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Articles: 1, 2, 3

And Bananas for All - Part Two
2007-10-28 20:46:00
And Bananas for All is a story told in six episodes, posted serially by me, your extraordinarily rendered host, Cheeseburger Brown. Chapters: 1|2|3|4|5|6 Related reading: Night Flight Mike, The Reaper's Coleslaw Warning: This week's installment touches on some unpleasant subject matter which may be disturbing to sensitive readers. Discretion is advised. Our tale continues: 2/6 Mike's sessions of interrogation with the salivating jackals of Allied Intelligence were, in a word, disheartening. The jackals had been tossed so little for such a long time. They were hungry and restless. Before his capture Mike had noticed them sometimes, keeping to themselves, eating in a private huddle on the furthest edge of the clearing where the troops choked back their emergency rations. They wore no badges for company or platoon, no emblems identifying their branch of service. They were clean-shaven, low-talking, expressionless aliens buzzing sullenly on the periphery of camp life. ...
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Interlude III
2007-10-26 19:45:00
Dear all, I regret the interruption in storytelling. I've been beaten down by a wicked combination of a chest cold, an extremely heavy workload at the day-job, and a toddler who's convinced he's nocturnal. We'll return to our normally scheduled programming this coming Monday, 29 October 2007. I took the day off sick yesterday, and I did some thinking (which was all I could do, because my wife forbade me to do work of any kind). Here are the results of my ruminations: And Bananas for All will continue run over the course of November. There will then be a one week hiatus, followed by a three episode Christmas story for December. To maintain this blog's theme of fantastical and speculative adventures, this year's Christmas story will take place in outer space. Working title: One Small Step for Santa. Following another one week hiatus, we launch into the eagerly anticipated novelette The Secret Mathematic, detailing the circumstances of Mr. Mississauga's "Event Zero" an...

And Bananas for All - Part One
2007-10-15 14:32:00
And Bananas for All is a story told in six episodes, posted serially by me, your veteran host, Cheeseburger Brown. Chapters: 1|2|3|4|5|6 Related reading: Night Flight Mike, The Reaper's Coleslaw Our tale begins: 1/6 The war, in a word, sucked. Lieutenant Michael Zhang Cuthbertson craned his head to track a flock of Australian ornithopters as they rose in a chattering pack from the camp's crude airstrip and buzzed out over the Indian Ocean, their wings locking in to glide on the highways of wind beneath the cloud deck. The sun winked off their gun turrets. Like vultures, they circled. Mike sighed. His ears pounded in unwilling sympathy with the wash of hard, thrashing electric music that routinely blanketed the Allied base: Nine Inch Nails, Towers of London, Cherry Nuk-Nuk, The Apocalyptoid Rebellion. Only in the brief dip between songs did the native tapestry of Madagascar's birds, frogs and monkeys shine through the wall of rock. Mike winced, then adjusted his ear...
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The Taste of Blue - Part Two
2007-10-10 22:56:00
The Taste of Blue is a story told in two episodes, posted serially by me, your lucid host, Cheeseburger Brown. Chapters: 1|2 News: Have you ordered your copy of Sensible Flying Shoes: Collected Stories Volume II yet? Meanwhile, our story concludes: 2/2 The detective limped as quietly as he could on his artificial legs as he and Dr. Hollister entered Room A among the sleeping patients. A white noise generator whispered over every bed, punctuated by the slow respiration of the sleepers. The lights were dim and amber. "This is it," whispered Dr. Hollister. "And this is her." "Patient Zero?" "That's right." "This is her artwork?" Dr. Hollister nodded. Together they surveyed the array of childish paintings taped over the girl's bed. They were signed CASSANDRA and several of them were annotated in a curly hand. One said, THE BROKEN LIGHTS and another said THE UPSTAIRS GO DOWN. All were dominated by blue, and many featured the bloated form of an angry man reaching out. ...
