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[Martian]

OK. I've finished my story. It's 1673 words.

EDIT: Split it into parts because of the character limit.

Superconductors and Virii part 1

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

He was upset. Very upset. So upset that he kicked the supporting leg of his invention rather hard and badly bruised his toe. With a beep and hissing noise his boots automatically deployed medicinal treatment or, to put it in the words the advertisement, “Ouch Ouch Ouch! Bust yourself up? No matter; With new fixit delux boots no more stubbed toes! Order now. While stocks last. [The rest came very fast] Fixit delux industries is not responsible for any dangerous mutations, extra toes, bone damage or skin removal resulting from use.” He thought, partly to take his mind off his present situation and partly because he was a incorrigible cynic, that advertisements have only gotten increasingly obnoxious since his birth in the year 2000.

That was really why he had built his time machine. To prove to people that there once was a golden age, when people bought things on recommendations by word of mouth. Of course, the theory for time travel had existed for a long time; it was simple first year university quantum mechanics. But the lack of time machine ads was rather good proof that nobody had gotten around to building it; mostly because they were to busy, in his opinion, making obnoxious advertisements or buying the things that were advertised.

But his frustration with ads had had always existed. No, the reason he was so blisteringly angry was because he was happily in the 20th century exploring and being glad about the lack of speaking billboards when he was rudely interrupted by a large motor vehicle. Which had promptly crashed into his time machine and destroyed a lot of padding and cracked the complicated Thingymajiggy Delux. In between the sporadic bouts of swearing he reflected that brand names had gotten a lot more dumbed down. He was at least thankful he made his time machine look like a motor vehicle on the outside, though it wasn't powered by anything as crude as hydrocarbons.

He had, of course, observed correct protocol for the time after the crash (including the apologetic extended middle finger) and then drove off. He couldn't time travel without his Thingymajiggy Delux and he didn't think there was a store nearby which sold thorium based superconductors. Not unless time machines were a lot more widespread than he thought.

To take his mind off things, and because he was running out of swearwords, he thought back to how he had felt when his machine was finally finished. How he celebrated to himself with a quick glass of pseuhanol (the latest “absolutely realistic fake alcohol”) and then set off on his mad adventure.

When he activated his machine it had felt like an infinity. There had come the horrible feeling of being pressed into ball along with the rest of the universe and then used to play a vigorous game of squash. He had floated in darkness for what seemed like years, thinking... panicking! Something must have gone wrong! He should simply have been instantaneously transported, time having been pulled out from under him like a large rug. A very large mostly black rug.

Tick... tock... the minutes had drifted away in his head. Then he had seen a light. He had thought it probably meant there was a fire breathing dragon near. Luckily he was absolutely right. And he was very glad to see it, because it meant he was simply dreaming and had been knocked unconscious by the trip.

He had tentatively opened and eye and saw out of his side window an antique driveway with a that had car backed out of it and into him. He had panicked and quickly driven off out of the pathetically small town. Upon investigating the damage in the more private countryside he had soon found he was stuck. This had put him in the afore mentioned mental state.

But now to resolve the problem. He couldn't repair the time machine so he'd have to make it so that it didn't need to be repaired. He needed to get a message to himself in the future before he departed for the past. He sighed, at least it was simpler than getting a message to the past from the future. He'd just buy a quick message tape... oh wait. They're not invented yet. Ah well then he'll just have to record a quick SoundBite Deluxe TM. Oh wait... that wasn't invented either. How did people in this age communicate?

But then he realized a much more pressing problem, even if he could compose a message how could he get it to himself? He wasn't born yet! Think... Think... Think... Thinky think-think thinka-thinky think! After stopping himself beatboxing he had an idea. Perhaps he could stop his parents meeting; then he'd never be born and never travel back in time and so not prevent his parents meeting. That would probably crash the universe and it would be reloaded from the midnight backup. Which was before he arrived.

Suddenly he had a brilliant insight, this time for real. All he had to do was to stop Thorium superconductors being invented. His time machine would then contain another type of superconductor. Hopefully one less fragile. Now, which company invented them... He checked the Bigger Better Really Complete Encyclopaedia 2030. It was Thingymajiggies inc. or formerly International Superconductors Retail and Development inc. Good now to sell a basic future idea to one of their competitors which would put them out of business. Wait, none of their competitors existed yet. Neither did they for that matter. But then again, the entire company started when some engineer made an accidental discovery and formed the company to sell his brand new room temperature superconductors. He had gotten his units mixed up between metric and imperial and by sheer chance discovered the correct mixture. Our protagonist gave a wolfish smile. Time to fix that error.

