Search Results for 'nor'
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Search Results
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In reply to: The Hosts of Mars
“Hahahahaha!” snorted Becky. “You have been chosen! Good grief, Tina, you didn’t really say ‘you have been chosen’ did you?”
Tina rolled her eyes. “Yes, I am a bit embarrassed now actually. It was over the top, I admit. But I was caught up in the moment and the whole spy thing. I hope it doesn’t put him off.”
Becky snorted again.
“You know, Becks,” Tina sounded hesitant, “I am not supposed to be talking about any of this. So you have to promise you won’t breathe a word to the others.”
In reply to: The Hosts of Mars
It was a quiet day in the mines.
Godfrey’s teams were operating at less than 10% of the usual. Most of the Indian guys who worked there had taken unpaid leaves for the observance of the Ganesh festival.It was all a bit silly, come to think about it, for so many reasons.
One obviously, was that the dates were aligned on Earth’s calendar, for supposedly practical reasons, but which had nothing to do with the environment they were living in now. What good was a lunar calendar when Mars had two main moons, the lovely named Fear (Phobos) and Dread (Deimos), and of course completely different day times and years.
Anyhow, that wasn’t the least of the incoherences. You’d normally have to find a natural body of water to immerse the elephant clay statues. Good luck with that on Mars. But there was no stopping the rituals to find ways to survive. He’d heard an artificial pool would be temporarily erected at the Matrimandir to allow for the ritual to be performed.
A waste of good water, if you asked him.The only good thing about it was that there was more calm than usual, mostly robots diligently carving the walls, and harvesting the yellow stones.
The day before, there had been an unusual ruckus after a heated speech by the Head Nutter of the Religious Nuts, the old wrinkled as a prune Mother Shirley. She spoke of dread and doom, and having to repent and all. Gosh, did she put on a show.
He smirked. All that was missing was a human sacrifice, and they would be irrevocably back to the good old ways of the religious fanatics…Even his Hindu friends seemed to have been affected and shown a renewed fervour at their own rituals. After all, their Lord Ganesh was supposed to remove obstacles. Or well, truth is, He was also supposed to create obstacles for the demons. But you’d never know whether you were on his good side or not.
Maybe the unusualness of that day gave him some heightened attention, but Godfrey started to notice some other strange patterns.
The Finnleys on duty were acting glitchy this morning. Looking through the console, he’d noticed there were some logs for the past days’ activity missing, and an unusual activity around some of the old tunnels which were used for temporary storage of the sulphur’s crates.An irrational doubt started to creep on him, enhanced by the feeling of unusually low activity inside the dusty bowels of the red planet.
There was really no reason to worry, he tried to reassure himself, but as he’d liked to repeat, better be safe than sorry.He pushed the intercall button and called for an emergency evacuation drill.
In reply to: The Hosts of Mars
Finnley Morgan was towering over the slouched Eb with her impressive height of Nubian Goddess. Her unimpressed rolling-eyes look made him want to dig deeper underground and look with great care at the tip of his feet.
“Really this is your plan? Blue bending robot aliens?”
He could have sworn she guffawed, only that Finnley Morgan didn’t do such things as guffaw. Or snicker, or snort —well, that one, maybe in private on certain occasions.
Anyway, he didn’t have to reply.“Well, just under 2 weeks, who would have guessed you’d deliver? The whole roster of generals wanted to raze the area clean as a baby’s butt, said it would be simpler, and here you come,… managing something…”
“Elegant?” ventured Eb, in a mouse-like voice.
“What? No, I mean, something unexpected… Well, that could well work now. When do you send the first tremors, meteors or other cataclysms so we can have your robots do the cleaning? We haven’t got all year now, and they look like they come with an expiry date, no offence.”“None taken.” came the suave robot voice of Finnley on the walls.
In reply to: The Hosts of Mars
After a night of restless sleep, Eb’s practical ideas for the plan B were not much.
He’d weighted multiple options, even toyed with mad ones like playing a sort of second coming, 3 days of night and so… but none had yet the potential to elegantly solve the issue at hand. Not that it was a matter of being elegant, but Eb liked elegant and simple solutions.
He flipped the calendar to today’s picture. Run away, and don’t look back it said. “Great… If only…” he started to mumbled to himself.
He poured himself a drink, and dragged his feet towards the console, eyes still swollen by the lack of sleep. His brother, Jeb, would have told him to do some wegong energxices to keep the juices flowing, but hell, there wasn’t much room in his cubicle, and for better or worse, he preferred to stick to booze.
