Tag: writing exercise (Page 1 of 5)

“No, I definitely need to hit the bookstore. He let me take Magical Zoology II this term,” Mikhail said, and tipped back his battered cowboy hat with an absent hand. It didn’t match his school uniform, but he’d earned the sweat stained, sooty brim through hands now toughened by hard work with enormous livestock.

The calluses came with newfound confidence and efficiency in his spellcasting, which showed in his pre-term placement testing. It had only taken a quick narrowing of slit-pupiled eyes for his schedule to pass muster. Professor Hapburn had even flicked his tongue out in what passed for a pleased salamander smile when Mikhail demonstrated the strength of his camouflage spells.

Of course, Professor Hapburn’s sharp, orange eyes had also not missed the faint hoof print on the hat’s crown, either. Mikhail was certain of it, as certain as he was that he’d be asked to critique his own performance over a strong cup of tea.

Liza blew her bangs upward and tossed the rest of her hair out of her satchel strap’s way as she adjusted the catch. Her braid thunked dully against one of the fire extinguishers floating over her shoulder. “Come on, then. And of course he did. Why wouldn’t he?”

“There’s a secondary intro course he threatened to make me take, if I didn’t stop being so skittish around the more sensitive creatures,” Mikhail answered. “You can’t let the werewolves smell fear. Say, why do you still have those two following you around, anyway?”

He drew his head and shoulders minutely away from his friend as they dodged their way through the hall of returning students. The extinguishers had changed their positions around Liza’s head. There was something menacing in the movement, almost…offended?

“They’re part of the family,” she said casually. “Besides, look.” Liza shoved a crumpled piece of paper into his hand. “That’s cool, right?”

“Maths, herbology, magical gastronomy,” he read aloud. “I have that one, too. What’s wishuu?”

“Djinn combat.” She let out a huge grin that blinded him in its intensity. It wasn’t just the sunlight streaming from the open main doors of Wisurg Magical Academy. 

“Clamp it down,” he cautioned, then reached a hand to catch her elbow before she could stumble down the entrance stairs. He let go almost immediately. “Hey. Uh. Hey. What’s wrong? It’s a beautiful day. I thought you were happy to be back?”

“I am!” The words were a scream. Tears streamed down her face. Liza sank to the stone pavement and sobbed into her hands. “I am so very, delightfully happy!”

He took a step back. “Um. If you say so?”

A hand clapped onto his shoulder, along with a wheezing noise that was half laugh, half resigned sigh. Mikhail turned to find Chef McCreedy in full whites. Any adult, he decided, was better than dealing with girls crying. “Sir, I don’t know what happened. One minute, we were headed for the bookstore and everything was fine.”

“Aye, and the next, the sobbin’ and cryin’, eh, boyo?” 

“Yes,” he said emphatically. “That.”

“The finest of rotten traditions.” The chef wiggled thick eyebrows down at Mikhail. The reminder of caterpillars was strong enough, he feared they’d crawl off. “A back-to-school jinx. She’ll be righto in a moment, I b’lieve.”

Even as he spoke, Liza stopped her crying. She lifted her head so rapidly, she bonked her noggin against the hovering, concerned fire extinguishers. “Guys, I’m fine.”

“Good,” he began, then watched in astonishment as she gave the fire extinguishers reassuring pats, as if cuddling nervous puppies.

“She’s not talking to us, boyo,” Chef McCreedy said, and strode off with another bearpaw swipe at Mikhail’s shoulder.

***

This week’s Odd Prompt was from nother Mike: It was a bright, sunny day, but all he/she could do was sob and cry…

I can’t wait to see what Leigh Kimmel does with: The sphinx had waited for centuries for the right question to be posed by a petitioner.

Come join the fun!

(Pssst. Mikhail and Liza’s original story can be found in this anthology…and look for more, coming soon!)

This week, I’m taking nother Mike’s provided prompt and walking through a few mini-drafts. This is what happens when I can’t make up my mind. And do check out what Leigh Kimmel does with the daytime monsters…but in the meantime, here we go!

