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itslaurenmae · 4 years

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What is this sudden influx of "Cabin in the Woods" reblogs? Did you just see it for the first time? Second time? Umpteenth time? Your take on things must be had, lest the old ones wipe it away.

I am SO GLAD... so BLESSED to receive this ask. This turned into a full-on essay, sooooo buckle up and read on. (TL;DR I rewatched Cabin in the Woods and forgot how much I loved it, sooo yes, you're gonna see a lot of it on my dash) - SPOILERS AHEAD

I rewatched Cabin in the Woods for the second time on Saturday night and DEAR GOD. I’m gonna have NO CHILL while responding to this because I’ve been thinking about it for a day and a half already.

First of all, I should probably state for the record that I am a longtime Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan. I wasn’t allowed to watch the show when it was airing on television (thanks to my very strict evangelical conservative upbringing) - I found Buffy in my early twenties and fell in love. The subversion of tropes, the excellent character writing hand-in-hand with narrative arcs that actually make sense... it really is one of the greatest shows that’s ever been on TV. Yes, I will fight you about it. I haven’t watched everything Joss Whedon has ever touched, but I also really loved Dr. Horrible’s Singalong Blog and Angel, so I am not a stranger to the Whedonverse.

Cabin in the Woods is the first horror movie I remember watching and genuinely enjoying. Loren and I had decided that, with my being deprived of Halloween traditions (thanks to that upbringing), we wanted to start a new tradition of watching a horror movie on Halloween night. This was back in 2013. Our first daughter was only a few months old.

I’d seen maaaaybe two other actual horror films before CitW - but I’d long been a fan of books, tv shows, and other mediums in the paranormal family (because that was okay, because it was spiritual - thanks again, upbringing). I think a friend from college had recommended it to us - and once I'd seen it had Joss Whedon as a writer and producer, I knew I'd probably like it. So, we put our daughter to bed, snuggled up, turned off all the lights, and watched our very first Halloween horror movie.

I fell in Love.

It was funny? And subversive? And I was scared in a good way?

I had no idea what was going on in the very beginning, but as this tale unspooled itself on our flatscreen, I knew I Loved this movie.

From that day forward, anytime anyone asked me what my favorite horror movie was, I said Cabin in the Woods.

I said that for seven years.

Somehow, seven years of my life went by? We had another baby? We moved houses? I left jobs and got a new job and Loren moved school sites and wow... somehow it was 2020. We watched lots of horror movies, and not just on Halloween anymore (take that, upbringing!!). We're huge fans of a YouTube channel called Dead Meat, and specifically, a series they do called the Kill Count.

Every Friday, James A. Janisse and his team release a new video counting down the kills in a horror movie. And when I saw at the end of 2019 that he was going to do one for Cabin in the Woods, I was SO EXCITED.

It had been YEARS since I'd seen it, but I remembered that I Loved it. And yes, I'm using Love with a capital L. I Love this movie.

Loren and I watched the Kill Count the day it was released. I remembered most of the kills, and I definitely remembered that ending. It made me so happy to watch something about that movie again.

Some time goes by.

Covid-19 happens. We all get told to shelter in place.

We log in to Hulu one night after the kids are down to watch Letterkenny, and I see that Cabin in the Woods is streaming. I was SO HAPPY to see it there.

Some more time goes by.

We finished watching Letterkenny.

We can't pick another show to watch together. So I suggest we watch Cabin in the Woods.

That was Saturday.

I forgot how much I Love this movie.

I forgot how much I Love Fran Kranz’s character, Marty.

I forgot about how much I Love the look of relief on Kristen Connolly’s character, Dana's, face when Marty shows up at the dock where she's about to be clobbered to death. She thought he was already dead, but no, he's alive. And he clocks Matty Buckner with his giant bong and they run like hell back to the house.

I forgot that Marty figured out that the whole thing was rigged against them.

I forgot they break into the elevator to confront The Organization about killing their friends.

I FORGOT ABOUT THE VERY TENDER HUGGING FROM BEHIND IN THAT SCARY AS HELL, MASTERFULLY DONE ELEVATOR SCENE.

I forgot about the very painful and earnest exchange of apologies between Marty and Dana at the end, after they decide they’re gonna let the Ancient Ones rise.

I forgot about the way they scoot to be near each other as the building is coming down.

I forgot about the way they put their heads together, shivering, as they huddle for some semblance of safety and comfort as the world is ending.

It's so HUMAN - that last scene between Marty and Dana. And you get this feeling that, if they survived this, they'd maybe have a shot at something good together.

Basically, I forgot how much I Loved this movie.

And it all came back to me on Saturday night.

It's good writing. It's good acting. It's just good.

Something A LOT of media just isn't anymore.

Character writing. Overall narrative. Subversions on the genre. An ending that is tragic and shocking but still MAKES SENSE.

Watching this movie reminded me of the kinds of characters and stories I love. And it had been a long time since I'd watched something I Loved.

Especially after watching a very popular franchise I love shit the bed last year, I've been feeling very uninspired and unimpressed by most popular media.

Most shows or movies I've watched from the last decade just feel... soulless. They don't make me feel things.

They don't affect me. They're numb, they have no heart. They kinda pass the time but they don’t move me.

The characters don't feel real.

They don't make understandable, human decisions.

It all feels really stilted.

And that’s because the writing is bad.

