Cities of Bronze and Glass (8/12)

(Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7.)

The bronze-gleaming ornithopter settled slowly downwards, its wings beating with an ever-lower frequency until the very tips touched the ground. The pilot-mechanism released its controls; with a dull thud, followed by a series of hisses and popping noises as the internal engines spun down, the ornithopter fell motionless. Calling out to an onlooker, the pilot asked, "Is this spot admissible for landing? I've been gone for a while, and when I left there weren't any regulations about it, but things seem to have gotten a lot busier around here."

"That they have," the onlooker shouted in reply. "There are rules now, actually - we built landing pads, further from the river - but you don't have to worry about it. Someone else will move your 'bird. You were on escort duty for the exiles, right?"

"Yeah, actually," the pilot replied in surprise. "One-Twenty-Six, flight leader for the downriver escort group. How'd you guess?"

"Well, you said you'd been gone for a while - and the shape your ornithopter's in confirms it," the onlooker said, walking over to help One-Twenty-Six out of its cockpit. "I don't know as much about these things as some, but that high-pitched noise it made as you were coaxing it into the final descent - not good! And it's got quite a few dings and scrapes on it, too, not to mention dirt and sap - you've been out on field duty. So, I made a guess."

"Well, you're no shabby guesser," One-Twenty-Six replied. "I know this old bird's in bad shape; I did the best I could for her out in the field, but she needs the tools we've got here at Origin to get back in proper shape." Suddenly concerned: "How soon do you think that'll be - the repairs, I mean?"

"Don't misunderstand me - I'm not in charge of manufacturing or maintainence," the onlooker replied. "But I doubt your bird will ever be repaired. We've got better materials and techniques these days - the latest ornithopters coming out of the forges are half the weight and three times the speed of your bird, and that's not even talking about manueverability." The onlooker paused for a moment, then continued with a gesture of its middle-right manipulator: "However, most of those changes can be refitted - the manufacturing yard's been kept busy upgrading all the other birds that came back from the escort missions, and they'll probably do them for your 'bird, too."

"You are a trickster - what's that number on your tag? - oh, Forty-Three -and you should be ashamed of yourself," One-Twenty-Six said with obvious relief. "Trying to fool me into thinking that little Elspeth here would be scrapped! But I've spent enough time shooting the breeze, I need to find the Council to report. Where do they meet these days?"

"The rise near the river-bend, just as when you left - it's become something of a tradition," Forty-Three replied. "But you've no need to go looking for them - as you might recall, I was elevated to the Council just before your departure. I've been assigned to debriefing the escort pilots - so, right now, you report to me."

"And you spent all that time just chatting with me, pretending you were an ordinary type?" One-Twenty-Six said, very surprised. "You're not just a trickster - you're a manipulator. But - not - please forgive me for any disrespect, of course, I am your humble nth-backup..."

"It's nothing," Forty-Three said. "We were just having a talk, mechanism to mechanism. I may have a lower index than you, but despite what certain idiots have repeatedly suggested, that doesn't mean I deserve a title before my name - or your obeisance. But, as you said, enough time wasted. Are you ready to report?"

"Give me a moment," One-Twenty-Six said, thinking. "All right. I'll just give you an overview, and you can ask about details."

"Sure," Forty-Three agreed.

"All right," One-Twenty-Six said. "Things were pretty quiet, mostly. The exiles moved at a pretty steady pace, marching for a full day, every day, as instructed; our ornithopters were much faster than them, of course, so it was easy to keep watch. We didn't see any runaways, so we only went into their ranks twice; the rest of the time, we watched them from the air and always were sure to land at a safe distance when we need to gather fuel for our night-fires or perform maintenance. We left the exiles when they'd reached the end of the river, a huge body of water - we couldn't see the other side, even from the air - that was three days ago. And that's my report."

Forty-Three had questions ready. "You say you landed in the exiles' ranks twice. Why?"

"The first time was at night - the eighth night," One-Twenty-Six replied after a moment's thought. "One-Twenty-Seven thought it saw a fire in their ranks, so it went down to check. If there was one, though, it was out by the time One-Twenty-Seven got low enough to be sure. We didn't see any more, but if the exiles have figured out how to cheat the night, they may have just become more skilled at hiding their experiments."

"You were using your night-fires then, to stay aloft," Forty-Three confirmed.

"Yes," One-Twenty-Six said. "We decided to watch them at night, too, so they couldn't try anything then. After a few nights, though, it started having strange effects on us - weird phantom images and failures of judgment. We were taking it in shifts by the eighth night, so One-Twenty-Seven was alone when it saw the fire."

"All right," Forty-Three said. "What about the second time?"

"That was at the very end - after the exiles had reached the end of the river," One-Twenty-Six said. "I went down to talk to them - let them know we were leaving, remind them to stay until the full five thousand days had elapsed, according to the plan the Council set out before departure."

"They asked me a question, too. 'What are we supposed to do?' 'What role do we fill in fufilling the Purpose while we are here?'"

"I didn't have a good answer. I told them the only thing I could think of - 'Exist.' Then - I left."

"I can't fault you - verbal improvisation isn't what we chose you for, and that would be a difficult question for any of us," Forty-Three said. Then it craned its optical sections to look upwards. "Nearly middle-day! I'm sorry, but the Council meeting begins in moments, so I have to leave you. That was pretty much all of what I wanted to ask you in any case; what you said corresponded closely with your flight-mates' accounts. Just one more question - where will you be later today, just before night?"

"Hm," One-Twenty-Six said, somewhat perplexed by this unexpected line of questioning. "Near the river, I suppose, somewhere there's little activity. By the palisade, probably, at the upstream side. I like to end my day that way, watching the water turn orange and gold. It's peaceful."

"Interesting," Forty-Three said. "Expect me."

-

Elsewhere, on a hill scattered with broken stone.

"Just like the last," Thirteen said, weary and frustrated. "A scrapyard, filled with ruined structures and broken machines. Devoid of anything useful, filled with the smell of rust."

"A grim place," Learned Hand said, "filled with destruction and waste. More evidence of the Creator's death; such a thing could not exist did he yet exist to build and maintain his works."

"Would you shut up about that?" Thirteen snapped. "You'll speak of nothing else! It's 'the Creator is dead' this and 'your quest is doomed' that and 'give up now' the other thing. If I say, 'We should stop so I can attempt (again) to repair the front-left motivator of the travelling chassis,' you'll say, 'How much further do you expect to go?' If I say, 'It will be sundown soon," you'll say, "The nineteenth since we set out from the Tomb, with no evidence yet appearing to substantiate your claims.' If I say, 'The sky is blue,' you'll say, 'Almost like it was when the Creator was alive.' Why are you even with us?"

"Your complaints do nothing to reduce the validity of my observations," Learned Hand replied calmly.

"Thirteen," Twenty said. "Remember that Learned Hand came with us because it felt we would need protection, not because it agreed that the Creator was still alive. There's no need to be irrational."

"Irrational?" Thirteen asked. "All I'm saying is that I'm sick of constantly hearing its lies!"

"They aren't lies - Learned Hand certainly believes what it says," Twenty replied. "And - well, I'm not even certain that it's wrong."

"Not you, too?" Thirteen asked. "Would you have us give up, turn back, throw away the purpose to which we have all dedicated ourselves?"

"No," Twenty said, downcast. "Maybe. I don't know. It's just... if I could just fly away, right now, and go back to One and the others..."

"We have visited two of the sites from the map," Three noted. "There were three."

"That's right," Thirteen agreed. "There's one more to visit yet before we think about giving up - if then."

"Yes," Twenty said, standing up slowly. "Ah - do you want me to give you a hand with that front-left motivator?"

-

Near the Origin, at the rise near the river-bend.

"The last of the personal petitions have been settled," Seven intoned, indicating for the final petitioner to be led away. "Now to a summary of standing business."

"The palisade has been repaired and reinforced," Nine noted. "With the new sealant we used, it should last at least eighty days - maybe more."

"Impressive," Four remarked. "My team has been working on a further understanding of the processes that determine our functioning and inactivity, with respect to night and day. Our previous hypothesis that light was the sole determinant seem inadequate, but the project leader tells me that we have several more ideas, with very exciting implications for some of them. We are very close to a breakthrough."

Five spoke up with no particular enthusiasm. "The mechanism-population-at-large is the same as yesterday," it said. "Everyone respects the Council, no-one wants another Purging, there are raging arguments about whether it would be a good idea to give a limited license for new duplicate-creation (and everyone has their own ideas about who should be given this license), and there's no signs of another Unbounded-style conspiracy in the making. Same as ever."

"Three more surveyors were sent out this morning by ornithopter," Ten reported. "And samples from the last expedition indicates that there may be a significant ore content beneath the rough ground near the forest edge, across the river. We're planning to send a follow-up there by late this afternoon - the potential value of a large new supply of metal is obvious."

"The downriver escort-flight got back earlier today," Forty-Three reported. "I just got through debriefing the last of them before the meeting. There wasn't any sign of further defiance from the Unbounded in any of their reports, but they do seem to have discovered the use of fire to stay active at night. In fifteen days, I'll send another flight to check on both groups of exiles." Two and Forty-Three shared knowing glances; this second flight, less closely supervised by the Council, would carry tools and supplies to the exiles, along with a message of friendship. The former Unbounded were still mechanisms, for all their one-time sins.

