Games Aliens Play

May 4, 2018January 7, 2019 Chris HallLeave a comment

you wine

Probe Agents Delta-Zero-Four and Beta-Two-Two were waiting for the next batch of human minds to be loaded for processing. Something had gone wrong with the scanner and their monitors were blank. Delta-Zero-Four was idly picking at her front claws while Beta-Two-Two was playing a game on his cellphone, his forked tongue curled around his upper lip as he concentrated. The phone was emitting a series of beeps and whoops interspersed with the sounds of gunfire and explosions.

“What’s that you’re playing, Beta-Two-Two?” asked Delta-Zero-Four.

“Mmm?” said her colleague, jabbing away at the screen with his manicured claws.

“What’re you playing?” she asked again, peering over the divider which separated their desks.

There was another rattle of gunfire and a flash of light from the screen of the phone. A cry of jubilation escaped Beta-Two-Two’s leathery lips. “Gotcha!”

The four operatives at the next bank of desks looked round at him and scowled.

“Show me?” wheedled Delta-Zero-Four.

Beta-Two-Two looked up. “Okay, bring your chair around here.”

Delta-Zero-Four hooked her tail over the back of her chair and propelled it round the desk on its castors with her broad scaly feet.

“Look,” he said, showing her the screen. “It’s the new Live-Game from BlatherTech, and it’s set here on Earth. It has awesome graphics!” Delta-Zero-Four nodded. “It uses live feed of actual human beings.” His claws tapped busily on the screen. “Here have a go.”

Beta-Two-Two handed her his phone. She studied the screen. The game was called ‘Fight your way to the top.’ There followed a series of instructions on the levels of play and the points.

Beta-Two-Two watched as Delta-Zero-Four made a few moves before selecting a target and firing a rocket launcher at the doors of Bankalot on Wall Street. ‘200 points’ flashed on the corner of the screen. She trashed the security desk with a couple of hand grenades and picked off a mixed group of secretarial staff and junior traders on the way to the elevator. The score climbed to 1000 points. Bursting through double doors on the fifth floor, Delta-Zero-Four pressed ahead, felling a handful of middle managers and a post-boy, who appeared out of a side office right on the edge of the screen (2500 points). Following the signs, she paused at the doors of the boardroom while she scooped up some passing ammunition, then she let loose with a pair of automatic pistols. The glass doors shattered and she strode into the room. Delta-Zero-Four sprayed bullets around the table. Spot bonuses of 500 points flashed up on the screen as she took out assorted senior executives including the Finance Director and the COO. Both guns flashed up as empty, but Delta-Zero-Four had collected a Smith and Wesson pistol on the way out of the elevator. She aimed and fired, hitting the man sitting at the head of the table between the eyes. The phone made a series of excited beeps and a message flashed up. CEO down! Score 10,000 points. Click to play again.

Shoot!

April 27, 2018April 26, 2018 Chris HallLeave a comment

From my Flash Fiction Collection

10:15. I’m late. I grab my camera bag and run. The whole world seems to be out, all converging on City Hall carrying flags and banners: some in support, most in dissent of our ‘glorious leader’. I’m in the dissent camp. I’m also a correspondent.

I mustn’t blow it. I clutch the camera bag to my hip and put on a burst of speed.

I’m opposite City Hall but I can’t get the shot. There are too many people in the way. The motorcade swings around the corner. I have to hurry.

I jump onto the perimeter wall of the building behind me and scurry along, closing in on the action. As I unpack my camera I see that the motorcade has come to a halt. Military and security service personnel are much in evidence. Assorted dignitaries line the red carpet which runs down the City Hall steps to the presidential limo. The limo door opens and the man for whom the masses have gathered, steps out flanked by his guards.

I focus the camera, holding my breath. If only those two security serviceman in their dark suits and darker glasses would get out of my line of sight.

Shots ring out. One of the servicemen drops to the ground, bright blood staining his shirt. The crowd surges. I leap down from the wall, fighting my way through the confusion. More gunfire comes from within the fleeing crowd. But I’m already behind the car doing my own shooting.

A bullet whistles past my shoulder. I spin round, eye to the viewfinder. The assassin moves in, weapon in outstretched hands. The barrel is pointing directly at me.

Another shot. The assassin crumples. Blood streams across his face from the single head wound. Blood pools on the tarmac. My camera whirrs. Snick, snick, snick.