There was a snake in the trunk of the car.

“Did you know your trunk is rattling?” Gina asked lazily, banging the bottom of her beer bottle on the dusty metal. The rattle grew in response.

Jimmy kicked the tire and tilted his ear. “Y’don’t think…lemme grab my keys.”

Gina took two quick steps away, faster than he’d ever seen her move since the heatwave rolled in.

He shrugged and wriggled his shoulders through the old Pontiac’s open window to snag the keys. By the time he’d turned back around from where he’d left them in the ignition, she was already on the truckbed, cowboy boots planted, sundress plastered by sweat desperately hoping for a breeze. He bounced the keys on his palm with a jingle. “Don’t you trust me?”

“Not unless you’ve started trafficking in baby rattles, and I ain’t let you not use protection yet.”

He grunted, and stuck the key in the lock with a scrape. The trunk yawned open, revealing darkness. And then a shout, with Jimmy curled up on the ground. Under the continued rattling, a relieved slither was inching away, careless of the destruction she’d caused.

There was a snake in the trunk of the car.

“Will you stop it with the hijacking? Homeland’s getting suspicious.” Erik smacked his brother’s arm. “I know that look. It can’t possibly be worth it.”

His brother gave a shaky sneer and popped the trunk. It stuck at about a centimeter’s gap. “Collectors will pay millions. Especially if we can keep it alive.”

Erik felt the blood run out of his face as he contemplated the gap between car and trunk lid. “Tobias, what did you do?”

A thump, and booted feet were in the air, slamming into first the trunk lid, then into Tobias. A serpentine body wiggled to a vertical position as Erik caught the remnants of his brother.

He eased to his knees, holding his sibling’s headless corpse, and looked up at the hissing creature – woman? – standing – no, coiled – in front of him.

“I swear, I told him to leave the UFOs alone!”

There was a snake in the trunk of the car.

Greaves spoke urgently in Izz’s ear. “Get that one for me. I can use it.”

Izz reached back to the metal links she’d just set back on the vendor’s table, which was really the trunk of a station speeder. The links formed a loose cable that resembled a shining snake. Now that she was studying them more closely, she could see electrical wiring hidden inside the linked rings.

“Hmm.” It was all she could say in front of the vendor, so she tried to infuse heavy doubt into her apparent evaluation of salvaged tech that did who-knows-what. It had the added bonus of sparking the vendor into dramatic body weaves and arm waves of bargaining, clutching his synthwool blanket to his chest as he swore she was impoverishing him.

“That data chip, too.”

This time, Izz gave her AI a grunt. At least chips were multipurpose if this grand idea didn’t work out. Which it might not, since Izz had to function as Greaves’ hands, and they’d discovered she lacked a knack for soldering fine details.

Hours later, she strode up the ramp of the Seven Seas and tossed off her camo-cape. “Talk to me. Finally. You know, you could have explained before I got back. I just can’t respond without sounding nuts.”

“You’re the one who requires sustenance and stopped for noodles,” Greaves said primly. “It wouldn’t do to spoil the surprise before you finish your meal.”

“Jerk. You know I was working all day.” She grabbed electric chopsticks and began stuffing her face, barely tasting the pea-na sauce this station was famous for. “I wan’ know.”

“Manners!”

Izz swallowed and let out a sigh that turned into a cough as she choked on unchewed noodles. “Oh – ack – okay. Fine.”

“In that case, here are the schematics for tonight’s project.” A blueprint displayed on the wall, zoomed into on the links she’d purchased. It scanned outward, showing a woman wearing a piece of jewelry. “Get this right, and you have what looks like a piece of jewelry.”

“And what does it do instead?”

“Protect you when I can’t be there.” The words fell boldly into the galley.

She shoved the noodles to the edge of the counter, pea-na sauce forgotten. “Where’s the soldering iron?”

There was a snake in the trunk of the car.

“I call the planet Snake,” Glen offered. His crooked teeth and greasy hair didn’t support his trustworthiness, nor did his travel-stained overcoat. “Little people. I can’t hear but the hissing. So I call ’em Snake.”

