User Tools
Mia3008
Mia3008. Rough Draft Novel by Royce Barber. 11-13-2008. Written in the form of a diary.
.
Setting: Space Stations and Earth Gardens.
.
Time: The year 3008.
.
I'm writing in a new digital journal today. The old built-in one was broadcasting my personal entries to public radios. This journal entry is dated the 11th month, 13th day, of the year 3008. I'm aboard a malfunctioning transportation space ship. The ship is headed from a mechanical moon colony, to Earth. Earth is a beautiful garden planet where no one lives. People are only allowed on Earth as tourists on vacation. The entire Earth is a lush green wildlife preservation. Everyone lives on space ships and scraps of tattered, tangled junk storage-tanks floating through space, tethered by magnetics to the Earth's moon. The moon itself is stained multiple colors by humanities sprawling mountain of floating junk. I like the blue stripe from a series of chemical explosions a year ago, attempting to outline a runway project for presidential ships. The runway was sabotaged, like everything else around here. Now the president must ride in a transport ship like anyone else. The various levels of society all must ride the same junk transport ships to get from the moon to earth. There are many security guards aboard the transport ship. I'm a security guard, writing you this letter from within my armored suit. This suit is completely automated with Artificial Intelligence, so I generally watch TV and help direct traffic. It's my job to keep the suit functioning, as it's quite broken most of the time. Little blinky lights, steam, and gears are always blinking, wheezing, and spazing about like robotics do. I just swat at my arm battery pack and the suit pauses for a moment to make sure it's not under attack. This is the peaceful time when I write my journal entries. Often the screen flickers and I see the view perspective of other guard suits. Interesting things I see. I saw someone I knew today from another guards camera, but the image scrambled as the suit battery died. I touched the recharging pad on the wall, and my suit started administering shocks of electricity, thinking my heart had stopped. I managed to leap away from the wall and let my suit die again. Someone came along an hour later and let me out of the very heavy suit, into one that worked a bit less. To an onlooker, I was apparently leaping about the place doing some sort of musical that the suit was picking out of the airwaves. I'm going to bed.
.
This entry is dated 11thMonth, 14thDay, 3008.
Something interesting happened to me this morning. I was stationed outside the ship as a less fortunate family was making their way to my elaborate transport ship. I mentioned in an earlier entry that I saw someone I knew. Well this is that someone, stepping right in front of me. His name is Brian, and he complimented me on a nice clean entrance way. He brought his wife, sons, and daughter Mia who I used to babysit before becoming a “royal guard”. The ship we are all now standing in, had been cleaned last night by a window breaking, causing air to escape into the vacuum in space. Many apartments were destroyed as a wall of the ship was torn off. I hope no one was sucked out into space. Normal thing around here. I have a tracking device on my rather heavy lunch pale, so I later watched a video of it being torn through a window and crunched up against some ones expensive looking shuttle pod. Thankfully money is no big deal at this day and age, but that family may just hold a grudge against me for my lunch breaking their vehicle. I was joking with Brian about the smooshed vehicle, and he told me a dirty secret. He was renting that vehicle from an art collector who loved it. Small universe. Brian was in the area because he picked up on my lunch pales tracking signal right after I saw him on my guard suit screen. Apparently there was some data feedback loop from my suit and the suit who saw Brian. Maybe that suit somehow recognized Brian's face as a medical contact for my suit? When the ship wall blew apart, Brian's car automatically headed straight for the signal in my lunch pale. No more car. Brian's family was safely inside their bunker, bank vault, or whatever they live in. Not so much a bank vault, only the rich live in those. When they emerged from their programmed slumber, they were a bit confused. I'll try to help them replace the car. I asked how he could haggle a fancy ride like that, and Brian said he helped design it. Car designers really aren't needed much these days. This wasn't just any old shuttle pod, car, or whatever it is…was. This was really high tech and had a navigation system independent from the horribly flawed system my guard suit uses. This car had a clear smooth windshield, squishy foam seats, elegant wooden control console. This car had it all. Real wood is impossible to come by in space. Everything here is simulated. I invited Brian and his family to my new apartment, due to my old one being destroyed by space.
.
This entry is dated 11thMonth, 15thDay, 3008.
It so happens that it was my lunch pale that cracked the window and tore the side of the ship off. I got the damage report this morning. The same lunch pale that smashed Brian's car. The car he designed. It wasn't a very good ship anyway. I found out he was about to enter it in a contest, and would have won by a long shot. This would have been his moment to make it big. You never know what you have until you never had it.
.
This entry is dated 11thMonth, 16thDay, 3008.