[Martian]

Superconductors and Virii part 2

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

He quickly activated his retina implanted computer. As usual the thing had more virii than a biological weapons lab. They were all highly intelligent and self adapting. He quickly tweaked his computer to use the current primitive internet protocol, which was no challenge for someone as technically orientated as him. With a pang of guilt he opened up the International System of Unit's web site and waited five seconds.

Good old Ripper041 should start uploading itself. The horrid virus had crashed the internet twice until operating systems changed and the loophole it used was plugged. Then it adapted and continued crashing the internet about once a month. It was adapting itself about as fast as the multimillion dollar government organisation trying to stop it adapted PC's. In this primitive age it would go through the web like a hot knife through SimButter.

Suddenly the web browser crashed. Success. He had destroyed all of France's computer infrastructure. With the SI so badly delayed everyone would end up using feet and inches. Ghastly way to do it but he'd take that rather than be stuck.

In a future time a past version of our protagonist was building a time machine and having a ghastly time of it. “Insert rod 3 into Slot B. Measure to ensure length is 10 inches.” Simple enough except he kept hooking up the titanium superconductor the wrong way. A part of his mind was insisting that rod 3 goes in Slot C and was supposed to be 33 centimetres. Why he was thinking in that ancient system he didn't know. He sort of felt split in the middle, like he was building two different time machines. In any case at the end he managed to hook up the machine correctly. And went back in time.

This time the trip was uneventful. With a “WUMP” noise he appeared in the driveway and was hit by the reversing car. There was a horrible screech of metal against metal. He checked in his rear-view mirror and was glad to see that he had only received some torn padding. The other car had been badly smashed, his vehicle absorbing none of the force, unlike last time. “Huh? What last time? Certainly he had never time travelled before.” In any case, he obeyed protocol with an extended middle finger and drove off.

While driving through the countryside and admiring the view he was again rudely interrupted. Suddenly he hit an invisible barrier. His car slowed and bounced back for no apparent reason. He, having watched a lot of action films, instantly recognized it as a police vehicle halter. But why? There surely weren't any in this century. Speculation was put out of his mind when someone in a suit and sunglasses walked up to him. He had a motor vehicle parked on the edge of the street.

He spoke in precise measured tones. “You realized messing with history is a very serious offence. We don't have any laws against it; that would only encourage it. But sir I'm afraid you'll have to be transported to a facility for the remainder of your life. At least there's a nice view. You can see a T-Rex if your lucky.”

The protagonist thought quickly. He had only one way out and that wasn't pretty. He pretend to have trouble with his dented door. With the time he bought he sent Ripper041 to the current White house. The agent saw his eyes lose focus as he used the computer and, with a practised move, drew a gun. The muzzle flashed and suddenly everything was gone.

Yet another version of our protagonist was in the future driving home and wondering whether time travel was possible. But of course you needed a superconductor for that. They were still in development although some progress was being made. The great internet smash of '98 had seriously harmed technological progress. In the end the only solution was to replace every machine in the world with a brand new one unconnected with an infected pc in every way. The internet mark 2. At least Linux gained massive ground because it was cheaper.

[deadlycairn]

I don't think its 1673 words - I'm pretty sure there is a 40 thousand character limit.

[deadlycairn]

... I'm not sure I'll be able to meet my one week deadline. I've got a massive headache after playing Cave Story for 6 hours straight. Damn thats a good game. Anyway, if I don't churn something out today, I'll have written something by tomorrow, then all I gotta do is type it up and post it.

EDIT:
...Well I finished Cave Story - in the credits however, it mentioned a 'Red Demon, which only true heroes fight' or something along those lines. I never saw him, which tells me I missed something. Back on topic, I'm starting to write now.

[Gigalith]

Oh no, another of these threads. Maybe I can dig up some short story somewhere to finish and stick up here...

Little: An interesting story, but the first thing that nagged me was its tense. 'He fumbles a book of matches out of his pocket, dropping the can of gas.' is present. 'He looked up, and the glass glinted.' is past. Pick one or the other.

Side rant: Present tense is becoming a cliche. It was edgy back when Snow Crash came out, but now that everyone* uses it the charm is fleeting.

Continuing on, 'and' implies that the two clauses are related and happened in order. "I slammed him in the face and slit his throat as he fell" makes sense, "I built a steam-powered calculator in my fort and Barack Obama was elected" does not. The glass does not glint because Jason looked at it, he happens to see it because it does.

