[Herr D]

The Show Must Go Off–part twenty-three
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I hadn’t taken any chances on my transmission range–the assembly droid’s memory was wiped and the new instructions input before the airlock opened. We’d chosen one with a quick-release open so that the puff would push him out and save a little on the first burn. The assembly droid had docking clamps put together and ready, even had time to spare for swatting micrometeors away, and Thrash touched down on the first junk-ore freighter undetected. No one was looking for a ship too small to hold three people and reserve fuel and shielding–if I hadn’t tweaked the assembly droid for batting practice, this really would have been insane to try. We lost signal about then. ‘A’ was cool under pressure. He didn’t even act curious, just helped me look up chemistry questions. I hadn’t forgotten he was an artist. When we were done I asked him to make a few color-combination choices.
“Fireworks in SPACE?!” he said, “How could THAT work?” The real reason for the morgue stop was the stasis packs. The year before, somebody’s dead uncle was being shipped back to Earth when an unnoticed meteor cluster had impacted with the fuel mixer. It turned out that the byproduct of rocket fuel burning through the cadaver null-g stasis packs was a vacuum-suitable dead-human-colored firework. The one news channel replayed it about six times, including commentary on when his copper bracelet caught and turned the flame blue for just an bit. Well. Obviously there wouldn’t be COPPER in the junk ore freighters. Copper’s good money. I explained the news flash of ‘Blue Barney.’ Turns out ‘A’ was in comatransit at the time, hadn’t heard.
We were probably looking at oranges, yellows, maybe a bit of green or red. ‘A’ was pretty enthused. He came up with five or six plans based on differing amounts of calcium to the sodium, barium, and strontium that might turn up.
The assembler droid, after docking Thrash, had him reading electronic manifests out loud and looking for frozen methane and fuel convertibles while it built droids and hijacked more with my subhacker routines. One at a time, three re-configured freighters were joined, docked to, taken over, pilfered, repointed, and launched from. With ten droids it took seven and a half hours at a breakneck pace.
When I checked in with Upclose, I discovered she was already ready. When I told her I was surprised, she said: “I used some rooms’ transmitters like an array to send some of the processing to an empty server on sunside.” That turned out to be rather important.

[Herr D]

I forgot to mention that the Aelihoh shots above were all made as one-slots. One of them is also posted in Kaylin’s contest. This one is not a one-slot–adding Leviathan422 took some other slots. ‘Levi422’ is one of the few of his species that knows how to minimize the ripples he makes, and he is therefore occasionally responded to by the sunpriest plants during their meanderings. Neither species can feed on or exist without the other as sunpriest plant roots directly convert Leviathan urine to the local mix of ozone-rich water and nitrogen infused peroxide–an important balancing for the Leviathan gill intake.

http://i1067.photobucket.com/albums/u438/jamais5/hm3/WinnAndLeviathan422DuringLateAelihohMoonrise.jpg

The radio tags attached to beings like Levi422 by daredevils are now outlawed. Removing them may be a problem, as it can prove fatal, and leaving them past the hundred-year mark might induce sterility. Funds are being raised toward a solution by the Galactic Ecological Preservation Society, but they are rather wrapped up in finishing their headquarters evacuation from Ohneegahtahee. It seems Nuhmohnuh’s rings are collapsing. Lucky it was just an office-space moon location, right?
*

[Herr D]

Besides being extra busy these past two weeks, I’ve been troubled with the oddest feelings — heimweh, I think they call it in Germany. The first time I ever felt the pull it was in two directions at once. These following are reproductions of scenes I imagine someone would have intense reminiscing sessions about.
p47 collided with Nuhmohnuh’s rings the last day a tourist was on Ohneegahtahee.
http://i1067.photobucket.com/albums/u438/jamais5/hm3/p47RingCollisionTheLastDayOnOhneegahtahee.jpg

Oh, and sorry about the thumb–you must realize he had to take the shot quickly.

