Bo smirked at the middle manager. “You’ve got a real cynical attitude, you know that, man?” Silas glared at him, then went back to staring out the window. “They don’t look like cops. I wonder how they got guns.”
“Hacked ’em, probably,” Reyna said.
“I hope they work on zombies. Look!” Bo pointed to the other end of the street. The zombies were coming, and the three of them couldn’t see it from their vantage point. They were going to walk right into a horde of them. He slid the window open. “Hey! left! Go left!” He shouted and waved.
The City: 118: Bo
March 11, 2015
Free Fiction, The City 140 Characters, Bo, Drabble, Reyna, The City, Zombies Leave a comment
Hugh Likes Podcasts: Welcome To Night Vale
March 10, 2015
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Welcome to Night Vale
Hosted by Cecil Baldwin, and others
Produced by Commonplace books
“Welcome to Night Vale” a podcast that almost needs no introduction at this point. This wildly popular program is a podcast drama formatted as bulletins from a community radio station in a small desert town. It features notices from the town’s active secret police, a kid’s fun-fact science corner, updates on the mysterious lights in the sky and the war-like subterranean culture located beneath the local bowling alley. And of course, the weather. Night Vale is a weird place, but these are just the everyday foibles you might find in any isolated community, as far as W2NV is concerned. And that is what makes this podcast brilliant.
Written by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor, Welcome To Night Vale is not only a delightful satire of horror and weird fiction tropes, it is a clever and often heartbreaking look at tolerance and what it means to be a community. From the bourgeoning romance between radio host Cecil and mysterious and well-coifed scientist Carlos, to the struggles of a young girl trying to fit in despite the fact that she is in fact an adult man’s detached hand, the plots of the show revolve not just around the inexplicable and the fantastic, but real human interaction, even if it is presented in completely silly ways.
At its heart, “Welcome to Night Vale” is about The Other, The Weird, amorphous Unknown that kept H. P. Lovecraft up at night. But what the Mythos never addresses, and part of what makes it problematic today, is that one person’s incomprehensible horror is someone else’s Tuesday. Cecil Baldwin, who plays coincidentally-named station host Cecil Palmer, recently contributed an excellent short essay about his experiences working on the project to the Queers Destroy Science Fiction Kickstarter. The thing he really loves about the podcast, and I agree, is that in all of Night Vale’s strangeness and paranoia, the same-sex relationship between Cecil and Carlos is never even considered unusual or different from a straight one. That’s the subtext for Welcome to Night Vale. The things that we do not understand or find inexplicable are just life seen from a different angle. It’s an unexpected direction, almost stealth schmaltz, but it’s the most original thing in Podcasting, and it brings a delightful little bit of weirdness and joy to my feed twice a month. Find Welcome to Night Vale in your preferred podcatcher, or visit Commonplacebooks.com.
The City: 117: Reyna
March 10, 2015
Free Fiction, The City 140 Characters, Drabble, Reyna, Silas, The City, Zombies Leave a comment
Silas nudged Reyna and pointed. Both watched but neither said a word, not wanting to draw attention to themselves or the people running. The zombies were everywhere, and it seemed like they were getting faster, more graceful, and more cunning with each passing hour. The two women and the boy didn’t stand much of a chance. There were just too many of them.
“I think they have boot guns,” she said, and the two others looked up and came over to the windows too.
“You’re right,” said Bo
“Then they should shoot themselves and be done with it,” Silas said.
The City: 116: Silas
March 9, 2015
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It was nearly dark when the three figures crept out of the back entrance to the bank and into the alley. Silas watched them with interest. He was holed up in the building across the street. He barricaded himself and a few coworkers in an empty office when the virus started spreading through the building. It wasn’t as nice as some of the others, but there was no outward facing glass and the door was solid oak. It had held for five hours. They spent that time in silence, just listening to the zombies beat ceaselessly against the door, waiting.
The City: 115: Connie
March 6, 2015
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Connie ducked out the back. She felt half a coward, but part of police-work was being smarter than whatever the problem was, and you couldn’t fight these things. And throwing themselves against it would do no good for Citizens. She just hoped the rest of the force would follow her example. A few did, but not enough. She made it outside, and turned just in time to see the building crackle and warp. It wasn’t the explosion the overload at Midas tower had been, but the results were the same. The space where headquarters used to be ripped apart.
The City: 114: Rick
March 5, 2015
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The wave of zombies poured into the CPD lobby and stood, staring silently at the police officers. There were hundreds of them, far outnumbering the crowd of cops. Jenkins shut up too. Rick drew the pair of cuffs that he ‘forgot’ to turn in to evidence this afternoon. The zombies weren’t susceptible to booting, but he bet the would respond to environmental damage. The problem was, there was only one of him, and so many zombies. He sprinted to the first one and managed to cuff it. It shook and went still. But three of the others were on him.
The City: 113: Alpha 738
March 4, 2015
Free Fiction, The City 140 Characters, Alpha 738, CPD, Drabble, The City, Zombies Leave a comment
The room was filled with connections, relationships. Alpha 738 smelled them. And she was hungry. Not very long ago, processing cycles, really, she had merely been hungry. She hadn’t understood why, or for what. All she knew was the food, and the hunger. She hadn’t even known she was Alpha 738. She simply was. But the more she ate, the more she navigated the obstacles between herself and the nodes of access and connection, the avatars, the more she understood, and the more she wanted. With three of her fellows, they pushed down the locked door and spearheaded the assault.
The City: 112: Morris
March 3, 2015
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Finally, Commissioner Jenkins calmed the crowd enough to continue. “I will step down, when this is over. But it’s not over yet. The virus is still rampaging across The City, infecting every avatar that comes in contact with it. Much like the zombies the malware mimics, a victim has to be bitten.” Morris rolled his eyes. Everyone already knew that much. This was a waste of time. “Our technicians are working on countermeasures. In the meantime, CPD will confront the source of the infection at the source!” That was when the doors burst in, and the horde of zombies attacked.
The City: 111: Beverly
March 2, 2015
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The lights in the cavernous server room blinked in the darkness. A few were green, a lot were amber, and the lights on one server were a solid, unblinking, red. There was a problem in The City, and it was Beverly’s job to fix it. She couldn’t fix the problem without clearing the server, and she needed higher authority to approve a shutdown. Management wasn’t answering her calls. But she hadn’t become the Chief Server Admin for The City but not adhering to rules, and secrecy. So in her little office in the secret physical home of Midas, she waited.
The City: 110: Duncan
February 27, 2015
Free Fiction, The City 140 Characters, CPD, Drabble, Duncan, Maurice, The City Leave a comment
Duncan watched panic and shock spread through the crowd. He folded his arms and kept his expression neutral while Jenkins appealed for calm. He welcomed it, personally. Not only because as Assistant Commissioner he’d be on the short list of candidates to take the job. Jenkins had been wrong for the job. He didn’t really understand The City, or the what their job really was. He relied on physical world tactics. He led with his passions. And he never made nice with The Board. Duncan had a chat with the new CEO. Things would be smoother when the dust settled.
