Right-click to download. Comments are always welcome.

I’ll be touching mostly on WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla, though I will throw in a few thoughts about PHP-Nuke, as well.

WordPress

WordPress is the de facto standard for blogging these days, and for good reason. It’s easy to install, easy to set up, easy to use–all around, it’s easy, easy, easy. If you’re a non-technical user, WordPress is a great system to use. It is also reasonably extensible.

Pros

The interface is very clean and easy to navigate. The ability to update plugins directly from the browser is a nice touch. It also supports a multi-user environment right out of the box, in case you want to run a blogging site with multiple authors. The wealth of available plugins provide a lot of options and additional features. The template system is also highly versatile: templates such as Atahualpa provide a vast array of options for customizing the look and feel of your WordPress site.

I’ve found the plugin system very easy to work with, having written a plugin of my own for a niche where the available plugins were inadequate. With no prior experience writing WordPress plugins, I had mine up and running within a couple hours.

All WordPress requires to get started is a working PHP installation and a MySQL database. You can also get a hosted blog on the WordPress site if you don’t want to spring for a capable hosting account.

Cons

WordPress had a recent, dangerous security flaw that impacted a few people I know. Fortunately for them, they only lost their settings and not their entire WordPress database, though they had to call on someone with more technical expertise to help them sort it out.

Additionally, WordPress has no mode for a safe failover if a plugin update introduces a fatal bug. You just end up with the PHP “white screen of death.” The way to address this is to remove all plugins, restoring them one by one until you find the culprit. However, less technically-inclined users won’t know to do this, and may be unclear how to proceed.

I’ve also found that quite a few WordPress plugins are no longer maintained, and compatibility between major versions is not guaranteed. So, a lot of older plugins just plain won’t work. This isn’t a fault of WordPress, per se, but the community building plugins for it doesn’t seem to be quite as large and active as those developing plugins for, say, Drupal.

Summary

WordPress is a great system if all you need is a straightforward blogging platform, are not a technical expert, and require a clean, simple interface. You can have total control over the presentation of your blog, however, the available plugins may be inadequate if you have unusual requirements.

Joomla

Joomla is an appropriate system for those who run larger sites or who need to deal with large numbers of pages. It’s suitable for things like corporate intranets, group sites, and the like.

Pros

Joomla is fast. Very fast. Its caching system whips the pants off of pretty much all competitors. If you run a large site and you just need it to be fast, fast, fast, Joomla is a good choice.

It also has quite a few plugins, and I’ve found it tends to have a greater variety than WordPress. On the downside, however, since Joomla is more popular with companies, many plugins cost money. There are also a lot of free ones, though, so don’t let that be a deterrent.

Joomla is also pretty easy to set up. Installing plugins is about as straightforward as it is with WordPress.

I’ve also never experienced a “white screen of death” with Joomla, even with some plugins installed incorrectly or with fatal errors in them. It’s a very robust, powerful system.

Many older Joomla plugins are also compatible with later versions, thanks to a built-in legacy mode. It can cause some problems, but I have rarely experienced issues with it.

Cons

With Joomla’s focus on speed and survivability, you knew there were going to be downsides.

First off, the template system isn’t nearly as powerful as the WordPress system. While WordPress themes can add an entirely new maintenance area to your admin panel, Joomla themes do not. If you want to adjust the colors or layout, you’ll have to manually modify HTML and CSS files. If you have a good grasp of those, however, you’ll be just fine. It’s just not quite as point-and-click as WordPress users may be accustomed to.

While there are quite a few plugins available, a lot of the free ones are of lower quality than you might find for WordPress or Drupal. Integrating with third-party applications (such as forums) doesn’t work very well. Community-oriented plugins are not very mature for Joomla. It is definitely more of a content-driven, rather than user-driven, system.

Summary

If you need to manage a large site comprised mostly of your own content and that of other members, rather than building a hugely-interactive community, Joomla is a great choice. It’s fast, it’s powerful, it’s extensible. You may have to do more of the heavy lifting to get it fine-tuned to do what you want, but it will be rock-solid and stand up to high traffic.

Drupal

Drupal is quite possibly the most powerful CMS out there. It’s also the slowest. For this article, I will refer exclusively to Drupal 6, which is the current production version and the one with which I am most familiar.

Pros

The default installation of Drupal gives you a simple site with news, blog, content page, and forum functionality. If you have more specific needs and don’t want to dig through the plugin directory, you can try one of the installation profiles, too. It’s easy to get up and running.

However, the real power of Drupal is in its vast array of plugins, called modules. There are thousands of modules available, for almost any purpose you could imagine, and many you never would have considered.

Essentially, while WordPress and Joomla are primarily blogging/news engines, Drupal can be turned into just about anything you want. Its social networking features are the most developed. I built a creative writing community out of off-the-shelf Drupal modules. If you don’t like the content types that come with Drupal, you can build your own with the Content Construction Kit. You can add modules to control user access based on social networking user relationships, page-specific access rules, or even use a point system. You can also use a combination of them, as I have done.

Modules are updated regularly with new features, and new ones are coming out all the time. If there isn’t a module to do what you want, it is often possible to request it, or get it added to a module that’s close to what you want.

It also has a very nice theming system, and you can allow your users to choose from the themes you have installed, if you so choose. User permissions can also be controlled on a very fine-grained basis.

Cons

Such power and versatility doesn’t come cheap. Drupal is easily the slowest of the major content management systems. While it has a powerful page caching system, it is essentially useless if you use any kind of dynamic page generation. This means anything that controls page access or generates dynamic content is going to bypass your cache system and not give you a performance advantage.

Modules (and Drupal itself) are updated constantly, and it can be a somewhat arduous process to update your Drupal installation. While it is straightforward, there are many steps involved and things can go wrong. It’s crucial to always do a backup just before any upgrades. You never know how two modules might interact and hose your database. This is a rare occurrence, but I’ve seen it happen.

Security flaws are found on a regular basis, too. While I have never seen one exploited in the wild, Drupal’s rapid pace of development means you need to stay on top of your updates.

Summary

If you need power with no regard for speed, Drupal is your best bet. You can build virtually any kind of site you want with it, no matter how special-purpose it is. Maintenance is more of a hassle than with other systems, and there are significant performance tradeoffs, but if you absolutely must have that level of power and extensibility, you can’t beat Drupal.

PHP-Nuke

Just a few words about PHP-Nuke. It is more similar to Joomla than the other systems. Like Joomla, there are pre-customized versions out there, my favorite of which is Nuke Evolution Extreme. If you want a stable, robust system that isn’t exactly bleeding edge, something like this will suit you just fine. Nuke Evolution Extreme, in particular, has phpBB built into it–in fact, the entire user system just piggybacks on top of phpBB, so there’s only one database to maintain. I’ve found it very suitable for environments such as “clan” sites, which just need to be able to communicate easily and have a simple interface for adding pages and so forth.