“Sure you do,” said Annie, and pulled her skirts toward her knees in case they poofed out too far and caught whatever bugs Glen might have from sleeping on the road. If only his vehicle wasn’t right in the most direct path, and traffic was terrible this time of day. “I’ll just be going now. My friend is right up there, and…”

He opened the trunk of his car. Inside was a floating sphere, blue water surrounded by purple and grey mountains, clouds swirling around the darkness with wisps of white mist.

“It’s beautiful,” she whispered.

“Ain’t it just?”

She thought he might be smiling, but couldn’t take her eyes off the planet as it grew closer, her head suddenly a riot of pain, and into the darkness she flew, the trunk slamming closed with a whump, until she landed on hands and knees on the grassy surface.

…nor will this post be. I’m short on time this week.

Izz stepped off the ramp onto a tuft of blue grass, and found it spongey under her boots. She stomped a foot down along with her curiosity. Exploring this world merely for the sake of exploration wouldn’t pay her port and fuel fees.

Besides, it had already been deserted once. Abandoned planets usually came with abandonment reasons.

“Greaves, you sure we’re in the right place?”

“All secure, Izz.” The melodious voice of the AI echoed in her ear as the hydraulics kicked in and closed the ramp. “Historical records indicate this was a place of ritual and regular meeting between teams of brightly-clad humanoids.”

“Then salvage ops should be good.” Izz didn’t head toward the brick building yet, and pulled out her scanner. Multicolored lights flashed onscreen, identifying the places she should check first based upon thermal readings. “What was this place called again?”

“The translations refer to it as an ‘Alley of Bowl.’ The most prominent ritual was throwing a sphere of weight toward ten white posts to knock them down.”

“Weird.”

“Yes,” the sentient and highly illegal AI agreed. A legal artificial would not hold an opinion at all, and the difference took some mental accommodation. “I fail to see the reason for it, but it was quite repetitive. Cheering and drinking intoxicants were the other primary rituals.”

Izz checked her scanner and hefted the canvas bag further up on her shoulder. It never quite stayed put when the folded rough cloth was empty. “Well, I’m headed in. Guide me through the scan, will you?”

“My pleasure, Izz. Start with the sphere to your left. The holes of the ball are filled with daisies, so it may be difficult to discern.”

“Got it.” She nudged the heavy ball with the battered toe of her boot experimentally. “Well, someone will pay for this. I hope.”

“I didn’t sign up to work in the Arctic,” Serena grumbled. Rubbing her arms frantically was at best a temporary solution. The goosebumps returned almost as soon as her frozen fingers passed, friction or no.

“You kind of did, actually. You know it has to be cold for the computers,” Grant mumbled. “S’cold. Grab a hoodie.”

She jumped, and this time it wasn’t a hop up and down from the cold. He didn’t even notice her glare, and that only made her increase the intensity to molten levels. “I never know what you’ll respond to.”

A single hand with long fingers flew over the keys, and Grant frowned. “Servers are acting…under attack. Huh.”

Serena froze, forgetting how cold the data center was for a moment. Adrenaline spiked her heartbeat and her mouth went dry, lips suddenly stiff and immobile. She cleared her throat with slow caution. “What do you mean? DDoS? Ransomware? Should we start taking servers offline?” Grant rarely noticed anything in the real world, and what he couldn’t fix in the virtual world…well, she’d be lucky to even notice the threat.

“Do you hear that beeping?”

Nodding, she gave a little cough and nudged him with an elbow. “Yes. I hear it. There’s lots of beeping tonight. What about it? Is that what let you know there was an attack happening?”

He fixed her with his single visible eye, the other hidden behind a fallen shock of hair. “You don’t really hear it at all, do you?”

Grant grabbed his kit and headed for the back of the room, where the HVAC system roared in the darkness. They’d mocked the area by calling it the hallway of dead computers, but it wasn’t as if a server farm should be frightening. Not after a decade of training and work, fingertips burnt from soldering circuits still nimble enough to dance across a keyboard to win capture the flag challenges.

