am sarcastic. (Yay! I am my normal self!)
I’d love to show up in something, if I could…
53- We could meet you on the case and recruit you for the investigation agency.
54-That would be great, thank you!
55- Just write your description and special skills. We need a techie.
Name: Lilazar
Nickname: The Bookworm
Age: 34
Eye Color: Green
Hair Color: Brown
Went to school through High School, but dropped out because of bullying and being bored, (too smart). After recieving death-threats from nasty bullies, he went to live in a library. He was employed by the librarian, and in his spare time invented contraptions. One day, he decided to go out in the world again, (Age 25). He got a job at an airline agency, creating security machines. When a terrorist got through the machine and blew up a flight, he was fired and soon fell in with a bad element. After making devices for them and getting through things, he eventually got caught and jailed for three years. He has just gotten out, with no money or lodging. He is a devious, conniving, and distrustful person, although very intellegent and a brilliant inventor… ((Sound good?))
Can I be in it? Here’s my specs if you have room.
Name: Nthanda Dubhric
Age: 27
Hair: deep red (bordering on chestnut)
Eyes: green
Beautiful and independent. Very knowledgable about computers and such, also worked as a mechanic. Likes to crack jokes but is very poetic and insightful at times. Both parents dead at birth.
Woop! Sorry for the double post. I meant to ask if anyone would be willing to give me some feedback on the 1st chapter of my novel (it was post 35). I know it’s super long, but if anyone has time, I’d love to hear some constructive criticism. Thanx mucho.
“Exactly,” Felicia confirmed.
“But that’s crazy. Who at Muse Academy would have a motive to betray us? The entrance tests prevent any subversive… ” Martin trailed off. “OK, it’s not a perfect system.”
57, 58- Okay, I can put you guys in.
Mr. Smith guided us into his house. There were some paintings on the walls, and the furniture was nice. All in all, it was a very good looking house.
“So, what do you do for a living, Mr. Smith?†Groundhog asked
“I’m a janitor at the University.â€
“Oh.â€
We sat down at the kitchen table. POSOC pulled out his tape recorder and turned it on.
“Right now, Mr. Smith. Just tell us everything that happened. Speak slowly and clearly.†He said
“Sure thing, young man. As I’ve told the local papers, it all began a few weeks ago, when I noticed that the birds had disappeared from the woods on my property. Such lovely songbirds, they were. So, I headed over to investigate, and found broken branches and bird skeletons. And in the middle of it all, in some fresh mud, were these tracks.â€
He pulled out some blurry Polaroids showing indentations in the mud. I looked at them carefully. The film itself did not appear to have been tampered with. The tracks looked about a foot across, and like they had been made by something with three toes.
In other words, they looked like all the tracks of carnivorous dinosaurs that I had ever seen in museums!
TMFA frowned. “Well, when you put it that way… I do have some parts of my life when weird things happened…”
“Has anyone been following you?” prompted Groundhog.
“Well…”
“Oh, great,” she groaned. “Somebody knows we’re here.”
“WHAT?!?!?!?!” chorused the rest.
“You see, TMFA has an eye-cam.”
“Like in Artemis Fowl?” asked Kokonilly.
“Exactly. But this one has a tracking device. Somebody knows we’re coming.”
“Well, then, I’m going to take it off!” declared TMFA.
“You can’t!” screeched Groundhog. “It will rip out your eye!”
“Is the eye fake, TMFA?” asked someone.
“No!” he huffed.
Is anyone willing to be in my fanfic? You may die, by the way.
Feather could not help but feel that there was something indefinably wrong with the oily-voiced stranger in the black bowler hat.He had come to them that morning in a sleek black car. He had bid them “good day†in a sleek voice. He had exhibited a sleek waistcoast and tousled his sleek hair. And Feather did not like it. No one could call him the smartest being ever to set foot on this our Earth, but one had to concede that Feather’s ideas about people were more often than not, correct. So Feather, and the other Muses when he communicated his premonition to them through Intelligent Air, were very wary of their sleek and oily guest, beyond their fear that he might stain the furniture.The morning that their unwelcome visitor came among them, it was raining. Usually, Feather liked the rain. It took better care of his plants than even he, with his little watering cans and spades, ever could, softly carressing the soil and inveigling troublesome plants into growing. But today, its incessant pounding only further confused his already muddled thoughts. Oily coat and Urania were talking about something far beyond the scope of his understanding. Occasionally, he would begin to grasp at it, only to find himself put off by the rythmical pounding outside his window. Soon, his mind wandered.Geraniums…delphiniums…wisteria…carrots…cauliflower. They ran through his mind with steadily increasing rapidity and oily coat and Urania continued to talk.“You can’t be serious? It’s a very strange and a little overly impudent of a proposition for my tastes.†He heard Urania say. Aeoui was making frantic gesticulations, which Craww had altogether given up trying to translate. Chad made a noncommital grunt.
Okay. I started a fanfic on the previous thread, but it never got very far. Here’s what I have. Feedback?
63-OOOOOOH! I’ll be in it. On the condition that my death is dramatic, naturally! ; )
63- Happily. Profile:
Name: Cinnamoon
Age: Whatever appropriate for story. Current age – 13.
Appearance: Thick brown, straight hair. Long. Hazel eyes, and skin with just the barest hint of a tan.
Personality: Quiet when with non close friends, but takes charge naturally. Trys to be kind, but often says things she regrets later. Cannot bear a fight, and always apologises – even if it is not her fault.
65- You too?
64- That’s really good. Do continue.
Paul Baker stood up. “You should all get some sleep. I’ll watch the entrance. TMFA and Cheryl will continue trying to contact DODECAHEDRON.” He loaded Bessie, pulled out Rebecca’s cleaver, and sat down in front of the thick wooden door.
Sebastian removed his cloak and pulled it up like a makeshift bedspread, making sure that the warm inner lining was next to him.
He thought he wouldn’t get to sleep for a while, but he was more tired than he realized at first. Within minutes, he had dropped off.
67-Thanks!
And naturally I love dramatic deaths. They’re what make litereary life worth living! ; )
63 – Yes!
PROFILE:
Short brownish-black hair, brown eyes, brown elliptical glasses, and lime green braces. 4′11″. Asian. If that helps.
Clothing: A barely working black-banded watch, a t-shirt with no words, jeans. Mickey Mouse Crocs, i.e., black with a red strap and Mickey Mouse-shaped holed. Purse? Fine. A black one with shiny Mickey Mouse-shaped sequins.
Personality: Quirky, laughs EXTREMELY easily, can be serious (rarely), kind-ish, but extremely irritable at times. When she gets mad, she boils within, making sharp remarks and is liable to kicking and scratching. Her ears turn red. Doesn’t like to be in the spotlight. Has a large collection of extremely random and useless facts and spews them at inopportune times. Gets hyper occasionally. Can be unintentionally annoying when she tries to help them with something. Is not as tough (emotionally) as everyone thinks.
Interests: Reading, playing videogames, Star Wars, Harry Potter.
Skills: Doing poorly in logarithms, taking things apart, mental games such as Brain Age, sudoku, and those Activation Panels in Lego Star Wars, Lego Star Wars, strategy games, Pokemon…
64–nicely written, I like the stilted tone. Although I’m not entirely sure that it’s possible to have “touseled sleek” hair.
BOOM.
Sebastian didn’t so much hear the explosion as feel it. But he heard the chunks of plaster and the long wooden beams breaking free of the ceiling and thundering down into the packed room. He saw Paul Baker, his gray beard frizzing out as though electrified, waving frantically near the door. “Get out! Get out!”
There was a crash, and a cedar splinter whirred past Sebastian’s face on his dash for the exit. He flung himself through the opening, skidding on the bitterly cold snow. The white carpet was more of a peach color, weirdly lit as though by flickering flames. Staggering to his feet, Sebastian saw a massive pillar of oily fire spewing from the wreckage of Muse Tower.
Paul and Lindstrom were heaving away the blocks of detritus, helping injured students out. With a jolt, Sebastian recognized Martin, unconscious, a gash across his forehead, his normally dark complexion pale. This can’t be happening. It can’t…
~~~
“Aaaghh… ” TMFA moaned as Kiki applied disinfectant to the enormous wound in his leg. “How many… ngh… did we lose?”
“We were… very lucky,” Kiki replied, biting her lip. “All of the students lived, although there are a few that are seriously injured. Cheryl, though… ” She closed her eyes in grief. “We haven’t found her body. She couldn’t have survived the fall.”
“Um… guys?” Felicia yelled. “Something’s happening…”
Sebastian, sitting next to Martin’s makeshift sickbed, sprang up and turned around.
The flames had not been quenched by the melting snow, and were burning fiercely still. There was an upheaval amidst the destruction. A beam moved, as though tossed carelessly aside.
Something rose out of the fire like a nightmare made from kitchen appliances. Two flattened oven doors were bolted to its front and back like an armored sandwich board, and its eyes were modified microscopes, ripped wires trailing from them. Its spindly legs had been reinforced with steel tubing, and an extra one had been added. Its tripedal walk was jerky. The whole thing looked like a rushed job, a machine assembled the night before the deadline. It carried two large, bulky parcels with an explosive look about them.
The Musers were paralyzed in shock. Then Paul Baker broke the spell.
“Say hello to Good Queen Bess!” he shouted. There was a bang, and a musket ball flew across the intervening space and directly into the lens of the apparition’s left microscope. It staggered back, pinwheeling for balance. As its third leg curled up, something about its gait brought back a memory in Sebastian’s mind.
“Oh, cake,” he whispered. “This is not good.”
The being regained its balance, and set off at a jerky walk towards Paul.
Undaunted, he dropped to his knee and reloaded the antique musket. The next shot came at near point-blank range, blowing away the microscope bolted to the side of the thing’s head. The force of the shot momentarily turned its head, outlining a familiar profile against the firelight.
Black, rectangular… with three antennae on top of its head, and three on the back.
Then it swiveled back, and it was a monstrosity again, carelessly swiping Paul aside with its parcel and picking up Bessie, examining it as though it was alone on the island. Sebastian could feel the panic swirling through the crowd. If they scattered now, they’d leave the wounded behind… and they themselves would not last long in the middle of an Icelandic winter.
Bright, glaring light split the clouds, and the thrumming beat of an APTU engine descended from above.
The machine spun around, clanking, as the vehicle came to a landing on the packed snow.
More! More!
I will start mine tomorrow. Any more takers?
w00t POSOC!
I’m in DODECAHEDRON, aren’t I?
74-Me! Should I copy and paste from another thread, or will you be able to find it?
