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More people might want to… a continuation

Jul6

This is a continuation to Some People Just Want To… commissioned by [personal profile] thnidu

The news channels tried to cover it up, but the people were clamouring for news, and what the media would not cover, gossip would take care of. Yolanda was surrounded by it: the mad scientist. The murderer, hoist by his own petard.

The mystery formula that could make war impossible, if only…

The potential scientific benefits of Dr. Fidelli’s formula, if only…

The ways it could be modified to make a better execution drug, if only the formula hadn’t vanished.

He had to have written it down. He had to have kept it somewhere.

Yolanda tried not to flinch, tried not to smile, tried not to shout. She spent a lot of time hiding in her favorite bar, thinking about anything but biological systems and acidic toxins.

“Yolanda Giana.” A well-dressed man — far too well-dressed for this bar — sat down next to her, his body shielding her from the rest of the barflies. “I have a proposition for you.”

all funds now going to repair or replace the tablet I use to write on the bus: just broke the glass today

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1138150.html. You can comment here or there. comment count unavailable

Some People Just Want to… a story for my Summer Giraffe Call

Jul2

Written to book_worm5‘s prompts here to my Summer Giraffe Call.

“Sometimes a controlled burn is good, and sometimes a forest fire is what you need.” Ted Fidelli was not what you’d think of when you were picturing evil scientists — unless you’d read his papers and happened to be his assistant. Sometimes you need to clear the world of the deadwood and let everything burn.”

Yolanda Giana, who happened to have ended up taking exactly the wrong internship, frowned at her boss. “You’re not talking about trees. You’re talking about people. About ninety-nine percent of the world’s population.”

“But not you. You’re a much better assistant than Mea Goldberg there was.” He gestured negligently at the test chamber, in which Dr. Goldberg — or what was left of her — had been the last test subject in Dr. Fidelli’s plan for world domination by survival of the meanest. “You understand, don’t you? This population surge, it’s a blight on the earth. Mother earth can’t handle what we’re doing to her, and we’re going to have to strip the population back to more reasonable numbers.”

Yolanda counted to twenty silently. She needed this job. She needed not to be the next person in Dr. Fidelli’s testing room there with Dr. Goldberg.

She took a shallow breath. “I’m sure you’re right, doctor. It makes perfect sense.” She’d gotten good at lying through her teeth since finding herself working for a madman. “I’ll just get your coffee then.”

Yolanda took three steps backwards, then, when it became clear that the doctor wasn’t going to call her back, turned and left the lab for the kitchen. She slapped the contamination-lockdown button casually on her way by and slid out as the seals ground closed.

The smoke-bomb of Dr. Fidelli’s formula she had left carefully connected to a timer went off three seconds after the door sealed shut. By the time the doctor realized what was going, he was already as good as dead.

Yolanda called the police while she carefully destroyed all record of her existence. It was just a good thing the doctor had wanted to pay her under the table. She was pretty sure it was still murder even if you did it while saving the world.

Next: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1138150.html

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1136835.html. You can comment here or there. comment count unavailable

What are we Sciencing For, then?

Jun28

Written to book_worm5‘s prompt here to my Summer Giraffe Call.

The Landing Page for my Science! setting is here

“Well.” Cara frowned out the window. “This is interesting.” The city closest to their fortress-slash-research lab was over a third rubble. The shock waves from the bombs could be felt all the way to the tower, which had been built on a remote island to minimize interruptions from the curious or outraged. “I’d say it’s unexpected, but according to our charter…”

“Mmm.” Alex frowned. “I always thought our charter was a bunch of carefully-worded bullshit.” He was holding a hip flask; he took a long drink from it before offering it to Cara.

She looked at the flask, looked at her partner in crime, and frowned. “Well, and what if it was? What have we been doing here all these years?”

“…Laughing at the new guy?”

“In between laughing at the new guy. The part we were actually paid for.”

“I’m pretty sure Liam paid us for the laughing…” Alex muttered, but Cara was already walking away. “Cara? Cara… oh, no. Not…”

“Look, it’s an alien invasion. The saucer type suggests it’s the same type of thing that our droids caught ten years ago. So we can make some very basic guesses about them.” The machine she was hauling onto a cart was twice as long as she was tall, half tubes and half rivets. It made Alex’s blood run cold which, considering what it could do, might be a wee bit ironic. “Are you going to help me get this up to the roof turret, or are we going to roll over and welcome our new alien overlords?”