He liked to observe his ant farm, there were so many quaint and endlessly fascinating people in there. He liked the girl with the piglet for instance. She was often opinionated and sometimes oddly quiet. He had bent the rules for her, and didn’t report the piggy she’d brought to Mars with her. What harm could it bring.
Now she was talking to it. He waved at the console to zoom in and put the speakers on.Remember, those odd stories Mater used to tell us. The Peaslanders and the blubbits was one of her favourites, she would go on and on about it, and laugh at our faces when we didn’t understand where it was going…
She was lost in thoughts for a moment.
It started like this “There was trouble in New Peasland. A plague of hungry blubbits had wiped out the pea crops.” Mater used to say it was from an old book of tales, and that the author had surpassed herself. She chuckled I guess for a long time, she was the only one to believe that. Now look at us…”Eb cut the sound before the inevitable complain about missing Earth blahblah. But Peasland? That was new… He wasn’t one to dismiss an out-of-the-blue clue, and did a quick research on the network to learn more about the tale. It took a while for the Central Intelligence to run the search. It had to go deeper than usual.
After half an hour of waiting, he’d almost run out of scotch. Thankfully, the CI had found it. Pressed by time, and impatient by nature, Eb asked the CI to do a quick summary of the plot.
The central intelligence almost bugged at the request, and could only apologize for not being able to degibberize it.It took him a few hours to read the book on the holographic screen, and at the end, couldn’t say if it was just a waste of time. Preposterous story, with no head nor tail, literally… But then his genius elegant solution appeared as an evidence.
He’d known people were more likely to comply and control if they are told a plausible lie, within the frame of their accepted reality. He just had to bridge the discontinuity of their reality, with the reality of everyone else on the planet. The tale had reminded him of this popular movie about blue aliens. Blueus ex machina, that was it!
He spoke at the console “Record this and run simulation parameters:”
The blue men are from another planet —or rather the Mars settlers are led to believe they are from another planet.
They bundle them all into a fake spaceship
and take them on a fake spaceship ride
and deliver them back to Earth. where they have been all along of course
da dah!The answer came back after another painful hour of scotch-less waiting.
“Probability of success: 68%”
Well, that was the best Eb had in days. He was about to go with it when the CI chimed in“We took the liberty of running a modified simulation based on your setting, which we believe can yield a ratio of 97% of success.”
Eb was surprised at the initiative by the machine, and was curious to hear about it.
“We adjusted two points:
1. We can simulate some event on Mars like earthquakes to increase the likelihood of a willing departure from the planet.
2. The blue aliens may be a future inconvenience if they are fake actors, when the Mars colony comes out of simulation and back to Earth. We would rather suggest using religious beliefs and invisible hand of God or non-corporal aliens.”Eb was annoyed by the machine’s dismissal of his blue aliens. Kill his darlings?
“CI, any other suggestion for point 2?” he asked.
“Indeed. We can create artificial intelligence blue bodies based on my algorithm, which would make convincing aliens that can later interact with your governments and continue the disinformation.”
Eb was too drunk to realize he was about to make a devil’s pact when he agreed to launch the secret order for cybernetic blue bodies.
In reply to: The Precious Life and Rambles of Liz Tattler
“It’s not hard, you know” said Finnley. “I don’t know why it bothers you so. You simply knock on her door and politely explain that you are doing her a favour by removing the cat from her patio before it dies and starts to smell. What’s the worst thing that can happen?”
“She will glare at me with her hateful beady eyes, and purse her lips and snort a bit,” replied Liz with a sigh.
It was Finnley’s turn to snort. “Why you rebel you. You fearless revolutionary, afraid of a sour old woman.”
“It’s pretending to be nice that’s the hard part! Smiling and pleading to be allowed into her patio, while all the time I’d like to knock her down and say You decrepit old boot, haven’t you heard it crying for 3 days? And then there’s the worry that i won’t be able to catch it anyway, and the battle trying to change my energy…”
“Would you like me to come with you, dear? Moral support?” asked Finnley in a moment of kindness.
Liz beamed gratefully at her friend. “Well if you’re going there anyway, there’s no need for me to come with you, is there?”
In reply to: The Precious Life and Rambles of Liz Tattler
“Well, here we all are again!” Liz beamed, after a momentary pause in which she considered snorting. Not finding that snorting was consistent with her mood, notwithstanding the sparkle in the air of anticipated unexpected impishness, she beamed, and beamed again as she looked around the room.
No one spoke. There was a sense of suspended animation for a few moments, or was it longer? A bit like holding ones breath while easing into a hot bath. Or perhaps not a hot bath, thought Liz, delicately mopping the sweat dripping down her cleavage with a paper towel.
