Fic: Chimera
Jan. 17th, 2014 08:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brightly_litTitle: Chimera
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
brightly_lit
World: Tricycle Man
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1,200
Genre: gen, slice of life
Summary: Orphaned at 12, Lisa nonetheless has every reason to believe the apocalypse was only an improvement in her life.
Chimera:
1 an imaginary monster compounded of incongruous parts
2 an illusion or fabrication of the mind; especially: an unrealizable dream
Lisa dragged her wagon toward market beside the Chanel Channel, so called because somebody had somehow programmed it to give off perpetual scent. Fortunately, it smelled a lot better than Chanel, more like flowers ... which was nice, because you hardly smelled flowers anymore, since the apocalypse.
Her wagon held only a few hand-knit sweaters and some sheep’s milk, but she knew the sweaters would fetch a high enough price that the wagon would be full on her way home. Clothes, like food, were one of the things that you couldn’t create out of rubble or dirt. Well, you could, but your body couldn’t process the food, and the clothes didn’t breathe or bend right, like a sheet of plastic with armholes. So her sweaters were always one of the hottest-selling commodities at the market.
It sucked, being orphaned at twelve, not knowing how you would make your way in this strange, decimated world, but it could have sucked a lot worse, and at least she wasn’t the only one. Everyone was orphaned, in a way--bereft of family, friends, the homes they knew. All they could do was help each other through it and try to figure out what the hell happened.
Lifehack, Inc. blew up the world, that’s what happened--or at least Detroit, thinking they could play God and hack reality to their liking. Those Luddite zealots who protested down at Lifehack’s ex-headquarters said it was humanity’s punishment for taking technology too far, and Lisa thought they were probably right ... but that didn’t stop everyone from using that same technology all the time, for everything, even modifying their own programming. Lisa had programmed her shack into existence just like everyone else had, but she was a teetotaler when it came to self-modification. The things some people did to themselves.
After the apocalypse, the people who were left were all pretty nice, WAY nicer than the assholes at her middle school ... at least, until they started fiddling with themselves. So that was good, that most people were nice and helped each other through those first scary years after the Cataclysm, before the community farms and gardens started up and people started to find their niche. She’d found her niche--she got to spend all her time knitting, and she actually made money at it. She even had a few sheep of her own, which was awesome, because she loved animals more than anything and Mom would never let her have anything bigger than a gerbil. She used to miss her parents and her friends really bad, but some people here believed everyone they left behind was still alive in some other dimension, and Lisa took comfort from that. It was amazing what you could get used to in only two years.
Detroit wasn’t any uglier than it was before the Cataclysm; actually, it was prettier in some places, where people had taken it upon themselves to program something cool, like the sculpture gardens and the fountains. Nobody bothered her; no parents to tell her what to do, no bullies at school, no grades to worry about. No future. It could be a lot worse.
As she neared the market, she heard Calliope playing a jig. Some people were dancing. Crowds made Lisa nervous. People made her nervous. She just had to trade for some food and then she could turn around and hurry home again.
Lisa surveyed all the food stalls and finally picked the one with the greatest variety. Oranges! Lisa sniffed one--you had to be careful when you bought exotic food; sometimes it was uber-GMO, programmed from scratch, but if it was, it smelled like dirt or cement or whatever they made it from. Smelled like orange. Lisa breathed in the scent. “You programmed a giant greenhouse?” she asked the woman selling, who nodded.
Lisa took out a sweater and held it up to the woman, who grabbed it avariciously, fondling it as she examined it intently. “You knitted this?!”
Lisa nodded. “I have sheep.”
The woman gestured at her stall helplessly. “What do you want?”
“All of it.”
The woman even helped her load up her wagon, because she knew she still came out on the good end of that deal. Lisa would spend the week preserving it for winter, because deep freezers and dehydrators and canners were easy to program into existence, compared to sweaters. She would be able to survive here for another year, in this wrecked wilderness where survival was easy compared to navigating the savage waters of middle school.
Lisa took her wagon and started to head home. That guy who rode his giant tricycle around town all the time nearly knocked her over, shouting “Sorry!” as he passed, waving with a big grin, probably high, and where anyone found the time to grow weed when it was hard enough just to survive these days, she didn’t know. Maybe he’d programmed himself to be perpetually happy. You’d think that would be the only mod anyone made to their programming, but somehow it never was, except maybe tricycle man. Lisa shook her head and kept walking. To get along here, you had to learn to live with the eccentrics.
