Cassivelaunus

“Cassivelaunus”

a prologue

Gary Baker, November 2013

(a part of the 'Song of the Julara' excerpts)

[(Sorry this piece is so late!)]

Stars! Look, there are stars!

Hya lifted his chin, breaking chunks of condensed dust and lichen in long stretch marks that hadn’t been moved in centuries. It took his eyes a second to realize what exactly he was looking at, the jungle that had grown around him turning much of the scene into scratches of darkness over the brighter backdrop of pinhole points that speckled the greater backdrop. He didn’t think they were stars, despite the voice so deep within his blessed consciousness telling him so. Hya would have said they seemed more like fireflies, if anyone so much as asked him, not that anyone ever had. 

Sure enough, however, there they were, blazing orbs of fusion and energy aloft in deep space somewhere, eons from his little rock, and yet so very close just then. Their spectroscopy lined up along the edges of his vision, numbers and letters, all characters of an age long gone and long since deceased, that seemed to hover where his eyes couldn’t comprehend; almost along the perpendiculars, though still accessible enough.

outDated

“outDated”

a short story

Gary Baker, August 2013

Never before had I yearned for death to come as much as I do now. For years have I put up with this affliction, and just one more day will be the end of my sanity and humanity alike.

You see, this all started as great as things could get, I was the top of my class, the highest rank achieving the highest high a man could receive by non-organic means. I had it all. Dreams became reality at my feet and leaders came from afar just to meet me, a simple man turned god in less than a decade.

But I’m getting ahead of myself; my name is Jessie Jack -- no not Jackson like the thief or whathaveyou from millennia ago -- former CEO of iGiga, lead producer of humano-mechanical entertwination. So that’s not a real word, but I’m disgustingly rich so who cares; in two months that word will be lighting the pages of dictionaries across the globe.

Memory

"Memory"

a short story

Gary Baker, August 2013

We thank you all for coming, and assure you that you have had the best of times tonight.” The primly dressed woman in pale khaki trousers and skin-tone stockings gave a curt nod, then proceeded off the stage and back to her end of show routine.

Ghera stared at the empty stage, barely two feet deep before a massive white cloth backdrop rose up like the face of a cliff. Murmurs rose from the audience as they shifted and set about leaving, though Ghera couldn’t understand why.

They just got here, not ten minutes ago according to the hard drive in his temporal reactor chip.

“Hey,” he leaned toward the cute grandma-like woman sitting next to him with large pearls around her neck and turquoise teardrop stones hanging from her ears. “Why is everyone leaving?”

She smiled as though he’d fallen asleep. “Why, because it’s over, of course.” She shrugged and settled into her coat with a sigh, “and it was such a ‘best of time’ sort of occasion, wasn't it?”

Ghera blinked. “So... I slept through it?”

Tablets, part 1

“Tablets”

a short story

Gary Baker, July 2013

(part 1 of 2)

Alright,” said the shaggy thin man through lips pursed around a thin cigarette. “Alrightalrightalright. Here.” He pushed a hand toward a well dressed businessman sitting against the brick wall in the midnight alley beside him and dropped a gray tablet into his hand as he reached for it. Seeing the speculative look on the businessman’s face, the shaggy man nodded, “the ‘calmer’. We call it ‘le neutral’, don’ever take s’m’others withou wonna these in between.”

The businessman, audibly referring to himself as ‘Cookie’ for the purposes of this meeting, looked to the two quiet men on the cement next to Shaggy. One watched him like a hawk from mascara-lined eyes and piercing-riddled features, while the other seemed entranced in his near-empty bottle of low-grade vodka, would-be grout-cleaner trickling down his chin to seep into the pores of his ragged coat.

The Summoning

"The Summoning"

a short story

Gary Baker, July 2013

I know this is mute, and I hate that I have said as much before.

Delicious ecstatic throes of awe drown out all but the remainder of what exists inside, a drilling, pounding surreal glob of what cannot be understood. It sits there, wondering what might be out and about if it could cease and be deceased, always out of reach of those in the vicinity.

See I was running when it came to me, when this bitch of an idea hit me square in the chest like rocket fire from a blaring trumpet of vinyl hell. I staggered like a drunk, suddenly void of air within my lungs, hands reaching for throats that eclipsed my grasping, groping fingers; my nails burned for blood, my eyes yearning for endless red, and my teeth longing for an ever-more violent form of red.

The Wasted Game

"The Wasted Game"

an excerpt

Gary Baker, March 2013

(proposal for a larger idea of forced time-travel castaways)

The Roman cocked his head curiously as the ranger made his way down the slope toward the fissure.

With determination set in, Keith sidled over a small ledge of oxidized ironstone and peered out into the canyon below. The drop was intense; he could have fallen over and not hit anything for several breaths.

Looking back to the others, he shook his head.

The Roman understood instantly. It was eerie, at times, just how fast the quiet man caught on. Xi could sit on a log talking about anything for long stretches without the man even letting a thought pass by unnoticed. It was clear how he had become what the ranger was slowly becoming less convinced as a gladiator and more of a war general.

A Change of Fates

"A Change of Fates"

an excerpt

Gary Baker, May 2013

(part of a much larger project)

After Anna left, Corporal Roi Anxo leaned onto his lifted knees and heaved a loud sigh. It was anyone’s guess how he was going to get through this alone. Not only did he have obligations to return to the well for the armed services that payed him, but now he also had a reporter to help and a press organization to save.