It’s not nearly as bleeding-edge as the other systems, but it is very capable and featureful on its own.

Finally, I would stress that you carefully evaluate your needs before choosing a content management system–and whether you actually need one at all. Depending on what you want to do, static pages might serve you better. Or, none of the above will suit your needs and you might require something more purpose-specific. Wikipedia has a handy list of CMS software, which is worth digging through if you want to find something for a particular niche.

As always, it’s best to choose the right tool for the job. I use all the above systems in one way or another, depending on my needs. Some are heavily customized, some aren’t. No system is perfect for every environment and situation! That is the key point I’d like you to take away from this article.

So, good luck!

You can read the first four chapters below the fold.

1.0 Fragments

2031 — After decades of enmity and months of mounting tensions, India and Pakistan are enveloped in nuclear holocaust. The Indo-Pak War surges forward as militants on both sides engage in landgrabs and mass murder. Due to China’s refusal to help, Nepali patriots side with Pakistan.

1.1 The Incarcerate

Russel Snyder
Inmate #372834-923
Bainbridge Federal Penitentiary
550 N. Davis Rd.
Kokomo, IN 46904

February 8, 2076

The Honorable Judge Paul Marrick
United States Court of Appeals, 7th Circuit
219 S. Dearborn St.
Chicago, IL 60604

Your Honor:

I have attempted numerous appeals through the Seventh Circuit, with no success. I need your help.

My name is Russel Snyder. I am twenty-nine years old. I am presently residing at the Bainbridge Federal Penitentiary, a minimum-security facility in Kokomo, Indiana. I have been imprisoned for four hundred and seventy-eight days. I joined the Army Reserve at 18 to put myself through college. There, I met my wife. We had two children, three years apart. After college, I became a financial consultant and ended up working for a top-five banking firm. Shortly after my second child was born, I was activated for duty in Estonia. Three weeks into my tour of duty, I was taken hostage by Russian militants near Tartu. In my absence, my wife filed for divorce and was granted full custody of our children, since my whereabouts were unknown at the time. Child support payments, which were based on my income as a financial consultant, accumulated in my absence. For five months, I was beaten and tortured by my captors, while the United States government seized all property that was in my name, purportedly to pay down child support debts I had no way to know about. When I was finally freed, I was ordered to return to US soil. As soon as I stepped off the plane, I was arrested and shipped here.

I have been through the appeals process several times. Every time, I am simply told to work off my debts. However, a condition of my release is the complete payment of all arrearages. This is clearly impossible given my incarcerated status and the continuing accumulation of further debt. I only ask that I be released so that I may return to the financial field and support my children appropriately. I plead that any possible forgiveness of forbearance be granted as soon as possible. I believe you are my last hope for a timely release.

Thank you for your time.

[Signature]
Russel Snyder

—

Hon. Judge Marrick
United States Court of Appeals
Seventh Circuit
219 South Dearborn Street
Room 239
Chicago, Illinois 60604

February 24, 2076

Mr. Russel Snyder
Inmate No. 372834-923
Bainbridge Federal Penitentiary
Kokomo, Indiana 46904

Mr. Snyder:

I am sympathetic to your plight but there is unfortunately little I can do to aid you. Per 42 USC § 666(9)(A), child support payments are:

not subject to retroactive modification by such State or by any other State; except that such procedures may permit modification with respect to any period during which there is pending a petition for modification, but only from the date that notice of such petition has been given, either directly or through the appropriate agent, to the obligee or (where the obligee is the petitioner) to the obligor.

In other words, support orders may only be modified retroactively from the date of filing a modification petition. I have checked your records, and found petitions to modify dating back to November 15, 2074. The initial support order was granted May 20 of the same year. Your arrearages as of November 15 were $192,302.83. Since your initial modification, the total amount owed has grown to $205,982.25. My recommendation would be to continue paying in whatever capacity you can, primarily through prison work programs. Once your support is no longer in arrears, your release can be arranged. The Seventh Circuit can offer you no further assistance in this matter until you have satisfied your past obligations.

Best of luck to you.

[Signature]
Hon. Judge Paul Marrick

1.2 Executor

Maximilian Robertson III sat up sluggishly to the sound of someone pounding on his door. The display on the wall indicated it was 9:03AM. Who would come bothering me at this hour?

Max shouted from his bedroom, “I’ll be right there!” as he struggled into a torn-up pair of jeans and a t-shirt that most likely did not pass the smell test. He stumbled awkwardly from his bedroom to the living room, and opened the door expecting to see the police, one of his doped-up friends–anything but the suited gentleman standing in front of him. “Uh… can I help you?”

“Are you Maximilian Robertson the Third?” Max noticed the thick briefcase the gentleman was holding.

“Uh… I think so.”

The man frowned grimly. “I am afraid I have terrible news about your father.”

“Oh, hell. How did it happen?”

“Suicide.”

Max blinked. “You’re kidding, right?”

“No. He has already been cremated. It took some time to find you.” Without any prompting, the man pushed past Max and into the apartment.

Max turned, seeing only the stranger’s back. “Who are you?”

“I am Imel Goldstein, your father’s personal attorney and executor of his estate.”

“Ah, I should’ve guessed. What, did he leave me his compost pile or something?”

Goldstein pivoted to face Max again. “He left a video will. I am required to view portions of it with you. Do you have a capable display?”

Max waved his hand around the room. “Pick a wall.”

Goldstein waded through food wrappers of unknown age and ran his finger over the nearest empty wall, gathering a list of documents from one of his remote systems. When he found the right one, he tapped it. The wall spoke. “Handprint identification, please.” He rested his palm on the wall and felt the warmth of the scan. A green beam leapt from the wall and traced a circle around the iris of his eye. “Identity verified,” the wall confirmed. A haggard man popped onto the display, dressed nicely, but looking a bit rough around the edges.

“Hello, son. Imel. I’ve kept an updated video will for several years, now. I think it’s easier to discern my intentions if you can see my face and hear my voice while I describe them. Don’t you agree? Don’t bother responding, by the way. This one’s not interactive. I find they take too long to make.”

Max had a seat on the couch across from the wall. Goldstein did the same. The video continued. “To you, Max, my only son, I leave my empire. All assets in my name will now be yours. I have many advisors, as well, and they will be obliged to offer their opinions. I have notes in my office detailing how to handle each of them. I apologize to you, Imel, if all this bores you. The next section of this will is for my son alone, so please pause the playback and leave the room.” Goldstein stood up and tapped the wall, pausing the video.

“Call me back in when it is finished,” he said dryly.