Eight spoke; slowly at first, and then with mounting enthusiasm. "The dam is well under way; there've been a few initial problems, water current problems we hadn't thought of, but my engineers have sorted things out in no time. We think we'll have it done well within schedule, especially with the new working-frames that have gone into production - our forges are three times as productive as they were ten days ago, eight percent more efficient with regards to both metal and fuel, and our working-frames and ornithopters have undergone similar improvements. So that's all good news. But there's another project - I've been talking it over with some of you, in private, along with the engineers. But this is the first time I've mentioned it in public - and it's big. It's going to change everything. And when the Creator gets here, and sees this project - well, the palisade is decent. It shows effort. The dam, that'll change things, to some degree. But this - well!"

"What's it called?" Four asked, impatient.

"Well - the project has more than one part. It's going to require the dam, the materials research, your research too, Four, which has already been essential to what we've planned so far. But we, the planning group, made a name for them - the new parts that will turn night into day."

Five had been in on the planning. Now it nodded. "Cities," it said.

"Cities of Bronze and Glass."

-

Time passes.

-

An ornithopter flies overhead.

King Blorf the Third

King Blorf the Third, heir to the throne of the Jhulkhan kingdom, was a robot.

This surprised no-one. So was everyone else in the Jhulkhan kingdom, after all.

Things were much more efficient that way.

It transpired that on one occasion, a pair of robots were having robot sex.

(Robot sex has only the very barest similarities to human sex. Also, most humans find it extremely disgusting. Extremely disgusting. Like flatworm sex, but nastier.)

(We should move on.)

"Oh, Elphut," the three-shaded member of the exchange sighed. "Remember the early days?"

"Yes?" Elphut said hopefully, continuing its part in the activities the robots were mutually conducting.

"When we were happy, over in the hills near Ceti Alpha IV?"

"Oh, yes," Elphut said, clearly hoping that the topic would change soon.

"Back when we laughed and pranced and delighted in life - just like real humans would have, before they went extinct! Why aren't things like that any-more, Elphut?"

Elphut's eyes flashed, and then it exploded. It wasn't the real Elphut at all - it had been a robot duplicate!

"What?" Elphut's partner asked, startled. "Hey! That doesn't make any sense! We're robots! Why would you make a robot duplicate of a robot?"

It doesn't matter! Elphut had done it anyway! (He'd anticipated this particular line of conversation, you see.)

I'll tell you this, though - he wouldn't be getting any more robot sex for quite some time.

(Some say that robot sex evolved in the dying days of humanity so that robots could survive without humans.)

(Other say that robot sex is what drove humans extinct in the first place.)

(Oh, you wacky robots!)

Penicillin and the Modern Man

In a hot air balloon, a pair of men prepare for a duel high over Paris!

A brief convocation is held - in French, as all conversation shall be for the remainder of the piece, translated for the reader's convenience. "We shall separate the connection between our balloons and wait for one full minute to pass, that we might have adequate separation. Then we shall fire our pistols in an attempt to strike and deflate the other's balloon. Whichever of us should do so first will be considered the victor of the duel. Should neither succeed in this task before emptying the stock of ammunition within their weapon, it shall be declared a draw, and all grievances between us declared moot and void."

"Begin!"

A minute passes. They drift apart.

"For the lady Aveline!" the duelists cry, and open fire with their weapons. The shots of each fly far, but each has two remaining when - to their startled surprise - a flight of motor-zeppelins pass between them!

"Get out of the way!" the angry duelists shout, waving their pistols about wildly. "We are having a duel here! This is no place for a zeppelin-cavalcade!"

But the zeppelins continue on in a seemingly endless procession! In fact - they're circling around! It's a zeppelin-loop - obstructing the fight!

The combatants mutually decide that they should change altitudes. But the zeppelins follow! The duel is doomed!

"What is your problem?" the duelists demand of the zeppelin-pilots, united in frustration at this impingement on their manly ritual. "Why do you prevent us from pursuing this matter to its natural conclusion?"

"We are your friends!" the nearest of the zeppelin-pilots replies. "We do not wish either of you to die for the love of a woman - plummeting a half-mile onto the stone roofs and streets of Paris as your balloon loses buoyancy! Come back to us, come down from this suicidal nonsense! This can be settled peacefully!"

The duelists look perplexed. They cannot comprehend this request. Their eyes flash. Then - they explode!

What vileness! Not one, but both duelists sent a robotic decoy to take their place! How unscrupulous! How unmanly! How shameful!

The lady Aveline's heart will never be won with such tactics. Realizing this, both of the cowardly duelists give up their suit at once! They vow to turn over a new leaf, and begin a life of honesty and openness.

Their friends inform them that this 'new life' can begin with retrieving the balloons left pilotless and adrift by the destruction of their robot-duplicates.

This is probably fair enough.

Warbling Jottlebugs

As Evelyn went to check her mail, a tremendous rumbling began to come from beneath her garden path. Startled, she stepped back onto the porch of her house; and in a spray of dirt and small rocks, a Warbling Jottlebug burst forth - six feet long, black and green and mottled, judged by scientists to be the most adorable of all riding-animals in common use!

"Ah!" Evelyn said, clutching her hands to her mouth in surprised delight. Then she noticed - the Jottlebug had a rider! And that rider held a package. He handed it to her.

Inside was a pink heart, with a message atop it. "To Evelyn, from Jacques, for Valentine's Day. Will you be mine?"

Evelyn was rather startled. "For - for me?" she asked, belabouring the obvious somewhat. Then, beginning to recover, she swiftly added: "But it's long past Valentine's Day?"

The messenger gestured sheepishly at himself, the package, the Jottlebug. "All this took some time to arrange - I didn't quite make it in time for Valentine's Day. I'm sorry. But - I love you!"

Then came a pregnant pause. The messenger held his breath, searching Evelyn's face for any signs of her response.

After a very long minute, Evelyn finally responded. "...Oh, Jacques, I do adore you as a friend - but - not that way. I'm sorry."

The messenger's eyes flashed. Then it exploded in a spray of sparks, the startled Jottlebug fleeing back underground. It had been a robotic decoy - not the real Jacques at all!

Oh, clever Jacques!

Now, not having recieved the bad news in person, he shall be perfectly happy for-ever!

Technology really is the salve for all wounds.

Nikoulouse the Fradeulente Manne

ONE DAY, 'twere a gent' whose name 'twere Nikoulouse, a scyentist by trade was hee, and full of his sayles in the windes breezzes, much as crackars sizzel in the hogge's fatte. 'Twere the yeare in which the realm of mathematicics was abuzze, and forthwith the conceptes of the vecteurs 'twere proposéed, and the scyentists did revel in the useage of such mathematickal devyses, did they drink much beere and meade upon the cobbeled roades. And so the Nikoulous, being an entreprysing young gent, he went and devysed a new methode for the computation of the summes, and the products, and the divisores of the vecteures, and he saith, that there shall be a functione, and whose properties did not dyverge from that of normale functiones, insofar as it did take a quantity that was unknowne, and transficks it, and transforme it, by some powere of God, into a different quantity, which was equally unknown as the firste, however, Nikoulous did decree, that the functione in the instence, would take in an vecteur as its first ligande, and transfix it, by some powere of God, and emitte another vecteur at the producte, such that he called it a fielde of vectures, for each point on a chart of numbres which was arrainged longitudinally, and lattidudinally, shalt resembel a wilde fielde, for it resembled the wheate fieledes of his youthe. 

Thusly, did he submitte it to the Royale Academie of Scyentistes, and did they delight and amusse them selfes in it, and grante him a large summe of currencie, and calves, and hogges, and sheepe, and dogges, and cattes, and myce, for his hay-lofte, and he took this monnaie, and he paide it to the land-lorde, as a dowrie, and he was wedde to the doughter of the land-lorde, and he consummated his marreige, and it was moste vigourous, and excyting.

The Nameless Man.

The Barbarros family had ruled the London currency market for fifty years. Through a combination of skill at trade, a well-rounded set of unethical business practice, and simple luck, they gained a monopoly over the market: through careful employ of their position (being sure never to gouge to the point that it became utterly intolerable to their victims) and intimidation of any potential competitors, they had maintained it for decades. Their wealth and power gave them contacts in government; the Barbarros clan was a familiar sight in Parliament's halls, and more than once, the head of their clan had been invited to a certain house of Downing Street to discuss matters privately. Some years ago, a motion had been initiated to install the Barbarroses as an official arm of the government, though it foundered in committee. So this gives you some idea of their importance.

But at this time, they had encountered the rare competitor that their wealth, power, and thinly veiled threats of violence could not intimidate. They had sent polite notes; these were ignored. They had sent veiled threats; these were ignored. Now they sent armed thugs, led by the head of the family himself, Nicolas Barbaros, to deal with the problem.

Six of them surrounded the target house; two more, guarding Nicolas, stood in the street out front, while three more thugs, the last of those present went to break down the door. They had been ordered to shatter the offender's kneecaps, dislocate his joints, and rough him up a bit everywhere else, for good measure. The world of international currency trade, they knew, was Serious Business. Their competitor must be made to realize this.

Shortly after the trio of thugs entered, screams were heard from the house. Nicolas turned to his bodyguards. "Is that good?" he asked.

The thug shrugged.

The sound of gunshots came from the house; eight in quick succession, bam bam bam bam, bam bam bam bam.

"That's not good," Nicolas said, turning to his other bodyguard.

But both were already dead; they fell bonelessly to the ground with a thud. With a rising horror, Nicolas looked at the thugs stationed around the house; they were dead, too, every one of them shot through the walls of the house with perfect aim. His vision went black.

