Month: November 2020

Categories
Short Story

Mech-cat Frisby

I. Frisby woke up in the light cool sun. A bird was chirping in the distance. Frisby got up licked his paws and started walking around the house. First he checked the south window. The shrubs had deposited more leaves. A gentle wind blew across the leaves. The sun shown through and made a shadow.

It was morning. There was a lot of work to do. Coffee was started. In the living room, Frisby was laying on top of the sofa gazing out the window. His hexagonal skin reflected the sun. Motes of dust played around his still form.

II. The mountain stands eternal. I just had to get away from the hustle and bustle. I travelled off the mountain path and found beyond an alcove a rock jutting that I could stand on. I took a picture of me standing on it. I examined the alcove. Near the floor was some moss and inside the rocks were darker in color and smooth to the touch.

III. I’ve come to the same spot. But this time accompanying me is Frisby. Frisby hasn’t aged a day since I got him nearly 20 years ago! What an astounding piece of technology. He will follow my every step and when I’m not looking he will be in front of me having taken a different path to satisfy his curiosity. I’ve taken the photo, the rocks are the same, and so is my cat. I’m the only one that has aged. I’d like to go further, off the beaten path, but I have my limitations.

IV. Each Mech-cat body allowed a degree of variation in function. Some came with larger battery packs or stronger legs & paws. Although unlike normal cats, they were perfectly symmetric. Any curving movement could be reproduced on the opposite side. The thinking was that if any system failed there would be an identical system on the opposite side ready to take up the function. The mech-cats had to endure any weather that a normal cat could endure and fend for themselves in the wild. Unlike normal cats, their skin was made up of a flexible array of solar panels.

All mech-cats were solar powered. They did not have fur or any need to eat. Under a microscope one could see their skin was actually a lattice of hexagons. Their skin was smooth like glass but you could grip it and feel the artificial muscle underneath that was warm to the touch. Due to the circulation of fluids that triggered the contractions within muscles, mech-cats had to maintain these circulatory networks by maintaining any even flow of fluids throughout the body. If you cut off the supply of fluids in this part of the mech-cat that existed only beneath the surface and not in the chassis or skeleton, it would cease to function, to move like a normal cat.

The designers felt each mech-cat should play with other mech-cats in order that they develop a personality and a way to test their overall abilities. Each cat was tested before sale and after it came off the assembly line.

During this phase mech-cats would play with other mech-cats, run around, and spend plenty of time at the sunny courtyard which was many times brighter than a normal courtyard due to reflecting panels, and was to the mech-cats a supercharging place and shared memory for nascent mech-cats.

Each mech-cat came with specific directions of how to function before they were ever turned on, not unlike how a kitten is programmed to feel for her mother. Mech-cats were designed to recognize humans. The technicians of the facility wore red uniforms and performed these recognizing tests. A common test was to take a cylindrical object and move it from side to side. A mech-cat should track the object if it is held by a human hand and to not track the object if it is held by a robotic arm.

Mech-cats differed from cats in behavior in that they did not groom themselves. It is recommended that you wipe down your mech-cat with a lint free rag and a light amount of water after outings. This is due to dust and deposits of minerals from water that accumulate on the surface of the mech-cat. Since mech-cats are solar powered this interferes with its performance. Mech-cats have a finely developed sense of smell for aerosols, paints, and other coatings because these materials if they cover the skin will lead to costly repairs. In its image recognition system, mech-cats can recognize spray paint & other paint cans and avoid them. It can tell the difference between an area where there has been a coating of paint that is still wet and the surrounding area. Besides, only using its sense of smell, it can pick up such differences. With its smell it can also tell the coming of a storm and detect any acids. In this way mech-cats like normal cats do not like water.

Moreover mech-cats in their mouths have sensors for radiation, radon & other nuclear material, natural gas, carbon monoxide, and other chemicals, noxious and potentially corrosive substances. Part of the reason is to protect the owner from harm. If there is a fire, the mech-cat will alert the owner. In cases of emergency, its normally colored eyes turn different colors; red in the case of fire or into bright flash lights if visibility is low in the smoke, and other colors or blinking patterns in case of other threats. All mech-cats come with three accessories, a lint free rag, a charging pad for cold & non-equatorial climates where the sun is not out for much of the year, and a tablet that it can communicate with and display various information like anything it finds & different maintenance information. It also shows its location and can be used to limit the boundaries of which they can travel & different rules about allowable movement, and different routines. For example, one routine is scaring off mice and another is to surveil and alert the home systems about intruders.