Max nodded and went to the wall, finger hovering over the icon that would resume the will. When the apartment door shut behind the lawyer, Max tapped the wall once more. “There we go. Now, Max, there are details to which you have not been privy. I regret our estrangement, and I admit I feel mostly responsible for it. However, that is all the past. It is the future that concerns me, now, as it should you. When you reach my office, search through my books and find my copy of Henry V. Turn to Act 3, Scene 3, and draw your finger over this text: ‘What is it then to me, if impious war, / Array’d in flames like to the prince of fiends, / Do, with his smirch’d complexion, all fell feats / Enlink’d to waste and desolation?’ If you weren’t paying attention in school, it begins at the fifteenth line of Henry’s monologue. After you do this, you will receive further instructions. Give my regards to Imel. And good luck, son.” The video winked out, and Max was left feeling a little underwhelmed. Granted, he’d just been left his father’s entire business empire, but he felt hollow for it. He wasn’t sure what would have been better, but at that moment, he felt lonelier than usual. When he finally came to his senses, he let the lawyer back in.

“Yeah, um, there was nothing else for you, except he wanted me to give you his regards. Whatever that means.”

Goldstein nodded. “Very well. I have taken the liberty of saving a copy of the will on your local system, so you may review it at your leisure. When you are prepared to go to your new home, inform me at once.”

“So, I’m supposed to move into the mansion now?”

“It is yours. You may do with it as you please.”

Max shrugged. “I guess I have nothing better to do.”

As the two of them left together, Max once again looked at the briefcase. He didn’t need it to access the will, so I really have to wonder–what the hell is in there?

2.0 Performance Measures

2048 — The latest batch of products made of “Plasticrops” is pulled from the market as some consumers suffer a mysterious ailment termed Plastic Transfer Syndrome. The primary victims are children under the age of eight.

2.1 Dissidence for Hire

He gazed at the woman on the other side of the room, desperation in his eyes. “Tell me you’ve got something good.”

She held up a small vial and jiggled it, swirling the fine red powder inside. “I always do.”

“Thank God.” He immediately fell onto the couch and shut his eyes, trying to shrug off the noise he’d just spent the past two hours both producing and absorbing.

Machines to make us feel
machines to make us real
machines to stab us in the back
machines to pick up the slack

“Fuck,” he breathed, wiping the crimson residue from beneath his nostrils. “The fuck did you get this?”

She leaned forward, clasping her hands. “You don’t want to know. It’s all I could find.”

“Thought you said it was good.”

And it doesn’t matter what we are
only that we’ve come this far
to die at behest of the Czar
with the wealth of all in a jar

He looked at the rest of it, scattered across the floor, red stains clashing with the blue shag. “I need something else.”

She stood and folded her arms. “What? I was out all evening to get you this!”

He turned with cruelty on his face, stopping himself just in time. “Fuck.”

“What?”

“I’m sorry.”

They sat back down. She sighed. “Every night, Darren.”

“I know. I can’t keep doing this.”

“But you have to.”

Darren recognized the voice, jumped straight up. A man in a dark, silk suit stood in the doorway leading from the bedroom. “The fuck are you doing here?”

“Monitoring my investment. Where were you?”

“What do you mean, ‘Where was I?’ I had a fucking concert.”

“Which was over two hours ago.”

“I walked home. Thumbed some ‘faces.”

“I thought I’d made it clear all memorabilia would be distributed through the label.”

“Guess I forgot.”

“You forget a lot of things, Mr. Ahearst. Our patience is not limitless.”

“Neither is my time,” Darren snarled. “Did you want something, or did you just come here for a quick fix?”

The man glared at the blonde girl on the couch, and her eyes moved to the carpet. “No, I’ve seen all I needed to, for the moment.” The man didn’t bother with parting remarks–just out the door, into the night.

I’ve given you everything
you’ve given me nothing
but somehow
I still know
I have it all
and you’ve got shit

Darren collapsed to the floor, arms enclosing his head. “It’s the worst thing in the world to be somebody, Jenny. You know that?”

Jenny didn’t let off a word.

2.2 Riverman’s Ransom

His name was Jack Karrde, and that was the most anyone cared to know about him. Maybe it was his torn clothes. Or possibly, his standoffish personality. A third cause–the most likely, as far as he cared–was the fact that he had a wild frog boiling in a pot, over a small fire, next to an insignificant river, in the middle of an even more insignificant little town. Its name escaped him, which was just as well, considering he himself would escape before long.

Life as a vagrant wasn’t the best, but it was preferable to the alternatives. For a man who had problems with authority and a greater sense of paranoia than most, living on the road seemed the most viable option. But it was a life of caution. And that fact, he could never forget.

The river bank went up a good twenty feet from where he stood. The bridge just ahead covered the river and provided him with some shelter. And it was from that bridge he heard loud, metallic footsteps. Must be a MOP. His heart rate quickened at the thought. He couldn’t see the Mech-on-Patrol, but the sound alone sent a spark of terror through him. He quietly moved toward the bridge until he stood beneath it, where the MOP’s infrared sensors would have no way to detect him, no matter where the robot looked. Realizing his boiling pot and obvious fire, he raced to his makeshift campsite and dumped the contents of the pot onto the flames, stomping out whatever stragglers remained. From that, he returned to his hiding place under the bridge. The MOP never noticed a thing.

It was then that Jack heard gunfire. Not the rhythmic tap-tap-tap of the assault weapons mounted on the MOP, but the sporadic cracks of small arms. Moments later, the MOP kicked in with its own percussive violence. The exchange continued, moving eastward, and away from Jack. He exhaled with a great sense of release, and thought to attempt a rescue of his dinner. The frog appeared to be mostly done, at least, and Jack ripped the legs off with satisfaction, savoring his brief meal. His left wrist throbbed momentarily, and he was reminded of the scar there. He rubbed it for some seconds before packing up to head north. The sparse sustenance, ducking-and-covering from MOPs, and the almost comforting sounds of gunfire would greet him again and again, no matter how far he traveled.

3.0 Complex Boredom

2017 — A modernized Chinese navy surrounds Taiwan, effecting a blockade of the separatist island. The United States issues stern warnings against further aggression, but lacks the military resources to force a confrontation.

3.1 Up the Wall

Matthew James–Matt, as he preferred–lay stretched out across his bed, hands behind his head, eyes on the ceiling. The screen above displayed his friend, Jeremy Roundtree, in a similar position.

It was a lazy Saturday morning, as most were for the fifteen-year-olds. One did not venture out into the city lightly, especially at their age. Parents’ rules, of course.

“Been doin’?” Matt wondered idly.

“Romper.” A wicked smile curled Jeremy’s lip.

“Gag! Who?” Matt’s eyes grew wider.

Jeremy pursed his lips. “Marie. Rene mango.”