'(which, unbeknownst to Jason, contained a large cylinder filled with roughly five hundred galleons of heating oil)' If we are following the perspective of Jason, why do we get to know thing he doesn't? If the detail is intended as a surprise, why is it here? If it isn't relevant at all, why is it anywhere?

IMPORTANT SIDE RANT: If a detail doesn't help the story, don't include it. The best way to accomplish this is not to add details that don't.

'Cataclysmic explosion'. Adverbs in general. It's hard to do, but it is far far better to have the reader draw the conclusions you want them to rather than dealing them out. Ernest Hemmingway was the master of this, check out The Old Man and the Sea or one of his other works for how to write an entire Pulitzer Prize novella using 'slowly' and (I think) 'steadily' as the only adverbs.

Last lines: I was confused at bit about this, too. Again, it could be a little clearer. Is the reader to understand this is supposed to be the influence of some mysterious telepathic arson thing? If so, I would suggest one of two things:

A) Make it more clear that this influence isn't natural.
B) Set up the story as a mystery as to why an ordinary citizen would start burning down buildings, and fully reveal the arson monster at the end. I know, some how, this can be done without the reader guessing the secret right away, but I can't think exactly how right now...

But in any case, I enjoyed it. Keep up writing.

Impending doom: The passive tense often appears in your writing. The use of it can make your story stilted and clumsy. Sometimes the drama of sentences is lost. This can be corrected. The active voice is better.

Also, is this a finished story? You mentioned unfinished stories above, is this one of them? As it is, the story ends at an odd moment.

The box is too obvious. You mention it at the end of segment and put special attention on it. Why should the reader doubt at all that you intend for it to be a plot point later? If you want for it to be a surprise, you must hide it first.

Anyway, I'm going to stop my critique now, as I have a headache and it's late at night. Keep writing. I'll read the other stories tomorrow.

FINAL SIDE RANT APPROACHES:

Any of you planning a career in writing, or just planning to get any done: Take note. You need to say to yourself 'I'm going to write n hours today'. N can be 1, 2, 4, 0.3, whatever, it's too easy to not work up the effort for a deadline a week away. If you're planning on writing a book (which I did) there's no other way to finish it in a reasonable timeframe.

[deadlycairn]

Here's hoping nothing goes screwy with the formatting.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Wasted

“Hey Jim, have a gander at this, would you? Looks like some of the Ancient English pictograms on this entry have survived. Any idea what they mean?”
“Didn’t bring my translator with me, but the pictures are reasonably easy to decode. Latest theory on the block is most Ancient Humans were illiterate – the symbols were understood by all of them, so they used them on signs and the like.”
“Whatever, just tell me what they mean!”
“Lessee, here we have their warning symbol – and some other one I’ve never seen before. Lots of pictures of dying humans though – it might be a curse on those who enter, or possibly a depiction of the punishments for unauthorised entry. Either way, not a problem for us.”

I motioned at Jim to move over so I could look at the pictograms myself. Nearly the entire column was covered by pictures of humans dying, wasting away, and sporting all kinds of unnatural deformities. No matter what the pictograms showed, I wasn’t going to turn back now. I’d worked hard on this dig, and if all went well, it may reveal more about mankind’s mysterious ancestors. They seemingly disappeared off the face of the Earth – leaving little of themselves behind. Here was the greatest discovery since the Washington dig, an Ancient Human building set deep inside a mountain. It had taken weeks to uncover the entry, and finally we could go inside.
“Jim, got your flashlight?”
“I’m not totally incompetent you know – I even brought spare cells in case this thing goes in deep."
“Well then, let’s go!”
The building seemed to be some kind of storage facility. All the walls had the same carvings as those on the entrance pillars, as clear as the day they were chiselled in.
“What do you think this place is, Jim?”
“Temple perhaps? Seems to go in pretty deep, it’s a good thing I brought those spare cells.”
“If this is a temple, I don’t want to meet the gods they were worshipping.”
I motioned at the carvings.
“Is it just me, or are they getting MORE gruesome?”
“No, they’re definitely getting worse. That other symbol is getting repeated more often too. What’s that!”
Jim’s flashlight illuminated a rusted pile of metal, the remains of some kind of machinery still distinguishable amongst the other scraps.
“Dunno, but I bet it’s important. Look at this, will you?”
I walked over to the pile of metal, and right past it, focusing on something else altogether. Strange cylindrical containers loomed out of the darkness, made out a corrugated metal, badly rusted. There was a strange symbol on the barrel, the same symbol that had been repeated so many times in the carvings, as well as some genuine Ancient English words!
“What do they say?”
“Damnit, why the hell do I always forget my translator? Ok, at least there are only two words. Lessee, D..A..N.. oh, it says Danger! The other word though, I got no idea. I’ll make a copy of it to show to the guys back at the lab, and to see if the translator comes up with anything.”
“Well, hurry, the people back home are gonna want to see this!”
I began the walk to the surface, already making notes to get a tech to get a sample from one of those containers, as Jim sketched out the words on the barrel.

