GrUeberfest 2005: Bone Dry (1135 hits)
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Submitted by Jack McCallum (View user info) at 2005-10-27 14:57:50 EDT
Bone Dry
"Boy, this is big," Funes said, turning slowly.
Greener, the foreman of this democrew, saw Funes and barked at the kid.
"You aren't here for sight-seeing, you heavy-heeled little bastard! Get those charges planted now!"
I laughed, turning away and muting my com beforehand. I didn't want Greener pissed at me as well.
The kid was right, though. This crater was big. And it was new.
Four years ago a big piece of rock that had dropped out of the asteroid belt and started a long fall in toward the sun had been pulled close to the Earth as paths intersected. The same gravitational force that drew asteroid Linda close to our world caused the mostly iron mass to swing around our planet and smash into the south pole of the moon.
'Right up its ass,' as Greener would say.
A new, massive crater was formed. Lunar maps had to be redrawn. A few small fragments of moon rocks and dust blown into space by the blast actually made it to Earth, but most burned up in a spectacular display of falling stars seen worldwide.
The crater was called Shepard, after Alan Shepard, an astronaut who had died over thirty years ago. He had been the first man in space, long before my father was born.
After having been away from the moon for so long, we were now back. We were building a base from which, one day, extraterrestrial missions would be launched. That was all a long way away, though.
Right now the only astronauts on the moon were a few lunartechs and architects, surveyors and democrews, blasting out level areas so construction crews could roll in later and start laying foundations and building habitats.
The South Pole was chosen because it offered a steadier light source, and we needed all the light we could get to charge our solar panels, acres of the stuff unrolled and fixed to frames and braces.
All we had to do was blow shit up. We had all the food and music and fuckflix we needed. There were a few women on the crews, but they were ass-ugly. Most of the guys would choose their hand and a suckmovie over trying to get one of those things into bed. Or a fuckbot if they could afford it. The only thing we didn't have was an abundance of water.
The moon was bone dry. The myth of water on the moon had proved to be a lot of outgassing so far, and believe me, we were motivated. A billion bucks was the reward waiting to be claimed by the first boomer to hit water.
Water was life— oxygen.
Water was ship fuel— hydrogen.
There was a lot of old and new data showing hydrogen signatures on the moon, but water still eluded us. Of all the supplies loaded onto robot thrusties and guided our way, the most costly was water. Tools, suit components, lifepods and workshacks lasted a while. We reused, recycled, repaired. We joined pod to pod and shack to shack and camp to camp to make a community. Food was turned to shit and fertilized our greenhouse, which provided veggies and was also linked by pipelines to the big central gas recycler shared by all the Shepard camps. The best BLT I ever had was made with lunar tomatoes. Bunnyfarms provided all the meat we needed. We were damn close to independent. Except for water.
A billion dollars. Manoman, back home in California, I could buy a house with that kind of cash. Just buy it outright.
"—hole, Stamatis!"
I winced, snapped out of my reverie as a burst of static developed into a shout, turning in Greener's direction. They could put a man on the moon but they still couldn't build decent suitcoms.
"I said get over here now or I'll kick your asshole, Stamatis!"
I kicked off from the ridge I had been planting blast lights on and soared over the dry moonscape. As I was approaching Greener and Funes and the rest of my crew, a flare went up.
My gut went cold.
Blast lights were a warning that you were entering a blasting area. They flashed when a blast was imminent, and most blasts were small, the cleanup being a more tedious job.
Blasting flares were a sixty-second warning. The flares would quickly drop back to the surface of the moon after being shot five hundred feet in the air.
As they dropped flares burned green, then gold, then red. The flares were only used when there was a big blast coming. They were a debris warning.
And there I was, thirty feet above the surface, waiting for the moon's gravity to counteract my leap from the ridge and pull me back down. This wasn't going to be the usual three-bounce landing. I was going to have to hit and roll, duck and cover.
The flare went red.
At that moment I wished I was literally heavy-heeled. No such luck. I was a 'lightheels,' a lunar veteran. The more time you spent away from Earth, the more bone mass you lost, the process most notable in the dense heelbone. A derogatory term for new additions to any crew was 'heavy-heeled' since their bones were normal.