Matt made an unpleasant face. “Ugh. That mugir nido? Pinche pendejo, jigga. Couldn’t sitch a dime, huh?”

“Chingalo! Why I tell you deuce? Like yo’ hoodrat’s so fly.”

Matt didn’t look terribly pleased with Jeremy’s last remark. Snagging a rubber ball from the nightstand, he chucked it at the glowing red circle on the ceiling. Jeremy blinked out, leaving a blank display. “Need to sitch my crew, nayway,” he muttered.

A knock came at his door. “Matthew?”

“Yes, mom?” He sighed with irritation.

“Have you done your homework?”

“It’s the weekend, mom. I don’t do it until Sunday.”

“If you wait ’til the last minute, it won’t get done at all, and you know it.”

“Fine, I’ll do it now!” Under his breath: “Skint bitch.”

“What was that?” Through the door, again.

“Nothing.”

The ceiling flicked back on. It was Jeremy. “Quit vergallin’ n’ talk t’ me!”

“Kill the XD. What now?” Jeremy sprawled out on the bed, ball in hand, brandishing it to get Jeremy’s attention.

“Just pulled a lina.”

“A whole one? Don’t suck me, you for real?” Matt never his friend’s drug use all that amusing–more unsettling, really, than anything else.

“Yeah! That’s not why I sitch you.”

“Then?”

“Oh yeah! Ahearst rollin’ on DC. Julie 4th. He’s trabajin’ a golpestím.”

“No mames! N’ our crew’s gonna bust out!”

“Class viaje!”

Their cheering in unison elicited another bang on Matt’s door. “Keep it down!”

“Yes, mom.” He waited until she was out of earshot, and: “Muy dope!”

“Boy, don’t perc the lingo!” Jeremy scolded.

“So I’m not very good at it. Fuck me.” Matt sighed.

“You gotta sitch it cool. Gotta respect it.”

“I know. I just haven’t been here long enough. Shit’s all new to me.”

“I feel. Just need time.”

“Yeah, I guess. How’re we going to get into the concert?”

“Just slip from the sucio, and chivatotura!”

Matt didn’t quite understand the last word, but he played along. “Think it’ll be that easy?”

“It be straight. Don’ freak.”

“Yeah, I’ll try. Don’t think I can wait that long.”

“Shit.”

“I know.”

Matt ended the conversation with his ball like he had before, and bounced it off the ceiling to browse through his collection of songs by Darren Ahearst and his band, Disparu. He picked one at random–”Piracy (is Nobody’s Fault)”–and shut his eyes. The sound filled the room, and calmed him as much as it ever did.

3.2 Intake

The girl stepped forward in her loose-fitting gown, her feet pattering against the cold floor. She turned to her right to see an older woman with a permanent scowl and a just-as-enduring bunned hairstyle, glaring at the computer display on her desk. Without looking at the girl, the woman rattled: “Name.”

“Gabrielle Jeffers. G-A-”

“I know how to spell ‘Gabrielle,’ little girl.”

“Not this way, you don’t.”

“Fine. Proceed.”

“G-A-V-I-X-E-A-U.”

“How pretentious of your parents. Birth date.”

“10 May, 2063.”

“Twelve years old. Allergies.”

“Haloperidol. Pimozide.”

“What godforsaken pit were you in before?”

“Redwood.”

“Ah, that explains it. Haldol. For God’s sake.” The woman shook her head dismissively, then continued. “How long have you been a ward of this state?”

“Seven months.”

“Do you have any immediate medical needs of which we need to be aware?”

“No.”

The woman motioned to her right. “Through that door. You’ll be in the mid-female wing. Once we receive your records from your previous facility, we will examine avenues of treatment.”

The girl nodded and stepped through, where she was guided by a young, bald security guard to her wing. Heavy double-doors greeted them at the entrance to the wing. She noted the door’s markings: “FMW 7-12″. The guard pressed his hand against the left door, and both swung forward. The man gave her a gentle push through the doorway, and the doors shut behind her. She turned to watch him stroll away.

“New patient?” Gavixeau spun around to see a young nurse holding a transparent board. “Do you have a name?”

“Get it from intake. I don’t want to explain it again.”

The nurse frowned. She tilted her head back slightly and yelled. “Roger, we’ve got another difficult one out here.”

A large man in a white t-shirt and pants came out from one of the other rooms, looked at Gavixeau, and grinned viciously.

4.0 Research and Development

2015 — Nanotechnology becomes practical for medical applications. Invasive procedures are gradually eliminated in favor of nanite injection.

4.1 Set of Tools

Lilian Brown kept her eyes on the screen as she thumbed the small control stick to the right. A metallic protrusion moved accordingly on the screen, slowly toward the greatly magnified microbe.

“It’s not goin’ to work,” her skeptical supervisor bet.

“Aye, it will.” She moved the aperture deftly toward the germ, and with a quick jerk of her wrist, drove it through the cell membrane, popped the button on top of the stick, and watched as several small particles were injected into the cytoplasm. “See?”

“Yer not done yet. Still not yer ‘Swiss Army Bacterium.’”

“Give it a minute,” she smiled, watching. The gray particles moved around within the cell, each with its own task. Several moved toward the plasma membrane, poking barely through, extending tiny appendages. Many more swarmed the ribosomes, while the rest latched onto DNA segments. Lilian smiled broadly. “I told ya it would work.”

Several warnings suddenly appeared at the bottom of the screen: “PLASMA MEMBRANE DETERIORATING; METABOLISM UNSTABLE”. The bacterium quivered, then fell apart, scattering the nanites across the screen. “‘N I told ya it willnae,” he snapped.

“Oh, bloody hell. This is what happens when ya distract me.” She sighed and ran her fingers along the display on the desk. A quick red beam swept across the screen, and the display was cleared again–no dead cell, no nanites. “Now, I have to start over.”

“Face up, Lil, it willnae work. Nannies are only good at killin’ cells. They cannae abide ‘em any other way.”

“Just because it hasn’t been done doesn’t mean it cannae. Just think, Carlyle: nannies livin’ in yer cells, fixin’ ‘em when they go wrong. This is better‘n a cure for cancer. It’ll preven’ it completely.”

“That’s nice’n all, Lil, but we already got a cure. Cannae ya leave well enough alone?” He folded his arms, sitting on the desk, watching as another bacterium was placed in the viewing area.

“I’m talkin’ about more’n that. Clinical immortality. Cells that don’ age. Gettin’ rebuilt by nannies all the time. Y’could live forever.”

Carlyle laughed. “‘course ya could, but who’d want to? We got enough problems without people who never die.” Yet, he watched as she tried it again, this time programming the nanites to surround the cell and enter it from outside, rather than through the needle. Despite his words, he did feel pangs of disappointment when the cell disintegrated. And another, and another, until he told her to go home.