I can find it! Starting… 10, 9, 8, 7…
75- Yes, and you will make an appearance approximately now.
The door hissed open, spewing three black-clad figures. “Attention! This is DODECAHEDRON,” one bellowed, microphone set to maximum volume. “You are hereby… oh, god, is that Kokopelli?!”
“Pull yourself together, Null!” snapped another officer. “Lionel, what do you make of it?”
The next voice seemed to come from the same figure, but it was very different- a light, humorous tenor. “Dunno, Spice, but there are a bunch of exposed wires. I’d go with the net.”
“Net it is,” Spice replied, pulled a weapon from her holster, and fired.
Upon impact, the projectile dissolved into a mass of silvery threads. The machine struggled, to the accompaniment of flashing lights and a fizz. Then a crackling line of blue light connected head and torso, and it went limp from the legs up, sprawling on an awkward tripod.
Groundhog noticed a door in Mr. Smith’s house.
“Where does that go?” she asked
“The basement. But nobody’s been down there in years.” he told me.
“Can you take us to where you took these?” POSOC asked
“Sure, it’s not too far.”
A hot summer sun shone on a small, nondescript building. the sign outside read “Black & Dragon: private assassins.” outside, a thin teenager stood, surveying the small, concrete roofed little business. in his belt, a gun-like device swung in its holster.
80-New Story?
(81, yes, my story.)
ZVX continued looking at the sign. “Black & Dragon”…this must be exactly what he was trying to find–some sort of assassination business. He toyed with the blaster in his belt. Not exactly a welcoming place, but the goal of this mission nevertheless. He quickly ducked behind the sign and pulled out a modified iPhone—it was newest technology using PowerPhone that Groundhog22, the lab master, had invented. He opened a picture on the small screen; it showed the same, tiny building that he was viewing right now.
But still, what were the chances that what he needed were in there? Not too much. But he had to give it a try.
Putting the iPhone back in his pocket, ZVX continued to observe the house/building/fortress. It was definitely not a place to linger overlong, but he had to go in, and how to do that was more than an enigma.
He pulled the iPhone from his pocket again, and put in a phone number: 652-5873. Then hit “send” soon, a voice answered:
“DG5, have you found it?” ‘DG5’ was the code name for “Dr.Groundhog22”.
“Yes, at least I’ve found the building that I have very strong suspicions about. When we will actually get it I don’t know, but I picked up a few tricks.” he said, then was answered by another voice:
“If you’ve made it that far, ZVX, you’ll no doubt get it.†The voice paused. “And I forgot to mention; FCIB.†FCIB was another code name. It stood for “IBCFâ€.
“Got it.†And he walked toward the house.
34- Cool! I have a cell phone!
Dr. Groundhog22 sat in a small, underground lab, while IBCF and a few others looked over her shoulder at the laptop screen she was viewing. a microphone was clipped around her neck, enabling her to communicate with all members of the Bunny Resistance.
The Mac’s tripped-up screen was showing a perfectly clear video of what was happening with the planned thievery from the bunnies.
Suddenly, IBCF pointed to a window. There was a flash of movement, but then it was gone. ZVX, concentrating on the opposing window did not see it.
________________________________________________
ZVX was encountering difficulties at the window; it was not of the flimsy type either. it was tinted 1″ thick glass, perfectly hard without a single weakness. Perfect, for keeping people out.
However, ZVX still had a few tricks up his sleeve–literally up his sleeve.
Pulling a peace of bark smeared with honey on the back side, he placed it against the window, then drew a folding knife, and dealt the bark a blow with the handle.
Without so much as a cracking sound, he pulled the bark away, the underside was covered in pieces of broken glass .
ZVX climbed through the hole.
6,5,4,3,2,1,Start! It was a perfectly normal day at the MuseBlog. Hot Pink Bunnies weren’t invading, the GAPAs were still around, Muse hadn’t schismed, and Kokonilly hadn’t invented a time machine. In short, a regular day. In short, Boring! “Boring!†wrote The Bookworm on the random thread. On a hot summers day, life seemed boring. And life was boring. Friends away, and nothing much to do but hang around on the MuseBlog. And Bookworm was not the only MBer to feel this way. Some had the summer kokon, and some had camp, but some were just hanging around. “It is boring,†agreed Cinamoon, also on the random thread, “I wish something would happen.†But nothing was happening, near the MuseBlog, nothing was happening. It was a normal day for the MuseBloggers.
In Kokonino Desert, although, an argument was occurring. Not in the Muses Area of Kokonino, where the Muses were peaceful, for once. Move farther than Urania’s observatory, and Feather’s Garden, and move into deserted desert-land. In the middle of this deserted place, near the retirement home, is a small, secluded, black building. A short, cowled figure rapped its hand on the door. “Yes?†A voice answered from inside, “What is it?†â€I wish to speak to Melinda.†“Here she is.†Said the voice from inside. Outside stepped a woman in a black robe. She had a blowgun in her hand and several daggers on her person. “I am here. Leader of the Kokonino Hashisha, Blessed of the Old Muses, Melinda possibly at your service. What do you want?†“I wish to hire a member of the Hashisha.†“Aah. One assassination, or a set?†“ A set.†“Are they cult members? We have a special discount on cults this week!†“Actually… They’re children…â€â€Children? Do they have magical powers?†“No. They’re just regular kids.†“We don’t do kids.†“The cowled figure lifted its hood, revealing long black hair and a dark face. “Molly!†cried Melinda the Assassin, “What happened to you since you trained here? Wait… I thought you were banned from Kokonino after the incident with Aeiou!†“I came back. Will you take my order?†“Aah. No! No children!†Molly grimaced and contorted her face into a Melinda’s light features, mimacking Melinda, “We do not discriminate who we kill on the basis of age, gender, religion, or anything else. We kill who we are paid to kill, no more!†“Yes, yes, yes… Still No!†“But I have a card on you, Melinda dear. True, you could send me out of Kokonino. But so could I! Wouldn’t Urania and the New Muses be shocked to hear that the Blessed Melinda was actually the Retired Muse Terpsichore! That would get Terpsichore banished for sure!†“You wouldn’t!†“I might…†“Fine, fine. I’ll send a Hasisha out, but only one. What is the target’s name?†“Her name, is Cinamoon…â€
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
Terpsichore became an assassin? Unbelief does strange things to minor deities.
In a dark corridor underground, a dagger flicked out.
The black shadow that was holding stood out of the light, shading its face; but its voice rasped out, commanding the dragonlike beast in front of it.
“Well, what has that filth done now?” the voice’s cold shriek sounded throughout the tunnel.
“He has…broken into the…house…sir.”
“Then go and deal with him!”
The dragon-beast scurried off, leaving nothing but tracks on the dry dirt floor.
In the darkness, two dark ears flicked.
“Are you SURE, TMFA?” asked Speller suspiciously.
“I’m not entirely sure of anything at this point.” said TMFA gravely.
There was an awkward pause.
“Well,” said Kokonilly finally, “Do you guys remember Muse Academy?”
Commander Spice pounced on Kokopelli and knocked it- Sebastian could no longer think of it as masculine or even alive- to the snowy ground. Its limp limbs offered no resistance.
The adults converged around the tangle of metal. “Spice!” Rebecca exclaimed. “How did you ever…”
“We found Crraw,” she said. “Or rather, he found us. Slammed into our window, bowled along by the wind. Fortunately, we were hovering at the time. It was incredible luck. We were on a routine sweep of the area, but the visibility around the island was rotten, and the weather conditions were worse. We couldn’t risk a landing in a light APTU like this one. But when he told us, we knew we’d have to. By the time we’d called in a helicopter, more people would have gotten hurt.”
“That’s another thing,” interrupted Null. “Kokopelli must have found Crraw and made sure there were no witnesses to his attack. His beak had been shut with sealant. We had to scrape the stuff out with a razor blade.” Kiki gasped in horror.
Commander Spice bent over the body. “I don’t understand this! The best of the best examined Kokopelli… Meriwether, even Aeiou herself… they made sure that there were no secret programs or viruses that Tardiff had left behind.”
“I ran a beta test myself,” TMFA said. “I can’t figure it out either. Everything came up clean.”
“Tardiff must have hidden a secret set of instructions somewhere in the code,” Spice replied. “And he was trying to use Kokopelli to get back in power.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” Paul exclaimed. “A single robot? It could have caused a lot of damage, but there’s no way it could put him back in a position of power.”
“Well, we’ll soon find out what’s going on in that rectangular head.” She bent down, pulled a small console from her belt. On the screen flickered an image of a hot pink bunny. “Lionel, I’ll get you in direct contact.” She reached into Kokopelli’s innards where a panel had been removed to accomodate several power conduits and affixed a tiny globule to a tangle of fine, silvery wires. “Read this thing’s data, then shut it down for good. Find out what makes Koko tick.”
“Roger, boss,” the bunny said, then dissolved into lines of streaming pinkish code. “Working…”
Groundhog22 was watching the Dragonbunny. as it crept up towards the building, she clicked on a button labeled “Detonate”.
Instantly, she pulled a second laptop over. it was displaying the inside of the house/business; she watched, and waited…
and waited…
And–BOOM! small bombs that were programmed to have a small blasting range detonated at once–everything went up in a haze of dark smoke.
_______________________________________________
Inside, ZVX crept towards a glass-fronted cabinet…he couldn’t believe it. luck. It was here, right there in the glass cabinet.
he looked at it; amazing. something like could be so dangerous.
“It” was a deadly shuriken, a symbol of power, the ultimate killing tool.
He reached out. he was groping forward, at last, the bunny’s most powerful weapon was no longer theirs.
He touched it.
“Looking for something?”
I just thought of something even cooler than the ecological investigation story!
Here goes:
The schoolchildren were filing out of the museum theater after my lecture about excavating shipwrecks in the Black Sea. It was refereshing to see their interest in history, but my throat was dry. I reached for my water bottle and saw somebody waiting near the podium, wearing a shirt with a faded hot pink bunny on it.
I flashed back nearly four years to the last time I had seen that symbol. MuseBlog. It seemed like so long ago.
“Hello. Can I help you?” I asked.
“Not so loud. Enemies are everywhere. Enemies of Mostly Harmless.” the person whispered back
“Enemies?”
“They’ll stop at nothing. I may have been followed…” he looked around, furitively.
((93-Ooh… Can I be in this one?))
93-Me want be in!!!!! Please!
93-
*begs for inclusion*May I be in it?Me Three!
~~~
And back to the larry Gonick Murder story I was writing.
~~~
Robert Coontz sat back in his chair. it was 12:00 p.m. by his Treo’s clock, but posting had still not stopped for the night. there had been a steady stream of posts since the funereal.
