Tag Archive | giraffecall: result

Planning Board Woes, a story of Dragons Next Door for the Giraffe Call

Jan18

For [personal profile] kay_brooke‘s prompt

Dragons Next Door has a landing page here on DW and here on LJ

I do enjoy my consulting work, and not just because it gets me out of the house once in a while. Generally, I get to help smooth the interactions between humans and other races, and I almost always get a good story out of it in the process.

Like the situation just last week. I got a call from the City Planning and Zoning board, asking me to come help with a building that a non-human consortium had purchased. It seemed that they weren’t keeping the streetfront up to code.

Because some of the races have strange opinions about aesthetics, it’s generally a good idea to bring in a translator. The City has run into problems before – things like the ogres who used to live next door to us, for example. So now they call me in at the first sign of trouble.

This one, I knew what was going on before I even read the paperwork. There are tell-tale signs that most humans don’t think to look for, and, really, how many humans really study the walls at ankle level that closely, anyway?

The consortium is a business partnership started way back in the ways of the founding of Smokey Knoll to give non-humans a human-looking face for their business interests and, sometimes, to allow them to buy through a front when prejudice rears its ugly head. Their purchases, often through fronts and shell companies, ranged all over the city, suburbs, and surrounding farmland, and were a bureaucratic nightmare to track down, as they’d intended. This time, however, they’d been rather direct.

They’d purchased a parking garage in a part of town that had seen better days, and had then, to common view, let it simply sit there and fester. Since the City offered very generous tax breaks to those who bought land in these neighborhoods, expecting that they would beautify and prettify the area, the Planning Board was understandably a little vexed.

As I said, however, I knew what was going on the moment I stepped onto the property. The bottom foot of the wall was very nicely painted, you see, and someone had installed tiny doors, including a tiny parking gate, into most of the larger doors. They had also, because all the races at some point have to deal with one another, left the large car entryway and the human door to the office intact – so I knocked.

I was unsurprised to not see the person who answered the door, or rather, to see her only when I crouched down. The place had all the classic signs of Tiny habitation.

The Mayor, whose secretary had answered the door, was happy enough to talk to me, once I explained who I was, and, what’s more, she gave me a tour. It was amazing, what they were doing with the place – an entire city within a city was going up on the top floor of the garage, complete with small skyscrapers and lush little parks. They had left a few human-sized walkways, and were in the process of refurbishing the middle layers to allow them to communicate with the larger races.

“This way,” the Mayor of Tiny-ville told me, “we can have sunshine without being overshadowed by the Big People. We’ve lived in the walls for so long, and it’s beginning to be unhealthy for us as a people. We have our own roads, our own police… what could a Biggie policeman do for us, anyway? Or to us?”

There was a lot someone fifty times larger than one could do to them, but that wouldn’t be polite. I praised their growing city – it really was beautiful – stepped carefully into their largest park – there’s nothing to make you feel gangley and clumsy like a Tiny park – and admired their bonsai maples – and then, once I had done the proper things, sat down to talk to the Mayor about hiring a painter.

In the end, it took doing something you only ever due to a small or tiny person with their permission – holding her up at my eye level – to explain the problem, but once I had, she agreed to hire some day labor to paint the place.

And, in addition to my fee, I had the delicious privilege of having been the first Middle Races person to have seen the first Tiny city in over a thousand years.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/235906.html. You can comment here or there.

Evolution, a story of the Shadow Rebellion for the Giraffe Call

Jan16

For [personal profile] clare_dragonfly‘s prompt.

Shadow Rebellion now has a landing page here on DW and here on LJ

I didn’t believe my dad at first.

Okay, that’s not really nice of me, but I really didn’t. He liked to make up stories sometimes, to entertain us, and I knew, having spent the last summer living in one during an internship, that the cubes in the middle of the megaplexes can get really creepy if you spend too long there. I could put one and one together and come up with a dad who had gone just a little loopy, without loving him any less, without trusting him any less… just without believing him at all.

