Music Is My Hot Hot Sex - Winners Posted//Claim Score Sheets

[Itazu]

And how can you wake up,
With someone you don't love...

After my art class last semester I've become mysteriously good at drawing hands and almost obsessed with drawing hands.
My final project I drew this big hand with all the elements of a face on it.

Very abstract...

But the price I paid for that is sucking at everything else.

I haven't done a piece on the computer in AGES.
Not that I've ever been good at it. I'm too lazy to learn how to use Photoshop properly so I just kind of use anything I find.

And not feel slightly fazed by it?

[Moonlight_shadow23]

Me gonna enter tooo!!!
kaykay?? biggrin

[Moonlight_shadow23]

is it okay if i use two songs, and a third song appears only for a line for a ringtone?

[Itazu]

And how can you wake up,
With someone you don't love...

Yeah.
But remember that this contest isn't about using the lyrics in your story, but how it inspires you.

Not saying that you can't use the lyrics in the story.

And not feel slightly fazed by it?

[dangerous xx L I A S O N]

You were wrong and you were right
But you were a l w a y s

The lyrics inspired me in the lamest way ever for this contest. It's so obvious. I usually like being abstract was well...-sigh-

The perfect song of little light
In my new day

[Da Flea]

There's a starman waiting in the sky.
He'd like to come and meet us, but he thinks he'd blow our minds.

Imoto: I consider myself mediocre at drawing and writing, so it balances out. Although... I WOULD consider selling my soul for greatness. ninja *goes to find a crossroads*

I used to be better at hands, but then I focused on other stuff/didn't practice/etc. and lost my skill. It's like it takes a while to rev up the art engine again. If I sat and just drew for a couple days, I'd probably get some much better images, but I'm just so laaazzyy. XD

I'm currently editing my entry. Who knows how long it'll take, though. I get nit-picky. But I can promise it is chocked full of lyrical overkill. XD Better yet, I think the only lyrics I didn't use in the actual story are the songs that I list on the form. @__@ Because they had more... all-inclusive inspiration, rather than just a piece here and there... Yeah. >_>

There's a starman waiting in the sky.
He's told us not to blow it, 'cause he knows it's all worthwhile.

[Itazu]

And how can you wake up,
With someone you don't love...

Imo: I'm sure it's not that bad.

Flea: Yeah, I don't mind if other lyrics are in the story.

And I understand about the art thing. I just tried to draw again and stopped myself soon after starting.

It doesn't look bad, I think I might want to try to colour it but it's not good.

And not feel slightly fazed by it?

[Da Flea]

There's a starman waiting in the sky.
He'd like to come and meet us, but he thinks he'd blow our minds.

Blarg. This is taking longer than I meant it to. Partly cause it's 10k words to edit, I rewrite as I read, and people keep pulling me away from the computer. -_-;; Also, I decided to redo a large chunk of ending, but I'm so much happier with how this version is going, and I still have one hour to fulfill my vow of being done by Lazlo-time. ninja

Edit: Eeee....crap. I just effed over my own events. Grooblorgkuschplat. o_< It's okay. I can fix it. *grabs wrench and starts whacking away at things*

There's a starman waiting in the sky.
He's told us not to blow it, 'cause he knows it's all worthwhile.

[Da Flea]

There's a starman waiting in the sky.
He'd like to come and meet us, but he thinks he'd blow our minds.

Okay... Ended up having to go make dinner, but now I'm finally ready to format. @_@ It's gonna definitely take more than one post. Blergh.

Anyway, here are my random notes that might or might not be helpful to know before reading. XD

Random Notes:
1.) Place names are derived from cities, regions, and countries, but most of them are just a settlement or group of settlements, so don't think of them in quite the same way they are now. ninja
2.) I had so many lyrics that inspired my entry that I decided to slip them in in the cheesiest way possible. Bwaha. So yeah, every mini 'chapter' has a lyric at the start, in the italics. This is just a note that I created none of those lines myself. XD *full soundtrack available upon request*
3.) An Osprey is a kind of military aircraft that has rotating engines that can switch from helicopter to plane while in flight.
4.) Temperatures are in Celsius. ... Because I felt like it. I also made them up as I went along. >_>;
5.) I do not own Alexei Leonov or any of his future descendants. ninja
6.) Yes, Mt. Avachinsky is a volcano... I can explain how they live in it, but it isn't relevant to the story. XD
7.) I started with the idea of helicopters, and somehow my mind got infected with space capsules... Sorry? o_O

EDIT: Formatting done and posted. whee I ended up rewriting even more while formatting. rolleyes And I couldn't decide between two songs for the 'your song' thing... Because the Sunset Rubdown song, for all its abstract goodness, inspired a lot of the writing, but I've heard that Yael Naim song on TV and when I finally looked up the video, I was like -BAM- totally fits. So... >_>; Let me know, Itazu, if that's okay to list two songs there. If you want, I'll take one off. Goodness knows there's enough song-age in the story itself. XD

... I practically own this page now. ninja *space hog*

There's a starman waiting in the sky.
He's told us not to blow it, 'cause he knows it's all worthwhile.

[Da Flea]

Username: Da Flea
Story Title: In the Land of the Blind, the Hungry Ghost of Babylon Comes Upon the Prodigal Daughter of Yuri Gagarin
Word Count: 10,840 by WordPerfect's count
Song Chosen: 'Hello, Helicopter', Motion City Soundtrack
Your Song: 'New Soul' by Yael Naim Video and Lyrics
'Winged/Wicked Things' by Sunset Rubdown Lyrics and File on Mediafire cause I don't think it's on youtube. o_<
Rating: (just a bit of a warning) PG-13. Might be taken as whiny, pretentious and/or blasphemous. XD
Story:

~*~

~O Green World, don't desert me now. Bring me back to fallen town where someone is still alive...~

14 August 2145 - Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, easternmost recognized settlement of Eurafrasia

The flick of a switch, and another. Press this button, pull that lever, and with a hum, whir, click-click, hum, the command center powered up from its overnight standby. A young man with short, messy, black hair - the awaker of the system - now plopped into a rolling, cushioned chair, pushed against the marble floor and glided his way to the next set of switches. After adjusting his glasses, he hit a final button and pulled up a microphone.

The speaker system went everywhere in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky (fondly known as P.K. to those tired of twisted tongues), from the strongholds built in the side of Mount Avachinsky out through the massive factory which had centuries ago devoured the peninsula's lower coast. A maze of metal stretched as far as the eye could see - pipes and towers, ladders and catwalks, smokestacks and generators, lights and gauges and the tall poles with megaphones which now whined and crackled as they brought the man's voice to the land.

"This is Sputnik in the morning." His cheerful voice was out of place with the lonely, rusting scenery. "In weather, Mount Vilyuchik is sleeping like a baby, and atmospheric contaminants are at a minimum, which still ain't good, but enjoy the day without masks and goggles." He tapped a flickering monitor and added, "We're already passing 23, so it's gonna be a hot one, but hey, at least it's cloudy, right?"

Nearly a mile from the command center, a woman with short brown hair stood at the edge of a landing pad and rolled her eyes. She leaned against a water pipe, soaked in the coolness it brought from deep in Avacha bay, and listened as the broadcast continued.