These several next are repeated shots of Winnahpohtahsoh. It’s a resident of Aelihoh. ‘Winn’ is a sunpriest plant. They assume a worshipful position and hold it through several weather changes before uprooting and meandering to another scenic spot. Of course it’s not actually worship, just feeding.
http://i1067.photobucket.com/albums/u438/jamais5/hm3/HerrD-FoggyMoonriseOnAelihoh_withlesssky_zpsc8de6d01.jpg
http://i1067.photobucket.com/albums/u438/jamais5/hm3/HerrD-MoonriseOnAelihoh_closecrop_zpsa4ec2276.jpghttp://i1067.photobucket.com/albums/u438/jamais5/hm3/HerrD-FoggyMoonriseOnAelihoh_withmoresky_zpsbaa484b2.jpg
http://i1067.photobucket.com/albums/u438/jamais5/hm3/HerrD-MoonriseOnAelihoh_mintrim_zps901f7f5d.jpg
Aelihoh is an active place, major moonrise happening every ninety-three minutes and change. A peculiarity in the nitrogen-rich, thin air make it a very warm, if not a very friendly place. Surface about 80 degrees Fahrenheit 9/10ths of the year on the sunny side, paddy waters vary between 75-90. No tourism, no hunting, no exports, and almost no gravity. Plant-dance watching for those needing a rest. Leviathan-cage diving for those wanting excitement. By invitation only.

[Herr D]

Woohoo! Of all things, word proc software malfunction and heavy lag time was a DYING WIRELESS MOUSE BATTERY! I hadn’t thought of that. We may be back to regularly abnormal now.

[Herr D]

Thanks for the advice, guys. I might be sweating it out till an old fan of mine blows through town tomorrow and gives us his usual free tech advice consult. But if that doesn’t happen I may be trying g-d or etc. My current cp uses something called ‘works’ which doesn’t have the works, but usually has enough.

[Herr D]

The Show Must Go Off–part twenty-two
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Thrash and ‘A’ came with me. The other two immediately huddled with Upclose. I set up another subroutine named Upclose, just for recording her movements in code to the nearest device under my control. I’d get it out of order, but I’d get it all. No more surprises. As we exited, the famous fight between Griffon and Gryphon started up. Last no-grav aerial fight with no winners. Griffon was obliterated, pieces everywhere, and Gryphon was declared the winner before anyone realized he’d cheated. His last three shots had been taken after he died. No automatic targeting or shooting has EVER been allowed.
I had been running a long con when it started getting air time on Earth. You know the Pranky Neighbor? Get two neighbors thinking that the other is pranking them over the fence while making book across the street with voyeurs. Start a prank-war-watching party, taking bigger bets as the crowd gets drunker. Then duck out with ALL the money bet, never having given a real name as BOTH neighbors suddenly get an ‘anonymous’ tip that the real pranksters are watching them? I’d come up with my own ingenious version of that when most of the thunder was stolen by the fight coming available on pay-per-view unannounced. The buzz ruined the timing on at least two-thirds of my action. I’d been about to start a firework fight–
“Thrash? What do you know about chemistry? Pyrotechnics?”
His eyebrows went up. “Uh. Not much.”
“What do you know about junk ore storage?”
“Nothing.”
“Do you know where the morgue is?” He stopped walking. He went pale. It was so cute! He recovered quick.
“That would be V-gamma-5” Thrash said. He was suddenly no longer happy with claiming a connection to me.
I whirled to ‘A.’ He stopped walking too. “How far away is V-gamma-5?” I demanded.
He only paused a moment. His face hardened. “Charts. I’ll look it up.” He started for a kiosk. I followed him, Thrash in tow.
“What do you want the morgue for?” asked Thrash.
“A diversion, religious reasons, and, of course, to help your cause.” I gave him my distracted smile. I didn’t even need GameFace, though I was using it. Too much could go wrong right now.
“How would blowing up the morgue help the revolution?” asked Thrash.
“What are you, brainless?” burst out ‘A,’ “Before it’s full-scale revolution, it’ll be just crime–and the Enforcers might hesitate a tenth of a second before killing if there’s no morgue. Now shut up and do a parallel search with me. You’re looking for storage of junk ore, like Q said.”
“How do I find that?”
“Bound to be between deposit stations and payout unless it’s grouped. If it is, look for records of heavy freighters with no pilots.”
“They fly auto?”
“No, Thrash,” ‘A’ rolled his eyes, “They correct for anti-collision and docking without pilots. They’re randomly used as push-offs by whoever needs them to get to the belt.” Ah, a fuel saver–that would come in handy.
Thrash really was a bungler. Just a thug who knew how to wind up with the right friends at the right time. I took over and found coordinates for four junk ore freighters between us and the morgue, waiting, of course, for ‘A’ to verify where it was for me. Off-screen, I verified Thrash as a surprisingly good pilot. Must’ve had that unteachable feel for flying. I set him up good. I tracked Gibb down in the shop and sent him a message he couldn’t ignore. One-tenth of his remaining debt would be considered paid if he collected fifty shop-droid’s worth of spare parts, an assembly droid with a bank-full of generic plans, two cutting torches and three fifteen-second thrust tanks, fully charged. All of them had to be off-book, not from machinery in-use, and he could NOT be caught. Partial success would be appreciated and valued later–he had one hour.
Gibb got only ten shop-droid worth of spare parts, but everything else. I have a feeling he just told a lot of people their droids couldn’t be fixed without more parts and took them right out of those being serviced.
Thrash came back with his mining suit looking worried. It had extra armor. ‘A’ came back with four extra air tanks. I didn’t ask.
“YOU WANT ME TO WHAT?!” Thrash looked like he’d be sick.
“Drive, that’s all,” I said blandly. I walked up to the assembly droid with an ordinary piece of copper wire I’d snagged from a broken stove we’d seen being hauled in not two minutes before. I stuck one end half into the infoport and held it just out of synaptic range. I stuck the other end half into a walljack. Gibb frowned. He knew this data transfer wasn’t possible. Just as a precaution I sent out a records request.
“BUT IT’S NOT A SHIP!” Thrash continued. ‘A’ actually looked puzzled. Gibb was still frowning.
“Gibb? Any advice for the assembly droid?” I’d told Gibb a little bit.
Gibb nodded. “The air tanks in front, since a direct hit with an asteroid would kill him anyway. Cone-shaped visor. Everything else is like packing material. Shell in front.” He picked up an old ship’s rear window and hung it in an assembly frame.
By the time he’d finished I’d sent the instructions through a compiler and input them. The assembly took four minutes and looked horrendous. I clapped Thrash on the back.
“You’ll do fine,” I said.
“Our cause must go on,” said ‘A.’
“You guys are nuts,” said Gibb.
“I must be,” said Thrash.
The assembly droid helped Thrash put the ‘ship’ on and climbed onto his back. A walking junkyard. Soon to be a flying or dying one. ‘A’ and I began walking him to the airlock. I had to divert cameras away singly, so almost missed Gibb kneeling down to the walljack. A quick trace found an assembly droid; I had it turn from it’s work, step over a cord, zip under two work tables, remove a wall panel and reach through diagonally to within an inch of the walljack. Through its eyes I saw what the records request hadn’t finished with yet. The walljack was disconnected. And Gibb was about to open it. I faked a muscle spasm and told the guys to wait. I closed my eyes to concentrate. Using the assembly droid’s cutting torch, I zapped Gibb through the walljack panel’s fastener with about a third of tazing force. From his reaction, I probably miscalculated. He hopped around holding his hand and swearing for several seconds. That was enough for the assembly droid to build most of a CPU from used parts and debris, completely fry it, and then hook it up via a ‘melted’ connection to the nearest net gridlink. I had it close the panel and get back to work, erasing the rest of the shop footage while I did it. Then I helped get Thrash out the airlock so he could become the revolution’s first martyr.