I switched my com to channel 0, the all-channel emergency relay, and shouted, "Hold firing! Hold firing!"
There was a flash of light to one side. I could see the other guys in my crew scattering slo-mo. My feet brushed moondust and I ducked down, grabbed a jutting horn of igneous rock and pulled myself flat as shards of stone and clouds of dust passed overhead.
My asshole clenched every time a piece of rock banged against the helmet of my suit.
Soon enough all was quiet and I sat up, waiting for the dust to settle.
On the moon, dust was our most formidable enemy.
It got into machinery. It got into suits. It got into habitats. It got into mouths and noses. If your shank wasn't trimmed it got under your foreskin and caused one hell of an itch.
I wasn't the first guy to have gotten circumcised at Central Hospital, having ignored the advice of others to get it done before I left Earth. Hell, how many guys could say they were cut on the moon?
We spent a lot of time cleaning dust out of gears and brushing it away from faceplates. We vacuumed and swept and filtered dust.
When the air was clear Greener whistled. "That was a huge load."
Funes snickered.
I wasn't surprised a kid like him was up here. Sure, you had to have a certain skill set to be part of a democrew, and the pay was great, but there were a thousand ways to die in this place, so they weren't exactly lining up back home to be on the next shuttle.
We had the most dangerous job off Earth.
I got to my feet and joined Greener and Funes.
My buddy Jacoby was hopping closer and Cupples was walking in with a ray of reflected light bouncing off of her faceplate.
"What the hell was that, boss-man? I could have gotten shredded up there."
Greener slapped me on the back. I felt it, distantly.
"It's those fuckin morons in China Sector, I bet."
Shepard crater was divided into four sectors. USACAN, EURO, RUSS and CHINA. The Chinese were east of us.
Each group had its own camp near crater center, sharing one big central facility that housed the hospital, gas processing, and a bazaar that was a great place to visit during down time. They had a marketplace, bars, and even a joint full of fuckbots.
Central was run by the Brits and the Jappos. They saw to it that each of the four camps shared in the give and take equally. The Brits operated Central Hospital. Their off-world medics, called Nightingales, knew space medicine better than anyone. The Japanese brought in trade goods and ran gas processing and built the best fuckbots anywhere. They also made and sold really good sake and really bad gin, thank heaven.
Jacoby planted himself in front of me. "You okay?"
I nodded.
We looked at the debris scattered far and wide.
Jacoby shook his head. "Fucking unreal, eh? They must have been trying to split the damned moon in half."
I agreed, and from the scowl on the foreman's face I could tell Greener felt the same way.
We stood there a moment, Cupples and Funes not joining in on the chit-chat. He was new and she was a woman. That's the way it was on the moon. They would have to bust their backs and put in time to become one of us.
And that was when we heard the scream on com channel 0.
*
The scream made my eyes water. Channel 0 transmissions automatically lock open any com that can receive the signal. If some ginny gets drunk and thinks it will be fun to croon love songs on the emergency band, he has an ass-kicking coming because that opens up all the coms. It has to be that way. When you're in trouble on the moon, you want help double-quick. And when there is a call for help all rivalries and nationalities are put on hold.
We hopped to the bouncer and climbed in. The bouncer can roll over terrain, or it can bounce on its big balloon tires with the help of compressed gas jets.
The scream came again, along with some Chinese lingo no one understood. We did understand one thing we heard, though.
A subtle hissing. Whoever was screaming wasn't going to last long. His suit was venting.
We covered a lot of ground real fast. We set down fifty feet from the Chinese democrew. There were five of them, standing on the edge of a very deep hole.
"Christ almighty," Greener said, as we climbed out of the bouncer.
I stared in wonder at the size of the blast hole. "What the hell are these guys doing? You can't blow that big!"
"My money's on water," Jacoby said. "I bet they were after water."
That sounded about right.
I initiated my holoprojector and linked up to the database back in camp. I read the info scrolling along the top of my faceplate, looking for a name.