"Yes, that yellow fog's still got the earth in her embrace, and I don't know about you, but I'm feeling a little bit smothered. Whaddaya say, fog? Maybe we should see other people." Sputnik spun in his seat as the radar beeped the arrival of a low-flying object. His fingers swiftly entered a code, and monitors fed him images of the incoming helicopter and the landing pad.

"And in case anyone forgot - though how could you - it's that time of the month again. No, not time to hide in the closet and avoid Marfusha's blind rage."

Down at the landing pad, Marfusha gave a mildly irritated glare to the speakers.

"But time for another delivery of those oh-so-precious means of survival. Let's hear it, ladies and gentlemen, for our supply chopper."

It was a V-24 Osprey, decorated in camouflage print with a stylized G on the side, a military unit captured and re-outfitted for service in Greenpeace, and that was a full-time job. Not only did the organization distribute aid, it coordinated reconstruction efforts and was the closest thing to centralized government that Eurafrasia had. Most people respected the hand that fed them.

Crates full of mechanical parts, food and daily necessities were unloaded, and in return, the helicopter took several long-use batteries, kegs of purified water, and synthetic compounds. When it was all secure and logged, Marfusha backed away, and the blades of the Osprey began to rotate, sending a refreshing wind spiralling over the launchpad.

From the speakers, Sputnik joked, "Going so soon? Greenpeace, I'm beginning to think you don't like us."

A call came through from the chopper's pilot, Khalil. "If we didn't like you, Pavlov, we wouldn't fly our asses out here every month." As he launched into a playful rant about fuel mileage and boredom, Sputnik rolled his eyes and replied, "Thank you, Helicopter. Where would we be without you?"

Several levels above ground, on one of the highest catwalks, another woman laid on her back and stared at the endless brown and yellow haze. From the corner of her eye, she saw the helicopter rising. It passed overhead, and the burst of wind flapped her black clothing, slid beneath and scraped her skin until she felt caught up in the current, ready to lift and soar.

She raised a hand to move alongside as the Osprey's engines rotated downward and transformed it from helicopter to airplane. It would pick up speed now, on to Hokkaido or Istanbul or anywhere it had an urge to, but the wind around her own body had fallen away, and no amount of outstretched arms could carry her along with the whirlybird of freedom.

A random song played through the loudspeakers, and it was electronic, light and bubbly, a relic of a cultural past where synthesizers had been as church organs, guiding a new age of disciples toward techno-lightenment, but where were those neon-tinted dreams now? Fallen to the reality of rust, metallic gray and bile-coloured skies.

As the music ended, their self-appointed DJ announced, "This is Sputnik in the morning - and the mid-day and the afternoon. Hell, I've seen the outside. Why should I ever leave?"

The woman on the catwalk sat up, slid her legs over the edge and leaned her arms on the lowest bar of the railing. Around her rose towers for cooling or energy-production or filtration of waste, but on the outside, they looked much the same. Uniform trees with limbs of rotating iron, vines of high tension cable. The only foliage was the occasional windmill of varying shape or size, affixed among the towers and doubling their efficiency.

She ran her hands over her closely shorn black hair and closed her eyes, trying to replace the lingering after-image with something from memory. She'd seen a forestdome once, row after row of trees and not the cragged, barren things which stuck up here and there among the factory buildings but real, living wood pulsing with the flow of sugar and water, the sweet scent of sap and leaves. It was there, the logical image of it, but sense had been lost. All she could smell was metal.

Another song had come and gone, and now Sputnik playfully stated, "Oh, elusive one. You know who you are. Marfie wants you in Greendome-3."

'Elusive,' she thought. 'Am I?' In a world of limitations, the description was a badge of honour. Constrained but not contained, she was Laika - a free radical in the body of Earth. She opened her eyes and stood, hands holding the top bar. A quick bounce, then she launched herself over the railing. Ten feet down, she landed on a wider catwalk. It vibrated from the impact and rang with a tone that resonated through her bones. It almost made one feel at home.

Almost.

***

~So I give in to the rhythm - the clik-clik-clak - I'm too wasted to fight back.~

14 November 2145

On the helipad, Marfusha waited amid a brutal northern wind. The smog had thickened and mixed with heavy clouds that rumbled every so often and threatened rain, except rain was a rarity for P.K.. Anyway, raindrops would mix with the chemcloud blown in with the storm, and then all that acidity would soak into the factory grounds. The sky can keep it, Marfusha thought as she crossed her arms and tried to hold more heat in her winter jacket. Its hood was up, and a hem of fluffed cotton framed the gas mask which protected her from the toxic storm.

The outfit left little resemblance to the human beneath, and as Laika approached, she had flashes of an old recurring nightmare, the one where metal began to infect and transform their bodies, evolving them into something more fitting of their perverted environment.

Laika leaned against the railing beside Marfusha and spoke loudly so the sound would carry through her own mask. "Did I miss it?" The helicopter, she meant.

"No radio contact yet. Might be the weather."

Laika nodded, and there was no further conversation until an hour later, when Marfusha finally headed inside. Laika kept up the wait and called in several times on a walkie-talkie, but there was never any change. Sputnik had no contact with Greenpeace or most nearby bases. Of the two answering, their situation was the same. Interference was known to happen every so often, but it was an unwelcome reminder of their overall helplessness. They were little dots on a very big map, a few people here and there and linked only by radio waves and helicopter blades.


As night descended on P.K., Laika took to walking and inevitably ended atop a high catwalk. There was something about heights that called to her, speaking promises of a ladder which might take her away from the world - a stairway to heaven. She smirked at the thought and turned to look at the Tsiolkovsky Tower, which rose from an open launch area past the factory's edge. Carbon nanotubes woven into ropes and woven again into webbed walls. The structure might appear flimsy, but it was strong and tensile and stretched up through the haze, straight into orbit, where its weighted end kept the cord-tower stretched.

More than once, Laika had fantasized about climbing the tower, a bag slung over her shoulder and a simple mask her only protection. The effort would take hours, and the atmosphere would swallow her, filling in beneath until she no longer saw anything but yellow-brown cloud in every direction; but she'd press on, undeterred, and the air would become too thin to support even pollution, and then she'd finally see - blue sky and brilliant sun, or twinkling stars against a rich black.

Of course, those were only flights of fancy. Helicopters alone defeated gravity - picked themselves up to swim in that murky field between heaven and earth, carrying the invisible cables that strung the last of civilization together. And once a month, they stopped at Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, to remind that it was possible and to lift some of the heavy pain that settled over the shoulders of grounded ones.

So Laika waited, watching the strips of multi-coloured light that ran up and down the Tsiolkovsky Tower. The air escaping her mask condensed and floated up as steam, and frost formed on the railings, but the twilight had cast a purple glow over the factory, and she was reluctant to leave.

The speaker squeaked to life, but it's whine faded out long before Sputnik finally echoed Laika's thoughts. "Well... spirits are low today. Maybe we all need that helicopter a little more than we ever say."

He tapped the console in front of him. Playfulness and cheer had temporarily fled, and he was at a loss.

"Still no contact with the outside world, so... all that's left is 'Laika? Come home.'"

With a sigh, Laika lifted herself from the cold metal and trudged her way back to the mountain, past the pipes and gauges and monitors, the steady click of valves and hum of engines. It pulled her footsteps into equal time. Left, right, whir, clank. Everything was precise and measured. Wasn't that the glory of the old world? Industrialization, modernization, mechanization - the rhythm of the gear.

