Saturday, January 12, 2013

Cassandra by David N. Brown Mesa Arizona


"You're not officially cleared to see this yet," said the lieutenant. "But off the record, it's a tradition to let every new guy in on what's housed here. There have been leaks over the years. One of the better ones actually inspired a motion picture franchise decades ago. But, we're confident none have come from our staff."
"I've already heard some of the leaks," said the corporal. "It was a crazy story about a flying saucer captured from the Nazis, which they built with either help from aliens or from psychic communications with a super race in the future."
The lieutenant laughed. "That one's been kicking around for almost a hundred years. Surrendering Nazis did turn over a few specimens, but there wasn't anything like a vehicle or weapon among them. And the Third Reich certainly didn't build them."
He entered a code, and a door worthy of a bank fault opened.
Inside was a corridor, lined with strange objects. Some looked like pieces of human bodies, some like circuitry, and most like strange combinations thereof. The corporal looked curiously at a severed head whose eyes followed them as they walked. He hastened at the sight of a hand whose fingers wiggled at his approach. Thin circuitry was momentarily visible in the pink tubing that protruded from the wrist.
"We know of 213 of these things, and have physical remains of 57," said the lieutenant. "Almost all appeared between 1928 and 2000. We don't know if that's because that period was of special importance, or just because that's when people with the means to stop them were looking for them. There's no serious doubt that they come from the future- or, to put it more accurately, futures.
"Where we can identify a time and place of arrival, witnesses consistently report meteors, ball lightning or `UFOs'- presumably how the alien stories got started. Where we can investigate an undisturbed scene, we find fires and tektites- sand fused into glass by lightning- and sometimes a dish-shaped depression. Once, we found the remains of something like a spherical cage, capable of holding someone in a fetal position. The working components self-destructed, probably as soon as the occupant exited. We don't think it would have worked in any event; whatever technology is involved seems to require a much larger apparatus that remains in the time of origin, which is what the people actually trying to build a time machine are talking about. We thus refer to our specimens as castaways.
"As far as we can tell, they all arrive naked and unarmed. It was thought at one time that only living tissue, or an object encased in living tissue, could be temporally displaced. That was disproved decades ago. Our best guess at this point is that it's a matter of blending in. It appears that the senders have poor control over the exact time and place of arrival, and may have limited information about the past in any event. Under the circumstances, being seen in nothing at all would raise less suspicion than wearing clothes from the wrong time period. As for technology, no weapon has ever been built that doesn't need spare parts or ammo sooner or later, and there's no reason to think those of the future are any different."
They stopped before a form that was mostly complete. "This is the oldest, most complete and most advanced specimen in out possession, found in northeastern Bosnia. Like most of the specimens, it's made from a combination of electronic and organic components, and we're not sure how much is one or the other. The clothes and that sword in the lower back are standard issue for an Ottoman Janissary of the 1830s. Presumably it arrived then, but the first record we have of it is from 1942.
"According to what records we have, it was found in the ruins of a Serb village that had been visited by the Croatian Ustasha. They killed all the inhabitants, burned the buildings and started desecrating the graveyard. That's probably where they found this. When the Ustasha were never heard from again, a Nazi platoon came to check on them. The details are very confused, but most of the survivors agreed that it was already missing its head by then, and it was certainly armed with that MG42. 28 Nazis were killed before one of them thought to use a panzerfaust. That, of course, is where the hole came from. The report says that the torso split from top to bottom, but started to pull back together. Before that could happen, a Croat acting as their guide pulled a sword from its waist and ran it through. It stopped its self-repair and froze. He said it was a vukudlak, and that his ancestors had killed another like it in the same manner. He warned that, if the sword were ever removed, it would return to life.
"The body was sent to Germany, and given to us by surrendering officers of the SS. Its hand was severed at some point in the battle, and sent to Berlin with the other remains, but subsequently lost. The location of the head remains unknown."
The corporal's eyes widened. "If we had this, before 1950… How much technology has been developed from these machines?"
The lieutenant scowled. "Nothing of importance. The need for security limits how often we can bring in qualified specialists to examine the specimens, and when we do, it never does any good. The first of them is supposed to have said, `We don't have the tools to make the tools.' What we have learned since is that it would be more accurate to say that we don't have the materials to make the tools to make the materials.' The only times they have helped is when they recognized something they had just worked out for themselves."
He walked back to the severed head. "The main reason we give these tours is to keep anyone from being taken offguard by something like this. There are three specimens here which are sufficiently functional to communicate with us. What is remarkable is that they, along every single other castaway known to have communicated intelligibly, all say something like this." He looked down at the head. Its eyes rose to look at him. "Specimen 23, meet Cpl. Johnson. Why don't you tell him what you told the rest of us about Judgement Day."
"A third of humanity will die, and two-thirds of the ground will be uninhabitable for seven generations times seven," the head spoke in a sibilant tone. "Fires will make the nights as bright as day, and smoke will make the day as dark as night. Then a new city will descend to the Earth, and all men will come to worship their king, or be destroyed…"
The lieutenant said, kindly but condescendingly: "And when will Judgement Day occur?"
"September 11," said the head, "1988."