With his chin resting on his knees, the soldier turned his right palm to gaze at the reporter’s card from the corner of his eyes. The business card itself was primarily white, printed on thick canvas-like paper, with a red and purple ribbon effect twisting together aimlessly at the lower left corner. Across the top, in bold black calligraphy, stood the words “The Orderly Tribune” which spanned almost the whole way across. Just beneath the institution’s name reflected the name “Anna Kilinger, Editor in Chief” in reflective maroon lettering of a somewhat smaller font. At the bottom, strewn from the ribbons all the way to the opposite side of the card, the reporter’s phone number, email, and organization number had all been printed in a clear font of roughly the same size as the reporter’s name and title.

First Contact, part 1

"First Contact"

a short story

Gary Baker, March/April 2013

(part 1 of 2)

Acier watched as the alien craft drew near like a god landing from the heavens to visit what it was that had been created long ago. The ship was almost virtually a polygonal tear: half-octagonal in the rear where the engines, though currently off, glimmered with a resplendent turquoise glow, with the front section slowly tapering to a spear-like point.

Just below the tip of the nose rest the ring of thick metallic glass to the main command center, appearing quite like a band of oil with innumerous colors shimmering in the rays of the Earthen sun. By design, this very ring indicated a clear sense of interstellar physics that humanity still had yet to understand.

Acier, a nonhuman living on what the Eartheans called “the Ring”, knew all there was to know of this very science and technology. He knew that the craft was built more like a skyscraper than any ship the humans had devised, that the force of generated gravity caused by such tremendous acceleration needed to propel such a mammoth creation would necessitate floors perpendicular to the course trajectory. He knew that at high velocity the heads of the beings running the craft would be closest to the nose, and that this not only made things easier overall for energy saving uses but also of more quickly-gained “space legs”.

But the Earthean Ring was enormously more peculiar than the creations of Acier's own kind.

Made up of a similarly mammoth number of “crate”-like modules, the Ring encompassed the

Just Beyond

"Just Beyond"

character working

Gary Baker, March 2012

Drel watched the tall rectangular box strapped to the altar across from his dark form with thick coils of rope and metal. In the dim candlelight almost no one could tell just what, exactly, the box was, much less what it might contain.

All they see, he thought grimly, is white marble and planks. It took serious concentration to not react to what he saw, however, with the obvious reverberations of panic exuding from within the planks like oozing sewage. Adding in the incessant smells of horror of the same origin, Drel came closer and closer to insanity by the minute.

Tall candles stood like stalagmites in the cavernous nightfall cathedral built deep into the mountains of Morrah, with flickering shadows of loyal cult members awaiting their prize that Nahuum would soon reveal. The man of the hour stepped up from the eclipse of shadow beyond the altar revealing an abnormally tall man with gruff biceps and ripped jeans from ages passed as a lowly farmer. His unblemished sand-toned skin seemed to reflect just enough light to make the appearance all the more startling, and he traced a finger along the outer edge of the planks while he walked around.

It was all a show, Drel knew, and soon Nahuum would have his cronies -- initiates the cultists would call them -- upend the box and remove the lid. But the proprietor would give the moment time to climax, allowing the crowd to frenzy and the contents to give in on one easy act of stalling.

Song of the Julara

“Song of the Julara”

by Gary Baker, March 2012

(continual pieces to a larger project)

PART1: the surface
Hugh Donegan lifted his left hand, scrubbed it through his long, silky, blonde hair and pulled a few strands out from the tail hanging low on his neck. A warm breeze picked up, bringing the scents of mulch, rot, and the thick musty stagnancy of floor-level decay. Shaking his head lightly he pulled a small once-white cloth, soaked with sweat and dirt, and wiped it across the deep woody-bronze of his face mask and goggles.

He hated having to wear these contraptions, hated having to tromp through sticky mud and debris to get to the surface laboratory every day, and hated the fact that after seven long years they still had no clue as to how the humans might ever move back and repopulate the surface world.

It had been centuries upon centuries since the last human had ever stepped foot on these grounds, back then calling the terrain tropical--but the idea that humans had ever lived down here, Hugh assumed was no less than a fairy tale propagated by the various religions across the cloud cities. According to their myths: a great Cataclysm, aptly named just that by religious leaders, struck the planet like a vicious blow in the boxing ring, and sent humans high into the sky when a deadly toxin began to blanket the world. This toxin dramatically changed things in various ways, never quite killing right off the bat but

Trifecta: The Rave Suit Rebellion

“Trifecta: The Rave Suit Rebellion”

Gary Baker, April 2012

(prologue to a longer project)

Rodney watched the sea of human bodies as they chanted and screamed the bands nickname: "Rave Suit." The knot in his stomach grew with a jolt of electricity.

Beautiful dark-haired, fair-skinned Rose calmly stepped up to the mic, waving her arms to heighten the madness. Standing before the mic, clad in tight black-nylon leggings, black stiletto heel boots, and a pitch-black sports bra that barely hid her chest, she smirked at the many hover-cams floating over the audience like bubbles.

Suddenly her legs slammed her dangerous leather boots to the stage with a loud crack, silencing the ungodly-loud, shadowed crowd. Arms outstretched dramatically, she eyed the cameras seductively. "My people!" She shouted in her girlishly deep voice, answered by more audience madness. "We all flock here tonight for something." A pause for effect.