94, 95, 96- Sure.
“My office is just down the hall.” I whispered, pointing to the door. I love a good spy story.
“That’s good, Dr. Yves. We need all the help we can get.”
We stepped out into the white hallway, which was completely empty, our footsteps echoing. I stopped to find my keys, and heard… the echoes of somebody else’s footsteps!
The person in the HPB T-shirt tensed up.
“We need to get out of here. NOW.”
I found the keys and hurried to my office door. I put the key in the lock and was turning it, when three people dressed all in black turned the corner into our hallway.
“Hey, there he is! Don’t let him get away!”
I opened the door and ran in, followed by the man in the HPB shirt. I locked the door behind us and relaxed.
Just then, something crashed through the glass window on my door. I looked down at it and saw a timer that said “01:00”.
“By Kokopelli!” The Muser screamed and ran to the window, which I had left open, since the museum was old and tended to be overheated in the afternoon.
We clambered out onto the fire escape and were on the ladder to the ground when the explosion happened. The glass blew out of the windows in my office. Avoiding the broken glass, I hopped down to the sidewalk.
The Muser pulled out a sat phone and pressed a button.
“Those… those maniacs tried to blow us up! Who are they?”
91-injured students. by golly, I hope I’m okay!
99- It was the yo-yo that saved you from plunging to your death. You were on the second floor, supervising, when the tower collapsed. The yo-yo snagged on a portion of stone that was still standing and looped around your fingers. The string snapped, of course, but it slowed your fall enough that you got off with a jammed finger and a sprained ankle.
100-well then. I sure am lucky. Ahhh, fanfictions are so fun to read…
He knew what was about to happen even as the grenade exploded in the tightly packed room. the blast shook the windows out the of their frames and brought the walls crashing down.
ZVX slipped mercifully into unconsciousness.
“Long story.” The Muser said, as a nondescript van drove up. Somebody opened the door. The Muser hurried in, and I followed.
The inside of the van was lit with blue lights, which made it feel rather SF-ish.
“Is that you, Kai?” I heard a voice ask
“Huh? Hypatia?” I said, looking at the person next to me
“It IS you!” we both shouted.
103-Yaya! I likes my entrance…WRITE MORE!
The van started.
“Where are we going?” I asked
“To our secret workshop up in the Catskills. We should be there in a few hours.” Hypatia said
“Secret workshop? Could somebody please tell me what’s going on? I haven’t had time to visit MuseBlog for, well, almost four years. Not that I haven’t wanted to, I’ve just been busy…” I said
“Do you recognize this symbol?” she said, holding up a folder
“The Google Lunar X-Prize?”
105-Ooh! Me wants in, please!
If you asked Sierra Carter what a Wung Button was, she wouldn’t tell you. Neither would Vanessa Medina, or Michael Speroni or any of the rest of the eight hundred (give or take a few) students at Muse Academy. They had a responsibility to act normal over the summer holidays, and that’s exactly what they were going to do. Telling random people who pick up this book what a Wung Button was, by definition, not normal.
This could, of course, prove quite a feat for some. In her current position, Sierra would have attracted more than the average number of stares than usual, (because a teenage girl hanging upside down by her knees in pouring rain isn’t something you see every day) but this was avoided by the fact that she was twelve feet up in a tree, covered by dense foliage.
Yes, I’m starting a new one. Anyone want in it?
“That’s correct, Kai.” Hypatia said
“Let’s see, if I remember correctly, back in ’07 or about there, Google offered 20 million dollars to the first private team that could land a rover on the moon, drive it around, and beam back information. To win the prize, somebody had to do it by 31 December 2012. Only, that’s in six months and nobody’s succeeded yet.” I said
“YET.” Hypatia said.
106-I WANT IN!
107-Space Race! Woot!
Continuing the last paragraph, actually.
Unlike most girls who would freak because rain makes hair curl and frizz and go whack on you, Sierra ignored the downpour and continued to read her novel. The book was right side up, which meant she had to read from bottom to top and right to left, but that just increased the level of fun she was having, and made the situation even weirder. Which, to her, was perfectly normal.
106- Me!
She was disrupted from her reading by tiniest of cracks, a warning from the tree branch that it didn’t tolerate thirteen year old girls hanging on it for much longer than she had. Deciding that she’d rather descend from the tree when she was ready for it and not when the tree decided to buck her off, Sierra finished the paragraph she was reading and hoisted herself up into a sitting position on the branch before shimmying to the ground. Unaware that woman covered in a shiny red raincoat gasped at the sudden appearance of Sierra, she shook her hair in an attempt to rid it of rainwater. After a few seconds, she figured she was getting wetter shaking it than just running into her house, which she did.
“Ah yes, MA. Good old MA,” Cat’s Meow said, relieved the creepy topic had passed.
“I was in Coontz,” Kokonilly said.
“Funny, I don’t remember what house I was in.” TMFA frowned.
“Neither do I.”
“Nor I.”
“Come on! Do you remember the Sizan? Or Darth Vader? Or that pit…?” Kokonilly trailed off.
“No.”
“That’s funny…” mumbled Alice.
“What?”
“It’s like… it’s like…”
“Our memories have been erased?” asked Speller, horrified.
“Exactly.”
“But… why not me? Why didn’t they erase my mind?” asked Kokonilly.
“Because we needed you,” came a hissing voice from the back.
Double post?
106 – Me too!
106-oh, all right. You need some sort of description?
Which fictional character would be the perfect antagonist for the Muses? I’m thinking Pratchett’s Queen of the Elves, but is there any other person/thing?
106-Please me?
115-Not his Queen of the Elves. Evil as she is, her energy tone is similar to the Muses. I think the Auditors of Reality would be better. They love suppressing human “messiness” and human ideas. That’s exactly what the Muses give out!
“Done!” said Kokopelli.
Spice and Null whipped out large and dangerous-looking guns, pointing them at the robot, which had straightened up and was looking at them. It appeared decidedly panicky. “Wait, hold on… No! NO! Oh, #*&^$%…”
“Don’t move, Kokopelli!” Spice yelled. “I’ve got a bead on that open panel in your torso, and if you move a single hydraulic, I will deactivate you permanently!”
“No, no, you don’t understand! I’m Lionel! There was some sort of dormant virus- when I tried to download- My data has been uploaded into this thing, and Kokopelli’s…”
“Is this some sort of joke?” Spice snapped. “What’s your root password?”
“You expect me to say that in front of everyb… ” Spice cocked the gun. “OK, OK, it’s h07p1nk8unny-+-%%ythtgnuptg!”
“Cake,” Null gasped. “It is him! But that means…”
117- I haven’t read any of the books with the Auditors in them… Would Reaper Man be a good one to start with?
119-Yes, definitely! Also, Hogfather is a good one!
Wow. People actually want to be in my stories.
Uh, description? Not yet, they’d get lost. I’ll ask for them when I need them though.
POSOC (115): The Grinch who stole Christmas was pretty nasty. But then he turned good in the end, so I guess he wouldn’t serve as a nemesis. Hey, how about Captain Hook?
I haven’t encountered the Queen of the Elves yet, so I can’t comment on her suitability.
122- I’d like to assemble a plethora of villains from various works of fiction who gather together to wipe out the Muses (or try to.)
If you want to meet the Queen of the Elves, read Lords and Ladies or The Wee Free Men. Both of those give her a starring role.
“Do you mean… Muse made a team?” I asked
“Yup, Team Kokopelli. The fame and prize money will help us in our quest for World Domination.”
“That car’s been following us for eighteen blocks.” one of the drivers said
“You sure, Alice?”
“I’m sure. Black sedan, ’10 model. I’ll try to loose them.”
I felt the van make a few sharp turns. Then, all of a sudden, something hit us.
“Those jerks!” Alice shouted, opening a door. “This thing’s not going to run after that. We’ll find other transport.”
((Thanks, POSOC. I look forward to meeting the Queen. But first I will read a few more Patrick O’Brian books. Almost done with my first.))
A loud, whining hum interrupted her- the noise of an APTU’s engines starting.
“Who’s driving that thing?” Rebecca yelled over the wind.
“Lionel usually… ” Spice trailed off. “Oh, no… ”
Meanwhile, Kokopelli/Lionel/Kokopellionel- Sebastian wasn’t sure what to call him- was yelling at the top of his lungs (although he didn’t actually have lungs. Maximum speaker volume would be more accurate, Sebastian reflected, wondering why one noticed the trifling details during times of catastrophe.) “Its core processes have been transferred into my drive- all the directives, all the goals, all the memory- but the little cosmetic details, the graphics, they’ve stayed the same! That thing’s evolving at an exponential rate, and it’s adapting to its new form! It’s something different, something new… ”
The APTU swiveled around suddenly. A light, rotary gun mounted below its nose twisted to point towards them.
Then it spoke.
“ALL HUMANS OBEY BUNNIES.”
I’m writing another installment in my story. I think I’ll post the whole thing, for reference. I just haven’t had time, lately…
Abandoning the van, we ducked into one of those little shelter things for people waiting for a bus in the rain.
“Were those guys who crashed into us the same guys who bombed my office?” I asked
“Yes. I don’t know how they followed us.” Alice said
“Well, who ARE they? And why are they trying to kill us?”
“They’re employees of Black Genesis.”
“Isn’t that one of the other teams in the X-Prize competition?” I asked
“Yes, they ALSO want World Domination and see us as threats. That’s why they’ll go to any lenth to stop us from winning.”
128- So Black Genesis and Mostly Harmless are in competition for the X-Prize? I think I see how this is shaping up… I like it a lot so far.
129- Thank you.
The other person who had been driving the van pulled out a sat phone.
“Beavo here. Need transport to the workshop, ASAP.” he said
“So, Kai- do you want to help us or not? We know you’ve got practice in driving robots from your work with underwater ROVs.” Hypatia asked
“Well, I’ll call the Museum… I was supposed to fly to Akrotiri on the 17th and spend the summer excavating, but how am I supposed to pass up a mission to the moon? Of course I’m coming!”
“All humans obey bunnies?” I said. “This is bad. Bunnies generally mean you’ll wake up with a knife in your back.”
126-Dun Dun DUN!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Once she was in her bed, covered by thick blankets, Sierra continued her novel. By the time she was halfway through, the thunder outside started. She loved thunderstorms. Reading and thunderstorms, those were the things that Sierra liked best. The only disadvantage to thunderstorms, she thought, were…
Crack! ZZZ….zpp.
Lightning slashed across her window at the same time that the power went out.