But the universe was a cycle, not a production line, and made of innumerable, intricate parts; but like a computer or radio network, the greater value was not in the machinery but its ungraspable, emergent residue - the "ghost" in the machine, some called it. That was when you were logged off but still there, an afterimage, a memory. It was also, according to Sputnik, the same as a gremlin, the little thing that lived in the wires and caused signals to be lost in the middle of juicy gossip.

Laika thought of it as "chaos" and saw that life was mired in it. It was the unpredictability of the human condition, the bouncing of radio signals, the sprouting of crops and the way hope could be so inextricably tied to a flying machine. More than a production line, you put a piece here, a piece there, but what came out never measured the same. It was heavier, pregnant with ghosts and swollen with chaos.

Her footsteps still rang out in time - left, right, click, hum. In moments like these, she felt the boundary between the world and herself melt. Flesh and metal and even the smog started to feel holy, all vital pieces in the chaos machine. She tugged the door to the mountain compound open, felt its vibration as the hinges squeaked, and roughly pulled her hand away. The nightmares came back, the decay of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky rusting into her, and she hurried inside, thankful for the deep darkness of the entrance hallway.

***

~Open curtain, let the world inside the dead of night. Kiss my sleep with other thoughts, other thoughts of God...~

Laika's room was her testament to dreams - dreams being the unanchored remnants of ambition, the sensual reminders of possibility. In other dimensions, those remnants were reality, and she was living what in this realm could only be fantasy, but the edges blurred in that hazy field of the subconscious, and self met self met self, leaving trails of inspiration. Her mind was like a hub of those thoughts, and her room the archival representation.

To put it more plainly, she liked to collect things. Some were found in the abandoned corners of P.K., while others were brought by pilots who knew her interests, but they all ended up in her little enclave. Books were held on shelves or spread over the desk and bed, a rack of CDs - all leftover from a pre-war world - sat beside a stereo, and the walls were covered with posters and artwork. Overwhelming, the themes were nature and deep space, nostalgia for a world she'd never known and fascination with something beyond her veiled planet and its self-decay.


She entered this haven, which Marfusha had dubbed the "Museum of Lost Dreams" and Sputnik merely the "Retro Room", and clicked play on the stereo. Bird songs filled her ears, joined by the occasional whisp of a bamboo flute. The bed molded to her body as she stretched out on her stomach and let her eyes wander over the wall beside her. There was a wide poster, a photo taken inside a forest so the rich, green textures of leaf and moss were woven with the dark wood of trunks and the diaphanous arcs of sunlight.

She rolled onto her back, and her vision was now from deep space. Galaxies, nebulas, starsystems, and right in the middle, the orb of Earth, a gorgeous green and blue and white. How, she wondered. How had men seen it from the such a perspective, seen the inherent fragility of everything it contained, and not taken greater care? So small was a human, but one could become many, and each individual did its business, unaware of the millions more, unaware of the finite limits in what had once appeared a limitless land.

Laika reached under her collar and pulled at her necklace until the heavy medallion which hung from it was brought to her fingers. It was very old, from at least half a century before the war, and the high relief had worn down, but still the design was visible. Two spacecraft seen over the edge of Earth, and the words "First International Manned Space Mission".

It was a symbol of unity, but more than that, it was an heirloom. Alexei Leonov, commander of the Apollo-Soyuz flight, was Laika's ancestor, and though the family in recent decades had only idly passed the stories and keepsakes along, Laika had been enchanted from the start. They were twin spirits, bounded by blood across time. Alexei was not only a cosmonaut but an artist. Several of the prints around her room were his designs, a gift of beauty and personality. There was no way he could have foreseen the comfort they would bring his descendant, a woman who'd never seen the real sky; but it was the nature of the universe to provide for what humanity could not predict.

A moment of silence, and her stereo went to the next track. It began with oh-so-fitting spoken word, another message across time and space - a transmission from 177 years prior and nearly 384,000 km away, the moon's orbit.

"We are now approaching lunar sunrise. And, for all the people back on Earth, the crew of Apollo 8 has a message that we would like to send to you: 'God created the heaven and the earth... and God said, 'Let there be light.'"

Laika felt the pewter growing warm in her palm. She thought of the smoggy skies, the poisoned earth and factory pipes sticking out like ribs of the dying legacy of man; and she thought of the helicopter, a mechanical angel of our better nature, lost out there, fighting its way through the garbage dump which passed for air.

Around her, Mount Avachinsky stretched up toward a dark, ersatz sky, its belly hollowed for the tomb-like maze of which Laika's room was a part. In this room, lit only by the glowing dial of the stereo, Laika stared at the two-dimensional earth of her ceiling and tried to imagine a God.

***

~You can bomb the world to pieces, but you can't bomb it to peace.~

20 November 2145

Six days later, the winds had changed, and warm air again rolled in from the sea. Most bases had returned to the radio, but there was little word of Greenpeace. Though Marfusha never mentioned it, she had started to scribble numbers in a notebook, a prediction of how long current supplies could last. Luxury items aside, at least they had water and the greendomes. P.K. was quite self-sufficient. If not for its isolated resting point on the far edge of a barren continent, it might have become a new metropolis.

"Yet here we are," she murmured to herself. "Out of touch." She grinned at the even more important side of it. "Out of reach." No renegade families, no violent raiding, and very little interference by the central government. It might not have satisfied Laika's wanderlust, but it was sufficient freedom for Marfusha. Still, she wished the helicopters and radios could be just a tad more reliable.


Far across the factory, Laika travelled from one checkpoint to another, reading gauges and running quick maintenance checks. It was tedious, but at least it kept her moving. Up this ladder, across that platform, round the bend and over the pipes, to sector G-9, we go. With no need for gas masks and temperatures hovering at a comfortable decent 18 degrees, Laika was in a rather good mood.

Music played through the speakers, an eclectic mix of whatever struck Sputnik at the moment. Inside, he lounged in the cushioned chair, feet propped atop the console's edge and bottle of cold, honey-lemon tea sitting on his stomach as his eyes wandered over the monitors. 1532 hours and all was well.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

He paused in the middle of a drink, and his eyes shifted to the radar. He sat up, set the bottle down and brought up a grainy image from the very edge of P.K.'s surveillance grid. His eyes widened at the sight, and already his radio crinkled with the incoming call.

"Peter-Paul, this is Greenpeace Osprey 48 approaching from the southwest. Do you read me? Over."

Sputnik's excitement was so great that his fingers had to fumble before finding the microphone's button. He exchanged a few words with the pilot, then abruptly ended the current music and flicked the PA on.

"Do you hear it?" He held his breath and waited, as if the blades might be audible through the mountainsides. "Maybe not yet, but I can see it. Right there on radar and sending in her confirmation."

Laika and Marfusha each felt their heart skip a beat. Marfusha rushed from the building, and Laika made for the nearest catwalk as the familiar form came into sight, engines already turned to chopper position. Through the PA, Sputnik greeted it with "Yes, hello, helicopter! We are happy to see you."

The Osprey soared over the rows of metal, and the wind from its blades rushed down, twisting and spiralling through the bars and around Laika. She raised her arms to fully feel the tug of the wind spreading her shirt like a sail, then spun to watch it ease down to the helipad.

Laika took a moment to pull in a deep breath and release the fears of abandonment. Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky was officially part of the world again, returned to grace. With a grin, she raced to a nearby tower, grabbed hold of a pipe and slid her way nearly forty feet down to the next catwalk.