\END TEXTBURST \ROBOTARM:ADDON:LOC314

[Herr D]

This is one of the ‘non-foggy’ versions of MoonriseOnAelihoh. It’s all made of Hair/Standard. Aelihoh is an active place, major moonrise happening every ninety-three minutes and change. A peculiarity in the nitrogen-rich, but very thin air make it a very warm, if not a very friendly place. Surface about 80 degrees Fahrenheit 9/10ths of the year on the sunny side, paddy waters vary between 75-90. No tourism, no hunting, no exports, and almost no gravity. Plant-dance watching for those needing a rest. Leviathan-cage diving for those wanting excitement. By invitation only.

http://i1067.photobucket.com/albums/u438/jamais5/hm3/HerrD-MoonriseOnAelihoh_closecrop_zpsa4ec2276.jpg

[Herr D]

JR? I think you’re actually going to have to face TWO problems: One is that the silhouettes will have to be made without side-view parts, and the other is that the silhouettes will tend to look like one misshapen silhouette instead of two. . .

Not that this would actually be easier, but you may be better off ‘timing’ the embrace so that the people aren’t fully embraced but still reaching for each other to cut down on visual confusion. The only other option I can think of is to use different gray scales between them and I’m pretty sure that would look fake. The good news is that a decent side-view torso can be made (as long as it’s just silhouette) by thinning a 3/4-view torso. . . good luck.