I think most actors out there are doing their best, but there's just been a deluge of seriously shitty writing, and people aren't discriminating enough to either notice or care, or stop spending their money on things that are frankly, poorly crafted cash grabs.

I don't want to point fingers and name names (because a. that’s been done already, and b. Whedon's not getting off scot-free here, he's one of the men behind one of the biggest franchises of the late 2000s and 2010s) - but somewhere in the last seven years, a lot of soul just died in the writing of American TV and movies.

But not this movie.

This movie is real, and it's human, and it's funny and subversive and tonally resonant and I Love it.

So yes, the deluge of content is here because I remembered I Loved this movie.

I Love Marty and Dana and their very human clinging to each other in that crumbling building.

I Love those scenes in the elevator, I Love the tragedy of sacrificing young people to appease a nameless evil, I Love the way Marty and Dana choose each other over all the rest of humanity, I Love the humor and the wrongness of it all being engineered in an office.

It's just Good, and I’ve really missed Good Shit.

So yes, I’m gonna post the hell out of The Cabin in the Woods (2011) on this blog for however long I see fit. Bless you, @iowastubborn, for gracing my inbox with this ask. It’s the first thing I’ve written in MONTHS and it felt good to write about something I Love.

If you need me, you can probably find me in the marty x dana tag at 3am anytime in the foreseeable future.

#iowastubborn #ask #answered #lauren talks #the cabin in the woods #an essay no one wanted #so yes i'm gonna post the hell out of citw on this blog for however long I see fit #bless you tylor for this ask #it's the first thing i've written in MONTHS #blood cw #spoilers?#spoilers

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segretecose · 5 years

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me logging onto tumblr at 3am to tell my four followers about the out-of-body experience i just had where i fully thought i was talking to the ghost of joan of arc as a consequence of the unprecedented levels of stress and anxiety i’ve been submitted to which my brain doesn’t know how to deal with so it comes up with shit like this

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redditnosleep · 6 years

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Has Anyone Heard of The Left/Right Game?

by NeonTempo

Well then… here we are.

I have to be honest; when I posted the first of these logs from my bedroom in North London, I didn’t think it would go very far. After all, why would it? I wasn’t a regular contributor to this site, nor a seasoned veteran of the paranormal. I was just a man who missed his friend, seeking a few words of wisdom from an online message board, open to the idea that it wouldn’t lead anywhere.

Suffice to say I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Over the past two months, the incredible advice I’ve received from this forum, and the amazing leads you’ve sent my way, have opened up entire worlds of possibility. It’s thanks to all of you that I’m where I am now; sitting in a rental car on a quiet street in Phoenix, Arizona, posting the last of Alice’s records.

I realise I’ve written more than usual for my part. Apologies for this. If you want to skip straight to Alice’s section, that’s fine.

Otherwise, please consider this the prologue to the epilogue.

It’s very, very early in the morning over here, with only the gravest of the graveyard shift out on the streets. By all rights I should be in bed, and not wasting petrol on an aimless drive through the city. The ritual helps me think however, and I’d recently been given a lot to think about, courtesy of a young woman at a local bar.

She was a forum member, who’d contacted me over Direct Message. When we met up earlier in the night, it was clear she’d done a great deal of research; charting every mirror shop in Phoenix in an attempt to reconstruct the route Alice took on February 7th 2017.

We spoke for quite a while; about the game, about Alice, and about life in general. Once closing time rolled around, she handed me a printout of the most likely route, with all the key locations circled. Then, in the final minutes before we parted ways, she nervously asked me two questions. The first put me in a rather sour mood. The second provided the fuel for my 3am drive.

Question One; Are you sure she wants you to find her?

I’ve been hearing the same query from a few of you recently, especially since Part 9 was posted. People commenting that Alice made a clear choice when she left Rob behind in the silent city. That I was searching for someone who wasn’t seeking return.

I’d like to take a moment to respond to this, as I responded to it earlier tonight. To be clear, the Alice I know wouldn't do that. She was planning to come back, she’d told us as much. I’m not going to waste your time with my theories, but we’ve seen what the road can do to people's minds, how it can carry them away against their better judgement. I understand why it's being asked but if those sorts of questions are all you have to offer, I’d kindly ask you find another way to help.

Question Two was less clear cut; what are you going to do now?

It’s something you guys have also been asking me, but that was the first time I’d heard the question out loud. In the awkward silence that followed it became obvious to her, and in some ways to me, that I didn’t yet have an answer.

I decided to take a drive while I figured it out… I’ve been in my car for the rest of the night,

After an hour of aimless meandering, I realised I was close to one of the marked locations; the alleyway where Alice first entered the underpass, the point at which she first disappeared into the road. Turning into the side street, just after a large intersection, I was briefly relieved to see no sign of the tunnel. The part of me that still hoped this game was a fiction swelled at the sudden lack of evidence. My reaction was short lived of course, as I quickly realised that the tunnel wouldn't have shown itself to me anyway. Even if the game were real, I’d hardly been sticking to the rules on my way here.

There was no denying that the place resembled Alice’s descriptions however, and with a long time to go until I’d feel remotely tired, I decided to work my way back along the route, retracing Alice’s steps towards Rob Guthard’s street.