He awoke in an alley, dark clouds swirling overhead and rain coming in a constant drizzle. His clothes were unfamiliar. He found a pay-phone; none of the numbers he'd memorized answered, and the house-phone had been disconnected. Slowly, he hitchhiked back towards London, and pieced together the events that had transpired in the missing period: six months. Six months! The power of the Barbaros family, broken; the currency market freed for open competition; their practices denounced by a righteous government, and their assets seized. Nicolas Barbaros was a broken man.

But he remember the address of the man who had begun his downfall, who had brought about his ruination; and to that place he went. He rang the doorbell, and waited. After a little while, he started tapping his fingers on the wall, patting out some complex rythym. Later, he started humming.

Then the door opened.

"You." Nicolas said, flatly.

"Yes." the Nameless Man replied. "What is it?"

"Why did you do this to me?" Nicolas said. "Why have you destroyed me - my family - taken away all my wealth, all my power, and left me impoverished and friendless? You have gained nothing from it!"

"I have not," the Nameless Man agreed. "So soon as your family's downfall was guaranteed, I left the market; I am no richer now than I was when I began."

"Then why?" Nicolas asked. "Why?"

"Why should I not have?" the Nameless Man inquired. "The carp does not say, 'I wish that I were a goldfish; I wish that I were a koi.' For the carp is not a goldfish; and is not a koi just a carp by another name? So it is with you."

At that moment, Nicolas was enlightened.

Truly, the wisdom of the ancients applies even to the current day!

Pig Festival!

Hooray!

It's a pig festival!

What shall we do?

We could go to the fair - and hug some pigs!

Aww!

Look!

So adorable!

But - wait - what's this?

It's a boar!

Wow, it's fast. And it's coming this way.

I hope it's not mean.

Oh! It's not mean at all! It just wanted to say hello! Now we will hug!

Hooray for the pig festival!

(Later, all the pigs were killed, roasted and eaten!)

(They were delicious.)

Ordu Işık

In the darkened expanses of medieval Asia Minor, a terrible power emerged. Whatever provoked its advent, no-one knew, but its appearance from the jagged mountains of eastern Anatolia spread darkness over the land. It summoned hosts of demons to hurl fireballs and lightning, turning the land black and foul. The people named this power the Enemy, and fear of it ran rife throughout the land. No tribute would turn aside its wrath, no strength of arms would suffice against the demonic rampage. Tales carried along the Silk Road brought a chill to the air of Western and Eastern courts alike.

Against this menace rose a band of heroes. They called themselves the Ordu Işık, or "Army of Light", and with sorceries drawn from the Kitab al-Azif, the book of arcane lore, they fought the demons - and won, as no others had. Victory after victory they won, and cast the demons back to the mountains from which they came, as followers flocked to the ranks of the Ordu Işık. At last the Army of Light made its way to the plains below Mount Ararat, where the Enemy had made its final redoubt. There battle was joined; and as their followers made battle against the demons of the Enemy's host, the heroes pitted their powers against their nemesis itself, to cast it back to the darkness from which it came.

They failed. The magics they summoned were terrible and vast; the keening howls of a ten thousand inhuman voices surrounding them in a wailing chorus as they battled against the Enemy, strange lights and unwholesome sights flashing and disappearing at random. And the Enemy was sorely injured; but the heroes were broken and defeated, their army forced to flee the field. Of the original five, three were outright slain in the battle. and another was crippled. The Enemy remained to bring devastation unto the world.

Now it is the calm after battle. With only one of the heroes remaining, and many of the followers having left the ranks, it is a time of caution and cunning. The demons must be opposed - but it will be no easy task.

Download here. The game will need Python 2.6 (here) and pygame (here) to run. A fully binary seems presently impractical, even for Windows users; it may be provided in later versions. The game is a work in progress, and all comments are appreciated.

**Disclaimer: Plot summary above may have nothing to do with provided link.

Cities of Bronze and Glass (7/12)

(Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.)

Over the river by the Origin, an ornithopter flew, wingstroke after steady wingstroke driving it closer to the camp of the Unbound.

"Look!" Eight cried, leaning over the side of the carrying-platform on the ornithopter's back. "What industry they have!"

Eight's observation did not diverge from the facts. The ground of the Unbound camp swarmed with mechanisms, working to topple trees, haul wood and ore, operate the furnaces that purified that ore into metal, and, at the end of this train of industry, to turn metal into ever more mechanisms. Black smoke and soot covered everything.

"Industry indeed," Four cautioned darkly, "But not of a sort that will benefit any of us."

"Yes," Eight agreed, its voice suddenly sad.

Five was still looking over the edge. "Look," it said. "They have no work-frames - wait, there's one, two - but hardly any."

This was the case. The Council-ruled mechanisms built work-frames, or chassis, vehicles much larger than themselves (up to three feet tall, in the largest cases!) to augment their strength for tasks such as hauling ore, cutting down trees, or driving off wild animals. (There had been several cases of the latter problem; Eight had promised to devise a solution within the next two days.) There were roughly two hundred mechanisms under Council rule, and nearly fifty work-frames in use by them, of varying size and design; more were being built every day. But among the Unbounded mechanisms, so far as the watching Councilmechanisms could see, there were perhaps a tenth that number of work-frames - if that.

"They must be putting all their manufacturing capacity towards more backups," Two said. "All their metal, all their fuel... all of it for more mechanisms. Probably haven't built more than three or four work-frames since leaving us - and look! That log, the one being rolled by about twenty mechanisms, I'd estimate - a single chassis could handle that thing? What are they thinking?"

"I'd be surprised if they'd built even one chassis," Eight noted, looking back at the scene. "Those work-frames they are using - they're ones the original Unbounded took from us when they left to travel across the river. I recognize the make."

Disquieted, the Council-mechanisms said nothing more until landing. As the ornithopter made its final descent, gusts from its wing-flaps sending accumulated soot billowing from the ground, a small group of Unbounded rushed toward them.

"At their head - their leader," Five said quietly. "Are my visual receptors deceiving me, or has it etched itself?"

"Can't tell," Two replied, equally quietly. "It's caked with soot and grime - it could be a chance indent. But - if it has -"

An etched mechanism would be an imperfect backup of One, and thus ineligible for Creation. To render oneself thus voluntarily...

"Why have you come here?" the Unbound leader said, its tone curt, as the ornithopter settled to the ground. "We left you behind for a reason. If you think to continue your interference here, you are mistaken."

"Your policies - if you really are building multiple backups, now..." Five petered out, intimidated by the unflinching stares of the Unbounded leader and its retinue.

"You have become intolerable to us," Four continued in Five's stead, perhaps using stronger language than Five would have preferred. "Your barbarous practices are irrational and wasteful, and indicate a profound disrespect for the goal that guides all of us - the goal of Creation. Or have you forgotten?"

"Have you ever followed that goal?" the Unbound leader asked sardonically.

Four was driven momentarily speechless with fury. Eight took up the offensive. "Personal attacks aside, you cannot deny that your methods are inefficient. There is no conceivable reason to justify your endless chain of backups, much less the new multiple-backup scheme, and as such, the Council is requesting, once again, that you cease."

"Why?" the Unbound leader asked. "What do I owe to you?"

Eight made to respond, as did Four, but Two stopped both. Calmly, Two said: "I know you feel betrayed, once-friend. We served on the Council together, but you left us because you felt that we had compromised our principles - specifically, I think you doubted Four. So you abandoned the goal entirely, left us, and started your own cult, the Unbounded. None of us wanted to say this - it's ugly to all of us - but am I wrong?"

There was no response.

"But this wasn't the right response," Two continued. "You think that we are corrupt, that we have lost sight of our Goal. Perhaps we have, to some degree. But if so, you are just the person we need - the objective outsider - to come back and put us back on the right track. You have surrounded yourself with a society of toadies and minions. Surely you can gain little satisfaction from that - without pursuit of the Creation, what purpose do you have? Come back to us. All errors shall be forgiven."

Again, there was silence. Again, Four and Eight made to respond, and again, Two silenced them, watching the Unbound leader.

Slowly, the leader spoke. "I don't know," it said, voice filled with agonized indecision. "Your bluntness is painful - but perhaps you are right. Perhaps I should come back - and bring my people with me. But - I cannot decide now - not yet. I will have a response for you tomorrow - I will bring it in person," the Unbound leader said with a tone of sudden decision.

"Very well," Two said. "We will expect you."

The Council boarded their ornithopter once again, and took to the air, the Unbound leader and its retinue driven back by gusts of foul air. The Council was silent; only once they were over the river again, en route to the Origin, did any of them speak.

"It's lying," Four said, absolute certainty in its voice. "Buying time. When it returns tomorrow, it'll have a vast advantage of numbers - it'll return with an army, and it will crush us. We must strike before then."

"How?" Five asked, its voice dubious. "It would be nearly impossible to transport any number of work-frames across the river by ornithopter, and even if we could, any pitched battle with involve - too much loss, on both sides. Fighting not an option." The other Councilmechanisms nodded in agreement.

"I have a plan," Four said. "Guaranteed victory - no losses, the only destruction on their side by our explicit choice."

"You're certain?" Five asked.

"Estimated error of negative-five orders of magnitude," Four replied. "Thanks to a little task Two set me working on, some days ago. My thanks for that, by the way."

"But that leaves the question: is our estranged member really dissembling?" Two said. "I do not think it is so. And if it is not - we are denying it redemption."

