Damn It Feels Good To Be A Gangsta

Possibly the greatest sequence in the cinematic masterpiece Office Space features the song "Damn It Feels Good to Be a Gangsta" by Geto Boys [sic]. I won't spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen it, but I will warn you that its rapturous beauty may bring a tear to your eye.

I worked as a software engineer in Silicon Valley for almost thirteen years, and I will always be grateful for my experiences there. They provided the foundation for my most recent novel (working title EndGame, still in first draft), and I'm planning to work even more of them into a screenplay for this year's Script Frenzy.

That said, there were plenty of unpleasant things as well. Even smart people can be stupid. Below is the start of my original draft for "Bachelor of Science," which I scrapped when I found a more interesting, skiffy premise:

Brandon's manager was approaching, making his way down the labyrinth of cubicles on the third floor.

Brandon started sweating. This was new. In his experience, there were two type of managers: either they were tech-savvy but clueless about people, or competent leaders but totally ignorant about technology. The first type were usually engineers who had been promoted out of the jobs they really wanted to do, and always itched to get back into coding instead of dealing with performance reviews and other paperwork. The second type knew how to handle the occasional interpersonal crises that broke out among the ranks, but were easily fooled when it came to work estimates and engineering details.

Brandon had, over the years, developed methods to deal with both types of managers so that his own work life would go smoother. But this new guy actually seemed to be both tech-savvy and a competent supervisor. How was Brandon supposed to pull the wool over his eyes? He didn't doubt that he could figure it out--any hacker worth his salt can use social engineering to great advantage--but he was a bit miffed that he'd have to spend the extra effort. At work. He had more important things to worry about.

No, this was not a Mary Sue story. I deny everything!

On another note, I've pretty much given up on Heroes. The second season was disappointing, and D and I both found the third season premiere vastly underwhelming. I've still got a few episodes which I already paid for on Amazon Unbox, and the rest are available through Netflix Watch Instantly, but I doubt I'll get to them anytime soon. I'll consider catching up when Bryan Fuller (late of Pushing Daisies) is back on the job and I start seeing better reviews.

Lies, Damned Lies, etc.

Every Monday, my friend Marko writes a search term safari blog post, in which he details the unusual and amusing search keywords which led people to his site. Now, I don't have nearly as many readers as he does, but a look at my Google Analytics data for the last three months yielded these gems:

"trapped in a spacesuit"
Well, that's not exactly what "Prisoner" is about, but close enough.

"your velociraptor is on fire"
Again, "Guns, Shooting Velociraptors Out Of" is--as you might guess from the title--actually about firing velociraptors, but who's to say they wouldn't also be on fire as a result?

sexual climax "blogspot"
I'm not sure what this fellow was hoping to find, but "Love Lucy" is all he's going to get from me.

512 in binary
That would be 1000000000 (nine zeroes, hence the logo below), as Google Calculator will tell you.

500 word science fiction story
We have a winner!

And the top five direct-linked stories from the first three months of 512 are (drum roll):

1. "Birthdays"
   Everybody has one.
2. "October Surprise"
   No surprise in an election year.
3. "Guns, Shooting Velociraptors Out Of"
   Kids love dinosaurs.
4. "Firepower"
   Kids also love the Official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle.
5. "Antique"
   Nobody doesn't love giant robots.

More than half my readers were linked from other sites, and I'd like to thank John Scalzi and Ken Levine in particular. I have no idea how I got that one referral from Cake Wrecks, but hey, I'll take it.

"Finale"

FINALE
By Curtis C. Chen

Anton waited until late at night to do it. He waited until he could wait no longer, even though one overachieving apprentice remained in the otherwise empty laboratory.

Anton's pulse raced as he walked toward the airlock. It was transparent on all sides except the one leading into the environment chamber, and clearly visible from where the apprentice sat. Anton made a great show of putting on his pressure suit--heavy boots, thick gloves, ridiculous helmet.

He hummed a tune as he dressed: the last movement of Virgaan's Symphony Cantata, a repetitive but energetic melody that always helped steady Anton's nerves. Sometimes the simplest things were the best.