OK so I have to admit at this point, I suffered from a momentary lapse in intelligence. In a fog of distraction, residual jetlag and general dullardry, I drove for longer than I’d care to admit under the misconception that I wasn’t playing the game. I thought this because I was heading in the opposite direction, and had started my run with a right hand turn, when the rules explicitly state that you begin by turning left. Of course, as I’m sure all of you would have realised immediately, that didn’t mean I was out of the game, it just meant I started playing with my first left turn, one road later.

Alice was always the smart one.

What I’m trying to say is that, due to this fairly mindless oversight, I wasn’t exactly looking out for the Woman in Grey as I drove past what should have been her corner. There wasn’t a mirror shop this time of course, that’s only the 34th turn when you’re coming the other way, in fact I’m not sure which of the many passing streets it was. It is strange though, as I think back through my journey, I feel like I would have noticed her. The streets were practically deserted, so much so that any pedestrians stood out immediately. I know I should’ve been looking more closely but, if you asked my honest opinion… I don't think she was there at all.

The moment I realised this, I felt it again; the faint perverse, hope that I’d been misled, that the entire story was nothing more than a twisted, elaborate fabrication.

It wasn’t long until I passed an old mirror shop and, 34 turns later, arrived on what must have been Alice’s starting street. It was an inner-city neighbourhood whose residents were all fast asleep. From the moment I realised that the game was in play, I’d been thinking less and less about this particular road, and more about the one directly after it, resting just beyond the crossroads. I’d come halfway across the world on the strength of Alice’s account, but I’d seen no first hand proof of the Left/Right Game. If the whole thing was a hoax, then the next road should just be another street. If it was real, then I’d know soon enough.

I crawled up to the junction with my heart in my throat. With every inch of road that passed under my tyres, I found myself hoping more and more that it wouldn’t be true. Let someone be playing a prank on me, let the logs be counterfeit... let Alice be anywhere else but on that road.

I took the corner in a wide arc, parking myself in the centre of the crossroads, my headlights facing down the next turn.

Ahead of me was a quiet residential street; lines of neatly parked cars, rows of well-kept yards and squarely drawn windows. Yet at its centre, in utter defiance of the modest surroundings, the road sank into a deep and dimly lit corridor, cutting beneath the street, and disappearing into complete darkness.

I’d always known it was true.

In the presence of grim confirmation, the question I was asked earlier that night started to ring in my ears, as if echoing out of the tunnel itself. After an entire night’s driving, after two full months of searching, I still didn’t have a response.

In the end I just left the engine running, as if turning it off would somehow be a sign of retreat, and decided to type up the notes you’re reading now. I thought maybe the process of putting it all down on paper would bring me clarity, and leave me with either a note of farewell or a note of apology to Alice, for not having what it took to find her.

And now… here I am; still undecided, still writing, still sitting in this rental car on a quiet street in Phoenix, Arizona.

Though perhaps the street’s not as quiet as I thought.

I’ve just looked back to the previous road, down the street where Alice began her journey. As I type this very paragraph, I can see a figure standing on the sidewalk, just outside one of the houses. It isn’t the woman in grey this time.

Though it’s almost too dark to make out, I can tell the figure is an older male, well built and imposing, the rugged features of his weathered face half lit by moonlight. I’ve never seen this person before, yet he bears a striking resemblance to another man; a man whose description has been well recorded within the pages of Alice’s logs.

He watches me in silence, staring through the window of my still running car.

I wonder if he can help.

The Left/Right Game [DRAFT 1] 20/02/2017

The Left/Right Game was once nothing more than a 9-page document, peeking out of a yellow envelope, resting quietly on my desk.

I remember reading it on my lunch break.

I remember it made me laugh.

The submission had arrived with the first post, quietly making its way around the office, treated by everyone as a short-lived novelty of little journalistic value. The story was easy to dismiss, appearing all too similar to the rambling ghost stories and blurry UFO sightings that filled our mailbox on a daily basis, and which most of the senior staff had learned to instinctively ignore. Doomed by association, the document was quickly passed over, my desk merely a pit stop on its way to the rejection pile.

I was curious however and, after an uneventful few months in my new role, I had no compunctions about fishing from the scrap heap. Placing the envelope in my satchel, alongside a misfit crowd of similar rejects, I slipped away to a local coffee shop, reading it in an armchair by the window.

Somewhere around page three, between the description of the game’s rules and the exhaustive list of “Required Skills”, my mouth started to curl into an irrepressible smile.

They’d been gloriously wrong about this one. It wasn’t some paranoid diatribe, nor a sensationalist plea for attention. Within those pages lay an introductory glimpse of a man’s passionate obsession. As I read on, something about his earnest eccentricity, incredible thoroughness, and unquestioning confidence made it impossible to put down. When I turned the final page, reading the last of Rob Guthard’s charming and refreshingly well formatted submission, I knew that this was the story I wanted to tell.

Later that day, I found myself in the editor’s office making a case for it. They didn’t quite see what I saw, but I was intent to win them over regardless. I told them the story would be characterful, colourful, thought-provoking and, at the very least, that I wouldn’t be gone long.

It’s been twelve days since then; ten since I first entered the Wrangler in Phoenix, Arizona, five since I commandeered it myself, leaving Rob behind in the silent city. I haven’t updated much recently, save for a regular set of notes made for my own benefit. In all honesty, after I finished writing up my account of the city, I was struck by an overpowering sense of needlessness. There was no one left to receive these logs, no friends to proofread, no editor to hand them to. It seemed pointless to maintain the same prosaic format as before.