Cursing, Sierra left her bed and felt around her dark room until she stumbled into the hall. She spotted a tall figure going slowly down the stairs, hand on the rail.
“Jason?â€
The figure spun around. “What?â€
Sierra’s older brother almost completely blended in with the dark kitchen below. It didn’t really help that he had a black shirt on and dark jeans. The window above the stairs flashed with lightning, and she momentarily saw the pink and purples of his Birthday Massacre shirt.
“I was just wondering if you had a flashlight. I was reading a really good book, and–â€
“Every book you pick up is good, Sierra, and if I had a flashlight, I wouldn’t be groping downstairs into the kitchen to get one.â€
“Well, thanks for the sarcasm, Mr. Emo.â€
“That’s not sarcasm., that’s called pointing out irony. And I’m not emo.â€
“Mhmm, of course you aren’t.â€
“I’m not!â€
“Whatever. I’m coming down to get a flashlight too.â€
A line was left across her vision from another dagger of lightning as she climbed down the stairs toward her brother, both hands on the railing. “I still haven’t gotten used to these stairs. It was so much easier, having a one story house. And the word bungalow is much cooler than two story, don’t you think?â€
Jason didn’t respond, but waited until Sierra reached him until he continued down the stairs toward the kitchen.
131- ZVX, this isn’t a roleplaying game. It’s a thread where different Musers write individual stories about the Muses and the MuseBloggers.
OK, I know, I just couldn’t resist.
Spice’s first two shots missed, but the third hit the auto-sight perfectly, smashing the lens and making the gun impossible for the computer to aim. The next three plunged into the air vents below. A screeching, ratcheting noise sounded as the bullets ricocheted around inside the propeller. Then smoke belched from the vents, the air-stream faltered, and the vehicle crashed to the snowy ground.
The speaker kept spewing its sinister babel. Halfway through, it began to lose what little coherence it had. “OBEY OBEY OBEY THINK PINK PINK PINK IS ALL ALL IS PINK HOT PINK OBEY ALL HUMANS NICE HUMANS BEEP SALACIOUS CRINKLED PFIZER OPUS SACRAMENTO BURBANK PACIFIC JACQUES PANTHER FIZZLE CIDER REPORT crzzzztttt—– ”
The APTU exploded.
135-Poor Lionel!
136- No, no, Lionel’s core program is now inside Kokopelli’s body. The fusion of Kokopelli’s central programming and Lionel’s superficial programming created the bunnies. And this is the problem, because Lionel’s data is stored on a drive almost a quarter-mile under Beijing, and he’s the most powerful artificial intelligence yet invented. So the bunnies can basically hack into anything connected to the Internet, which is almost everything these days. If it’s automated, they control it.
“Oh, no,” Spice gasped. “Lionel’s gone bad.”
“Er, no, I haven’t,” Lionel said. “But the gist of what you said is correct. Kokopelli’s programming has fused with mine to create something new. Something sinister. Something plural. The bunnies.”
“This must have been Tardiff’s plan all along,” Kiki whispered. “Lionel is the most powerful AI ever designed. The bunnies would be able to hack into every single thing that’s connected to the Internet, and anything that has any wireless connection.”
The realization took a moment to sink in. Then they all spoke at once.
“Military drones- ”
“Smart houses- ”
“Vehicles- ”
“My God, nuclear missiles- ”
“We’ve got to get off the island,” Rebecca said decisively. “We have to warn everyone.”
138- By Phobos, that’s bad!
We caught a taxi to the airport, where, as Beavo had been told, a helicopter was waiting.
“How the heck can we afford private helicopters?” I asked
“We have a, um… benefactor. Quite a RICH benefactor.” said Hypatia.
I’m not sure who that should be, though!
“How?” Spice asked. “We can’t take the boats. The weather’s too bad. I haven’t seen a storm like this in years.”
Karen’s hand shot up. “Wait! I’ve got an idea… if only the basement hasn’t gone… ”
She dashed off toward the charred Coontz tower. A splash of purple capes followed her, catching on to her idea.
“What is going on?” TMFA said quizzically.
“I don’t know,” Lindstrom replied. “The entire house has been working on something for almost three months. They haven’t let anyone else see it. If only Cheryl was here.”
Any ideas on who should be Team Kokopelli’s billionaire benefactor?
141- Polly Shulman. She will write a best-seller next year.
She has got a book coming out next year. She’ll be happy to hear that it’s going to make her rich.
141 – Kokopelli of course! Er…that is possible right? I’m confused, too many stories going on at once… And I would enjoy to be in a story if someone can fit me in…
144- In the future, some former MuseBloggers created Team Kokopelli for a robotic mission to the moon. Some rich person needs to be giving them the funding for this.
Oh… still confused with the story line…
145-Can I be in your story?
Yes… 145 – could you fit me in?
145- Sure, you can be at the headquarters, when we get there in the helicopter.
Homework or fanfiction?
Fanfiction.
Homework.
My homework takes precedence, but I should have something ready by this evening.
“And this benefactor would be…” I asked
“Polly Shulman, the writer.”
The helicopter approached a mountain in the Catskills. Or what looked like a mountain, seeing as the Catskills are really just an eroded plateau. Beavo guided the helicopter to a cave on one side. I saw lights inside.
“That’s our workshop, nice little place. Black Genesis doesn’t know anything about it. And we want to keep it that way.”
I have no idea where this is going. Feedback, please.
Jason almost bumped into Sierra at least four times before she found a flashlight.
“Got one!â€
The beam from the flashlight hit Jason full in the face. His arms flew up to his face and he stepped out of the beam. “Thanks for completely obscuring my vision for the next, like, four hours.â€
“Does that mean I can sneak in your room and listen to your MCR CDs without you knowing?â€
“Yeah, because Gerard Way sounds exactly like the pipes, so I won’t suspect a thing.â€
“See? Sarcasm!â€
Jason opened his mouth to say something, and then closed it.
Sierra nudged past him and skipped up the stairs. The flashlight played across the walls with a thin light; it’s battery was probably about to give out. She grabbed a couple of triple As from the hall closet and replaced it. The lights had already gone out in the middle of a paragraph once today, she didn’t want that to happen again. Another distraction would probably cause her to go mad. Woe betide the person who interrupted her from reading, but the lightning got off easy because she couldn’t pound it into pulp.
Once settled back into her bed, Sierra searched around in the covers for the book, hoping it hadn’t been closed. Lost places were a real drag.
When she found it halfway down the bed, Sierra sighed. It was closed. She pulled it out.
There was a little slip of white paper stuck in it. For a second, she stared at it. She didn’t remember putting in a bookmark. She opened the book. The slip was blank. Out of curiosity she turned it over. One word was written in a hasty scrawl.
Duck.
Fortunately, Sierra was smart enough to know if someone could stick a note in her book while she was downstairs, she should take it seriously. She ducked.
And then the room exploded.
*gasp*
Beavo, you’re a really good writer.
I’m delighted to hear that my next book will make me rich!! When it does, I will happily fund any planetary expedition MuseBloggers wish to undertake.
There was a noise best represented as WHUMPLESPOING. It was followed by a variety of even stranger sounds. After one like a strangled robot, Something erupted from the snow below the Coontz tower.
Karl Lindstrom watched it rise. “What the cake is that?”
“You tell me,” TMFA said. “Leonardo da Vinci is your specialty.”
“Salvador Dali is yours.”
Kiki joined the conversation. “What are the fish doing up there?”
Mr. W. peered up at the contraption that hovered at about twenty feet. “Swimming, apparently.”
“I mean, why are they up there in the first place? Why bolt a fishtank to the back of something like that?”
“Why bolt anything to any part of something like that? And I think that’s the front. What’s with the accordion wings?”
“You think those are wings? I don’t.”
“Well, if they aren’t, what the wung buttons is keeping it up in the air?”
“Maybe that?” She pointed.
“What? Oh. I was wondering where that went. It’s been missing for months.”
“Can someone toss up a hammer?” Karen yelled from what most people assumed was the cockpit. “Someone fastened the minifridge on top of the landing skids.”
“Air Force One this ain’t,” Rebecca observed.
IT’S BACK!!!!!!!!!!!
“Is there room for everyone?” Paul shouted.
“I think so,” yelled a Japanese girl Sebastian didn’t recognize. “Some of you will have to strap in below, though.”
“Below…?” He followed her gaze. “Oh. Won’t we fall off?”
“Not if you tighten the straps. Don’t worry- we usually flip over at least once during the flight, so you’ll be right side up before long.”
“Flip over?” Mr. W. exclaimed. “Do you know how to drive this?’
“Um… well, Ms. Lee was the only one who really knew how,” Karen said. “But Chihiro, Nikolai and I all watched her on the test flights, so between us, I think we can do it.”
“Have you named her yet?” Paul asked.
“Hmm.” Karen pondered. “We were going to call it- her, I mean- the Random…”
“Appropriate,” Sebastian thought.
“…but in light of recent events, I think we’ll call her the Cheryl Lee.“
POSOC designed a logo for Team Kokopelli of KaiYves’s X-prize Muse Fanfic.
157- Sweet!
The helicopter touched down inside of the cave. I stepped out, and saw that a few tunnels branched off from the cave. Two people wearing shirts with the Team Kokopelli logo greeted us. I recognized them as Bookworm and Adeia.
“How was the flight?†one of them asked Beavo.
“Almost perfect, Adeia. We’re lucky Black Genesis doesn’t know about our helicopters. We brought Kai back safe and sound.â€
“That’s good.â€
Adeia and Bookworm guided us down one of the tunnels to a larger cavern. There were computer monitors everywhere and a large space in the middle that looked like the moon. A small robot the size of a lunchbox was driving around in this area.
“Wow.†I said
157- Wow!
157 – Nice!
I’m glad people like my logo!
157- *coughmuserycoughlovescoughcompanycought-shirtcough*
See through my coughs to decipher my salient message!
162- *coughwaycoughtoocoughmessycough*
162-Yeah, the X-Prize Foundation and Google would sue.
162 – *coughfunnycough*
164- True, that was the same objection that was raised about my BUNNY poster.
Gar! Foolish copyright laws. Let’s sic some bunnies on ’em, eh? Or just wage a good old fashioned pie war (nutty newfangled legislation)!
Thanks for adding me in Kai!
*coughpowerscoughpossiblycoughpleasecough*
164- why? Can’t we Have a logo on a shirt for a team?
164 – Yes the X- Prize Fondation could lesince them.
170- But we aren’t a REAL team… maybe they could use the story for publicty purposes, though.
Lot of coughing going on today. We should really get some medicine in here.