By the time Laika reached the helipad, Marfusha and one of the Osprey crew were in a heated argument over several crates. The man stood with arms crossed, giving a long speech which was interrupted every so often by expletives from a pacing Marfusha. As Laika drew closer, she pieced together that Greenpeace had sent some kind of order for production. It was vital, he said, a decision made by the Great Minds, who of course knew more about the situation than a backwater outpost like P.K.

Laika crossed the helipad to stand between Marfusha and the man as he added, "You don't have a choice. We're all in this together, but if you're not, then don't expect to leech off-"

"Leech?!" Marfusha stepped up until she was barely an inch from her opponent. "Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky has provided tens of thousands of water kegs, and if not for our agreement to meet price caps, we could be one of the wealthiest new settlements."

The man smirked and snorted.

"Don't laugh at me," Marfusha snapped. "You know damn well the goods we get don't equal out to what we give, but we do it. Because 'we're all in this together'. So how dare you come in and threaten me -"

"Your settlement," he stressed the word with mockery. "Who do you think you are? This is an outpost, a water plant; and you? Are just workers. You do what Greenpeace orders, or it can and will replace you."

"I was the only one who even THOUGHT of coming here."

"Well, good for you." He slapped a hand down on a crate and started to walk away. "Maybe they'll give you a medal of appreciation after the United World Guard flushes you out."

Marfusha crossed her arms and took a deep breath. Her eyes momentarily met Laika's, and Laika's irises were a brown so dark the pupils were nearly lost, and so it all looked like pupil, large and round and silently asking for explanation, but Marfusha only turned away. She walked up to the man, who had already signed the final forms. He handed her a copy of the invoice and stated, "You may argue, you may hate it, but you'll follow the order. Just like everyone else."

He climbed into the Osprey and slid the door shut. Marfusha stepped away only out of habit as the helicopter lifted itself away.

Laika watched it go and felt her heart straining. Things were happening out there. She could sense it, and she was tired of being unseen and left behind. Once, visitations had been enough, but she was tired of being a passive observer in what should have, by rights, been as much her world as anyone else's.

"We're expanding production."

The words jolted Laika back to reality.

"Two factories." Marfusha crumpled the invoice and shoved her hands into her pockets as she stared out over the ocean. "Rocket launchers and ammunition."

"Weapons?" Laika could understand the necessity. She'd seen violent outbursts, but... "Don't they have enough factories for that?"

"Evidently not."

"Well, why not? Have old factories shut down? Are there more bandits or-?"

"How the hell should I know?" Marfusha snapped. "How could any of us know any more than they tell us."

Laika stepped beside her. "And what did they tell you?"

Avacha Bay stretched before them, calm and glassy smooth. Its mouth, though widened through years of rising ocean levels, still created distinct separation from the Pacific. Staring over the blue-green expanse, Marfusha tried to imagine the distance between themselves and the next landmass. After several moments and no definitive estimate, she spoke.

"They said it's to fight the RoA."

In the decade following the War of Mutual Destruction, Eurafrasia managed to reconnect itself, piecing together one very widespread but cooperative super-nation, but they had little contact with the other half of the world until a ship arrived, an old war cruiser, carrying ambassadors of the new Republic of the Americas. Far from seeking cooperation, the ambassadors proposed the immediate handover of all power and resource to the Administration of the RoA. Greenpeace, of course, refused. The RoA left with vague warnings, but the Great Minds could see the signs - the Republic of the Americas was militaristic, its ambassadors dressed in uniform while they spoke of their President as a "strategic mastermind" and "the hand of safety and order". It was only a matter of time before they attempted military action to conquer and exploit the progress of Eurafrasia.

"They're planning for war?" Laika asked.

"For 'defense'." Marfusha pulled the invoice from her pocket and uncrumpled it. Her eyes scanned the list - instruction manuals, software, a few robotic parts. The factories were high-tech, just plug in the right program, hook up the fuel line, and barely a human was needed anymore. Weapons could make themselves.

"I don't see the difference," Laika stated.

"The difference is who makes the first move."

"I don't understand why anyone even would." Laika crossed her arms and looked apprehensively at the crates. "Nothing good ever comes of it."

"It does if you win." Marfusha narrowed her eyes at a smeared ink stamp near the invoice's bottom. By Order of the Security Council. That was a new title. All other invoices were stamped 'Greenpeace', a region name or 'the Eurafrasian Committee for Ethical and Sustainable Governance' (the more official name of the Great Minds).

"If we're all supposed to be together, then every fight's a civil war," Laika insisted. "And if you're fighting yourself, you can't win unless you also lose."

Marfusha crammed the paper into her pocket again and approached the crates. "Someday, you need to look at the world with your eyes instead of your heart."

"What's that supposed to mean?" As far as Laika was concerned, her sight was just fine. Better, in fact, than people who chose to shut themselves off in a world of right-now instead of seeing the full, widescreen image of past through future.

Marfusha took a deep breath, let it out slowly and shook her head. "Nevermind. Help me with this." She grabbed the edge of a crate, ready to load it onto a cart.

As they drove the supplies back to the mountain, Laika asked, "Did you see the new attachments on the Osprey's nose?"

"Gattling gun," Marfusha replied. "Looks like your doves of hope just became birds of prey."

Laika slid down in the passenger seat and pressed her knees firmly against the dashboard. Her head fell back against the seat, and she stared at the sickly skies visible between the highrise of factory clutter. Vibrations massaged her back after being carried through the vehicle's frame, up from its friction with the ground. Such a big world, she thought, that holds up so many with such distance in between, and yet...

She pictured the Earth of her ceiling, so small and finite, so easily ripped apart. She wished everyone could sleep under those posters, that after every decision, they would have to lay there and answer to that small marble which they acted upon. What surprised her most was that they didn't already. Wasn't the War of M.D. enough? Wasn't the smog, the barren soil, the scattered and struggling populace enough? Was she the only one who thought so, and if she was... what was she doing sitting in such inactivity?

~To leave is never easy. Perhaps it shouldn't be, but return is even harder. Yes, to return is harder still.~
*To be continued next post...*

[Da Flea]

~Hello, Helicopter, are you listening?~

In the Land of the Blind, the Hungry Ghost of Babylon Comes Upon the Prodigal Daughter of Yuri Gagarin continued*

***

~The Time of No Reply is calling me to stay, with no hello and no goodbye. To leave, there is no way.~

In Laika's youth, when she was barely eleven and her hair was still long, straight and black and held in pigtails, she had temporarily lived in Mesopotamia. Her own settlement had been torn apart by violent storms, and the dozen survivors had been brought to the central hub of civilization. It was her first experience with greendomes, with places of vegetation where no one had to worry about the air.

She met Marfusha there, a bond that two years later would outweigh the connection with family, but before that, she met a man in the Hillside Greendome. He wore strange garments of long fabric that wrapped over and around, and he would sit everyday on the hill's highest point and look down over the berry bushes and fruit trees. People sometimes came to see him, and he would tell them things about history and science and someone named 'Buddha'. He would also talk about energy and silence and planes of existence, but most people found the ideas frustrating, so he would close his eyes and say, "We are all in this together." Then everyone smiled and nodded and went 'Ah!' as if they understood, but Laika had the distinct impression it was not that simple.