I still largely agree with this assessment. It’s only due to a set of exceptional circumstances that I’ve chosen to type up the following account in full.

Whoever this reaches, I want to thank you for reading up to now.

I’m quite sure this will be my final instalment.

The moon has broken, and in my entire life, I’ve never witnessed an evening so still.

The air is cool and quiet, and the Wrangler cuts cleanly through it as I glide down a stretch of even tarmac. The scene is defined by calm and absence. Not a cloud in the sky, not a solitary whisper of breeze, not a single blade of grass stirring on the dark green banks beside me.

Yet even on a night as peaceful as this, I can’t help but feel far away from home. The city had served as a turning point in that regard. Before we reached those titanic monoliths, the landscapes we passed through generally resembled the world I once knew. A few obvious exceptions aside, there was nothing about the environments that looked truly divorced from reality. That’s all changed now. The aberrant aspects of this new world are unignorable, constantly hanging at the corner of my eye, passively injecting a sense of wonder and disconcertion into the otherwise silent night.

A few days ago the moon started to crack like old porcelain. I hardly noticed at first, my eyes fixed on the road as it loomed above me, quietly splintering into three jagged pieces. As of tonight, the empty space between each fragment has significantly increased. If I focus on the sky for a little while, I can almost see them falling away from each other, charting infinite and lonesome trajectories through a barren cosmos, against a backdrop of foreign constellations.

The stars themselves fall further than they should. The night sky travels down past the horizon and continues below it, wrapping underneath the grassy bank. It’s as if the road, and the narrow plains on either side, are suspended in the middle of a vast abyss; a platform in the middle of open space.

At least that’s what I thought it was at first. It didn’t take long before I noticed the broken moon was appearing twice in the sky, both above and below me. A pair of orbiting satellites; identical and in perfect alignment. That’s when I realised that there were no stars below me. I was merely staring across a flat surface so flawlessly mirror-like as to cast a perfect reflection of the heavens above.

I was driving through the centre of a lake.

The water is impossibly still. Since leaving the shoreline proper yesterday night, I’ve seen neither a wave, nor a ripple across its placid surface. It’s also undeniably vast, reaching beyond the horizon in every direction and continuing further still. Without being sure how I know, I’m aware that the waters carry on for an unspeakable distance, that I would sooner reach the stars themselves before setting foot on its opposite shore.

I lean over and switch gears. The act of driving the Wrangler was a daunting one at first, but after the first two days I’ve managed to make do. An old scarf wrapped tightly around the steering wheel serves as a makeshift handle, allowing me to navigate corners one handed. I don’t have an elegant solution for the gearshift, but I’ve quickly grown used to the process. If I’ve learned anything from the road, it’s that grace is the first casualty in the fight for survival. Adaptability, no matter how clumsy, outlasts it at every turn.

A few minutes later, the Wrangler pulls up to a spacious verge. A large circle of land surrounded entirely by dark waters. At the far end, the grass seems to fall away, dropping sharply into the lake with a dead stop. The road continues of course, but it's the only thing that does. With nothing on either side, it forms a narrow bridge of perfectly flat asphalt, raised on a bed of mud and rock.

I press my boot onto the brake pedal, easing the Wrangler to a steady halt at the centre of the clearing. For the first time today, I open the car door and climb out of my seat. The dull tap of asphalt shifts to a soft rustling as I make my way over to the lakeside.

There’s something on the shore, a barely discernible object, almost entirely concealed by a shock of verdant undergrowth. It’s a miracle I’d managed to spy it from the road, though perhaps something about the stark uniformity of the landscape had made it stand out.

As I advance towards the water, and the object draws near, its indeterminate form solidifies in my mind.

It’s a human arm, reaching out from the water and onto the bank. I crouch down to examine the few pertinent details. The fingers are still embedded firmly into the soil. The thumbnail is broken, coloured by a peeling coat of faded varnish. There’s a pallid, emaciated quality to the skin, spreading down the arm until it disappears beneath a thick, woollen sleeve. At the point it meets the surface, the water soaks into the fabric, turning it black from the original grey.

With a sad exhalation, I rise to my feet and lean over the water’s edge.

The body of Marjorie Guthard lies against the silt, her cheek resting on the lake bed, her wide bewildered eyes staring out into the open lake. She’s been almost perfectly preserved. Save for the striking tautness of her skin and its mottled, grey pallor, she looks exactly like the woman I saw on the 34th turn, who’d tried to repel me from the road, who’d spoken of a lake drinking her wounds clean.

It seems her ramblings weren’t completely void of fact. It’s clear to see that Marjorie has been exsanguinated, so completely in fact that the only evidence that blood ever flowed through her veins, is a large dark stain across her shredded blouse.

It doesn’t take long before the perpetrator makes itself known.

As I stare into the water, a steady stream of formless whispers sink up through the depths of the lake. The softly spoken murmurings drift up to my ears, taking root in the back of my mind and instantly blooming into a flurry of deeply persuasive promises.

I find myself entirely transfixed by the still water, as a myriad of generous offerings unfold in throughout my consciousness. The whispers suggest an end to the phantom pains in my absent arm, perhaps even a completely restored limb, stronger than it had been before. Furthermore, it shows me a glimpse of its incomprehensible span, its furthest bank reaching across countless worlds, its deepest point lying below everything. I’m offered total knowledge of every league, every fathom, every inconceivable shore.

