Round 1: The Dolphins of Despair
Jun. 1st, 2011 01:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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governmentcontrolledcatsIt's time for the first round of Government Controlled Cats!
The Prompts:
The Format: An excerpt from selected prompt's novel.
The Format's Length: 1-500 words of original fiction. Please note that entries are not required to use the words from their prompt's title and summary.
A Quick Reminder of How to Enter and Entry Rules: Five comments, containing one prompt each, will be added to this prompt post. In order to submit an entry, REPLY with a comment to your selected prompt comment. Each entry must be in the specified format and be submitted as a REPLY comment to the prompt comment. Do not comment with your entry as a reply to other entries; only comment with your entry as a reply to the original prompt comment.
Participants can submit up to three entries per round to the prompt(s) of their choice. If participants are not signed into Dreamwidth, Livejournal or openID, please include a preferred name/handle at the top of the entry comment, otherwise the entry will be considered to be written by 'anonymous.'
Submissions are due by 11:59PM United States East Coast Time on June 8th, 2011. If you're not on United States East Coast Time, you may find the World Clock to be handy. Refer to 'New York' for current United States East Coast Time.
Have fun!
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The Prompts:
Griefing: Gatherings of more than six unrelated people have been banned and the government controls houseplants.
Spin: Keychains have been banned and the government controls bowling.
Survive: Crock pots have been banned and the government controls words of more than two syllables.
Swell: Glitter has been banned and the government controls platform shoes.
Snow: Brainstorms have been banned and the government controls con badges.
The Format: An excerpt from selected prompt's novel.
The Format's Length: 1-500 words of original fiction. Please note that entries are not required to use the words from their prompt's title and summary.
A Quick Reminder of How to Enter and Entry Rules: Five comments, containing one prompt each, will be added to this prompt post. In order to submit an entry, REPLY with a comment to your selected prompt comment. Each entry must be in the specified format and be submitted as a REPLY comment to the prompt comment. Do not comment with your entry as a reply to other entries; only comment with your entry as a reply to the original prompt comment.
Participants can submit up to three entries per round to the prompt(s) of their choice. If participants are not signed into Dreamwidth, Livejournal or openID, please include a preferred name/handle at the top of the entry comment, otherwise the entry will be considered to be written by 'anonymous.'
Submissions are due by 11:59PM United States East Coast Time on June 8th, 2011. If you're not on United States East Coast Time, you may find the World Clock to be handy. Refer to 'New York' for current United States East Coast Time.
Have fun!
Prompt 1
Date: 2011-06-01 05:59 pm (UTC)Re: Prompt 1
Date: 2011-06-02 02:56 pm (UTC)The last bag is being closed, its occupant the only one still fighting, when Montag returns with a stack of statements and his face disfigured by disgust.
"Eight adults, tree of them with first-degree genetic ties," he sums up. "They knew exactly what they were doing."
Beatty shakes his head. The life long sentence these men and women are going to receive would have been, were he to be in their place, even more devastating that the capital verdict they've barely avoided by complying with the half a dozen ban.
"How many hours are we going to lose?" he asks, looking at the swarm of officers flooding the crime scene.
"Twelve each on personal decontamination for the immediate response team, thirty-six for the cleaning squad additionally to the up to seventy-two hours it'll take them to vacuum seal the place. As for the neighbors on a three block radius, eight hours on relocation, a week on quarantine and an estimate drop of one point two months on both their current and newly assigned job's efficiency. The detour will add from three to twelve minutes on the public transportation system, depending on the route. Do you really want the numbers?"
Beatty shakes his head, no. He's going to read and sign Montag's final report; he can live without knowing the total figures until then. His counter blips, twelve more minutes before his air reserves are depleted.
"Have the B team search their assigned living locations. We still don't know where the hell they are bringing the damn pocket trees from."