It turns out my lunch pale had flown through the ship window, because it was lodged inside an air vent. What was it doing in there?
.
This entry is dated 11thMonth, 17thDay, 3008.
It turns out my lunch pale, which was lodged inside the air vent, accumulating air pressure, and was put there by Brian's daughter Mia as a joke. How did she have it in the first place? It was kind of funny.
.
This entry is dated 11thMonth, 18thDay, 3008.
It turns out that the contest Brian was going to enter with his spiffy car, was rigged. He would have won, been promoted to a presidential art group, and never again seen the light of day. Our president has never seen daylight, he has been in an elegant office since birth. He knows not the toil and hardships of living in space.
.
This entry is dated 11thMonth, 19thDay, 3008.
It turns out that Brian's wife had wanted Brian to enter his fancy car into the contest, in which he would have become leader of a presidential art crew. She needed the status to gain medical equipment for her son and for Mia who both have some kind of moderate illness that gives them dreams when they sleep. No one dreams these days. It's said that dreams happen when the brain is leaking information. Data, to be specific. Each human for the last two hundred years is part of a large information storage network. A backup of our Internet. My brain is crammed with technical schematics for this ship, so I don't have room to store Internet files, unless I wanted to risk damaging my memories. Information can be imported and exported from the human brain, but not memories. Memories are one of our most prized pieces of humanity we have left.
.
This entry is dated 11thMonth, 20thDay, 3008.
Half our armor suits are in the shop being overhauled. Who knew this day would come. I saw my legs. I ran a great distance on a treadmill today. Apparently my legs are kept in shape by electric shocks from inside the armor suit. It shocks more than factory specified, apparently dangerously so. I'm going to try out for a popular basketball team, be popular for a few days, then be asked to leave the team so I can be an armor guard again. I might stop being that. I might take up doing nothing for a few months. Just hide out in space, have some bonfires. Be natural…in space. I've never touched a basketball.
.
This entry is dated 11thMonth, 21stDay, 3008.
Turns out that treadmill I ran on yesterday, ran up a bill for my employer who is our government. The government automated filters disabled all treadmills. Fitness gyms space-wide are asking where I could have possibly found a treadmill capable of running up an expensive bill and setting off the automated filter system. Well, I have access to various design labs, and this treadmill wasn't ever meant to be in production. Yet the government automated filters are still in effect, many hours later. I think no one knows how to disable them. Why are treadmills able to be disabled by remote, anyway? What has our space government done to us. Yes, the word space is of humor to me. I need to be more careful what restricted areas I enter. Treadmills aren't safe these days.
.
This entry is dated 11thMonth, 22ndDay, 3008.
I've been banned from discussing today's events. I am being transferred to a royal guard duty.
.
This entry is dated 11thMonth, 23rdDay, 3008.
Royal guard duty didn't work out. Too many accidents happened while I was there. My armor is pretty amazing, I customize it. It is a very buggy armor regardless, and causes things to break, such as walls and floors. Good news, the space-wide treadmill ban has been lifted. But, the treadmill alarm incident set off the AlarmAlarm. It's an alarm no one knew about, which goes off when any other major alarm goes off. What we don't know is what systems the AlarmAlarm is tied into. Whatever happened to my lunch pale.
.
This entry is dated 11thMonth, 24thDay, 3008.
Seeking: Rather heavy blue and purple lunch pale. It is dangerous so I'd like to get it back. It contains a force-field which can cut a ship in half. Please do not open it, and if you do, please do not eat my pears. They should still be good.
.
This entry is dated 11thMonth, 25thDay, 3008.
Today I went looking for my lunch pale. It's tracking beacon isn't showing up in my suit. Nothing is for that matter. This suit was overhauled and works except the tool belt, which contains all useful devices.
.
This entry is dated 11thMonth, 26thDay, 3008.
My toolbelt is handy for looking sharp. Would be nice if someone would fix it though. My lunch pale could fix it.
.
This entry is dated 11thMonth, 27thDay, 3008.
The AlarmAlarm has a side effect after all. No one reset it in time, because no one knows how, so it set off the AlarmAlarmAlarm. Not really sure what the AlarmAlarmAlarm is about.
.
This entry is dated 11thMonth, 28thDay, 3008.
The AlarmAlarmAlarm makes sense now. All ArmorGuards are sealed inside their apartments. Apparently the AlarmAlarmAlarm was designed to seal off all modern doors not compliant with it's old fashioned design. If only I had my lunch pale, I could cut open this ship and be a hero. Will I starve in this apartment. I'm sure something will eventually rip the side of the ship off. That would be classic, except that I like breathing. I hope everyone has a breathing mask, I know I don't.
Discussion