My hand reaches down as the whispers continue, every bargain steeped in sweet beneficence. A moment later, my outstretched fingers brush against the soft grass, and wrap around Marjorie’s exposed arm.

Digging my heels into the ground, I lean myself backwards and pull. The water ripples and splashes as I drag Marjorie’s lifeless body slowly onto the bank. I feel the voices in my mind grow louder, erupting in anger as I back away from the lake.

The promises had been convincing, each quiet solicitation undeniably persuasive. But after seeing Marjorie’s wretched fate and the look of eternal betrayal in her vacant eyes, I found myself aware of a subtle undercurrent behind every syllable, a sense of desperation and timeless hunger emanating from beneath the lake’s surface. I already have a clear understanding of what would have happened if I’d lost myself to those waters. I suspect it’s no coincidence, that of the countless shores it showed me, all of them appeared to be deserted.

Marjorie wouldn’t have stood a chance. She’d left the forest alone, grievously wounded and without a vehicle. She’d walked the whole way here, bleeding endlessly, the road’s rejuvenating power battling every moment against her body’s natural inclination to die. I suspect the road’s influence wasn’t strong enough, and when a whispering voice promised, ever so sweetly to mend her, she would have been in no position to refuse.

Her other sleeve brushes against dry land, her body leaving the water for the first time in decades. I keep pulling until my boots hit asphalt, laying her down on the grass just beside the Wrangler.

After a moment of sober vigil, I walk to the back of the car and fetch Rob’s foldable spade.

A long few hours follow. I’ve never dug someone’s grave before, and my injury is hardly conducive to the task. My fleece tied around my waist, pearls of sweat running down my brow, I manage to slowly chip away at the damp earth. Five hours later, my back cramping, my hand raw from gripping the shovel, I attempt to lower Marjorie into the rough pit with some semblance of grace, her legs dropping limply into the soft soil despite my best efforts.

It takes over an hour to shovel the soil back. It’s a sobering and ugly task. As a layer of dirt covers her face, I realise this will be the last time a living person lays their eyes on Marjorie Guthard. Burying her suddenly feels disrespectful, as if it’s an act I don’t have the right to perform.

Once it’s done, I drop onto my knees, a dull ache in my muscles as I smooth out the disturbed ground with the back of the shovel.

MARJORIE: You.

Even before I turn to face her, I can hear a scowl in her voice. There’s an odious depth to that one acrid syllable, a potent witch’s brew of contempt and accusation that feels like it’s been festering in her drowned lungs for decades.

Reluctantly, I rise to my feet and turn around, finding myself face to face with the woman I just buried. She looks different now, her clothes are dry, her skin clear, with nothing to be seen of the deep, dark gash in her blouse.

AS: Marjorie.

Unlike the empty vessel below us, the woman in front of me is by no means at peace. She shakes and wretches with the same indignant fury I witnessed when we first met. When she speaks, her words shudder under the weight of her own turbulent emotions.

MARJORIE: I chased you. I ran to you. I… I gave him up for you.

AS: I’m… I’m sorry Marjorie, I don’t know what you mean. Tell me what you mean.

MARJOIRE The things I saw, things so beautiful. And I saw her, walking alone through the new worlds. I gave everything up for you!!

I don’t know quite what to say. It’s pointless to ask her what she means, to try and understand her frenetic ramblings. In the end, I can only try to speak her language.

AS: Marjorie I… I didn’t mean you to.

Marjorie’s trembling breaths burst into a despairing fit of laughter.

MARJORIE: Oh… oh yes you did. Yes you did. And now… now you’re here.

Marjorie’s wild and volatile demeanour shifts once more, her laughter degrading further into a desperate crying panic.

MARJORIE: And what do I do now? What- What do I do?!

Marjorie cringes with the terror of the self-imposed question, placing her head in her hands and repeating it over and over again. As I watch her wrestle with despair, I’m struck by an idea I’ve never before considered. The disconcerting notion that, in death, we are not transported to a set destination by some ethereal attendant. That in fact, nothing is decided for us. Perhaps the manner in which we spend our afterlife is down to us, a decision we have to make ourselves.

Marjorie is standing over her own lifeless body, still lost, still entirely unmoored.

There's no sign of boundless paradise, inescapable damnation or everlasting nothingness, and the common thread they share, a final release from the weight of our own agency, is similarly absent. Perhaps we never get that freedom, perhaps we continue like we always do, accompanied by all our imperfections, uncertainty and discontent.

Perhaps we must choose our eternity.

After all my time on the road, that’s possibly the most terrifying notion I’ve encountered.

AS: He never stopped looking you know.

Marjorie snaps out of her wretched despair, instantly aware of who I’m referring to, staring up at me with an expression I’ve never seen her wear before.

AS: I saw him, walking on the road. He didn’t stop. He was never going to stop. I think he was looking for you Marjorie, he still is.

Marjorie stares through me. For the first time since we met on that quiet Phoenician corner, I can see the faint spark of something other than misery and rage across her tear stained face.

I hold her gaze for a moment more, before pulling my phone from my pocket. In a single sweep of my contacts, I delete every number except for one. A number I pulled from the Nokia during our second night on the road. A number that connects to a lost wanderer of the road.

AS: I don’t know if this can help but… stranger things have happened.