“Finnley, have you seen my reading glasses anywhere?” Liz asked on impulse.
Finnley’s sunny beam shifted as she rolled her eyes and replied, “I saw them in a dustbin on Brighton Pier.”
“My god, it’s started already!” Godfrey exclaimed, although he wasn’t at all surpised. “ Have you seen the new dragon tree in the park?”
In reply to: Mandala of Ascensions
Master John was infusing L.O.V.E. (Love Octarine Vortex Emotion) communications through e-Ther, the energy framework supporting physical reality and the emotional world around it. He was a 5thD master choosing to touch the masses and chosen individuals more specifically. He’s been participating in several source events as he’d learned to expand his awareness of time and space.
He was also observing the training of the FAMs (Future Ascended Masters) while learning himself to expand his awareness in other directions. He’s always been busy while on earth, when he was a prophet. He’d always loved to teach and guide, although he’d lost his head for that. Who would have thought that woman would be more interested by his red head rather than his other attributes. Truth as that he had beautiful blue eyes at the time. Unfortunately they lost their luster in death.
The e-Ther was rather sluggish over most of the continents of the Northern hemisphere, due to intense fear and agitation after the market went down once again. It’s been over crowded since the demographic explosion that began during phase three of the “Human Harvest” source event. Furthermore, ever since the invention of hypnotherapists, the emotional network wasn’t reliable anymore. Unable to receive H.O.L.Y. communications the usual way because they had forgotten how to listen, they had hacked the e-Ther to find their own answers. That has caused many interference and mistranslations of data that weren’t addressed to the hypnotherapist or their clients, taken out of context and of time framework.
They have been in dire need of new masters in order to catch those fast increasing RFA (Request For Answers) and correct the course of the current source event.
In reply to: Mandala of Ascensions
“Your first assignment will be rather simple my dears.”
Master Medlik ignored the side-way chatter and drama that Lady Master in training Blather was occupied with and projecting around in their shared simultaneous now.
“Find yourself the clearest vessel, and see how you can share energetically and discourage their tendency for fluffy words. Direct energetic contact and sharing of unity-love.”“Like a rote?” Blather said, getting out of her distractions.
“If you will, yes. You can chose your favourite Gem Ray to work with. Then, study how they integrate and develop the subtle amount of energy you share with them. This will be the first step before integrating more energies.”He resumed after a pause. “A word of caution though. Remember to balance compassion with wisdom, and not to offer more than is asked. You may disrupt their body consciousness if you proceed too… buoyantly.”
In reply to: Mandala of Ascensions
Geraldine von Truff, also known as Gelly by her friends was sweating profusely and had opened all the windows to get air.
“Fracken hot flashes” she said, taking a wet towel to freshen up. It was barely start of spring, and the temperatures were doing yoyo in the most peculiar fashion.She logged onto Spayce to check if her next client was there. Maybe she’ll put him on audio, because at the rate she was undressing, he would wonder whether he’d signed on the right account. After all, she was a licenced psychoregressor and helped her clients connect to their subconscious in hypnotic trances. This was all very serious.
Actually, to be honest, she was quite baffled by the crock of bollocks the subconscious was telling at times, but hell, it was cathartic for her clients, and their well-being was her utmost priority.
“James? Are you here?”
James was her client from Glasgow, an affable middle-aged man, who seemed to have taken to her robotic German accent and her hypnoregressive sessions.“Yes, Doctor” the sound came in all distorted. “Is it normal I don’t have visual?”
“Ja, alles ist gut my friend, the internet is playing tricks today. Let’s have it just audio, OK?”
“Alright then.”
“I think our session today will be splendid. I already feel all the energies building up.”In reply to: The Precious Life and Rambles of Liz Tattler
“I knew you’d have something to say about that Godfrey, but hear this: no comments at all doesn’t count much for a manuscript either,” Elizabeth snorted. “Pass the tissues please, Godfrey, I seem to have snorted a bit too much.”
“At least there is the possibility of a random daily quote sync, I suppose,” replied Godfrey, while averting his eyes to Elizabeth’s chin. “Which is not to be, er, sniffed at.”
In reply to: The Chronicles of the Flying Fish Inn
”I had a funny dream last night”, said Mater when she eventually found Dido clearing up in the kitchen. Or more accurately perhaps, ’supervising’ as it was clearly Finnly doing the bulk of the work.
”It was very peaceful. A man and a little boy were fishing in a stream. “Fishing is what a true man does,” said the man to the boy. At that moment there was a tug on the line and the little boy pulled a huge trout out of the water. Enormous it was,” gesticulated Mater, flinging her arms wide to demonstrate. “The trout fought hard and got away, but not before … what on earth is the matter with you, Dido?”