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The Taste of Blue - Part One
2007-10-01 23:57:00
The Taste of Blue is a story told in two episodes, posted serially by me, your rapid eye moving host, Cheeseburger Brown. Chapters: 1|2 News: I'm pleased to announce the immediate availability of Sensible Flying Shoes: Collected Stories Volume II, the follow-up to Hot Buttered Something, featuring newly edited versions of 2007's stories with original illustrations by yours truly. Order your copy today! Meanwhile, our freshest story begins: 1/2 It was midnight, and the patients were asleep. Dr. Hollister squeezed a teabag against the side of her cup with a spoon, watching the whorls of dark brew roil with brownian carelessness to colour the water and, hopefully, to lend her some measure of respite from the leaden exhaustion that weighed her down like a wet wool coat. She closed her aching eyes and sniffed the steam. Thunder rumbled again. Tonight the weather was an ominous tease, a stuffy stillness constantly threatening to open up into something wild. There was no wind...
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Welcome to Mars! - Part Three
2007-09-24 19:07:00
Welcome to Mars ! is a story told in three episodes, posted serially by me, your farcical framer of fictitious facts, Cheeseburger Brown. Chapters: 1|2|3 Related reading: The Long Man, Plight of the Transformer Our story of interplanetary conquest concludes: 3/3 The world gasped. Horns honked, and stadiums full of people surged to their feet to cheer or bellow. Journalists sighed with relief, knowing they had an explosive lead for the nightly news as clergy on every continent set frothing to their keyboards, having seized upon the inescapable theme of their next sermon. At Mission Control in Houston the Managing Director of Commercial Relations sprinted with a fresh print-out in her hand, waving it over her head triumphantly. "The Nielsens are through the roof!" she cried, and the engineers at their consoles pumped their fists in the air, hooting and grinning, shaking hands and squeezing one another's shoulders in mutual congratulation. It was, as they say, a media frenzy...
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Welcome to Mars! - Part Two
2007-09-17 19:19:00
Welcome to Mars ! is a story told in three episodes, posted serially by me, your dutiful despoiler of virgin soils, Cheeseburger Brown. Chapters: 1|2|3 Related reading: The Long Man, Plight of the Transformer Our story of interplanetary conquest continues: 2/3 There were technical difficulties. Billions stood by. The televisions in the taverns were tuned to test patterns. Some desperate networks showed endless replays of archival footage from the Florida launch, with slow-motion sweeps of the crowded beaches cut in for good measure. Pundits argued, and experts mumbled blandly over animated diagrams of Pinnacle, Midas, and Mars. "Okay, so I've been a NASA dancer for three years, and like I think it's totally scary not knowing what's going on down there in Mars. I mean, are they even okay and everything? Holy!" There were interviews with the planetfall astronauts' families, challenging them to consider the spectrum of possible feelings they might experience were it th...
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Welcome to Mars! - Part One
2007-09-12 00:33:00
Welcome to Mars ! is a story told in three episodes, posted serially by me, your sponsor-endorsing host, Cheeseburger Brown. Chapters: 1|2|3 Related reading: The Long Man, Plight of the Transformer Our story of interplanetary conquest begins: 1/3 Every television on Earth was tuned to same channel. The Internet groaned under the weight of the endlessly swapped video streams, the excited and sometimes vicious commentary, the shared experience of teleparties and the insatiable thirst of the commercial concerns to capitalize on the event with sales and contests, puzzles and games, spam and swindles. Each network had tailored its own theme music and inspiring graphics; each government agency stood on alert with a stack of speeches pre-written to cover any contingency. Words painted in laser light were spread over the face of the Moon itself, proudly glowing letters dozens of kilometers wide: Pepsi Presents - Planetfall Mars. Sixty million kilometers away the object of the world...
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Felix and the Frontier - Part Six
2007-09-04 12:00:00
Felix and the Frontier is a story told in six episodes, posted serially by me, your beanstalk-climbing host, Cheeseburger Brown. Chapters: 1|2|3|4|5|6 Related reading: Simon of Space, Free Felix, Life & Taxes Coming up next: Welcome to Mars! concerns the first manned mission to the red planet, and the uncomfortable surprise that awaits Earth's heroic astronauts upon their arrival. Don't miss a single chapter! The story starts serializing the week of September 10th. Meanwhile, our current story concludes: 6/6 It rains. The drops are an ammonia hydroxide and hydrogen sulfide solution. They stink like egg farts and leave streaks of yellow stain striping the gatehouse dome. Never the less Felix is enchanted, refreshed, and grateful -- this situation is infinitely preferable to the waystation he's just left. The early morning sky is an opaque ceiling of wooly cloud. Thunder groans. Felix and his tiny twin have emerged into woods, though it is immediately apparent that th...