I didn’t really even believe him “at second;” when the news reports started coming out of the City, in part because he was quoted on the news. “Hey, Janie, isn’t that your dad?” is really not what you want to hear when you’re studying for an exam.

It wasn’t until we went into the City for the weekend that I really understood, or at least believed, and having begun the process, well, then I had to study it. I’m a college student, aren’t I? So I talked to a professor and he talked to the Dean and the Dean signed the papers and four of my buddies and I now have a grant.

It’s lovely how those things work out, isn’t it?

We started with the statues, figuring they would be easy. I mean, they were Writing, weren’t they?

And they were. Of course, the problem was, they weren’t writing in English. They weren’t writing in any language anyone we could find could recognize. So we hauled in a couple language students, and got them deciphering the super-slow-writing while the rest of us started finding something that could identify the shadows and the ghosts.

It took us a while.

It took us weeks just to determine exactly where to read their signal, and why the daylight lights were making them visible (not the “daylight” function, actually, but the fact that they were a special style of bulb. The light streaming through one of the chemicals in the fluorescent did it). Once we did that, we could follow them, and figure out their patterns. They followed humans, we theorized, out of camouflage; even in the light of those bulbs, they still looked pretty much like a flat shadow.

Running with that theory, we tried to open up communication with them. We tried all different sound frequencies, some different light patterns, even smells. We were on to textures and tastes when the intern we’d put on deciphering the statues came running into the lab.

“There’s a problem!” she screamed, just as we were about to try vanilla-scented sandpaper. “No, stop. They’re tactile. Haptic language, we’re pretty sure.”

“That’s what we’re trying,” I pointed out, as patiently as I could.

“The problem is, you don’t want to talk to them. You really don’t. We deciphered the statue’s language. They’re not statues. They’re… well. They used to be shadows. And, uh, we think that they have a three-stage evolution…”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/234772.html. You can comment here or there.

Birth of a City, a story for the Giraffe Call (@Inventrix)

Jan16

For [personal profile] inventrix‘s prompt

It started, as most things do, with a single settlement on a major route.

The route was, in this case, a slip-hole through an asteroid belt, not a long valley or a waterway, and the settlement was a group of seventeen people, miners and their kin, who staked out the best chunk of belt and attached their settlement to the biggest stable land mass.

The first to come was a teacher, someone whose skills lay in education but who had always had what they called “void-fever.” He brought with him a module that attached near the settlement, and the tubing to make a “road.”

After the teacher came some scientists, who were curious in studying – well, they were scientists, they wanted to study everything. Micro-G living on humans. The elements found in the asteroids. Void and zero-G’s effects on just about everything. They brought a company-sponsored seven-level settlement, and triple-wall tubes to connect to the miner’s cubic. Since they also brought children, they attached to the teacher’s module, as well.

And many of them brought spouses, partners, cuddle-friends, which meant that there had to be something for those people to do. Three of them dreamt up a small business, and wrote up a proposal, bringing money, a module, and materials from the grounded cities. They also hired three programmers and a mechanic who could handle micro-G, and, as their business took off, another seven employees, only half of them already on the Rock.

There’s some argument about whether that first company was the tipping point, or the bar-slash-bordello that followed (Angie’s, done in an imitation old-style, complete with swinging saloon doors past its airlock and girls in bright saloon costumes), but, one or the other, people started coming for things other than the mine, the miners, and their children. And once the hydro-farm and distillery came to service the bar, and the gidget factory to support the first building, and the hair salon and massage parlour to support the factory workers… Well, then they needed a water refinery and a toy store (and a “toy store”) and a movie theatre.

The police first formed when the population topped a thousand and, while the city did not have a fire department, quite, it had a leak department, and then a public works bureau, that collected money and used it to reinforce the tubes and, at about ten thousand, build a globe around the whole thing for another layer of protection. And then, of course, they needed someone in charge.

It surprised no-one, except possibly herself, when the first miner, whose idea this had all been, was elected mayor seventeen years after she had first started digging on the rocks.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/234327.html. You can comment here or there.