“A trout,” murmered Dido looking strangely at Mater.
In reply to: The Chronicles of the Flying Fish Inn
Corrie:
I was offering the plate of mince pies to Mr Cornwall, who had been coaxed out of his room for the first time in ages and was sitting next to the gum tree sapling that Aunt Idle had strung with fairy lights in lieu of a Christmas pine, when they arrived. We were all surprised to hear the taxi hooting outside, that is, except Bert. I heard him mumbling something about “She bloody meant it, the old trout,” but I didn’t remember that until later, with all the commotion at the unexpected guests.
“Here, take the lot,” I said, shoving the mince pies on the old guys lap, as I rushed to the door to see who it was. A tall autocratic looking woman swathed in beige linen garments was climbing out of the front seat of the taxi, with one hand holding the pith helmet on her head and the other hand gesticulating wildly to the others in the back seat. She was ordering the taxi driver to get the luggage out of the boot, and ushering the other occupants out of the car, before flamboyantly spinning around to face the house. With arms outstretched and a big smile she called, “Darlings! We have arrived!”
“Who the fuck it that?” I asked Clove. “Fucked if I know” she replied, adding in a disappointed tone, “Four more old farts, just what we bloody need.”
“And a baby!” I noted.
Clove snorted sarcastically, “Terrific.”
Suddenly a cloud of dust filled the hall and I started to cough. Crispin Cornwall had leaped to his feet, the plate of mince pies crashing to the floor.
“Elizabeth! Do my eyes deceive me, or is it really you?”
“Godfrey, you old coot! What on earth are you doing here, and dressed like that! You really are a hoot!”
“Why is she calling him Godfrey?” asked Prune. “That’s not his name.”
“He obviously lied when he said his name was Crispin Cornwall, Prune. We don’t know a thing about him,” I replied. “Someone had better go and fetch Aunt Idle.”
In reply to: The Precious Life and Rambles of Liz Tattler
“Who else is coming? Don’t remind me, I can’t bear it,” Elizabeth said fretfully while Norbert opened and closed his mouth like a goldfish.
“I have an idea!” she announced suddenly, standing up and crushing a mince pie that had rolled under her desk. “Gather round, come on, come on!”
Arona Haki shuffled in with the dustpan and mop, as Finnley blew her nose loudly and wiped the tears from her eyes. Norbert stood silently, waiting.
“It wouldn’t matter WHO came,” Liz paused for effect, “If none of us were here!”
“But we are here, aren’t we,” remarked Finnley. Norbert and Haki murmured in agreement.
“We are now!” replied Liz, “But we could be gone in an hour! We could go and visit my cousin ~ third cousin twice removed, actually ~ in Australia. They have an old inn and it’s sure to be half empty, it’s in the middle of nowhere, and,” she added triumphantly, “It will be lovely and warm there!”
“Blisteringly hot, more like,” muttered Finnley, “And would they like unexpected visitors for Chri, er Kri, er, that date on the calendar?”
“I’m sure they’d be delighted, “ replied Liz, crisply. “Not everyone is as curmudgeonly about Chri, er, Kri, er that date on the calendar as we are. And anyway,” she added, “If I write it into the story that they are delighted, then they will have no option but to be pleased to see us.”
“If you bloody lot are coming to the Flying Fish Inn, I’m buggering off to Mars for the holidays” said Bert.
Elizabeth spun round, saying sharply, “Bert! Get back to your own thread this instant! The bloody cheek of it, thread hopping like that, really!”
In reply to: The Precious Life and Rambles of Liz Tattler
Elizabeth suddenly felt overwhelmed with loving kindness, and hugged everyone. “I am so sorry I’m a sourpuss at times, I love you all.”
While everyone was speechless, she continued: “This is indeed a trying and difficult season at times, despite our best efforts to eradicate it from our calendars. The social constructs of cheer and goodwill must never be confused with acquiescing to the pressures of the needy, if the needy resort to emotional blackmail and bullying. Indeed, it is a kindness to all concerned, not least ones own self, to refuse to kowtow simply because of the date on the calendar!”
“Hear! ……Hear!” said Norbert slowly.
“Blimey,” muttered Finnley, while Arona Haki whistled and said “Bloody heel!”
“Waaaahh wahhhha!” cried the cold baby shivering on the patio.
“Oh my god, the fucking baby!” Elizabeth shouted, leaping up and running outside, and accidentally tipping over the sherry bottle and the plate of mince pies.
In reply to: The Precious Life and Rambles of Liz Tattler
“Will someone get rid of that old woman with the horrible accent?” hissed Finnley, ungraciously.