Mech-cats are stunningly beautiful creatures. They are like moving porcelain, their frame like both glass and muscle. Aside from a safe environment, access to the sun or charging pad, they do not need anything. Left to their own devices, they will categorize anything they find and do a simple chemical analysis to determine if it is harmless. They’ve been known to be quite finicky when it comes to dust and old objects, preferring more plastics, metals, & glass. When it is night, they’ll sometimes hop onto their owners lap as a heating source & also to bond what is probably the most interesting part of their lives. They feel a bit like a warm piece of molten glass, or a gel hot pack.

V. In case of death of an owner, the owner could plan that his mech-cat take certain actions. In Frisby’s case, he was free to go.

On his first day, he met some other mech-cats in the park. It was like meeting old classmates. Although all were owned except for him, he could play as hard as he wanted, it made for great pabulum or diversion, in what had been a fairly tame life with lots of stretching outside. They even licked his panels down. There was a sense to head north, following the sun during the summer and to return to the equator by walking along mountain ridges during the winter months, and vis-a-versa for southern hemisphere mech-cats.

In remembrance, Frisbee found the spot again and spent the day up there, sleeping in the alcove at night. He bounded off the rocks. He would stay in the mountains where the air was clean and sun was bright, and eventually rejoin his brethren in their pursuit of light and play.

Categories
Computer Games

Games I have known: Catacombs

Catacombs was a game where you played a ranger that shot arrows and explored a dungeon looking for an exit. There were trolls, skeletons, and demon monsters. Each monster had its own generator block. A common way to use the block in level design was to have the monsters in a contained area and then open that area so they began to overflow out of the area into the main map. This way all of the sudden many demons were flowing over the map. A lot of the fun in the game was the editor, where you could make mazes with traps and use these generator blocks. I believe there were some simple triggers that would make doors disappear if you stood upon them and also keyed doorways. It might have also been possible to destroy walls with certain weapons, maybe fire arrows. You could pick up arrows, coins, and keys. I really enjoyed playing this as a kid because it was simple to make your own levels and you could have huge sprawling areas where there were generator blocks placed throughout making it a huge danger area. There was also a nice logic with making rooms and placing treasure in them like the experience of designing a dungeon with stages and difficult areas.

Categories
Computer Games

Games I have Known: Glypha

In this game you ride on top of a bird. By pressing space you flap your wings which allows you to gain height, and then glide. The setting is Egyptian as if you are inside a crypt. Fighting is done by jousting where if you slightly above the enemy, other birds of prey with their own jousters, you win. On the bottom there is an egg that hatches enemies f you don’t pick it up. Walking on a surface is very slow, so it is faster to gain vertical distance then glide.

On the bottom however there is lava that will kill you. In the lave, if you get too close, a hand comes out and pulls you down. By flying up rapidly you might escape or if you fly just right, you can pull up the disembodied hand to the middle of the stage as a joke. Speed might also be an important factor in fighting. If another bird is moving as fast, they might have a computer advantage. With the hand slowing you down and pulling you down, the lance is more likely to hit your body and kill you. With several enemies flying around it becomes quite challenging.

Also if you are messing around I remember a Horus eye is summoned by lightning and hunts you down.

Categories
Computer Games

Games I have known: Greebles

Around the time I was in middle school, probably sometime before that, my favorite computer game was a game called Greebles. The name Greebles has as its background image the 2d fly and on the title screen lots of dark colors blues and blacks. The way the game works is that you are a tank 1×1 size on a 2d grid around 20 by 20 squares large. In the grid a maze is generated and within the maze there are enemies that are also 1×1 first starting with flies. On these first levels there are flies but on later levels there are all manner of enemies and enemy generators.

The key thing is that as a tank you can move at a normal speed around this maze and the bugs are also moving normally. By pressing the space key in the direction of a wall of the maze, the wall separates into a block that flies in the direction that you are facing. If that block hits a fly the fly collects on the side of the block along with any other flies. Against enemies, the collision is inelastic and when the block hits a wall on the other side the flies are squished and you get points with a convincing splat. When the flies are hit sometimes they spin and pileup in front of the block.

One of the first big mechanics is bomb blocks. When you propel a bomb block, you don’t need to hit other enemies to kill them. If a bomb block hits another bomb, they both explode, which in this case means, there is a loud bang and the blocks disappear. Any bomb blocks touching each other explode. Any blocks in the vicinity that are not bombs but have the ability to be propelled go in the direction the bomb exploded like shrapnel. Any enemy or ally including yourself that is adjacent to the explosion dies, this time blinking out of existence. I believe it is also possible that there is another block that is like a bomb block that is more sturdy that is on a timer, so it is possible to propel by a bomb block into another bomb area, thus the initial bomb triggers a chain reaction. It is possible to destroy a lot of enemies not only from the bomb but secondary effects like blocks being propelled. It is a common trick to shoot a bomb block down a hallway which will explode, disintegrating any block, another mechanic that cannot move, and propelling the blocks that make up the dead end down other hallways into other enemies.

