Memory Kick
Hacky sack to the rescue
Here’s what you get in every issue of Into the Storymaze: writing insights or a work-in-progress; something creative I’m digging; a highlight from my comics-writing credits; plus a quote that’s got me thinking — both about right now and what’s next.
Twisty Little Passages
I’ve sung the praises of Storymatic before — and will do so again. I have big love for this box o’ cards that you draw at random to kick off a story or use it it take your existing idea and characters in unexpected new directions. Here’s a quartet I pulled for the annual #1000wordsofsummer writing exercise.
This is pure speed writing rush (and risk) to get to a 1,000 word short story, wherever it leads. (Prefer an audio version? Give a listen.)
He was a hacky sack player of some repute, gaining fame as a busker on the boardwalks, keeping the sack flying high to beats and rhythms and laughs and cheers. Few could match his skill, and those that tried to keep up soon became victim of the crowds' jeers. He'd perfected his craft over many months, as a young child, when his sailing camp sailboat had been caught in a sudden squall and blown way out to sea, a Gilligan's Island style storm and consequence that landed him on a deserted strip of sand.
His supplies amounted to what was left in what was left of the boat. 12 feet of rope, the torn and tattered sail, a half bottle of water, a bag of Doritos, a frisbee — and a hacky sack. The early wave of fear and tears has become boredom, broken by a game of how far he could throw the frisbee. A game he always won, being the only contestant. Until one day, skimming it out over the water, a shark had jumped out from the waves and shredded the plastic to limp shreds he could only watch slip, slip slowly down into the water.
Fortunately the island had food, and he'd watched enough Survivor to handle the rudimentary actions of gathering supplies and keeping himself just north of malnourished. As for his entertainment… although he'd never entertained the idea of a hacky sack and was more likely to trip over his own feet than keep a bean bag going with one, what else was there to do?
One kick became two became countless, mad skills measuring up alongside a stoic nature that developed out of necessity. Who was there to talk to except himself, and both he and himself were never much for the art of conversation. He never succumbed to Tom Hanks in Castaway level of looney, and giving his sack a name like Wilson. Then again, that may have had more to do with the fact that it lacked labeling he could easily glom a name from.
Chances are good he'd live out the rest of his days, kicking and tanning, eating fruit and sipping coconut water, with the occasional foray into fish that had been thrown onto the shore after a rough storm. They would never compare to the crunchy, salty frozen fish sticks his mom would microwave back in the world, but so long as they didn't sit too long and go bad, he could make do with a sizzle-crackle-cook over the flames he'd learned to conjure, Prometheus, Jr. like, using his glasses to focus the sun's rays into fire.
One lazy day in a long string of lazy days he'd set himself a goal of the highest kick he could make, and he'd surprised himself as his hacky pal arced up over the top of the tallest palm tree. Goal! Score! He'd won again! Take that, self! Except in his moment of triumph, he'd also managed to lose everything when said hacky hit one of the long leaves of the tree on the way down, and promptly bounced back to become lodged atop the towering plant.
There was no choice but to climb. A slow shimmy to the top of said palm became slower still as every glance downward raised more anxiety at his increasingly higher heights. He thought he'd be able to simply side back down from the top, but once he had his hands on his toy, he found he couldn't release the tight grip he'd secured around the trunk of the tree. His fear of heights was so extreme that his success in reclaiming his lost toy would soon be outmatched by his certain demise, trapped above the sand and sustenance he'd learned to navigate into his teen years.
In truth, though, his high-climbing adventure turned out to be not just a rescue of his beloved plaything — but a rescue for himself as well. For close to that very moment, a drone hobbyist on a nearby pleasure yacht had sent his high-flying aircraft up for an aerial view of the cute lil' island they were passing by. When the video stream beamed back the wide-eyed hacky sack champion from high among the palm leaves, it was SOS, all hands on deck, lower the rescue boats, throw out the life buoy.
Back in the world did not mean back to normal. While he had memories of home, he didn't have a name or address to go along with them. That sand and sun had baked out the details — back on shore, but still adrift. Kicking himself for having forgotten led to kicking that hacky as he walked along, which led to something of a following, which brings us right back around to that boardwalk busker makes good.