“What on earth for? She is doing a splendid job. I must say though, Finnley, just as a side note, it is good to hear you sounding more like your normal ungracious self.”
“I found dust,” muttered Finnley, glaring accusingly at Haki.
Elizabeth look unaccustomedly thoughtful. “Do you think you need a break, Finnley dearest? You really must be exhausted after all the splendid proof reading you have been doing for me this year. Why don’t you go home for a while, on full pay of course.”
Finnley burst into tears. “Where is my home though?” she snuffled. ”I am not good with descriptive details. I just found myself in this stupid story doing your stupid cleaning. And now I have a Bulgarian sister, to boot. And,” she looked witheringly at Elizabeth, “ proofreading is one word”
“Crikey, matey,” said Norbert patting her awkwardly on the shoulder. “Christmas is a killer, in’t? Family coming out of the woodwork like blimmin worms. Keep ya chin up though, eh. Ya can’t be letting things get to ya like this. Ya wouldn’t be able to carry on like this if ya were in bloody China ya know. Like bloody robots they are there. I don’t think they know the meaning of the word feelings over there.” He shook his head in wonder at their philistinism.
“And ya right about that one,” he added quietly, with a conspiratorial raised eyebrow and a slight nod of his head towards Haki.
Elizabeth leapt up and rushed to the bookshelf. “I know what you need! some Lemon Juice! I will pick one at random; they are all absolutely superb.” She opened the very small book and closing her eyes stabbed the page dramatically with her finger.
”Let’s not be overachieving fucks.”
“Wow,” she mouthed, awestruck. After taking a moment to recover herself, she looked sympathetically at Finnley.
“The oracle has done it again. Do you hear that Finnley? You are an overachieving fuck.”
Finnley rolled her eyes.
In reply to: The Precious Life and Rambles of Liz Tattler
“Mam, it’s snowing, in the green house”, said Norbert in his a slow monotonous tone, “I can’t work…”
“Bloody heel!” said Arona Haki with that kiwi accent of hers.
It was the first time Liz was afraid of one of her personel, she had the impression the maid’s tongue was trying to force its way out of her mouth for another haka, “Don’t come into Mam’s house with you boots full of huhu dung.” She shoved him off unceremoniously.
Second time Liz was rendered speechless. “Well done, Arona”, she added a bit late.In reply to: The Hosts of Mars
“I don’t like those tincans” Norbert muttered mostly to himself. “I’m sure they’re here to spy on us or kill us in our sleep…”
Godfrey did catch the reproach laced with fear and angst about the fresh delivery of Finnleys (Two, Three and Five), but was too busy with the unexpected audit mandated by the Mining Trading Company of Earth Colonies.
Great, not only on my first day on the job, but on my monthversary on top of that… These guys know no boundaries…
Their boss had been unusually relaxed about the whole thing. Forcefully, more like it… that guy usually can’t help but shout at everything, rocks included
Their boss had just given the team a rousing speech about transparency and how they had to stop looking like culprits of guilty secrets. “Looking guilty kind of makes you guilty and will prompt them to dig more! So be nice to them, and scram back to your post.”Looking at the way the auditors were sniffing around, Godfrey wasn’t so sure there wasn’t something that the company had found and was hiding here. But today wasn’t the day to ask uncomfortable questions.
In reply to: The Precious Life and Rambles of Liz Tattler
“Oh-my-god-oh-my-god-oh-my-god-oh-my-god-oh-my-god-oh-my-god-oh-my-god-oh-my-god,” mumbled Finnley, head in hands and rocking strangely.
Elizabeth was startled by this strange behaviour from the normally quiescent Finnley.
“What on earth is wrong with you?” she asked irritably.
Finnley raised her head from her hands and regarded Elizabeth with tired, bloodshot eyes.
“What’s wrong with me?” she snarled. “I will tell you what is wrong with me. All these fucking batshit crazy characters making mess and expecting conversation is what is wrong with me. What’s going on? It’s not fucking Christmas is it?”
In reply to: The Chronicles of the Flying Fish Inn
In reply to: The Precious Life and Rambles of Liz Tattler
Haki came back making haka postures to give her courage to face her despot employer: “you mother said: if you don’t want me around for Yule, I’ll come back for Ostara and the pagan futility rituals, you ungrateful daughter —her words, not mine.”
She took advantage of the mother threat that seemed to render Liz speechless, to add
“and your ex is still waiting since yesterday in the boudoir where you told me to put him. And Norbert will be here in a jiffy. He was working early to repair the potting shed.” her wrinkled look said all but disapproval about that last one.