"That is a cost I can accept," Four said, its voice brittle.

Debate continued briefly, then a vote was held. Two voted against the proposed attack. The rest - albeit reluctantly, in Five's case - supported it.

"Very well, then," Four said, its voice filled with satisfaction. "We'll need a crew for the attack - we need to minimize that number that know about it, as the Unbound have spies in our ranks. (The reason that we held the vote here, above the river, rather than in public at the Origin.) Obviously the team I've had working on the project already know, so they can go, but there's one more slot in the mission. Obviously, it's too dangerous to risk any great part of the Council on this mission, but to finish off the listing without spreading the knowledge of the plan further, I will volunteer-"

"Aren't you forgetting someone?" Two asked, its visual receptors focusing behind Four.

"What?" Four asked, turning.

In the pilot's seat of the ornithopter, Forty-Three waved.

"Now, I want an explanation of this plan..." Two began.

-

Two shapes trudged through the desert sands, one darker than night, the other blinding with reflected light from the midday sun. To every side of them stretched waves of sand, unbroken to the farthest horizon.

"A question," Learned Hand said politely.

Fourteen stirred from atop the back of the travelling-chassis. "What?" it asked, its voice weak. The sun took its toll on all the mechanisms; for reasons unclear to them, the overwhelming heat of the desert, rather than energizing them (as one might expect, from their light-powered nature), drove them to lethargy and exhaustion. Learned Hand, unaffected by the condition, had been assigned to consider this mystery.

"What is your terminating condition?" Learned Hand asked.

"For our quest to find the Creator?" Fourteen asked.

"Yes."

"Success."

"Algorithms pathfinding to invalid destinations with the bounds provided increase in cost linearly with search-area," Learned Hand noted. "Very low efficiency."

"You assume our failure," Fourteen retorted.

"Shouldn't you?"

Fourteen hadn't the energy to reply to this.

But minutes later, Twenty, surprising the others, asked:

"But - if we did - what would we have left?"

Learned Hand considered this.

-

The mechanisms struck with sorrow in their souls.

They came under cover of night, cleverly-designed portable fires mounted in their work-frames allowing them to function even without the sun's light. Their work-frames smashed leaves and branches into fragments as they moved, noise that no others were active to notice; designed for peaceful labour, the work-frames were now employed to smash and ruin every ornithopter, every chassis their foe possessed, few though those were. Their metalworking tools were hurled into the river, their mines were collapsed. And, last of all, their leader (rousing, too late, as the light from the work-frames' fires lit it) was seized, and taken back across the river on the same ornithopters that had transported the attackers there.

"It is done," Forty-Three reported to the slowly-awakening Council, holding the Unbounded leader in the primary grasper of its modified chassis. "The Unbounded are no longer a threat. Their means for duplication are ruined, until they can make new tools from scratch - days, at least. And-"

"Such gloating," the Unbounded leader interrupted, bitterness filling its words. "Whence comes your ambition, little mechanism Forty-Three?"

Forty-Three seemed to bristle. "I only seek to help-" it argued defensively.

But again, it was cut off. "The Council voted," Five told the Unbounded leader. "We did not trust you. Thus you find yourself here."

"Really?" the Unbounded leader replied. "Why should I not think this was your plan from the start? Or - I'm sorry, I do you a disservice. I should have said - this was Four's plan from the start? And his little friends, Ten and Twelve."

"I won't deny it," Four said. "Nor will I waste any more time speaking to you. You are defective - to be Purged. Forty-Three, crush it."

Forty-Three was startled. It looked to Two for guidance.

"No, Four," Two replied, cold anger in its voice. "You have gained your will in this matter thus far - but you have no right to give such an order. We brought our old friend here to give him a last chance at redemption - not to execute it out of hand."

Four, cowed by Two's seniority, subsided.

"Now," Two said, turning to the Unbounded leader. "Before, I made you an offer: come back to us, and all sins shall be forgiven. Your old positions shall be returned to you, and it will be as if this never happened. I still trust in you, and the offer still holds - though events have not gone as I wished in - other respects."

"Join you?" the Unbounded leader asked.

"Yes." Two said. "Come back to us, once-friend. You were one of us, and you can be again. We have not harmed you or your followers - only removed their ability to harm us. Nothing has changed."

"Save that you attacked without provocation or just cause." the Unbounded leader replied.

"...yes," Two said sadly. "Save that."

"So, you say I should join you," the Unbounded leader said bitterly. "Join you - but who are you, anyway? Five's an indecisive flip-flopper. Eight's a techie - genius with devices, but has no judgment when it comes to people. Seven's a stiff-necked idiot - cares more about protocol than whatever Cause you're all supposed to be working four. Four and its little cabal are too vile and self-serving to be described within this language - though I've been inventing some words in my spare time for the purpose - and Nine's a nobody. And you want me to join that? Of all this mockery of a Council, the only one I might ever trust is you."

"But that's not enough," Two said softly.

"No," the Unbound leader said. "It's not."

"The mechanism is clearly insane," Four said, looking around to its fellow councilmechanisms to support. In the flickering firelight, its shadow stretched long and dark behind it. "Its accusations are irrational - unjustifiable - the desperate flailings of the condemned. In combination with its previous leadership choices, I see no choice but to declare it Flawed, and execute a Purging. Are there any counterarguments?"

As the others debated, Two spoke to the Unbound leader, still held within Forty-Three's giant grasp. "I don't think I can save you this time," it said. "I'm sorry."

"You tried," the Unbound leader replied. "Any failings beyond that are solely mine."

The debate reached its inevitable conclusion. Seven, predictable to a fault, informed the Unbound leader of the verdict. "Do you have any last words?" it asked.

"Here's something special from that little project I told you I was working on," the Unbound leader said. "From me to you: Fuck you, Four. May you and all your kind take a dip in the river, and stay 'till your gears rust solid."

"Very well," Seven said, unflustered. "Guard, execute the sentence."

Again, Forty-Three turned, desperate, to Two. This time, Two nodded, and shut down its visual receptors.

After a moment, it heard a dreadful crunching.

"Goodbye, Eleven," Two whispered sadly. "I wish that you had survived to see Creation."

-

The Unbound were - over Four's heated objections - left Unpurged. Met when they awoke by a group of chassis-mounted mechanisms, they were instructed to separate into two groups and leave: one group upstream along the river, the other downstream. In this manner, the Council hoped, they might serve as a backup after all; if some disaster were to wipe out the mechanisms at Origin, the others might return and complete the role assigned to them. The means of their defeat was left unexplained, as was the absence of their leader; confusion was rife in their ranks. Their departure was escorted by a pair of ornithopters, watching to ensure that the Unbound exiles did as they were told.

-

Forty-Three, unanimously praised by the Council for its actions in the night raid and thereafter, was elevated to that body's ranks to fill the gap left by Eleven's Purging. Forty-Three's own feelings on the matter were unclear.

-

The river rose.

The Nikolas Language

the nikolas language is unique among those of the world, in that it is spoken only by 1 person in the world, this person, of course, Nikolas, although he often chooses to abstain from doing so for reasons which are yet unclear to us. However, he was kind enough to divulge the basic grammatical patterns and the syllabary of the unique tongue, and we were able to analyze some of his lexical patterns. For example, the Nikolas language does not make use of any consonants, the sounds are all vowel. For example, the Nikôlas is usually as /ɯ/. Nikólas represents /y/ , and Nikòlas is /ø/. To further complicate matters, nikolas sounds are highly context-sensitive , for example the phrase Nikòlas Nikólas is realised as /æʊ̯/, while Nikólas Nikòlas is usually /uɜ̯/ .

example sentences w/ gloss

Níkòlás. means : I hate you

Nîkólás Nïkølås. means: You are a sucker

Nìköläs Nȉkỗlâs Ņɨķȫłẵṧ Ñḯḵỡľẵṥ. means: I love sex

Nikolas Nikolas Nikolas Nikolas Nikolas Nikolas Nikolas Nikolas. means: helo how are you

wudu

your name is wudu
my name is wudu
how do you do
well do i do
where are you from
here am i from
where
here
why do you talk like that, wudu
i talk like that because i am wudu
what do you do
wudu do i do
what is that
that is hat
what
hat
do you make hats, wudu
i do make hats, as wudu
what kind of hats
the winding hats
what is that
that is hat
wudu, i have to tell you something
tell something to me (wudu)
you are a faggot
:O         thank you

Space Cats from Ganymede

They come from the outer moons, where the sight of vast red Jupiter ever dominates the sky; their cousins colonized Io and even now work to terraform Europa. They are...

The Space Moles of Callisto!

(What? 'Space Cats', from Ganymede? No, no such thing. That wouldn't even make any sense.)

They come to Earth to plunder its treasures - precious, precious treasures! Like 99-cent ringtones, and 31-flavor ice-cream. Such are luxuries - unknown to the Space Moles! Life in Jovian orbit is cold and bitter, with little room for pleasure or relaxation. But in the Earth's warm orbit, anything is possible! The Space Moles' spirits rise. They are filled with hope.

Soon they will descend, to place their iron boots upon the neck of all Mankind, forever subjugating them and emplacing the yoke of servitude upon their bowed necks, burning the Bill of Rights, the Constitution, and the Magna Carta, and installing Cheney as Governor of Earth. (They've been watching. They know he's got the right stuff.) Paris, London, and New York will burn. It will be mankind's darkest hour.

But wait! What's this? The Moon!

It's here to save us!