Thinking this, something caught her eye, and she ran to the stall, realizing as she did that it was the guy who made exotic creatures and sold them here. She’d always hated that guy ... but--but-- “What is that?” she gasped, pointing at one of the cages.
The guy seemed nice enough, even if she reviled how he made his living. The poor creatures, stuck in a three-foot cube of metal wire. “A peacat, I guess,” he said. Greeny-blue and shimmering fur gave way to a regal beak at one end and dozens of long-furred waving tails at the other, each with the characteristic eye of the feather of a peacock’s fan. “I figure during the Cataclysm, somehow a cat and a peacock from the zoo, you know--” he smacked his hands together, making a squishing sound.
“You--you didn’t make it? Program it yourself?”
He quirked his head. “Nah, man, you can’t. You can’t hack into any other living creature, and believe me, I’ve tried. Not even a tree. Not even a flower. No, all of these are guys made in the Cataclysm. I’ve been taking care of them ever since, but I can’t feed ’em all anymore, man, so I’m trying to find them good homes. But this one’s one of my favorites, so it’s kind of expensive.” He stuck his finger through the wire, and it rubbed against his finger, chirping. He looked like he felt guilty about charging a 14-year-old girl an arm and a leg for a pet ... but not guilty enough not to do it.
One proffered sweater later, she was the proud owner of a peacat, heading home after another successful day at market, wagon full. That night, in bed, listening to the dehydrator’s whir, Peaki asleep on her stomach, its tails gently stroking her face and arm, she thought, not for the first time, that as far as she was concerned, the apocalypse was the best thing that had ever happened.
~ The End ~
Author's Notes:
-indiachick and alexisjane brought up lots and lots of cool stuff in the discussion post we've been using; hopefully I've addressed a lot of it in this story and we can discuss from here ...
- We haven't actually mapped out this world yet, so I avoided being specific about the location of anything, except that Lisa lives on the outskirts of town and went to the market, which I'm assuming should be held on the shore of Lake St. Claire, the HUGE lake on the NE edge of Detroit, but in case we decide differently, I didn't name names of places except the Chanel Channel, which could be anywhere.
- I have no plans for the Lisa character after this story, so if you like 'er, you can have her and take her wherever you want her to go! (The guy who sells chimeras, though, I might want to do more with, so do as you like with him, too--I love the idea of everyone being free to use everyone else's characters!--but alexisjane pointed out it could interfere with our own future plans for a character, so feel free to use him, just don't kill him off. ;-) )
- I tried to leave everything I wrote open for whatever we might want to do with this world--I hope I didn't inadvertently quash anyone's plans with this story! But it's just one person's (Lisa's) experience, so hopefully this story just clarified some things without closing down any avenues.
- You see I managed to bring in my "meek shall inherit the earth" idea here! If we decide to pursue the way I (vaguely) presented it here--that the people in this dimension are all fundamentally pretty kind and good (unless they change that part of their programming ...), that could theoretically remove the need for a police force and they could just form a posse as necessary (because you know ... I'm a posse magnet), but otherwise, we would definitely have to address law enforcement.
- The title of this story was too appropriate to pass up. ;-)
- I am SO EXCITED people are writing stories for this thing already! Writing is the best way of building a world, imo ...
Author:
brightly_litWorld: Tricycle Man
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1,200
Genre: gen, slice of life
Summary: Orphaned at 12, Lisa nonetheless has every reason to believe the apocalypse was only an improvement in her life.
Chimera:
1 an imaginary monster compounded of incongruous parts
2 an illusion or fabrication of the mind; especially: an unrealizable dream
Lisa dragged her wagon toward market beside the Chanel Channel, so called because somebody had somehow programmed it to give off perpetual scent. Fortunately, it smelled a lot better than Chanel, more like flowers ... which was nice, because you hardly smelled flowers anymore, since the apocalypse.
Her wagon held only a few hand-knit sweaters and some sheep’s milk, but she knew the sweaters would fetch a high enough price that the wagon would be full on her way home. Clothes, like food, were one of the things that you couldn’t create out of rubble or dirt. Well, you could, but your body couldn’t process the food, and the clothes didn’t breathe or bend right, like a sheet of plastic with armholes. So her sweaters were always one of the hottest-selling commodities at the market.