"You don't think it is from beyond the borders." Anymore, Montag doesn't add, something Beatty is thankful for. If it turns out his assistant was right from the start and there's a domestic vivarium, life is going to become infinitely more difficult for them all.
no subject
Date: 2011-06-08 03:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-12 12:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-12 12:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-12 03:03 am (UTC)(I think the suspicious-looking comments are indeed spam; they all have exactly 1 (one) mistake in exactly 1 (one) word. Suspicious! I don't know why they might want to do it, though. I thought the purpose of spam was to try to trick you into buying something? But there's no link ... *is mystified*)
no subject
Date: 2011-06-12 03:11 am (UTC)*shrug*
We shall never know the truth! Although, I am amused that a community devoted to dystopias got trolled by a random, bot-like anonymous commentator with mysterious intentions. It was very fitting! :P
no subject
Date: 2011-06-11 11:52 pm (UTC)entry by tangerine
Date: 2011-06-04 04:48 pm (UTC)They'd split into three groups. Syracuse East was led by Maria, a retired biodesigner who possessed an encyclopedic knowledge of roses and a genetic recombinator; her mobile and satellite command-responsive rose mutations deserved a Gruber Prize. Alexei was an affable garbage man well-known for offering to haul away yard waste. He was also a war-veteran logistical genius who drove his truck with the same care as his long-ago recon-tank; he knew Syracuse's gardens well. Jenny discovered the gun store's AARP discount. Its employees thought that she was indulging her pensioned husband, Minh, who served twenty years in the Army Corps of Engineers. Minh's expertise was custom ammunition and high-velocity injection devices; he couldn't hit the broadside of a barn, but former competitive sharp-shooter Jenny could hit a can at two thousand yards on a foggy night. Jenny's rifle delivered more than one rose's needle-vial of mutation agent.
Syracuse West held bake sales, weeded public library gardens, and volunteered for arts galas. In truth, they weeded stock tips right out of corporate guests' mouths, usually by offering a cookie, a glass of champagne and inquiring if their little company was doing well. Under the leadership of Fatimah, a retired CPA, they laundered investment returns through Icelandic bank accounts and EU bearer bonds. Molly and her brother John clerked at Syracuse Trust Bank and co-signed the club's sparsely-funded Senior Savings checking account. In the evening, they monitored the club's two and a half million euro anonymous portfolio.
Everyone in Syracuse knew Alice Chen, the retired four-term Senator who opened charity balls, scholarship fundraisers and served on the board of every city and state-wide beautification project. Alice also led Syracuse North, an anonymous cell which worked the nation's political back-alleys. Alice's list of favors-owed could have been Washington D.C.'s most exclusive contact list; few resisted when Alice wrangled for federal flower gardening contracts to go through Syracuse. Besides, Syracuse's roses were cheap, hardy and astonishingly adaptive; they flourished in parts of the country where roses never had before.
It took almost ten years of dedication, sweat, and more than one grandchild's missed birthday party, but the nation would never forget the Night of the Roses.
Re: Prompt 1
Date: 2011-06-09 03:04 am (UTC)As far as risk/reward dynamics go a 6 person book club is about as skewed as it gets. One less person and you're covered for an unexpected stranger asking for directions. Two less and if the in-laws show up you can invite them in and act like normal people.
Are those two extra club members adding that much scintillating literary insight? They were reading period literature from the mid aughts for chrissakes. This is the era that gave us Twilight and Tweeting.
Fuck.
I don't always relish my jobs but this one, well, like I said, they brought it on themselves. Someone had credits. That same someone had a grudge against not one but two of the members of this little social gathering.
The transaction was smooth and clandestine. We met one on one at my apartment. Not my HOME mind you, that's... elsewhere. I get edgy in groups of three. Four people and if I didn't plan it I'm gone.
I've read horror stories about two minivans full of laser-ball moms taking their mewling brood to practice having a fender bender and there's nothing left but smoke and some charred grip-shoes.
One tasteful Angel Ivy Ring Topiary poised artistically on a window sill with a great view and you're goners. All 7+ of you.
The gathering size thing, that's well known. People are so terrified of the rule they act on the far other extreme. They try to pretend their lives aren't completely dictated by this cruel (if brilliant) social control mechanism and try to go on about their daily lives.
Everyone knows the exceptions. Events with license status, such as certain recreational events, (see laser ball), the manufacturing, the corporate drone tanks, even a few religions cover you to, from and at the event.
Oh yeah, and of course the rally days. Any time some government big-op wants to hold a rally everyone swarms to it, enjoying the 4 hour suspension of the crowd rule. The real schmoozes only speak for about 15 minutes and for the next 3 hours and 45 minutes the flash-bars make a year's worth of profit, then go into stasis until the next rally.
Only a select few not in the government know about the damn plants though. How they got a camera in every house plant from my 89 year old mother's half dead ficus to the six-thousand credit Cactus Combo Bonsai arrangement in some rich toolbox's foyer is beyond me, but it's brilliant. Nobody ever looks for a camera in their houseplant.