“Cara… the last time you fired it, it melted an intern’s shoes to the floor.”

“So we’ll clear the interns off the top two floors. Get… what’s his name, the new guy?”

“Jorgensen?”

“Him. Get Jorgensen to do that. Me? I’m going to fire some aliens.”

“Fire on. Fire on some aliens.”

“Fire on, set fire to, fire, terminate, downsize… It’s all dust and ashes in the end.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1133449.html. You can comment here or there. comment count unavailable

Landing Page: Science!

Mar9

Why haven’t mad scientists taken over the world? Either they already have, and we just don’t notice, or they’re too dysfunctional to take over much of anything.

This setting posits a little bit of both.

Best place to start
Engineered (LJ)
The stories run in more or less chronological order.

Continue reading →

Three Weeks For Dreamwidth: Three Weeks for Worldbuilding – Science!

Apr29

The thing about the Lab in the world of Science! is, they are only the good guys by a specific set of morality guidelines – specifically, Liam’s, the head of the Lab.

On the other hand, while they may not be the good guys, in a place where human/rose hybrids are possible, there are people that are worse than them.

Super(*)-villains are a thing in the world of Science!, although there are not so obvious as the comics would have you believe. There are people who have learned how to wire brains to accept and manipulate computer data: they are hackers the likes of which the normal police and FBI have a very hard time catching. There are people who use pheromones or simple mind-control drugs to drive their Ponzi schemes. There are people who implant chips into kidnap victims and use them as unknowing Trojan Horses, or, worse, sell them on the black market.

The Lab tests on orphans. There are always more orphans to be tested on, because there are scientists who release flesh-eating bacteria into the wild for fun, people who make sniperbots for giggles, people who incite riots just to cover a bank robbery.

And if that sounds bleak, well, in some places it is. But there are heroes, as well: the FBI has an Unusual Crimes division. Police have their own scientists. The Red Cross has begun keeping simple gas masks and earplugs on hand at all locations, and, more than that, sedatives; they also have holding locations for those suspected to be under the influence of mind-control… something. And, in every city, there are at least five people who have either biological or mechanical enhancement, who can withstand almost anything the villains can throw at them. They assist the police, the FBI, and the Red Cross on a consultant basis, and keep each other honest.

And under all of this, Liam’s Lab – and other like it – are churning out cures for things like cancer right alongside flesh-eating roses.

Written to kelkyag‘s prompt here.

I still need lots more worldbuilding prompts! Check it out!

(*) Also, possibly, as originally written, Supper-villains..

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/930253.html. You can comment here or there.

Impossible Projects

Jan8

“…so do you think you can get one of the interns set on that?”

Cara pursed her lips. You didn’t say no to the boss, but… “It’s way out of our normal range of projects, sir. Can’t the client just use Dragon or something?”

“In this case, no. It has to be this – they refuse to use ‘modern technology’. And, Cara?” Liam raised bushy eyebrows. “This is a grant-payer.”

“Aah.” Cara nodded. The grant-payers were the legal, legit source of income for the lab – although certainly not the only source. “I’ve got three promising new interns. I’ll see what they can do.”

Three weeks later, she walked in to the intern corral to an argument-in-process.

“…you can’t quit! Do you have any idea what they do to you if you quit The Lab?”

“Generally,” Cara interrupted, “we give you a glowing letter of recommendation for being smart enough to get out of here before it kills you. Not going well, is it?”

“It’s impossible! It’s paper, it’s not the sort of medium that listens very well, and you want it to take its own dictation?”

“Not me.” Cara shrugged. “I use voice rec software a guy down the hall built. But the client wants it, and the clients pay your… room and board.”

“But it’s paper… A book that takes dictation?”

“I think I’ve got it.” The third intern, small and mousy, had been easy to overlook, off in the corner the way she was. She pushed her glasses up her nose and repeated herself. “I think I’ve got it.”

Cara stifled a crow of triumph. Sometimes the impossible projects got them the best scientists, in the long run.

…although there had been that case with the sentient roses…

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/882423.html. You can comment here or there.