“Ya’ve had enough, lass. Come back in th’ mornin’. Ya can think about it overnight. I ken ya’ll figure it out.”

“Aye, yer right.” She let out a sigh and shut down the system. “We must have somethin’ t’show soon. We dinnae have the funds t’continue forever.”

“Ya leave that up t’me. ’tis my lab.”

Lilian smiled and stepped out of the room. From her locker, she retrieved a brown, fringed jacket, and slipped it on. She noticed the rain outside, and quietly cursed forgetting an umbrella–again. But one was suddenly thrust into her hand. “Aren’ ya canny,” she grinned, looking up at Carlyle.

“Ya’ve no need t’be gettin’ drookit, hen.”

“Dinnae call me that, daftie.” She glared at him, then her face softened. “I’m sorry. But ya know I’m wed.”

“I mean nothin’ by it,” he frowned.

“’tis been a long haul, Carlyle. We’ll talk in the mornin’.” She turned her back to him and walked out the front door. Carlyle noticed too late that she had managed to slip the umbrella back into his own coat pocket. And he felt quite the fool for his trouble.

4.2 Invasion by the Micron

As a Department of Defense attaché to the United States’ Centers for Disease Control, Bobbi Jo Bell often found herself required to take part in experiments she found personally offensive. The justification was always the same: “If we don’t develop these weapons, and formulate a corresponding response, someone else will.” Such was the case today, as she examined a batch of nanites fresh from a Seattle research facility. These were built with a single purpose–to invade cells and use cellular components to replicate themselves. Each nanite worked quickly enough to kill a cell in a few seconds–absorbing energy from it, and using the remains to construct more nanites. They worked with great precision. In less than a minute, one nanite could become three to five new nanites, depending on their point of entry. With that rate of replication, every cell in a human body could be destroyed in under twenty minutes. Naturally, it was not necessary to destroy every cell–annihilating a good portion of the brain would suffice, or the brain stem. A concentration in the lungs could starve the body of oxygen. A glut of nanites in one’s aorta would suffice in creating a cardiac arrest. It was up to Bobbi Jo to determine which vector would be most effective, how long each nanite should be active, and how many generations of nanites should be allowed from a single, seed nanite. If any of these factors were not considered fully, the nanites would be just as much a danger to allies as they were to enemies.

In her own way, Bobbi Jo marveled at their perfection. They were tiny, simple–yet deadly. Their built-in directions only covered how to duplicate themselves–what materials were required, and in what arrangement. The destruction of cells was a mere by-product of those instructions. The simplicity of their mechanisms was impressive for all their effectiveness. As the nanites grew smaller and smaller with each successive generation, and as organic chemistry progressed, the nanites became less and less like human-built machines, and more like naturally-occurring viruses. Rumors persisted that the next generation of nanites would be truly viroid: impenetrable polymer shells containing nucleic acids to reprogram cells at will. Another set of nucleic acids would detail the nanovirus’ instructions for itself. Bobbi Jo found the idea both intriguing and frightening. Most diseases had already fallen to nanotechnology. Science had begun turning away from purely therapeutic uses for nanites, and into more controversial realms–weaponization, modification, and even transhumanism. She, at least, knew she fell into one of those camps.

If successful, this batch would go to Estonia. Dropped on an enemy-occupied city, any desirable radius or number of humans could be accurately neutralized. Her only misgiving was that the nanites had no way to distinguish between friend or foe. Or civilian. But those concerns, she was told, were well in hand. The United States government did not approve of civilian casualties. Or so I’m told. She watched the nanites work on their cell–a simple, human liver cell, happily producing phosphatidic acid at the expense of glycerol and adeonosine triphosphate. A single nanite latched onto the cell membrane, pushing the walls apart, shoving itself through. Once inside, it began tugging at parts of the cell. She watched as it drew water, ATP, and enzyme molecules toward itself, absorbing the resulting energy and casting off the residual chemicals. Then, it moved around the cytoplasm, gathering what minerals and chemicals were required to replicate itself. When it needed more energy, it prodded the nearest mitochondrion and catalyzed another ATP-to-ADP reaction. It did this with disturbing speed, and in less than a minute Bobbi Jo saw four duplicates of the original nanite. By then, the cell had been used up–its membrane ruptured, unable to support the reactions occurring inside. The nanites fled in search of another cell to devour, but their chemical timers would run out before then.

Bobbi Jo half-smiled at the whole thing. Hers was a strange, small world. Who would suspect that such a simple process could kill a human in a matter of minutes? And, just like a virus, no outward signs of the cause would be found. Different symptoms would manifest based on the route of infection. Possibilities flashed through her mind, viler than vile uses for this technology. The same chemical codes that allowed the targeting of cancer cells, viruses, and bacteria could also be used to target mucous membranes, to facilitate airborne infection; or sperm cells, for sexual transmission. These things were only as far from reality as moral restraint allowed. And Bobbi Jo knew those restraints were slipping.

“Thinking hard?” her colleague, Anna, asked with a smile.

“Not about anything important.”

Anna nodded toward the screen. “Any progress?”

Bobbi Jo leaned back in her chair. “They’ll work just fine. They kill cells and replicate as advertised. Yesterday’s results show that we can expect to incapacitate a city the size of Atlanta in about a day. After that, it’ll take another day for the nanites to self-destruct. Then, troops can move in.”

“Like clockwork, eh?”

“Even a clock isn’t this precise.”

Anna nodded. “Going to send your report to the Pentagon?”

“In the morning,” she shrugged. “I’m tired.”

“Understandable.”

“What about your work?”

Bobbi Jo noticed a gleam in Anna’s eye, along with a characteristic smirk. “You know, my clearance is higher than yours. I can’t tell you.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“No. Let’s just say it’s a lot more interesting than raising armies of tiny, killer robots.”

“I’m sure.”

Commentary follows the story chapter.

TITUS

Chapter One

“This is Captain Mark Alexander Titus authorizing the abandonment of ISEC-31, designation Titus.  Once again, abandon ship!”  The orders came between bursts of weapons fire from both vessels involved.  The larger ship, the aforementioned Titus, received a rather unceremonious beating from the distended, diamond-shaped craft.  The design was unknown.  The race within it was unknown.  The only thing known for certain was that Titus, one of the most powerful vessels in the Interstellar Space Exploration Commission’s registry, was about to be a total loss.

Crew members raced to escape craft, shuttles, cargo cruisers, freighters, fighters–anything lying around in one of the monstrous bays could be considered fair game.  Fire suppression systems worked diligently on the bridge to extinguish the rampant flames.  Propulsion: a destroyed system.  Life-support: quickly slipping toward nil.  The crew, composed mostly of quasi-civilians operating on essentially namesake enlistment, mercilessly trampled Security in their efforts to flee.  Humanity had not encountered hostile extraterrestrials before.  The crew very obviously had no idea what to do.