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Felix and the Frontier - Part Five
2007-08-28 19:57:00
Felix and the Frontier is a story told in six episodes, posted serially by me, your dutiful host, Cheeseburger Brown. Chapters: 1|2|3|4|5|6 Related reading: Simon of Space, Free Felix, Life & Taxes Welcome, new readers from SFX 2007! To catch up to us in the current tale, use the chapter links above. Meanwhile, the story continues: 5/6 A robot waits. Its plastic body is bathed in the golden, reflected light of a fat yellow gas giant filling the view outside the nearby row of windows. The gas giant looks like a disembodied egg yolk in space, girdled by a flotilla of dark moons. With its striped face as a backdrop the robot stands like a statue, mute, motionless, and infinitely patient. The gatehouse generators spin down. Exhaust pours from the vents. The locks on the outer chamber withdraw with a series of clicks, and then the door yawns open. The smoke clears and Felix steps out, one lone and battered staff member following at his heels. They both leave dirty footprin...
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Felix and the Frontier - Part Four
2007-08-20 19:49:00
Felix and the Frontier is a story told in six episodes, posted serially by me, your finger waggling host, Cheeseburger Brown. Chapters: 1|2|3|4|5|6 Related reading: Simon of Space, Free Felix, Life & Taxes Reminder: I'm going to be hawking books and performing live improvisational storytelling at this year's SFX 2007 Science-Fiction Expo at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre this coming weekend, August 24-26. Drop by if you can! Announcement: The Bikes of New York is now available in a newly edited, affordably priced print edition! Order your copy today (unless you pitched in for the Scifi Expo in which case I'll be sending you a complimentary copy as soon as I'm able -- do write to me to make sure I have your correct mailing address!). Relive the fun and fear of Luc Drapeau's stand against Manhattan's pedal power gangs! Meanwhile, our current story continues: 4/6 We all know Felix's holy grail. We all know the jackpot is a post-industrial civilization with whom w...
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Felix and the Frontier - Part Three
2007-08-13 18:18:00
Felix and the Frontier is a story told in six episodes, posted serially by me, your resident purveyor of free neutrons, Cheeseburger Brown. Chapters: 1|2|3|4|5|6 Related reading: Simon of Space, Free Felix, Life & Taxes Our story continues: 3/6 Felix is very excited. The next candidate world he steps into has liquid water oceans, and he spends a moment standing outside the gatehouse on a windswept cliff, smelling the salty air from the sea. A spectacular aurora fades in the north -- scarlet, streaked by violet, encompassing a third of the sky. Felix wonders whether anything could live under such a fierce bath of cosmic rays. The sun is rising, a cheerfully fat red giant with strands of arcing fire glinting at its edges, its face festooned by sunspots. The sky turns yellow, then a vivid orange that glimmers with wide, diffuse decks of suspended dust. The newest parts of Felix shine in the ruddy morning light, but most of him is too tarnished to reflect. His armour is a mo...
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Felix and the Frontier - Part Two
2007-08-09 15:14:00
Felix and the Frontier is a story told in six episodes, posted serially by me, your dedicated literary spelunker, Cheeseburger Brown. Chapters: 1|2|3|4|5|6 Related reading: Simon of Space, Free Felix, Life & Taxes And now, our story continues: 2/6 Felix is a sucker for tradition. On every planet he visits he erects a flagpole and hangs a flag, just like people did back when they first landed on the Moon. He flies the flag of the Solar Neighbourhood, of course. Felix is very patriotic. There are rumours that he sings the Queen's anthem when he raises it, but that bit is never included in the recordings. Personally, I'm sure he always looks up to find one of our stars in the sky, or the faint rosy smudge of the Solar Nebula. How could he not? He's so far from home. There's nobody further, but there are dumb machines out beyond him: the fleet of colonizers we sent out centuries before Felix even left home. The first thing he does when he gets back to his camp is check...
