She who Haunts my Dreams

I unfortunately failed with the one drabble a day for a month thing, but I had written this as a final part.

--

A team of men in military-grade NBC gear, armed with rifles and flamethrowers move down the hallway. They stop at a doorway, one of them unlocks the door and they enter cautiously, weapons at the ready.

No immediate threats found, they spray the room with heavy-duty disinfectant and begin a systematic search. Anything biological is regarded as potentially contaminated and, after samples are taken, is destroyed with flame.

They’ve been at this for weeks, they’re tired and bored. Thus they don’t notice the deinonychus corpse on an overhead shelf. And they have already left when it lurches to its feet.

“Have you got much ammunition left?”

“I’ve got seven slugs for the shotgun and six rounds for the revolver.”

“Five for the shotgun and three for the rifle.”

“Damn, that won’t last us long at all.”

“I told you we should have kept that fire axe.”

“That thing was heavy! Besides, I’d rather not deliberately get that close to a zombie.”

“Well, let’s check the lockers and see what we can find.”

“Here’s something.”

“Hair spray?”

“Sure, I saw it in a movie, you get a lighter and turn it into an instant flamethrower.”

“Flaming zombies seem more dangerous.”

“Damn.”

He fired both barrels of the shotgun at the leaping deinonychus. Two solid slugs of lead arrested its momentum, and instead of the arc of its leap ending with a disembowelment, it landed on its back, about six feet short of its target.

“You killed it. I thought you were trying to avoid that.”

“I was, I like dinosaurs and I’d rather it was alive and killing zombies. But I don’t like dinosaurs enough to get eaten by one.”

“That is quite possibly the sanest thing you’ve said since we met.”

“Well, you know how it is in crisis situations.”

She cocked her head as if noticing where she was for the first time.

“This is a kitchen.”

“Right, they’ll be some food here that we can either eat now or take with us.”

“The stoves run on gas, couldn’t we set something up so that they’ll go boom and take out a bunch of zombies?”

“We’d need to time that very carefully, so that the explosion got us, and not the zombies.”

“Microwave.”

“Microwave?”

“I saw it in a movie once, we put something in the microwave that catches fire, which will ignite the gas.”

“It’s worth a try.”

“Oh, thank goodness. I’ve been looking for one of these.”

“It’s a vending machine.” Her tone was flat.

“And it might save our lives.”

“What, the secret anti-zombie weapon was hidden in the vending machine?”

“No, just snack food.”

“Snack food is going to save our lives?”

“We’ve been running, often literally, for hours now. Our bodies are running on fumes. Keeping your blood sugar up could make the difference between evading a zombie and getting your brain eaten by a zombie.”

“I’d rather have the secret anti-zombie weapon.”

“Me too, but chocolate is some consolation.”

“Words to live by.”

“Deinonychus; run!”

“I thought you said these things can outrun a horse,” she said, her words uneven as she breathed heavily.

“We don’t need to outrun the deinonychus. Just the zombie!”

“What zombie?”

She followed as he suddenly veered sharply to the right, bringing them out of reach of a glassy-eyed figure in a lab coat missing his left arm.

“That zombie.”

They didn’t look back as they heard the deinonychus’ scream and the disturbing thump of it landing on the zombie, claws first.

The feeling of bits of zombie splattering against their backs only encouraged them to run faster.

Her shot took the zombie in the middle-left, blowing away a chunk of its torso. It was rocked back by the shot, but only for a moment as it righted itself and resumed lurching forwards.

“Always aim for the head. A head shot will take out a zombie, otherwise you need to whittle it away to nothing.”

Bracing herself, she carefully lined up her gun and missed.

“Damn. That is why I go for center of mass shots. Head shots are much more difficult.”

“Stick to head shots. Improving your accuracy does no good if your shots have little effect.”

She came around the corner and gasped. She gestured for silence.

“What is it?” he whispered at her.

“Giant bear, sleeping.”

“Oh, is that all?” he replied at a normal volume.

“Shh!”

“It’s hibernating. It won’t wake up unless it gets a special hormone injection.”

“Really?”

“Oh yeah, the idea was that a sleeping bear would be easier to transport, and then you’d wake it up at the target site and point the ravenous bear at your enemies.”

“The scary thing is how much sense that makes to me.”

“Why is that scary?”