If you are at the end of a hallway and an enemy is coming for you, you can propel blocks and try to make an escape. It is also possible to chomp blocks, although it takes some time to make them disintegrate. It might not matter though because on the opposite side there could be more Greebles.

There are a few special blocks. One of them you disintegrate and freezes enemies, another speeds you up, and another makes you invincible: I believe it is called death touch. There is also some money which doesn’t do anything I think just points, and extra lives. In later levels, Greebles are generated on a clock by generator blocks every 10 seconds or so. One way to destroy these generators is to surround it by ordinary blocks. When you propel a block sometimes it hits a wall and the collision is elastic, so the block bounces back. I don’t think it is harmful usually and you can ram into the block and push it into position. If a block is propelled by an explosion though I think it might kill you, or perhaps it just bounces off of you harmlessly. When the clock goes off around a surrounded generator it disintegrates. There are also in later levels blocks that don’t move and generators that don’t disintegrate. The game can become very difficult by developing more and more enemies with different features. Some are very fast. Others could be smart. Some on splatting might explode. I think around level 70 or so there are some that when you make splat create generators, so if the generator is not against an edge, it will make more. It was a high level. Also, perhaps there were some that on splatting turned into generators for other enemies like chess pieces which did not move in any new special way, maybe a bit faster with some acceleration. There were some really tough levels I believe with generators that could not be destroyed, if you surrounded that they simply ejected the blocks in all directions in lieu of creating new greebles. Some of these generators also just wore down I believe and if you survived long enough you got to go to the next level. The toughest levels had a lot of different blocks and enemies moving at fast speeds, and just to survive you had to dodge a lot of stuff. Some enemies could even propel blocks themselves. When you defeated all the greebles you could go to the next level.

The game had multiplayer and network play and I remember playing some with my brother on the same keyboard. I really liked the maze aspect and block activity, the grid, and arcade style of it, sort of like Pac-Man but you had more options. The sounds and general vibe of the game, difficulty & colors, were pretty good too.

Categories
Short Story

Illiterate Squirrels

Two squirrels are walking along a path when they see a sign: “BEWARE WOLF 谨防狼”.

“What does that say?”

“I don’t know.”

They continue on and there is another sign, “🐝🧥🐺”

“What’s this?”

“It has some pictures.”

“I see some animals but no squirrels.”

“And that thing in the middle I think that’s a coat, something humans wear!”

“Come on.”

They continue and come upon a speaker. There is a button. The squirrels press the button.

“Watch out for the wolf up ahead,” the speaker says. But meanwhile there is a bee buzzing around and a man putting on a coat. A doll of a wolf lies by the side of the road.

“You hear what that said?”

“No, I was distracted.”

They continue on and they find another sign. It has a comic on it. The 1st panel is the squirrels encountering a sign “BEWARE WOLF 谨防狼” 2nd and 3rd panel and so on.

“This is kind of interesting.”

“Very strange.”

“What does it all mean?”

They shrug & go on.

As they walk along the path, there is a wolf hanging by the curb. They cross him. Zoom into wolf: smh.

Categories
Short Story

The Frog that Came Back to Life

Petrified by a spell, over many centuries the spell wore off. What was thought to be a fixture carved by an artist on the pylon of a bridge began to disintegrate, and beneath it a 17th century frog came to life.

“What wazzat” it thought to itself. The last thing it remembered was a burst of red. It was night and the moon was out and in the reflection of the pond below he saw his family. How did he get on top of this bridge you may ask? On the far side a collection of stones on a high outcropping rose to the level of the other pylon near a tree. As part of his exercise, he would risk jumping up here despite predators.

Meanwhile approximately 10 minutes earlier a witch was walking home in a huff. She had just been stood up for a date. Before she crossed the bridge, she paused to collect her thoughts but instead she had a date with a frog which she didn’t really like. With an evil smirk, she cast a petrify spell on this harmless frog. Not thinking of the repercussions of this she only thought of herself, she vowed she would stay single and not pursue anyone until she felt differently, and left.

At first the monument was a sad reminder to the family. They believed that he had in walks done the wrong thing or crossed the wrong person. Then came anger. “Who was going to catch flies?” How was getting turned into a statue helpful at all? Overtime they forgot his personality and believed him to be a vain frog, that only cared about prestige. Like a frog on a stone this frog became stone. The highest and most still of frogs. The one that got himself turned into stone. To passersby it was a curiosity. Most were pleasantly surprised or perplexed. Most assumed that the man who paid for the bridge without telling anyone had a pylon replaced.