"The crew-boss is named Fat. Man Fat."
Funes flashed a grin that was all nerves. "Hey. I bet he has more Chins than a Chinese—"
"Shut the fuck up," Greener snapped.
When we got closer Greener called out to Fat, hoping the man spoke English. The translation matrix in the coms, even the little wrist models we wore around Central, wasn't worth shit. You could ask a foreigner for the time and get in a fistfight or get your balls grabbed.
The scream came again, weak and wavering.
A guy on the edge of the hole waved an arm.
"I think the small guy is Fat," Greener said.
"Hell," Jacoby said, "They're all small."
"Can it, Canada," Greener barked.
We went to the edge of the hole.
The Chinese were pulling up a line they had lowered into the hole.
Greener asked Fat if they needed any help.
"I have blue wood in my ear," Fat said, proving everyone's doubts about the translation matrix.
Greener asked again, using simple words.
Fat pointed at one of his feet and shook his head.
A sound that was more sigh than scream wafted through our helmets. A few Chinese hunkered down at the edge of the hole.
"Hello."
I turned and saw a Chinese coming toward me. I couldn't see much through the faceplate. Tiny features, eyes that were dark, and pretty.
"I'm Liang," she said.
I remembered her now. I tried to put a move on her in Tin Hou, a bar on Central's China side. She was reed-thin, but real cute. She punched me in the scrotum so hard I launched my lunch.
"Hi. Glad to find someone who speaks English. Does your crew need help?"
She wiggled one hand. I got the hint. We switched off our coms and touched helmets. Her voice was a tiny burr of sound.
"We blew a deep one. Foreman Fat wouldn't listen to any warnings. His scanners detected hydrogen and he wanted the water. We fractured the rock and one of our crew fell when the edge crumbled."
A sixth Chinese was pulled up and over the edge of the hole.
Liang and I switched on our coms.
One of the fallen man's arms was missing.
He was writhing and thrashing and the screams came again.
"Jesus," Jacoby said, "What's that stuff all over him?"
I took a step closer. There was something moving over the man's legs and chest. It was dark, iridescent, fluid, glittering.
One of the man's legs crumbled to powder, and his fellow crewmen jumped back. The black mass moved, gathering on his other leg, coating it like paint. The other leg began to crumble, and the black mass vented a plume of gas.
Fat stepped forward and reached for the man and the com filled with warning shouts in both languages.
The dark flowing material on the injured man's chest contracted and then ejected a tiny ball of the stuff. It struck one finger of Fat's left glove and began to flow.
Fat shrieked and started running for the Chinese crew's bouncer parked a hundred feet away.
"What is that shit?" Funes spoke so fast the inside of his faceplace was speckled with spit.
The remaining dark mass was eating the injured man alive and leaving colored powder in its wake. Suit components, rubber, and bone. The glutinous black matter swam and flashed with color, and solids emerged on the surface and sank out of sight in a continual strange rhythm. The solids winked and flashed like gemstones.
"I don't know," Greener said. "But if that shit reaches Central, who knows how far it could spread?"
My crew ran for our bouncer. We had to stop Fat.
Liang followed me. The three remaining Chinese ran after Fat. They'd never catch him in time.
I looked over my shoulder and saw that there was nothing left of the injured man but lines of colored powder and minute bits of fractured metal. Puddles and runnels of the black stuff were moving around. Some were sliding back into the hole. Others were merging into each other, forming a sleek snake-like shape that began a slow crawl after the Chinese.
As we jammed into and onto the bouncer I looked back again. If you have good eyesight, you can see a long way on the moon. Since the moon has no atmosphere, there is nothing to distort what you see. A mountain thousands of feet high and miles away looks close enough to touch.
On Earth, looking across a great distance is like looking through a dirty, distorted lens. On the moon, you can see forever.
As Greener primed the bouncer's compressors I saw the snakelike mass coil up and constrict with frightening speed. It convulsed and a ball of glittering black was launched into the airless void.
