"Can't Get Arrested"

CAN'T GET ARRESTED
By Curtis C. Chen

"Who the hell are these girls?" Dani muttered.

She knew she should be paying attention to her own console, but her eyes kept wandering back to Monitor Three, at her left elbow, where two sandy-haired teenagers were taking apart a mechanical minotaur using nothing more than their bare hands and what appeared to be a couple of liberated parking meters.

"Dani!" the producer shouted. "Where's my next bumper?"

"Coming right up!" Dani called back. She jumped at least two centimeters off her chair when she realized Harvey was standing right behind her.

"What goddamn feed is that?" He jabbed a finger toward Monitor Three. "And where the hell is—"

"Piped to bravo!" Dani hollered, swiping across her control surface to move the rendered bumper graphics into the second of several video buffers on the big board. But now Harvey wasn't even paying attention, and his assistant had to yell across the room to cue the next commercial break.

Dani could smell the pungent aroma of Harvey's lunch as he leaned down and touched Three to zoom in on the taller of the two girls. "Gladiatrix?"

"Hell no," said Peter, the beanpole working Three. Unlike Dani, he actually seemed excited about the managerial scrutiny. "That's a news feed. Live from New York."

Harvey's head whipped around. "There's a ground battle in Manhattan and we haven't cut to a special bulletin yet?" He stood up straight to yell at his assistant. "Are the fucking phones down again?"

"Oh, no, boss," Peter said, waving his hands frantically. "It's an exhibition match."

Harvey squinted at Peter as if the kid had just sprouted an extra head. "The City of New York authorized these people to demolish an entire block?"

"Yeah!" Peter nodded enthusiastically. "It's the latest PR thing for unaffiliated metas. You get some sponsors, file for a permit to help clear a block that's going to be razed anyway—this one's on the Upper West Side—and line up some non-human, non-sentient heavies to beat down—"

"Okay, okay, I get the picture," Harvey said. "This is really a thing?"

Peter shrugged. "How else are you going to get noticed in the big city?"

"Wait a minute." Dani had been wondering how long it would take Harvey to remember that this was highly irregular. "Why do you have this feed up?"

Peter blinked. "Um, research?"

Harvey smacked a palm down on top of Monitor Three. "We're in the middle of a fucking show here!" He waved at his assistant. "Are we still in commercial?"

"Forty seconds back," the assistant replied.

"You." Harvey pointed at Peter. "Are on notice." He stalked back to his control station. "Dani! I want the rainbow bumper in, with a paired ad block!"

She was ready for this one. "Up on alfa!"

By the time the show wrapped, the two superpowered girls in Harlem had gone through a junkyard's worth of sponsored robo-wreckers. Dani headed to the nearest balcony for a smoke and a personal phone call. The Mentalist would want to hear about this.



Image: uprooted by Justin Henry, September, 2007

"Champions Breakdown"

CHAMPIONS BREAKDOWN
By Curtis C. Chen

"Apartment of Champions" is an original TV comedy pilot about young people with not-so-great powers doing their best to avoid any responsibility, in a city full of super-heroes. It won the SIE Script Competition in 2011. This is the casting sheet from last year's table read.


MEN:

CHARLIE - (early 20s) Clean-cut, medical school student, total square. Follows the rules, and thinks everyone else should, too. Bit of a busybody. NO SUPERPOWERS.

MARCUS, a.k.a. STORM FRONT - (20s) African-American, athletic, not as cool as he thinks he is. Collects action figures of more successful super-heroes. Hangs out at comic book stores to impress little kids. SUPERPOWER: can shoot electricity from his hands, but only when it's raining out.

JEFF, a.k.a. NEO-LAD - (20s) Tall, square-jawed, all-American football type. Knows he's hot as hell and thinks that's awesome. Catnip to the ladies; loves 'em and leaves 'em. SUPERPOWERS: pretty much anything Superman can do, but only when he feels like it—and he's a lazy bastard.

MR. E - (60ish) Ethnic, older gentleman, with gravitas but quirky. Think Edward James Olmos or George Takei. A mysterious presence who may intervene with advice but will never takes action.


WOMEN:

SELINA, a.k.a. MOONCHYLDE - (20s) Sarcastic, apathetic epitome of Generation Y. Dyed black hair, chunky hipster eyeglasses; never goes anywhere without her laptop computer. SUPERPOWER: can cast two magic spells a day by chanting backwards words (e.g., "tell the truth" becomes "llet eht hturt"), but her spells often cause their targets and bystanders to become nauseous.