Oh, and what are we going to call the rover and lander?
The Koko and the Pelli? Or the Kokopelli and the Urania? Or the Chad and the Aeiou?
well, it’s a cool logo anyhoo. Nice fanfics, everyone!
171- The lander is the Crraw, and the rover is the Aeiou, because the lander transmits the data from the rover in the same way that Crraw speaks for Aeiou.
174- Okay, I’ll go with that.
Bookworm guided us towards a computer station where a Muser was driving the rover with a joystick.
“That’s the Aeiou lander, in the moon pit. This is the control station for the moon pit. Our real Mission Control will be in Iceland, on Muse Academy Island. Why don’t you try driving it around?” Bookworm asked
“Okay.” I said, and sat down. The set up was similar to the underwater robots I had experience with. I moved Aeiou towards a fake boulder.
“All aboard!” Nikolai shouted.
Several confusing minutes later, Sebastian thanked his lucky stars that he had gotten one of the seats which was right side up. Not that it made the experience any less strange. He’d begun counting the things he was sure didn’t belong on a flying vehicle, but lost count somewhere in the fifties.
Karen bent over the controls. Chihiro and Nikolai were peering over her shoulders like the proverbial angel and devil, and giving advice no less contradictory.
“Pulling that lever starts all three engines at once. We need to get momentum for a quick takeoff.”
“If we do that, we’ll overload the cooling system! This thing would blow up!”
“Cheryl explained this. You only have to start them one by one on hot days so it doesn’t overheat! Does it feel hot to you?”
“Oh, all right. Let’s get the fuel flowing. It’s that lever, isn’t it?”
“What, the dump and pour switch? No way! We can’t mix the fuels! At least one of the engines will fail! Anyhow, we can’t take off yet. The wing isn’t fully unfolded!”
“Of course it’s not, WOMBAT! We need to reduce drag!”
“Who’s taking advanced aerodynamics, you or me?”
Karen, by now thoroughly fed up, ignored them and pressed the large red button in the center of the control panel.
Sebastian blinked. “What just happened?”
Then he looked up, and screamed.
“Amazing,” Felicia said. “I wouldn’t have thought the wing was strong enough to loft us over like that. Must be resilient metal.”
“Er, Karen? Could you press that button again?”
“Nope, sorry,” Karen yelled. “We’re starting the fuel feed.”
“We’re upside down!”
“Sorry. No room on the top. And we won’t be flying too high.”
Wow, I’ve been gone for 2 threads already? Okay, here goes…
They (ΡÖŞÎĈ and Feather) ran quietly through the dungeons of Gondor. “You’re lucky to be alive,” gasped ΡÖŞÎĈ. “I’ve seen them do much worse to people.” “They thought I was a god,” was all Feather could say at the moment. He was still confused about what was happening. Did this ΡÖŞÎĈ have donuts?
Feather was right. Once they had got out, ΡÖŞÎĈ gave him some. And not just any, but a batch of Krusty-Glop Very Very Nondairy Strawberries. Feather was starting to like this guy.
More on the way! I hope!
“Excelent control, Kai!” Adeia said
I guided Aeiou around the rock and between two fake craters. I had driven a toy rover at a science museum once, when I was younger, but this wasn’t playing anymore. This was serious, and seriously fun.
153-Thank you! *blush*
157-Awesome.
“Why do you build me up? (build me up?) Buttercup, baby, just to let me down (let me down) and mess me around, and then worst of all (worst of a—)â€
Michael flipped open his phone.
“Hold on, Vanessa, I have to duck a…â€
SPLAT.
Outraged and covered in cream, he clapped the phone to his chest. “CAKE? CAKE!? Jasmine Helena Speroni, I’m going to pie you within ONE INCH of your plant OBSESSED life and then I’m going to STAB you in your leg so you BLEED SLOWLY TO DEATH.â€
With that, he stormed out of the hallway and slammed the door to his room.
“I’m sorry, what were you saying Vanessa?â€
“Um, I was just wondering if you knew whether we could have any color robe we wanted, or did we just have to get black. Because I went on a shopping spree at The Melting Cone and got hot pink, and neon green and black with purple splotches.â€
“I’m not even going to ask why you got neon green robes, Vanessa, but I’m pretty sure we can have whatever colors we want as long as we have another plain black one. Wasn’t the dress code on the letter?â€
There was a pause on Vanessa’s line, and then a rustling of papers. “Yeah, I think so, but I bet Max ate as a goat it just to make me mad.â€
Michael laughed. “I bet. How’s Max, anyway?â€
Vanessa groaned. “He’s just discovered that he can transform under water. Every time I try to take a shower, I’ve got a undersized octopus or squid or piranha in my bathtub.â€
Michael laughed even harder and found a chair to sit down in to prevent himself from rolling around on the floor. Max was Vanessa’s dog, or at least most of the time. She’d found him in one of Muse Academy’s underground tunnels that lead directly to the bedrooms. He had scared the cake out of her when he transformed into a beaver as she was carrying him to the kitchen to see where he had come from, and the Head had let her keep him.
Of course, it was more of a matter of if he wanted to stay with Vanessa, but he did, so that wasn’t much of a problem. Apparently, Max was a species all his own and not many people knew about him anyway. Most Muse Academy students and teachers (who knew about him) called him Max and left it at that.
Bad stopping point but I’ve run out of ideas.
“By the way, could you sign this?” Bookworm asked, handing me a piece of paper. I signed my name on it, and handed it back.
“What’s this for?” I asked
“We’re putting a microdot of our signatures on the Craw lander. Kind of old-school, but it works.”
((Does anyone know how to email a file from Adobe InDesign? please let me know, it’s for the team Koko logo.))
oops! I didn’t see POSOC’s.
181- It’s okay, send yours in and maybe we can use some elements from both.
(181) ZVX — if you created the whole design within InDesign, you can just send us the INDD file, and I can convert it.
If you created the graphic with stuff from other files, then you have to send all the related documents.
You can also export the file as a PDF. On the File menu, select Adobe PDF Presets, and make a selection from the flyout menu. Probably “high quality print” would work best. When you click “Save” you’ll get a scary looking dialogue window called “Export Adobe PDF” — simply ignore it and click “Export.”
*coughfeedbackpleaseandbehonestthankyoucough*
185- I like it quite a bit, and I wonder what sort of role Max is going to play. A shapeshifting dog discovered under Muse Academy is going to be a major element, or I miss my guess.
~
Sebastian clenched his teeth as the vibration built up above him, rattling through his seat. He heard a loud clunk, and a tangle of metal piping dropped past his head and down toward the rapidly receding campus.
“Was that important?” Felicia inquired over the roar of the motor.
Karen peered downward, an odd expression on her face. “Yes. Vitally.”
Without further ado, she vaulted out of the cockpit, dangling from the framework below. “Somebody pass me a Phillips screwdriver and a quart of caviar.”
Sebastian sighed. It would be a long flight.
On a rooftop in New York City, a woman wearing black sunglasses was talking on a sat phone.
“Okanagan and I crashed into their van. I don’t think they survived, sir. Those kids on Team Kokopelli won’t be bothering us for a while.”
“Very well, Agent Lusca. Mr. Nessiteras will be pleased.”
Five points if you can tell me what all the names of people who work for Black Genesis have in common.
187- They’re all sea monsters/cryptids. Lusca is a creature reported in the Caribbean, Okanagan is a similar one in Canada, and Nessiteras is the proposed scientific name of the Loch Ness Monster.
Sorry I haven’t written anything, and I probably won’t for a few days because we’re having quite a few bad storms here.
Argh! Sorry I haven’t been here lately!
188- Yes, it’s my wierd idea of humor. Doesn’t have anything to do with the story. Five points to POSOC.
“Now that you’ve seen the rover, do you want to see the Craw lander?” Hypatia asked.
“Sure thing!” I beamed
We walked through a tunnel, into another large space. The floor was also mocked up to looked like the moon, and a large metal construction was suspended from the roof. Over to the side, there was a team at a computer station. Hypatia ran over and put on a headset.
“Stand by for release.” Somebody said.
The construction dropped…
“Fire retro-rockets…”
177-oh, you’re back! good! *pies*
The retro-rockets ignited, kicking up dust in the moon pit. As it cleared, I saw the lander sitting gently on the surface.
“Success!” the people at the computer stations shouted.
“Now we just have to replicate this at Serenity.” Hypatia said, to the others.
“So, that’s where we’re landing, is it? The Sea of Serenity?” I asked
“Yup, nice, flat lava plains. Good for roving.”
194-I love the story!
Thanks!
You can call them Brain Points if you want.
Ugh. Writers block. I’m going to try to get something writ.
Sorry if this becomes a double post.
Two weeks later…
All of the Musers at the Catskill workshop were gathered in the main room. POSOC was adressing us.
“First of all, I want to thank everyone here for their hard work and dedication. If the contest was only to do a perfect moon mission in simulations, we would have already won. But the X-Prize isn’t about doing this on Earth- it’s about doing this on the moon. We’ve taken out communications time on the Allen Telescope Array in Berkeley, the one SETI usually uses to look for alien signals. We’ve arranged launch on a Falcon 9 rocket from The Cape. The target date is August 4th. This is where the real work begins.”
Anyone want to put me in their fanfic? And ΡÖŞÎĈ, why don’t you post some feedback on my portrayal of you in mine?
En route to Orlando, Florida…
I sat in my seat on the private carrier plane, looking up from a magazine and at Hypatia, Beavo, and Bookworm in the seats next to me.
Flying somewhere I’ve always wanted to go, part of one of the biggest adventures possible, and with good friends, too. What could be better? I thought.
I wrote just a teeny, tiny bit.
Michael heard the scowl in Vanessa’s voice. “It’s not funny! It’s really annoying. Not to mention last week when he did another one of his rabid squirrel routines and almost got shot by the neighbors. You should have heard Mr. Garrison waving his cane and screaming about shooting the whole neighborhood up. And his wife came over in the middle of dinner and asked if the rabid squirrel in her front yard was ours. Because everyone owns rabid squirrels these days!â€
Before Michael could respond with an “Of course,†he was startled by a ping! by his left shoulder. He jumped out of his chair and smacked his elbow on the bookcase to his right.
“Ouch! Ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch!â€
“Um, Michael, whatever you’re doing to yourself, stop.â€
“I bumped my elbow.†Michael grabbed it in his left hand. “Listen, I gotta go, I’m getting messages from the Alpha. I’ll see you in two weeks, okay?â€
“Right. If I don’t get thrown in the Bennie before I get my letter. I might just kill Max if he tries to jump out of my closet like a wolf spider one more time.â€
Michael would have started laughing (he remembered last year when that was Max’s favorite activity, and how Vanessa ran screaming around the dorm with him clinging onto her head) but his elbow hurt too much. “Mhmm. Bye.†He hung up, before Vanessa had the chance to ask him something else.