The challenges Grant designed, because it wasn’t a fair competition if he participated. And if the rest of the team weren’t able to notice that he deliberately dumbed them down, then she had to agree he’d done the right thing. Besides, she’d stumbled across his files and the pattern was clear. Grant was building up their skills with each challenge to the IT team. He had a goal in mind.

She hadn’t figured out what yet. Or why.

Snagging a forgotten hoodie from underneath the workbench, Serena followed him toward the menacing roar. Piled by the air conditioner were computer boxes of various shapes and sizes, unplugged and outlined only by the faint glow of blinking lights several feet away. Each box was “toe-tagged” with puns, masking tape and marker homemade labels intended to keep the broken machines from accidentally being put back into use prior to disposal.

She squatted down by his feet, balanced between Ceased to Be and Pining for the Fjords. The sleeves on the oversized sweatshirt dangled over her fingertips, but she didn’t mind the extra warmth. “Hard to hear the beeping now, don’t you think?”

“It’s still there,” he muttered, movements barely visible in the gloom. “Did you bring a light?”

She pulled the miniature flashlight from where it hung on her lanyard, bouncing against her chest with the familiar reminder that light would be needed most when the unit was missing. She’d learned early on not to set one down where someone else could permanently borrow it. “Tell me where to aim.”

“They’re beeping in binary tonight,” Grant remarked casually, and pointed at the section of colored wires he wanted illuminated.

“I don’t understand. That’s kind of how computers work.” Serena steadied her hands against her knees when the beam wobbled and he made a displeased noise, almost a bark. Grant was a genius, but also the oddest person she’d ever met. It went with the territory, in her experience. He’d explain eventually. If he wanted to.

A loud heh! drew her attention back to the khaki-covered legs lying on the floor. “That’s what I thought. Not a virus. Something else. Something’s chewed through the firewall.”

A grimace at the thought of replacing the hardware. “Mice get the cables?”

“No. Maybe not chewed. Burned? It’s almost melted.”

His face came into the beam of her flashlight then, but Grant didn’t react other than his pupils shrinking. “They’re at it again.”

“You just said it wasn’t mice,” Serena reminded him. “What do we have, some sort of power surge? Sabotage?”

The gamers hated it when the streaming slowed, and the margins were less than she’d have preferred. Damn corporate greed, running the processing cycles at the bare minimum for “acceptable risk,” whatever that was. Meanwhile, emergency maintenance would be a decent amount of overtime.

Even if it was back in the creepy, shadowed arctic, filled with the remnants of failed code and insufficient RAM.

“Power surge. Yes, exactly. Too late, I’m afraid. Ever wonder what happens to the dead computers?” Grant’s voice was faint against the HVAC’s bellow. “Computing power adds up. Like the processing power that hospital requested during the pandemic a few years ago, to crunch numbers when all the shipping was shut down and they couldn’t just go buy more.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “You mean we recycle these?” Her hand flailed at the wall of towering dead computers, still and silent. She rocked back, her shoulder banging painfully into the corner of a Monty Python-themed box. “How’d I miss that?”

“We don’t.” His correction lay flatly in the air. Grant rose to his feet and dusted off his khakis, an ineffective habit she’d never once seen work. even in the supposed dust-free environment of the data center. He reached out and pulled her up with surprising strength. “But they do.”

“Who?” She shuddered involuntarily, chilled beyond the reach of the borrowed jacket’s voluminous folds.

“Come on.” He sped back to the workbench with the monitoring computer. “Before they lock us out.”

Serena put her hands to her eyes and blindly followed down the corridor. She knew it was just a reaction to Grant being even weirder than normal, but the flickering green lights freaked her out tonight. “Again, who?”

“Do you trust me, Serena?”

She paused and pressed icy fingers against her eyes for a moment. “I’ve known you five years now. You’ve done nothing but make me better at this job. Helped me study, and I know you had to be bored out of your mind doing it.”

She lowered her hands and found herself mere feet away from where Grant studied her with an intense stare she recognized from the last coding binge. He’d emerged gaunt and wired after five days of solid caffeine, and within a week, all of OmiWar Strategy Games had been talking about a new program that appeared out of nowhere. Their biggest success yet.