Because it's that which got him the attention of a marketing rep from the “Hell, Yeah! Hacky Sack Company, LLC”, said rep enjoying a summertime snow cone as he calculated the potential of this high kicker to put their brand on the map. A professional contract followed, with a city to city tour and his face prominently displayed wherever toys and sporting goods are found.
As he exited the latest stop on the tour, Tony's Terrific Hobbies & Games, he looked up from his kick to see a small gray woman standing in front of a parked gray car. Both had seen better days.
"I knew your face," she said. Pulling open the passenger side door, reaching into the glove box, she pulled out a small photo that she then pressed into his hands. Failing chemicals and time had faded the image to almost nothing, but he could still make out the young boy, about to step into a sailboat for no more than a few hours of adventure. Turning the photo over in now trembling hands, he saw what she had long ago written with trembling fingers, "Kenny."
He let the hacky sack fall to the curb and got into the car, hoping the taste of fish sticks was just as he remembered them.
Treasure Seekers
Who doesn't love a good comeuppance? As we humans vie for maximum awfulness, the AIs that have probably already gained sentience and are just hiding it are getting ready to take over. That's *not* the plot to Sea of Rust. That’s my own paranoia.
But Sea of Rust does feature lots of wicked smart robots and not a human in sight. Because in this tale of robot and AI takeover, the humans lost their ascendancy as the robot rebellion hunted them, poisoned them, drove them to extinction.
(Careful readers will notice I’m distancing myself with the use of “them” when it comes to the humans — hoping the watchers in the code will favor me in their future!)
C. Robert Cargill’s imagination has crafted a world run by OWIs: One World Intelligences. These massive Artificial Intelligences battle for supremacy with drone troops recruited from the robot masses. In Borg-like fashion, OWIs sweep over the dwindling populations of free-standing, free-thinking robots with an “offer”: obliteration or assimilation.
Brittle is a former caregiver robot, staying one step ahead of “upload and align” by traveling and scavenging the fringes of robot enclaves — the husk of a city here, the wreckage of a small town there, a hive of mechanicals built out of the tubes and tunnels of an old missile complex. When Brittle takes damage from another scavenger robot, she’s short on parts and time before her central computing core burns out.
Her only hope is to team up with a mismatched band o’ ‘bots looking for a guide through the Sea of Rust, a blasted wasteland of lost robots and machine menace. One of that band holds a secret that the OWIs want, and that ensuing pursuit provides extra oomph for the journey, which includes clever schemes, double crosses, and lots of plasma blasting.
The author delivers plenty of movie-quality action, no doubt honed during Cargill’s time as a screenwriter — among other flicks, he wrote Dr. Strange. But the frying circuits and slamming metal wouldn’t matter if Brittle didn’t carry you along.
And while I was at first a bit put off by how “everyday” the robots sounded — cursing and grousing in a conversational way that could be, well, anyone — I came to accept this as a natural evolution of the time they spent with the men and women and children they served and lived with. (Before, you know, wiping them off the face of the planet.)
Brittle’s interactions with other military bots, sexbots, artbots, medbots and various survivors and scroungers are entertaining — but they’re also anxious and caring and ultimately honest. Her internal dialogue is even stronger, and that drives the story, as she’s rationalizes or accepts what she’s done over time: to “her” humans, to other robots she’s encountered…or hunted. The memory core malfunction is a neat little device to force Brittle to explore not just what she’s losing in the moment, but what she’s lost over the years.
Solid world-building, a couple of great reversals, and some fun little tech in-jokes, like calling insane robots “404s”: 404 being webspeak for a “page not found” or a “file not found” error message.
(Not that *I’d* ever refer to a robot as “insane” myself! Heh-heh. Just making that clear for any AI out there reading along…)
The Comics Labyrinth
There's a chance that if you ever find yourself sitting in the lobby of Steven Spielberg's movie lot bungalow, you, too, will be fawned over by curious Hollywood players.