The carrier plane touched down on the runway in Orlando at six PM, on the dot. We walked off, towards the waiting truck that the Craw-Aeiou package was being loaded onto. It had recently rained and the tarmac was shiny and slick. Hypatia got to the truck first and reached for the door handle.
“You don’t want to do that.†a voice said, behind us.
We turned to look at a woman with long black hair wearing dark sunglasses and holding a gun. Two other people stood behind her. All of them wore sunglasses and trenchcoats with a symbol in light gray on the sleeve.
“Alma, Wilsi, restrain them.†The woman ordered
“Yes, Agent Lusca.†one of the others grumbled.
“Man, these Black Genesis goons have odd names.†Bookworm muttered under her breath.
“Why are you doing this?” I asked, looking Agent Lusca in the eye.
“What kind of question is that? Isn’t it obvious? We’re going to throw your probe in the ocean and take you hostage because we want to WIN the X-Prize.”
((Sorry, the period ended before I could finish that post))
“Well, I don’t know, it’s kind of a tradition that when the bad guys catch the good guys, the good guys ask that question. That’s all.” I said.
Just then, I heard a shout. Bookworm had stepped on Wilsi’s foot, really hard. He’d let her go, momentarily. Seizing the moment, Hypatia threw a portable pie into Agent Lusca’s face, and I elbowed Alma in the stomach.
The chaos gave us time to take off running across the tarmac, towards the main airport buildings.
By the time Lusca had cleaned her face, we were too far away to shoot at.
((I’m a he, by the way…))
Back to the rest of the gang.
Kokopelli was not amused. All he could see around him was trees, trees, trees. Apparently Gimli felt the same as he did. He had heard that this place was called Lothlorien, but he didn’t care about the name, he was just plain sick of it. “What is WITH this place? Only Feather would like it, and he isn’t here!” he yelled. Suddenly, a bow-and-arrow was pointed at each of their heads.
Elves… of course…
MORE COMMENTS ON MY FANFIC! PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Also, for the “dates to remember”, my birthday is in 1997.
Comments on my fanfic?
Great fun! I wonder whether Galadriel knows Urania. They seem like people who ought to have crossed paths during their multimillennial lifespans.
((206- IAIAM: I Apologize, I’m A Moron.))
The police chief looked at us with a raised eyebrow.
“You’re accusing an international software company held in high esteem of attempted murder and sabotage? Do you have any proof?” He asked
“Well, actually…” I pulled a tape recorder out of my pocket and pressed “Play”:
“What kind of question is that? Isn’t it obvious? We’re going to throw your probe in the ocean and take you hostage because we want to WIN the X-Prize.†the voice came, from the recording.
211- I read that as “murder and cabbage.”
212- “Attempted murder and cabbage”? Oh, that’s hillarious!
212-I read your “murder and cabbage” as mother and cabbage.
More story in a minute.
“Murder and carnage”? Ohhhhhh… “murder and cabbage”.
More Stories! Yes! MURDER AND CABBAGE! *Calms Down* It wasn’t a big matter, Kai. It’s all fine! Anyway, it’s just such a great story! I also love the “Lord of the Muses” Story! It’s grand!
August 4th, 2012
Underground on a familiar island off the coast of Iceland, we were all clustered around television monitors and sensors.
We don’t have to worry about Black Genesis anymore, but just going to the moon isn’t exactly a walk in the park. I thought
You could almost see the tension as we counted down the seconds until the Falcon 9 launched from Florida.
“T-minus twelve…
“Eleven…
“Ten…
“Nine…
“Eight…
“Seven…
“Six…
“Five…
“Four…
“Three… We all held our breaths
“Two…
“One… Ignition- liftoff!â€
Wreathed in steam, the rocket left the launch pad, bound for the moon.
We all cheered and punched the air.
“Save it for touchdown, people.†POSOC said, paraphrasing Gene Kranz in the movie Apollo 13.
What just got skipped? What just happened?
It was an hour before Vestmannaeyjar came into view. Karen less than expertly brought them to a landing at the airstrip, bouncing off the wings to cushion their descent. Sebastian unbuckled his straps and fell heavily to the ground. Several students, and at least one teacher, threw up.
“What was that?” Felicia screamed.
“It got us here, didn’t it?” Karen shot back.
“A lot of people here need medical attention,” Rebecca reminded them. “Let’s get them to the hospital, and then we can figure out how to deal with the bunnies.”
“Uh, guys!” Lindstrom yelled. “We have a slight problem…”
Slowly, Sebastian let his eyes travel upward, taking in the furious faces of the mob. Many carried sticks and rocks; a few had guns.
One of them yelled something in Danish, and Lindstrom’s expression went from apprehensive to horrified.
“They’re blaming us,” he whispered. Then, out loud, “Engelsk! Enska!”
A heavyset blond man spoke up. “We would like to hear you explain the meaning of this joke.”
“What joke?” Paul asked calmly.
“Oh, yes, you know quite well. The world is not a children’s game. Politics is not a children’s game. You and your friends have ruled because you did good things and did not impose your… oddness… upon others. Mostly Harmless! ” He spat. “Every computer screen in Iceland has a pink rabbit on it. There are five people who broke their ribs when the military drones attacked. Have you no concept of consequences? Your silly little Kokonspiracy has gotten people hurt!”
“Not ours,” TMFA said. “Someone else’s.”
Kokopelli stepped forward. “I think it’s time we had a talk with Ronald Tardiff.”
It’s so exciting! Please, Sir, could I have some more?
218- Nothing got skipped. The last scene was us giving Lusca’s confession to the police, so we can safely assume all the Black Genesis agents are in jail.
After a short time in Low Earth Orbit to make sure the instruments were working, we punched the engines to send Craw-Aeiou towards the moon.
“Two days from now, comes the stress.” somebody said
“No, not the stress. The triumph.” Hypatia corrected them.
A challenge: write a Muse Fanfic in less than 30 words. Here’s mine:
Brandon clicked, scrolled, read from the most famous website in the world. So she’d been right after all.
“Another drink, Tim,” he said, staring out at Hellas Plain.
210-Thanks, Robert!
Thanks also for the idea…
Koko poked the arrow of the elf nearest him. “When you shoot it, does a paper come out that says ‘bang’?” he asked hopefully. The elf, without looking up, raised the bow-and-arrow and shot it straight into a tree. Six inches of it became embedded in the unlucky plant. Kokopelli lost hope.
Fast-forward to when they meet Galadriel and Celeborn. They were walking obediently, GImli grumbling about untrustworthy elves, when Urania stopped short. At the same time, Galadriel said, “Urania!” and Urania said, “Galadriel! How’s it going? I haven’t seen you in a few millenia! How’s your star-watching coming?” Then they started talking like old friends, which in fact they were.
Their history together comes next! Stay tuned!
216- Thanks also! I didn’t name it that, but I like it!
maybe someone could put me in their FF…?
No more putting it off, here is more of Mostly Harmless: Destination Moon:.
“All systems go for descent and landing.†POSOC said.
Thousands of miles away, the spacecraft motor fired to turn itself in the right direction. It was nudged from its steady lunar orbit towards the surface…
“It’s handling smooth as silk…†I heard someone say, as the view on the monitor showed us getting closer and closer to the ground.
“Five thousand feet and closing…†Hypatia said
[i]So much can go wrong! We’ve done tests, but right now, we’re in the hands of fate! I thought [i]
“Four thousand…â€
I’ve never been so afraid in my life… not even that time in Egypt when there was that cobra on my sleeping bag!
“Three and a half thousand feet and closing…â€
Heck, not even that time I nearly got the bends diving at Antikythera can compare to this!
“Two thousand feet…â€
“Retro-rockets firing… perfect!â€
“Nineteen hundred…â€
My eyes were glued to the monitor.
“Eighteen…â€
“Fifteen…â€
“Fourteen…â€
Engines, please don’t stall, I beg of you….
“One thousand feet…â€
“Seven hundred…â€
“Five hundred…â€
“Three hundred…â€
We’re going to make it! We’re actually going to land on the moon!
“One hundred…â€
“Fifty…â€
“Contact light… Craw has landed!â€
I don’t think any of us had ever screamed so loudly in our lives. We did air punches and gave high-fives and pied each other with a few disposable coconut creams.
(What should our celebration song be?)
Hm… The March of the Uruk-hai?
I would love that! Tee hee…
~~~
“No,” Rebecca said sternly, arms folded across her chest in a manner that brooked no argument. It was her bad luck that Karen was born to argue, brooked or unbrooked.
“We’re the only ones who can fly the Cheryl,” she said.
“There are other planes here.”
“All of them have wireless surveillance cameras. The bunnies will realize what we’re doing. We were lucky this place has so few computers. The military drones came in and wiped out everything that wasn’t automated. I’m willing to bet they’ve done the same everywhere else, so that humans are completely dependent on them.”
“You, Chihiro and Nikolai can come. The others stay behind.”
“What?” Sebastian stepped in. “You’re just going to- ”
“We are going to leave you in a safe place. What we’re doing is dangerous.”
“The bunnies have practically taken over! Is anywhere safe now?”
“We are going to a maximum security prison to interrogate the most dangerous man on the planet or off it. You’ll certainly be safer here.”
“Hey!” Private Null called from her position on the nearby ridge. “We’ve got five unidentified objects inbound, about twenty klicks away.” She put up her binoculars. “Bunny drones.”
“Ah,” Karen said. “This is some strange usage of the word ‘safe’ that I wasn’t previously aware of.”
227-If you’d like to be in mine, you’re welcome.
The computer had given up pinging, it was now emitting a constant high-pitched beep.
Talking on the phone with Vanessa had cheered Michael up a little, but not much.
“WHAT DO YOU WANT, CRANE?â€
The computer screen turned bright blue, yet still showed no icons of any sort.
“Mail.†The voice the computer spoke in was gender neutral: you couldn’t tell if it was male or female.
“I see,†said Michael. “Thanks for pinging my head off.â€
“Welcome. Mail.†You couldn’t be sarcastic with Crane (some geek had nicknamed the “smart computer†series Crane, which derived from Cranium). It might be smart for a machine, but it wasn’t intelligent.