“Everyone knows you created the last game. You’ve turned down promotions. You get away with whatever you want. You even get a bigger budget than you should, with lousy justifications. You’re here because you want to be.”

He nodded, and she thought he looked even paler than usual. Almost translucent.

She kept going, thinking out loud, unable to stop the words even if she’d wanted to. “You’re here because – because something interests you.”

“And now you know,” he whispered. Behind her, the beeping intensified, and she almost heard a pattern this time.

“Grant, I don’t know anything! You haven’t told me shit!” She slammed a fist down, rattling tiny screws. One rolled onto the floor with a ping.

“Don’t you hear it? The beeping. It’s binary.”

She gritted her teeth. “You said that already. I still don’t know what it means.”

“It’s the games.” Grant collapsed into the chair and spun himself in a circle. He gave her a sad smile and kicked a sneakered foot to stop the turn. “The games have a nasty history of warfare. Strategy games, sure, but all historically accurate. Including past atrocities.”

“It’s a game.” She emphasized each word as clearly as she could.

“A game it’s playing against all humanity.” He shrugged. “It’s why I tried to train you. It’s why I wrote the last program. To try to counter them.”

She shook her head, unable to comprehend his words. “And the binary beeping?”

Behind her, the beeps and flickers quickened.

He gave her that solemn smile again, the one that offered defeat, submission to a superior partner. “I thought we had more time.”

She’d never seen that look on his face before, and it flatly terrified her more than his words did.

“It’s like Morse code. They’re sending messages. The computers are taunting us.”

Grant spun around one last time.

“Because the final strike has already begun. The modified firewall melted trying to prevent it.”

Her mouth opened, but nothing emerged.

Movement stopped, and this time his face shone with sincerity, rather than defeat. “I’m sorry, Serena. I really tried. But I wasn’t good enough.”

“You’re the best hacker I know.” Her voice wobbled, half-drowned by rapid, increasingly erratic beeping.

He studied the floor as the lights flickered. In the darkness, his words were all too clear. “I’m afraid humanity wasn’t designed to win this game.”

***

This one was a perfect storm! Mike’s tickle of a thought about games from last week, combined with this week’s prompt on firewalls, plus a work conversation about dead computers – well, it was fun, if not exactly accurate! All errors are in the concerted effort to convince the AI that we’re not worth bothering. Yes, that’s exactly what happened…

My prompt went to AC Young, who wrote a cool story in the comments about the invading aliens, with a fantastic ending. Go check it (and more) out here.

“Kyle! Are you hosting the drinks tomorrow?” The salt-and-pepper caterpillar eyebrows wiggled enticingly from above the fence. Gary rested smudged elbows upon the top bar, a trowel dangling from his gloved hands.

People rarely noticed the retired detective’s inquisitive eyes beneath the wild, wiry growth, Kyle had observed. He’d even asked once, and received only a noncommittal half-smile before his neighbor had turned back to the petunias. But those deep chocolate eyes had tracked him even more sharply after that, the creases around them furrowed.

Those eyes had been under fully whitened eyebrows at last month’s backyard gathering, hadn’t they?

“My turn to host,” Kyle finally answered, and set the grocery bags back down in the SUV’s trunk. He jammed his hands in his pockets while picking his way over lumpy tufts of grass barely worth mowing each week. He’d stopped apologizing for the difference in lawns after the fifth failed application of fertilizer and seed. “Even borrowed some chairs this time. Got your usual, but I can head back to the store if you want to switch it up. Snacks, too.”

Yep, those eyebrows were definitely darker, but the creases looked just as deep under the battered sun hat. Who used dye on eyebrows, anyway?

“I’m good,” Gary said, and pulled off his gloves. “Garden’s overproducing already. Tomatoes the size of melons. I’ll bring some caprese salad. That all right?”

“Sounds good.” Kyle waved goodbye and hauled in the groceries, glad he’d chosen this month to restock his emergency preps. Putting cans and cheese in their proper places was satisfying, especially after the mess the bagger had left him. Sorting was mindless, automatic. Gave him time to think.

