Black Cats, Red Dogs

“Do you enjoy fighting?”

“No.”

“Then why do you do it?”

“Do you enjoy asking stupid questions?”

“Let’s stay on target.”

“I do it because I keep thinking that one day, I’ll do something big enough that the whole world will know about it.”

“A bit dangerous, for a spy.”

“I’m a mercenary, shrink.”

The man across the smooth black table was not a typical shrink. I watched him move for a moment. Burly, blond, reddish grey eyes that would flick you over, and then stare as though were a mutant brain in a jar of formaldehyde. He scribbled something down, shorthand. I considered destroying it, and then thought better of it. Celestine deMonde would not take kindly to a rogue mercenary taking out her shrink, even if I was the best.

“One more question.”

“The rate will be doubled.”

“I need to know.”

“Shoot.”

He looked me over for a second, and then said, “How did your mother treat you?”

“I didn’t have one.”

“Sister?”

“I had an estranged aunt, who kept me clothed and fed, but not much else. You got a reason to know?”

“There are certain men,” The shrink said smoothly, “That would object to taking orders from a woman. Especially one as young, beautiful and inexperienced as Ms. deMonde. Prominent female figures in one’s life have a tendency to set the bar in the way of obedience.”

“I follow orders.” I growled. “I make money. I don’t really care who is attached to the hand that points.”

“Very well.” The shrink snapped his notebook shut, and the clicked the little combination lock attached to the front closed and whirled the tumblers. Psychotic.

I stood with him, letting my armor’s hydraulic gel muscles free themselves of kinks. I followed him.

Outside the door I was handed my rifle, which I then slung over my back, a pistol, my bandolier of radioactive cartridges, and a long, curved knife. I hit the switch to check the battery, the tiny fluid valve lit up three-quarters. The guard that did the handing was a kid, probably about eighteen, eight years younger than me. He was still holding my helmet, looking over it with interest. I grabbed it and pulled it over my head, pulling the telescoping mirrored neck guard down and locking it into place. The helmet linked with the Oracle in my brain, feeding the helmet cams’ output into my vision. The readouts lit up, three hundred sixty degree vision returned me to comfortable omniscience. The shrink was still moving, but I didn’t hurry to catch up to him. He would wait for me or arrive without me.

He waited, eventually. Everyone does. It doesn’t pay to meet an employer without Waterfox.

The Fortune of Areo Selph

Areo held his breath as the guard passed, and then ducked into the doorway. The room was dark, and he could barely see. Inside, the musty smell of Delorean Skiffs filled the spacious area. They hung from the ceiling: slim, one man boats with a bladder built into the wood, filled with volygen. The gas kept the skiff in the air, while low profile clockwork propellers and sails helped it move. Areo clambered into the nearest and began untying it. He looked toward the door. He would be owed a full specter from the dock boys if he succeeded. If he didn’t… that would be bad. Very bad.

                His fingers, trained from years of sea knot tying quickly dismantled the poorly knotted tethers. As the once taut tethers fell to the floor, Areo began cranking the clockwork propellers, leaving the sails down. The Delorean rose up to the level of the roof, and as Areo passed it he reached into the Control Balcony and released the counterweight. The roof panels slid back with a bang, and the Delorean shot through into the bright island sunlight. Areo whooped and flicked a switch on the propeller box. The clockwork began a clattering purr and the ship shot out over the white city.

                Areo suddenly saw what he knew were coming: patrol Deloreans, piloted by armored soldiers. Areo twisted the wheel and the skiff keeled to one side. A moment later a phoenix ballista chugged, the thunder-paste coated tip barely missing the keel of Areo’s Delorean.

                Now he was scared. He had been dared to do it by one of the fishmonger’s sons,  and they had promised him a specter if he could land the Delorean on the deck of their father’s fishing ship. A specter was a lot of money, and it would give him enough to buy the first six volumes in the classic Philosophy of Pragmatism, by Andréus. Of course, that wouldn’t be a prudent buy if his flaming corpse was crashing into the icy Granite Sea.

                Another bolt flashed by, and Areo slid a catch back. Volygen hissed out, and the Delorean dropped a few feet. Areo glanced at the controls on the mechanics box, trying to find the accelerator. He clicked a switch and the propellers abruptly clicked to a stop. The Delorean drifted. Areo cursed and jerked at the brass controls on the mahogany box. Without warning, the propeller box dropped away from the ship, crashing through the roof of the house below. Areo gaped at the hole where the engine had been, but his wonder was cut short as a phoenix bolt crashed into the side of the skiff with tremendous force, smashing the volygen bladder and exploding into a brilliant blue sheet of flame, setting the sails aflame. Listing, the fatally wounded craft spun, spiraling in an elliptical path. A moment later a second bolt struck the hull, blowing pin fragments across the city. Areo yanked at the controls, but the craft could not respond.