David N. Brown
Mesa, Arizona

Meg And Greg by David N. Brown Mesa Arizona

Previously published at
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8899597/1/Meg-And-Greg

Meghan lived in the suburbs of a modest city in the desert. Her friends called her Meg, and she lived with Greg. She rose from the couch in the morning, as she had for the last five mornings, and confirmed that the light switch still did not work. She emerged from the den into the living room and went to the kitchen, where she discovered that the faucet did not work either. That was new. She went upstairs, past the photo of Greg, Greg at the office party, Greg at the wheel of his new Audi Quatro, Greg shooting his .454 magnum, and Greg with his big muscular arm thrown lazily around her neck, almost eclipsing her almost-new Chevette behind them.
Meg rapped on Greg's bedroom door. "Greg," she called out, "the water's out." She opened it. Greg was gone. She glanced at the dresser, and confirmed that the keys to the Audi were there. She stepped back into the hall, and saw that the door to the bathroom was closed. "Greg, I said, the water's out." She turned the knob; the door was latched. That was when she heard the thumping.
It was strikingly regular, one thump, a pause, and another thump, repeated, over and over. Meg pressed her ear to the door, and listened. Now, she could hear an unmistakeable swishing between thumps, and a hint of momentary scuffling: "Thump- swish- scuff- swish- thump..." She thought of a pendulum, and at that very moment, she heard the creaking, a sound just like some metal fixture, bending under considerable weight. "Greg," she said flatly, closing her eyes and pressing her forehead against the door.
Meg's eyes opened at a change in the rhythm of the sounds: "Thump- swiishh- thump- swish- thump- swish- rrriiiiippp..." She lurched back at the crash and jingle of the shower curtains being torn down. The creaking grew louder, and then there was a tearing screech exactly like the shower head being wrenched right out of the wall and a crash exactly like a body falling into the tub. For a moment, she stood completely still. Then she backed up to the bedroom.
She found the magnum and two boxes of ammunition, exactly where she knew they would be. She scooped them all into her old overnight bag, shoved out of sight in the closet. On a whim, she grabbed the key to the Audi. She was gathering things in the den when she heard another crash. She scurried back into the living room and looked up the stairs.
The bathroom door had been knocked open with single blow, forceful enough to splinter the wood and lodge the knob in the plaster. At the top of the stairs stood Greg, in his business suit, with the shower head hanging from Meg's nylons around his neck. His face was almost black, and his head lolled like a badly stuffed scarecrow's. Yet, his gaze seemed to turn directly toward Meg, and with strides as stiff and even as a windup tow, he began to descend the stairs. She drew the magnum as she backed up to the door, and took aim, no doubt badly, at Greg's face as she reached the bottom. She held her aim, as best she could with a gun whose weight alone was enough to strain her wrist, while Greg turned ponderously toward her. He stood there, seeming to stare, with his head lifted just a little higher and straighter. Finally, Meg put the gun back in the bag. "Okay," she said, "you can keep the Audi." She cast the keys at his feet, and as she made her exit, she saw him bend over to pick them up.
Meg had to cover some distance to reach the carport where the Chevette was parked, past two cul de sacs of identical two-story, two-unit townhomes and through a little park. On the way, she saw three wrecked cars and a dozen shuffling figures, one of which definitely turned in her direction before she went around a corner and out of sight. She used a shortcut that required vaulting over a low wall and dropping another foot to the asphalt. The only car in sight besides her little reddish-orange hatchback was a station wagon with a crumpled, blood-stained hood and the driver's-side door torn halfway off its hinges. No bodies were in sight.
Meg dropped her keys trying to unlock her car, at the unset of sudden shakes. Her hands steadied as she put the key in the ignition, but began to tremble worse as she turned the key again, and again, and again. The first time, nothing happened. The second produced an abortive rattle. At the third try, the engine gave an apologetic cough before falling silent. Meg's hands were shaking hard enough to make the key rattle in the ignition as she turned it yet again. The engine rumbled to life but then died with a protracted wheezing. She looked out the window, at the station wagon, The window frame of the door was bent. Her hand went still. She turned the key, and kept her hand on the ignition as the engine started, began to cough, and then worked back up to a steady rumble.
Meg made a tight U-turn in reverse, scraping the station wagon in the process and bumping into a support beam. Then she accelerated, approaching top (though still modest) speed as she peeled out of the parking lot and around a corner onto the street. She swerved to avoid a shuffling figure, only a child, but there was no taking chances with such a small car. As the car rounded another corner, the child turned belatedly and reached out for where the car had been. Its head lifted, as if staring, but any observer who met its eyes would have seen clouded lenses in no shape to see much of anything.
The Chevette was closing on 80 miles per hour as it roared toward the gates of the townhome complex. It braked and finally swerved for Greg, who stood in the middle. The showerhead was gone, but the torn nylons were still around his neck. His darkened face had lightened to a reddish purple, enough to make his features readily discernible. As Meg gazed out, her hands began to shake. It seemed to her that what she saw was indeed the Greg she knew. It occurred to her that his expression, especially, was the same he had worn on the night she made a discrete trip to the emergency room. As Greg reached for the door handle, the window went down, and a perfectly level gun barrel slid out. "Selfish ass," Meg said. She had no awareness of firing the gun. She only felt the wrenching ache of recoil, and saw Greg drop with a half-inch red spot on his forehead and a substantial hole in the back of his scalp. As he struck the asphalt, the keys to the Audi tumbled from his hand.
After a moment's pause, Meg opened the door and scooped up the keys.

