Psy-Clones - The Machine Threat

In my imagined future world, there is an AI operating out in Pluto's orbit. It's basically a human-built AI that put two fingers up at humanity and now sends machines to destroy us. I'm really amused by the idea that the biggest threat is something we ourselves create.

Other characters: Alex is possibly my main character's name. He's seventeen in this story, a relatively weak psychic. Hendricks is a researcher at Mars Base 3 and Alex's mentor in non-psychic research.

The Machine Threat

“In the mid twentieth century, mankind rejoiced as we gave birth to our greatest achievement: true AI. It was hailed as an end to infighting, a unifying force for humanity and, in the event, it was.” Hendricks paused and sipped his coffee. “Just not in the way we envisaged.”

Alex put the remains of his sandwich down. “How so?”

“Jeez, don’t they teach you anything at school these days?” Hendricks tutted and shook his head. “You know what AI is, right? I mean, we have one here at MB3.” 

Alex nodded.

“We’d just come to the end of a decade of war. Resources were getting slim, but technology doesn’t stop improving. It was a combined international research team, with a crapload of private funding, that managed to get the resources together and ship them into space.”

042 - Standing Still

Another 100 themes story. I don't exactly know where the influences for this come from, but at the beginning it was loosely based around Jack and the Beanstalk. We had to teach this a couple of years ago and it's always seemed like a really unfair story to me. I mean, Jack is a thief and a murderer. He breaks into the Giant's castle; he hears threats made about men, but doesn't have any evidence; he steals from him three times, and then when the Giant follows him to retrieve his stolen goods, Jack kills him. What about the Giant's wife, who hides Jack? What happens to her after her husband is dead?

Very unfair :(

Anyway, here's an almost entirely-unrelated story about giants.

042 – Standing Still

The day the mountain woke up, I was sitting on the top of it. Perhaps mountain is a grand word to describe it, but it was the tallest hill for miles around. Climbing it took an hour or more, but the view was spectacular; you could see our village, the next village over, the town fifteen miles away, the forest, lake, fields… everything.

I climbed the mountain most days, and it amused me to watch out-of-towners puffing and panting their way up. Even my friends had trouble with it sometimes, and none of them could climb it as well as me. It was important work, too. Someone had to be the lookout. That’s what grandpa Jack always told me.

Suddenly, the rock under me flicked to one side and I was thrown off it. I fell into the grass, skinning my knee. The pain was an instant heat on my skin. My hat had gone one way, I’d gone another, and the boulder that I’d been sat on was still again.

I moved closer, watching carefully. Then, pretty stupidly in hindsight, I gave the boulder a good hard kick.

Universal Remote

This one's a bit silly, but I've put it up because it served as a writing exercise. This isn't a finished story, isn't something that I will edit, but it's an idea nonetheless.

Mum came in and snatched the remote.

“Hey!” I shouted, making a grab for it.

She kept it out of arm’s reach. “You shouldn’t watch so much, you know,” she fussed. “Rots the mind. There’s a world out there. You should get some fresh air.”

I turned and stared out of the window. It had been howling a gale all day and raindrops splattered onto the glass, giving everything a melted look. As I watched, one lonely passerby was battling to reach the bus shelter, clutching an inside-out umbrella.

“Have you seen the weather-“ I began, but she was already gone, taking the remote with her. I flumped back down into the armchair and stared at the screen. “So unfair,” I muttered.

100 Themes 037 - Eyes

I wanted to write a sequel to 035 - Hold My Hand but this wasn't quite what I had in mind. It's there, though, and done now.

I'll admit that this is a little loose. There's too many places, it's too bitty, I'm not really sure why Shania came back to see John and it ends with someone's nipple being forcibly embedded in a person's back. But hey, I wrote it and it's staying that way. I'm feeling tired and cold and slightly feeble, and I don't want to go back and rewrite it.

The Light That Finds Me

While watching an episode of the original series of Star Trek, I stumbled upon a journal post in my deviantArt account. Live-Love-Write, one of the groups there, has a weekly writing prompt, and to be honest I rarely give it much thought. This week, emboldened by the two pieces of fiction I've already completed and uploaded today, I looked at it.