                A moment later, sails aflame, billowing smoke, chased by three large  patrol Deloreans and covered in flaming thunderpaste, Areo’s Delorean crashed through the window of the Harbor Master’s window and into his sitting room.

                Areo coughed and looked up. Stunned faces stared back: high society housewives gathered around a table where a fancy tea was being served. There was silence, except for the crackling flames on the hull of the ruined craft as Areo stared back at the group. He gave a weak smile and an obviously fake laugh as smoke filled the room, ruining the lace doilies and polluting the salmon cakes.

                “Why,” he said, “Hello there.”

               

                Areo had heard of people being dragged before the Magistrate, but had thought of it as a figure of speech.

                It wasn’t.

                Areo was thrown to his knees before the Magistrate as two of the Delorean pilots stood over him, hands at their sabers. Areo looked up, only to have the back of his head buffeted back  down.

                The magistrate stood and walked toward Areo, long and rail thin, with gold and violet robes swirling around his red slippers.

                “Areo Braeso Jev, you are accused of stealing property belonging to the Heirs, engaging in armed combat with soldiers of the Thrones, and damaging property with value up to thirty specters. How do you plead?
                “I was in Terenoc.” Areo said. For his pains he got a hard hit across the back of his head.

                “Very well, you irredeemable miscreant,” the magistrate spat. Because of your age I am prevented from locking you in the quarries for the next ten years, I must fine your father.

                “My age?”

                “You are seventeen, are you not?”

                “Yes.”

                “Twenty-five specters.”

                There was a sudden commotion at the door, and Areo twisted his head to see his father, Cyszik, pushing into the room. Cyszik, unlike his son, was tall, muscular, and blond. His skin had been hardened and lined by the sea, but his face was still ruggedly handsome. He towered above the guards at the door, staring at his short, dark haired son kneeling before the magistrate.

                “You are the boy’s father?”  The magistrate demanded.

                “Yes. What did he do?”

                “He ruined half of my city, that’s what he did.”

                “A Delorean, a roof and a window are not exactly half a city.” Areo muttered. The guard struck at Areo, but Areo dodged the blow.

                “I have the money.”

                “How much is the fine, Areo?” Cyszik demanded.

                “Twenty five.”

                “Lions?”

                “Specters.”

                There was an explosion of breath.

                “What? How could you do this! You know I don’t have that much.”

                “I do.”

                “What?”

                The guards, magistrate and Cyszik stared at Areo.

                “I have the money.”

                “Where?”

                Let me tell my father, and then I’ll tell you where I have it kept.”

                “Only a moment.”

                Areo walked to Cyszik’s side, bent his head down to Areo’s mouth.

                “Please, father. If you help me I swear I’ll never get in trouble again. Just have the Ventrice ready to leave. Please.”

                “You had better be right.” Cyszik growled, before turning on his heel and striding away.

                “My father has some urgent business to attend to. I have the money hidden here, so if you’ll please follow me, Honorable Magistrate. With your guards, of course.” Areo added.  

                “I do not think it is wise…” one of the guards began.

                “I am the magistrate, soldier.” The magistrate snapped. To Areo, “Then show us.”
                Areo led them out of the palace and down the street, a few people staring at the odd procession, a seventeen year old boy leading one of the premier magistrates, as well as two guards, uncertainly eyeing their guide.

                Areo’s mind was working furiously as he took  the magistrate down the street. If he did not find the right place, he would still owe the magistrate the reparatory costs, and have wasted his time, but if he got too much, the magistrate would trump more charges, in order to force Areo to find more money. By the time Areo saw his target, his mind was made up.

                “Gamblers!” He screamed. The shocked guards whipped blades from their sheaths, but he was crashing through the door already. The piratical denizens inside looked up from their games, then bailed out as two guards and a magistrate crashed through the already open door. Stacks of coins crashed to floor as the gamblers, scrambling to avoid the nine year sentence mining iron ore,  dashed for the exits. Areo dropped to his hands and knees, snatching the black platinum specter coins, counting hurriedly under his breath. When he reached what he thought was close enough to the total he shoved them at the still stunned magistrate and hit the streets.

                Areo reached their brineraker with a flying leap from the roof of an adjoining house, hitting the deck heavily and inexpertly, thinking as he did that he probably should have just ran up the gangplank. It was the moment, though, and sometimes the moment told him to do things that really didn’t make sense.

                Cyszik gave Areo a quick glance.