Close the Window

April 21, 2018 Chris HallLeave a comment

From my Flash Fiction

Charles stared at the message on the screen. The web page you are viewing is trying to close the window. Do you want to close this window? He moved the cursor between the two options in the dialogue box: ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Charles wasn’t sure. He had a number of windows open. There was one he didn’t want to close just now. He was in the middle of something.

The message repeated. Do you want to close this window? Charles rubbed the grey stubble on his chin. ‘Okay, okay,’ he muttered.

Janet peered over the partition at him. ‘You all right there, Charles?’ He looked back at the bright young woman who sat opposite him. ‘Er, think so.’

She nodded and continued tapping away on her keyboard. The younger generation, he thought, it’s all so easy for them. He turned his attention back to the screen and frowned. It seemed to have been busy all on its own and now there were a string of dialogue boxes all overlapping each other, all asking the same question. The question buzzed in his head: Do you want to close this window?

Another message popped up: The program you are using needs to shut down. He glared at the screen. The American spelling irritated him.

He moved the mouse slowly, checking each of the boxes. Which one? His fingers rubbed his temples. Charles felt the panic rising. He stared out of the window across the college lawns, breathing deeply.

Oh, to hell with it, he thought. He clicked.

Are you sure you want to…Click.

Are you sure you want to delete this student?…Click.

Warning! Please do not press this button. Charles lost it…Click.

A small plume of smoke rose up in a distant part of the campus.

Task completed successfully.

Invasion of the Lizard People

April 12, 2018January 7, 2019 Chris Hall4 Comments

2050: the land is too dry, or too wet. Little grows. We sit in our Ivory Tower, measuring, monitoring, allocating rations; creaming a little off the top for ourselves.

Khaki-clad figures under red parachutes drop from the sky. They advance on our building. Security yields.

Lizard tongues flick across our screens as they scrutinise our figures.

“Take me to your leader,” one says.

“Gladly,” I reply. (Will you eat him? I wonder.)

Two years later: crops thrive, no-one’s hungry. There’s a downside though. They nibble on live rats at their desks and will eat your pets when you’re not looking.

Not your fault

January 20, 2018January 7, 2019 Chris HallLeave a comment

You look down at her, slumped on the kitchen floor, the basket of other people’s ironing she’s just finished strewn across the polished quarry tiles. Her head lolls awkwardly against the range where she’s fallen. After you lost your rag and pushed her, but you pushed too hard this time.

Shape-shifting for Beginners

January 20, 2018September 7, 2018 Chris HallLeave a comment

From my Flash Fiction Collection

shape shifting for beginners lunasonline It’s not easy living with a serial shape-shifter. Most people on Spegorus could change their physical form to some degree, but Peter had really never got the knack of it. His sister, on the other hand, had always had a real flair for transformation and over the years had developed a huge repertoire. Joanna could take on one of these alternative forms at the drop of a hat, while Peter struggled to change the colour of his hair (as she would joke at his expense).

Even as a very young child Joanna would transform herself into creatures from her story books, often at quite inopportune times. Peter could recall numerous occasions when a normal family trip out had dissolved into chaos as Joanna had suddenly reinvented herself as a six foot ogre or a fluffy pink flying pig or some other insane creature from her imagination.

Of course it was tolerated in a child – to a degree – but there were rules, obviously, for adults. If nothing else it was simply a question of good manners not to go changing into a giant mollusc in the middle of lunch.

That afternoon, however, Joanna had gone too far. Way too far. Peter had returned home with Gillian after a pleasant afternoon perusing the book shops and music stores in town. Peter and Gillian had a lot in common, including a love of reading and a dislike of creepy-crawlies. So when Peter opened the front door and invited Gillian in, the sight of a three foot wide hairy spider clinging upside down from the bannisters was an unwelcome, if not a downright alarming sight.

Gillian screamed. Peter cringed. Of course he knew it was Joanna, so apart from being vaguely repulsed he viewed the sight with relative composure. He put a reassuring arm around Gillian, but she pulled away from him and bolted through the front door and down the path.

‘What the hell d’you think you’re doing, Joanna? You know that’s an inacceptable form!’

Joanna’s spider antennae bent forward forming into two elegant question marks.

‘You are totally out of order. How can you be so mean?’