She eventually learned that he was one of the Great Minds, come from the Nepalese region to sit on the Greenpeace councils, but he never wanted to talk about that. It seemed to trouble him, and he began to wave the crowds away, speaking only with his tag-a-long disciple, Laika.

When she asked him why he was so quiet, he said that he had never stopped communicating, but he was lost in a time of no reply. She asked him how to end it, and he said first, people had to listen. To what? The universe.

"How are we supposed to do that?" Laika pressed. "It can't say anything."

"If a person is deaf, does that mean no sound exists?"

She flopped onto her back in frustration and stared at the white ceiling and metal crossbeams while he told her a story about soil and how if people only grew crops and pulled them, grew and pulled, year after year, the soil would be drained of its vital energy, and the growing would stop, but when dead material was spread over the ground, it was reabsorbed, and then the cycle could continue.

"But what does that have to do with the universe talking?"

"Question and reply." He began walking, but Laika remained on the cool, papery grass between aromatic lemon trees and stretched her mind from one thought to the next, like puzzle pieces whose edges might finally align. She rarely understood the man's lessons, but that was why she liked them. When she did make the connections, she felt much closer to wisdom, that elusive mental pattern which distinguished the Great Minds from the average citizen.


One day, while the smog caught the sun in such a way that everything glowed a burnt orange, that man walked outside the domes and sat upon a flat rock. Though Mesopotamia's air was nearly always toxic, he carried no gas mask. He wouldn't need it. A crowd gathered at the dome windows to watch this spectacle, the man in robes who poured liquid over himself. (It was later found to be gasoline). Facing out to the barren horizon, he struck a match, and with a great fwoompsh, flames engulfed him.

The image was still vivid in Laika's memory - the way he sat so still and calm as his flesh broke open and charred; and the people around her, who experienced nothing more than the visual, they were the ones who screamed, who ran frantically and called for someone to do something, but by the time someone did, of course he was dead.

They buried him in the graveyard two miles from the settlement. During the funeral, Laika stared at the mound of freshly turned earth and thought about loss and cycles and mold on vegetables that had been left too long in storeroom corners. The Great Minds gave a speech about how he was a good person who simply couldn't handle the sorrows of the world, but it felt like they were talking about someone else.

The crowd whispered about how homesick he must have been, Marfusha muttered, "'Pains us', my a**. They hated the guy", and Laika scratched at the edges of her gas mask. It was hot and stifling. She stamped her feet and wanted another chance to talk with him, to demand an answer for why he'd done it and more answers for every mystery he'd left her with, but there was no reply. Just like the universe. Nothing could speak when it was dead.


That night, Marfusha said she wanted to go somewhere, away from Mesopotamia. Laika asked why, Marfusha repeated "I want to", and so it was decided. In less than a month, they'd hopped a flight to Istanbul and met with a committee for new settlements, and that was what set Laika's life on its current path. She still had questions, and still no one answered, but sometimes - rare, quiet times - she would light a candle in a darkened room and think of her friend. Then she could almost hear it, a ghostly whisper just beyond the edge of comprehension, and it made her hungrier than ever for answers.

***

~I'm not in love with the modern world. It was a torch for driving the savages back to the trees...~

12 March 2146

The radio crackled to life and a shrill whine came through, sending the needles quivering at the high end of their scales. Sputnik gave a shout of surprise and rushed to adjust the volume, but then the high-pitched noise cut off, replaced by heavy static and panicking voices.

"...ropa.. cha.." Another shrill wail. "We repeat... der attack by plane... fires an... bomb..."

Sputnik didn't realize he'd been holding his breath until the burning sensation began in his chest. Then he let the air out and gasped in a fresh batch as he switched on the PA system.

"Marfie, something bad's going down. This is Hokkaido. It's..." Rather than describing, he switched the radio to the speakers, and the static and shouts rang through P.K.. It took only a few words for Marfusha to realize what was happening. It was a warning - whatever had hit Hokkaido was coming their way.

She pulled out a walkie-talkie and called Sputnik directly.

"Shut everything off," she ordered.

The words weren't easy to comprehend. Sputnik felt light-headed as fresh shouts came over the airwaves. In confusion, he asked, "Shut what off?"

"EVERYTHING!" She could tell by his voice that he wasn't quite with her, but time was of the essence. She hit the emergency shutdown switch of the water tanks and raced from the building. Her boots pounded the metal of catwalks and rang out across the landscape, but the whir of machinery was much louder. The lights of towers and equipment, the movement of pumps, the steam vents, the PA - Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky was a noisy, visible target, practically a beacon to any approaching force. How long did it take planes to reach them from the islands? Not long enough, she realized.

She reached a tower and slid down the railings of a staircase before jumping to the next catwalk. Through her panting, she growled into the walkie-talkie. "Sputnik! Everything. Shut it off!!"

"Okay, okay." His feet pushed from one surface after another, sending the chair wheels squeaking and wobbling as they carried him from panel to panel. He brought the system to overnight standby, then dropped it to the bare essentials. After slight hesitation, he flipped open the final control board and entered codes he'd never used before. The steady hum deep within the mountain ended, and the lights went out throughout P.K., even in the command center. Aside from a half dozen blinking dots on this panel, everything was off.

Sputnik lifted the walkie-talkie to his mouth. "We are silent running."

"Good." Marfusha had slid to a halt with the lights and now slowly made her way along the unlit catwalks. "Keep it that way until I tell you otherwise."

Sputnik lowered the device to his lap and pushed his chair away from the panel. The six red dots of light were his only source of orientation in the otherwise pitch black room. It was so quiet he could hear his own heart beating.

"Well," he whispered. "This is not pleasant."


Twenty-seven minutes later, a small formation of fighter jets soared over P.K.. Fourteen minutes later, they returned and circled. Marfusha could imagine the debate above, one pilot calling another. "Is this the place?" "It should be." "It's just a dead factory... should we hit it anyway?" She hoped they wouldn't.


Since it's rebirth, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky had never been without power, so the sudden disappearance of chugging and pumping and whirring left Laika amid previously unknown background noise, which seemed overwhelming in its subtlety. Metal groaned and creaked like the joints of an aged beast, and even gentle breeze was enough to whistle down tight corridors.

Laika was nearly blind on the ground, where darkness was multiplied by the oppressive mass of factory. She was also on the outskirts, sent to check a wind turbine, but the job was forgotten when the planes soared overhead. Their drone stood out, speed creating the distorted sound of approach and retreat. The PA's message was still fresh in mind, and these flying machines invoked the opposite emotion of the friendly Osprey. Now she loved the canyon-like depths, the clutter of pipes that hid her in their folds, hid her from the fearsome jets, their noses and wings sharply pointed as they circled like vultures above a dying creature, an eventual meal.

It was hard to measure how long the planes remained. Time stretches when one is awaiting judgement, but eventually the pilots decided against attack. Perhaps they had news of approaching defenders or their fuel was running low. Whatever the reason, they raced with determination back over the ocean and disappeared from sight.

Marfusha was still nervous, and a half hour later, she still didn't feel comfortable bringing power back on. She had reached the mountain but remained outside and called in to Sputnik with the walkie-talkie.

"Might as well come outside," she told him. "We'll stay dark tonight, see if we can get news in the morning."

Sputnik felt caught between two unhappy choices. Stay in the dark, alone, or... "There's no way to monitor the air."