                “I don’t like being in trouble with the law.”

                “We live on the sea.”

                “Harbormasters have long memories.”

                “I led them,” Areo said, “to enough money to make fifty solid gold statues of the harbormaster. I doubt he’ll remember anything but the day of his good fortune.”

                Areo’s father was quiet, and didn’t say anything else.

Agrivarius

This story beginning has massive correlations to Halo: Combat Evolved. I'm going to catch flak, but it's all for you, dear readers.

            The suns of Agrivarius shined coolly on the empty world, illuminating with a dim grey light everything below.

            Those in it didn’t care.

            At the far end of a dry ravine, six figures stood in a double line. They were tall, nearly nine feet, with tight, grey skin. In their hands they carried intricate weapons of a reddish metal, the charges of which they carried in bandoliers over their torsos. At their side they wore a short, curving sword with a blade made of the same scarlet metal. They wore no other clothing or armor, save for a pauldron or a chestplate. At their head stood another of their same kind, but he carried a long cannon slung over one huge shoulder, nearly a human handbreadth in diameter.

            <The Lo’ik have dissappeared from sight, lord.> Said one of the aliens in a smooth and purring tonge.

            <They must be destroyed.> The one with the cannon replied. <Where is Falconsword?>

            <Here, lord.>  Another alien stepped forward.

            <Take three of the udale and find the Lo’ik. The rest of the denkae shall follow me and call in Preyhunters. Is that understood?>  The leader’s gaze from his single, white eye fixed upon the one called Falconsword.

            <Understood, great lord.> The alien said. Then, with a quick salute, he turned and loped over the hill.

           

           

            At the far end of the cool, shadowed ravine an impromptu bunker had been set up. Soldiers trotted with quick urgency on tasks, clearing away the torn bodies from the bunker, reloading the several repeating Cycle Cannons, dragging wounded into the shelter of a downed AED gunship.

Glitter

“You what?”

            “I want to marry Olivia.”

            “Dude, she’s nine years older than you. She’s an author. She has a retirement fund. She’s in her thirties. I mean, forget the fact she looks like a supermodel, or is loaded from her daddy. She’s is a responsible person. And who are you? Petri Dmitri, from college, who got a job as a magazine editor.”

            “Lewis…” Dmitri sighed. “You act like those are bad things.”

            “They are bad things!” Lewis nearly shrieked. He looked at Dmitri. “Look, I’ve hung with you for a long time. A looonng time. And when we were kids, you never, ever said anything about wanting to spend the rest of your life with an accountant.”

            “Your point?”

            “Look. You’re twenty three, bro. Live your life! Go out there, and do something crazy!”

            “Like that last girlfriend you had?” Dmitri asked.

            “Oh, hehe. She had issues.”

            “Issues? Issues, Lewis?” Dmitri leaned over the table. “She tried to knife your landlord.”

            Lewis rubbed the back of his neck. “E-harmony doesn’t ask about mental health. ‘Do you believe that someone from Pakistan is Osama bin Laden?’ ”

            “It doesn’t take away from the fact, Lew, that I have far better taste in women than you.”

            “Okay, so you don’t have to date someone that lied to you about being in the psych ward. But an accountant? Really?”

            “She’s the love of my life.”

            “And a real bang to be around, I bet.”

            “Lewis, I’m tired of trying to get through to you. I love her. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have bought this.” Dmitri reached into his satchel and pulled out a blue box.

            “Oh man.” Lewis breathed. “Tiffany? For real? You are serious, bro.”

            “It’s the only way that I could show her that I am serious. She’s been hurt.”

            “Yeah, I know.”Lewis looked at his friend pointedly, then sighed.

            “Fine. If you love her, then go ahead.”

            “I didn’t come for your approval. I came to ask you to be best man at our wedding. If she says yes.”

            “She better marry you, man.” Lewis said. “You just bought a twenty thousand dollar ring. I’d  marry you for cash like that.”

            “Don’t go there.”

           

            Olivia turned her head as Dmitri entered the room. She put the folder she was holding on the chrome and glass coffee table and stood, arms outstretched to hug him. Dmitri embraced her, then stepped back.

            “I got this for you.” Dmitri swallowed, smiling faintly. “I hope you like it.” With shaking hands, he pulled an ocean blue box from his jacket and put it on the glass tabletop next to her.

            “Dmitri…”Her tone was soft, sad. She sat down again, beautiful green eyes staring up at him.

            “Olivia, please. Hear me out. I’ve been seeing you for two years now. I have never felt the way I feel about you. I never want to be away from you.” He leaned closer. “I want you to be my wife.”