As another direct hit rocked the faltering vessel, the bridge crew decided the time had come to escape.  They departed to abandon ship.  Display panels indicated 5 minutes until the ship self-destructed–but as the protocols laid out, self-destruction could occur prematurely in the event of total computer failure or if analyses predicted that the vessel would not survive to complete the countdown.  In either case, the ship would detonate immediately.  The last escape vessel had barely slipped out of its bay when Titus erupted in quantum-nuclear fury.

“Pod one-niner!  Hull debris coming your way!”  The voice of Lieutenant Robert Thomas Maxwell barked the warning from his own craft, escape pod 10.  Having spent the past two years with the ISEC’s exploratory defense program and the prior 2 years working as an unofficial “experiment,” he’d managed to save the Titus on more than one occasion.  This time, of course, none of his energies could save the outgunned craft.  The opposing vessel had begun attacking suddenly and relentlessly.  As Maxwell watched in horror, the diamond-shaped adversary began picking off escaping craft.  One by one, they burst apart.  Then, instantly realizing his own pod was being similarly targeted, the interior brightened into a white flare.  Then the world darkened.

The crew of the Titus along with the alien crew were left on a cold, damp surface with obscuring fog limiting visibility.  “This is my domain,” explained a booming, ubiquitous voice.  “I am Rok’Nor.  Rather, that is as close to a name as either of your races could possibly comprehend from me.  To do away with formalities–my nature is extradimensional.  That affords me the capacity to annihilate any or all of you at any time or method of my choosing, so please be cooperative.  My demands are as follows: the Terrans will duel the Cranions in melee combat.  Last creature alive goes free.  Begin amusing me now.”

Captain Titus protested.  “My crew is not here to amuse you.  If you want to hold onto anyone, let it be me–and release the rest of them.”  Naturally, that proposal was the first to come into Titus’ mind–and the most obvious one Rok’Nor had anticipated.

“Splendid, a display of self-sacrifice already.  What is it about human life that you value so much?”

“If you let everyone else go, I’ll tell you the answer,” Titus suggested.

“Very well,” came Rok’Nor’s voice.  “You will remain.  The rest shall not.”  The world topsy-turvied again.

“This is the Terran vessel Titus to the attacking craft–please respond!” Maxwell shouted through a communications terminal.  He gripped the captain’s chair as the bridge rocked again.  “Keep those shields up!” Maxwell barked.

“They’re coming down about as fast as I can put more power into them!” the tactical officer complained.

Another shudder.  “What was that one?” Maxwell demanded.

“Mines containing large clusters of antimatter, sir,” came the explanation from science officer Samuel Collins.

“Helm, three-quarters lightspeed,” Maxwell ordered.  The shields flickered again as the hull buckled in several places.  The ship moved sluggishly due to its immense mass.  As a thruster engaged on one of the mines, nothing could be done as it made a beeline for Titus‘ shield generator.  Meanwhile, yet another impact took its toll.  “We’ve lost flight control!” the helm officer yelled, panicked.

“There’s a mine on a direct course for our shield generator,” the tac officer noted grimly.  Just then, the mine struck.  The hull buckled and flaked.  Fully half of the ship’s shield strength was sapped by the destruction of the generator.  “Breach on deck 12 now!”

Yet another mine ignited its latent propulsion system, this time on a course for the bridge deck.  Despite being buried under a dozen meters of ablative armor, a mine of such strength posed more than a substantial threat.  As the mine struck, all computer displays fritzed.  Always a terminal sign.  “Abandon ship!” Maxwell ordered.

“Sir, incoming message from engineering… we can’t abandon ship.  All bay doors have buckled or been otherwise jammed.  We’re stuck!”

Maxwell was really starting to hate the news the tac officer kept giving.

Commentary: The chapter ends rather abruptly, doesn’t it? The concepts being hatched here were half-developed at the time, and I’m not certain where I was going with them, to be honest. You can see some elements that look similar to other parts of Shatternity here, though. Mark Titus and Robert Maxwell feature prominently, although in my current “canon” Robert never served under Mark, and Mark didn’t command his own ship. Rather, he was a diplomat.

ISEC was a revision name for ISEA. In later versions, I went back to ISEA, as I clarified what the organization’s purpose was. Cranion ship design definitely evolved in the interim, too. This incident is clearly meant as the outbreak of the Cranion War, which is one of the focal events in Robert’s life. So, a lot of these things did carry over.

Rok’Nor was kind of a shameless ripoff of Nagilum, an extradimensional alien from Star Trek: The Next Generation. Even at the time I wrote this, I knew what I was emulating, and I still remember. Rok’Nor was meant to be one of many beings called the ‘Nor. Their properties were eventually devolved until I wound up with only two mysterious representatives: Stak and Vral, two individuals who are somehow involved in the creation of the timeships. I decided extradimensional beings would be represented only by the Powers from Magnetic Gecko, and I am still working out what to do with them to tie my multiversal cosmology together.

The writing is surprisingly decent given the time period it came from. Could be better, could be worse. I transcribed this from a notebook a few years ago so I probably cleaned up anything that was really awful.

The main difference here is that, at this point in the series, there’s some weird stuff going on, but it’s unclear exactly what’s happening. That’s the way I like it. Over time, it would have been revealed what was going on with the island, as the kids got closer to unlocking its central mysteries. Commentary follows the story. Read on!

Body of Evidence: Day One

Episode 1: Neek

I felt her skin under my fingers. Her arms, her hipbones, everything. I just couldn’t see her. Too dark. I didn’t need to. I just pulled her tighter.

“Wake up! Unique, wake up, you muchacho perezoso!”

Except I was only holding a bundle of blankets. I sighed and blinked the sleep out of my eyes. My mother was yelling for me.

“Are you getting up?” came her voice again.

“Yes, Madre, I am awake!”

“Get down here and eat something!”

I grumbled my way into a t-shirt and jeans and stumbled down the stairs. My family, excepting my father, were in the kitchen. My brother and sister were sitting at the counter, and my mother was washing dishes, wiping counters, all that stuff I was happy to get out of.

My mother handed me a plate. Grilled cheese sandwich and ants on a log. I’m two years old, after all. “I’m seeing Pug today, I’ll eat something with him.”

“You’ll eat now! Sit down with your family and eat.” She had enough of a smile when she said it that I knew she wasn’t angry–she hardly ever was. But insistent? Definitely.

I sat down next to my brother, who immediately stuffed away the drawings he was working on into a folder. “What’re you drawing, Hermano?”

