Dollhouse Sucks

Let the flamewar begin!

But seriously, folks... I like Dollhouse just fine, and I'm glad it's getting a second season, but I really felt like the show was spinning its wheels for the first five episodes. Others agree. Some quite vocally.

Man on the Street was good, and Epitaph One was very good. But what does it say about a series when its best episode is the one that takes place outside of its normal continuity, doesn't feature the regular cast, and which the network didn't even broadcast? Maybe that Joss Whedon should stop messing around with suited humans and just go make whatever he wants.

Anyway. Many science fiction writers have explored the idea of mind transfer and duplication, and the philosophical implications of identical people. Just to be clear, this is not cloning--a clone is just a time-shifted twin of the original. A duplicate also has the same memories and personality as the original. I don't know that my take here is original, but it's new to me. I might explore it further and see where it leads.

SPECIAL EDITION: Making Plans

http://snout.org/512.survey

"[B]e prolific. Keep generating new ideas for a variety of media. Don’t get hung up on trying to get your one masterpiece published or sold. If you only have one good idea, you’re in real trouble."
- Lisa Klink, TV writer (Star Trek: Voyager, Martial Law, and more)



As I approach the end of this year-long experiment--only one month left to go now--I'm thinking about whether I want to continue doing weekly flash fiction and this podcast.

On one hand, it does help me generate a lot of new ideas and try out different premises and characters; on the other hand, recording the podcast and editing the audio and posting to the blog takes a fair bit of time away from writing other, longer pieces that might actually sell.

On the gripping hand, it keeps me writing even when nothing else motivates me. And that's a good thing. Writers write.

But before I get too deep into thinking about ways I could change up the 512 format, let's have a show of hands. How many of you out there want me to continue with 512 Words or Fewer: Year 2? (I'd also like to get an idea of how many humans are actually reading these stories.)

Please take the survey or post a comment here on the blog. And thanks for reading!

http://snout.org/512.survey



Music: instrumental stems from "Chiron Beta Prime" by Jonathan Coulton, licensed under Creative Commons.

"Armor"

ARMOR
By Curtis C. Chen

"I still don't see how this is going to work," Mike said.

"You and your pessimism," Carol said. "Bertie! Don't touch that!"

She reached down and pulled a battery pack away from the baby, then resumed wrapping coils of wire around the large emitter assembly. Albert began scanning the floor of the garage for something else to play with.

"'Bertie?'" Mike said. "Is that what you're calling him now?"

"Is there anything I do that you don't object to?" Carol asked.

"I'm not objecting," Mike said. "I'm just trying to understand your genius."

Carol smiled, leaned over, and kissed him on the cheek. "I love you too, honey."

"Albert!" Mike jumped off his stool and lifted the baby before he could tip over a trash bin full of scrap metal. The baby struggled to get away. "We need to give him a toy or something."

"Here," Carol said, switching on a pair of coin-sized field emitter prototypes. Two shimmering disks appeared, glowing blue and humming softly, like a pair of flat, translucent gems set atop matching titanium rings. "He'll like these. They're shiny."

"Gee, can you find something more dangerous for him to play with?" Mike said.

"They're perfectly safe." Carol handed the emitters to the baby. Albert made a happy noise and immediately began banging the two force fields together. They bounced off each other, repelling like magnets, and warbled faintly. "See?"

Albert was completely engrossed. He pressed the flat surfaces of the two fields together, trying and failing to close the final few millimeters between them.

Mike gave Carol a flat look of resignation. "Just so you know, I plan to testify against you."

"I love you too, dear."

A sharp sound from the baby caused them both to look down. Albert had both emitters facing out, away from his body, and the fields overlapped like a Venn diagram. He held them aloft with one hand, requesting parental intervention to repair his toy.

Mike squinted at the tiny blue disks. "They're stuck together. The fields are touching!"

"That's impossible," Carol said.

"See for yourself." Mike yanked the emitters out of Albert's hand. The baby immediately started bawling.

"Jesus, Mike!"

Mike scooped up Albert with one arm and held out the emitters to Carol with the other. "Sorry," he said, rocking the baby gently. The bawling continued.

Carol stared at the emitters and the impossibly but undeniably conjoined force fields, a tiny miracle shining at her against all their expectations. She looked up at her husband and her baby—her biological child.

"I'll take him," Carol said, reaching her arms out to Albert. "You put it under the scope."

Mike gaped at her. "You sure?"

Carol stepped off her chair, walked around Mike, and lifted Albert off his shoulder and onto hers.

"I can see from here," Carol said. "You're better with those controls."

Mike shifted over to the other side of the workbench and switched on the microscope display. Albert clutched and chewed Carol's shirt collar, drooling down her back. She smiled at the familiar discomfort.

