Tame

The Free Man was in an orchard. He didn't know the word, but he recognized the description that once her grandmother had given him about all that they had lost. And here it was. "The fruit could be picked from the tree, and there were rows and rows as far as your eye could see of trees." And of course they had picked fruit from trees, but only when they found one, and there were never too many in the same place.

He had alway believed -been told- that the places where Unifieds cultivated their food were factories, with fences aroun preventing the Free Men from entering. But now he was in one. And he could just extend his hand and take the-what was it? A sort of apple or pear, with yellow skin.

He ate, and put some in his pouch. He walked though this strange, structured forest. A Unified walked at the distance. "I am the last man", he thought "When I die there will be no hope of recovering the world. There is no hope already. What if I burn everything? Who will I be burning it for?" The Unified was coming nearer, apparently oblivious to the presence of the man, picking fruit and putting it in a sack.

He looked around himself. There were many more pickers. they were all coming to him. Was this an ambush? He had the strength, but the resoludion had gone out of him. He knew how to fight them; kill them or incapacitate them with a quick movement, never let them surround you.
He had seen them surounding some of his pack members. Moving like one, they could block almost every movement, and grapple quickly and effectively as a hand around a small fruit.

One of the Unified spoke. The Free Man had wondered since he had been alone, since he had the impulse to understand the Unified and not only destroy them, if they could all speak at once. They never did.
-We have been thinking.-said the Unified-Do you know what a zoo was?.
The Free Man did not recognize the word.-No- He admitted.
-It was a place were animals were put. Animals from many different places, not necessarily native to the land. And, at the beginning, they were trapped there in a big cage.
-I was told about it, but it had a different name-Said the free man, a bit more enthusiastically than he would have thought possible. He wanted - to eat them. They stored them alive.
-No. What you say is a farm. The purpose of a zoo was to look at the animals only. We know it is difficult for you to understand, but it is true. Some animals were caged because they were dangerous, but most of them were caged simply because they could escape. If they escaped people could look at them no more. And that was bad for the zoo.
The free man was so fascinated by this information so alien to his normal way of thought, trying to imagine what the zoo was that he couldn't predict what direction they were going.
- Afterwards, the realized that the zoo itself could be the cage. Like a big house for all the animals that were not dangerous to the people or each other. The dangerous animals were the only ones who were locked in smaller cages.
The reason why we are telling you this is that this is exactly like that. And we know you are a dangerous animal. But we are willing to give you the last chance. Can you live freely among us? Or do we have to give you a little cage?

Confrontation

"The tower of Babel" had said Father Max "Was God's punishment on men who tried to get too close to him". A silence followed. Everyone already knew what followed. This had been, after all, a conference on the dangers of this new technology. "What they are building, this new device for ´communication´, is a challenge to god. It will erase the punishment, by making Everyone able to communicate with everyone else". A murmur filled the audience. "And these scientists, these ´people of progress´, they blatantly declare that this invention will overcome all the limits of mankind. Even death. If this is not a new plan of the humans to become God, I don't know what it is". The crowd was restless "This is a new Babel," Screamed father max "and we have to stop it".

Narwhal Boat and Captain Penguin, Prologue

Narwhal Boat left the Arctic
kissed his mom goodbye before
he went to swim/sail down the Atlantic
many adventures he had there
but many more Elsewhere.

Elsewhere had different names
Captain Penguin call it home
his longing was a change
and we would lay on his snow dome
pensieve, thinking about what places to sail

The Antartic was Penguin's home
and he didn't know much above
The Arctic was Boat's House
and he had never seen the south.

Hoy

creo que es la primera vez que uso este blog como blog, as in algo que es menos ficticio. Hace tiempo, mucho, muchísimo tiempo que no escribo nada. Siento que no tengo NADA que contar aunque la necesidad de crear ficción no ha muerto del todo y es por eso que existe esta entrada It's the fiction writing in me, clinging to life with its teeth, un intento casi-desesperado de no morir del todo, porque quizás muera, quizás no. Siento que puedo escribir, el problema es no tengo NADA -worthreading- que escribir, dos cosas bastante diferentes. Por mucho tiempo creí, de verdad, que no era necesario CONTAR algo y pensé que I could pull a modernist-writer y trascender la trama, pero a pesar de que siento que puedo escribir, I ain't no Woolf-Joyce-Faulkner. Nunca prentendí serlo, pero tuve la convicción de que no era necesario ser ASÍ de talentoso para trascender la trama, y la convicción no fue suficiente, nunca lo es, las cosas no se pueden sostener en algo así te primitivo e infantil. Se necesita algo más, en este caso talento.
Entonces escribo esto, a modo de narrar lo que sucedió con mi creatividad literaria, if I can't think o anything to tell I might as well tell this process... to anyone.