[Herr D]

Thrash and his fellow revolutionaries gave us a little space but stayed right in earshot and looked generally amused and curious as I began. “They seem irritated, want you to buy back your safety, and expect an explanation.”
Eyes still big, she nodded. “I was–“
“NOT to me. I’m not even sure why they’re miffed at you. Type it to Them.” I nodded at the podium screen where a graphic appeared of a stick figure waving it’s index finger right at her. She raised her eyebrows. She wasn’t at a predictable angle to the screen. She turned slightly to the arena screen and did the math.
“They have infiltrated ALL the hardware here, haven’t they?”
I smiled at her. “I wouldn’t be surprised to hear they own hidden hardware all over V-gamma-7.” Heh heh. –Not yet. . .
She nodded and slowly typed ‘The Enforcers already know I hack, so they WILL be after me for information on you. Is there anything you would LIKE me to tell them?’
The graphic disappeared and a chatbox jumped up showing what should have appeared to be an accidental glimpse at an argument in code between The Surgeon and The Shade. Then it disappeared. A short pause followed. This was going about as I thought it would. “I thin-” I interrupted myself for effect as the next header came up, reading ‘DO NOT MENTION CONTENT OF THIS MEETING WITH NEW ASSOCIATES. TELL ENFORCERS EVERYTHING ELSE YOU KNOW OF US. DO NOT DIVULGE YOUR ROLE IN TODAY’S SHOW. DISCUSS PLAN WITH Q AND DO WITHIN TEN HOURS UNLESS TOLD NOT TO BY Q.’ The header took up the whole box. I let the screen go blank before I broke the respectful silence. “I was right; they want me to tell you the plan. These men have footage we want in the system, but we want it in the system as if the system’s cameras filmed it.”
Upclose nodded, “How much footage?”
Thrash spoke up. “There’s less than an hour’s footage ready. It’s sorted by location and time index.”
Upclose frowned, “Have you already made sure there’s no other footage for those places and times?”
Thrash looked surprised, and turned to the group. ‘C’ was nodding. “And all arenas.”
Upclose nodded, “That’s good; the system won’t kick it out, even during a self-audit. I’ll have to fake system tags and camera signatures and maybe some upload garbage temporary files–” Her eyes grew big again “–within ten hours?! I can’t do that! The cameras are all off in the arena area! The uploads will be flagged even if I sneak them in unless these cameras are on!”
I knew she had her limits. “Upclose?”
“Yes?”
“If you prep the uploads, the Six can toggle the cameras on and off and erase evidence that they did that.”
Her eyes narrowed at me. “What?”
I smiled widely. “I’m pretty sure they’ve done that to hide peoples’ movements.”
She shook her head. “There are LIVE Enforcers that watch feeds.” Yikes.
I nodded along. “So there would have to be a big diversion or something.”
She blinked. “Well, it wouldn’t have to be LONG. An upload should take about 20 milliseconds.”
I pretended to be impressed. “We’ll leave the exact timing to them then. I guess I’ll ask two of these fine young men to come with me and leave the footage with you?” She nodded. We had a plan.

\END TEXTBURST \ROBOTARM:ADDON:LOC314

[Herr D]

Jeff casually dropped the name ‘Gropey the Spider-spider.’ Well–that really is a name too good for my imagination to ignore.
I immediately found myself thinking about the scarier part of genetic engineering. Some forms of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and other phenomena resulting in repeated behaviors may be genetic and we just don’t know. Did anyone see Blade Runner and wonder how many other people might ‘make friends?’ (I’ve written a short play called “Making Enemies” based on the same principle.) So what if an artificially-caused mutant with a tendency to repeat his last word got out? He would introduce himself by his tendencies since he couldn’t have a legal name–
http://i1067.photobucket.com/albums/u438/jamais5/hm3/HerrD-GropeyTheSpiderSpiderWentTooFar1_zps13753001.jpg
–and the female vigilantes might get REALLY mad at him . . .

[Herr D]