As she stares up into my eyes, I feel like we’re finally meeting for the first time. Without a word, Marjorie reaches out a quivering hand and takes the phone from my outstretched fingers.

Before I can say anything more, Marjorie Guthard is gone.

A few moments later, a refreshing breeze lands against my cheek, a soft zephyr, cooling my still warm face. It’s a welcome sensation, and the first movement I’ve witnessed in the air since I set out onto the lake. Wiping the sweat from my forehead, I stare quietly along the bridge, the breeze picking up around me.

It’s a subtle wind at first, brushing stray hairs across my forehead, chilling the perspiration on my neck. Yet as I reach my hand out, and feel the air slip between my fingers, I’m witness to a steady rise in both strength and magnitude.

The sound of the wind grows from a whisper to a howl, Seconds later, the hanging sleeves of my fleece begin to stream sideways. My hair lifts from my back, billowing in the throes of a developing gale.

I back up against the Wrangler’s hood as the air finally erupts into a roaring, cacophonous cyclone. My hand reflexively seeks the sturdy frame of the Wrangler, my fingers wrapping around the grille, my arm tensing as the unrelenting wind threatens to drag me from the road.

Squinting through the violent tempest, I focus on a single point in space, just above the threshold of the bridge. In the midst of the storm, a jagged line of white hot light bursts out of the ether, tearing through the night’s fabric, a crackling fissure that widens and yawns, forcing apart the curtains of reality as they frenetically struggle to recombine.

Staring through the shuddering fracture, I’m subjected to the briefest glimpse of a boundless, and impossible vista. It is a faraway place in both distance and time. An achingly beautiful and gloriously terrifying dreamscape, enduring on the majestic shores of infinity. Every moment there spans a millennium and unfolds in countless directions at once. Every passing shadow holds a darkness beyond measure, their edges burned by the glare of a waking sun which looks across every conceivable world with a hollow, rancorous intent.

In the midst of this maddening landscape, a singular entity approaches, gliding towards the portal with the clear intent to pass through. As it breaches the shuddering gateway, and the wind dies down around it, I stare up at its grand celestial form.

The being is unlike anything I’ve ever seen; composed entirely from electric arcs of brilliant, magnesic light which burst from a volatile and blinding central core. It sounds like a lightning storm, its plasmatic tendrils snapping and crackling, bursting chaotically through the night air before collapsing in on themselves. As they fall back into the creature’s centre, they emit pale clouds of vaporous fractals that fade softly into the air.

Somehow, even as my eyes barely adjust to the stark light, I realise that the entity usually burns much brighter. It's dampened its glow for my benefit, so that it can appear before me without scorching my eyes from their sockets.

AS: It’s you… isn’t it. You’re the voice I’ve been hearing. You’re the one who brought me here.

The bristling maelstrom of light hangs in the air, crackling and shifting, its transient limbs strobing with chaotic incandescence. Part of me wants to hide, part of me wants to run, but neither are an option anymore. Releasing my hand from the Wrangler’s grille I take a single step forward, standing on my own and staring up into the entity’s smouldering core.

AS: Can I get an interview?

The creature doesn’t react. In the following silence, I feel it observing me. When it finally responds, its voice ruptures the night, echoing through my skull.

VOICE: There is little time, but you may ask what questions you have.

Each reverberating syllable forms a string of literal shockwaves in the surrounding lake, emanating outwards from the being in a perfect circle. I watch the waves roll into the distance, showing no sign of ever diminishing, and I think about what question to ask first.

In the end, it comes to me quickly; a promise is a promise after all.

AS: What happened to Marjorie? Why did she do what she did?

The being pauses, as if considering its response. When it does reply, it speaks with a calm sobriety.

VOICE: She glimpsed an echo of the future, dreamed of the road, of the things that it passes through.

AS: Like whatever’s through there?

I gesture through the gateway, which is now almost entirely blocked from view by the creature’s spiralling form.

VOICE: She dreamed of untold frontiers. She saw a lone woman walking them. Over time, the fulfilment of that vision became everything to her.

AS: But it wasn’t her… she thought she was seeing her own future… but it was-

VOICE: It was you.

Those three words, as they burst into the open air, casting three narrow waves across the boundless water, hit me with a deep and heavy force. Unbeknownst to myself, decades before I was even born, Marjorie had been driven insane by dreams of maddening grandeur, of a life of boundless possibility and true significance. She had given everything up to chase a shadow… a shadow that eventually turned out to be mine.

I hadn’t just pulled Rob into this game, I was the reason for everything. I was the cause for the tragedy that befell his entire family,

AS: She didn’t just dream those sights. You influenced her. You let her see them… the same way you made Rob see me in Aokigahara. You pushed and you prodded wherever you needed so that I’d end up here. Are you the reason Bobby got the rules in the first place?

VOICE: Yes.

AS: But… why? You toyed with so many lives across… across decades. Why me? Why does it matter that I travel the road?

VOICE: Because across all humanity, across every conceivable permutation, you are the one who makes it the furthest.

It speaks plainly, as if the statement were a foregone conclusion. Yet its words strike me into silence.

The creature continues.

VOICE: I’ve watched you work your way here, through skill and through tenacity… and undeniably through luck. You were brought here because of these qualities, and they will carry you further along the road than any other.

AS: Then why didn’t you just bring me here? All that influence and you didn’t lift a finger… after everything that happened-

VOICE: Events transpired as they needed to.