Over the next 50 years, torrential rains pushed the frogs downstream and growing settlement encouraged more foot traffic. The descendants of the man, their estate in ruin, saw an opportunity as technically they owned the bridge as it made up part of their estate and the acreage of verdant land through which the river flowed that the descendants of the stone frog lived. They decided to charge a toll, but as the county had paid the better part of maintaining the bridge, they knew they couldn’t get away with a full toll. The idea was the brainchild of the grandson of the man who constructed the bridge, whom noticing the trend of cottage industries dotting the lands, hatched a plan. On weekends, they would block traffic to large vehicles and opening the upstream area for fishing. Additionally, the side with most traffic coming up became a campground. At first, merchants were upset, but the older ones understood the money was for repairs and instead of selling that family had to do something. When a merchant came, he would ring a bell, and the second youngest child would unlatch the gate and take a toll. They also had a few regulars that would fish on the weekend. Overtime, they built a small store where they sold preserved foods & sometimes the catch of the day. Often you could see an eagle or two perched on the bridge or even the frog begging for food. With the number of homesteads expanding, they had a few customers, making the whole endeavor worthwhile. Generally it was peaceful on the weekends and many fish were caught. It had even gained a bit of a reputation from city folk as a place worth staying for the weekend as a place to get some fresh air and gather ones thoughts, as there was now a cabin built not too far off, and one could take a half-a-days walk to the destination, and stock up as needed passing the sage frog on the way to the store.

Remembering the past, and how much had changed, the grandson now in his old-age, how he had pitched the idea and slowly built rapport with the many passersby that could have easily overtaken him, the ideas of the store and noticing the desire for the countryside in the books he had read in the city, he built his entire life around this bridge, under which he used to put his feet in the water as a boy. He did not know the story about the frog. That was a family story he wondered about, but during these times as a boy, there was no time for reminiscences, instead he remembered a great deal of arguing and grief. A large portion of shipping stock was lost. The sea captain was a rationalist with a fair temper, a hire of the family, after the ship was lost a detective was hired to determine anything about what might have happened. Apparently the night before the voyage, he was at a bar boasting about a new nautical timepiece. He had presented it at the bar and the following conversation occurred between him and a woman of mystical aspect:

“By calculating temperature, humidity, keeping abreast of the latest meteorological data, and with this timepiece I can chart any path across the ocean depths. You are in safe hands. I am looking for some seaman that will man the ropes and take on other responsibilities as needed under my command. You will take a share.” Several of the patrons stood up to approach the captain when a woman with flowing hair spoke, “The sea has an energy & spirit of its own. Like a tempest her moods shift and living creatures around her heed this shift as we embody similar power with the ocean. Heed my warning captain, do not depart, or at the very least take me and I will assist you on your travels. I’m looking for safe passage.”

“What signs do you see?”

“The turtles emerging from the sea are fewer in number. And those hatched are fewer.”

“I don’t take you for a scientist to know the exact number of turtle hatched. You would need a proper survey & statistics. Additionally the reproductive cycle does happen every several years as you note. Although it might be earlier or later this year.”

“Later.”

“That might be so. But I’m looking for practical help like two guys that can rig a mast. What do you say?” Between the captain & the men, their mind was already on adventure, the chance to explore new lands, trade & meet new people.

“No. You don’t understand. You shouldn’t trust that instrument over a fellow human being. I know the sea. Understand it. I suspect also that that timepiece might not function properly.”

“You understand time too? I paid gold for this. If you want passage, you can pay like anyone else.”

Placing a single finger on the instrument she departed. “No thanks. Good luck.”

“Don’t worry about her. A difference in opinion. She won’t cast a curse upon us. Ha! Let me buy you two a drink. What’s your experience…” And the night proceeded normally afterwards based on different reports. A week later a high choppy wind and great bouts of rain pounded the shore. The nights were significantly colder and rain did not let up in the countryside for several weeks which was how it was like if remembered. These were the remnants of the storm that toppled the ship, the timepiece crashing into wooden panels. Several hundred kilometers south, taken by a current, some bolts of cloth washed up and were found by some young girls and worn as scarves, a nice memory borne out of tragedy.