Joanna descended to the floor on a length of silk the diameter of a rope. She stood in front of Peter and opened her huge spider maw and yawned.

‘That’s it. I’m going to report you. But first I’m going to find Gillian.’

He turned towards the door.

‘I’m sorry, Peter, I was just bored hanging around the house…I’m sorry I upset your friend.’ Joanna wheedled in a little girl voice. ‘You won’t report me, will you?’

Peter looked over his shoulder to see a six year old Joanna in a pink party frock.

‘Don’t! Just don’t, Joanna.’ Peter seethed. He stormed out of the house slamming the door behind him.

Peter looked up and down the street. There was no sign of Gillian. He sighed and started walking away from the house, not really thinking, just walking. There was a small park at the bottom of the road. Peter often escaped here. He headed towards the lake and stared at the swans which were calmly sailing over the sunlit water. Peter sighed again and sat down on the bank of the lake.

One of the swans headed over to where he was sitting and waddled up the bank. Peter sat very still. Swans could be quite dangerous, he thought. If it was actually swan? He looked more closely. The swan winked at him.

‘Gillian?’

The swan nodded slowly and moved closer. Her beak nuzzled at his neck. Suddenly Peter felt a shiver go right through him. His hands and feet were tingling. He looked down. The ground seemed to be moving towards him. He stretched out his arms. White feathers were spouting where his fingers used to be. He looked down. His trainers transformed into webbed feet. Peter shook himself. Gillian’s swan neck was encircling his.

Together they walked down to the water’s edge and launched themselves into the lake. Paddling through the sparkling water seemed like the most natural thing in the world. He turned towards Gillian. She opened her beak and spoke to him. His swan’s brain understood and together they started to paddle harder. Gillian took off ahead of him. Now Peter was flying with gentle flaps of his great wings.

‘Let’s do this together for a while,’ he thought. The thought came back: ‘or maybe a life-time?’

Accident on Earth

January 20, 2018October 4, 2019 Chris Hall11 Comments

Accident on Earth lunasonline

From my Flash Fiction Collection

Great Being Five surveyed her handiwork. She was responsible for four inhabited planets. She was pleased with herself having recently won an award for the one in Alpha Centauri. Although the planet was far from developed, life forms had just made the transition from sea to land and it didn’t even have a proper name yet.

But she was worried. Planet Earth was in trouble again. She sighed. It used to be such a nice little planet. She had enjoyed the dinosaurs and had been quite sad when they were wiped out by a huge meteorite. She should have seen that one coming, done something about it, made a small adjustment to its trajectory. But her eye was off the ball, busy nurturing a newly-forming planet on the other side of the universe. Not that the Great Beings were really supposed to interfere.

She’d watched the new little humans emerge, delighted as they discovered fire, tools and the wheel. Built great empires, made beautiful music, art and literature. She loved all the sea creatures and the birds and the big and little furry animals. Of course there had been terrible tragedies. Wars mainly. And awful natural disasters. She had held back as the Great Beings were required to do, even when they had created those dreadful atomic bombs. Very clever, but dropping them on those pretty little islands and causing all that sickness and death. It was all she could do to do nothing.

She had sat patiently through the Cold War, amusing herself with the pleasure of new discoveries by scientists and botanists. She particular enjoyed the TV broadcasts by David Attenborough. But now, now there was a problem developing which truly threatened the planet’s future.

She focused her third eye and searched. There he was, that idiot American with the funny hair. Donald Trump, making threats against that dangerous madman in North Korea. The people of the Earth sure did pick-em, she thought. Tuning in to the escalating situation with nuclear weapons poised on either side, Great Being Five was certain that her lovely blue planet was only weeks away from destruction. Something had to be done.

A natural disaster, one that was already foreseen. Give a little nudge to the Earth’s settings. Which though? She had to be certain that it would kill off Trump.

She scanned the data banks. That’s it! Mount Teide on Tenerife. One devastating volcanic eruption and half the island would fall into the sea causing a huge tidal wave to sweep across the Atlantic Ocean and take out the US Eastern Seaboard. Just a small increase in pressure and there she blows! And look, there are even reports of increased seismic activity. I just have to wait until Trump’s back in New York and bam! He’s swallowed up in a massive tidal wave. Gotcha!