How long ago had the General recruited Anton? How long had the entire research team flailed, conjuring ever more exotic and convoluted attempts to decipher the Ancient objects?

The inner door hissed open, and the chamber's primordial atmosphere filled the airlock. Anton walked forward through the green mist and pressed both palms down on the control cube, which sat at chest height on a pedestal. Arrayed around it in a rough circle were the other Ancient objects, sitting on their own platforms at various heights.

He felt the sound from the cube vibrating the thick air. It had taken months to discover that the cube activated the other objects sonically, and longer to place each subordinate object at its proper distance from the cube.

Anton could feel the whole chamber resonating. He couldn't hear it through his helmet, of course; even with the most sophisticated microphones, the team had not been able to reproduce the Ancient music. It would never sound the same in a thin, human-breathable atmosphere.

That was why the apprentices slaved away now, trying to represent with mathematics the sounds of the objects in their native environment. But Anton knew it was futile. The General had recruited Anton for his musical talent and insight, and Anton knew that music was meant to be heard, to be experienced with one's own ears.

Anton's fingers trembled as he removed his helmet, and he told himself it was from excitement and not fear.

His eyes watered. He blinked and forced himself to breathe, taking the poisonous air into his lungs. It smelled of dead vegetables and felt thick in his nostrils. His throat burned.

And then he heard it. A beautiful, haunting chord, with overtones he never dreamed possible--nothing like any of the simulations. He turned his head, and the music changed and his vision blurred. As he fell, his ears moved through a multitude of sounds, each one more incredible than the last.

Anton understood. The music was not meant for a stationary audience; it had been designed for listeners who moved around the objects. The heavy atmosphere meant severe pressure grades everywhere. A single step would change the acoustics.

Anton coughed, and blood stained the floor before him. He crawled until he could reach the puddle with one hand, and began writing. It was not a suicide note. He simply wanted the others to know their Maestro had died happy.

Audio: "Finale"

http://512words.blogspot.com

Music: "Mellow Dm 5ths January Jazz" by Caleb Charles, licensed under Creative Commons from ccMixter.

Notice anything about this week's story? That's right--no dialogue. I have a natural inclination toward dialogue, which is probably why I like reading stage plays and most things by Joss Whedon, Aaron Sorkin, and Kevin Smith. But I want to maintain my prose writing skills, too, so I made a conscious effort to write this week's 512 Words without any talking characters.

Rhythm is the key as we open up the door

Also, some musical rhythms can mess with your head.

If it wasn't already obvious, I confess that I am a Stargate fan*, and I am willing to forgive the fact that every freakin' alien race speaks English, but I've been catching up with season 4 of Atlantis, and the egregious number of ripped-from-the-writers-room pop culture references used as conversational filler is starting to get to me.

Anyway. Just for fun, here are my original notes on the idea which spawned "Finale:"

military leader meets with great performer (e.g., violinist)--wants him to help with secret project
performer: "when we are both dust, history will remember us in only the broadest strokes. you will get one battle, perhaps a quotation. I will get the name of my instrument and my most well-known piece, probably Rosetta. that is enough. why would I risk replacing that perfect memory, or sullying it with some menial task? What is your project? A performance for some retiring general? A commission for a new anthem? I am already bored."
it turns out they've found an alien artifact, multiple boxes which generate sound, but they can't decode all the harmonics to make sense of the language.
the artifact affects the musician?

I'm finding that my first drafts come out around 1,000 words, which I then have to trim down to fit into my arbitrary 512-word limit. It's a good exercise in line editing, but if I decide not to continue this project after a year, it'll probably be because I want to write longer stories.

* For the record: Continuum was much better than Ark of Truth.

"The Forty"

THE FORTY
By Curtis C. Chen

"Merry Christmas," Andy said as he slid back into the passenger seat, holding out a paper cup.

"I'm Jewish," Jake said, taking a swig of coffee. "And this is awful."

"Sorry. Not a lot of Starbucks around here... hey, is that him?"

Jake looked out the windshield. "Yup. Let's go."