I found out about them. And knowing that secret opens up a great career opportunity. 15K credits just for showing up uninvited.
The look on their faces is priceless as they look up from their reading and notice one unfamiliar face.
"Mind if I join?" I smile big for the Ponytail Palm in the living room.
The group leader opens his mouth.
He almost finishes his scream.
"Griefeeee-"
I'm already gone as the hellfire rounds from some patrolling gunship are turning the house into ashes.
Prompt 2
Date: 2011-06-01 05:59 pm (UTC)Re: Prompt 2
Date: 2011-06-02 03:49 pm (UTC)Amber smiles back. He doesn't feel like it, but when your building's Key Master smiles at you, the only acceptable response is to return the smile.
If you want your innards to stay inside, that is.
"Thanks!" he cheerily says to the retreating figure, just to be sure. The woman waves and disappears into the elevator, its doors having immediately opened as she swiped her Key.
"That was close," Amber calls from the inside as soon as the department's access gap is big enough to allow his entrance. "One day she's going to stay around longer and wonder why there are two of us."
"Then you shouldn't stand there for her to see," Amber retorts angrily, unwilling to deal with his sister after a day as bad as the current one.
Amber snorts.
"Yeah, and where do you want me to hide, under the covers? Somehow I don't think that's going to cut it."
He short of drops the Government issued ration bag in her hands, willing himself to remain silent. She's understandably snarky after thirty hours of idly staying put, he knows that -- hell, he lives that every two days.
"That bad, huh?" she says with a knowing half smile, half grimace and starts preparing their meal.
"Don't go to ISSUE these next days. Scratch that, don't ever return there."
Worry is clear on her eyes but she doesn't comment. He wishes she did, though, even if he doesn't really want to explain how he got banned from the underground Bowlerama from where almost half of their income comes.
"We can't keep doing this," she eventually declares, serving all their food in the only cup they are allowed to own. "The raids, they--." Amber waits for her to continue, which she does after taking a sip. "We need to get a job."
Amber frowns, taking the cup. The thing looks horrible, but thankfully has no smell.
"There are no jobs," he says, even if he knows Amber is well aware of the situation.
"Yesterday I saw a hiring announcement," she says after he's drained the cup. "At sector ten's Bowling Mania."
"That's Government owned," he growls, both angry and surprised at her suggestion. Doesn't she know what Government owned means? Doesn't she remember?
Amber shakes her head and takes the empty cup from his hand. Then she pours in it all the drinking water they've left, which isn't much to begin with, and sips.
"It is a job," she calmly states, and offers him the remaining liquid.
Re: Prompt 2
Date: 2011-06-30 06:04 am (UTC)Prompt 3
Date: 2011-06-01 06:00 pm (UTC)Re: Prompt 3
Date: 2011-06-08 03:29 am (UTC)“Has it?” Becka replies absentmindedly. She still has twelve text messages to respond to, which doesn’t leave much attention for Cassie. Besides, it’s not everyday that Jerome asks her about what movies she likes. Maybe he’ll finally ask her out. At any rate, she’s heard enough of Cassie’s previous rants that she doesn’t expect to hear anything new in this one.
“Yeah, and I’ll be sixteen next month. That means I’ll have to put that stupid collar on! And you’re just a month after me.” Cassie starts to pace across the room, hands clenched into fists, and her long brown hair whips behind her as she about-faces within the tiny domain of her bedroom.
“It sucks, but what do you do? I hear you get used it to it after a while.” Becka pauses for a second, and then gushes quite cheerfully, “And you can always accessorize it! Have you see those little bells they have at Marlyne’s? They’re gorgeous!”
“Accessorize it?” Cassie practically screams at Becka, her voice taking on a shrill tone while she gestures angrily. “Are you even listening to yourself? In a few months you won’t even be able to talk like that without paying up! Besides, we’re not an’mals. I think it’s gross that people dress their collars up like they’re something to be proud of.”
Ugh. Becka thinks. I guess she’s not going to leave me alone on this. I suppose Jerome’ll have to wait a few more minutes. “Well, so what? What do you expect? It’s not like we have any choice in the matter. Why not make the best of it?”