“It means I’ve been here too long.”

The door was large, and made of steel. It was unadorned save for a small numeric keypad. He looked at the door and frowned.

“Well, aren’t you going to open it?” She gestured towards the door.

“I don’t know what’s behind this door.”

“Can it really be worse than what’s behind us?”

“Oh yes, very much so.”

She rolled her eyes. “Is it likely to be worse than what’s behind us?”

“Likely? No. I give us better than even odds that there’s nothing behind this door that’s worse than what’s following us.”

“I may regret this. Open it.”

“Will do.”

“Why did you have to make raptors?”

“I like dinosaurs.” He didn’t bother looking at her as he responded.

“Couldn’t you make something safe and cuddly?”

“Safe and cuddly doesn’t pay the bills.”

“How about gerbils, I like gerbils.”

“I wasn’t assigned to work with the gerbils. I’m too squeamish for that.”

“I don’t want to know what they were doing to gerbils that even you found disgusting.”

“Oh no! It wasn’t that at all. It was what the gerbils did to their victims.”

“The gerbils?”

He nodded. “Weaponized gerbils. Vicious little creatures. I’d rather fight a pack of deinonychus.”

They ran through the door and shut it behind them. Then with unspoken coordination, they searched the area. Any spot big enough to conceal a zombie was inspected, shotgun at the ready. Any entrance large enough to admit a zombie or raptor was carefully blockaded.

“What on Earth were you people thinking! Zombies, raptors, who knows what else you’ve come up with. It’s all insane!”

“Myself, I was thinking ‘dinosaurs are cool.’ Zombies were never my department, but I’ve been obsessed with dinosaurs since I was three years old.”

“Well, your three-year-old self is going to get us killed.”

She looked down at the huddled mass of zombies that had gathered in the atrium below them, and frowned.

“It’s been an hour since the raptors took out any of the zombies.”

“Shit, I should have expected this.”

“Expected what?”

“I keep saying the deinonychus are clever. They’re smart enough to know a large group of prey is dangerous. They’re waiting for an individual or small group to pick off.”

“What can we do?”

“We need to get the zombies moving again, so they’ll divide up into smaller groups.”

“How do we do that?”

“Simple. We use bait.”

“Bait?”

“Us.”

They could see dozens of zombies through the reinforced windows of the observation area. The zombies threw themselves against the glass in an irregular rhythm. The window was still holding.

“We’ve got to call for help!”

“This place is a Category 6 Quarantine Zone. ‘Help’ involves saturation bombing of this facility and the surrounding area.”

“Isn’t that a little extreme?”

“Considering what we’re developing in here, anything less than nuking us is a restrained, measured response.”

“Isn’t there anything we can do?”

“Completely eliminate the zombie outbreak.”

“How?”

“I’ve got an idea.”

“What is it?”

“Release the deinonychus.”

“You’re crazy.”

He seemed to be having trouble standing; she offered him a hand but he didn’t take it.

“Are you okay?”

His only response was to moan slightly.

“Don’t worry. We’re getting out of here. We just need to...”

Her statement was cut off as shotgun fired at close range took out a large chunk of his head.

“You shot him!”

“He was infected.”

“You could have helped, there must be something that can cure it.”

“Nothing. Once bitten he’s nothing but a walking moaning zombie-plague vector. If I’m infected I want you to do the same for me.”

“Damn you.”

The shot hit the zombie in the right shoulder, throwing it back for a moment, but only a moment. She pulled the trigger again and her gun simply clicked, empty.

The zombie reached for her with its left arm. She reflexively inhaled deeply, but before she could scream the zombie’s left arm, and a large chunk of its torso were suddenly removed by one of the scythe-like toe claws of a deinonychus.

“Come one! We’ve got to get out of here!”

“The raptor saved me. Why?”

“They naturally pick out the weak and slow. You’re much faster than a zombie.”

The only-vaguely avian features of the deinonychus regarded them from the other end of the hall. They locked gazes for a very long moment as she fumbled with the shells she was loading into the shotgun. Then the moment passed, and the predator fled.

“It ran. Why did it run?”

“We taught them to recognize guns.”

“What? Why?”

“If they were going to be a useful military tool they needed to be able to deal with firearms.”

“And how do they deal with firearms?”

“The element of surprise, mostly. They’re quite clever.”