Next on the Tour, a story of Science! (@rix_scaedu)

Dec11

The new engineering intern was nice, in a terrifyingly curious, infallibly polite sort of way; he was also strikingly handsome and very sweet, in a way that still didn’t quite clash with the office as a whole. So Cara had used the social version of elbowing and punching to get to the head of the line, and she was now showing Dr. Darryl Quinlan around the facility.

The facility tour was the best way to see if a new intern was going to last, giving Cara yet another reason in addition to “and he has lovely eyes” to take over the duty. She had won the last three pools, and had a reputation to maintain.

“Is that…” Darryl shook his head. “No, that was the wrong question. What is that?”

Cara’s eyes swept over the hall. They weren’t in a laboratory wing; everything down here was plans and stolen technical specs. What- “Ah.” She smiled, although her eyes were on Darryl’s microexpressions. “That would be Jane. She’s – well, technically, she’s a failed experiment.”

“She looks… like the T-X.”

“Oh, we get a lot of good ideas from movies like the Terminator series. But Jane isn’t liquid metal, and, unfortunately, she was supposed to be a human-appearing android.”

“I’ll note…” Darryl spoke slowly, and his body language suggested he was intrigued and cautious. “You didn’t mention that she wasn’t a killer robot.”

“Well, right now she works in HR.”

Science! has a landing page here.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/864627.html. You can comment here or there.

Science! Landing Page

Dec11

Why haven’t mad scientists taken over the world? Either they already have, and we just don’t notice, or they’re too dysfunctional to take over much of anything.

This setting posits a little bit of both.

Best place to start
Engineered (LJ)
The stories run in more or less chronological order.

Engineered (LJ)
Re-Engineered (LJ)
Golden Egg? (LJ)
Making Friends (LJ)
Shows Promise
(LJ)
Alibi
P for the Possum Postulate
In Theory
100 Per Cent
Through Biology (LJ)
Blame Game (LJ)
In a Fashion (LJ)
Next on the Tour(LJ)

Lair (LJ) [Beta Filter] started it all

Two stories of Science! appear in Alder by Post, Issues Five and Twelve.
Order back-issues here.

Science! Character List
()

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/343641.html. You can comment here or there. comment count unavailable

Science! landing page updated

Dec10

Here: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/343641.html

In honor, I will now take 2 prompts for Science!

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/863353.html. You can comment here or there.

In a Fashion, a story of Science! for the Giraffe Call (@lilfluff)

Jun5

I asked for prompts regarding Variants here for The MicroPrompt Giraffe Call. This is written to LilFluff’s Prompt here.

“What’s going on with Island Seven?” Alex passed over coffee the way Cara liked it. “I can’t get a solid read on the genetic scanners there.”

“Oh, that’s where we let Bontempo and Gilman-Friis work on that project of theirs.”

“That… oh, you didn’t. Seriously? Bontempo?”

“He asked very nicely, and he seemed relatively sane. I mean, relatively and all, but he does seem like he knows what he’s doing, as long as Gilman-Friis keeps him in check and moderates his work.”

“Doesn’t seem fair to her.”

“No, but I promised her Island Eight if they get anything at all out of this at all.”

“And… so what do they have?”

~

“I’m getting bored with this.” Coren ran her hands over the super-slim form with the pale skin and the black hair. “I’m thinking about doing something more fleshy for tomorrow.”

“I know what you’re saying.” Toran pinched a nipple on his current body. “This isn’t bad, but I think the punk look is… last week.”

The two of them were wearing, in addition to their body-shapes, peacock-bright clothing that covered enough of them to be “decent” by another world’s standards. Coren’s, as usual, was mostly shades of blue; zie wore a bracelet on her wrist that had zir name picked out in rhinestones. Toran’s was black and pink and zir name was embroidered on zir collar.

“Hey, bitches, what do you think?” A third stepped up to the town center, spinning in a body-shape they had not seen before – four arms on a very muscular torso, body otherwise androgynous, clothing skin-tight and black, wet-look like oiled leather. Picked out under the pecs was a name – Anor, of course. “It’s an all-new look. Custom.”
~
“Have?” Cara shrugged at the footage. “They’ve developed the next level of fashion.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/727339.html. You can comment here or there.