Underneath, a story of Facets of Dusk for the Giraffe Call

Jan16

For [personal profile] kc_obrien‘s prompt, with a side order of comments asking for more development of the female team members and for more time in-world, not just through-the-door.

Facets of Dusk has a landing page here on DW and here on LJ

“It’s awfully dark in here,” Josie murmured unhappily. “I can’t feel the sun at all.” Or the trees, or the wind. There was a breeze, at least.

“But it’s rather warm,” Peter countered. “Or at least constant. It’s not a case of no solar heat, then, a burn-out planet.”

“It’s…” Aerich looked around disdainfully. “Rather dirty.”

Josie turned to look at him, trying not to laugh. He got so bent out of shape when he was laughed at. And, to be fair, the place was rather dirty. Untouched-feeling, stale, and the dim light only made it seem more so.

“Xenia and I will scout,” Cole declared, to no-one’s surprise. Xenia and he scouted, like Peter read instruments and Alexa Opened. Like Josie Knew. “You guys stay within a block of here, and see what you can find out.”

“Got it,” Alexa answered, crisp and professional like the suits she preferred. Josie smiled to herself, even though this world was making her a bit uncomfortable.

“They’re kind of cute, aren’t they?” Peter whispered, in a voice only for her ears. “G.I. Joe and Action Figure Girl?”

She swallowed another giggle. “They are,” she agreed, not admitting just how cute she could find them. “So, Science Man, why don’t we do our own exploring?”

She realized from the warmth suddenly coming off of him that there was more than one way to read her suggestion, and from the heat inside of her that she wouldn’t mind either one. But they were both professionals, of a sort. She cleared her throat, ready to backpedal. “That is…”

“We explore this world,” he agreed, rescuing her. “And then, later, perhaps…”

“Later.” She could hear his smile in his voice better than she could see it, but she could feel her own stretching her lips. “For now…” She dropped her mat on the ground and sank into a lotus position, hearing Peter move away, his instruments beeping softly to him, sending out an eerie glow.

Slowly, the glow faded from her awareness, and the beeping, Aerich and Alexa pacing out a perimeter, Peter reading the emanations of the world. Slowly, her senses stretched outwards – the Door, behind them, in a sturdy metal archway meant to last. Around the doorway, a building, still standing, tallish – about seven stories – made mostly of metal and stone. Around it, a block of similar buildings reached to slightly shorter heights.

She stretched further, tasting the dust in the air, the abandoned feeling of this place, the suggestion, beneath all the dust, of not quite abandoned, as if someone had left the light on, planning to come right back. Feeling Cole and Xenia, skulking around like thieves in the night. Feeling the edges of their world, a tall structure somewhere above. A roof. A roof above the entire city.

“We’re in some sort of created cavern,” Peter said at the same time. “And it seems like there’s another such pocket directly above this one. And above that…”

She stretched her senses, reaching for the power of the ground under her, reaching for the sunlight. “Ah,” she moaned, as the life and bustle and sunlight! assailed her, pressing in on her, talking to her in words she couldn’t understand, pushing into her. “And above that is the city.”

“Indeed,” he agreed. “Above that is where the people are.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/234171.html. You can comment here or there.

Souvenir, a story for the Giraffe Call

Jan15

For EllenMillion‘s prompt.

I like to pick up a little souvenir in every city I visit, a remembrance, if you will, a way to hold the place a little closer to me.

When I started, I was pretty haphazard about it, a postcard here, a commemorative t-shirt there, a city-opoly game in the next place.

The problems with that, though came down durability and portability. Paper deteriorates, board games lose their pieces, t-shirts fall apart after a while. They all get hard to carry, and hard to store. I wanted something that would last. I wanted to hold onto those memories for a very long time. I wanted to be able to bring them with me.

It was maybe six, seven cities in that I stumbled upon shot glasses. The ultimate solution. Almost every place has them, they’re amazingly durable, they’re distinctive in some way, and they’ll fit in a pocket if I have to. So now every city I hit, I stop in a rest stop or a souvenir shop, whatever I can find, and pick up two – one for my van, and one for the place back home, sort of a museum. Sort of a mememto… you know. That thing.