“Guys,” said Thrash, “You all know who ‘Q’ is. Q? I’m Thrash, and I’ll be your point of contact. These guys don’t want any part of your umbrella or other contact if that’s all right.” Hmmm.
“I am not networking at this time. Of course, I can’t speak for Them.” Two of them squirmed.
“We’re calling them ‘A,’ ‘B,’ and ‘C.'” He nodded at each of them in turn. “And we have moved forward with your idea in a different direction.” I was glad for GameFace–that sounded stupid.
“Which idea?” The conversation WAS almost twenty-five days ago. And my buffer was full.
“Fighting off-camera.”
“Ah.”
“We know that you have your newfound faith, like the Six-” Is THAT what people call them? The Six? “But we have a more political interest.” Uh oh.
“Excuse me?”
‘C’ burst in with “This is not really a prison. It’s a penal colony, and–” He actually looked around at the miners watching the screen. “–why? We should be our own country.” Hhhhhhh. Great.
“Revolution?” I GameFaced mild surprise. The government put us here, so we fight them? Not my idea of staying safe. “I doubt that I can help you. The Six have their own agenda.”
Thrash waved that down. “We know. We’re not going to ask much. But we want to know about hacking in to the system.”
I nodded. “For what purpose?”
“We want to make a counter-offer to the required registration. We’re just laying groundwork, you understand. What we want to do is create fake fights and other footage and pass them off as real. We want to do this before we push for the right to do it because it already IS our right.”
I GameFaced a bristle. “How will this affect arbitration?” My reputation needed to be protected.
“Only voluntary fights, no settlements. What we want from you is a way to finish them. ‘A’ can make and animate digital people. ‘B’ can make them look real, and ‘C’ can move them into and within an environment. We need a way to force the system to accept the footage, bypassing the cameras.”
I GameFaced my expression through relaxing and then mild interest. That would be easy enough. I sent out a signal to the podium screen. A text box appeared with ‘SECURE’ at the top. ‘C’ noticed it first and nudged Thrash. I ‘followed’ their gaze and faked a startle reaction. I typed in a summary of the request. I blanked the screen and sent a follow-up. This time the text box opened with a really long title.

WE WILL REQUEST THESE TASKS BE ACCOMPLISHED BY UPCLOSE. PLEASE STAND BY.

The text box disappeared as the screen in the arena Upclose was in grew a caption. UPCLOSE PLEASE REPORT TO PODIUM AREA OF ARENA D7. SEE Q. WE ARE ADDING TO YOUR DUTIES. The Surgeon.

The footage showed Upclose almost collide with a random beltminer, reading that. She and two curious men came. Thrash and his guys closed ranks around her and motioned them away. They complied with apologies. Her eyes were big and round.
“How much trouble am I in?” she said. So I told her.

[Herr D]

Darin’ Darren wanted to expand away from just being a clown. So he made a video of some tightrope clowning toward a video resume of an acrobatic clown. Sneaky Deke peeked and accidentally GOT HIM THE JOB by making the viewers laugh.

http://i1067.photobucket.com/albums/u438/jamais5/hm3/HerrD-Backdrop.jpg

It just goes to show that sometimes a background is not a background.
*

[Herr D]

From the ones I remember by title (and I’m getting a lot of those wrong so far,) I think the only surprise is that I read most of mine at the ‘wrong’ stage of life. The thing I remember best about the one I didn’t finish reading was ‘good grief! that doesn’t make any SENSE!’ None of the human beings thought that the spider was super-intelligent for weaving a web with words in it. They just noticed what she wove. I didn’t finish reading the book because it seemed too real. This was how people seemed every day. I was five, I think; the inner workings of the minds of most people (or lack thereof) is frequently just as disorienting to me today, nearly four decades later.

[Herr D]

Your internal dialogue is very well done. If there is a fault here, it is probably in your transitions–hard to edit for unless you do it all at once for consistency.

[Herr D]

In four minutes eleven seconds I saw Thrash and three other guys headed for me. Upclose had started drifting in and out of arenas on the other side of the hall, the ones with bigger fighting floors. Footage suggested she was just drumming up business. I didn’t think so. By that time, I had attempted to recreate what ESO had been sending, what my bot search had turned up, any dregs of unerased footage from the quake hallways, buffer data-mining losses, etc. The short summary is I hadn’t gotten very much accomplished.
Of course I’d DONE a lot. It just amounted to nothing. ESO had been reporting on Enforcers waving magnetic wands at cameras, starting a maintenance routine that just happened to last twenty-two hours. The cleaning bot was still not found, but I had figured out that it was buried in the quake and out of range of any standard transmitters. Quake footage really had been completely purged from the system during a seventh copy-outward command. Data mining hadn’t gone very well either except that I discovered the Enforcers were goofy enough they’d left power to some of the rooms buried in the quake. The four guys drew near. I prepped GameFace for rapid changes and looked at them like a Pharaoh watching slaves arrive. Each one carried two bottles.
“Q?” said Thrash, “We have water, beer, lemonade, and FayKafay. Which would you like?” Yikes.
“Is the lemonade real?” That would make it more expensive than beer.
“Sorry, no,” said the one holding it.
I nodded and looked at the water. Filtered, ozoned. “Water is fine. Thank you.” The guys looked surprised, but handed me one. I opened it. I drank a long swallow. Then they opened theirs and drank too. And Thrash told me about the wonderful idea that I didn’t know I’d given him.

[Author]

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