Cassie stops her pacing and looks over. Her blue eyes look like steel in the fluorescent light. “I vote we rebel while we still can!” She takes a step closer and continues, ”Before they start taking certain words away too! I mean if they can do this to us, if we allow it, what’s next? And do you really want them listening in to everything you say?”
Becka leans back against the wall, her legs stretched across the bed, and lets out a deep sigh. “I know what you mean, but what do you propose we do? What can we do? We’re not even out of high school yet. Shouldn’t someone older, someone who knows what they’re doing, fix this?”
“That’s just it! It has to be us because we’re the only ones who can still talk freely about this sort of thing. They’re not list’ning in on us yet! And...” She trails off, hesitates for a few seconds, and then continues quietly, “Well, I’ve got an idea. It’s a bit wild, but I think we’ve got a good chance. You see, I’ve got a bunch of these banned crockpots...”
Re: Prompt 3
Date: 2011-06-08 03:37 pm (UTC)I'm really enjoying everyone's entries!
Re: Prompt 3
Date: 2011-06-08 03:52 pm (UTC)Re: Prompt 3
Date: 2011-06-09 04:39 am (UTC)Re: Prompt 3
Date: 2011-06-08 03:59 pm (UTC)“And you can always accessorize it! Have you see those little bells they have at Marlyne’s? They’re gorgeous!” LOLOLOL :D
Re: Prompt 3
Date: 2011-06-09 03:11 am (UTC)Re: Prompt 3
Date: 2011-06-09 04:37 am (UTC)Re: Prompt 3
Date: 2011-06-09 02:35 am (UTC)Three hundred and sixty five pages seem like eternity, printed in tiny letters, eight points high, until you realize how many feelings are lost from the pages. Is there a word for the loneliness you feel after a thunderstorm, when the lightning no longer flashes across the sky, and the terror has retreated? Was there ever such a word? I hope that I will know when I finish learning the words in school; one at a time, until I can fill my heart with every word there ever was.
Our language teacher, Mrs. Macready, walks with clipped steps, and checks our grammar twice. Any word over two syllables long is crossed out in red pen. Clipped, efficient style, that’s the thing, Mrs. Macready says. We will be journalists and writers one day, churning out leaflets of propaganda and how-to manuals, and we must make sure that we are understood. There is no room for a susurrus when a whisper will do. Everyone must understand what we say.
And so, we practice in the school room, for hours on end, typing out bland reports of the weather, our family’s activities, our classmates’ conversations, dutifully turning them in, to be marked and graded, until we are masters of our art.
Every Tuesday, the routine is interrupted for a history lesson, so that we understand the mistakes of the past and do not repeat them. Mrs. Gilbert, the history teacher, has a haggard look about her face, and tells of unimaginable luxury – families who wasted six hours of electricity to indulge in hot meat, people who kept animals in their house, but never ate or milked them, children who kept secrets and told lies.
Our way is better.
Re: Prompt 3
Date: 2011-06-09 03:14 am (UTC)That phrase sums it all :|
Re: Prompt 3
Date: 2011-06-09 03:51 am (UTC)That stopped when he crested the doorway.
"Where are they?" he asked, his voice rough and guarded. "How many? Any from the Resistance?"
Mason hardly heard the faint, single click from the chip implanted in his neck, just below his left ear. He hardly ever heard it now, even when he wasn't on the clock. His words were clipped out of habit, but as an officer of the Arm, he didn't have to worry about the voice curfew.
"Nine," Arch said, even as he offered a casual two-fingered salute. "Well, there were nine. Now there's only four left. Two tried to fight. Three tried to run. The rest gave up like they all should've done from the start."
"You can't fucking do this to us, assholes!" One of the four remaining had found his voice again, and he seemed determined to rack up as large a fine as he could get before he got hit with a stun round, be it through insubordination or curfew violation. Mason could hear the high pitched mod chip tone its warning from across the room. "Government's got no right to take away our freedom! Freedom of speech, freedom of liberty, undeniable freedom of justice – not this bullshit! Freedom and liberty're what this country's built on, or did you forget that whenever you--"
His tirade was abruptly cut off as one of the Arms - one of the rookies, most likely - finally stepped forward to hit him with all 50,000 volts of a light round. Mason hadn't even looked away from Arch, hadn't skipped a beat in spite of the outburst. "How much contraband was found?" Click.
"Small haul, to be honest," his captain admitted with a frown, then gestured toward where a door panel had been hidden behind a blind. "A few of the old style elec-cookers mostly - crock pots, hot plates, that sort of thing. Only thing really interesting was a microwave."