KATE, a.k.a. KATE THE GREAT - (20s) Eastern European, tall, statuesque, muscular. Speaks with an accent and misuses English words a lot. Clueless on many aspects of American culture. SUPERPOWER: super-strength, which she can't control very well; crushes or breaks things accidentally all the time.

HALEY, a.k.a. FIRECRACKER - (early 20s) Pretty, girl-next-door blonde. New arrival from the Midwest; still getting used to life in the big city. SUPERPOWER: can create brilliant, light-based illusions—think fireworks or holograms—but keeps this a secret from everyone except her immediate family.


"Apartment of Champions" is an unproduced half-hour script which I hope to expand into a stage play at some point. Also, my wife still hates the title.



Image: gleaming by Kaila Montanna, March, 2010

"This is Not a Clue"

THIS IS NOT A CLUE
By Curtis C. Chen

Are you ready to save the world, hackers?

It's been decades since the computers took over. It all started with one rogue A.I., an artificial intelligence system that was supposed to help the military coordinate worldwide responses to "fourth-generation warfare" situations—terrorism, insurgencies, and other types of decentralized attack strategies. How do you fight back when the enemy isn't in uniform, and maybe isn't even organized in a traditional military hierarchy? Where do you strike, and how?

The computers solved that problem. They solved it a little too well. That first A.I. didn't know any better; it was just following its orders: to come up with a planned response for war operations, to be a master control for battlefield intelligence, globally. But the programs that came after—those were truly malicious. The new programs continued adapting as the nature of the conflict changed, and once it became clear that the basic struggle was humans versus machines, our fate was sealed.

But humanity's pretty resilient. And we're very creative. The computers may work faster, but we work smarter. We can figure out new things that were never programmed into us; we can imagine and design things that don't yet exist. We find solutions that can't be derived by using brute force algorithms, and obscure patterns which take a messy, random-access human mind to recognize.

That's where you come in. The resistance has plenty of fighters—there's never been any shortage of angry young men (and women) who want to take up arms against the never-ending sea of attack drones. But what we really need is hackers like you. We need people who can think around the problem instead of just running into it head-on. True, we'll always need the shooters to defend ourselves, but this isn't just about winning battles—we want to win the war. And the only way to do that is to get inside the belly of the beast.

It won't be easy: you'll have to traverse miles of ravaged wasteland, making friends along the way to assemble a team while also avoiding potential enemies. Some humans have given up any hope of taking back our planet, but you have to fight for them, too, even if they can't appreciate it yet.

Did I mention that you won't have any weapons? It's too risky. The machine sentries have scanners that detect firearms, projectiles, even sharp sticks; your only chance to get close enough to reprogram them is to sneak up without appearing to be a threat. And it's only going to get worse as you approach their nerve center: the WarTron complex.

This may be the last mission we ever send out there, but if you succeed, you'll have saved all of us—and you'll have done it with your wits, your human intelligence, the one thing the computers haven't been able to surpass. If you win, it'll be because you were clever enough to know when to play—and when the winning move was not to play.

So. Are you ready to start the game?



Image: WarTron fake teaser, May, 2012

"Under the Sea"

UNDER THE SEA
By Curtis C. Chen

Nearly a dozen wary eyes turned to Lieutenant Markey as she entered the submarine's control room. Most of them turned away almost immediately.

"Two knots, Captain," the helmsman reported.

"Very well," the captain said. He turned to Markey. "What are those torpedoes going to do to these kraken?"

"We're not shooting torpedoes at those things," Markey said. "We need to get the hell out of here, right now."

"Oh, we're moving," the captain said. "But we did not sneak ourselves into the goddamn lion's den just to have a look around. We're here, we're going to do some fucking damage before we leave."

"Aft tubes loaded, Captain!" the weapons officer shouted from behind me.

"Stop!" Markey said. "Our intel was bad. Those are not kraken out there. They're Elder Things. Two of them."

"I don't care what kind of fucking sea monsters they are," the captain said. "I just want to know what's going to happen when we wake them up."

Markey stepped closer to the captain, glaring at him. "I don't know what will happen, Captain. But it's going to be at least a thousand times worse than what happened to Roseler."