creativity x good writing = Genius (Neil Gaime is the perfect example of this)

I have a severe lack of the first agent y lo segundo no es capaz de sostener nada:

this is me (0 being the lowest, 100 being the top):
0 x 50 = 0
I HAD to pull a Sterne to show you this (Dearest reader)

Y, hay un segundo obstáculo: me cansa y la verdad es que no me gusta, ser TAN autorreferente, es de mal gusto (literario y de modales).

No hay segunda sin tercera: I AM HAPPY, no completamente, but life's good, y esta paralisis, aunque me da lata/pena no me hace lo suficientemente infeliz como para que eso sirva de motor y me diga "escribe y serás feliz" porque ya lo soy y me siento more or less completo...

Still....
espero que esto haya servido, por muy minimamente que sea, de laxante creativo/literario.

Crack

Melliburn walked slowly to the main door of the complex. There, the two guards (Clint and Burlock) waited for him with mildly amused faces. Meliburn had a reputation for humoristic remarks and entertaining gossip. He usually chatted a bit with the guards, and was rewarded by the feeling of safety he experimented. Noone feels safe around guards you are not acquainted with, especially guards with this weapons. He put down the package he was carrying before crossing the metal detector and was welcomed cordially. He was in the middle of a pun he had come up with during the morning regarding a chemical and a fat lady scientist working in the complex when the lights went out.



_________________________________________


The people in the complex referred to them as the Family. This was mainly because this is the name they sometimes used to identify themselves in the religious services they held in their meeting center. It was also said that the nickname arose after some rumors about them being just a conceptual cross between hillbillies and the Old Amish in every respect.




The Family kept to themselves. They were an agricultural community, with knowledge of agronomy and small electric generators setting them appart from savages. They had moved to the hills near the complex slowly since the price of the land dropped due to the building of the complex. Appart from being noisy, a thing that scared away most of the animals that were part of the diet of the previous owners, it was rumored that it was going to be a radioactive plant. A cheap one, the kind that killed plants and people some years after they were constructed. Besides, there were the soldiers.




The Family allowed, with just a slight twitch of their faces, the presence of people from the complex in their services, which were a mixture of science class, sermon and townhall meeting. Problems (From arguments to difficults in building) were solved in the light of the Reason of God. To the people from the complex that were in charge of keeping an eye on them, they seemed a reasonable folk, that paid no attention to the complex affairs. A peaceful community if it wasn't for their lust for hunting.



_____________________________________________________




Melliburn walked in the dark to where the package was. He pushed the button just as the flashlights on the guards weapons turned off. The flashlights turned off immedaitely.


-My nightvision is off!-said a guard.- Dr. Meliburn, are you alright?


Melliburn knew he had to hurry. The Pentone was everywhere. He might have impaired one with the shockwave, but the other four arms would be looking for everyone, and once he shot the guards and went out of the complex he would be the main target. He felt a pang of guilt, shot, and ran out. Fear was everything, except the little bundle of hope under his arm.

_________________________________________-



First the power went out, and all became one. Rather, every part of what they were became individuals for the two seconds it took for the emergency power to restore the repeater antennae. And one of them had dissapeared. It was as if you realized that some of your memories and that the range of all your senses diminishes from one second to the next.

This was not normal. It took more than two seconds to die; not to receive a lethal injury, but to stop feeling and for your brain to stop sending signals. The part of the pentone that was in charge of the front of the complex tonight had been...erased. Obliterated. The Pentone moved to the front yard.

___________________________________________



The front yard was dark and empty save for one sad figure. The former Pentone arm was on his knees, rocking back and forth.

-I am blind. Blind, I am blind I'm blind, help me, I'm blind...

Melliburn shot him and kept running. The four other arms of the Pentone were coming. he couldn't see them but he heard their vehicles. He ran without looking back. he didn't have a chance of hitting one of them in these vehicles when the others were there. They knew exactly where to move, their formation for perspective was flawless.