David N. Brown, David N. Brown Arizona, Arizona, David N. Brown Mesa, David N. Brown Mesa Arizona, Mesa, Mesa Arizona, Mesa David N. Brown, Arizona David N. Brown, Mesa Arizona David N. Brown
David N. Brown
Mesa, Arizona
David N. Brown
Mesa, Arizona
David N. Brown
Mesa, Arizona
David N. Brown
Mesa, Arizona
David N. Brown
Mesa, Arizona
David N. Brown
Mesa, Arizona
David N. Brown
Mesa, Arizona
David N. Brown
Mesa, Arizona
David N. Brown
Mesa, Arizona
David N. Brown
Mesa, Arizona
David N. Brown
David N. Brown
Mesa, Arizona
David N. Brown
Mesa, Arizona
David N. Brown
Mesa, Arizona
David N. Brown
Mesa, Arizona
David N. Brown
Mesa, Arizona
David N. Brown
Mesa, Arizona
David N. Brown
Mesa, Arizona
David N. Brown
Mesa, Arizona
David N. Brown
Mesa, Arizona
David N. Brown
Mesa, Arizona
David N. Brown
Mesa, Arizona
David N. Brown
Mesa, Arizona
David N. Brown
Mesa, Arizona
David N. Brown
Mesa, Arizona
David N. Brown
Mesa, Arizona
David N. Brown
Mesa, Arizona
David N. Brown
Mesa, Arizona
David N. Brown
Mesa, Arizona
David N. Brown
Mesa, Arizona
David N. Brown
Mesa, Arizona
David N. Brown
Mesa, Arizona
David N. Brown
Mesa, Arizona
David N. Brown
Mesa, Arizona
David N. Brown
Mesa, Arizona
David N. Brown
Mesa, Arizona
David N. Brown
Mesa, Arizona
David N. Brown
Mesa, Arizona
David N. Brown
Mesa, Arizona
David N. Brown
Mesa, Arizona
David N. Brown
Mesa, Arizona
David N. Brown
Mesa, Arizona
David N. Brown
Mesa, Arizona
David N. Brown
Mesa, Arizona
David N. Brown
Mesa, Arizona