“Why don’t you ever have any good news?”

He slammed the door and dragged a filing cabinet against it. Neither did much to diminish the screams.

“He sacrificed himself to save us from the raptors.” Her voice was little more than a whisper. “We didn’t even know his name.”

“Deinonychus.”

“Now is not the time!” she snapped.

He shook his head as if to wake himself up. “We need to keep moving before they find a way in here.”

“But if we keep heading that way, we’ll be heading towards the zombies.”

“We can outrun zombies, we can’t outrun the deinonychus.”

“Damn, I’m glad I wore flats today.”

“Now, let me show you one of the most impressive things, in my opinion, that we’ve created here.”

He pressed a button; she flinched as a shutter pulled back to reveal what appeared to be a cross between an alligator and an emu.

“What is that thing?”

“You know the movie Jurassic Park?”

She nodded. “That’s a raptor?”

“Deinonychus, Spielburg couldn’t even get the species right.”

“It looks like its watching me,” she grimaced.

“It is. They’re quite intelligent. Unfortunately they’re a failure from a business perspective.”

“Oh?”

“Incredibly expensive to produce, and not good for anything besides mass slaughter.”

So, I was trying to remember where the song line "...not be of my clan" came from (it turned out it was a mondegreen, the actual line was "...not be of my land" from "Persephone" by vixyish). But while I looking for that, I came across seanan_mcguire's Horror Movie Survival Guide, which included a bit saying that velociraptors were the best weapon against zombies. I thought that sounded like an awesome idea. So I decided to put aside the short story about a young woman playing poker with a dragon, and instead spend the month of February writting a drabble a day in this continuity which has both zombies and velociraptors (well, deinonychus actually).

( So, here's part 1:Collapse )

Who do dragons play poker with?

The office is sparsely, but expensively furnished. The computer on the desk is a recent model. The woman behind the desk is clad in a gray pantsuit; it cost enough to pay the rent for several months in a mid-sized apartment in the outskirts of a major city.

Her name is Lucille Desmond. You might have heard of her, though probably not. She was number 83 on Times Magazine's list of top female executives last year.

A crow has just flown in through her open window. None of the other offices on her level have windows that open. She had to burn a lot of political capital to have one installed. Her business colleagues regarded it as an odd eccentricity from a woman who normally tended towards ruthless pragmatism.

They were unaware that she had a pragmatic reason for a window that could open.

She does not look up from computer as she addresses the crow. "What news did the old Reprobate have, Merle?"

"Arthur has woken." Merle's voice is deep and resonant, belying his small frame.

Lucille looks up from her computer and brings an intense gaze to bear on the crow. "Impossible. Avalon remains locked away."

"He didn't wake up the normal way. He's been reincarnated. Turns out someone slit his throat about twenty years back. Past life memories are just starting to come through now."

"Someone?"

"Who knows? It's not as if CSI: Avalon was on the case."

"I wonder if it was her. It would be surprisingly ruthless of her." Admiration seeps into Lucille's tone and she turns back to her computer.

Recognizing a dismissal, Merle departs the same way he arrived.

I just finished a bout of dusting.

This dusting was made more pleasant by a playlist of Lady Gaga, Heather Alexander (well, Uffington Horse), Tricky Pixie, and Tom Smith (all legally purchased).

Unfortunately, I was mostly done my dusting by the time I realized what I was missing. I'd neglected to add any Seanan McGuire to my playlist.

I then had a realization of what incredible luxury it was to be able to listen to (almost) whatever music I wanted, whenever I wanted.

This is an age of wonders. We should remember that more often.

Random drabble. This came to mind while I was trying to think of something to write for Valentine's Day.

I give you:

In Which a Dark Lord Ponders the Futility of Talking to Heroes...

"If you're that powerful why don't you attack your neighbors and expand your realm?"

"I take what I can hold."

"Liar! You're a lord of one a Dark Realm. Your kind are inherently greedy."

"Are we inherently stupid?"

"What?"

"Are we inherently stupid? If I take that which I cannot hold, it will be lost, and the effort spent taking it will be wasted."

"And you don't want to waste effort?"

"I view waste as a weakness."

"A weakness?"

"Strength used intelligently is worth more than strength used wastefully."

"So you're lazy then?"