            “But our ages-“ Olivia began. “You are sweet, but I think that this is a friendship that has gone too far. We are close; even think I love you sometimes. But marriage? I’ve been married before.”

            She stood, leaving the box on the glass table. “It all seems too much. I don’t know if I’m ready…”

            Olivia opened the glass door, stepping onto the eighth story balcony. Dmitri followed her, carrying the little blue box, still dressed in his suit.        

            “Please, Livvy. Please.”  His brown eyes were pleading, the blue box in his hand. With a cry that was somewhere between a sob and a laugh, she took the box from him, and then leaned into the kiss he offered. She stared at the box for a long time.

            “Yes. Yes, Dmitri Cameron, I will be your wife.”

            She turned to the city, the fading day at once beautiful and melancholy, gilding the buildings with ruddy sunshine. She felt Dmitri wrap his arms around her waist, pressing his nose against the back of her neck, in her hand the little ocean blue box was clasped, resting on the stone railing. They remained like that for a long, long time. A man, a woman, and a promise.

            It was a good day.

Morrowick

This is a slightly horrific, slightly odd story beginning that came to me, much like The Hobbit came to Professor Tolkien: with a single sentence. The opening sentence is a mere bit of nonsense the entire bit evolved from. If you really want a bit more clarification, you're practically out of luck, as I have only a foggy notion of where this might go.

There was a man that lived with a morrowick.

It wasn’t a particularly impressive one, and he wasn’t a particularly impressive man; clerkly, prone to wearing grey and having stubbly facial hair, quiet and withdrawn.

The morrowick didn’t mind.

It was a sort of automaton, but not a usual one; not made of brass, or steel, or wire, or onyx. It didn’t have a job, particularly, like the rest of the automatons that ticked around the city. It appeared to have been made of a hundred little household items, and at the same time, hundreds of weird artifacts, and at the same time, hundreds of antique watchworks, and at the same time, appeared to have not been made at all.

He had bought it at a rummage-sale; from an old woman who claimed it did dishes. He had purchased it to find it did nothing of the sort but sit and quietly read his magazines; a fact that irritated him more than disturbed him.

Everyone knew automatons couldn’t read.

If he had known what it was, he might have been more careful around it. He might have treated it with more respect. He might have taken the time to give it Gloveclock oil and cleaned its crystal lens, on occasion.

Instead, he would awake in the morning and totter downstairs in his sleepily efficient manner, punt the doddering bit of clockwork from his path, and brew coffee that tasted as much of alkaline as it did caffeine. The morrowick would hum and chitter to itself in mild annoyance as it saw him sit there at his floral chair, turning his cup idly on the table as he read the London Gazette. The morrowick never said anything to him.

Everyone knew automatons couldn’t talk.

After dressing, it was his habit to halfheartedly order the morrowick (though he knew not that’s what it was) to do some domestic chores; a request it sturdily denied was as possible for it to accomplish as it was a broom to attempt masonry. The man would be frustrated, comb his fingers two or three times through his stubble and storm out the glass door, into the lorry, and off to work at the bank. While he was away, the morrowick would creep to his room and quietly step into the window-seat, where it would observe the alley below and, with a hand as quick as a whip, make thousands of tiny marks on a pad of paper stamped with the Bank of England’s watermark until the paper was fairly grey with them.

Everyone knew automatons couldn’t write.

It wasn’t until he had owned the little thing for nearly two months that Jonathan Lint returned home from a day of processing the various transactions he handled at the “Various Transactions” window to find that the morrowick had done something odd.

It had painted a picture.

If he had known it was a morrowick, and not an automaton, he would have known several things. One, he must not sell the painting. Two, he must not tell anyone about the painting. And three, he must decode the clues in the painting to find the little key in the tiny apartment in the morrowick’s left leg and disarm it, or life would be as black as a nightmare.

Of course, being a clerk and not an Alchemist, he didn’t do any of these things.

The next time Jonathan Lint left his apartment, it was with a sheet over his face, the white linen stained with the blood of his ruined body. The coroner noted that he had been in a state of extreme panic when he died, marking down the cause of death to the hundreds of bulletholes that perforated his heart and head like a pepper shaker’s top. The bullets were nowhere to be found, and the holes were like he had been stabbed with crochet needles.