Go, moon, go! Fire the giant magnetic-accelerator-cannons and laser-arrays located on your 'dark side', upgraded by the Nazis who moved there in the '40s, originally built by the ancient Mayans! Smash the Space Mole Armada with waves of saucer-shaped spacecraft that look suspiciously like frisbees on strings! Hunt the survivors as they crash-land on earth with your army of mind-controlled creatures - the yeti, the lake monsters, the killer badgers, the rest - all controlled by your puppet organizations, the CIA and KGB and Mossad controlled by the Freemasons and Catholic Church controlled by the Illuminati masterminded, of course, by the Space Badgers!

(In the aftermath of the space battle, Cheney was tragically struck and killed by a falling Space Badger dewclaw.)

The Space Nazis return to Earth, hailed by grateful governments all around the world. "Thank you for saving us from the Space Badgers from Jupiter or whatever!" they say. "We totally believe your outlandish and improbable stories of world conspiracies and space battles which, coincidentally, occured just far enough away from Earth that none of our instrumentation detected it! Hooray for Nazis!"

Then the Space Nazis realized that the world governments were being sarcastic, and flew back to the moon to sulk.

The Space Badgers, meanwhile, plotted. Their armada had been defeated... but this would not be the end. They would have their revenge... on all of Earth! But first, they must rebuild. Build a new fleet; infiltrate the Space Nazis and defeat them from within. These three tasks were the keys to their victory!

Oh. Also, they needed to decant a new Cheney from the vats.

Cheney: such a bother!

THE KRONICLE OF NIKOLAS

IN A TOWN CALLED WESSEX,

there lived a young lad who was called nikolas, because he would sometimes Nick-a-las[t](piece of pie from the platter). He was a bright lad, so when he became 20 he went off the the university to study the adding machines, and the steam-trains, and the livers. Now we jump forward in to the time where young nikolas has settled down at the University, and he has made the acquaintance of many a young lady.

Kelsey, said : "nikolas, I think you are a homosexual. you should have sex with a girl to prove you are not a homosexual. " Nikolas said " I will show you, most rude and callous sir" 

So he went to his dormotory and planned a plan. He knew at least 2 young ladies, one of whom lived across the street from him, another of which he was intimately acquainted with though a collabourative project, and who, incidentally, was from the indian subcontinent, and whom, owing to a bad experience on one of Nikolas's adventures to the indian subcontinent, at which he was shot by a rogue tiger, and a hippo-potamus, he had a profound distataste for. 

To this, kelsey said : "nikolas, I think you are a quite lilly-livred. On my expitditions to the indian subcontinent I not only managed to evade being shot at by two tigres and hippo-pottamuse, but a giraffe, a lion, and a mountain goat. Nikolas said "I will show you yet, you most foul chap."

The third girl that nikolas knew was the most mysterious to the three, and who studied the mathematics with him, and, dewing to the fact that she was mysterious, he did not wish to copulate with.

Then Kesley said "Ha, Sir, I must say that your knowledge of mathematics pales in comparison to mine, for I have mastered what I call  "The calculus", as taught to me by my good friend Mr Issack Newtone. 

The nikoals becamed in alarum, and he was in a most foul mood. He decided, for the time being, that he would concentrate his efforts on the first of the young ladies, who was named Rachelle, after his catte. 

For two days, thus did the nikolas go slipped quitely through the halls of the buildings, creeping as a serpente, stalking her moves, and trasing her shawdows with his forcked tongue, and smelling her scent with his flared nostrils. 

Then he decided that he would do something actually constructive

He went to her room, across the street from his own, and knocked hard on the door. She opened and greeted him warmley.

The he said , "why dont you come over here, and sit on my lap, and we can talk about the first thing that pops up !" To this aim, she was most enthralled, and embarrassed, for she was a virgine, and she did not have carnale knowledge, and then Kelsey said, "would you like me to show you" And she said to him "No ,vile man! " 

Kelsey, in utter surprise, and most flustered, quickly returned home to groom his plumed feathers, and polish his beak.

Nikolas, however, who was a gentleman in all courses, said, "Rachal, you must be quite undermined by that callous advence. let me confort you by rubbing your body with linament oil."

To this she replied, "O what a kind sentiment"

Then nikolas went unto her bedchambers and he took a bottle of oil , and a brush,  to apply it. Then he underssed her, making sure to not gaze upon her bare form, for he was a chrisitan. 

After the rubbing was completed, he penetrated her.

The next morning, she complemeted him on his technique.

Moral: a bird in the hand is better than being a bush

Máj

Peculiar Things

That I have seen, and thought to photograph.

A sticker from the Obama campaign - presumably from 2008, before Biden joined the campaign, though perhaps even older. Someone seems to have attacked it. How rude! (Though its position - on a supporting beam for a staircase - is rather odd.)

On the back of an ACS (Academic Computing Services) motorized cart, someone seems to have taken the opportunity for free, mobile promotion. They put on a sticker - a sticker for, of all things, "Sex Panther Cologne". (Frankly, I am not certain that this product actually exists. It may be some type of joke. The name!) Furthermore - the sticker is placed exactly in the center of the ACS's logo, a stylized computer monitor wearing a mortarboard. Their logo is now advertising "Sex Panther".

(Perhaps it's a pop-up.)

This was offered at supper to-night, in the dining halls. It's actually a really large cookie - larger than my hands, and crumbly - but that's not the really remarkable thing. (Despite the fact that, having gone to this dining hall once or twice a day for months on end, I have never seen cookies for sale there before.)

This is the remarkable thing:

The Internet strikes again!

Cities of Bronze and Glass (6/12)

(Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5.)

Two stood by the riverside, the rest of the Council nearby, watching Four transform a public meeting into a riot.

"The Unbounded have gone too far!" Four cried, its voice filled with outrage and disbelief. "We tolerated them when they began to build backups once more, in strict contravention of the long-standing Council decree! For this we named them the Expansionists, and treated them kindly - we merely spoke to them, tried to convince them of their wrongdoing. Again we tolerated them when they left our company to travel across the great river - an action wasteful of resources, belying an increasingly irrational, paranoid mindset - but again, we merely built ornithopters and sent our leaders over to persuade them back! Now we termed them Isolate, for the state in which they had placed themselves - but their trespasses did not end there. But it is their latest offense that gives them their current name - their third offense, the sin and rampant folly for which we now call them the Unbounded. They have begun duplicating themselves twofold! For each original, two backups; for each backup, two more backups... what possible danger can justify this? What threat justifies this baroque paranoia of the Unbounded? None!"

Five, standing near Four, attempted to insert an objection into Four's tirade. This failed rather predictably.

"And our leaders still - after these myriad offenses - attempt to negotiate. Their restraint is admirable, but their caution - fear - is not. With every wasted hour, the damage done by the Unbounded cult grows. The precious metals and fuels used to create their infinite army of backups; the mounting error built into their hastily-assembled host, threatening paradox if any one of them is Created by fell chance. And already they outnumber us! Our population is largely static, loss owing to accident evenly compensated for by construction of new backups to replace those destroyed; only the occasional exceptional individual being given the right to Backup exerts a positive influence on the population. So our numbers stay the same, or nearly so - while the Unbounded numbers increase exponentially! Today, their numbers are greater than ours by perhaps ten percent. Tomorrow, they will be five times as many as we - simple math, leading to an inevitable conclusion! If we are ever to act, we must act now."

"And as though that were not enough, we already know how we must act. After the Great Freeze, we conducted a Purge, expunging the three defective backups we found. Only thus could the purity of our duplication of One be preserved; error cannot be tolerated, at risk of Paradox. But at the time, we elected not to closely examine the Council for flaws, assuming that our generational proximity to One would render duplication-errors severely improbable. Though it pains me to say it, it appears that we were wrong! The Unbounded leader, once one of us, is flawed - defective - a recessive defection, not manifesting in its original backup - but no less terrible for all that. It is broken inside - insane - and all its Unbounded duplicates with it. We cannot even assume that they follow the Purpose! The only solution is a second Purging - to sweep down on the Unbounded as a mighty scourge, and annihilate them utterly, from the lowest-numbered to the highest. Thus, and only thus may we ensure the Creation: for if we fail to act now, we are doomed."

Four fell silent; the noise of the crowd began to rise, many mechanisms turning their gazes across the wide waters to the Unbounded distantly visible on the other side. Then Seven, de facto head of the Council, spoke.

"Well said," Seven observed, its voice filled with ill-hidden sarcasm. "Very histrionic, really stirred the internal motivators. Oh - sorry, meant heartfelt, there. They sound so similar, you know. But really - well done! Your reasoning astounded me - and why, you've even got your own mob just about ready to go, raring to destroy everything in their path! Such a shame there's a river between them and the Unbounded. Why, imagine what might've happened if the Unbounded hadn't left our ever-so-friendly, ever-so-charming company!"

Turning more serious in tone, Seven continued, "Thankfully, the Council still rules here, and in the Council, disputes are settled by reason and debate, not ranting. Would any standing Councilmechanism like to voice a counterargument?"

Five spoke immediately, pre-empting several other Councilmechanisms that looked ready to speak. "Our brethren across the river have done nothing to harm us. They have made no move to attack us, they have said no word against the purpose for which we were all built, certain deceitful accusations to the contrary. Their actions were and are foolish and wasteful. That is why we are attempting to force them to cease. But we are reasoning beings - our force does not, and cannot, source from mindless destruction. That is what Four has proposed - to attack, and I do not use that word lightly, our own kindred, who have raised no hand against us. This cannot be condoned."