"Then bring a mask if you're so damn worried about it," Marfusha snapped. She sighed and rubbed her forehead as memory served up a scene from childhood. A gang of troublemakers had gone through the settlement, and she, at seven years old, hid in a cabinet of a rotting house. The first few times she thought of moving, shouts or gunfire had erupted and frightened her into staying. Eventually, the reinforcement was so great that she couldn't bring herself to move at all. The entire afternoon and night, she waited, sharing her space on occasion with travelling mice or insects, fellow rugged survivors.

In the morning, she was woken by intense shaking and scratching at the cabinet door and was frozen with terror as the door came open, but on the other side was only a dog and three Greenpeace officers. They'd come to help, and they'd had control since the previous evening, but how could she have known that? That day, she learned what fear was, that lack of knowledge or control against an ever-present but enigmatic threat.

She was pulled from the unpleasant reverie as Sputnik sat down next to her, mask hanging loosely around his neck. "So... where's Laika?"

Marfusha blew a puff of air from the corner of her mouth. "Who knows? She evidently didn't take a walkie. Again."

"She likes being unreachable," Sputnik joked. "Makes her feel free."

"Makes her easily lost is what it does."


At the moment, Laika would've been happy for instant access. Stuck on the ground, she was hopelessly turned around. There were few ladders in this area, and the doors of the energy plant wouldn't work without power, which was a little ironic, when she thought about it.

Bare soil crunched beneath her shoes as she walked, and slowly the sounds became less foreign. The night was a companion, blanketing her with solitude like her bedroom, but the temperatures were dropping, and there was no bed for her to rest, no music to ease the loneliness and no posters to fill her imagination. Outside as she was, amid only empty placeholders of nature or man, the world felt more empty than ever.


Pipes thinned out, the last buildings ended, and Laika suddenly found herself on the factory's very edge, where construction had at last worn itself out. In the remaining space before the mountains, discarded machinery and vehicles had been left to rust.

She rubbed her arms for warmth and muttered, "A compass, I am not." Rather than returning to the factory, for she'd surely become lost again, she ventured into the open space. How many times had she been out this far? Two or three? Marfusha did most of the salvaging.

The stripped frame of a buggy laid nearby, half-buried in scrap material and dirt. Its seat was some kind of vinyl, cracked and torn with cotton sticking out, but it was still a great comfort to Laika's tired body. She should have been worried about the power, her friends, or what would happen if the temperature and smog really turned against her, but a strange sense of peace had replaced anxiety. She was only a small creature, after all. Even her own home was too big for her, and how much bigger was the whole world? She'd stared at it for too long on the ceiling, a ball that fit within her arms, and she'd forgotten that it was more than a picture. She was not just overseer; she was right in the thick of it.

A book had once posed to her the question, 'Where has Earth gone?'. It was a trick question. Earth never went anywhere. People just stopped seeing it. They built roads and buildings in clusters, out and up until one exit met another entrance and the maze became entirely contained. They watched monitors instead of windows while the world outside died around them, and when the walls eventually fell, the sickness rushed in and reclaimed its prodigal children.

There was a noise from far away, a 'whooo' like wind on metal but somehow different. It changed position, grew louder, was answered, and a shudder passed through Laika as she realized it was from something alive - many somethings sharing in her revelation of the night.

Scrip-scrap, the sound of feet on dry, packed soil, and suddenly, there they were. Nearly a dozen canines with dark, thick coats and long noses appeared from the corners of refuse piles. They looked up at her, their eyes catching what little light there was and shimmering like golden discs, and she only tilted her head and watched back.

They weren't wolves or dogs but somewhere in-between, a hybridization of the wild reabsorbing the domestic. Like humans, they had joined together for survival. 'We're all in this together.'

In near-unison, the pack pricked up their ears and looked to the factory. Then one trotted away, and the others fell into step behind. Laika watched them go, wondering if they had always been here, undetected in the glare and roar of the factory.

The fading pawsteps were replaced by the rumble of an engine, and light began to dapple places just inside the factory's edge. It rose and fell, jumped and quivered, sometimes growing dim, brightening again; and then the call came.

"Lai~ika!"

It was Marfusha's voice. Laika jumped to the ground and jogged forward, cupping hands to her mouth as she shouted back. Several minutes later, the jeep found a passage wide enough, and Laika shielded her eyes from the headlights as the vehicle approached, its engine purring like a mother cat welcome her stray kitten back to the pride.

In the overwhelming brightness, a strange thought passed Laika's mind, and she whispered it with an eerie kind of understanding.

"Let there be light."

***

~And the pattern of flight is chaotic and blind, but it's right, cause chaos is yours and chaos is mine.~

15 March 2146

It took three days to get things running again. Shutdown had enacted safety features, and the restart system had shorted out, leaving the turbines unturned and the factories unpowered. Indoor air filtration and greendome lights drained several batteries dry before enough of the system was repaired, and they had to bring up each section piece by piece onto the main grid.

"The chemical plant is up to full speed," Sputnik announced. "That's the last of 'em." He propped his feet up on the console. "Let's hope we never have to go through THAT again."

"I want you to work on a better maintenance system." Marfusha scanned the current readouts. "So we don't have to wait for a shutdown to realize the wiring's bad."

"Test protocols?" He slid lower in his chair and spun side to side. "I'm not even sure how to do that."

"Well, find a book. Radio for help. I don't care. Just find a way."

Sputnik sighed and scratched the back of his head as a welcome blip appeared on radar. He clicked on the PA.

"Hey, Laika, your favourite monthly diversion is -"

A second blip appeared behind the first, and they veered sharply to they right.

"...here," Sputnik murmured. "Marfie? Uh..."

Marfusha was already leaning toward a monitor's blurry image. It showed the usual Osprey, but this time, it was followed by an unknown plane, and the occasional bursts of light, like firecrackers exploding from the plane's front, meant it was shooting at the Osprey.

"What the hell...?" Marfusha whispered.

"I dunno, but that- " Sputnik tapped over the design on the second plane. "Is an old Chinese insignia."

Marfusha grabbed a walkie-talkie and headed for the door.

"Get a camera on them," she ordered. "And keep me up to date."

"What are you -"

"To get Laika."

Once she was out the door, Sputnik turned back to the monitors and mumbled, "Could've just used the PA, but no. Has to do everything the hard way."


Meanwhile, Laika watched from the helipad, once again cursing herself for not carrying a walkie. She could see the Osprey's panic as it swerved this way and that to avoid gunfire from the tailing plane. It fired back intermittently but was in no condition for an aerial battle. Its blades were stuck at an awkward angle, somewhere between plane and chopper position, and it was only the pilot's skill that kept the entire thing from tumbling over itself and into the ground.


Several shots hit directly on the Osprey's tail and sent it further out of control. The engines failed, and the Osprey began an irreversible descent. The pilot tried to tilt the nose up, to make it over the factory and to the ocean. This path took it directly toward the helipad, and Laika could see the Osprey's belly scrape over a nearby tower. She heard the screeching metal and saw the rolling black and orange ball of fire, the rain of debris.

The gutted Osprey passed overhead at high speed, but it felt almost painfully slow to Laika. She was aware of the fuel which leaked from the Osprey and pitter-pattered in a path across the platform, and she was aware of another explosion in the background, though she couldn't consciously understand what it was. The Osprey dashed overhead now, barely seven feet above her. She raised an arm and gripped a railing to shield against the massive blast of air that came with it, and second later, the Osprey impacted the ocean.