I had to go back, of course, to the first six. Now that, that was hell. Not the hardest thing I’ve done in my line of work, not by far, but it still wasn’t easy, retracing my steps, going back into the ruined cities I’d already cased for survivors and supplies, looking for one little glass.

But I like to have a remembrance that I’ve been there. A way to remember these places the way they used to be.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/233248.html. You can comment here or there.

“China is Here,” a story for the Giraffe Call

Jan15

For [personal profile] the_vulture‘s Prompt.

I think this is a monologue directly after Through the Cracks (LJ), which makes that one a bit more sinister.

For which I apologize. This was intended to be fanciful. O_O

We came with you, you see.

We came with you from England, from Germany, from Poland, from Italy. We came with you from China, from Japan, from Vietnam and Korea. We came from Africa, from the Middle East.

Long before that, we came over on a land bridge, through Russia. Longer still before that, we came out of the trees with you.

We have always been here. We seep in the culture, soaking it in, becoming it, and then we tell it back to you. We become your myths and your stories, and then bring them with you to the new world, your baggage you can never lose, your monkey you will never get off your back. Your roots in your cultural heritage. Your memories of a simpler time (how I love how you do that. As if your nightmare monsters spoke of a “simpler” time. As if your warning stories warned of, what, easier threats?)

Germany is here. Poland is here, China, England, Russia. Every fear and every monster you have ever dreamed up, every explanation for every bump in the night, every silly rhyme to soothe a colicky baby. All of them are here with you, carried like rats in the boats, carried like fleas on the rats, carried like a priceless heirloom in your pocket. We have been following you for millennia.

And now it is our turn to lead.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/233114.html. You can comment here or there.

The Origins of Smokey Knoll, a story of Dragons Next Door for the Giraffe Call (@meeks_P)

Jan14

For [personal profile] meeks‘s prompt

Dragons Next Door has a landing page here on DW and here on LJ

“So tell me,” Miss Call-me-Samantha Milligan asked Audrey, over tea on what was becoming their regular Tuesday tea date, “do you know how Smokey Knoll came to be? The neighborhood around it, the Retibya Heights, is a, ah…”

“It’s an affluent upper-class human neighborhood, yes,” Audrey answered easily. “Many of your richest students come from that neighborhood. From all of the Heights, Miss Milligan, which does actually answer your question quite tidily.”

“I’m sorry…?” she blinked uncertainly.

“When… I believe, since I was still in school at the time, that it was not dragons but a family of harpies, actually, and a grouping of centaurs. The Paints… a nice group. They came to the city, as many of the non-humans were beginning to to. They may be primarily magic and not tech users themselves, but they tend to like the conveniences of human technology.”

“Back then,” Miss Milligan mused, “it must have been very hard. Everything was so segregated. There was no accessibility at all – I took a class on that in college,” she added defensively. “These days, the classes beginning to get integrated, especially in the cities, and you have to learn how to teach to all sorts of students.”

“Exactly,” Aud answered soothingly. “They ran into all those problems. Bigotry. Lack of suitable housing. Lack of suitable anything. So, being of two of the most practical races, the Paints and, ah, yes, the harpies were the Rednesses. Their great-grandchildren live down the block from me. The Paints and the Rednesses found a neighborhood where builders were beginning to expand, creating upper-class housing. And they bought a large portion of it.

“Through agents, of course,” she added, smirking. “Through a very nice actor Dweomer who still lives down the street. They thought he was planning a stables and a mews, and thought his tastes were merely eccentric.”

“But when others found out,” Miss Milligan whispered in horror.

“Ah, yes. There were certainly… complaints. But by then the Paints and the Rednesses had pulled in other non-human investors, and they simply bought out anyone who complained. Democratic of the wallet.” She smirked. “It’s a lovely neighborhood. You should visit sometime.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/232501.html. You can comment here or there.