AS: As they… needed to?! People died! Marjorie. Bobby. Ace. Apollo. Eve. Lilith. Everyone. They’re all gone. Do you not care at all?

In response to my words, the entity remains silent for longer than usual.

VOICE: I care more than you know. There are things greater than your understanding, forces that exist beyond the realms of your comprehension that you would consider a threat to everything you hold dear. My actions were guided by a higher standard of knowledge. Your protests are predicated on false understanding.

AS: You’re saying I don’t understand death?

VOICE: You don’t.

AS: ... That still doesn’t make it right.

VOICE: Regardless, my influence is necessary. That which is necessary must be.

AS: What even are you?

VOICE:: I cannot answer that question in any way you’d understand.

AS: That's not good enough.

The creature doesn’t respond, as if it doesn’t feel it needs to. So far it’s returned my every argument with impenetrable certainty. From the domain it occupies, knowing what it knows, my arguments must seem entirely facile. Even if it did feel the need to justify itself, after seeing the place it hails from, I wonder if there’s any way I could ever comprehend its motives.

Still, that doesn’t mean my arguments are invalid, and the creature’s lofty dispassion does little more than stoke my desire to oppose it.

AS: And what if I don’t want any part of this?

VOICE: You are travelling the aberrant strand; a singularly stable flaw in the fabric of reality. As it carries you further from the world you know, you will be freed from the influence of the old laws. You have already noticed the effects in those who settled the road, those who were lost to it and in yourself; energy without consumption, knowledge without requisite experience. You are shedding entropy, and causality and in time you will reach realms of understanding you cannot currently fathom. You will find answers to questions you never thought to ask. You will discover absolute truth. For this reason, you will carry on.

AS: That’s the only reason?

VOICE: Do you need another?

It doesn’t come across as a question, but rather another blunt statement of fact. I understand the effect it’s speaking of. Ever since the city, I’ve been encountering vague notions and fragmented ideas that occur to me randomly and without announcement. New avenues of thought leading to revelations that would otherwise lie beyond my mortal reach.

I’ve started to comprehend things I could barely have conceived of back home, and though the onset of these notions had been terrifying at first, they grow less so with every passing day.

AS: No… no, I don’t trust you. I don’t-

VOICE: Your trust is immaterial. You will travel the road regardless.

The creature’s already stark glow starts to intensify.

VOICE: I’ve watched you, on every turn … across every moment of your journey.

One of the creature’s countless protrusions lashes out at the empty air, forming another harsh, glowing fissure. It wrenches itself open in a few stilted jolts, a transparent, almost crystalline membrane stretched across the gap. Through it, I can see myself, in the centre of a cornfield, examining a block of C4 explosive.

It’s as if I’m staring into the past through a jagged shard of one-way glass.

VOICE: I’ve watched you questioning.

Though we can’t be seen through the aperture, I see the glasslike membrane shake with the force of the creature’s voice. As the window collapses, I can see the rows of corn thrown into a frenzy.

A second arc lashes out at the sky, forming a second aperture. This time I’m expecting the sight before me. I see myself, crying in the forest… a silent radio by my side.

VOICE: I’ve watched you struggle.

The second window closes. The creature has made its point.

VOICE: I’ve watched you fight… to make your way here.

VOICE: You will not turn around.

AS: You make it sound like I don’t have a choice.

VOICE: You do have a choice Alice, but you have already made it.

As much as I’ve grown to detest the creature’s presumption, in that moment, I know it’s right.

What it’s saying is true. I’ve done things I never would have imagined in order to get where I am now. In fact, if this being hadn’t arrived at all, I’d already be heading out over the bridge.

I’m not proud of what drives me; that same, ugly impulse that led me to refuse Rob’s offer of return, that made it so easy to leave him behind in the silent city. But there’s no denying the impulse is there. It’s been with me the whole time, long before I ever arrived in Phoenix, Arizona… and it’s buried deeper than I’ve ever wanted to admit.

AS: Can I… do I get to say goodbye?

The entity says nothing. It hangs in the air, flickering and coursing with rupturing bolts of light. The next thing I hear is a faint mechanical hum emanating from the Wrangler behind me. Turning around, I pace briskly back to the car, opening the door and reaching into the passenger seat. My notebook is booting up, seemingly of its own accord.

Picking up the laptop, I lift the lid as I march back towards the bridge. I stare up at the silent being before me. When I look down to the laptop, my email client is already displayed on the screen.

AS: How… how long do I have?

VOICE: Long enough.

The entity begins to regress, its arcs diminishing as the being at its core turns away. Its message has been delivered. There is nothing more to discuss.

As it passes through the gateway, into an unknowable world far removed from my own, I call out after it.

AS: I’m still not certain I trust you.

The being focusses on me once more, as the fracture begins to close. A final set of waves pass across the surface of the lake as it solemnly replies.

VOICE: … I remember.

A moment later, the being is gone.

I stand motionless in the middle of the road, the entity’s final remarks washing over me, its curious choice of words echoing in my head. In the renewed silence, the faint stirrings of an overwhelming and terrible revelation start to form in my mind.

It could have simply said that it knew of my mistrust, that it heard the overtones in my voice, saw the disdain across my face or otherwise sensed it in the space between us. Instead, the being spoke as if my current feelings were a memory, dwelling somewhere within its depths.