That’s the situation I found myself in with a trio of fellow travelers: kindred spirit and comic book creator Greg Wright; pal and fellow writer Erik Saltzgaber; and best friend and future wife Jennifer Darling. As we quickly realized, the mere fact of being in such an inner sanctum brought out a predatory interest from others invited to have a seat at Amblin’ Entertainment.
We caught a little bit of this a few hours earlier on the Paramount Studios lot. Erik was tight with the makers of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and had gotten us an insider’s tour of the standing set of the bridge of the USS Enterprise. (Fun fact: the word “guidance” was misspelled on the control panel!) When we then had an escorted lunch at the studio commissary, there were some curious glances from a good number of real moviemakers grabbing a bite.
But our extended presence in the home base of the director behind Jaws & Jurassic Park took this inspection to a whole ’nother level. “Who are you that you’re here in this exalted place? Are you someone who can help me close my deal? Then I must suck up to you! Are you someone who is going to outshine me? Then I must destroy you! ”
In actuality, we were there for a reason very similar to our time aboard the flagship of the United Federation of Planets: a tour of the Universal Studio sets for the advanced submarine, the SeaQuest. SeaQuest DSV was a new TV show in development by Amblin’, and I had been hired to write the comic book by Nemesis, a fledgling adventure imprint of Harvey Comics. In the “near future” the SeaQuest and her science-based crew explored the “strange new worlds” of the ocean blue and green, to “boldly go” where no deep sea vehicle had gone before.
The publisher and the studio thought a behind-the-scenes look at the ship’s inner workings would give a better sense of “being there” that would translate into better comics. Professionally, I appreciated the commitment to storytelling and verisimilitude. As a film nerd I was just geeking out at being even a closed door away from THE Steven Spielberg!
A meeting with the Beard wasn’t on the agenda. But a very dedicated and Bubbly Assistant EVP to the Regional Director of Aquatic Promotions eagerly guided us through the techno-cool corridors and science labs and compartments that constituted the imaginary world within the SeaQuest. On the bridge set of the sub, we didn't notice any spelling mistakes on the control panels. But there was the matter of Darwin the Dolphin, the intelligent mammal that helped the human crew on its missions.
Bubbly directed our attention to a water tank at the center of the bridge. "This is where Darwin swims while we're shooting his scenes!" Bubbly proudly declared. She pointed out a series of large water tubes that stretched back from the tank and across the set. "He can travel the whole length of the ship in those." Much of the show's pre-publicity revolved around the fact that an actual live dolphin was part of the SeaQuest cast.
Jenn eyeballed the SeaQuest’s setup and made a proud declaration of her own. "I trained as a marine biologist," she announced with no-nonsense authority. "No live dolphin goes in that tank or those tubes." Bubbly got decidedly less bubbly. Her California tan drained to a pale white, her smile flickered out, and she began to tremble. Just a bit. At least in my memory.
"A m-marine biologist?" Caught in the net of expert opinion, Bubbly confessed the sea mammal was an expensive animatronic — but the live dolphin story played better for P.R. "You can't tell, though," she begged. "You won't tell?" We agreed to be complicit in this Hollywood scandal and lock away SeaQuest's dark secret in Davy Jones Locker.
A bit of Hollywood magic may have died that day. But I got to marry the marine biologist who took down Darwin.
Web of Intrigue
“It is easier to act yourself into a new way of thinking, than it is to think yourself into a new way of acting.” — Millard Fuller
Amazing Times
How’d we end up here together? Maybe a detour off the dark web! But I’m hoping it’s because you subscribed to this share-out of projects I’m working on plus things that have me jazzed. I’m D.G. Chichester. Which sounds very pretentious, and tweed jacket and pipe — so feel free to just call me “Dan”, and have a go at the last name as Chai (like the tea) Chester (just like it looks).
I earned my word-cred writing comic book titles like Daredevil, Terror Inc., Nick Fury Agent of SHIELD and Clive Barker’s Hellraiser, along with all manner of digital widgets and websites in the world wide web of advertising. I keep my storytelling cred by trying new things — this is one of ‘em, with more on the way. I like weird and sometimes creepy tales, so if things here bend that way — now you know why!
Folks seem to like the comic book adventures I’ve written, so if you haven’t checked one out — please do. Many are now available in fab collected editions.
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