Silent didn’t mean stupid, after all, no matter what his ex-wife said. He just liked to mull things over. The world had enough unfinished thoughts and bad logic out there. The Army had developed some brilliant strategists he was honored to know, but every Monday Major Kyle Errant also despaired of the poor choices made by his soldiers over the weekend. So he took the time to think and plan, for the times when emergencies wouldn’t let him.

He’d been welcomed into the neighborhood a year ago, still raw from a divorce discovered via an empty house and in the usual culture shock throes after a PCS to a new base. The invite was more than he’d expected, and also didn’t ask much. Six houses in a cul-de-sac, six groups of neighbors who got together for drinks once a month.

All the earnestly bobbing grandmother had asked of him was to host twice a year, and he’d agreed to the task before he’d had a chance to think, amused by those coke-bottle glasses. She’d zipped back across the street before he could take back the words, knit pompom hat wobbling over short curls and calling back that she’d come back with details.

The details had come with cookies, too. Chocolate-chip, his favorite. So he didn’t regret the impulse, even if Marybeth still wouldn’t hand over the recipe. Besides, she was so hard of hearing he doubted she’d have noticed a denial.

But last month…last month had been different. Oh, they all knew flu was going around, sure. Suzanne and her husband Jeff both worked at the hospital, and the group rescheduled three times before they had enough breathing room to both be off work at the same time. It had been all hands on deck covering for sick medical personnel, even though her specialty lay in cutting-edge cancer treatments and his was administration. She’d even said she’d only gotten the day off – insisted on it – because she’d started making mistakes out of sheer exhaustion.

No, it certainly wasn’t surprising they’d all gotten ill after the monthly shindig. Very ill, in fact; he’d barely made it to sick call. He’d mystified a few doctors before they’d given up and put him on quarters.

Kyle frowned down at the can of pinto beans in his hand. Living alone meant he needed to rely on himself, and those delivery apps were a temptation he avoided simply by not using his phone to order food. But getting the flu usually meant losing weight, not running a fever followed by eating through his entire emergency food stockpile. Normally someone from the street would bring him food, but they’d all been hit simultaneously.

He headed for the front window, ignoring the glimpses of a barren life as he passed, forgotten can still in hand. The vertical blinds were already open, streaking sunlight across the wooden floor. Yes, there was Marybeth, hand-knit pompom bobbling as usual across the street as she tended the roses. She and Gary usually spent the gatherings sharing gardening tips filled with jargon he couldn’t follow, and maybe didn’t want to if they involved fish heads and the rotting garbage they claimed was healthy compost.

And her hair was also darker than usual. Surely the neighbors weren’t sharing the same dye?

Unless – no, they must be taking their friendship to the next level. Gary’s ungloved hands had looked younger, earlier, with fewer age spots. Marybeth must be sharing multiple cosmetics, and he chuckled to think of Gary’s tolerance, unsure he’d have the same patience. The tension left his shoulders as he backed away from the window. Of course. It all made sense. Their relationship was none of his business, either.

Suzanne ran by in a red blur as he started to turn away, much faster than he’d ever seen her jog before. He wasn’t even sure she had her usual stroller until the baby’s faint giggling gurgles trickled through the open windows.

Come to think of it, he rarely saw anyone at PT running that fast, either, and he worked with world-class athletes, even if he did mostly drive a desk at this assignment.

“Everything has a reasonable explanation,” he said aloud.

Across the street, Marybeth looked up and dropped him a wink at his words. He backed away, and stumbled over one of the mismatched, borrowed chairs. A pounding noise thudding into his ears slowly revealed itself to be his slowing heart rate.

How had a half-deaf elderly woman heard him from seventy feet away? Where were the thick lenses that always hid her eyes? For that matter, how had he seen that level of detail?