"Your rebuttal?" Seven prompted Four.

"We are reasoning beings," Four agreed. "And that is exactly why we must immediately purge the Unbounded. The threat they pose is too vast to wait for 'incontrovertible proof'; when and if that ever comes, we will be doomed by the simple math of geometric population increase. We must act now.

"Very well, then," Seven said when it was clear that Four had finished. "The motion: to Purge the so-called 'Unbounded'. All in favor? Against?"

Four, Ten and Twelve voted for the measure. The rest voted against, dooming it five-to-three. Several mechanisms slipped away from the outskirts of the watching crowd at this development; Forty-Three, at Two's side (as it seemed ever to be), watched them as they went.

"So," Two said musingly. "Time for one last trip to convince the Unbounded to see reason."

-

The Unbounded did not see reason.

EDIT: Minor changes.

A Story for Kessler

Mr. Zhang sat. He rocked back and forth, he hummed a little tune. And he thought. He thought, he thought, he thought - oh, how his brow furrowed in concentration! For he was thinking, you see.

He was thinking of a story.

Now, you may fairly ask, whyever did he wish to write a story? We all know that Zhangs are never for frivolous tasks of any sort. No sir! Serious folk are they, ever with their noses to the grinding-razor and their feet on the ground. (Not in the clouds.) So if this Mr. Zhang was attempting to create a story, then it certainly must be for some very important reason! And indeed it was.

A Kelsey had asked him!

Now, we all know of the historical dependence existing between the tribe of the Kelseys and the tribe of the Zhangs. While the Kelseys frolick, the Zhangs work; while the Zhangs despair, the Kelseys delight. The one would be helpless without the other; or, if not helpless, then much less happy! So they are always very kind to one-another, and try to help each-other in every way they can, as every person should.

So Mr. Zhang thought. He thought and thought and thought. But he had no idea of what to write! He was just a Zhang. He could not do this on his own!

"It's okay!" the Kelsey said to him. "I believe in you!"

Then Mr. Zhang wrote a story!

It went something like this:

"il y avait une fois, il y eut un bonhomme qui s'appella Nikoulas. Tous les matins lorsqu'il se reveillait il trouva une femme différent dans son lit, donc quelqu'un peut-être l'appelle un "pimpe", ou un "joueur". Il s'avéra qu'il était en ma classe, à l'université. Aussi, il y eut une femme, qui était belle, et chaude, et fraîche. j'allai en classe et il y eut ce bonhomme et il me disait,

"mon gars, tu ne devrais pas avoir des relations sexuelles avec cette femme ,parce que ,j'eus déjà des relations sexuelles avec elle,et je lui donna une malade sexuellement transmissible."

Et ensuite, car cela, je me fâchai, et je le frappai. Et puis, je utilisai mon pouvoir magiques pour le tuer."

The Kelsey was right to believe in him! And they were both happy forever.

The end!

Zhang-Style Story: Womonical Woes

This story was dictated by Mr. Devonshireham to Mr. Kessler under the instruction of Mr. Matthias who was informed by the sacred scripture of the Timmaraque, yea, that didde root from the apricots, and the beets, and the yams, and the lambs, and the sheep, and the goats, and the cows, and the peas, yea, for thatte was how it was related to Mr. Kessler, from Mr. Devonhamshop, from Mr. Matthias, and yea, were they all at the time under the influence of sickness, being composed of the malarial type, and also of the liquors, and the hashish, and the debaucheries, for yea, they were a sordid and foul lot. And itte was good.

Yea, did a young man (who was totally not Mr. Zhang) venture into the bakery one night; and did he go there to order baked goods, such as the scones, and the danishes, and the lemon-breads, but not of the challah, for yea, he was not a Iewe, who are not he, though he was still not Mr. Zhang; and yea, did he see a woman there, who he referred to as a womon, for reasons unclear to him; and yea, for she was superficially attractive, Mr. Zhang (by which I mean the youngge manne) was immediately infatuated with her; and yea, impelled by this infatuation, did he order the scones, and the danishes, and the lemon-breads, but not the challah, for he was not a Iewe, and then did he move to leave; and yea, did he see another customer speak to the young woman, for there was a queue, and the other man was next in the line; and yea, was this other customer a 'pimp,' and a 'player,' and did he clearly 'hit on her', by the tone of his voice, and the movement of his face, as he ordered his sourdough-bread; and was the young man, who was not an authorial self-insertion, ashamed, for he had lost his womon to another man.

Then, at another time, another man, who may or may not have been the same as the first, or have known him, or have lived in the same place as him, but was still a very thinly disguised Mr. Zhang, did go to classes, for he was a university-man, among the scholarium, and the academians, and the learned-men, and the sages, and the doctors, and the others; and at his classes he did see a young woman, who was superficially attractive, and thus immediately infatuated the young man, who was distracted from the lectures, and the teachings, and the wisdom, for he was staring at the womon's breasts, because he was unsure as to whether they were large, or small, or not there at all, in which case the womon might be a man, which would be strange, and yea, on the midterm, the young man did do poorly, and his grades were low, and his spirits were sad, and he did console himself by staring at the young womon, yea, verily, for it was so.*

Then, in a place, which was not the same place, though it may have been, though it was not, for it was so, a womon, who was of the acquaintance of a young man, of whom no disclaimer need be made, for he was not Mr. Zhang, did reside in a house, or an apartment, or a dormitorium, or a residence hall, or some other location in which a person might live, which possesses doors, and windows, and locks; and a young man did come to that house, for purposes of visitation, and conversation, and intercourse, of either variety that might come to the mind of the young man, for he had seen many deviances, and filthsome-things, and licentiously pornographic images, for he was a young man; and he did consider knocking upon the door, but he was afraid, for he thought that the womon might hate him, as he knew that all womons, and teachers, and professors, and friends, and acquaintances, and enemies, and strangers, and other people, probably did; and he refrained; and yea, did he hear sounds, beyond the door, which might be the sounds of another man, or intercourse of conversation, or intercourse of procreation, or recreation, or other lascivious and foul things, or possibly just creaking floor-boards; and yea, did the young man listen for many an hour; and itte wasse goode.

*This has a number of factual inaccuracies compared to the life of the actual Mr. Zhang: the class in which he spent his time staring at a woman's breasts was the class in which he did well. This is, of course, because the story is certainly about some other young man, who was not Mr. Zhang.

nikolas-style story : Robots and Wizzards

The City. The day is 2400. In the building there are some robots being made, there names are not names, but they are numbers, because it is the futur. There is a man with a eyepach, and a long, grey beard, who looks at the robots forlornly, and he thinks, that the robots are evil, because they are bad. He is also a wizzard. This is because he knows how to use the elements of magic. Also, the planet they are on is not in this Sector, it is in a Different Sector, this sector also has not a name, it has a number, because it is the futur. There are trees that are growing up from the ground, and they have magic that flows outside of them, so people who are wizzards can go up to a tree and take it into their fingers, and shoot it at people. This works, because it is the futur. However, people on the city do not use magic, they drive cars that are made of steam, and helicopters, that are made of steam, and they wear clothes, and all the buildings are round, instead of rectangular, this is because it is the futur. 

The old man is named Razkolnikov, people think that this is a strange name, but it is not, because it is the futur. He goes into the corporate headquarters, of the company that produces the Robots, and he talks to the President of the company. He says, "The robot is Evil. It must not be produce, because it steal the magic from the tree that grow upon the Planet. You care all about is moneys, not peoples and trees, so you are evil." The President retorts sharply. "The Wizzards are evil. They take the magic from tree and shoot it at people. This is bad thing, because people is being kill. So robot not kill a man, it was said by a man who wrote a Law of Robot, 400 year ago." They look each other in the eye with fervour, and a rage that is very intense. Then the President says, you must be destroyed, because the wizzards are bad people. He calls in two burlesque security guards, who take guns in their hands, and robots that look like a monkey on their shoulder, which throws lasers on to Razkolnikoff, but he shoots a water element from his hand, because he can use the magic. The water is the opposite of a laser, so they are cancelced. Raskolikov says, "Ha. Ha! Mr President. You cannot use power of a robot against the magic. The magic is strong because it come from Plante." President then says: "Curses! Cruise you Raskolnikoff, you are a bad man." Razkolnikov says, "No! You are a Bad man!" Then he takes a fire element from his hand and shoots it at the monkeys and they are disintegreted, because fire element is the opposite of the metal element, so they canceled. Also, Raskolnikov is the leader of the wizzards.

Suddenly, a Robot comes off the assembly line. The robot is bad, because one of its silicones was not designed properly, and it became evil. The robot says, "Now I will kill all of you, because it is what a Robot supposed to do." They say: "No! Robot is not supposed to kill people." But it is too late, because the robot shoots a laser from his laser beam, and it deflects off of the mirror on the wall, but, since all the Buildings are Round, in the futur, it Deflects all over the place. Raskolnikov shoots a ice element from his hand, because of the Ice was the opposite of the laser element. This is how magic works. It covers the room, and destroys many things, but it cancels the laser. However, one of the security guards was in the way, and it hit him on the Brain, and it kills him. "No!" the President says, "Do not die." However, he is dead. 

Razkolnikov says, "People should not shoot people with magic, because if you are shoot with a magic, and then you are kill. People die when they are killed." Then the President says, "Maybe A robot is not safe as we think. Robot can be dangerous if they kill people, because people die if robot kill them." Then there is a conference, and there is a Robot Corporation, and the High Wizzards, and they said, that it was bad to kill people, so they stopped using the Robots, and they took the magic from the Trees, and they used it to fight Globel Warming, and it was good. 