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Felix and the Frontier - Part One
2007-08-06 12:54:00
Felix and the Frontier is a story told in six episodes, posted serially by me, your willing scout in the depths of space, Cheeseburger Brown. Chapters: 1|2|3|4|5|6 Related reading: Simon of Space, Free Felix, Life & Taxes And now, our story begins: 1/6 Felix is far. West he goes, into ever. And still further. It's always sunny out when you see X-rays. Felix loves the light. It makes him feel less lonely and less cold, though he thinks he ought not complain about the weather -- the Local Fluff is a balmy place nestled at the confluence of two dark and unhappy voids yawned open ages ago by some fat stars sloughing off their skins. The voids are bubbles in the galactic medium, and it's cold as Hell inside them. Where these hollows touch there's a slow rolling ripple of compression, and that's home -- for Felix, for you, for me. For everyone you know, forever. The Local Fluff, this whisp of gas and sparks and pebbles, is bigger than you can comfortably imagine. Felix,...
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The Extra Cars - Part Six
2007-07-19 19:55:00
The Extra Cars is a story told in six episodes, posted serially by me, your resident sleuth of the bizarre, Cheeseburger Brown. Chapters: 1|2|3|4|5|6 Please note: I will be stepping out on holiday for the next two weeks, returning with a brand new story on Monday, August 6th. Don't be concerned if I don't respond to your messages in a timely fashion or am slow to moderate new comments during this time, as my access to the Internet will be sporadic. Thank you for your patience. And now, our story concludes: 6/6 It's Sunday morning. Church is out. The congregation filters out the front doors to Clergy Street, shaking hands and chatting on a yellowed lawn dotted with patches of green surrounding the embedded sprinkler heads. The day's heat is cut by a cool breeze, chasing fat islands of cumulus across an azure sky. Old Mrs. Kim attempts to straighten her eldest son's tie but he bats her hand away gently. "Mom, stop it," groans Sun. "The service is over -- I can go ba...
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The Extra Cars - Part Five
2007-07-16 16:07:00
The Extra Cars is a story told in six episodes, posted serially by me, your investigative host, Cheeseburger Brown. Chapters: 1|2|3|4|5|6 "You're a gymnast, but nobody can tell." Our story continues: 5/6 Sun Kim's iridescent purple Honda Civic pulls up to the curb outside of Becca's parent's house, coasting to a stop in the long shadow of a neighbour's maple tree. It's six thirty in the morning. The boys emerge from the car bleary eyed and yawning. Birds chirp. Phat-so rests his coffee on top of the car while he squirms into his knapsack, then takes another sip. "Bless you, Tim Horton," he breathes reverently. Sun stretches, grimacing. "I don't know about this, Phat." "What do you mean?" "Didn't mom always tell us never to get into a car with a creepy stranger?" Phat-so makes a face. "We're not little kids anymore. This is different. Mr. Mississauga's a detective. This is his job." "So he says." "And so says that cop, Constable Westworld or whatever."...
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The Extra Cars - Part Four
2007-07-14 00:17:00
The Extra Cars is a story told in six episodes, posted serially by me, your nocturnal host, Cheeseburger Brown. Chapters: 1|2|3|4|5|6 "To observe is to disturb, Mr. Kim." Our story continues: 4/6 It's two o'clock in the morning. The sky is starless. The glistening pavement exhales fog as the recent rain evaporates. A series of reflective orange and black warning placards stand in a row where the exit lanes are being widened at Middle Street. Each placard is topped by a round yellow beacon that blinks on and off at a sedate pace. The beacons along the row are not synchronized -- the weave in and out of concert with one another, periods of apparent order fleeting through the random blinks. The MacDonald-Cartier Freeway is quiet. Only the occasional vehicle drives past the construction site. Most of them are trucks. It's the hour when roadkills happen, when the asphalt is quiet enough to invite investigation. A rabbit hops across the lanes. It freezes, suddenly unea...
