Friday Flash Fiction is an EVE Flash Fiction initiative hosted by Casiella Truza from Ecliptic Rift. Each Friday a prompt is presented, and the next Tuesday links to all stories are added to the original post. This week's prompt is Crielere.
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"Clier—", says Prime, grimacing. "Creelerier—"
He purses his lips and gives it one more try: "Creerlier—"
"Don't worry, old boy," says Rolinthor, appearing suddenly behind Prime and clasping his shoulder roughly with one arm. "You don't have to pronounce it! You just have to make it!"
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Monday, April 12, 2010
My Private War, Part III
The following is the third part of an ill-conceived story arc chronicling Rolinthor's and the Applied Physics Institute's pathetic misadventures in the Derelik region. Read Part I here and II here, and check back soon(TM)* for the next episode (you know, if you're empire mining, and you're really, really bored).
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Roland Prideaux is committing suicide in less than two minutes, and he's beginning to feel anxious.
It's not that he's lost his zest for life; far from it. Nonetheless he's still eager to shuffle off this mortal coil.
Roland is ashamed by these conflicting feelings. He's pure Gallente, the proud son of a society liberated from the backward ways of priests, princes, and tribal potentates. More important, he's a scientist and an empiricist, with degrees in psychology, infomorph psychology, quantum physics, cosmology, and countless other certificates attesting to the fact that he knows there's nothing sacred in the flesh, nothing that can't be represented as a series of ones and zeroes, and flung across the cosmos on quantum-entangled comm bands, and re-assembled in a new body.
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Roland Prideaux is committing suicide in less than two minutes, and he's beginning to feel anxious.
It's not that he's lost his zest for life; far from it. Nonetheless he's still eager to shuffle off this mortal coil.
Roland is ashamed by these conflicting feelings. He's pure Gallente, the proud son of a society liberated from the backward ways of priests, princes, and tribal potentates. More important, he's a scientist and an empiricist, with degrees in psychology, infomorph psychology, quantum physics, cosmology, and countless other certificates attesting to the fact that he knows there's nothing sacred in the flesh, nothing that can't be represented as a series of ones and zeroes, and flung across the cosmos on quantum-entangled comm bands, and re-assembled in a new body.
Saturday, April 3, 2010
What a Load of Garbage
"What a load of garbage!" said Amber, looking at a cargo manifest on her datapad.
She was right. There was, quite literally, a large collection of refuse in the cargohold of the Beekeeper III, an Arbitrator-class cruiser I had just recovered from a Minmatar station near Rens. The Beekeeper and its fetid cargo had been rotting away for more than a year after I had taken a sightseeing cruise around Heimatar, looking for salvage from the garbage dumps strewn across that failing state.
She was right. There was, quite literally, a large collection of refuse in the cargohold of the Beekeeper III, an Arbitrator-class cruiser I had just recovered from a Minmatar station near Rens. The Beekeeper and its fetid cargo had been rotting away for more than a year after I had taken a sightseeing cruise around Heimatar, looking for salvage from the garbage dumps strewn across that failing state.
Friday, April 2, 2010
My Private War, Part II
The following is the second part of an ill-conceived story arc chronicling Rolinthor's and the Applied Physics Institute's pathetic solo misadventures in the Derelik region. Read Part I here, and check back this Sunday for the next episode (you know, if you're empire mining, and you're really, really bored).
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Most people find lying in the coffin-like alcove of an autodoc to be an unnerving experience. They say that, beyond the intimations of death brought on by being surrounded by a long, narrow box, it's just a creepy experience. Moments after you first crawl in and lie down, innumerable sensor ganglia extend from the walls, floor, and ceiling of the box to sweep across the skin in a gentle, undulating rhythm. Here and there, an individual ganglion will pause over the skin and burrow into a particular pore or prana point, to diagnose, to administer medicines, or to inject a few billion tissue-repair nanites. The ganglia punctures are utterly painless. Only for the briefest of moments, before the anti-inflammatory meds kick in, you might feel a series of slight itches or a tickling sensation, but that's it. Still, it just freaks people out.
Personally, seeing a body surrounded by the ghostly translucent filaments of a 'doc reminds me of the tropical fish that hide in the sea anemone back home on KP IV. Maybe that's why being in the 'doc, as I am now, doesn't bother me: I don't draw a bright line between man and machine. We're all God's refuse.
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Most people find lying in the coffin-like alcove of an autodoc to be an unnerving experience. They say that, beyond the intimations of death brought on by being surrounded by a long, narrow box, it's just a creepy experience. Moments after you first crawl in and lie down, innumerable sensor ganglia extend from the walls, floor, and ceiling of the box to sweep across the skin in a gentle, undulating rhythm. Here and there, an individual ganglion will pause over the skin and burrow into a particular pore or prana point, to diagnose, to administer medicines, or to inject a few billion tissue-repair nanites. The ganglia punctures are utterly painless. Only for the briefest of moments, before the anti-inflammatory meds kick in, you might feel a series of slight itches or a tickling sensation, but that's it. Still, it just freaks people out.
Personally, seeing a body surrounded by the ghostly translucent filaments of a 'doc reminds me of the tropical fish that hide in the sea anemone back home on KP IV. Maybe that's why being in the 'doc, as I am now, doesn't bother me: I don't draw a bright line between man and machine. We're all God's refuse.
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