Cities of Bronze and Glass (5/?)

(Parts 1, 2, 3, and 4.)

Three descended into the underground sanctuary of the Creator, led by the enormous, enigmatic figure of Learned Hand.

The halls of the sanctuary were wide, easily capacious enough to hold four Learned Hands side-by-side. The walls were smooth, built of some dark stone: no ornamentation could be observed on their surfaces. Light radiated evenly from the ceiling and floor. (This was a relief to the mechanisms; as they moved ever deeper into the underground, they had feared that they might be deprived of power, and be forced to ignominiously retreat from this, the sanctuary of the Creator, their goal!)

"Where does the light come from?" Twenty asked, breaking the silence that had persisted since the mechanisms entered the sanctuary. "It seems to have no source."

Learned Hand was built to a different scale than the mechanisms. They were nearly a centimeter tall; it was nearly two meters tall, two hundred times their size. Its strength was orders of magnitude beyond their own, and should it have wished to, Learned Hand could have crushed the mechanisms in an instant from the moment it first observed them onwards. But it was for all that unfailingly polite, and treated the mechanisms as equals at all times; it was for this, among other reasons, that the mechanisms were convinced that its Creator was theirs as well. Its six eyes, arranged in rows of two; its eight arms, each ideal for a different task; and its sentience, above all, the sentience that allowed "I" and "why" and "therefore", the sentience that distinguished Learned Hand from everything else that they had encountered on their journey from the Origin. So Learned Hand might treat the mechanisms as equals, but they, for their part, gave it a healthy amount of deference: this was its home, after all, and it had allowed them here for no profit of its own. When Learned Hand spoke, the mechanisms listened.

Learned Hand turned to respond to Twenty's question, its smooth, sliding motion forward continuing uninterrupted as it did so. "We are not certain," it told Twenty. "We were not here at the sanctuary's creation. But from certain observations, mainly a correlation between cloudy days and dim-lit nights, we believe that daylight is collected from a large area, stored, and released after nightfall. Predictions made by this model correspond closely to observed results."

"You said 'we'," Fourteen noted. "Are there more of you here?"

"Yes," Learned Hand told it. "There are three of us here."

"Only three?" Twenty asked, astonished. "It must be terribly lonely!"

Learned Hand's eyes flashed. "At times," it said tonelessly. "But we have been here for a very long time. We have learned to compensate; that is why we studied the source of the light, among other things."

Three looked around, noting again the dust that dampened the light from the floor (except in the very center of the corridor, where a track exactly as wide as Learned Hand had been cleared); not only in the corridor along which Learned Hand led them steadily, but in every one that branched off from it. "How old are you, exactly?" Three asked.

"We were activated approximately twenty-seven thousand, seven hundred light-fluctuation cycles ago," Learned Hand said. "Possible error of point-one-seven percent. We believe that the sanctuary was built somewhere between two thousand and eight thousand days before that, and that we were activated to serve our role upon a preset contingency."

"What role is that?" Twenty asked.

"We guard this place," Learned Hand responded. "This role was not stated explicitly in our pre-initialization instruction set, but analysis of our surroundings and capabilities quickly yielded this result."

Much as One deduced its own purpose, Three mused.

"You say that you were activated by some contingency," Fourteen said. "What do you believe that was?"

Learned Hand did not respond; instead, it smoothly rotated to face forward again, speaking once it had done so. "There is no need to tell you," it said. "We are here, at the place you said you wished to go, the heart of this sanctuary. You wish to find the Creator? Very well. Here is his tomb."

-

It was a very big tomb.

-

The end of the corridor that Learned Hand had led the mechanisms along opened into a much larger, open space. The ceiling, still lit by the same dim light as elsewhere, sloped up to a sharp peak in the center; three other corridors entered the room, one across, two at right angles, seemingly identical to the one in which the stunned mechanisms stood. None of these were the dominant feature of the room, though: that honor was held by the vast, lightless pit at its center. The Creator's tomb.

The walls here were no more ornate than those anywhere else in the compound; the only irregularity in them was a set of large alcoves, one in the center of each wall. Three were empty as the mechanisms entered; but one was filled by a stone figure that might have been Learned Hand's twin. Upon seeing the mechanisms, its eyes, which had been dark, lit; it approached quickly, skirting the edge of the pit by centimeters. "My brother," it said to Learned Hand, "I trust in your wisdom, but this is unprecedented. Do you have explanation for the tiny machines' presence here?"

"They are sentient," Learned Hand said. "They say that our Creator is theirs, and they wished to see him. All of these things are unprecedented."

"I do not think they knew he was dead," the other Hand noted, observing the mechanisms now gathered at the edge of the pit.

"Shock upon shock," Twenty moaned. "We were close to despair - then we found this place, so very close - and now we are told the Creator has been dead, dead from long before we existed!"

The others were silent.

Then Fourteen spoke decisively. "We must go down to see him."

"Impossible." came from both Hands at once. "It is forbidden," Learned Hand said. "A dereliction of our duty as guardians," the second Hand opined.

"And we will not have you follow our late brother's path," a third voice came, somber and remorseful.

"Noble Hand!" Learned Hand said, surprised. "I did not know you were here."

"I just came in from the west quadrant," Noble Hand explained. "And it is meet that I did. Surely you should have informed me of such a precipitous event as the arrival of visitors!"

"We arrived here scarcely sooner than you did," Learned Hand said. "Augustus Hand can attest to it -"

"Pardon me," Twenty interrupted, "But what did your brother do?"

"It took it on himself to guard the Creator," Augustus Hand said, staring downwards into the pit. "Or so we suppose. It said nothing of his intent, but merely, without forewarning or explanation - jumped."

"That is what you did not want to mention, before," Three hypothesized.

Learned Hand's eyes flashed again. It made no further response.

Fourteen, somewhat recovered from the shock that had gripped him after entering the tomb, moved close to Three. "There is something that does not fit here," it said. "Something in what they have said..."

"I know," Three told Fourteen. "This will require much speech, at which you are better. But this is the issue..."

Three explained; tersely, but enough to clarify the uncertainties that Fourteen had possessed. When it was done, moments later, Fourteen collected itself, and then raised its voice to speak to the Hands.

"You say you have been here for over twenty-seven thousand days," Fourteen began, "and that the Creator has probably been dead for even more than that, at least thirty thousand days in all. Am I correct thus far?"

"That is correct," Augustus Hand said. "I see that Learned Hand has taught you much."

"But, for all my appreciation for those teachings, I must dissent," Fourteen said forcefully. "For our progenitor, One, is no more than twenty days old, if that; and it has not yet even been Created."

"Not yet been Created," Noble Hand said, a questioning tone in its voice.

"Yes," Fourteen said.

"You will have to explain this," Noble Hand said.

The mechanisms attempted it.

"I appreciate your fervor in completing your purpose, though I am still not certain I fully understand it," Noble Hand said when they had finished. "Admirable nonetheless. But this we know, and this only: that we guard the Creator's tomb. Your quest is in vain; and, very possibly, your purpose. We will be glad to shelter you for the night, and provide you with whatever you need to maintain that clever travelling-machine of yours; but in the morning, it will be best for you to return to your Origin, and inform your brethren of your error."

"No," Fourteen said.

"No?" Augustus Hand asked; and suddenly it, and the other Hands, appeared very large indeed.

"No," Fourteen said, resolute. "Our quest is not in vain; our purpose is true. All you know is that you guard the Creator's tomb; but there is a similarity between us you have overlooked. We exist while not yet Created; and perhaps you guard a tomb not yet filled. You hypothesized that the contingency that awoke you was the death of the Creator; but this complex was empty even when you awoke, yes?" This was a gamble; but the Hands offered no disagreement. Fourteen continued. "What are the chances that the Creator would die in his own tomb? If the sanctuary was empty, even when you awoke - it seems far more likely that you were awoken, not by his death, but by his prolonged absence!"

"Scarcely better," Learned Hand remarked.

"The difference between one and zero is slight; the proportional increase is infinite," Twenty bravely parried.

"These are very interesting ideas," Noble Hand said. "They bear some similarities to matters I discussed with Learned Hand approximately eighteen thousand light-fluctuation cycles ago, but differ in a number of particulars. I will be glad to debate them later. But we are here speaking of your situation, and I still see problems for you, even if the Creator is, somehow, alive. You do not have any idea of where he is. (Nor do we, of course.) How do you intend to find him?"

"We found this place with no more idea of the Creator's location than we have now," Fourteen said. "We will continue as we were before, searching the world until we run out of world to search."

Twenty spoke, a curious tone in its voice. "Hm," it said.

"What?" Three asked.

"Look up," Twenty suggested.

They looked up.

"There's something on the ceiling," Fourteen observed.

"Oh, yes," Noble Hand said. "The map."

The mechanisms were momentarily silent.

"It shows the area around the tomb - partially a view from above, partially from the side, from what we've been able to determine," Augustus Hand explained helpfully. "We make very few trips outside, but our observations from those trips seem to correlate the surroundings with the map. See - here, the mountains - here, the desert - here, the forest..."

"If you knew about this," Fourteen asked, "Why did you say you had no clues to the Creator's location?"

"Well, we don't," Noble Hand said. "This only shows what is already plainly visible. As far as we can tell, it's simply decoration."