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The Extra Cars - Part Three
2007-07-09 15:48:00
The Extra Cars is a story told in six episodes, posted serially by me, your friendly neighbourhood purveyor of hot car-on-car action, Cheeseburger Brown. Chapters: 1|2|3|4|5|6 Special note: I'm launching a concerted effort to gain an exhibitor booth at the upcoming SFX 2007 Science-Fiction Expo (Toronto Convention Centre, August 24-26). The fee is $450, plus marketing costs, plus book printing. Anyone inclined to assist me in raising funds towards this end is encouraged to visit my PayPal tip jar (clickable from the sidebar of this blog or the footer of any completed story in the main library). All contributors will be remembered handsomely in my will. Also, for those of you in California Simon of Space will be represented at the San Diego 2007 Comic Con (San Diego Convention Center, July 26-29) by Chapman Media. If you're local do consider dropping by to show your support! Meanwhile, our story continues: 3/6 It's payday, and Sun Kim is first to the counter, ready to r...
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The Extra Cars - Part Two
2007-07-04 18:12:00
The Extra Cars is a story told in six episodes, posted serially by me, your curious host, Cheeseburger Brown. Chapters: 1|2|3|4|5|6 "Mind the door!" Our story continues: 2/6 Kim's Convenience is on Clergy Street East, sandwiched between a video arcade where a greasy Greek sells hashish from the back counter and a defunct dry cleaner inhabited by raccoons. The convenience store's crowded facade advertises every kind of amenity, from movie rentals and automated banking to flavoured lip balm and slushies. The old sign, which billed the establishment as a Smoke Shop, has been papered over with Pepsi advertisements as the times changed. Kim's is air conditioned, which means Old Mr. Kim stations himself dutifully by the front door in order to shove it closed urgently after every passage. "Thank you, come again, mind the door." The bells over the door jingle. Phat-so looks up. "Mind the door!" says Old Mr. Kim. "Yeah, yeah, yeah," grumbles Sun, shoving his shades up on his...
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The Extra Cars - Part One
2007-07-02 18:59:00
The Extra Cars is a story told in six episodes, posted serially by me, your gridlocked host, Cheeseburger Brown. Chapters: 1|2|3|4|5|6 Phat-so Kim of Life & Taxes returns this week to guide us through a grand automotive mystery of paradoxically miniscule proportions. Look sharp for other familiar faces, too. The story begins: 1/6 It's August, and the air over the pavement shimmers. The sky is the colour of old gym socks. "I'm going to die," claims Phat-so Kim. "Shut up," replies his older brother, Sun. The road is a frozen river of steel, harsh highlights winking off fixtures and fenders. Engines chortle, tailpipes quiver. The drivers slump against their windows sullenly or hold their palms up to the vents to test the coolness of the air conditioning. They wish it were cooler. Their flattened palms are a kind of prayer. Some have no conditioners. They have the glass cranked down, letting out tinny warbles of radio -- music, for the most part, as many have tuned aw...
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The Rich Dance - Part Three
2007-06-28 16:34:00
The Rich Dance is a story told in three episodes, posted serially by me, your meta-contextual host, Cheeseburger Brown. Chapters: 1|2|3 I'm pretty sure M.C. Escher had dreams like this. Our tale concludes: 3/3 Her name is Name. She arrives in the Context, and her first thought is that she is alive. Her second thought is that she has thoughts. The Universe had ended, but apparently Name has not. She is cheered by the news. She is also bewildered: the first thing she is able to recognize about the Context is that it is characterized by a dizzying field of interwoven times. She had imagined that thinking sixty-four dimensionally prepared one for any eventuality, but Name is the first to admit that the Context utterly baffles her. She cannot perceive anything remotely coherent for what feels like a long period, at least as considered with her native notion of the temporal force. The visceral realization that she truly is not within the Universe anymore hits her hard. She...