The result is a post-apocalyptic mix of a true gentleman in a situation not unlike The Hunger Games (the first book of which I've read and truly enjoyed) and The Running Man (King at his best as his pen-name Bachman). It's not long, it's not even particularly good, perhaps, but it's a successful twisting of what should have been a wonderfully positive prompt. All of the examples they gave were about lights finding you in the darkest of times, positive things leading you onwards. Of course, I immediately wondered what it might be like if you didn't want the light to find you, if the darkness were your friend. This is the result.

100 Themes 035 - Hold My Hand

A love story, this time, and taking the theme completely literally this time. I really enjoyed writing this one and it's something I'm sure I'll return to. I know a lot of things have been set on Mars but I tried for a slightly different idea here.
Edit: My wife (who has an excellent blog over here) has suggested I make a sequel to this, continue the story. It's swilled around in my head for a couple of weeks and I think I have a solution. It's going to be a bit of an homage but I think I can pull it off.

100 Themes 034 - Stars

Well here we are. The writing bug is back, and feeling good. Each piece seems to feel more natural much better.

I don't plan these in any way. I generally start with a central idea, given to me by the theme, usually a twisted idea. Thought process for this one went 'Stars in the sky, stars on TV, stars sewn onto something as badges or embroidered (like Soviet stars), been looking at tattoos today, ooh, tattooed stars.' The whole story went from there.

Probably the first time a character in a story has surprised me by revealing something about themselves right at the end.

100 Themes 033 - Expectations

I've been out of writing for a long time. My last piece was Easter, about two months ago, and before that it was a long old time.

My reasons for this sound, to my ears at least, mournfully self-pitying. However, as far as I'm concerned, this is my story and I'm sticking with it. My job has kept me very busy and I simply haven't had the mental space to write. I sometimes feel like writing requires at least two of these three: Time, willpower, energy. Pick two. I haven't managed to have two of those in the same space for nearly a year now.

Anyway, I'm on my way out of this particular job and hopefully moving on to doing some writing. I'd love to write a long piece again, using these little vignettes as mere warm-up pieces.

Let's hope this happens.

Written on two separate evenings, here is a piece of more realistic fiction. My wife said it's unlike a lot of my stuff, where I think there's usually something a bit weird or supernatural, or an odd twist. I suppose this has an odd twist, but it's not as twisted as most of my stuff. Please enjoy, and let me know what you think in the comments.

033 - Expectations

Jessica let the water sluice over her body, revelling in the warmth. Steam filled the air and the smell of her mint shower gel mingled with the warm-shower smell. Bliss, she thought.

While she washed, letting the foamy suds wash away the mire of sleep, her mind wandered. The day ahead was going to be busy; the call had come early that Overseer Simon wasn’t going to be in, and Jessica would be expected to take his place. It was at once thrilling and terrifying, with today being stocktake day and Mr Fujikama visiting from the Tokyo branch. One of those alone would have kept them busy, but both at the same time was a potential nightmare waiting to happen. Or, she reflected, it could be the thing that finally shows Management what a useless sack of shit Simon really was.

100 Themes 032 - Night

Initially an idea we had for the Manga Jiman competition 2010, I was stuck for inspiration when I came across the plan. The next theme fitted it quite well; originally it was set during the day, but it was easy enough to repurpose, and actually I think it words better this way. I enjoy the idea of the grainy green night-vision goggles with the people picked out in white.


Written in a Cornish pub called something like Cornubia in Gwithian.

100 Themes 031 - Flowers

The last piece for Oxy. The real thing will be here someday, promise.

100 Themes 030 - Under The Rain

This one fitted the idea for Oxy really well; a world too polluted to live out in the open, unless you had filters which you kept refreshed with precious oxygen. The rain was acid and only mutants could survive in it for long.

This one flowed easily.

100 Themes 029 - Happiness

Grozchev was the antagonist for Oxy, my NaNo piece. He's a truly horrible person; I like making horrible people. They're so much fun to write about!


Definitely going to finish Oxy sometime.


He says.

100 Themes 028 - Sorrow

Another piece for the failed NaNo entry. Meela, as a character, stayed in, as did Richard from the previous Theme.

100 Themes 027 - Foreign

This was originally designed to be a taster piece for my NaNoWriMo 2011 work. Ultimately, I didn't like that and never completed it. It will definitely come here as a short piece, though; it deserves to be finished.