If someone had been careful, they would have noted that the apartment was quiet orderly, but a small trinket was missing. If they had known Jonathan well, they would have known that the trinket missing was a small good luck charm a gypsy woman had given him before her death, claiming that the the stone in it was a bit of the sky. If someone had cared to inventory his life, which no one cares to inventory the life of a lowly clerk at the Bank of England, they would have found that he had never, not once, considered purchasing an automaton. And if someone had been sitting in the room, and had remained quite still, and watched the dusty corner of his bedroom, they would have seen a plank in the floor pop its nails like a fat man’s buttons. They would have seen an odd automaton, slightly larger than the rest, emerge from the floor clutching a trinket set in pewter: a stone as blue as the sky. And if the person had been there to hear, they would have heard the click of the window latch, and a moment later, the scrabbling of metal on ceramic tiles, and then there would have been silence in the home of the former apartments of Jonathan Lint, clerk.

And this, dearest readers, is where our story begins.

Edit

The knock at the door startled me from my Saturday morning stupor, but not enough to keep the sight of three television cameras, an attractive woman, and an older man in jeans and a t-shirt from stupefying me. I stared at them for a moment without saying anything as the older guy broke into a smile.

“Blaine Silverhouse?” He asked, his voice too loud, too projected to be coming from a normal human being.

“Who are you?” I mumbled.

“I am Salman Rix,” he said, turning to the cameras. “And this is Total Transformation!”

“Wha-?”

“We need to come in to explain everything.” Without asking, he pushed past me into the apartment, as did the rest of his little entourage.

“So, is your mother here?”

“No.” She worked as a corporate consultant, which meant a lot of traveling, but surprisingly little pay. The apartment was dingy, but I mostly had it to myself except for the rare week or two she was actually home.

“Well, I have some very. Exciting. News.”

I don’t gamble, so it couldn’t be that. I racked my brain. The only thing I had entered recently was an internet sweepstakes for a lifetime supply of old spice, but I doubted they’d send a camera crew to tell me how much deodorant I’d won.

“What is it?” I asked, after a moment of everyone looking at me, all rather awkwardly.

“You have been nominated by your classmates as the ‘Biggest Zero in America!’”

“That sounds delightful.” The pricks. I knew who it must have been. John Forsythe was the biggest douche in Blackton High, but had the unique opportunity of being a jock with a tech-whiz father. This meant he could bully in both cyberspace, and meatspace, and remain incredibly popular at the same time. Versatile fellow, that.

“So,” I asked. “Besides broadcasted humiliation, what does this mean?”

“Well, we needed complete honesty when doing this, so your friends…” he turned to wink obligingly at the camera, “…or enemies didn’t know what they were getting you into. But you, my lucky friend, just won a five million dollar makeover!”

“Makeover?” I asked, still sleep-stupid. “Like makeup?”

“WE FOUND OUR MAN!” The attractive blond boomed suddenly.

“This means, Blaine,” Rix said, “That we’re going to makeover your entire life!”

“Oh god.”

My life was never the same.

Chapter One

Welcome to the Set

Things are a bit blurry after that memory. I remember sitting heavily on the couch, my hand shaking as I raised it to push the black hair out of my face. They all stared at me, making :D faces, even though my face was more of a O.o kind of look.

“Wait, what? Am I being punked?”

“You’re completely not!” His made-for-tv voice was making my head hurt. The camera lights were burning into my retinas and my head felt like someone had pumped it full of helium. The chick was grinning like the mad hatter, and even the camera guys looked amused. I groaned and…I admit it…passed out.

Have you ever felt like you were in a bizarre dream, but didn’t know for sure? And you keep wondering if it’s going to take a turn for the better or worse, but it could go drastically in either direction? It’s not a fun feeling.

I woke up in a limousine.

Try that for a WTF moment.

The cameras were nowhere to be seen, and I sat up, suddenly feeling crazy insecure. I was still in my flannel pj bottoms and star wars shirt. Yeah, make your television debut like that.

“So what’s going on?” I asked. Rix had turned off his TV persona and gave me an almost awkward half smile.

“Hey. Want a drink?”

“Whaddya have?”

“Just coke products. You’re a minor.”

“Really?” I said. “I hadn’t noticed.”

He didn’t answer, just tossed me a Dr. Pepper from the console refrigerator. I broke the seal and drank half of it, setting it down in the mahogany cupholder. He was giving me an odd look, and I stared back.

“Your classmates uploaded a five minute video to our website, nominate the zero dot com.” He said. “They gave reasons why you were the biggest zero in America, expecting you’d be publicly humiliated.”

“Too late for that.” I muttered. “That happened on film.”

He dismissed it with a wave of his hand. “We’ll more than compensate for that. We’re going to turn you into the biggest teen idol America has ever seen.” He leaned forward, suddenly intense. His eyes were an odd shade of green, I noticed. “And I’ll finally move up from being a sitcom voice actor to being on the same level of Seacrest. I’ll get my own show…” The man was drooling, I swear.