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The Rich Dance - Part Two
2007-06-26 16:20:00
The Rich Dance is a story told in three episodes, posted serially by me, your dancing host, Cheeseburger Brown. Chapters: 1|2|3 Our next chapter takes us to the brink of the end of time. Where can one go from there? Life finds a way. Read on. The tale continues: 2/3 When Name was young the motes of the world still shone on each other. Space was tight. You could see forever. No matter which wavelength you perceived with, the view was incredible: in every direction a spaghetti dinner of baryonic matter webs with gravity-well superclusters glowing at the intersections, scattered from whenever you were all the way in the distance to the start of time. And the galaxies! Every strand and creek housed trillions. Anywhere you looked galaxies wheeled, their nuclei bright and their plasm sparkling with the flashes of stars as they ripened and burst. Name loved galaxies. As a child she would draw them in the vacuum's spume. She put little faces on them. She almost always ma...
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The Rich Dance - Part One
2007-06-24 23:00:00
The Rich Dance is a story told in three episodes, posted serially by me, your farsighted host, Cheeseburger Brown. Chapters: 1|2|3 This week on the menu is an unusual tale that takes place at the end of the heat death of our universe. Some dimensions may not be exactly as shown. Chew thoroughly before attempting to digest. Our story begins: 1/3 Her name is Name. She is the last. Once, when the world was rich, she was a queen and a mother and a singer of the long songs. She swam and popped among many, back when the sky was full of stars swarmed by living things. But time times, and events unfurl with history's momentum until all history is spent. Now there is nothing to stand against the cold. The last galaxies are dim, red smears separated by nearly infinite lakes of stultifying dark -- lonely scabs, evaporating away in feeble, guttering jets of X-ray foam. It's so very quiet. There are wonders, still, for the patient observer. Even when almost nothing is possible...
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Life & Taxes - Part Three
2007-06-20 21:00:00
Life & Taxes is a story told in three episodes, posted serially by me, your taxable host, Cheeseburger Brown. Chapters: 1|2|3 "It's Hector guessing what he'll guess next. Beautiful!" Our story concludes: 3/3 "I," announced the professor with great dignity as he extended his hand, "am Dr. Zoran, monsieur." The drama of the moment was undermined, however, by the fact that the professor's pants were hanging wantonly open, his belt dangling. M. LeBlanc tried to tear his eyes away from the famous scholar's exposed wang. "Tabernac!" he cried, taking a step back. "Professor -- your pants!" hissed one of the girls at the desks girdling his office door. The professor smiled sheepishly as he zipped himself up. "You'll have to forgive me," he chuckled. "I've been masturbating." "Tabernac!" cried M. LeBlanc again. As M. LeBlanc looked on, stunned and frozen, the tall, wiry professor handed a sheaf of papers covered in dense notes to one of his secretaries who glanced at th...
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Life & Taxes - Part Two
2007-06-18 21:14:00
Life & Taxes is a story told in three episodes, posted serially by me, your technobabbling host, Cheeseburger Brown. Chapters: 1|2|3 "Release a neutrino burst from the Bussard collectors!" Our story continues: 2/3 The room hummed. But it was more than a sound, it was a feeling. Even the air seemed faintly to quiver, to buzz as it blew cold from terrifyingly heavy looking ventilators suspended from the cable-crossed ceiling. M. LeBlanc shifted, his rotund belly straining against the labcoat he'd been loaned. He flexed his fingers on his briefcase as he took in the view, brow furrowed. "What...is this place?" he finally managed to ask. "As I said, monsieur," said Paramjit cheerfully, "this is where we run our arrays. The registers work faster when they're cooled, naturally. The bank to your left is the Magellan Fourth Corporation, and just across from him there is Curie Twentieth." M. LeBlanc frowned as he turned in place, taking in the panorama of looming machines on...
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Life & Taxes - Part One
2007-06-14 17:03:00
Life & Taxes is a story told in three episodes, posted serially by me, your confederate host, Cheeseburger Brown. Chapters: 1|2|3 Our story begins: 1/3 The day dawned lush. The night's rains rose into a mist over the glittering St. Laurent, roiling and thinning as the sun climbed. The sky turned from yellow to pewter to blue until the first gush of industry's morning fires obscured it. These were the first hours of spring in a new country. A pall hung over the megalopolis downriver, black fumes eased away by the wind to carry the stink of burning cars tinged by hints of teargas. The protests had been wild, and they were not yet done. Helicopters buzzed over the smog-faded skyline, like insects over carrion. Here, in Salaberry-de-Valleyfield, the spirit was calmer. Though it was Monday many chose not to work. Even before breakfast Lac Saint-Francois was dotted with sailboats and skidoos. The water was cold but nothing could stop the people from taking a draft of the ...
