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Tandem Collaborative Story
So I got it in my head to try and write some fiction, a tandem collaborative story. Inspired once again by the off-the-walled-ness of the blog of Jeff Rowland, author of Wigu, and by the format of this tandem collaborative story (which is much funnier in its abject failure than what follows), I enlisted the collaboration (in tandem!) of my good friend Rob, whose eccentricities track fairly well with my own -- which is to say not really that well at all because they are eccentricities. Suffice it to say we're both quite eccentric, but in a somewhat complimentary way. The parts I wrote are in my usual gallant black, the parts Rob wrote are in this kind of slate blue, and analysis follows.
Agraf glided silently through the murky shadows. Agraf was of the Affia, but not of the Ks'tene, as one would expect. That would have been... imprudent. There was already so much to atone for. But now the path was clear. Agraf knew what must be done, knew what she had to do. Which is not to say there was no hesitation. But it had to be done, it was necessary. Then the consequences would have to be dealt with -- those that could be. Others simply must be fled from.
Her chief sin, she'd decided, was her complete and utter failure to choose an appropriate hat for the day. As mysterious as the command from the Affiaplex was, she'd obeyed the commandment every day of her short life until this one. Perhaps that explained the relative ease with which the Ks'tene patrol had found her in spite of the fact that she was one-trillionth their physical size and half a galaxy away. What were the chances that the leader of the patrol would drop a donut so close to her tiny body? It was said that the Affiaplex exacted vengeance for one's missteps in the most subtle ways and Agraf was never willing to rule out the use of toroid confections as one of her God's agents of retribution.
Yes, if she'd only chosen an appropriate hat. One that could have alerted her to the Ks'tene. But now that could not be helped. The hat she had chosen was one she would need later, assuming she made it that far. What was a damn Ks'tene patrol doing out this far if not looking for her?!? She cursed a thousand curses under her breath -- breath she was holding on the off chance that the D.O.N.U.T., Dynamic Omnidirectional Nemesis "Undertaker" Toroid, had not detected her. The chance was small, considering the highly precise engineering that went into confectionary weaponry these days, but one could always hope. She shut down all of her vessel's systems and with a curt wave ceased the grooming of her bristles and scales by the servile, tripodal Gar'ked. Absolute silence was necessary if there were to be any chance at all of evading the donut.
No, the patrol couldn't be looking for her. There was no reason at all to suspect her of disobedience to the Affiaplex -- she'd committed no transgressions yet. But what if somehow they suspected what she'd been planning? These were the thoughts that raced through her mind as the donut approached her position, and then passed by. She vented a plume of relief from her ventral blowhole. But the patrol did not leave. Could it have been a warning shot? Some moments later she vented relief again when the donut found its target some distance away, drew it into the center of its donut hole, and annihilated it with a relentless bombardment of fat globules from all directions. Confectionary weapons were a serious threat to beings her size. She wondered what the victim of the donut had done to become an enemy of the state... Still, it appeared she had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. But what were the odds of that so far from Affiadon? She continued to lay low and hope she was right that the Ks'tene patrol was not here for her as well.
Crouched in an alcove, surrounded by her own nasal exhalations, she contemplated her predicament. This was just the kind of situation she'd read about in all those fourth-rate novels as a child. Unfortunately, the parallels between her own situation and that of her Affian literary heroes did not instill a great deal of optimism. Like all children her age, she'd read the government approved books and recited the pledges and played the part of the good little citizen but she always knew she was somehow different from the rest. She'd never officially run afoul of the law but she knew it was only a matter of time. By the time she was 27 she'd qualified herself for a death by annihilation. It wasn't willful disobedience per se, but MECRA (Mandatory Electronic Correspondence Response Act) laws were strict in her quadrant and after ignoring the email thread for three weeks it seemed safer to continue to ignore it than to call attention to it by answering it after all that time.
Frankly, at this point, what did she have to lose? It was clear that with multiple sentences of death hanging over her head, any authority figure who found her would destroy her. What was she to do? Skulk in the shadows of existence for the rest of eternity? What use was a life spent in fear of everyone and everything? But then again... What hope was there out there? Clearly, she was no match for the forces aligned against her. The Government had prepared for every contingency, had every resource and knew everything that went on almost before it happened. Hadn't the books she'd read taught her that much at least? Or perhaps that's exactly what the books were supposed to make you think. It made no difference. She had the directives of the Affiaplex to carry out and if those directives lead her to certain and painful death then so be it. Besides, even without the commandment of her God, life in hiding was no life at all. She lifted her considerable bulk from the floor of the Fecus V livestock waste processing facility and stepped from the shadows to meet whatever fate had prepared for her.