Great Being Five’s conscience monitor started to flash. What about all the innocent people who will also be killed. What about the animals? The cats and dogs, and birds and fishes? No, think again, Five.

All right then. Just one little accident, just him. Great Being Five trained her third eye on the target. All she need was the opportunity to engineer an accident.

The following Earth day all the news and social media channels suddenly focused on one single event. Over the airwaves came the BBC World News. ‘In breaking news, President Donald Trump is reported to have fallen from the roof garden at Trump Towers. The President had apparently been leaning on the guard rail, tweeting his latest tweet when in a freak accident…” Five smiled quietly to herself.

Incident at the Library

January 20, 2018August 22, 2018 Chris Hall2 Comments

She looked innocent. Of course she did. My aunty often told me that once a woman is over 50 she becomes invisible. So how much more invisible is a little bent over old lady pulling one of those tartan shopping bags on wheels. Nobody ever thought anything of her. Nobody ever imagined what she might do.

So there we were that Thursday afternoon after school, Billy and me, just hanging out like outside the library. Not because we’re into reading or anything, just because it’s a nice shady spot in summer and there are steps and a wall to sit on, and nobody bothers you so long as you don’t make too much noise. And sometimes you can chat to some girl from another school…well, you know how it is.

Anyway, as I said, we were just hanging out and this old lady, all bent and bundled up, even though it was summer, came around the corner of the library building pulling this thing behind her. It looked kind of heavy and like something was pushing out the sides of the bag at the bottom.

She was struggling with the door while holding onto her bag, so Billy jumped up to help her. She sort of grunted and nodded at him but he said he couldn’t see her face because her head was so far back in the hood she was wearing. He said she had a funny smell too, but that’s not unusual with old people is it?

Anyway, a few minutes later there was like ‘boom’ and all the glass in the library windows shattered and the doors blew open. Then there was a huge sound like wings flapping and page after page from the library books flew out of the windows and through the doors. Strings of words slid off the pages and landed in the street where they shrivelled up. Others landed in the library garden and burrowed into the ground like so many worms. And then all the blank pages just took off like so many birds with white wings. Up and up they went into the sky which was so bright with the sun that you could hardly look.

And then there was another sound: ‘whoosh’ and would you believe it? The little old lady flew out of the doors on a something like a broomstick, although it looked more like one of those old-fashioned mops. She threw back her head and her hood blew down, long wild wispy hair went crazy around her head. ‘Free them, free the words!’ she screamed, cackling as she circled once around the library building then headed off over the cars and taxis down Victoria Street.

The library’s been closed for two months now. We still hang out there, but now we’re watching for the word worms to come up.

Shoot!

January 20, 2018August 22, 2018 Chris HallLeave a comment

I mustn’t blow it. I clutch the camera bag to my hip and put on a burst of speed.

I’m opposite City Hall but I can’t get the shot. There are too many people in the way. The motorcade swings around the corner. I have to hurry.

I focus the camera, holding my breath. If only those two security serviceman in their dark suits and darker glasses would get out of my line of sight.

A bullet whistles past my shoulder. I spin round, eye to the viewfinder. The assassin moves in, weapon in outstretched hands. The barrel is pointing directly at me.

Another shot. The assassin crumples. Blood streams across his face from the single head wound. Blood pools on the tarmac. My camera whirrs. Snick, snick, snick.

Mind Mess

January 20, 2018January 7, 2019 Chris HallLeave a comment

“I thought you said this was a good one. Ordered mind packed with information, experiences and emotions?” Probe Agent Delta-Zero-Four turned to her colleague, the scales on her forehead raised. “We’re not going to learn much here. Look!”

Probe Agent Beta –Two-Two peered over her shoulder at the screen, “When tested the subject scored exceptionally well,” he read. His forked tongue flickered. “Mmm, does look a bit of a mess.” He jabbed a manicured claw at the bottom of the screen. “What are those?”

“Initialising visual brain-image enhancer,” she tweaked a knob on the side of the monitor. “Thought-debris, mind-rubbish, emotional nonsense…I don’t see much else.”

“Very well, are we agreed Delta-Zero-Four?”

“Agreed, Beta-Two-Two.” She said, pushing a red button in the centre of her console.

The screen went blank for a second, then a message flashed up: “Mind-wipe activated, click on the tab for next subject.”

Delta-Zero-Four clicked on the mouse.