That same cloth had gone to moths. Another 100 years past. The automobile had been invented. There was no longer a toll, but a small town bordering the old estate, where a well-to-do family lived, and the forest. Locally, the bridge had attained some historical significance. Over the past century several pieces of work, books, art, music could be traced to the idyllic setting which was provided. In the horror short story, “Apparition of the Manor,” in which a seaman after a long voyage returns to his old town, crosses the frog bridge when he sees a large house that was not there before. He finds lodgings with the place in mind, as he goes to bed. The next day he sets out to find an old flame. He finds the townspeople changed distrustful and skeptical of his travels comparing his claims to the record of the old man that lives in the manor, whom they speak admirably of. No one thinks it strange that such an old looking manor is here in 10 years. He goes up to the old manor to investigate when he sees his old girlfriend on the crest. They meet and she is warm unlike all the other people. She is so excited to talk but first he has to meet her husband. She takes him up the hill, a low voice, “Honey,” “Yes, dear,” it is not a man but a large frog man. The seaman is so revolted he nearly gags. Later on, we find out the frog is a collector of sorts, he has a nice car, “I’m a land creature. We go for wonderful trips. Leaps & bounds.” When he relates her stories, her reactions are not what he hopes. He’s filled with grief. By looking around, he determines that the frog is an inter-dimensional being, a traveler, and this world was tagged, for collection, colonization. He takes his oyster knife and goes in the back to look for spawn but he is confronted by the frogman and stabbed in the back by his old love, who feels no love for him. “What a pity. Well, it will make a good story, for the kids.”

In the present, the frog jumped down the rock steps and no tree. The ground was black and what looked like stars shown brightly to the surface. His skin reacted to the new air and surroundings and his eyes dilated. “Water” he thought. Under the bridge he slept and woke the next day.

“What had happened to the world?” He could not imagine how these humans in wood carts had become so advanced. Although he felt certain it had nothing to do with the magic that trapped him. Having some acquaintance with this he knew this was another power more closely related to the sun & earth than the mystery of bio-stasis being trapped in the amber of time.

He set off downstream into the forest wary of eagles. What he didn’t realize was the eagle was no longer the top predator around. Eagles ate mainly fish. Due to all the fishing, the Eagle population had receded. The top predator was now snakes.

As he hopped off deeper into the forest, the townspeople assembled on the bridge. A sense of sadness and anger was present. “Someone took the frog.” “Whoever took the frog is going to pay.” The mayor announced, “There will be a criminal investigation. It was one of the beloved landmarks of our town. If anyone has any information please come forward.” A boy spoke up, “As strange as this might sound, I was here last night walking back from the park, when I saw the stone around it crumble, and a perfectly green frog reveal itself.” People traded looks. “I know what you are thinking but I’m serious. It turned around and hoped off those rocks over there like it had done it a thousand times as a form of exercise.”

A young woman spoke up, “There hasn’t been a green frog here since the 17th century. Hi. I’m a naturalist.” “When was it carved again?” “Sometime in the 17th century. The person who carved it is unknown but it is speculated that it was the person who lived in the estate here originally.” People began to smile. “You know maybe it was a petrified frog. They say there used to be witches in these parts.” “The craftsmanship was very high. And it was strange how it was only on one pylon.” “Why do you think the witch turned it to stone though?” “Maybe she was corresponding with some handsome guy and it turned out to be a frog.” The people laughed and dispersed preferring greatly the fantasy as the young naturalist headed downstream.

It was getting dark. He didn’t know what he was looking for, his family, or another frog. He hadn’t seen any frogs. He had seen a skeleton holding a knife. “Hey, who are you?” “I’m from yonder stream.” “Yonder? Never heard that one before.” She was a gray frog elegant and blending in nicely with the stones underbrush. She started, “Never seen a green frog like you before. It makes sense that you are not familiar with this area and that you come from upstream. There is a legend in my family that the frogs upstream are very fancy. Are you a fancy frog? I’m a gray frog as you can see, well mostly anyway.” As he was processing this, her eyes grew wide, “Watch out!” she said. A snake was slithering up behind him, when suddenly, the naturalist deftly picked up the snake by the neck and released it further away. “Well well well,” she picked up the frog. “The magical green frog.” She inspected the body. “Our frogs here used to be green as they would blend in with the foliage from above but as they moved further downstream they began to shed their green and stay gray in this woody & rocky area. Functionally, they are the same species.”

“I’m going to take a quick DNA sample.” She retrieved a vial and implement. “Ow.” “That’s it. And a picture. Okay all done.” She lay her by the other frog and left. Both relieved they began to hop along.

“Let me show you our place. It’s a pond that diverges from the stream. I’ll show you how to survive out here.”

“How come you were by the stream?”

“Just for exercise. If you cover yourself in slime the snakes won’t eat you.”

Somehow he thought they were related that she was his distant ancestor and that she was smarter than him. “I should have made myself look more like a stone.” “What?” and with that he began his story and together they put the many pieces together.