Flight Of The Majestic

by B. York | Nov 10, 2005 | Story | 0 comments

Caleb’s hand reached for the rope one more time to hoist himself up onto another ledge. The icy winds howled around him as he hit the heat-release button on the ice-pick to pull it back easily from the sheer face he’d just managed to climb. A breath-taking view of the blue sky melding with the pure white peak of the mountain had him stunned. All his instruments read correctly. The air content here at the peak was clean, and although the temperature was far below habitable levels he could fix that with a Kelvin-Stabilizer, no problem. Everything was ripe to study an untouched environment. Perhaps he could save the desecrated lands below.

He breathed deeply now, taking in the formulated oxygen from the bio-lung which was strapped to his back with suitable tubing which twisted around to mold over his face. The soft flesh of his eyes was protected by the three-spectrum detection goggles latched around his thick skull. It was good that he brought with himself only the essentials.

As he pulled the equipment form the vac-pack, the tripod unfolded by itself with a tiny mechanical whizzing and his gloved hands pulled the Kelvin-Stabilizer from the self-warming sack. The device was no larger than an apple and it was comprised of billions of little circuits meant to regulate a climate to slowly make it into a habitable place.

The mountaineer had placed the device down and went to retrieve suitable solar cells for its month-long endeavor when the low rumble and the loud crunch made his spine go stiff. He spun his head around, hoping that he would at least be able to see the landslide before it became his doom.

Instead, he found himself in strange company. Standing almost a half-click tall on four taloned feet, a magnificent, enormous dragon of the greatest azure that Caleb had ever witnessed grasped at the peak and shook a coating of snow from its scaly form. The word dragon was lost in the annals of legends, far beyond the myths of telepathic implants and body-powered communications devices. So, the experienced pioneer, in all of his humility, focused on the grand impossibility before him.

The creature spoke in a voice that rocked the very air around them, shaking it against Caleb’s well-protected form. “I believe I stepped upon thine trinket, sire.”

“I…I… uhhhh…..” Caleb sputtered.

Pulling up its foot, the dragon revealed the device smashed and beyond repair in a now awe-inspiring print upon the surface of the peak. “Yes. It seems thy magical artifact is indeed a casualty of my movement, sire.”

“Wh… what are you?” Caleb’s words could only form out of primal fear and a mind overcome with awe.

“Me? Why I am Azureghoste, sky dragon of the northern bounds, terror to all those who wake the mountain! Though, I was once known by the name Majestic. You may call me such.” The bellowing hurt Caleb’s ears, but he replied with a rush of curiosity.

“I… what are you doing…. I mean… uhhh… why are you-“

“Pardon me, sire, but your items are far too simple to have defeated me. Many knights have already come with swords and fire and then soon after with sticks that fired rocks. Some sticks were bigger than others. Already they begin to make false dragons to fly overhead and frighten me, but I shall not be moved. You have come with none of these things, sire. You come with small baubles which my foot hath crushed so readily. You smell of a strange metal that bends and melts under heat, but there is but one of you, sire.” Its head shifted and blue eyes larger than Caleb himself stared at him in absolute confusion.

Caleb raised a brow. His head rang with the deep thundering sound of the dragon’s voice. “I didn’t… I mean I’m not…”

“Go now, young mortal. Tell the others that they must come back with better magical items if they hope to defeat me. I shall sit here and anticipate their return to see if they can challenge the great Majestic.” The being lay back down, its head slumped around the rocky peak of the mountaintop itself. It stared lazily at its newest mortal visitor, waiting for him to depart. Bewildered and dumbstruck, the pioneer turned back as the Majestic one contemplated its next meeting with humankind.

Simpler Times

by B. York | Nov 7, 2005 | Story | 0 comments

Sammy, don’t stray too far now.” Alice had a firm grip on her six year olds hand as they walked through the courtyard of the Faire. A woman stood near the front gates and handed out what was supposed to be paper. For only a thousand credit entry fee, however, Alice knew it was imitation. She smiled to the woman as they passed and looked at the map drawn across the plasti-sheet.