He was at the foot of the first hill now. Any moment now his backup would get there. The noise from the vehicles was too close now. He turned and shot twice. The arms moved as he had seen so many times before in their trainig sessions. They shot him, surgically. Left knee, liver, right shoulder, left elbow. He collapsed immediately and screamed. He only felt red frustration before he fell unconscious. The bundle fell with him, with a soft plastic sound.

_____________________________________________________



After half an hour, the soldiers were still where Melliburn's body was.

-He couldn't have killed them all- Said a corporal

- Of course not!- Said Liutenant Trell- He didn't kill any of them. Look at their bodies.-

The Liutenant put his hands in his face. This was not supposed to happen. They were not ready yet. It was all over now, and it was his fault.

Corporal Gleen was running down the hill.
- I told you to come back with a wittness! - growled the Liutenant
-There is no one - said the Corporal - The Family is gone.

Climbing to the cliff

Carmen Regber looked at the woman directly to her eyes, and bit her lower lip.
-Well... there are rumors, but the technology is not available to the public. Sleeptech is the closest we have, but the brain activity of your husband is too weak to detect anything.

The woman, her eyes red but a determinate expression, asked Regber almost without a pleading tone
- Is he dead? Is his brain dead?
- No- Regber paused, feeling awful for being an actor at this moment- But only just. He is in a deep coma. The rumors have given rise to people working on this-
- Is there a way to go into his brain?
-it is more complicated than that... but there is an experimental group that is using the Communion platform
- But that is for children and perverts! it is not a tool for medicine!
-What you say is true- Said Regber - and this is not really safe. Forget I ever mentioned it.
______________________________________________________-

Three days later the woman came back to Regber, and she explained how it was possible. The brains were connected binary and an adaptation had been made to use neurotransmitters and generate responses from others.
-In a way they will instruct your husband's brain to do what is necessary to come out of the coma. Or that is what they say at least. Believe me it is not a safe thing. His brain has sustained enough damage.
-We will do it- said the woman.

They always did. Choose right, and they always said yes. Regber felt horrible. But she was not harming anyone. These were scientists that were working to help other people, and the money she was receiving was helping more people. It was only helping everyone. What could go wrong?

_______________________________________________

Project Lazarus had enough test subjects, and they already had enough success rates to make it public. Nathaniel Thame, the director of the group, was about to derive some money from their investors in advertizing, and afterwards donating the knowledge of the process to the UN, or other entity that could distribute it for free. Or at the lowest price possible. they were in for a Nobel. It had all come so obviously as he played in those sci-fi servers. Neurotransmitters. Decoding, understanding and sinthesizing or stimulating their production.
They would need some people that would probably die. but some people were unplugged for no better reason than saving money to their families. No real problem there, when you looked coolly.
The name "Lazarus" was Dean's idea. It was bigger than they were, but it was good advertizing. Two weeks from now, he decided. Then he would show this to the world. It was almost perfected; he would get more funding, and everything would be better. And this could only be the beggining.

Thame went out of the shelter.
-Don't move!- Said a soldier holding a gun. There were many other cars arriving at his place. Everything will be alright. What we are doing is perfectly legal.

"We just want to talk"
The man woke up with the feeling that his nightmare was still going on. He was badly bruised and the involuntary movement involving waking up with terror made him immediately aware of this.

He slumped backwards to a lying position. He was in a hill, apparently. There were some trees, but nothing much to really cover him. He felt foolish, by falling asleep like that. Had he fallen asleep or just fallen unconcious?

The voice said "are you awake? We just want to talk. We could have killed you. but we don't want to. We don't want you running either. We don't even want you to join us"

The man didn't know where it came from. He looked around, but there was no one to be seen.

"We want you to know, that we are not fighting you if you stop fighting us"

"And then taking me by surprise and making me one of you, right?" Yelled the man, trying to stand. He used a fallen branch as a walking staff and walked in the direction of the voice.

"No. We would leave you alone if that is your decision" the voice was clear and devoid of emotion as they usually were. It came from an old walkie-talkie that was among some branches.

He recognized it. It had been part of the equipment of his pack before the raid of the unified.

"It is only you fighting. Did you know? You are the only one left".

The man heaved the branch and crushed the walkie-talkie.
He fell and stayed there for some time.
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