"Why do you insist on ascribing my actions to faults rather than virtues?"

"You're lord of a Dark Realm."

The game is pretty good. We're getting closer to something that actually qualifies as a Role Playing Game rather than just calling itself one because it ripped off the combat mechanics.

Mind you, someone missed a bet not getting Heather Alexander to do the music. The ethereal vibe they've got going is kind of pretty but doesn't mesh with the blood and pain flavor the story writers were going for.

This afternoon was one of my rare efforts at game mastering. I was running The Last Escape by stolisomancer.

I first read the play test logs of The Last Escape a few years back and rather enjoyed them. I think of it as my introduction to the zombie genre. Before I read that, I regarded zombies as icky and dull, afterwards they had entertainment value.

Eventually we got through character generation. A bit more of a combat-oriented group than I was expecting, some kind survivalist-type, a gun-toting convenience store clerk, a K9-Unit Police Officer (there was an attack dog on the equipment list), and a moderately infamous mass-murderer who has the huge-size merit and no weapon skills.

I think we got over most of the learning curve, though there wasn't much progress in the adventure.

I started them off in the high school. They explored they visited the roof, where they killed a flock of undead ravens (I'd been expecting them to run away), and the principal's office where they killed a zombie secretary. They also looted the mini-fridge of some fried chicken. Then the big guy threw a chair through the window, they killed the eight zombies visible in the parking lot at range by shooting through the window (come to think of it, I wasn't paying much attention to the range of their pistols), then jumped out. The Cop with the Dog got his car (he maxed out Equipment in his backgrounds) and they all packed into it and headed out.

That was where we finished.

Unfortunately I forgot to bring my copy of Red Roses and Dead Things by seanan_mcguire which seemed a sure bet for mood music. Hopefully I'll remember it next session.

"Lewis. I know we've never seen eye-to-eye but I'm a big enough man to admit that I was wrong. I have to congratulate you on your success here. Your Orbital Insertion Squad succeeded against incredible odds."

"Thank you General. Unfortunately the mission is incomplete."

"It is?"

"Yes sir. A local asset needs to be retrieved."

"Local asset? You're talking about the girl aren't you?"

"Yes sir."

"Now that's very noble of you son, but I'm afraid I can't justify putting my troops at risk because you feel the need to play hero."

"Understood General. I have planned for that contingency."

"That's crazy! It would take a division to breach their defenses."

"A stealth insertion affords the best odds of my success based on my analysis, sir."

"Soldier I am giving you a direct order not to attempt this foolhardy stunt."

"Sir, I must point out that you are not in my chain of command and can not give me orders."

"Son, be reasonable. This could cause a war. Is one girl worth that?"

"'Fiat justitia ruat caelum.' Let justice be done, though the sky fall. Thank you for your input Sir. I'll show myself out."

Today I finished reading 'Rosemary and Rue' by seanan_mcguire.

To give a quick review, it was a good book and I recommend it.

( I shall try to avoid spoilers, but here's a cut just in case.Collapse )

Being a super heroine sucks some days.

I mean being super strong, invulnerable, able to fly and really good looking is nice, but that cliche is true you know? Great power, great responsibilities.

Some days, the good days, I can just fly in, grab the bad guys and drop them off in police custody. I love days like that.

Today was not one of those days.

Today I wrapped myself around an eight-year old girl to protect her against a heat-ray that some super villain was firing. I saved her life.

But I saved it at the cost of the sound of her mother and older brother screaming briefly as they boiled alive. I could only save one of them, and I had to choose.

It is terrible to have to make choices like that. But I know that every day there are ordinary people who make choices like that. Really they're not ordinary people, they're extraordinary people without super powers. Reminding myself that there are people like that in world helps me keep going.

Magneto was one of the last to be brought down, forced to his knees and bound in chains of silver. There were others, obscure figures in hiding, but none left who could be expected to lead a serious resistance.

They had gone into the battle with confidence. Despite the warnings coming out of the Muppet Underground they discounted the severity of the threat. Had they not triumphed when faced with more dire threats?

The first sign that they faced something truly terrifying was when they lost of all of the telepaths. All of a sudden, every telepath, from Professor Xavier to Dr. Druid fell to the ground seemingly comatose. But when you leaned closer you could make out that they were muttering the same phrase, over and over again. "It's a small world after all."