“Hmm… okay, Sammy, where do you want to go?” She bent down and shared the map with her son, who was all wide-eyed at the sights and sounds. Staring back at the map and brochures, the boy’s eyes sparkled as he pointed at a section. “Ohhh! That one, mommy! I want to see the Stock Market Reenactment!”

Alice Gardner’s husband came up from behind after having some issue with the credit transfer on the fingerprint console. His face was wrinkled with frustration and an obvious lack of understanding as to the purpose of their visit. “Can you believe they make people walk around here? I mean c’mon… walking?”

“Oh, dear… now where’s your 20th century spirit? Not everyone had trans-spatial ports in their homes back then,” she reminded. The husband muttered and his wife pinched his cheek before they led little Sammy along. Alice loved the 20th century, and Douglas was just going to have to deal with it for today.

A few moments later they were face to face with a man in obviously fake glasses standing behind a counter with a reproduction pocket protector, his torso padded with polymer foam to make him look fat. Even his hair was awkwardly and anachronistically short. “Hey there folks!” he called to the family. “Ever been to a computer store? We have only the finest in Desktops, Laptops and the amazing…. Gasp… Palm Pilot! Care to take a look at my… cool selection?”

“Your what selection?” Douglas blurted out after Alice had already politely declined. Sammy wanted to see the Stock Market go wild with people tossing paper in the air as if paper were worth nothing to them. After the man had explained what cool and awesome meant, Douglas moved along with his wife.

“I guess I just don’t get it, Alice. Why should we go somewhere to be in the past? Isn’t what the present provides for us much better than… hey… are those…?”

Sure enough, Douglas had found something that struck his fancy. Alice rolled her eyes as the grown man walked over to the shop owner who was wearing only the finest Basketball Jersey. Like the computer merchant, this man also wore period glasses, although his were tinted and darker. “Excuse me, sir?” Douglas whispered. Hecouldn’t lift his eyes from the product to make eye contact with the merchant.

“Yo, yo.. I see you’re looking at the finest in footwear made by machines. Actual machines, too. Now these have a lifetime guarantee and we can make sure you get the suede replaced with real suede if you get it damaged or something, homey.”

Douglas didn’t understand a damn word the man said. He picked up the Michael Jordan tennis shoes and looked back to Alice with the same pleading eyes as their child. “Sweetie, it’s a Michael Jordan tennis shoe! It’s made of real suede! Feel it! I have to have this… how much…?”

The man with the dark glasses smiled and did an air-hoop shot. “I see you like the quality footwear. Well, our going price is five million credits.”

Debating over the purchasing of the shoe would to take time, and Sammy was getting hungry. Alice kissed her husband on the cheek and looked back over to the merchant, “He’ll buy them; he just needs time to pick out the laces and the design. Can you tell us where the food dispensers might be?”

“Hells yeah! The Food Court is down the ways and to the left. You can’t miss it; they got excellent pizza this time of year.”

Sammy’s eyes lit up as he tugged on his mothers’ hand, leaving Douglas to decide over the type of shoe he wanted. The Faire was going to be a long day coming and it would leave their credit accounts thinned out, but in the end, Alice will have enjoyed her walk through simpler times.

“Mom, it’s pizza! I bet they make it by machine, too! Let’s hurry!”

Earth Belongs To No One

by B. York | Nov 1, 2005 | Story | 0 comments

“Diggs! C’mon man, we gotta keep this moving or we won’t find squat for real dirt by the end of the day!”

‘That had to be Brennan yelling over the drill tube. He’d been at work
on that machine, trying to suck up the dry mud and debris, hoping for a
better chance at the pure stuff.

Diggs wiped his brow, tugging the tube up out of the dirt to stop production. “Eh! Boss says we got to crank this up a notch, people, let’s strip this land and move on.”

Brennan shifted his ball cap over his head as the the light of the sun beat down on the dying meadow. “Say, Diggs, I know you gots your kids birthday today. How’s abouts you go home early?”