The setting is somewhat more sci-fi than most of my stuff, too; perhaps I tried too much change all at once. Anyway, here it is! This and the next few of the 100 Themes were for NaNo, but obviously with different focuses.

100 Themes 026 - Tears

Something rather more a period drama, I think. Also an experiment in first-person writing, once again. It's not my favoured type of writing but it's something I'd like to work with.

Two short bits for Poisonroot

I've been prevaricating long enough over this. I had a good long chat with Sue today about the plot to this and she said it seemed to be pretty good, though I'm still having trouble grasping it in my own mind. It's like trying to grab a soap bubble; I don't want to grab it too hard in case I pop it.


Anyway, I've written a couple of pieces of non-story stuff to get the characters better acquainted in my mind. The first is a short piece about Victor. He's old, he misses his wife, he's lonely and he's fed up of kids coming and standing on his roses. The second is a piece about young Trip, aged 6; he's quite advanced for a six-year-old in thinking, I guess, but that's ok. In the main story he'll be about 12, but this is how he ends up doing a job by choice that most others have to be ordered to do, namely working in the Library.

100 Themes 025 - Trouble Lurking

Ok, so I had this idea and then decided to fit it around one of the 100 themes. I don't know if the result's any better, but it certainly gave the piece a little bit of structure. The tone's different too; negative theme, so negative tone.

On other news, I lost all the planning I did for this year's NaNoWriMo or National Novel Writing Month. I will still be taking part, though. My ideas must not have been that good, as I've not had an urge to rewrite either of them... still, I like the peacock riders idea. Might work on that.

I'm reading a textbook at the moment, and therefore am in no mood to review a book :D So, here's another 100 theme. Interestingly, I got up early and wrote this before 7.30 in the morning! Rarity for me, if you know what I'm like. I'm usually dead to the world before then, and after then too.


 I had this idea after someone said the word 'satisfactory' and they were complaining about how it only just sounded 'good'. As a teacher, 'satisfactory' is ok, 'good' is better and the best is 'outstanding' when it comes to being marked on our performance. The alternative is 'unsatisfactory'. But it's still a harsh word.

Anyway, this guy works in the SatisFactory. Makes you wonder what the UnSatisFactory working conditions are like, huh?

100 Themes 023 - Cat

Now then. I've just got a cat with my darling wife Susan, and I could have written a smushy thing about him. Pfft.

This one is a play on a few things. The picture they're talking about exists; I don't really like it, and Sue does. I have one she doesn't like, so we hang them both, or neither. Fair, see? The smells Cat likes, I like, but she's not me; I just wanted to have a character that liked some of the same things I liked so that I could write about liking them. Selfish, yes.
This isn't based on any reality; Sue and I were never at Uni together, I don't know anyone that's done anything like this... it's just a nice thing based on a few real things. One or two truths in a big pack of lies, I guess. I've been told to 'write what I know'; this has some things I know in it.

100 Themes 022 - Mother Nature

I make no bones about this; Mother Nature, or Mrs Henson, owes a lot to Stephen King for her existence. I recently finished watching The Stand again, something I encountered in my early teens as a four-part serial, then read. Mother Abagail (I believe that's how it's spelt) is a wonderful voice in my head, a deep South bible bashin' ol' black woman, she won't take no nonsense but if you think you gon' put one over her you got another thing comin'. And so on.

I hope she comes across. There's a certain amount of Day of the Triffids in there too.

Oh, and while I think about it; this represents the start of something. Wonder if you can spot it :D

100 Themes 021 - Vacation

I... don't deal well with enforced relaxation. In fact, I hate it. That's why my writing output goes down when the holidays are on. As a teacher, it's hard to get around the Summer holidays. How Erik feels in this is pretty much spot-on.

Erik von Nesslinger was a character created for a forum RPG a while ago. I recently toyed with resurrecting him but, thinking about it, he's fucking whack; I mean, he's Sean Connery in my head, with a sniping crossbow; what fun is that? The physics of that alone is impossible, the idea that you could have a crossbow that was accurate over a long enough distance to make sniping possible. Unless someone wishes to correct me, Erik will never see the light of day (and now I feel like a kidnapper with a hostage).