Whatever that stuff was it had perfect aim. It struck the back of a Chinese and began eating into his backpacking. Tools dropped from restraints and struck the back of the man's legs even as the man was slowing and turning. Seeing nothing behind him, he turned in our direction.
I snuck a look over Greener's shoulder. The compressor gauge showed we were almost good to go. I looked back.
A voice began talking very fast on channel 0. This guy was one cool customer.
"He says there is something on him," Liang said into the com, raising her voice over the channel 0 broadcast. "He says to keep going. Get away. It is eating his suit."
We looked back. Small vents of life-giving air appeared on the Chinese astronaut's back and shoulders as tendrils of black creeped across his suit.
"We need to go," Cupples said, fighting down her urge to bolt and run. "Let's get out of here."
A dark hood dropped down over the man's helmet and the helmet and his head disappeared in a puff of canned air blowing the dust of his being in every direction. The man collapsed as the dark stuff consumed him, the blackness releasing another curious plume of gas.
"Whatever these things are," Jacoby said, "they fart."
Funes laughed hysterically, tears shining behind his faceplate.
Greener hit a button on the bouncer's stick and we were up and away.
*
Decontamination procedures for 'nauts returning to Central or individual camps were minimal. It was more of a dust shakedown than anything else.
There was no life on the moon. Without the protective magnetosphere and atmosphere of Earth, the moon was continually bombarded by micrometeorites and cosmic rays. We spent most of our time checking our multi-layer suits for impacts and punctures in both the outer armor and the inner ray-shielding and sealing them. Science had proven long ago that no primitive life could survive for long on the silent hell of the moon.
Decom was brief because the only ill effects reported from 'nauts was the rare case of Schmitt's Syndrome, named after the Apollo 17 geologist who first reported a strong allergic reaction to moon dust.
Chances were good that Fat could carry that stuff into China camp or Central without anyone stopping him.
We saw Fat's bouncer rise into the air ahead of us and fall back down. It landed rough. He wasn't doing a very good job of handling the descent jets.
There was no way we were going to stop him in time.
We had to lose some weight, and fast.
Greener was on the same track.
"When we touch down," the crew-boss said, as the compressors released bursts of pressurized gas and the bouncer went up, "I want four bodies off this rig. Two of us can stop foreman Fat, but only if we catch up with him, and right now we're hopping heavy."
Jacoby was seated beside Greener. Cupples, Funes and Liang were with me, in the bed behind the cab.
"I'll take these three with me, boss man."
Cupples and Funes looked scared, and pissed. Liang nodded.
I looked back the way we had come. White and silver glints told me the remaining Chinese were about twenty minutes behind us.
"Get ready to hop," Greener said. "And take care of my crew, you fucking Greek."
We got in position as the rough, dusted lunar surface came close.
Jacoby and I locked eyes for a moment. He gave me a nod. "Don't get eaten by the creature from outer space, eh?"
"When have I ever not been distasteful?"
I gave Cupples and Funes shoulder taps, and then jumped with them. Liang had already leaped ahead of me.
*
I can only guess at what happened in the camps after that point. We had a few hours walking ahead of us. On channel 0 the Chinese who had been left behind chattered and wailed and screamed, and went silent, one by one.
Whatever that stuff was, it was still out there, and tracking us.
After three hours of steady walking and wavering waves of static in our ears we started hearing chatter on the coms. More and more voices crowded onto channel 0. I switched to channel 13. USACAN had channels 10 to 15. 13 was reserved for Greener's crew.
"—spread so fast?"
It was Jacoby. I'd never heard him so scared.
"Fuck knows," Greener said. "That shit is everywhere. You saw it. It's growing, branching out, moving from camp to camp through the gas pipelines. We—"
There was a roar of static and we all saw a flash of light as we climbed a basalt ridge between us and the camps.
Cupples stopped walking. Funes had turned off his com, his mouth working fast. After a minute I could make out what he was saying.
Hail Mary, full of Grace, the Lord is with you...
"Whatever that was," Liang said, "I think it was the Russian camp."
The Russians were on the northern side.
"Jee-zuz," a distant Jacoby said.
"Hey, buddy," I said, "you reading me?"