When she reached the command center, Zogrodath, with visible relief told her that the Ks'tene patrol had moved off and had just jumped into hyperspace only moments before. With that she gave the order to power up the ship's systems again. Had they had to wait much longer without filtration the air itself would have soon become deadly. It was Balfeene waste they were transporting after all -- highly toxic stuff. Zogrodath was a Nefa, a pentapod, the same species as Agraf. They were also both of the Lanka sect, a far less prestigious group than the Ks'tene, but not one without its own unique advantages. "What does your hat do?" Agraf asked. "Oh, the hat I chose deadens my sense of smell. What does yours do?" "Mine has a mortgage calculator� But I do so like its texture." she added quickly. "Now I wish I'd chosen a hat that detects Araga in hyperspace." The Araga were the gargantuan Affian species that made up the Ks'tene patrol, as well as most of the Ks'tene sect. "Yes, did no one choose such a hat?" Zogrodath said. "If anyone did, we need to make sure they let us know next time their hat picks up anything."
Just then Laksna burst in "We've got outbreaks of Brasosvtfaah parasites in cargo containers yaf, crn, and aama! They're multiplying at a geometric rate eating the cargo!" "Damn!" Agraf cursed. The dampeners had been offline for too long while they waited out the Ks'tene patrol. If they didn't arrive with all the highly prized Balfeene waste that had been promised, their plan would fail utterly! "Jettison yaf and aama, they're too far gone, and get extermination teams on crn immediately!" Agraf barked. But the infection had already spread beyond those three containers. Six others also had to be jettisoned before the Brasosvtfaah were once again under control. "I'd have signaled instead of coming up here myself, but the internal communications relays are still ill." Laksna pleaded. "What is the condition of the relays?" Agraf asked. "Most High Healer Effelk reported that he's been having unanticipated difficulty combating the Lorg infection. He says three more days at least." Zogrodath put in. Balfeene waste hauler/processors like the Fecus V were required to have many organic subsystems -- old tech metal and fiber systems just didn�t last long exposed to the Balfeene enzymes.
The eight jettisoned cargo containers had long since had their contents completely devoured, and the containers had also been consumed themselves. Now the Brasosvtfaah were dying in the hard vacuum. Brasosvtfaah parasites were needed to help protect the vessel itself from the toxic effects of Balfeene waste, but they could easily get out of control if you ever lost the dampening field. Fully a third of the precious Balfeene waste had been lost. There was no way now that Agraf could keep the rendezvous with her buyer -- as soon as they detected the shortage they'd incapacitate the Fecus V, kill her and the crew, and "confiscate" the remaining Balfeene. Purchasing the remaining Balfeene at a reduced rate was not something their order permitted them to even consider. Opportunism was commonplace in the complex politics and machinations of the Affian sects. Yes, other arrangements would now have to be made, somehow. How exactly, and with whom, Agraf had not the slightest idea.
It is an often unappreciated fact that random chance is by far the most powerful force in the known universe. Completely unsuspected by the crew of the Fecus V, the eight jettisoned cargo canisters, though horribly disfigured by the actions or their own contents, made their way quietly over the span of several centuries to come to rest on a desolate world orbiting an aging, swollen sun. In an amazingly short period of time the surviving parasitic life forms evolved into a species of slug-like beings whose entire economy was based on the construction, distribution and design of hats. While it is unclear how such a society could have evolved based solely on the random variation of evolution, it is nonetheless ironic Agraf should now find herself in such dire need of a haberdasher.
At this point we both kinda just ran out of steam. I think due to poor planning, actually no planning, we sent each other more e-mail about the story, than we actually wrote the story... Neither one of us had a clear idea of where we were trying to go with this, and it became apparent that I had in mind bad things happening to Agraf because she was going to defy the command of the Affiaplex, and Rob had in mind bad things happening to her because she was going to obey the command. Rob did inject a goodly amount of Doug Adams-esque randomness, which I'd hoped he would. That spiced it up a lot. We came up with several plans on how to proceed, but that was just before the last of the steam leaked out of the ol' boiler. I think we should have started with just the barest bones of an overarching plot, but I didn't do that, I think because I wanted to be surprised myself by where this would go. Well I was, but it became more work than fun maybe a quarter, a third, or halfway into the complete story it might have been, had it had some kind of goal.
Anyway, as a "DVD Special Feature" (a.k.a. afterthought) here are some ideas I had for other things to do with this story:
Yeah, writin' good is hard...
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