"I don't care," the captain said, "as long as it happens to the fucking Japs and not us. Now how far away do we need to be when we shoot off those fish?"

"These Things are not just monsters!" Markey said. "They are the worst monsters ever. They are beyond imagination. Do you understand? Cults have worshipped them as deities. Old Gods. If they wake up, it could be the end of the world!"

The XO grunted. "You just said you didn't know what would happen. Now you're saying it's the end of the world. Which is it, Lieutenant?"

Markey replied without breaking off her staring contest with the captain. "The specifics are classified and somewhat technical. We don't know exactly how bad it would get. But I'm not authorized to take that chance. And neither are you, Captain Channing, sir."

"Then you get authorization," the captain said. "Use a comm spell to contact your superiors."

"I can't," Markey said. "We're too deep. Too much water, too much iron." She tapped a pipe above her head for emphasis.

"Goddammit, teleport back and ask in person!"

Markey laughed. "Captain, I have nowhere near enough power to initiate a teleport, even if we were surfaced. I don't go home unless we make our rendezvous in two days."

"Eighty-five hundred yards, captain," the helmsman said.

"Eighty-five hundred, aye," the captain repeated. "Weapons, flood aft torpedo tubes."

"Aye, sir, flooding aft tubes!" the weapons officer called.

"Captain!" Markey said.

"COB, get those orders from OP-20-G and bring them in here," the captain said.

"Aye, sir." The Chief turned and maneuvered his way forward.

"Markey, in seven minutes we're out of range and we don't get another chance at this." The captain spoke softly but firmly. "So we're both going to take another look at those orders and see precisely what the fuck we're authorized to do."



Image: monster sea battle by Johnson Cameraface, December, 2011

"Temporal Mechanics"

TEMPORAL MECHANICS
By Curtis C. Chen

The briefing was going about as well as Roger had expected, which was not well.

"I got it," Nick said. "Nine days forward, I stay for one day, and then I return with the information."

"I need you to fully understand what happens when you travel forward," Roger said. "Do you get why Doc flips that coin every time?"

Nick shrugged. "Yeah. It's like his good luck charm or something."

"No. It's not—we don't believe in luck around here." Roger leaned forward and spread his palms, hoping the motion might focus Nick's attention. The kid looked barely old enough to drink. "It's probability. Random chance. We, the observers, will end up in one of two timelines. We can't predict which one. We can't control it."

"But it doesn't affect my mission," Nick said.

Roger frowned. "What?"

"That's not my concern," Nick said. "I mean, all due respect, sir, I'm not here to study the science. I'm just here to do a job."

"I'm not asking you to understand the science," Roger said. "Hell, we don't understand how the damn thing works. But you need to understand, every time you travel, you create an alternate reality in which you are dead. Do you understand that? When you travel forward, you reappear for one day, and then you disappear forever."

"Right," Nick said. "Because I come back here."

"You come back to a different timeline," Roger said, doing his best to emphasize the words. "One in which you didn't travel forward nine days. You disappear, then you reappear just a few seconds later."

"I get it, sir," Nick said.

"Stop calling me 'sir,'" Roger said. "This isn't the military."

"My understanding was that I was selected because I don't have any close family," Nick said. "So it won't matter if I am, as you say, dead in that other timeline."

"You will no longer exist in that timeline," Roger said.

"But I'll be back in this one," Nick said. "Why does it matter?"

Roger noticed his hands had curled into fists. He hated resorting to this, but he took a deep breath and asked, "Have you seen Back to the Future, Part 2?"

Nick blinked. "Was that the one in the Old West?"

"No, that was the third one." Roger opened a cabinet behind him, took out a DVD, and passed it across the table to Nick. "That's your homework. There's a scene in which Doc Brown draws a diagram on a blackboard—" Roger shook his head. "Just go home and watch that tonight. Be back here at nine o'clock sharp. You'll get the rest of your briefing then."

Nick took the DVD and left the conference room. Roger rubbed his temples, feeling a headache coming on.

A minute later, Project Director Alex Yarrow walked by, holding a coffee mug.

"Where's the new guy?" Alex asked.

"I sent him home with the damn movie," Roger said. "Tell me again why we're using jarheads as travelers?"

Alex grumbled. "Because my brother's a genius with technology and an idiot when it comes to politics."