No response. We only had suit coms. Greener and Jacoby's communications were now being boosted by the relays in camp.
Liang looked back at Cupples. "Keep moving!"
We reached to top of the ridge.
The camp was on a flat plain surrounded by ridges, an area too small and confined for cost-effective expansion. We were blasting away ridges and outcroppings of basalt a few miles away, imperfections in a vast, open area.
Central was a big bubble in the center of a X. At the end of each of the four spokes were smaller bubbles and squares, the separate camps and their workshops and storage units. The X was a series of pipelines connecting the camps.
There was no movement in the China camp, furthest from us. We could see lights and shadows moving on the walls of Central, and USACAN, the camp closest to us.
As we watched fires flare and fade in the ruins of the Russian camp, we saw the beginning of the end for the Euros. A heavy-duty electric truck crashed through the glasstique double walls of the camp, creating a hole far too large for the automated puncture systems foam sprayers to seal.
Air rushed out into the void, the only sign of its passing being rising clouds of dust, and twirling scraps of glasstique.
The truck rolled a few feet and stopped. It was designed to run on the rubberized floors and ramps of the camps, not the surface of the moon.
The cab door opened and two suited figures tumbled out. One ran a few paces and the other stumbled when half a leg dissipated. The runner turned and saw the other man raise his hands. Help me. Darkness crept up the front of the stricken man's suit. The runner raised a rock-shattering pulse pistol and fired. The concentrated microwave pulse struck the black mass on the injured man's chest.
Spatters of dark dropped into the dust... and quickly gathered together. Glittering blackness swarmed back onto the injured man.
The runner fired again. This time in mercy.
The injured man's head was blown off, a font of steaming blood shooting up out of his ruined neck. The blackness shivered and leaped upward, forming a hood, a cowl, a cap. It trapped the blood and sealed the flow. In moments there was nothing left of the man.
Other pulse pistols were fired. Breaches in many camp walls. I saw small pieces of paper and something like white ribbon, likely gauze, vented through a hole in the wall of Central Hospital.
I looked away as the runner raised his pulse pistol to his own head, the dark mass already slithering in his direction.
I saw Cupples and shouted a warning.
A ball of the dark stuff was rolling uphill toward her, its shifting mass giving it momentum.
I had no doubts now. This stuff was alive.
I shouted a warning, too late. The ball unfolded like a net, eating into her, cutting off her screams. Twitching, living pieces of her hit the dust and were consumed.
I unclipped my geoscanner from my toolbelt and ran a quick analysis.
The thing was mostly graphite, and small percentage of what was a grab-bag of other minerals, mostly silicates. And diamonds.
Diamonds and graphite were carbon. Human beings were carbon-based life, as was most life on Earth, but I'd never heard of anything like this.
The ball of darkness gathered again, leaving behind the powder that was Cupples and rolling after us.
We ran for our own camp.
*
We passed through the airlock, but kept our suits on. Now that we were close to the com relays we were able to find Jacoby and Greener. We armed ourselves with pulse pistols and Greener warned us to be careful where we aimed the damned things.
We were standing in a hallway outside our storerooms trading info —Was that stuff alive? Yes. Was it one or many? Who knew? Were these things intelligent? Likely— when half a dozen thin lines of the dark stuff spilled from a ceiling air vent a few yards away and Funes raised his weapon and fired.
The rest of us hit the floor.
The door behind the dangling runnels of darkness was marked 'Tanks.' The storeroom was full of air tanks, both empty and prepped, as well as a lot of gas lines.
There was a blast. A big one. Tanks and tank fragments went everywhere. I saw a hole in Funes abdomen big enough to stick my head through and watched him collapse.
Greener was venting blood and air from a small leak in his suit. Liang was venting air from one knee.
Gasses were roaring out of their lines, mixing, raising floor dust.
The black stuff had been scattered into tiny bits. Some of them were completely still, others tried to coalesce.
A fleck rolled toward Greener, and stuck to his boot.
"I'm fucked," he said, in a matter-of-fact tone. "All of you out of here now!"