“What? And miss a shot at gettin’ some real prime planet core? Bren, you gotta be outta that thick skull of yours. The fuzz ain’t makin’ you nervous are they? You know we’re miles from the cops. Besides, we’re busy. We got two more areas to suck up after this one and-“

“Look” Brennan started up, swinging his clipboard back around in a wide dramatic gesture, “I ain’t tryin’ to steal goods from ya, just thought I’d suggest. She’s a real primer, this one. Just, be careful.”

“Aw, Bren, I’m gonna get all misty. You ain’t still worried about what happened to the McClennan boys are you?” Diggs had taken the time to make mocking smirks at his boss and life-long friend.

“It just… it ain’t right. Like, the ground or somethin’ just ate’em up. They left the tools and ate the people, Diggs. I ain’t wanna see the same happen to you.”

Brennan’s friend just shook his head and turned back on the A34 Soil Remover. The buzz turned to a low hum and soil started to pour through out onto the ground next to him. After Brennan left, Diggs remembered the reports. First, things had gotten real quiet, they read. A few of the soil-miners freaked and the rest were never heard from again. The activists got all up in arms, saying that it was punishment from God or maybe nature fighting back. Hell, it was already illegal to poach earth, but they did it anyways. That was all crud according to Remy Diggs.

“Damn, just got three good ones! Haha!” The soil-miner kept it up, feeding the suction into the ground to have the particles sopped up through the tube and analyzed.

This little machine was amazing, Diggs thought. It could sort out the moisture content in every grain of soil and then, when all was said and done, the same scientists who opposed the “raping of the land” had to bow down to the pure energy brought by a single unidentified element formed in one of three billion grains of soil. Sucker could power Vegas for ten years on just a handful of juiced grains. Ah, and the money sure did roll in.

Diggs was paying so much attention to his device, he didn’t even notice that things had gone real quiet, real fast.

Autumn

by B. York | Oct 22, 2005 | Story | 0 comments

The way she lets her hair flow in the wind keeps me breathless. She twists and turns as the leaves blow past; an endless dance to an endless life. They say it’s the season for wisdom, heralding a season of death to come. That season has long since past and I’m watching her dance in her tattered dress in the middle of a vacant park. Still, I find myself hesitating at my duty.

Some might say what I do is heartless, but they don’t get to appreciate beauty like I do. They don’t understand what life is until they kill something that shouldn’t be living. They might call up more laws to stop me from doing what I’m doing, but in the end they know a higher power agrees with me. It just reminds me of how they are all just little insects that will never leave their moral homes. I’m the hunter, and I am the artist. Right now, she’s become my muse and my prey. I am beside myself.

Yet, I’m still watching her. I could sit here all day upwind from her and watch her live out what’s left inside of her. Some scientists call it mental twitches, but I know it’s deeper than that. My eyes can’t blink because I’m afraid she might see me and the dance will be over. I’m afraid because I want that beauty in her to last forever even though a part of me knows it won’t. It never does.

Everything is a mix of brown, red and yellow. It’s a miasma of a bitter rainbow but it makes her stand out amongst the color of flames. She might have burned with the rest, but I’m just too happy to be spying on her this moment. Most of them would have stopped by now, smelled the air and realized they weren’t alone. It’s tough to say what they smell like, but I know from experience that it’s not a good scent.

The wind picks up, and now I can see her face. It’s still pretty, still untainted by her affliction and for a moment I am doubtful of my duty. For a second I can loosen my grip on the deadly tool in my grasp. It is only that brief passing of time that I allow myself a semblance of peace, and maybe I’ll pray someday that they all make it back and that this will all be a bad dream. Someday just isn’t today.

She’s wavering now, something I tend to get nervous over. This one is so pretty, so very gorgeous and I wonder if maybe I would have liked her, if maybe before things went sour if I’d had the chance to take her out for coffee and made love to her in a satin-sheeted bed. Her faltering ruins that. It’s the way her step hesitates, the look of that particularly rigid kind of stance that they make just before they go vile. Yes, I can feel the sting of salty tears because I know if this were any other place, any other time; I’d go to hell for doing such a thing.

I have to keep one thought in mind as I tug back the mechanism to load the Remington. This is hell. This is the reckoning. They aren’t alive, and I can’t go back. No, I can’t make her dance again like she did before. The only thing I can do… is put her down and all the others just like her.