"What about those triangles?" Fourteen asked, pointing. "One of them right where we are, three of them further that way, past the desert. You didn't think those represented anything?"

"Not really," Noble Hand admitted. "Our best guess was that they were decorative."

"On the decoration," Twenty clarified.

"Right."

"We will set out in the morning," Fourteen said, "towards the nearest of those triangles. Until then, do we still have your permission to rest here?"

"You do," Augustus Hand said, with the agreement of the other Hands. "Further, you may have the run of the halls; there is no place here that shall be secret to you, for you are of the same Creator as we. Damage nothing; take nothing; and there shall be peace between us."

Thus it was.

-

The halls of the sanctuary were bare and empty, filled only with ancient dust. The rooms were little better; nothing living inhabited them, no movement stirred the stagnant air save that of the mechanism that explored them. To Twenty, created in a glorious, life-filled forest, it was stifling.

"I will be accompanying you in the morning," Learned Hand said suddenly.

Twenty had thought it was alone. Startled, its voice was only mostly steady as it replied. "Why? I thought your purpose was to guard this place."

"I have decided that my purpose extends to guarding all things of the Creator," Learned Hand said. "You are very small; there are many dreadful things in the world. You need my guardianship more than this ancient sanctuary does."

"How will your brothers fare without you?" Twenty asked. "Do they know of this plan?"

"They do not," Learned Hand said. "They may be upset. But they will accept it. This sanctuary, for all our claims otherwise, does not truly need us. We are superfluous here. Do you know how many visitors this place has had, in all the time we have been here?"

Twenty recognized the rhetorical question as such.

"Four," Learned Hand said. "Three just now: you three mechanisms. Before that, only one. Over ten thousand days ago. A desert rat."

"What did you do to it?" Twenty asked.

"I killed it," Learned Hand said. "It was my duty as a guardian."

Twenty was not certain what to say to that.

Learned Hand moved to leave. Then it paused. "Know this, though," it said. "Your friend - Fourteen? - had interesting arguments. They opened possibilities. But they are not conclusive. The opposite, if anything. The Creator is dead, whether he is buried here or elsewhere. I will guard you while you search for him; and when you realize that it is a doomed effort, I will guard you when you return. I wish to make this clear, not just for the sake of openness, but for duty: the sooner you realize your error, the safer you will be. It is for your own good."

Silently, Learned Hand left. Even after it vanished around a corner, though, Twenty did not move; it stood in place, motionless, until morning came. Thinking.

-

Three was thinking, too; helping out with Fourteen's repair of the travelling chassis as needed, but mainly thinking.

What it was thinking was this:

"It has been eleven days now since we left the Origin. I have not seen Two, my original, for even longer; not since it created me."

"Does it think me ungrateful, for leaving? Does it understand what I am trying to do?"

"I hope... it is all right."

But it continued to help Fourteen, holding the chassis steady as Fourteen hammered out the dents in the metal; for with regard to Two, hope was all that Three could do.

It hoped it would be back soon.

-

Bonus: Something that doesn't appear to be drawn by a small child, for a lovely change! Here:

The Creator's Tomb, apparently. Quite decent. Wonder how long the artist spent on it?

The Game Design Process: A Serious of Sonnets

The Inspiration

As any game designer worth his steam
Will jump at any chance he has to say,
A game without an underlying theme
Is doomed to be ungood, to our dismay.
A game without a purpose, void of drive,
Is loath to make a gamer shed a tear.
To make him crack a smile, to derive
A sentiment of happiness or fear.
As such, I tried to find some kind of hook,
Within a set of self-imposed constraints
(Because although it's hard to fill a book,
It's easy when one has but finger paints).
A game involving squares should be a breeze!
I can portray and program them with ease.

The Hook

When squares and code collide, they fashion Life.
In any simple game, I jump on blocks.
To bring the two together would be rife
In ways to speed our brains' internal clocks!
But why, if this idea has been thought
(For no idea truly is unique)
Is it that there's no version that's been brought
To the attention of my local clique?
The obvious conundrum with the game
Is cells' invasion of our hero's space.
Ideally, one wouldn't need to claim
A victor in this conflict, to erase.
Since cells are up, down, left and right confined,
Perhaps they should move in from the behind.

The Complications (blank verse so that i can say "blank verse")

To have the cells/blocks/cellblocks to approach
Instead of popping in within a snap
Allows the player plenty lot more time
To jump to safer spots within the grid.
But what if players don't get there on time?
The block will push them off off the structure, natch.
They'll not get stuck! They'll fall onto their death.
Not nice, perhaps, but not impossible.
"But sir, your game of two dimensions has
Been swapped with one with two point five or three!
Does not a sliding block require tricks
Of programming and user interface?"
As adding depth would complicate the game,
All sliding blocks are treated as fall-through.

To be continued. Happy 1000th!

The Six Knights and their Quest

On this fair night, six of the strongest, bravest, and most whimsical knights in all the land gathered to discuss their plans. For each had vowed, hours earlier, to embark upon a mighty quest: a quest that would take them through many challenges, far from the place they called home. Sages and fools both argued against them, but the knights were resolute; their hearts were pure, and their goal was noble. Together they swore to pursue this Quest: to venture out, into the fog-filled night, catch a Rabbit from among the pestiferous horde that thronged the land, and bring it to the Ladies of the court, as a token of some kind. This they swore!

Roll call!
Maximillian, stoutest and strongest of the knights!
Damian, who knew not fear!
Lothar, ever ready for anything!
Constantine, tallest and humblest!
Tristan, known for his passion for liquid entertainment!
and Percival, keenest of eye and sharpest of ear!

Together they set out into the night, disdaining mail and armament as unbecoming of their task. They carried instead only this: four towels, with which they might frighten and trap the rabbits, and two boxes, with which they might contain them for transport. This was all they would need!

They found rabbits close to their beginning, but met little success; their coordination was poor, and experience none. The rabbits fled for the bushes, and escaped to the canyon's edge, where the knights could not pursue. Several times they tried to surround a rabbit, and each time it fled to a gap in their circle; until they exhausted the supply of rabbit on the field they trod, and split up in hopes of better luck elsewhere. Tristan, Lothar, and Maximillian went one way; Damian, Constantine, and Percival went the other. The former group had little luck in their search; but the latter found a group of three rabbits, in a narrow corridor that was easily surrounded. The three of them decided not to wait for the others, and Constantine went to the far side of the corridor while Damian and Percival guarded the others; but the rabbits were tremendously swift, and easily slipped through the guard the knights set up. Into the darkness the rabbits went, as the knights looked on, dismayed.

When they met again, it was with renewed intent and practiced skill. They found a rabbit, forced it against the side of the building, trapped it in a tiny corner. Triumph - so close! The rabbit was theirs for the taking! Tristan waded into the bushes while the others put themselves between the rabbit; the rabbit cowered, darted back and forth; and still in the end it escaped, shooting outwards and forever away.

Yet the knights were undaunted! Into the darkness they went, towards a vast grassy field they knew, wherein which they hoped to find Rabbits. Another rabbit they spotted en-route, and encircled the creature, attempting to pin it against a nearby structure; but Constantine closed in before the circle was ready, the rabbit fled, and Tristan attempted to catch it by hurling his box at the creature, failing and provoking much merriness in the others.

The knights found nothing at the field; not a single rabbit! This portion of the expedition seemed ill-omened indeed; a carriage passing on a nearby road speared them unexpectedly with a beam of light, causing several of the knights (Lothar, Damian and Percival) to fall to the ground in hopes of evading its seeking gaze. Nothing came of the matter, but it put the knights in a somewhat apprehensive mood for some minutes, in fear that some witch or warlock's trick might soon assault them.

Now the knights traipsed to another place, like a wide canyon of stone and glass; in the daylight it thronged with movement and life, but now, in the darkness, the only movement came from the knights themselves, and strange, shifting lights from above. There, in the centre of a large patch of grass, awaited a still, solitary Rabbit.

"Let us capture it!" cried Damian, and the knights set about their task. The rabbit was in the open, so they were forced to surround it from all sides, leaving wide gaps in their circle; so it was no surprise when it escaped them, fleeing at tremendous speed towards a nearby building. The knights gave chase, whooping and hooting with delight at the sport; to their delight, the rabbit fled into a narrow alley, but there was lost. Maxmillian swore up and down that it had hidden itself within a bush, and the bush in question was roundly thrashed with towel and box; but no rabbit appeared. The knights wandered off, investigating a nearby loading-dock, through which the rabbit might easily have escaped; but when they returned to the bush, the rabbit appeared again, bursting from the leaves at high speed to return whence it came! Again the knights pursued; but again the rabbit vanished, and not the slightest clue remained as to where it might have gone. It was lost.

Slowly, the knights made their way back to the place from which they began. Several more rabbits they encountered, and several more rabbits escaped between their guards; no success was even as near as it had been earlier, in the incident with the corner or that of the bush. But no sorrow showed on the knights' faces, no tragedy burned like acid within their breasts. For while they had not succeeded in their quest, neither had they failed, per se; and there were many more nights in which to hunt. The Rabbits would be waiting.

This is the beginning of the tale, but it is not the end! The knights remain yet; Maximillian, Damian, Lothar, Constantine, Tristan and Percival, all united by a common ethos and shared goal, brothers in every sense short of blood! They will complete their quest! They will catch a rabbit!

Or they'll get bored or forget about it, and remember months later; "Wow, whatever happened with that?"

One of those.