He got to his feet and ran away from us and into the field of scattered dark blobs, drawing them away.
Greener staggered into the Tanks room and collapsed against one wall. Half of him was gone, but the stuff on him wasn't moving, wasn't eating any more of him.
A line was venting onto the black stuff.
"Oxygen," I said.
I started running for the gas processing plant, Jacoby and Liang at my heels.
*
What if these things were mineral life? What if they fed on water?
They could have been carried to the moon on a meteorite. Perhaps they were always there. The moon is bone dry. They went dormant when they had no food. Perhaps they awoke whenever a meteorite carried water ice to them.
They consumed water - hydrogen and oxygen. They lived on oxygen. They vented the hydrogen. That explained the hydrogen signatures we have been picking up for decades in out search for water on the moon.
Pure oxygen killed them. Perhaps they couldn't process it properly. Perhaps they drowned in it.
Gas processing had pressure chambers. They had all the oxygen we would need.
And that is where things get hazy.
*
I remember traveling to the central hub. Crazed Euros shooting at us. Streamers of the dark stuff everywhere.
Someone screamed on channel 13. Liang or Jacoby, I'm not sure who.
I remember entering a chamber. Liang and Jacoby were gone.
I remember a huge mass following me as I used a remote to shut the doors and fill the chamber with pure oxygen.
I remember the feeling of being eaten by the black stuff, seeing my flesh turn to dust as every drop of water was taken from it.
I remember wondering it the diamonds were their brains, their memory, their souls.
Then a different kind of darkness.
*
I regained consciousness a few hours later. I was told I was found outside gas processing. I was lying beside a sealed door, blood seeping through wounds clotted by powdered flesh and bone.
I was on an ambulance ship bound for Earth.
I had lost both legs. Despite the drugs in my system that left me limp, I was in terrible pain from excessive dehydration. My joints ached horribly and my head was pounding. I couldn't speak. Tubes filled my mouth and nose, helping me breathe, hydrating me. I couldn't see. The vitreous and aqueous fluids in my eyeballs had been depleted.
All I could do was lie in the stretcher and listen to the ambulance pilots' low chatter. And the com. They had the com open, listening as a suited recon crew assessed the damage to the Shepard camps.
I wanted to shout out, scream a warning. I couldn't.
"We're not finding a lot of survivors."
"Looks like more than one explosion and fire was caused by an enriched oxygen atmosphere. What the hell were they doing?"
"Entering sealed chamber off gas processing unit now."
"Hey, got something strange. Analysis shows it's a mass of graphite and other minerals. Some very low-level electrical activity, nothing to worry about. And... diamonds. This thing is full of diamonds."
"Well, bag it, box it, seal it and ship it. We can take a good long look at it back home."
"Wrapping it up now. A nice little gift to the Earth, from the moon."
User Reviews
Submitted by WingedFoote (user info) at 2006-09-09 03:58:31 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
excelente
Submitted by DonovanMD (user info) at 2006-09-08 06:07:38 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Well that took a while, but it was worth it. Good story.
And dont worry about him, theres always an asshole to ruin a nice +2 streak.
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2005-10-31 21:03:16 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by a_reader (user info) at 2005-10-31 00:16:51 (#)
Ranking: 1
What Rad said.
--
Well, fuck me.
Submitted by a_reader (user info) at 2005-10-31 00:16:51 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
What Rad said.
Submitted by tlozoot (user info) at 2005-10-28 19:12:14 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Wow.
Submitted by jack11058 (user info) at 2005-10-28 12:07:07 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
oh, and you've been appointed to my cabinet. hope you can handle the extra duties.
Submitted by jack11058 (user info) at 2005-10-28 12:06:41 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
reminded me of your UM entry with the giant plant aliens, but in a good way. your usual excellence.
Submitted by Berty (user info) at 2005-10-28 07:04:43 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Benny (user info) at 2005-10-28 00:27:03 (#)
Ranking: 2
Somebody mentioned John Carpenter. I think he would cream his pants if he could get a hold of this.
Not scary in the least but a very well told story. This read very well but it would also make a very good movie.