Despite this first blow against them, they rallied and fought valiantly. It was all in vain. Though their foes had no militaristic values to speak of, nor any kind of warrior culture, they did not need it. At these incredible levels, raw power can overcome skill and cunning.

The Empire of the Mouse had conquered another world.


I read that Disney had "added 5,000 characters to its stable." This inspired thoughts of hordes of super heros in chains being herded into a literal stable. The bit above was inspired.

A while a go I read a story called Flowers for Barry Ween. It is very good. I recommend reading it if you haven't already. Go ahead, I'll wait.

Anyway, having come back to it, I followed a couple links and discovered that this story is by someone by the name of 'Seanan McGuire,' also known as Cadhla.

And more to the point, she has albums and novels that I can purchase.

Therefore, I seek advice as to which of these things I should purchase first. Any thoughts?

I am currently reading Charles Stross' blog and listening to Tom Smith (Death Sheep Radio).

Life is good. And geeky.

From collectively

Below the cut, I'm going to list a total of 20 characters (10 male, 10 female). Your job, if you choose to accept it, is to pick two of the characters (can be from same fandom or not) and give me a line of dialogue/song/quote. I will attempt to write something for those two characters interacting.

( CharactersCollapse )

I'm playing a bard in my D&D campaign. As such words are an important part of the characterization.

I recently came across a couple examples of improvised oratory from a couple different RPG campaigns and thought it would be neat if I could do that.

However, I lack confidence in my ability to improvise nifty speeches. Dialogue has never been my strong suit.

As Oscar Wilde put it, "The ability to quote is a serviceable substitute for wit."

Anyone have any good examples of heroic dialogue that could be quoted (stolen) for use in a D&D game?

I'd give this more context, but I'm curious as to how others interpret it.

( A Meeting Between SistersCollapse )

A short Monsters vs. Aliens fan fic.

Cut for possible spoilers.

( Little Black DressCollapse )

Spoilers so I'll LJ-cut this.

( Aliens, destroy all monsters!Collapse )

I'm heading off to Newfoundland to visit my beloved missreddawn.

I have been encouraged to post more here, and I have finally gotten around to it.


I am here in Newfoundland visiting my lovely girlfriend, missreddawn. I am having a wonderful time.

Mostly because of her company.

Though it's also nice to get away from the office, where they assign tasks like: "A database was created in support of a report that was completed ten years ago. We need that database. Find it."

As it turned out, I managed to find a six year old database that was an acceptable substitute.

I also just noticed that I neglected to respond to this meme request.

So with further ado, I give you:

( What's up with Janus and ValeforCollapse )

Waking up with a Jusenkyo Curse is not a good way to start the day. Still, she had a cursed form with opposable thumbs leaving it readily apparent that things can be much worse.

She found herself twitching her tail in irritation and took a small bit of pride in that it only took a couple moments to figure out how to consciously calm it down.

"Oh, too bad, you fall in Maonyannīchuan. Spring of Drowned Catgirl. There very tragic legend of a busty catgirl who drown there 1300 year ago. Now whoever fall in spring take body of a busty catgirl..."

I have been diagnosed sleep apnea disorder. Having sleep apnea disorder is bad. Getting diagnosed is a positive step.

I have started replaying Knights of the Old Republic, again. Though this time with the lesbian mod.

( I was reading the creative writing forum at this site called Space BattlesCollapse )


( MemeCollapse )

Still getting used to working for a living. It is tiring and cuts into my time. I'm told this is life and I shouldn't expect much sympathy.

missreddawn has been in town and has dropped by. This has been pleasant.

In a Chinese resteraunt I asked what the maneki neko was called. She said she didn't know what it was called in English, but said that it was called a "jowjowming" (phoneticization by me) which simply meant lucky. She also said that it came from Japan, which disproved my theory guess that there was a seperate Chinese myth for them.

For some reason the ice cream flavour "Moose Tracks" (probably unfamiliar except to those in Atlantic Canada or perhaps in New England) has, during the past three years I've spent mostly in the US, been renamed "Grizzly Tracks."

And: ( MemeCollapse )

I am now employed as a "Computer Analyst/Engineer" at IMP Group Aerospace Division.

I have moved back to Halifax (Nova Scotia, Canada) for this.

Apologies to those of you I should have mentioned this sooner to.