He just stuck his tongue out at me. I returned the favor. He was such a strange five-year-old. Rarely said a word. Always drawing something, but no one ever saw what. And no one knew where he kept his folder hidden when he didn’t have it attached to his hand.

Then Tolerancia chimed in. “Madre, Uni was on the phone until 3AM!”

“No wonder you slept until eleven,” my mother chided. “Who is she?”

“You already know who she is,” I replied, taking a bite out of the sandwich she wouldn’t let me leave without eating.

“It’s the Summers girl,” my sister blabbed. “She dresses funny and I hear she hangs out with bad people.”

“You be careful with girls like that,” my mother had to warn. “They can be trouble.”

“I can handle her, Madre. She’s not like that.”

“I bet he’s slept with her already.” My sister again.

“Shut up!”

“See! He has!”

“I have not! Shut up!”

“Unique! Don’t talk that way to your sister. Tolerancia! Leave your brother alone.” Then she came a little closer to me and stared. “Now, I don’t care what you have or haven’t done, but you watch yourself and be a gentleman.”

“I know, ma’. You raised me right.” I sighed and choked down the food as quickly as I could just to escape this discussion.

“Good. Stop eating so quickly! You’ll never get any nutrition out of it that way.”

“Then can I just not eat it?”

“Unique! Mind your mother!”

“Yes’m.” I slowed down while exploding my sister’s head a few dozen times. She wouldn’t have been so bad if she’d just shut up occasionally. The little brat.

I finished my food and dumped my plate in the sink, heading for the front door. I went for my car keys and my mother, in all her omniscience, called to me. “Your father took your car while his is in the shop. You’ll have to walk, or take the bus.” Dammit!

I caught up with Pug a few streets outside of downtown, sitting on the steps outside a condemned house, smoking Pall Malls and tossing pebbles across the street. “Where the hell were you?”

“My father took my car today.”

“You mean we have to walk? Fucking brilliant.”

“Like you had any plans.”

“At least I could’ve made plans if we had access to a vehicle.”

“But you forget one thing.”

“What?”

“It’s my car.”

“Except when your father wants it.”

“Point. Where did you want to go?”

“Nowhere in particular. It’s just boring and summer, and the old lady won’t let me stay home all day.” He stood up and dropped a handful of pebbles, and pointed in the direction he was walking. I went with him, having no clue where we might be going.

“You could get a job,” I pointed out.

“What, so they can track me with my Social Security Number? No thanks. If I ever do get a job, it’ll be with an assumed name, and I’ll get paid under the table.”

“Paranoid much?”

“You know they collect that shit in aggregate and use it to predict trends and stuff? And then they put it to work in their social engineering projects. Do you trust bureaucrats to architect your future?”

“I don’t think we have much of a choice there. And you really need to relax.” I meant that wholeheartedly. Pug was bad enough without nicotine, but when he was on about his conspiracy of the day, his fingers would shake and his breathing would become sporadic and irregular. Sometimes I thought of asking about his home life, but somehow I knew his paranoia and general anxiety probably had a lot to do with his family. Not something I wanted to get very involved in.

“Everyone says I should relax. Maybe I don’t want to relax. Maybe I like being wide awake. I’m not living in a dream world like the rest of you. I know what’s going on. The whole system is designed to catch people like me and make them ‘conform.’”

“I kind of doubt that.”

“Did you do that computer thing I asked you about?”

“Well… what you are asking for is possible, at least. But I have no idea how to make plastique.”

“You sure don’t know much.”

“About blowing shit up, anyway.”

“I’ll give you a recipe. But you got a transmitter and a receiver, right?”

“Yeah. 900MHz. Should work up to a few hundred feet away.”

“But my room is a Faraday cage. You’ll have to put something on the door frame to carry the signal to the computer itself.”

“What the hell did you do to your room?”

“I lined it with copper mesh. I know about TEMPEST, man. Don’t you? All your electronic devices can be monitored remotely.”

“I think if anyone wanted to go to the trouble of spying on you, they’d manage.”

“But they’d have to put forth some effort, and maybe then I’d notice.”

“Or they’d just kill you.”

“Man, shut up! I’m tired of arguing with you. Will you do it or not?”

“Sure. But I’m not making plastique at my house.”

“Fine, I’ll make it for you and give it to you.”

“Let me rephrase. I will not bring any explosives into my house.”

“Then you can finish it in my dad’s garage. If you blow up his Corvette, I’d just laugh.”

“I’ll try to remember that.” When I next looked ahead, we were heading onto one of the outer roads. I guess one could call it a highway. It stretched from one end of the island to the other, with ports at either terminal. Up ahead there was an overpass for the street that crossed the pseudo-highway–it covered the northern and southern ports.

It was lunchtime, so traffic was moving along as people tried to use this road as a shortcut to restaurants. Nothing out of the ordinary, except people failing to notice that if everyone takes the same “shortcut,” it ceases to be all that short anymore.

Pug threw down his cigarette butt and, in all his eagle-eyed observation, caught a vehicle on the overpass that was moving erratically. He and I recognized the car simultaneously. “Isn’t that–”

“–High Clash’s car.”

“And he’s–”

“–that’s not right!” The vehicle, northbound, red, large, old, swung sharply left, toward the guardrail, bursting through, and flipping end-over-end into the traffic below.

“Holy fucking shit!” came out of my mouth before I could help myself. The fast-moving traffic slammed into the car and each other, spilling over into all lanes, and smashing the traffic quite quickly into a sudden standstill. Smoke and flames sprouted from several cars. Some people’s horns were stuck blaring. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” I asked, turning to Pug.

“I don’t suppose I can just stand here.”

“No, you can’t. Let’s go.”

I’ll probably never be sure what induced me to get involved. Something about seeing so many people hurt, trapped, dying. My instincts took command and pushed me into the wreckage, to see if there was anyone that could be easily extracted. I managed to pull an old woman and a few kids from vehicles before emergency personnel showed up. I didn’t get to see what progress Pug made before we were shooed off the scene. No sooner were we pushed away from the carnage than news cameras got in our faces. At the time, I had no idea what I was saying. I imagined I was saying something intelligent, but I was hardly coherent. Pug ended up destroying one of those $40,000 cameras, and that’s when we had to start running like hell. Pug laughed the whole way.

Pug and I parted ways a few blocks from his house, still unable to wrap our heads around what we’d seen. We agreed to inform each other if we found out what became of High Clash–the cause of the whole mess. I turned my back on Pug and headed home. It was almost time for dinner.

I got back to the house and found my car in the driveway. My parents were having some sort of discussion when I walked in, which they abruptly ended when they heard the door shut. I put my shoes on the rack by the door and flopped onto a sofa in the living room. The TV was on and Tolerancia was crying in one of the other chairs. My mother came in and looked at me. “Did you hear?”