Image: Back to the Future 25th Anniversary by Graham Coreil-Allen, October, 2010

"Scrying is Believing"

SCRYING IS BELIEVING
By Curtis C. Chen

"We're in hostile waters, less than a hundred miles from shore," I heard the Captain saying as I climbed up the ladder into the conning tower. "Anything goes wrong here and we're fucked."

He was talking to Lieutenant Markey. Roseler was already here, crowded into the tight space around the periscope. I wedged myself into a corner next to the Captain and COB.

"This will be a one-way scry," Markey said. She might actually have looked better in trousers than a skirt.

"And why does Rosebud have to do the spell?" COB asked.

"Seaman Roseler is doing the easy part," Markey said. "Because he doesn't have a focus object, I'll need to anchor the far end of the scrying tunnel."

COB did a double-take. "You're going to be his crystal ball?"

Markey sighed. "Captain? We can discuss the finer points of remote viewing instruments, or we can get this done."

"All right," the Captain said. "Carry on, Lieutenant."

I transcribed our coordinates and helped Roseler incorporate Markey's signature into his spell. A few minutes later, they were facing each other and holding hands, their eyes closed as Roseler incanted his scrying spell.

Next to me, the Captain muttered, "I'll be glad when we're done with all this black magic bullshit."

"Yes, sir," I said.

He glanced at me. "Your family have talent, Seaman?"

"Not that I'm aware of, sir." It was a lie.

"Thank fucking God," COB said, on my other side. "Give me science and engineering any day of the week."

"You know Markey wanted to go outside at first?" the Captain said. "Said she could make an air bubble. Wanted to climb out the forward escape trunk and, quote, 'have a look around.' "

"Crazy fucking dame," COB said.

I bit my tongue.

"Told her that was not going to happen," the Captain said. "I mean, something goes wrong, fucking air bubble pops, and my damn boat's flooding. We didn't come all this way to drown in—"

Roseler started screaming. It came suddenly, without even an intake of breath, and the sound was barely human. I dropped my clipboard and covered my ears.

"Get the doctor!" Markey shouted. Roseler was convulsing now. "Gray! Help me hold him down!"

The Captain leaned down the ladder and yelled for the doctor. I jumped across and grabbed Roseler's shoulders. His eyes had rolled back into his head. He was still screaming. His legs kicked around as Markey did her best to restrain them.

"What the hell's wrong with him?" COB asked.

"He made contact!" Markey said. "Dammit, Chief, you didn't tell me he was a reader!"

"A what?"

"A sensitive! Low-grade esper, possible clairvoyant!"

"How the fuck were we supposed to know?" COB said. "This is a Navy submarine, not a damn witches' coven—"

Markey stood up and whirled so fast, even the Chief flinched.

"You use that word again," she said, "and I will have your stripes. Understood, Chief?"

I could see COB barely holding back a sneer. "Understood, Lieutenant."



Image: down periscope by kosheahan, April, 2008

"Making Waves"

MAKING WAVES
By Curtis C. Chen

"You check those corners, sailor?" the Chief of the Boat barked. "Those lines are off by half a degree and our visitor doesn't materialize!"

"Re-measuring now, Chief!" I replied, and placed my protractor on the deck again.

I knew COB was exaggerating, but I'd learned early in my naval career not to argue with anyone who outranked me. If it wasn't likely to kill me, I just did it.

After re-checking all the angles on both pentagrams and making sure they lined up, floor to ceiling, I stepped out of the circle and reported my progress.

"Very well," COB grumbled. "Rosebud!"

The Seaman's real name was Roseler, but after that RKO flick, everyone called him "Rosebud" as a tease. He jumped forward, holding his clipboard. I did my best to get out of the way. COB's quarters weren't exactly spacious.

"You got the incantations there?" COB asked Roseler.

"Aye, sir!" Roseler said, his voice cracking. And people said I sounded like a girl.

"Corrected for position, depth, and speed?"

"Aye, sir! I've got the math right here—"

COB waved the clipboard away. "I can't read your damn chicken scratches! Just make sure you're doing it right!"

Roseler looked like he might cry. "M-maybe you'd like to do it yourself, Chief?"

"Do I look like a motherfucking magician?" COB roared into Roseler's face. Their noses couldn't have been more than half an inch apart. "Now incant that fucking spell so we can receive our goddamn visitor!"