They exited the car into a gust of wind. Andy trotted to keep up with Jake as they crossed the street.

"Anthony Torza?" Jake called.

The man stopped walking. "Who wants to know?"

Jake held up his badge. Torza cursed.

"We need to see your artifact, Mr. Torza," Jake said.

"It ain't mine," Torza said. "I'm just holding it. For my cousin. He ain't a bad guy, he's just got a record--"

"We don't care, Mr. Torza," Jake said. "We just want to see the artifact."

***

Torza led them upstairs to his apartment. They watched him struggle with his keys, then finally take off his gloves to unlock the door. Once inside, Torza opened his closet and extracted a battered cardboard box.

"Be honest with you, I'll be glad to get rid of this thing," Torza said. "They give off some kind of radiation, right? I just hope it ain't made me sterile or nothing."

Andy opened the box. It was full of pencils.

"What the hell?" Andy said.

"It's lead," Torza said. "To stop the radiation?"

Andy wasn't sure if he wanted to laugh or cry. He settled for shaking his head, then scooped pencils out of the box until he revealed a metal shape, which he lifted with both hands.

Torza's artifact was identical to all the others: a regular icosahedron roughly the size and weight of a basketball. Nobody knew where the artifacts had come from. They had simply appeared one day, scattered across the globe. The agency had determined there should be forty artifacts--twenty matched pairs--based on their surface markings, and was tracking them all down. Andy rotated the artifact until he found the symbols.

"Seventeen," he translated, then stood up quickly and threw the artifact at Torza. "Think fast!"

Torza reflexively raised both hands to catch the artifact before it hit him in the chest. As soon as his skin touched the metal, the artifact began glowing with a soft blue light.

"We got a winner," Andy said, smiling.

"Thank you, Mr. Torza," Jake said. "We'll take that now. And at your convenience, we'd like to schedule an interview and routine medical exam."

***

The contents of the cardboard box rattled as Andy put it in the trunk.

"Lead," he said, getting into the car. "Clearly these things don't choose people based on intelligence. You ever wonder why they come in pairs? Or why the faces are twenty triangles?"

"Not interested," Jake said, starting the car. "Just four more 'owners' to track down, then we can get back to real work."

"Yeah." Andy scratched his chin. "But I'd still like to solve the puzzle. Close the case. You know?"

Jake shrugged. "If wishes were horses, kid. You'll learn to settle for a decent cup of coffee."

Audio: "The Forty"

http://512words.blogspot.com

Music: "bellsong" by maurixxio and "Rich Strings 192kbps .mp3" by orang_redux_777, licensed under Creative Commons from ccMixter.

Boy, am I out of practice. I wanted "Torza" to sound like a mook, but he came out less Brooklyn than I had intended. Still, close enough.

I'm also working on my pacing. Something I was taught in narration class, many years ago: no matter how ridiculously slowly you think you're speaking, it will not be too slow for the listener. After spending all summer on the road with audio books, I understand completely. If the ideal experience of reading words on a page is a light trance state, the ideal listening experience lets you continuously process just the right amount of information--not so much as to be distracting, but also not so little that you get bored and drowsy.

D20, Not Futbol

Several of my friends turned forty years old this month: Chang, my roommate from VPXII; Jerry, a fellow Richter Scale; and Karin, who introduced me to my wife (they've been best friends since high school). I've already written a story about birthdays, so I did a little brainstorming on the number 40 and came up with this week's piece.

This particular idea turned out to be much too big for flash fiction, and I had a hell of a time trimming this scene down to fit here--though I did manage to tie a nice bow on it at the end, if I do say so myself. I'm still writing the longer story, and plan to finish and submit it next month.

Yes, the artifacts do look like twenty-sided dice, and yes, the longer draft includes a bit where Andy and Jake discuss truncated icosahedrons. (Archimedes versus Plato--fight!)

The last paragraph also contains a shout-out to my Viable Paradise XII classmate, Tiffani, who just sold her short story "If Wishes Were Horses" to Strange Horizons. Woo hoo! She'll be published in late spring, 2009.