Audio: "Armor"

I do have friends named Mike and Carol, but this week's character names are not instances of tuckerization. Those particular appellations just happened to sound right. You may, if you like, imagine that their surname is "Lockhorn."

Music: background stems from "You Ruined Everything" by Jonathan Coulton, licensed under Creative Commons.

One Man's Trash

An earlier draft of this week's story featured more detailed descriptions of the setting, which I modeled after our friend Acorn's garage. He really does have open bins of scrap metal--and worse--lying around all the time. Plus that coffin we made for FoBiK, but that's another story...

"The World Crime League"

THE WORLD CRIME LEAGUE
By Curtis C. Chen

Justin knew there was something wrong as soon as the suspect walked in. Even through the shielded walls, the combined mental energy of everyone in the precinct caused a slight buzzing inside Justin's skull. When someone actually entered the interview room, Justin always felt a prickling pressure behind his eyes.

But not with this man. He stood over six feet tall, and it took the combined efforts of Detective Kopka and a uniformed patrolman to push the suspect down into the chair across from Justin and attach his handcuffs to the table. The suspect's tattooed biceps bulged under a dirty T-shirt. His eyes were dark and beady.

Justin stared at the man, expecting a rush of hostility in response. He felt nothing.

"Ernest Holliday," Kopka said, putting a file folder in front of Justin. "Tried to fence some stolen computer parts downtown. Could be he knows something about that truck hijacking last month. How 'bout it, Ernie? You got a couple of faces for us? Maybe a license plate? Phone number?"

Holliday grunted. "I want a lawyer."

"I'm not getting anything," Justin said, opening the file. "Is he ex-military? Or epileptic?"

"Don't think so," Kopka said. "Why?"

"A metal plate in his skull could cause interference," Justin said, flipping pages. "And medication can affect brain wave patterns."

Holliday chuckled. Justin looked up and wondered why Holliday's face seemed wrong. Then he looked back at the file.

"His eyes," Justin said. "The file says his eyes are blue."

Holliday kicked his chair away and stood up, yanking on his handcuffs. The bolts holding the table to the floor creaked. Kopka and the patrolman grabbed Holliday and forced him down to a kneeling position.

"I want a lawyer!" Holliday yelled.

"Shut up," Kopka said.

The patrolman got his arm around Holliday's neck in a chokehold. Kopka pried open Holliday's left eyelid and put two fingers against his eyeball.

"Ow!" Holliday said.

Kopka pulled his hand away, pinching a dark brown contact lens between his thumb and forefinger. "Son of a bitch. You got something now?"

Justin nodded. Holliday's thoughts poured out through his unshielded eye socket in a raw and turbulent stream.

"We're done," Justin said.

"Get him out of here." Kopka detached Holliday's handcuffs from the table.

"I was lying!" Holliday said as the patrolman dragged him out of the room. "You got nothin'! I want a lawyer!"

The door clicked shut. Kopka sat down next to Justin, who was already scribbling notes.

"Well, this is new," Kopka said, looking at the contact lens. "Any idea how these work?"

"They're probably radioactive," Justin said.

Kopka threw the lens on the table and wiped his fingers on his jacket. "Jesus, you could have told me that earlier!"

"Relax," Justin said. "It's not that kind of radiation. But it's also not something you can just buy off the street." He turned his notepad around, showing a rough pencil sketch of a snake encircling a globe. "Do you recognize that symbol?"

Kopka groaned. "The World Crime League," he said. "I hate these guys."

Audio: "The World Crime League"

A lot of description got cut for length from this week's story. The bits I miss the most involve police officers always wearing dark glasses, made from the same thought-shielding substance as the interview room walls, to reduce the static that the department's telepaths have to endure. I just love the image (and the irony) of an entire squad room filled with Blues Brothers look-alikes.

Music: 'Bass' and 'Electric Guitar' stems from "Code Monkey" by Jonathan Coulton, licensed under Creative Commons.

25 Years Later

In August, 1984, The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension opened at theatres across the United States. It was #1 at the box office that weekend, but with a $620K opening weekend and a final domestic gross of just over $6 million, it could hardly be called a success.

Now, two and a half decades later, the movie has a dedicated cult following, despite failures to launch either a television series or the promised film sequel, Buckaroo Banzai Against the World Crime League (from which title I have borrowed part of the premise for this week's flash fiction).

Over at the Drex Files, artist Doug Drexler has quite a treasure trove of sketches and ideas from the development of the Buckaroo Banzai TV series. He mentions that many of the Star Trek: The Next Generation production crew were big BB fans. And this is the 47th story in my 512 Words or Fewer project. Coincidence? You decide!

Finally, shouts out to my fellow VPXII alum Steve Kopka and fellow DASH GC member Justin Santamaria, both of whom I have tuckerized for the forces of good.