It sucked, being orphaned at twelve, not knowing how you would make your way in this strange, decimated world, but it could have sucked a lot worse, and at least she wasn’t the only one. Everyone was orphaned, in a way--bereft of family, friends, the homes they knew. All they could do was help each other through it and try to figure out what the hell happened.
Lifehack, Inc. blew up the world, that’s what happened--or at least Detroit, thinking they could play God and hack reality to their liking. Those Luddite zealots who protested down at Lifehack’s ex-headquarters said it was humanity’s punishment for taking technology too far, and Lisa thought they were probably right ... but that didn’t stop everyone from using that same technology all the time, for everything, even modifying their own programming. Lisa had programmed her shack into existence just like everyone else had, but she was a teetotaler when it came to self-modification. The things some people did to themselves.
After the apocalypse, the people who were left were all pretty nice, WAY nicer than the assholes at her middle school ... at least, until they started fiddling with themselves. So that was good, that most people were nice and helped each other through those first scary years after the Cataclysm, before the community farms and gardens started up and people started to find their niche. She’d found her niche--she got to spend all her time knitting, and she actually made money at it. She even had a few sheep of her own, which was awesome, because she loved animals more than anything and Mom would never let her have anything bigger than a gerbil. She used to miss her parents and her friends really bad, but some people here believed everyone they left behind was still alive in some other dimension, and Lisa took comfort from that. It was amazing what you could get used to in only two years.
Detroit wasn’t any uglier than it was before the Cataclysm; actually, it was prettier in some places, where people had taken it upon themselves to program something cool, like the sculpture gardens and the fountains. Nobody bothered her; no parents to tell her what to do, no bullies at school, no grades to worry about. No future. It could be a lot worse.
As she neared the market, she heard Calliope playing a jig. Some people were dancing. Crowds made Lisa nervous. People made her nervous. She just had to trade for some food and then she could turn around and hurry home again.
Lisa surveyed all the food stalls and finally picked the one with the greatest variety. Oranges! Lisa sniffed one--you had to be careful when you bought exotic food; sometimes it was uber-GMO, programmed from scratch, but if it was, it smelled like dirt or cement or whatever they made it from. Smelled like orange. Lisa breathed in the scent. “You programmed a giant greenhouse?” she asked the woman selling, who nodded.
Lisa took out a sweater and held it up to the woman, who grabbed it avariciously, fondling it as she examined it intently. “You knitted this?!”
Lisa nodded. “I have sheep.”
The woman gestured at her stall helplessly. “What do you want?”
“All of it.”
The woman even helped her load up her wagon, because she knew she still came out on the good end of that deal. Lisa would spend the week preserving it for winter, because deep freezers and dehydrators and canners were easy to program into existence, compared to sweaters. She would be able to survive here for another year, in this wrecked wilderness where survival was easy compared to navigating the savage waters of middle school.
Lisa took her wagon and started to head home. That guy who rode his giant tricycle around town all the time nearly knocked her over, shouting “Sorry!” as he passed, waving with a big grin, probably high, and where anyone found the time to grow weed when it was hard enough just to survive these days, she didn’t know. Maybe he’d programmed himself to be perpetually happy. You’d think that would be the only mod anyone made to their programming, but somehow it never was, except maybe tricycle man. Lisa shook her head and kept walking. To get along here, you had to learn to live with the eccentrics.
Thinking this, something caught her eye, and she ran to the stall, realizing as she did that it was the guy who made exotic creatures and sold them here. She’d always hated that guy ... but--but-- “What is that?” she gasped, pointing at one of the cages.
The guy seemed nice enough, even if she reviled how he made his living. The poor creatures, stuck in a three-foot cube of metal wire. “A peacat, I guess,” he said. Greeny-blue and shimmering fur gave way to a regal beak at one end and dozens of long-furred waving tails at the other, each with the characteristic eye of the feather of a peacock’s fan. “I figure during the Cataclysm, somehow a cat and a peacock from the zoo, you know--” he smacked his hands together, making a squishing sound.
“You--you didn’t make it? Program it yourself?”