It hit at an angle, and the left wing snapped free, flying into the air as explosions rocked the Osprey's midsection. The plane flipped over, and it's back slapped the water, sending up huge sheets of liquid. Thick, black smoke rolled around and then up from orange flames, and a rain of fresh debris littered the bay as the Osprey began to sink as gallons of water glugged their way inside its open wounds.


Meanwhile, in the few moments after its last attack, the other plane found itself coming into the factory at much too low an altitude. The pilot tried to turn sharply up and away, but the right wing hit the edge of a spinning windmill blade. It snapped the wing, and the plane lost all control, spiralling backwards and straight into the ground, another mechanical corpse added to the expansive junkyard. The explosion was larger than the Osprey's, and the black smoke rose up in a mushroom cloud high enough for Laika to see on the helipad.

She'd never seen a plane crash, never even imagined one. Who ever expected angels to fall? From the rising tower of flame beyond the factory, her eyes lowered and followed the splatters of oil across the helipad, then rose to the Osprey, only part of its last wing above water. Soon it would be swallowed away, back to the abyss...

"Hey! ... He~ey!"

Laika blinked as she realized that was a word, a cry from somewhere. She looked around, expecting Marfusha, but then saw the movement in the water, approaching the helipad. It was a person - a survivor. He reached the edge, held out a hand and gasped, "Help a brother out."

Laika took hold of his arm and helped him climb up. He immediately stretched out on the ground and let out a sigh of relief. His clothes had been singed, his shoulder was still bleeding, but at least he'd made it. Laika crouched next to him and held out a hand.

"I'm Laika."

He slapped his hand onto hers and gave it a good up and down shake. "Albert," he said. "Folks call me 'Albert the Cat'."

"Why would they call you that?"

He let his arm fall back to the ground and laughed. "'Cause I got nine lives."

***

~But your daydreams stranded you, kept you from what you had to do, and life went on while you were paralyzed.~

Once bandaged and changed into dry clothes, Albert sat with Marfusha and Laika on a large balcony which extended from the Avachinsky command center. Between bites of a sandwich, he explained his narrow escape from the sinking Osprey, but Marfusha was more interested in other matters.

"You said the Chinese were after you," she stated. "Why would they do something like that?"

"Ain't you heard?" He leaned back in his chair. "China's gone independent. Actually, it's Chunko or something. The United Kingdom of Chunko." He laughed. "But everyone just calls it 'China'. Declared itself free and sovereign."

"And Greenpeace LET them?" Marfusha was amazed.

"Well, they sent troops, but then came the jets, escorting 'em into the territory. Soldiers all over the place. Evidently, the Chinese had been holding private councils, setting it all up over time."

Marfusha shook her head and let out a puff of breath. "And for what? Are they trying to take control?"

"Naw, according to the new ambassadors, they just wanted to make sure China got her fair share. Heh. Like they were getting a raw deal or something. They already had most of the population and technology, anyway."

Marfusha thought of the distance between themselves and Chinese land. "So why..."

"Did we have our little tail-rider?" Albert finished. "Well, there's still difficulties, see? China wants to keep up trade, but Greenpeace doesn't want to recognize the new government. So China's running a little interference, stealing shipments. Don't usually shoot us, though." His forehead wrinkled, and he stared out over what could be seen of Avacha Bay before it was swallowed by the smog. Somewhere under the deceptively calm waters laid the rest of the Osprey's crew - the unlucky ones.

Laika had been quietly listening, trying to understand how the world had changed so much in just a few months. She finally broke her silence to ask, "What do the Great Minds think of all this?"

"Does it matter?" Albert replied. "Security Council makes all defense decisions."

Laika raised an eyebrow. "What Security Council?"

"So it IS a new group." Marfusha had suspected as much.

"Man, you're all outta touch," Albert said with a laugh. "Half a year ago, some a' the Great Minds formed a sub-group to deal with the RoA, but then when China pulls its flag up, that sub-group comes out with all these messages about a crumbling coalition and rebellions, and next thing you know, they've got total control of the troops, most of the public support, and all the peace-loving Great Minds are getting sent off to deal with more 'domestic' issues."

"So we're being run by warlords." Marfusha crossed her arms and let out a sigh.

"Yeah, it ain't so bad," Albert told her. "Dangerous world, you know."

"The only dangerous thing I see is governments," Marfusha replied.

"Pft." Albert waved the comment away. "Bandits, animals, chemicals. The air'll kill you most places." He looked around and took a deep breath. "Not so bad here, though. S'nice. Strange for a factory."

"We mostly run on thermal, wind and hydro-electric."

"Mostly," Albert repeated. Marfusha's eye twitched at the perceived criticism.

"Speaking of atmosphere." Albert rubbed a hand over his chin. "The Great Minds got this new plan to break up all that smog. It's kinda... idealistic. Part of why they lost support, I guess. Not many people will go through a tunnel without a light at the end."

Laika perked up at the mention of something un-related to the fall of empires. "What kind of plan?"

"Oh, something about space pumps. Those old modules could be modified. Like a dialysis machine for the planet." He laughed. "Pretty damn clever, if you ask me, but it's getting the things up there that's the problem. D'you have any idea how few space programs there were? Or how much fuel a shuttle would take?"

Laika spun in her seat to look at the Tsiolkovsky Tower while the man continued.

"And the RoA has a good chunk of the spaceports. What's left over here is a real mess, and China's got at least half a' that. Where they gonna find shuttles? People to repair, to PILOT - Ha." He shook his head.

"That's a shame," Marfusha commented out of politeness.

Laika turned back with a wide smile. After the shocks of the past hour, things were finally back in her field. It felt like reality was crossing with her imagination, and she finally had something to offer. She pointed to the tower and stated, "I think I have a light for your tunnel."

"Oh no." Marfusha gave an unamused laugh and stood to block the tower from Laika's sight. "You can consider that tunnel closed."

***

~I am a new soul. I came to this strange world hoping I could learn a bit 'bout how to give and take.~
~But since I came here, felt the joy and the fear, finding myself making every possible mistake.~

The afternoon was filled with constant arguing between Marfusha and Laika. They would reach a peak and fall silent only to mutter something and start the whole thing again. Laika was adamant that P.K. could and should use its resources to help the world, but Marfusha insisted it was foolish, an impossible dream thought up by the same people who believed all of Eurafrasia would live in peace and harmony.

"I still believe in those things, too," Laika stated.

Marfusha snorted. "You would."

With the slamming of a door, Laika was gone. Marfusha pretended not to care and sat in a quiet funk for several hours, until long after dark. Then Sputnik informed her that Laika hadn't returned and temperatures were quickly approaching zero. After several minutes of grumbling, Marfusha bundled herself in hat, jacket and scarf and headed out to search. She carried a walkie, and when Sputnik finally located Laika on a monitor, he passed the coordinates along.


Laika's position was a rather low catwalk where she could watch the lights of the Tsiolkovsky Tower. She had started higher, but eventually the winds forced her down. Logic and her shivering body told her to go back inside, but confusion and her aching heart refused to heed the call. Too many things had happened recently, splitting open her already cracking convictions, and she no longer knew what to think about anything.