----------
Couldn't have said it better myself
Submitted by Benny (user info) at 2005-10-28 00:27:03 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Somebody mentioned John Carpenter. I think he would cream his pants if he could get a hold of this.
Not scary in the least but a very well told story. This read very well but it would also make a very good movie.
Submitted by kaos-king (user info) at 2005-10-28 00:09:26 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Wow, how I hate you...
Submitted by thecaes (user info) at 2005-10-27 23:51:12 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Orgasmatron (user info) at 2005-10-27 23:36:04 (#)
Ranking: 2
It's rare that I pass on stories from this site to my friends. Real stories, not just some kitchy nonsense that may help them kill five minutes at work.
This is one of them. "The Thousand Year Cut" is another.
****************
w00t!!
***************
GrUeberfest: a grim success.
Fucking A this competition was a brilliant idea.
***************
Agreed! Props to Jack-jack. Or Jerk-jack. You know, the writing dude.
Submitted by Orgasmatron (user info) at 2005-10-27 23:36:04 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
It's rare that I pass on stories from this site to my friends. Real stories, not just some kitchy nonsense that may help them kill five minutes at work.
This is one of them. "The Thousand Year Cut" is another.
GrUeberfest: a grim success.
Fucking A this competition was a brilliant idea.
Submitted by Bubba2341 (user info) at 2005-10-27 23:10:36 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
WTF, Jack I read all that, all 4787 words of it. I'd love to say it
sucked, but none of your fiction ever sucks. God, I hate you.
Submitted by thecaes (user info) at 2005-10-27 21:07:08 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Jack, I constantly edit as I go. Each page I write usually ends up taking up to an hour. But after it's done there's very little need for changes, because I've already gone over every line five times.
Perhaps not the best way to do it, but it seems to be the way I like to do it for some reason.
Submitted by LadyPlural (user info) at 2005-10-27 21:02:59 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Sweet.
Submitted by Bigmike (user info) at 2005-10-27 20:58:49 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Jack, I gotta tell you that I lost interest in this one about a third of the way through. Not your fault though. Mine. The subject matter really didn't appeal to me.
But.........
This line:
""I have blue wood in my ear," Fat said, proving everyone's doubts about the translation matrix."
Kicked my ass with laughter.
Nice job. Let's hope nobody ruins this rating with some meaningless, non-sensical reply.
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2005-10-27 20:48:24 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Agreed, T, but...
I hardly EVER do a 2nd draft. I write, do a proof-read, miss a gazillion typos, and go with it.
I'm a lazy bastard.
Also, as I said earlier, I intended to start out sort of languid, slow, with the pace picking up to the point where it was almost jump cuts, and then dreamy-slow. It didn't work though. I fucked around because I got all caught up in describing the set-up on the moon. Every time I thought I was done, I looked again and saw something else and had the 'Hey, lookit this!' urge. That's why I posted it two minutes and ten seconds before the deadline.
Submitted by horse87 (user info) at 2005-10-27 20:45:33 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by thecaes (user info) at 2005-10-27 19:39:58 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention the good stuff. Heh.
The description and proposed origin of the liquidy monster was really good, and I liked the interaction between the moon men. The background was plausible and intriguing. Overall, well written story with a forboding ending.
Submitted by thecaes (user info) at 2005-10-27 19:38:16 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Good one, Jackie-boy.
I especially liked this: "At that moment I wished I was literally heavy-heeled. No such luck. I was a 'lightheels,' a lunar veteran. The more time you spent away from Earth, the more bone mass you lost, the process most notable in the dense heelbone. A derogatory term for new additions to any crew was 'heavy-heeled' since their bones were normal."
There's a certain...pattern to your writing that sometimes emerges, and in this one it was more apparent than anything I've read by you so far. You write a gritty but energetic description/explanation of setting or how things work in the world your story is in, then there's some action, then back into explanation, then action, explanation, etc.
Usually you manage it without making it feel like the descriptions interrupt the action (how you manage that, i do not know, but you do). This time you came dangerously close to inserting descriptive portions into unwelcome areas. Prime example being the quote above. The dude is floating through the air, possibly about to be exploded on the moon, and you start talking about heelbone density.