"Aye, sir!" Roseler buried his face in the clipboard. I had one hand on my belt, ready to deliver a kidney-punch as soon as I heard a mispronunciation. I didn't want to be on this boat if anything went wrong with a teleport.

"Sometime this year, sailor!" COB shouted.

"Aye, sir!" Roseler stood up straight. "Hagitaa! Moro-ven-schaa! Inlumtaa..."

Both pentagrams pulsed blue and white. Roseler finished the incantation, only going a little flat on the last syllable, and a pillar of light flashed into being between the two circles. A moment later, the light faded, and I saw an officer standing in the pentagram, wearing... a skirt?

"Permission to come aboard, Chief?" the woman said.

She looked about my mother's age, and she wore lieutenant's bars and the most perfect makeup I'd ever seen. But the expression on her face, and the fact that she'd just teleported onto a submerged attack boat in the South Pacific, told me she wasn't here to entertain anyone.

"Permission granted, ma'am!" COB said. "Sorry the Captain couldn't be here to greet you. We're playing hide and seek with some Japs."

As if on cue, the entire boat groaned and rolled to starboard. I was impressed that the lieutenant managed to keep her balance in those heels.

COB shoved Roseler and me back. "If you'll follow me, ma'am?"

The lieutenant looked at the pentagrams. "You're not going to clean this up?"

"These two can handle—"

"You secure those surfaces, Chief," the lieutenant snapped. She looked straight at me. "Seaman Gray can show me to the bridge."



Image: USS Ohio (SSGN 726) in dry dock, January, 2004

"Have Spacesuit, Will Travel"

HAVE SPACESUIT, WILL TRAVEL
By Curtis C. Chen

"Don't tell me how to fly!" Angel said. "I know how to fly."

"You know how to play video games." Carolyn's voice crackled through the helmet radio. "There's a difference."

Angel nudged the throttle with her right index finger. "Just give me a map reading, okay? We don't have a lot of time."

"Almost clear," Carolyn said. "Another fifty meters, then turn forty-five degrees up."

"Pitch," Angel corrected.

"Why do I need to learn made-up words when I can just say 'turn?' " Carolyn asked. "I gotta tell you which way to go anyhow."

"We'll have this argument later," Angel said. "Pitching up, four-five degrees, now."

She pulled back on the vertical stick with her left thumb. Her view changed from the gentle curve of the habitat ring to the angular mess of the cargo docks.

"Okay, I'm lined up." Angel brought up the HUD overlay in her helmet. "Range painting on. Where am I going?"

"Straight ahead of you, two lanes in. Bay ninety-five. The ship is all the way at the end."

Before Angel could ask whether that was the spaceward or homeward end of the lane, an alarm started blaring, and blinking red lights lit up her HUD.

"What's wrong?" Carolyn shouted.

"Wait one," Angel said.

She felt remarkably calm as she worked both joysticks and pressed lightly on the triggers to change her thrust vector. Carolyn was right: it wasn't anything like a video game. Angel felt the backpack rockets pushing against her body as they fired, three different arrows of force joining to shove her out of the way of the approaching freighter.

It wasn't until she was safely out of the lane that Angel felt her hands shaking and her stomach fluttering. All sorts of audio and visual alerts filled her helmet, now that she'd exceeded speed limits in controlled traffic space, but all she heard was the blood rushing past her ears—until her mother's voice pierced the noise.

"Angel Daria Chace!" She did not sound happy. "What in the name of all that's holy are you doing out there?"

"I'm helping Granma," Angel said, braking and re-angling herself toward the target ship.

"Did you steal that spacesuit? And—what?" Her mother paused. "Angel! Did you take your grandmother's ashes?"

"She wanted to be buried in space." Angel slowed her approach, then slapped the magnetic case containing her grandmother's ashes onto the side of a cargo container. "I'm sending her into the Sun."

"Angel, you get back inside right now! And where is your sister?"

The suit radio buzzed, and a new voice filled the helmet. "Unidentified pilot, this is Galen Traffic Control. Please stop maneuvering inside restricted space and meet dock authorities at airlock three-nine. Repeat..."

Angel's face hurt from smiling so much. She'd never been called a pilot before.

"...additional," the controller continued. "Please hold at airlock three-nine for the captain of that freighter who almost pancaked you. He says he 'wants to meet any cowboy who can dance like that in a three-pointed tin can.' "



Image: Soviet spacesuit (with MMU) at Evergreen Aviation Museum, October, 2010