She felt the weight of the Apollo-Soyuz medal against her chest and tried to find comfort in the thought of cosmonauts climbing into tiny capsules, putting their faith in the networks of man and nature to carry them beyond all known boundaries. So many small steps for man but giant leaps for the ghost of mankind. The cosmonauts danced with chaos, lived by luck and by luck brought to the world a new vision of itself, but how blind was the love of man? Blind enough that it confused its rules for truth and its perversions for perfection. Blind enough that it mistook helicopters for angels.

Laika felt the sting of her own criticism and trailed her fingers over her shirt, feeling the solidity of the medal below as her mind travelled back through the history of humankind. Existence was both fairytale and nightmare. The metal knight slayed the green dragon, and with its final bellow of pain, the dragon belched forth fire and smog that filled the air, and it made a toxic rain which rusted the knight. Thus wounded, the knight roamed the Earth and wailed his repentances.

Then came the mechanical angels, and the knights sang their 'Hallelujah's, but Heaven was only a cage in which the knights were blinded by white, held captive by the supplies with which the angels blessed them, and so they worked tirelessly for the Powers That Be, the higher authority, but never, in all that time, did that pantheon of benevolence cure the aching joints of the rusted knights.

The story was missing something, wasn't it? That's right. The princess. She who swept in to awaken the sleeping dead with her kiss...

Laika suddenly thought of her old friend from Mesopotamia, of death and renewal and how sometimes no matter how loudly you shouted, no one seemed to hear you, and she had to wipe away the tears which started to spill over her cheeks. The streak of wetness caught the wind and made her face even colder.

The princess, she realized, was not meant to save the knights but to resurrect the green dragons, and those great beasts would take to the skies. They would eat the toxins to fuel their fire and in a great holocaust would sweep the earth of all its refuse, leaving rich ash in their wake.

Then the green dragons would smash the false idols, those isolated structures of concrete white with the deceptive name of 'greendome', and Chaos, the ghost of all that had ever been, would reclaim its rightful place.

And those knights? Laika grinned. When the greendomes crumbled, the force of it all would crack open the rusted shells and release the people trapped within, and they'd go to the waters - heated and purified by the dragon's breath - and wash the orange stains from their skin and find themselves part green - part dragon - something they'd forgotten after too many years of wearing armour.

Unable to contain the jubilation of such an ending, Laika gripped the catwalk's railing and leaned back to let out loud, unbridled laughter.

It was then that Marfusha came upon her. Arms crossed, hands tucked under her armpits for warmth, she grumbled at the sight of her cheerful friend. There was something unsettling about a woman laughing her head off on a catwalk while subzero winds flapped fiercely at her clothing.

"Hey!" Marfusha called out. It took several more shouts before Laika controlled her laughter. She tucked her hands into her jacket pockets and called back, "Who goes there? Be ye princess or knight?"

"What?" Marfusha was in no mood for games.

"I'll take that as knight." Some of the whimsy had gone from the moment, and Laika turned to stare up at the Tsiolkovsky Tower. Where did that fit in the story, she wondered? A leftover turret of the knights, it led to another world, where the fire of the sun could still be harvested and the smog could be cleared away. It was a mystical clocktower by which the princesses would rewind the earth to the time before the death of the dragon. That was it, wasn't it? Sunlight was the key to rekindling the dead.

"Would you come in already?" Marfusha demanded. "And dammit all, start carrying a walkie. I don't like having to come out here just to yell at you."

"I'm not going anywhere," Laika insisted, "Until you agree we are starting a space program."

Marfusha sighed. "It was a last ditch agenda to try and gain popular support for the Great Minds, so even if it was possible - which it's not - it won't be happening now."

"My gods are deposed," Laika stated. "And my angels are fallen, but that doesn't change me."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Nothing is heard unless we say it. Nothing is seen unless we light it. The circuit has to be complete or nothing works."

"Look, fine. Come in or don't." Marfusha dismissed her friend with a wave of her arm and turned to leave.

"Don't you walk away from me!" Laika shouted. She moved along the catwalk and gestured fiercely with an arm. "Don't you dare walk away. You brought us out here, you know. Away from anyone or anything else, to the middle of nowhere, but a nowhere with a space elevator. That can't be coincidence. Of all the factories, of all the places-"

"I chose it because it was as far away from Mesopotamia as I could get!" Marfusha shouted. "I had good reason, but you couldn't get the stardust out of your eyes long enough to see they were smug, controlling bastards."

"So what if I couldn't," Laika challenged. "What does that have to do with cleaning the atmosphere now?"

Marfusha tightened her jaw for a moment, then crossed her arms. "Reality's a lot different than the romantic notions from all your ancient storybooks. Space is dangerous. It's a cold, dead place."

"So's Earth."

Marfusha pressed a hand over her eyes and shook her head.

"You'll never escape them," Laika told her. "We're all in this together, and that means we make weapons or we don't get necessities. We burn fossil fuel or we run out of power. We give them water or they send soldiers." She leaned over the railing. "You want more security? You want a bargaining chip at that table? Make Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky a center of expertise in travel and conservation. Make us so valuable they can't ignore us any longer."

"It won't work." Marfusha rested her hands on her hips. "It's so far out of our league."

"What league?" She crossed her arms. "You mean the league that just split in two and lost China?"

Marfusha took a deep breath. "Would you come down from there so we can discuss this like civilized people? Inside, over dinner, where it's not reaching -10 windchill."

Laika quickly estimated her height, then leapt over the railing. Her boots slammed against the dirt, knees bending and hands pressing against the ground to help absorb the shock. Marfusha growled, a strained sound of frustration which made Laika grin.

"We can do it," Laika stated. "Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky - and all of us - we're going to bring the sun back to the world."

"You're doing that thing again, where you completely take leave of reality."

Laika turned to face her. She could feel the weight of the Apollo-Soyuz medal warm against her chest, and she grinned. "Yes. I am."

~Wish on everything. Pray that she remains proud and strange and so hopelessly hopeful.~

~*End*~

[dangerous xx L I A S O N]

You were wrong and you were right
But you were a l w a y s

Yay for finishing Flea! Great job! I have yet to read it [and I doubt I'll have time to until the contest is finished. Time management issues and all] but I'm sure it's great and I probably have a lot to live up to. xD

The perfect song of little light
In my new day

[Da Flea]

There's a starman waiting in the sky.
He'd like to come and meet us, but he thinks he'd blow our minds.

Imo: Thanks. I'm just relieved to have it finished. My brain feels like it blew a fuse. xp

Yes, it's best to read it after you finish writing. It's a head-spinner, and not always in a good way. @__@

I still need to read PMS's. But not now. I've been staring at the computer too much today. I don't even know how my fingers manage to keep typing. Yay for kinesthetic memory... or whatever it's called. <_<

There's a starman waiting in the sky.
He's told us not to blow it, 'cause he knows it's all worthwhile.

[RodIldKitsune]

Ho s**t, Flea. That is a quite impressive length. But like everyone else it seems I lack the time to tackle it this weekend. I'll get to it soon though. ;D

[Itazu]

And how can you wake up,
With someone you don't love...

Merci, Flea.

I'm going ot have some time management problems next month with Script Frenzy, judging this, school, volleyball, soccer AND audition season starting up sometime soon (depending on how fast writers catch up...).

I'll probably DIE from stress, but, whatever.

And not feel slightly fazed by it?