"Interesting," Mason agreed. He gave Arch a slight nod. "Keep looking. The rebels are grasping at any piece of un-chipped tech they can get their hands on. Where there's one.." He didn't need to finish that thought out loud. They all knew more than well enough that the old style electronics made the best bombs in this war.
After all, without chips they were untraceable.
Prompt 4
Date: 2011-06-01 06:00 pm (UTC)Re: Prompt 4
Date: 2011-06-08 11:09 pm (UTC)The flickering video image was another one of those stupid presidential speeches, reminding everyone about the shoe laws. Tabitha rolled her eyes. "It's just the Supreme Leader being tedious," she said. "All the speeches are the same."
Yuki smiled. "Not this one. Watch."
Tabitha leaned forward, squinting at the screen and rubbing her feet. The latest shoe law had banned sneakers except for athletes and government officials, and her feet weren't used to the strappy sandals now mandated for teens. No arch support.
The image flickered, sound crackling. The wires behind the wall must be coming loose again. "--and remember, it is vitally important not to--"
A shower of sparkling motes cascaded down over the president's perfectly coifed Ken-doll hair and scowling face, all colors in the harsh media lighting. "Is that--"
Yuki nodded, her grin threatening to split her face.
"--glitter?"
Yuki opened her mouth, but before she could say anything they hear the thud of platformed feet on the stairs. Yuki's eyes went wide. "Oh god, it's the Platforms! They must have followed me. Tabitha, is there another way out?"
There wasn't time to ask why the cops would be following Yuki. Tabitha leapt to her feet, heart racing. "Follow me!" She ran over to the sliding door out onto her porch and hauled it open. The fire escape was rickety, not up to code, but she'd climbed down it a few times. No cops in platform shoes would be getting down that fire escape!
Prompt 5
Date: 2011-06-01 06:01 pm (UTC)Re: Prompt 5
Date: 2011-06-06 07:18 pm (UTC)(Psssssst! That's Souter!)
Oh.
Anyway. Carry on.
Re: Prompt 5
Date: 2011-06-06 08:46 pm (UTC)My own badge still had the mandatory plastic casing on it. Our con had its own circuit board badges, even today, but if you got caught hacking one in public and a Fed happened to be around, you could be in trouble.
If you happened to be a Fed, and you didn't put a stop to it, you could be in trouble. But she hadn't done anything, hadn't even touched the soldering iron to the badge yet. The plastic casing was off, but in itself that wasn't illegal.
As for Tiny Purple-Haired Hacker, it wasn't as if she could hide behind the excuse that she didn't realize she was doing anything wrong. The anti-badge hacking laws were nearly as old as she was. Con organizers had to get official approval for their badge designs, and electronic badges like these required a token effort from the organizers to keep them from being hacked, such as plastic casing. But the fact that the anti-modding laws were a normal part of her con experience wasn't stopping her.
"What are you going to do with your badge?"
She looked up as if noticing me for the first time. I wasn't exactly unusual around here. Thirtysomething white guy, beard, black t-shirt with geek jokes. One of thousands. I never got spotted as a Fed, but the way her eyes narrowed made me wonder if she'd figured me out already.
After a moment's assessment, she held up her badge and pointed at the QR code on the embedded e-ink display.
"I'm going to make it point to my blog instead," she said, all matter-of-fact, a slight tilt to her chin when she said it. "And before you ask, it was all my idea. Nobody helped me."
Another asinine law, but this time she was following it. There were strict regulations on creative development these days, particularly in the fields of computers and electronics. Anyone not working for a corporation was supposed to work on their own. No community involvement, no brainstorming. It'd been a nice try at killing off the open source movement, but after three years of that, open source hadn't gone anywhere.
So maybe Tiny Purple-Haired Hacker was just proud of herself. Maybe she just wanted it to be her accomplishment and no one else's. She probably got asked all too often if her father helped her with her projects.
She put a micro-USB port onto the back of the badge and soldered it on, and as I watched, a whole new badge was born. When she was finished, she uploaded her image, e-ink display blinking to show a brand-new QR code.
I couldn't help but grin. There was definitely hope for the future.
Re: Prompt 5
Date: 2011-06-06 09:53 pm (UTC)Re: Prompt 5
Date: 2011-06-06 11:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-11 11:51 pm (UTC)