He quirked his head. “Nah, man, you can’t. You can’t hack into any other living creature, and believe me, I’ve tried. Not even a tree. Not even a flower. No, all of these are guys made in the Cataclysm. I’ve been taking care of them ever since, but I can’t feed ’em all anymore, man, so I’m trying to find them good homes. But this one’s one of my favorites, so it’s kind of expensive.” He stuck his finger through the wire, and it rubbed against his finger, chirping. He looked like he felt guilty about charging a 14-year-old girl an arm and a leg for a pet ... but not guilty enough not to do it.
One proffered sweater later, she was the proud owner of a peacat, heading home after another successful day at market, wagon full. That night, in bed, listening to the dehydrator’s whir, Peaki asleep on her stomach, its tails gently stroking her face and arm, she thought, not for the first time, that as far as she was concerned, the apocalypse was the best thing that had ever happened.
~ The End ~
Author's Notes:
-
indiachick and alexisjane brought up lots and lots of cool stuff in the discussion post we've been using; hopefully I've addressed a lot of it in this story and we can discuss from here ...- We haven't actually mapped out this world yet, so I avoided being specific about the location of anything, except that Lisa lives on the outskirts of town and went to the market, which I'm assuming should be held on the shore of Lake St. Claire, the HUGE lake on the NE edge of Detroit, but in case we decide differently, I didn't name names of places except the Chanel Channel, which could be anywhere.
- I have no plans for the Lisa character after this story, so if you like 'er, you can have her and take her wherever you want her to go! (The guy who sells chimeras, though, I might want to do more with, so do as you like with him, too--I love the idea of everyone being free to use everyone else's characters!--but alexisjane pointed out it could interfere with our own future plans for a character, so feel free to use him, just don't kill him off. ;-) )
- I tried to leave everything I wrote open for whatever we might want to do with this world--I hope I didn't inadvertently quash anyone's plans with this story! But it's just one person's (Lisa's) experience, so hopefully this story just clarified some things without closing down any avenues.
- You see I managed to bring in my "meek shall inherit the earth" idea here! If we decide to pursue the way I (vaguely) presented it here--that the people in this dimension are all fundamentally pretty kind and good (unless they change that part of their programming ...), that could theoretically remove the need for a police force and they could just form a posse as necessary (because you know ... I'm a posse magnet), but otherwise, we would definitely have to address law enforcement.
- The title of this story was too appropriate to pass up. ;-)
- I am SO EXCITED people are writing stories for this thing already! Writing is the best way of building a world, imo ...
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2014-01-18 03:41 am (UTC)This is soooo fab!!! Just such a perfect start! I can't wait to see what happens!!
Loving the peacat! Loving the Chanel Channel! Loving the idea of knock-off food and clothes, the idea that you can program some stuff but natural is best, very cool.
Also love the vibe. Has a gentle co-operative feel to the place that should support all manner of storylines.
Oh and I like Lisa a lot! She's a good character, I hope she crops back up at somepoint.
I'm so happy right now I can't tell you!
Thank you!! x
no subject
Date: 2014-01-20 03:50 am (UTC)Haa, posse magnet.
I can't wait to see what happens, either!!! I am SO looking forward to your next fic in this world!!
Working on this project sucked up so much of my time and focus this past week. Now I'm catching up on comments, and I can finally give some of the comments in the discussion post the attention they deserve, because lots of people brought up excellent points, yours included. Most things seem to be working themselves out, but some things definitely still need attention.
Still, we have enough to be going on with, and that's what matters the most right now!
<3 <3 to you. :-D
no subject
Date: 2014-01-18 05:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-20 03:39 am (UTC)As for the science behind hacking reality (I dig delving into the scientific aspect, too), I'm basing it on the holographic universe theory, and as for how they program it, I gave it some thought, and the simplest and most sensical explanation imo is simple e=mc2, matter to light to a different form of matter.
Now, as to how their smartphones accomplish it, I don't know ... maybe some sort of laser scanner that doesn't just scan but also ... burns reality like you burn a CD, only in 3-D? (If you can 'print' 3-D objects now, it hardly seems far-fetched ....) I feel like people wouldn't have to get into the specifics of the scientific aspect to tell their stories, but I'd also like for people to be able to do so if they want ....