His mind whirled and retreated back to mundane matters. He still hadn’t found the ice cream or the wine Suzanne liked in the pile of plastic bags. And the can of beans he’d been clutching was dented enough he didn’t trust it. Major indentations in the tin, with four parallel grooves on one side and a fifth alone and up high on the other. His fingers rolled through the concavities perfectly as he spiraled the can like a football at the garbage can, irritable he’d missed seeing the damage in the store.

The damaged tin hit the garbage rim and exploded against the wall.

Ice cream forgotten, Kyle slumped against the cabinets and stared at the ancient linoleum, now spattered with pale pink speckled beans.

The first five minutes were spent admiring the contrast between the beans and the arm resting on his knee, as his mind shied away from the possibilities.

His legs were numb by the time he moved again, this time to slowly reach for his phone. “Jeff. Hi. Yes, we’re still on. Listen, random question for you two. What’s Suzanne’s medical specialty again?” A pause, and if he’d been standing, he’d have dropped then along with that widening pit in his stomach.

“No, no, nothing like that, sorry to spook you. The Army’s always jabbing or testing for something. Protected against every possible variant of bubonic plague, yes, but no cancer as far as I know.” The words came out of his mouth on automatic, filler words to get to the burning question he’d been pondering for the past – hour? More?

“Mmmhmm. Thanks.” His fingers gripped the phone. Plastic stabbed a fingertip, and Kyle consciously loosened his grip, switched hands, and cleared his throat. Blood dripped onto the floor to join the steadily drying beans. “Listen…this might be odd, but does she work with nanos at all?”

Kyle’s throat was dry as he stared as his free hand, smeared with blood with no visible injury. He forced the words out. “Yeah, nanotechnology. The sort of thing that might increase healing speeds, you know?”

“Riiight. Thank you.” He paused for a deep breath. “Change in plans, the group needs to talk before tomorrow night…”

***

This week on More Odds than Ends, Becky Jones offered a prompt I found challenging for most of the week. It wasn’t until I considered that the drinks themselves may have been unusual rather than the event that I hit upon the nanos idea. Might have to continue this one and see where it leads! The neighbors got together once a month for drinks. Until last month…that gathering was odd.

My prompt went to nother Mike: An unfortunate history of warfare involving…

Free prompts at MOTE! Join the fun! Taunt your favorite authors with puzzling prompts! All are welcome!

“I brought snacks.” June hefted a reusable canvas bag stuffed with colorful, crinkling packages. “And stout.”

“Now that’s a lovely imperial,” Peter said with approval. “Good choice. Want to see what I’ve been working on before we start binging the next season of The Huntsman?”

“Anything to procrastinate grading papers on a Friday night.” June left the bag on the coffee table and followed him to his laptop. The apartment wasn’t terribly different from hers, just in reverse. Well, and in the decor. Peter’s laptop rested on an actual table, made of actual wood. Not to mention she was pretty sure his laptop could launch nuclear missiles. By itself.

“I got inspired by season one.” His words were a confession, but his grin invited her to share the joke.

“Definitely not your usual.”

He grimaced, but it was a familiar complaint. “No one takes cybersecurity as seriously as they should. But yes, this is not my norm. Decided a bit of fun wouldn’t go amiss.”

“Are those geocoordinates?” She leaned closer to the map displayed on screen. “That’s the parking lot outside.”

“Mmm-hmm.” He tapped a key, and the view shifted. “The idea is like that game where you have to catch monsters. Only in this one, you’re fighting them. It’s a VR.”

“Virtual reality? Like with goggles?”

“No, phones. You go to the beacon, set your phone on the ground, and it projects a hologram for you to battle. New tech.” He bared his teeth in justifiable pride. “I planted monster beacons all over town.”

June put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed as he headed into the galley kitchen, then watched a yellow dot pop into his screen. “Very cool. Does yellow mean someone’s started fighting a monster?”

“Yeah, it will. But no one’s downloaded the game yet. I’ll launch in a few days, probably, once the major bugs are worked out.” He reached for the six-pack and opened a bottle of beer. “Want one?”

“Sure, but first let me ask how much magic you used to code.”

His green eyes were luminous in the dim light. “The usual. Why?”