Just think that paragraph would belong better somewhere else, like when you first mentioned heavy-heel.
Submitted by Snark (user info) at 2005-10-27 19:06:29 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Hmmm, you could of written about a guy who realizes his penis is allergic to vagina.
What's more horrifying than that?
Plus, it fits with the title.
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2005-10-27 18:59:44 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Agreed, Snark. This is just a 'monster story' in sci-fi trappings, but the problem with traditional horror is that everything has been done to death.
I'm burned out on zombies and vampires, that's for sure...
Submitted by Snark (user info) at 2005-10-27 18:45:14 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Excellent story, it has your trademark grit and the dialogue is typical McCallum excellence. I almost want to give this a plus one though, as I do any story that goes Sci-Fi instead of horror...
I know, I know you can have both. Just seems like not many of the writer's in this "Frightfest" are trying to frighten.
Submitted by JonnyX (user info) at 2005-10-27 18:35:42 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
cool
Submitted by crx (user info) at 2005-10-27 18:33:22 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2005-10-27 17:10:11 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
I was playing with pacing in this one...
Started out slow, kind of laguid, and speeded up to the end to the point not all details are clear to the guy telling the story. At first he sees every detail, then only snippets.
Not too happy with the result, but what the hell.
Submitted by MyTeeOne (user info) at 2005-10-27 17:02:40 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Loved it. Loved the idea, loved the setting, loved the characters. It was the little details that made it too - like the heavy heels. Awesome.
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2005-10-27 16:17:09 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by pen_name (user info) at 2005-10-27 15:38:36 (#)
Ranking: 2
"A billion dollars. Manoman, back home in California, I could buy a house with that kind of cash. Just buy it outright."
what is this...40 years in the future? i don't think inflation will be that severe
<<<I live in San Francisco. 2nd most expensive housing market in the USA, after Manhattan. It's an iside joke. I hope.>>>
"Blasting flares were a sixty-second warning. The flares would quickly drop back to the surface of the moon after being shot five hundred feet in the air."
how do they burn without oxygen?
<<<How do you know they don't have a chemical mix that will burn anywhere, or their own oxygen supply? Remember, these are flares from THE FUTURE!>>>
Submitted by nrduncan (user info) at 2005-10-27 16:07:46 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Awesome
Submitted by cleanfornow (user info) at 2005-10-27 16:04:33 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
She punched me in the scrotum so hard I launched my lunch.
Submitted by joedaddy (user info) at 2005-10-27 15:56:41 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
as if you need this
Submitted by Orgasmatron (user info) at 2005-10-27 15:53:04 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I'll review this again later, as Uber's been acting up all day and I don't want it to kick me in the nuts and eat a detailed review. So, while I really, really liked this, I'll leave you with the following:
Killer story? Check.
Plausible futuristic setting? Check.
Creepy ass alien presence? Check.
Depressing, yet realistic and interesting, ending? Check.
Pitch this to John Carpenter.
Submitted by runswithscissors (user info) at 2005-10-27 15:44:46 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Started a little slow for me......and then I got to this line:
"The scream came again, along with some Chinese lingo no one understood. We did understand one thing we heard, though.
A subtle hissing. Whoever was screaming wasn't going to last long. His suit was venting."
At that point, I believe, I said "Oh, fuck," aloud. You had me hooked. I really liked some of the detail you threw in as well, particularly the 'heavy/light heeled' bit.......that was a great touch.
Excellent work!
Submitted by pen_name (user info) at 2005-10-27 15:38:36 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
"A billion dollars. Manoman, back home in California, I could buy a house with that kind of cash. Just buy it outright."
what is this...40 years in the future? i don't think inflation will be that severe
"Blasting flares were a sixty-second warning. The flares would quickly drop back to the surface of the moon after being shot five hundred feet in the air."
how do they burn without oxygen?
........
everythign else...unbelievably good.
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2005-10-27 14:58:58 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
No time to proof read!
Yaaaah!