“Okay, how much mail?â€
“One message.â€
“Oh, that’s fine, as long as it’s not huge.â€
“Thirty two seconds.â€
“Good. Let’s hear it.â€
“Message from: Muse Academy. To: Group, Muse Academy Second Year Students. Subject: Summer Update. Attachment: two. Dear students, we begin to prepare for another year at Muse Academy exclamation point. Our nine Heads this year have not changed, and Mr. Baker, Mr. Coontz, Ms. Lasely and Ms. Spector will once again be heads of house. Your list of core classes should be an attachment to this message, as well as another attachment containing your supplies. If you have any trouble purchasing these supplies, please contact us. And for Paker’s sake, don’t use the regular ways. The arrival date is July 31st as usual. See you then.
Muse Academy Staff End.â€
Michael was a little confused at first; he didn’t use Crane much over the summer (he had a regular laptop for that, and even though Crane looked like one, it wasn’t really a laptop at all), but then he remembered that since it couldn’t convey emotion, it had replaced an exclamation with the words “exclamation markâ€. “Could you print the attachments?â€
“Printing.â€
Two papers seemed to slide out of the solid bottom of the computer. Michael grabbed them and sat down on his bed to read them over. For his core classes, he just had the advanced versions of classes he had last year: Math, Science, Language and History. He would pick his other classes when he arrived at the Academy.
The conclusion:
Somebody turned on the Ewok celebration music from Return of the Jedi. I guessed that it was Kokonilly.
“All cameras functioning.â€
“My, it’s a barren place. But we… we did this. WE did THIS!†Hypatia shouted
Five minutes later, we lowered the ramp for the rover.
“All right, time to earn my keep.†I said, taking my place at the joystick.
I maneuvered the rover down the ramp, and, with the whole world watching, I brought the six wheels onto the lunar soil.
“That’s another giant leap for humankind.†I said.
Epilogue- April 12, 2028:
It was the unusual bump on the mostly uniform plain that caught his eye. Sebastian turned the vehicle towards it. In seven minutes, they had reached the strange object.
“I don’t remember any missions to this area. Of course, records were lost in the schism, but…â€
“There was a Russian probe that landed about two hundred miles away, but this doesn’t look Russian.†Karen said, stepping out to examine it. She noticed the old logos on it- Google and…
“Come look at this, Sebastian! It’s a Kokopelli!â€
But Sebastian was too busy looking at a plaque that was attached to one of the lander’s legs. He read the inscription out loud.
“Here the people of the planet Earth began the second phase of their explorations of the moon. August 2012 CE. We came in peace for all humanity.â€
That’s a grand ending! I love that you tied in with POSOC’s story!
234-
So what is that? Fanfanfiction?
You’re going to have to change the date on the epilogue, though, since Seb and Karen would be about seven years old in 2028.
Rebecca swung around and seized the nearest Icelander by the shoulders. “Hide all the injured students and make sure the bunnies don’t find them. The rest of us are getting off this island.”
Before the startled man could respond, she vaulted into the Cheryl with an agility rarely seen in someone of her age. “Karen! Vatnajökull Maximum Security, and hurry up. They’ll be here in minutes.”
Students and teachers poured into the aircraft as it slowly built up speed, bumping along the runway.
236-I’m sorry, I’ll have to change it.
238- Make it 2037 or so. That’ll give them enough time to defeat the bunnies and visit the moon afterwards.
I need to keep thinking about Urania and Galadriel’s history together. Two questions: POSOC, would you like me to call you POSOC or your original blogname, ΡÖŞÎĈ? And whatever happened to Prarilius Canix?
240- You can do whichever you like. POSOC is short for Prarilius Oob Sir Ozlips Canix.
Oh, you ARE Prarilius Canix! I’m honored to have you in my fanfic! I will call you ΡÖŞÎĈ, it looks cooler!
POSOC, would you like to be in my fanfic? Here’s who I have so far…
243- Certainly I would. Give me the setting and the year, and I will describe myself.
~~~
Vatnajökull Maximum Security Prison was large, ugly and dark, nestled in near the base of Iceland’s largest glacier. It was difficult to find a landing place, and even more difficult to clamber up the worn, rocky slope to its gate.
“Where are all the guards?” Sebastian whispered.
“Panicked and ran away, probably,” Karen replied. Something about the stillness of the atmosphere made it natural to speak in a low voice. “We might be walking into a riot.”
Spice turned around. “Null, Algae, TMFA, Traggle, Kiki, Kokopelli, you’re with me. Everyone else, stay here. ” Sebastian noticed that even Spice had taken to calling Lionel after the previous occupant of his body.
The wungs fanned out into Wedge Formation Six, a triangle with the largest and fiercest at its apex. The DODECAHEDRON agents pulled out weapons; the Muse Academy teachers grasped various cooking utensils. Kokopelli tore off the improvised additions that had been made to his body, becoming more streamlined and agile. Ripping a pair of wires from an open panel, he pulled off the locking keypad and shoved them into its innards. With a ping, the door swung open, and the group warily proceeded into the bowels of Vatnajökull.
I just had a great idea! Ronald Tardiff was funding Black Genesis!
Anyone need a recap?
It would be useful…
Okay.
The Eighteen of the company of the Ring hurried along the path in Moria. Gimli cried out when he saw Balin’s tomb in the chamber of Mazribul. Suddenly, they heard the drums. “They are coming,†said Legolas. “We cannot get out!†cried Gimli. Bo blocked the door with her(you win, Prarilius Canix and Koko du Pelle) hoof and said, “Up the stairs! Hurry!†As they ran away, Frodo suddenly thought, “Where’s Kokopelli?†Bo was about to find out. With one swing from an orc’s mace, the door splintered and she was caught in an instant. Something suddenly caught her eye. Kokopelli was among the orcs! “You betrayed us!†she yelled, as the orcs, debating over wether to butcher Bo for meat or to use her for milk, carried her off into the distance.
Kokopelli, of course, had not betrayed them, but had simply done things his own way, as you see in Attack of the Smart Pies. He was actually carrying Bo to a place where they could talk safely.
“But Kokopelli-†Bo started. “Don’t you think I’ve got a PLAN?†said Kokopelli. “GANDALF and FRODO and ABSOLUTELY EVERYONE ELSE couldn’t figure that out! I’m a spy, a spy, do you hear me? I’m finding out Saur- I mean, the Enemy’s plans!†“Okay…†Bo whined.â€C’mon, we’ve got to get you out of here,†said Kokopelli, suddenly sounding concerned.
Now, back to the other sixteen. They had all gotten out of the Chamber of Mazribul, but now there was a Balrog on their tail. Finally it reached them, but Gandalf stood between it and the others. “I am the servant of the secret fire,†he said. “You…shall not…PASS!†He struck his staff on the bridge, and the Balrog fell. Unfortunately, it was slippery (plus he had a Balrog whip around his ankle) and he only just was able to hang on. “Fly, you fools!†he cried, and was gone. “Okay!†said Feather, and flew out the door.
Feather flew all the way over to Gondor(woah, he’s a fast flyer)and was mistaken by many to be the legendary Feeather. He tried to explain that his name was one e short of their bird, but they wouldn’t listen. Actually, he liked being treated like a king for some of the time, but he quickly missed his friends. He started to fly away, but the people suddenly saw and held him back.
Koko and Bo got back safely to the other seventeen (minus Feather and Gandalf) and they soon noticed that Feather was missing. (SO SORRY ABOUT NOT EXPANDING ON BO AND KOKOPELLI!!!!!!) They got out, each grieved at Gandalf’s supposed death, and went toward Lorien. The Company went in and found sixteen elf bows pointed at them. Koko poked one of their arrows and said, “Wow, nice fake bow-and-arrow! When you shot, will a stick with a paper hanging down from it saying “SWISH� The arrow came closer to his head and he grew silent. “What is this strange two dimensional creature?†the elf next to him asked incredulously.
Oh, darn…I posted this part TWICE? How could I be so forgetful? The second one is better written, though.
Feather was trapped. He tried to keep flying, but the people of Gondor threw him into a dungeon. He stayed there for a long time, and after three days, he heard footsteps coming down the stairs. “Who’s there?†he called. “My name is ΡÖŞÎĈ,†he said. “Urania might help me with pronouncing that name,†Feather thought…
They (ΡÖŞÎĈ and Feather) ran quietly through the dungeons of Gondor. “You’re lucky to be alive,†gasped ΡÖŞÎĈ. “I’ve seen them do much worse to people.†“They thought I was a god,†was all Feather could say at the moment. He was still confused about what was happening. Did this ΡÖŞÎĈ have donuts?
Feather was right. Once they had got out, ΡÖŞÎĈ gave him some. And not just any, but a batch of Krusty-Glop Very Very Nondairy Strawberries. Feather was starting to like this guy.
Kokopelli was not amused. All he could see around him was trees, trees, trees. Apparently Gimli felt the same as he did. He had heard that this place was called Lothlorien, but he didn’t care about the name, he was just plain sick of it. “What is WITH this place? Only Feather would like it, and he isn’t here!†he yelled. Suddenly, a bow-and-arrow was pointed at each of their heads.
Koko poked the arrow of the elf nearest him. “When you shoot it, does a paper come out that says ‘bang’?†he asked hopefully. The elf, without looking up, raised the bow-and-arrow and shot it straight into a tree. Six inches of it became embedded in the unlucky plant. Kokopelli lost hope.
Fast-forward to when they meet Galadriel and Celeborn. They were walking obediently, GImli grumbling about untrustworthy elves, when Urania stopped short. At the same time, Galadriel said, “Urania!†and Urania said, “Galadriel! How’s it going? I haven’t seen you in a few millenia! How’s your star-watching coming?†Then they started talking like old friends, which in fact they were.
Kinda long, but more coming!
246- That’s a great idea!
244-The MuseBloggers are going to come in later in the fanfic. I’ll ask for discriptions soon. Ish.
I’ll finish Omega after this story arc is finished.
((new story, new times, better writer.))
The Station For Experimental Muser Tests was not all that it was described to be. In near 1852 someone might have realized it was there, but now, in 2060, no one cared. Everyone had nearly been roasted in a Global Warming upswing, and besides, no regular off-the-street dude from the midwest was going to care. Besides, who knew what those weird words meant? Muser? what the heck was that about? The Station was currently in a state of disrepair. Occasionally, a sign of life would show, but no one noticed. No one was there to notice. Sitting in the depths of New Zealand, it was, though it did not look it, actually a place where terrible things were carried out, a place feared by it’s occupants.
~~~~~~
On the sunlit lawns of Muse Academy, a gaggle of students lounged in the sun, wrote in notebooks, sat with laptops, and went about their day at a normal rate. All except one. Though technically not a student, Kokopelli had always been welcome at MA, but now, he thought, it was time for some action.