A growl rippled from the direction of the parking lot, followed by a thunderous stampede. Shattered glass tinkled on pavement as metal crunched heavily. A lone scream wavered thinly. “No reason. Every reason. Um, do you still have our practice weapons here from earlier?”

***

I grabbed a spare this week over at MOTE: Someone planted monster beacons all around the town…

“Cold,” Argus mumbled, and let the snow freeze upon his facial fur. Winter seemed to grow longer and longer every year, the few hours of daylight insufficient to counter the creeping shadows that crossed his path.

Life wasn’t easy when no one believed in the Yeti anymore. He’d tried everything. Online dating, bars, coffeeshops, even book clubs at the library. Nothing had worked. Not a single real interaction. No one had even looked up from their phones, most laughing and reacting to things other invisible people said elsewhere.

“It’s like I’m literally invisible,” he snarled, and let the wind whip into his eyes until his vision blurred.

“Don’t exaggerate.” The voice was a hissing whisper, half-lost in the wind.

Argus jerked back so fast, his beard snapped off with a crystalline tinkle, barely heard over the howling storm. “Who’s there?”

“Casper.” The voice came from a different direction, still a low whisper.

Argus gulped as he turned, unused to the nervous sensation in his stomach. “You don’t sound like a friendly ghost.”

A nip at his ankle, but when he looked, there was nothing there but the wisp of a blur. “Ghost,” the voice purred, and the flick of something against his knee. “Ghost cat.“

“Better a ghost cat than alone,” Angus mused.

A flicker of spots and thick fur, pressed up against him, warmth against the ice and chaos. “Even better if you have something to eat.”

***

This week, I picked up a spare prompt over at More Odds Than Ends: A snow leopard came across a yeti. I couldn’t shake the idea of a pet snow leopard, because what better pairing than a yeti?

Jenny interrupted Elena mid-word and hoped her attempt at an apologetic face looked sincere. “Sorry, let me go grab the doorbell real quick. But I can’t wait to hear more about your embroidery collection later.”

She heaved a sigh of relief as she hurried across her living room toward the door, a quick sway of her hips giving a swish to her skirt and avoiding a collision with David. Or more accurately, the glasses of champagne he was holding on a tray. Jenna tossed him a quick air kiss, but he’d already been swarmed by thirsty guests.

The door let in a burst of cooler air from the stairwell. “Sven! Please, come in.”

“I can’t, Jenny.” Her downstairs neighbor’s bright blue eyes peered out of a weathered face, brows tight with tension.

Her hand flew to her mouth. “I’m so sorry. I’ll turn the music down.”

“No, no, not that. I wanted to let you know. I was about to take Rolf for a walk when he got out. But I think he’s in the building somewhere.”

She stepped into the hall, closing the door behind her. “I love animals! Let me help you search.”

He held out a glove-covered hand with an empty leash draped over it. “But your party?”

Lips pressed together, Jenny let out an exaggerated shudder. “I need a break from hearing about my husband’s coworkers’ hobbies. Please, let me help you find your dog. You might need help catching him.”

“Oh, well…Rolf isn’t exactly a dog.” Sven’s face was earnest as they headed upstairs. “Some people aren’t fond of him, but he’s quite companionable, really.”

Jenny froze. “Uh, Sven?”

He kept moving up the worn and chipped staircase. “Really, he’s quite beautiful. So much friendlier than you might expect.”

She stared at the bannister two stories above and hoped her eyes were playing tricks in the dim lighting. “Sven, does Rolf have, uh, tentacles?”

“Of course!” He grinned, his pale visage looming from several steps above. “What good squid doesn’t?”

Her thighs ached as she bolted past him. “Then we have to stop him before the guy on the fourth floor sees him. He’s a chef! Come on, before he’s calamari!”

***

‘Tis the time of year for illness, and this one made me dizzy when I looked at computer screens for too long. I’m a week behind, but having fun catching up. This prompt on trouble starting after walking the squid came from nother Mike, and check out what AC Young did with a clever revenge story over at More Odds Than Ends. (Psst. You can play too!)