DANGER! RADIOACTIVE!

Just a short 567 word affair. Been a while since I wrote like this. I've done a quick once over for spelling/grammatical errors, but stuff like faulty tenses will probably have eluded me. Oh, and you'll probably realise what thread I got the idea from by the end. Cookie to first person to name it!

[Mulch Diggums]

Wow.. Deadly, that realy was a joy to read, I must say. Very intresting, a surprising ending, I would never have guessed. Alittle on the short side for my taste, but still great.

[Zai]

Short is good. I like short. Just not too short.

And I remember a thread recently where somebody mentioned something should be radioactive. Can't actually remember what it was, though, so no cookie for me. Good thing I'm not the Cookie Monster.

But yeah. Good read. =D

[deadlycairn]

I'm waiting for someone to tell me something's wrong - not that I'm complaining about the praise, of course.

[Mulch Diggums]

Uh.. It didnt have enough mummies. Going into this, thats what I thought it would be about. I was slightly disapointed.

[Makrond]

My only critique would be that it's not particularly clear where they are. I would gather a radioactive waste storage facility, but what's up with all the pictograms of dying humans? Are we talking about danger signs that you often find in workplaces?

Also this sentence: "Strange cylindrical containers loomed out of the darkness, made out a corrugated metal, badly rusted." Pretty easy to miss.

Other than that, it's quite well-written, at least when I'm only casting a quick glance at it. The dialogue is believable; the ending is sudden but leaves you to consider the implications and the whole thing gives you a modern Egyptian tomb sort of feel until you realise what's going on.

[deadlycairn]

Since no one seems to know, the inspiration was from the 'America's Energy Dilemma' thread. At one point, when the storage of nuclear waste was being discussed, someone suggested having pictures of mutants etc. being drawn on the entry of a storage site so future generations wouldn't go and dig it up by accident.

I was trying to lead the reader to believe the explorers were searching some kind of tomb - that's what the explorers thought they were doing, after all.

[Mulch Diggums]

Think you could write another story like that, maby even an extenstion of the story itself, though I dont know what you would write about.

[chaoticag]

Jason Larson was sentenced to twenty years in prison for five charges of arson...

For the sake of my sanity, allow me to rework the ending.

Spoiler: reworked ending (click to show/hide)

Jack Brendshaw was sitting at his poorly lit desk, in front of him was every local newspaper printed within the past week. He was following the story of "Larson the Arson" for something to write about in the Reporter, but had to admit defeat once his request for an intervew was turned down. He leaned back on his chair, and stared at the dark ceiling to rest his eyes and stretch out after hours of bending over article after article.

He had been over the details so many times, he could recite them: Average man leading an average life, a little on the quite side. No one new much about him other than the small hints of madness that started to pop up, such as the strong smell of gasoline. He was sentanced to twenty years in prison, on five charges of arson, destruction of private property and possession of illegal goods. His plea of temporary insanity fell on deaf ears and the damage he caused went well into millions of dollars. Some say the judge was lenient in this regard.

After a half hour of getting back to work Jack stands up and walks to the couch, fishes for the remote and starts flipping through the channels. He stops at the news, where there was a coverage of another case of arson, in this case beach houses, that happened yesterday. They had a shocking similarity to Larson's case, despite happening while Larson was in police custody.

Jack let out a sigh, he was tired of going over Jason's stories and wanted nothing to do with that case anymore. He turns off his television set in disgust and leaves his apartment for a walk and a breath of stagnant city air. He goes down two blocks, takes a turn left and continues walking untill he spots a house with two floors and a white picket fence with the sign "for sale" in front of it. The striking similarity to the beach houses was noticed.

What similarity you ask? Well, for starters, they would look absolutely stunning if set aflame.

[penguinofhonor]

Chaoticag, that's a pretty good ending. I like Deadlycarn's and Martian's stories, but nobody seems to care about mine.