The Tuesday Map

Jan14

For rix_scaedu‘s prompt

Influences included Dark City and the folding apartments for which I can’t currently find links. Also, IKEA, and my fascination with planned communities.

The city moved.

The cluck struck seven p.m., the alarm chimed, and, all over the city, people stopped what they were doing and grabbed on to their hand-holds. Smoothly, on well-oiled tracks and risers, the Bell-Apple Experimental Living Zone, the BAELZ, shifted into its Tuesday position.

Announcements sounded. The following changes to the Zone’s Tuesday arrangement have taken place. The Seventh Ave Diner is now on the corner of Sixth Avenue and J Street. The Hairtisserie is now on the north-west corner of the Zone, above the Butcherie. The City Hall has moved one block north and one block upwards.

J-alpha-7 let go of the handle and picked up her knitting, only to realize she’d run out of yarn. “Darn it,” she swore softly.

“What is it, sweetcheeks?” her partner of the year, H-beta-six, asked, not really paying attention. At least the year was nearly over.

“I need new yarn, and I’m never quite sure where they’ve put the Woolery. How do you get there from here when today is Tuesday?”

“How have you lived in BAELZ your whole life and still not developed a sense of direction?” H complained tiredly. “You can’t get there on Tuesdays, you know that. They’re cleaning First Ave, and that’s in the middle of the Zone tonight.”

She wrinkled her nose. “There’s got to be a way. They can’t just cut off half the city for one day out of ten.”

“They can. They’re the architects, the big Grahams. They can do anything they want.”

“It’s stupid.” She stood up, setting her knitting carefully where H wouldn’t go bothering it. “I’m going to go looking.”

“J, don’t be a ditz. You know you get lost when you go exploring alone.”

“Then come with me,” she challenged, knowing full well what the answer would be.

“I’ve got stuff to do. Honestly, J, you know I can’t just drop everything on your whim.”

“Fine.” She slid on her coat – the Zone’s outdoor regions were kept slightly cooler than the indoor regions, to suggest the need for a home. “Then I’ll go myself.” Thinking to herself, two more weeks until the year is over, and trying to hold the Tuesday map in her head, she left their apartment behind.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/232365.html. You can comment here or there.

Unicorn Chase, a story of Unicorn/Factory for the Giraffe Call

Jan14

For [personal profile] ysabetwordsmith‘s Prompt.

Unicorn Factory has a landing page here on DW and here on LJ

There weren’t supposed to be unicorns in the Town.

There weren’t supposed to be unicorns at all, of course – they were a myth, a superstition. But inside the Town? Such things should not even be thought of. Not in the Town, with its rationality, its science, its straight streets and straight walls and rational protections against the myth and credulity of the common Village folk. Not in the Town, with its upright people who worked hard for a day’s living in the Factory, who struggled to live in the faint miasma of Progress. There was no space nor time for unicorns in the Town. They did not belong.

And certainly not in the Factory, the heart of all those things the Town stood for, with its soot-blackened stone and its towering stacks, with its tired but proud workers, with its managers and thinkers and planners who understood how the world was supposed to work. A unicorn, if such things existed, could not survive in the Town, much less in the factory.

But Harah who worked at Gear Station One whispered to Jik, who worked the same station, that she’d seen something out of the corner of her eye. And Jik muttered about it to Tonor, who worked at Gear Station Two, and confirmed that he, too, had seen a glitter of horn, a suggestion of malice.

And Tonor mentioned both sightings to Ura, who passed it on to Pallas at the Inspection Booth, who had the sharpest eyes on the floor. And Pallas kept those eyes peeled, and told Rodder, who carried the big stick, when she’d seen the tell-tale streak of white. And Rodder chased the faintest flash through the factory floor, overturning trays and disrupting the whole processes, only to be told by Infe’s daughter, who was visiting, that she’d seen the thing leave by the shipping dock.

Infe’s daughter went home giggling, remembering the horn glimmering, and the happy face of the Unicorn munching the begonias in the Factory courtyard.

Next: Unicorn-Chased (LJ)

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/231980.html. You can comment here or there.