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Jesus and the Robot - Part Three
2007-06-12 20:44:00
Jesus and the Robot is a story told in three episodes, posted serially by me, your healing host, Cheeseburger Brown. Chapters: 1|2|3 "Time is really weird." Our story concludes: 3/3 They came from far and wide, and they made haste. Their dust coloured the horizon for an hour before the people themselves appeared. They arrived throughout the night and continued to amass in a makeshift camp on the outskirts of old Capernaum as the new day's sun bloomed. Called by a platoon of the fastest runners crying out the news in every Hebrew hamlet around the Gennesaret, those who knew of Yeshua rode forth to raise their hands to the effort. They did not know what work they would do, but they knew Yeshua had asked them -- and that was enough. The need has been for sixty; over two hundred answered. Yakob and Yeshua stood on the roof of the house, sandals wedged between the gutter tiles for purchase. "Do you see, Yeshua?" prompted Yakob, shielding his eyes with his hand. "Did I not ...
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Jesus and the Robot - Part Two
2007-06-04 04:43:00
Jesus and the Robo t is a story told in three episodes, posted serially by me, your zealous host, Cheeseburger Brown. Chapters: 1|2|3 My apologies for the long wait between chapters. Apparently there is no rest for the wicked. Never the less, I'm back. Our story continues: 2/3 Two brown chickens roamed the courtyard, hunting and pecking for snacks between the cobblestones as they purred and groaned and clucked. The sky was amber. The sun had not yet cleared the hills. "Jeez," said Tim, rubbing his cramped neck. Through the doorless doorways of the basalt and clay houses surrounding the small courtyard came the sounds of breakfast -- the clinking of pots, the slosh of liquids, the phlegm-thick cough. The people sleeping in the courtyard began to stir, too. They sat up and knuckled their eyes or clutched their backs. The chickens scattered. "Good morning, sir," said Jeremiah. Tim nodded wearily. "How're we doing?" Jeremiah reached into a crevice in his carapace and...
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Jesus and the Robot - Part One
2007-05-22 16:19:00
Jesus and the Robo t is a story told in three episodes, posted serially by me, your temporally displaced host, Cheeseburger Brown. Chapters: 1|2|3 "A warrior carries a fat man!" Our story begins: 1/3 It was a sunny day in Galilee. Seabirds wheeled, ants crawled, clouds drifted. A crown of dust hung over old Capernaum on the shores of Lake Gennesaret. It was the dust of commerce and freight, motion and work, missions and games -- the dust of life. Insects, too, hovered over the town: drawn by the rot-rich earth tilled by the farmers, by the dung of asses in the street, by the offal cast off by butchers. It was the last market day of Sextilis, in the year Tiberius XVIX. The road from Bathsaida was clogged with travelers. There were plodding clots of merchants' carts interspersed with swifter strings of those moving on foot -- consumers and beggars, students and fools, thieves and pilgrims. They could see the dust over Capernaum, and it made them less weary to walk the fi...
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Plight of the Transformer - Part Eight
2007-05-17 17:34:00
Plight of the Trans former is a story told in eight episodes, posted serially by me, your captivated host, Cheeseburger Brown. Chapters: 1|2|3|4|5|6|7|8 "What legacy can the short claim when all events are overlaid by the fictions of manipulators?" Our story concludes: 8/8 Tourists are tourists are tourists; queues are queues are queues. As we crossed the gangway from shore to ship I blended by pointing a disposable camera toward the hazy domes and steeples of old, sinking Venice to snap off a couple of poor imitations of popular postcards. The crowd surrounding me babbled in German, Japanese, Italian, French. A bloom of pigeons burst from the Piazza San Marco and took to the skies as an inky, swirling mass. "Oooh, Maman -- regard les oiseaux la!" I snapped a picture: blurry grey streaks against featureless azure. Dreadful. At the top of the ramp I was lavished with three seconds of attention and one second of eye contact from two fresh-faced, dimple-cheeked girls in ma...
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