“Hear what?”

“There was a terrible accident today on Long Way. That Clash boy threw his car off the Short Way overpass!”

“Yeah… I saw it. Why is she crying?” I asked, nodding toward my sister.

“Her friend Lake didn’t make it out.”

“Oh. What about High?”

“I haven’t heard about him yet. But it should be on the news shortly.”

And it was. The raw numbers: 6 dead, 34 injured, 22 cars involved. High was listed in critical condition at Passage & Reverence. The little “interview” with me popped up, and I had no idea it was going to be so embarrassing.

“What did you see?”

“[beep] [beep] and he threw his [beep]ing car off the [beep]ing overpass! I’ve never [beep]ing seen a [beep]ing thing like it! Holy [beep], [beep]! [beep]!”

Maybe they only aired that part for entertainment value. If so, that wasn’t very nice.

They listed the names of the dead. Fortunately, it was no one I knew. But there was Tolerancia’s friend. I wanted to comfort her, or at least do something vaguely brotherly, but I was too generally annoyed with her to try. My mother halfheartedly tried to make something for dinner, but we ended up fending for ourselves that night. My father commented that my car needed a tune-up, and that he’d scheduled one for Thursday. I told him I’d take it in.

I took a nap for a few hours, and by the time I woke up, everyone else had retired to bed. 10PM. What had roused me was a sound from outside my window–a door slamming. I took a peek and saw her running to her car. I didn’t need to see tears to know they were there. I sighed and got back into bed, debating myself for a moment. It was a short argument, and I sprung into my shoes and hit my car, following her now-distant rear lights.

I eventually figured out where she was going.

A few minutes later, I was not far behind her car, on the Long Way again. There were no signs of the earlier pileup in the darkness as we passed it. I followed her for a good fifteen, twenty minutes, before she pulled off onto an unpaved road, and I knew where this one went.

It wasn’t much longer before I found her car a few hundred feet from the beach, and pulled up alongside. She wasn’t in the car, though. I looked toward the water, and saw her there, sitting, looking past the stars and the ocean.

I went toward her cautiously. I didn’t know if she’d seen me beforehand. Didn’t want to scare her off, either. I quietly sat down beside her. She jumped for a moment, then calmed down when she saw who it was. “Hi,” she said.

“Hi. Nice night.”

She shrugged. “It could be.”

“Sorry for tailing you out here. I just saw you were upset.”

She smiled, just a little. “Thanks for caring.”

“Are you okay?”

The smile went away quite suddenly. “I swear, my parents must have signed a pact with the devil that endears them to make my life miserable.”

“What’d they do now?” As one might imagine, this was not a unique discussion. Just a variation on a theme.

“They tell me where I can and can’t go, with whom, and when, and why, and it’s just ridiculous. I’m sixteen years old. I’m not a child. I can be responsible. I am responsible. But they won’t let me prove it. As soon as I get home, they’ll probably take my keys away and ground me forever. So, I’m going to stay out here as long as possible.”

“I hope you don’t mind some company, then.”

“I don’t mind your company.” A little smile again, and then she faced the water. “I feel so trapped here. This island in the middle of fucking nowhere. And it never seems like there’s any way to escape.”

“Some people leave.”

“But you have to have somewhere to go. What am I going to say? ‘Give me money to leave because I hate it here’? I don’t see that working very well.”

“You still have a couple years to figure all that out.”

“I don’t think I can survive another couple years. This place suffocates me. It’s like everyone here is sleepwalking, totally oblivious.”

“You’ve been talking to Pug again, haven’t you?”

“Not like that. It’s just that… no one realizes how pointless our lives here are. Or maybe they do and don’t care. Their spirits are already gone. And then there’s SOMAC… controlling everything worth controlling around here. I just can’t live like this. There has to be more out there.”

“And you’ll get to see it someday, if you just stay focused now.”

“Yeah. That’s just the hard part.”

I moved a little closer to her and picked up a handful of sand. “You could be glad you’re not sand, I guess. Takes millions of years to form, and then a few minutes to turn into glass. Or fiberglass. There’s a lot of stuff that we wouldn’t have if not for sand, but it doesn’t seem that important, does it?”

“Does anyone ever tell you you don’t make any sense?” She took the prompting anyway and dropped her head onto my shoulder.

“I hear that all the time. It doesn’t matter. We’re not sand. We’re people. And people are stupid and strange and nonsensical. Grains of sand are all alike. People aren’t. I’m pretty sure you can’t make anything useful out of people, either. So, that’s lucky for us, or someone would’ve made an industry out of human derivatives.”

“Yeah, lucky us,” she snorted. Maybe the things I said were a bit too weird, sometimes.

“Des?”

“Neek?”

“I’m just saying things don’t have to make sense. There doesn’t have to be a point to everything. When you figure that out, you’ll be free, and can do whatever you want. Expecting there to be some grand reason for everything is going to disappoint you. Thinking getting out of here will change anything is going to disappoint you, too. Change doesn’t do any good on the outside if the inside stays the same.”

“You may not be much of a philosopher, but at least you kind of make sense now.”

“Well, thank you.”

“Now shut up and hold me.”

So that’s what I did. I think we eventually fell asleep, but most of it was an uncertain, fuzzed blur. One of those things I’d like to remember, but can’t seem to grasp with any clarity.

Commentary: Adverb soup. Too many “-ly” words. On a technical level, the story is easy to follow, but it jumps from event to event without a good framing device. Maybe a framing device is unnecessary, but it feels like I’m telling three different stories, and none of them come off making the point. Granted, the whole purpose the “Day One” project was to actually cover a 24-hour period from the point-of-view of each character. In that sense, some of the events were random and will have no further repercussions, and others would be important down the line.

Pug isn’t meant to be taken seriously, and hopefully his behavior and manner of speaking demonstrate that. He’s paranoid to the point of absurdity. Neek is much more laid back, with a responsible streak. Pug shuns responsibility and it’s a wonder he has any friends at all: odds are people like Neek only tolerate him out of a sense of pity. If the few friends he had didn’t stick with him, he wouldn’t have anyone.

Neek’s relationship with Des(tiny) Summers was supposed to be one of the major anchors of the series, though I never finished Day One so it’s difficult to know how that would have turned out.

Were I to rewrite this, I would probably reduce the use of Spanish. It feels clunky and awkward and I think I can communicate Neek’s heritage and family environment without being so blunt about it.

For the curious: yes, all names are just everyday words. Some are less everyday than others. But all of that was meant to add to the otherworldly feel of the series. It’s like our world, but not exactly. I only managed to write Day One entries for four (out of ten) characters. I had high hopes for this series, and perhaps I will come back to it someday as a “side story” to Magnetic Gecko, to provide more background on the events in that book.