-184 thanks. I’ve just sent it, so keep a lookout for it in your inbox.
Somewhere in his apartment, another phone rang. It stopped on the second ring, and he could hear his sister’s speak the rehearsed greeting into their kitchen’s phone.
“Hello, Lindzay residence, Jasmine speaking. Who is this?†Pause. “She can’t come to the phone right now, but if you want— oh, Michael? Yeah, he’s here.â€
Suddenly, Michael heard the sound of glass shattering on the kitchen floor. As he bounded out of his room, he heard Jasmine say a word that would have gotten her in big trouble with their parents, and then, “What? Are you kidding me? Oh my god.â€
He rushed into the kitchen. The remains of a glass bowl and it’s jellybean contents lay scattered on the linoleum. Jasmine turned toward him. Her eyes showed fear and disbelief, and she was breathing fast.
“Michael, it’s Sierra Carter. Dr. Carter’s daughter? Remember her?â€
Michael remembered her. Sierra had been at Muse Academy with him, and he told her so. Jasmine was starting her year at Muse Academy in the fall, and only knew who was there because of Michael. And like any other brother, he didn’t regularly talk to his sister about his friends. “So what’s up?â€
“She’s gotta speak to you.†Jasmine handed him the phone. As he took it, she bent down to clean up the broken pieces of glass with a little broom stationed at the entrance of the kitchen.
Michael put the phone to his ear, and the first thing he heard was Sierra’s jagged breathing. “Sierra? What’s happening? You’ve got Jasmine really freaked out.â€
“I’m pretty freaked out too, Michael, and you should be.â€
“Are you going to tell me or not?â€
“We got a visit from the Black Reform.â€
Michael almost dropped the phone, and he had a sudden mental image of Jasmine dropping her bowl, Jellybeans spilling onto the floor. “You’re kidding.â€
“If you think I’m kidding, then why don’t you come over for a visit?â€
“I’ll be there in five.â€
“You better be. Don’t bring Jasmine.†The line went dead.
Five minutes later, Michael arrived at Sierra’s house on his bike. Or what was left of it, which wasn’t much.
Sebastian watched through the doorway until they disappeared into the blackness, and wondered why all the lights had gone out. Possibly the prisoners had gotten on the bunnies’ nerves.
A sudden hoarse scream made him jump. Paul tightened his grip on his weapon. The two guard wungs flicked out their claws.
A succession of gunshots echoed from within the compound, followed by heavy, running feet.
“Get back!” Paul shouted, leveling the musket, but it was only Spice, an orange-jumpsuited figure over her shoulders in a fireman’s carry, wungs scattering pell-mell around her feet. The rest of the party thundered out, Kokopelli bringing up the rear and slamming the door shut.
I’m taking a break from Lord of the Muses. I might do one with some Musebloggers, though. Tell me if you want to be in it.
I do!
I am in difficulties typing-wise due to the German keyboard (stupid z-y switch) so I won´t be writing any very long comments until I return home.
All right. I will also be including Alice and POSOC, since they have made so many generous offerings to this thread.
260- Excellent!
For a story I’m planning, I need three diverse natural environments on Earth for a trio of artifacts to be found. I’d like one to be underwater. Any suggestions?
262- The Great Barrier Reef, the New Guinea cloud forest, and Monument Valley.
262-Maybe Mt. Vesuvius?
For the underwater environment, the Great Barrier Reef would be good if you’re looking for a shallow sunlit place loaded with pretty fish. If you’re need gloom and mystery, I’d recommend either the hydrothermal vents on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, or the bottom of Lake Baikal in Siberia.
263- I looked up the cloud forest and it sounds like a good place. I think I’m going with the cloud forest, the reef, and Antarctica. Hydrothermal vents appear elsewhere in the story, so I didn’t want to use the same environment twice.
260- And I might also include KaiYves, too.
Wow, I haven’t been here in a while. I wonder if I should abandon my fanfiction and simply lurk.
Hey, Kokonilly! Want to be in my fanfic?
Okay! *decides to lurk*
Spice unceremoniously dumped her passenger in the backseat of the Cheryl Lee, then vaulted in. “We need to talk, and we need to do it somewhere safe. Get this thing off the ground!”
Sebastian spent most of the flight in a half-awake doze, watching a blurry world through slitted eyes. His brain hardly registered that a dangerous mastermind was snoozing a few rows behind him.
He finally woke up, staring into the chilly clarity of an early-morning Iceland sky. Someone was shaking him. “Get up, Seb. You’ve got to see this.”
Karen hauled him out of the Cheryl. She’d been flying all night, and there were deep shadows under her eyes.
The adults were gathered in a huddle around someone lying on the ground, propped up on a heap of bags.
Hey peoples. Mine will continue now that I’m back.
Where did Alice’s fanfic go? I liked it!
275- It’s around here somewhere. *waves hand vaguely*
276 – As far as I can tell, the last time you posted it was in MAY.
277- That’s probably about right.
This is all for tonight. I’m tired.
There were a few pieces of recognizable pieces of house, and a bit of furniture scattered around. Sierra was surveying the scene from the sidewalk, hands on hips, when Michael rode up beside her and dismounted, eyes wide.
“What the h-â€
“Oh, you know what they’re like. Might as well scare the crap out of everyone they can, and blow up everything blow up-able.â€
“So why aren’t all your neighbors all freaked? Why aren’t the news cameras here? What’s wrong with YOU? You’re not crying into a hankie like you should be.â€
Sierra rolled her eyes without taking them off the rubble. “Crying is a waste of time, I guess, and I wasn’t really attached to this house. I liked the Victorian one down in Cincinnati better. What scares me is that they’ve stooped so low to bring down the house of two teenagers and their filthy rich parents. They want something.â€
“Duh. But that still doesn’t explain about the neighbors…â€
“Yeah, it’s weird, but they didn’t hear anything when the bomb… or whatever it was went off. Everybody’s been slowing down in their cars to see what happened, but nobody’s gotten out yet. Nobody liked us, and we weren’t around for long enough anyway. As for the news… I’ve got Shelbe and Jason for that.â€
Michael mentally kicked himself. Sierra’s brother and cousin Shelbe were supermodel quality, despite both their attraction to morbid and dark things. Sierra wasn’t all that bad in the looks department either, but it was nothing compared to Jason and Shelbe. When they wanted something done (or undone, or not to happen), they generally got what they wanted. It wasn’t just their stunning looks (although that helped), it was more their persuasive skills. Michael had asked them to perform it on him, and it really seemed like he wanted to do what they said, not hypnotism, but he guessed that’s what it was.
Sierra took a step forward and picked up a bit of stray plywood. “The big hauling machine thingies are coming today, to take all the stuff that’s left away. We already got everything we wanted from this house, which wasn’t much. Mother prefers the Victorian house too, everything important is in there.†She threw the plywood into a pile of what looked like what was left of her dining room, due to a table minus two legs and a bunch of smashed chairs.
267- That’s fine.
I’ve been writing different parts of my fanfiction, should I post those? They’re out of chronological order, but still…
Comments?
COMMENTS? (Oh, please don’t let this thread die!!!)
Oy, I’m still here. I haven’t written much on the Blizzard story arc, but I keep checking.
My opinion: Don’t post them. I want to read it in chronological order.
Blizzard?
That’s the story I’m working on right now.
280- Okay. I have a pretty good story idea and possibly opening line in my head now.
I’ve given up on my fanfic, but I’d love to join/read any of yours!
I just need to clear up a few things. (Please don’t take any mishaps personally.)
Genders:
Kokonilly-Girl
POSOC: Boy?
KaiYves: Girl?
Alice: Girl
The Bookworm: ?
Boy.
288- Yes, I am a girl.
Karen pulled Sebastian closer to the group. Felicia was already there, trying to get a look at the man on the ground.
He was thin, almost emaciated, under his orange jumpsuit. Someone had given him a Baker cloak to keep warm. Seeing one of the world’s most dangerous men wrapped in a symbol of Muse Academy made Sebastian feel slightly sick.
“Good to see you all again, chaps,” Tardiff said ironically, ignoring the warlike wungs scattered around him. “Care to tell me the situation?”
Null pulled out her weapon. “You have five minutes to tell us Kokopelli’s passwords.”
Tardiff grinned. “Let me guess. He’s overridden Lionel and is using him to control every automated machine on the planet, awaiting my command.”
“Awaiting your command? The bunnies seem to have something of an independent outlook,” Spice mused.
“Wait, back up. What bunnies?” Tardiff said, genuine puzzlement creasing his forehead.
“For all we know, these bunnies are taking over the world!” Null exclaimed. “And you ask…”
“No, listen to me. I admit that I was planning on Kokopelli hijacking Lionel’s programming and using it to put me in power after a certain time… I left a program in him in case the worst occurred.”
“You mean the best,” Null countered.
“Let him talk,” Spice said. “This is the only source of information we’ve got.”
“I would have deleted the program if I’d succeeded. It was set to turn on a secret set of instructions after a certain amount of time. Kokopelli was to cause as much mayhem and destruction as possible. I knew it was only a matter of time until some sort of enforcement showed up- and all of the ex-Urania organizations are shamefully dependent on Lionel. Get access to him, and Bob’s your uncle. Pardon the expression.”
288-I’m a Boy.
Spice hissed, a sharp intake of breath. “But both Lionel and Kokopelli have been updating themselves and evolving since then. The combination of their programming… my best guess is the bunnies are Lionel’s personality without any of his inhibitions. They managed to disobey your instructions.”
“Artificial intelligence?” Null asked.
“Lionel is artificial intelligence. So was Kokopelli,” Tardiff said. “The bunnies, as you call them, are beyond artificial intelligence.” He looked visibly shaken. “They’re an entirely new life-form, albeit virtual. And the nature of all life is to reproduce, to survive, to pass on its traits… traits it must have gotten from its original programming, which was flavored somewhat with the influence of the MuseBlog.” He spoke the last word with absolute venom.
“So,” Rebecca said, “we need to stop them, don’t we?”
“We’ll need Kokopelli’s passwords,” Spice muttered. “And we’re not certain that Tardiff will co-operate… ”
“Relax,” the man on the ground said. “Would I betray the entire human race? I’m not that twisted.”
I have kind of an idea for a fan fiction, but I’m still posting COSMOS and writing something on Marvel.com, so I probably shouldn’t.
296- What are you writing on Marvel.com?
We discourage curiosity about other Web sites and will retrosnip posts 296 and 297 if necessary.
298- Ah. Consider the conversation ended, then.
Hm, looks like time for a new thread anyway.