It was undeniable that my time on the road was changing me, but in all this time I’d never truly considered how those changes might evolve as my journey continues.

I’d never thought about what I might gain, what I might lose… or about what I might inevitably become.

A short while passes before I lower my eyes from the empty space above the bridge, to the screen of my notebook. Lowering myself down, I cross my legs and rest my back against the Wrangler.

If you’ve been reading from the beginning, you’ve finally caught up with me.

I hope you’ll allow me a few personal messages.

To Rob. I hope you’re able to read this someday, and I am so, so sorry for everything I’ve done; for everything I may do. I hope you understand that I didn’t know, and that none of this was your fault. You did the best you could, and the days I spent with you were the most significant of my life. It was an honour to know you and I hope that, among these pages, you find the answers, and the peace, that you deserve.

To my mum and dad, I’m sorry I won’t be sending this to you. In the end, I was carried along this road by a profound selfishness, and I just can’t bring myself to face you. I can’t imagine the pain I’ll be putting you through, and I won't try to justify my actions. All I can say is that I love you and I’m sorry that my last act towards you was one of cowardice.

And finally to you; the person to whom this message will be addressed. I’m sorry. I always thought I’d see you again someday, that the roads I took would eventually lead me home. That doesn’t look so likely now. Though I could say a lot to you, I’m not going to.

But I wish we could have been friends for longer.

It feels like a lifetime since I first arrived at Rob Guthard’s quiet street. I remember the uncertainty as I waited for him to open his door, with no concievable idea what was about to transpire.

Like so many other things, that’s now changed. Despite being in an entirely new world, further from home than anyone’s ever been, I know exactly what’s going to happen next.

I’m going to take a drive. Take a left, then the next possible road on the right, then the next possible left. I will repeat the process ad infinitum, until I wind up somewhere new.

And from there I’ll keep driving, beyond worlds, beyond time, beyond the bounds of my imagining. To a place where the lake runs dry, where the broken moon drifts away, and the stars disappear in the rear view.

To a place where everything has fallen away, and the road is all there is.

#creepy #horror story #series #left right game series #author: NeonTempo #mod note: i highly recommend reading the comments on reddit

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hellsbovnd-archive · 5 years

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I did a lot of screencaps today so I tossed them into queue! And by ‘a lot’ I mean like... 10... They’ll post throughout the day tomorrow. I only managed to get through Percival, Wren, and one Leon screencap before I got pulled to do other things, but I wanna get some of Jan and Rose too at some point! (Rose needs non-armor glamz tho and I know I do want to do a shoot of Jan in ‘uniform’ at some point)

And some 3am thoughts below the cut because why not. (Also I’m hungry again.)

I have been thinking a lot about Leon lately.

I’ve played the same character, more or less, for what will be three years this July, though Leon’s been a concept I bounced around in my head for about a year before that when my main was still on Malboro. (Malboro friends may vaguely remember a beta!Leon who was actually an arcanist with the guild, who was meek and shy and who was easily intimidated into giving information; this arcanist concept would eventually be merged into a journalist-with-the-echo character concept I also had at the time, and would then go on to pick up crime shit later when I started Ebonguard to spite everyone who said it couldn’t be done.)

And in those three years, he hasn’t changed a whole lot? He got nabbed into a relationship early which has provided me endless hours and innumerable sessions of entertainment (you want angst? We got angst. You want fluff? They do that too. Sit down for six hours and Just Go; what happens next may blow your fucking mind) and he wound up in positions of leadership as a result of my OOC circumstances. But that’s kind of it.

I tried running a character arc for him once upon a time, but it didn’t do super well and I ended up cancelling it (it’s now existing in a weird space both within and outside of canon events; I can’t decide what I want to do with it since it was never completed and I don’t RP with/Don’t Fucking Like any of the participants save like 2?? anymore).

In the time between then and now I’ve done a lot of DMing but that kinda forced me to sideline Leon or make him into more of a “taskmaster” character, who while IC present for the events that unfold around the party, never really acts to affect them, because as a DM I personally feel like it’s bad form to make a scene all about my character, or to take away player agency in any way and make it so that only I have the power to actually push the plot forward. I know that on the exceedingly rare occasion that I get to be a player, that kind of stuff makes me tune out.....really fucking quickly.

So as a result I haven’t really spent most of that time actually playing my character, and as it just so happens the overwhelming majority of the people I have DMed for have pretty much just used me for my DMing skills.... Cuz they didn’t wanna do it, but they also didn’t actually give a goddamn about me as a person, lmao. Which, yeah, I can tell a story--it’s pretty much my only marketable skill on this hell of an earth, and I like telling stories, but going through all that effort, creating a narrative, making NPCs, writing “lore” on magical artifacts, scheduling and running events, logging them, tying them together and keeping track of the party’s progress neglecting the character I actually play in order to tell these stories for other people, only to have them spit in my face the instant they feel I’ve outlived my usefulness, y’know, fucking sucks.

And there’s still more to do. There’s never nothing to do. I need to organize two plots for Ebonguard, one of which requires outside collaborators--I need to slide coords/officers some incentive to help me solicit for Modus I think, but there’s also another pretty big plot that we have in the oven that I’m kicking off... Oh shit, today. I have no plans. The plan will reveal itself as I do it, I guess. I wanna organize some RP for INK too, we’re all kind of in pre-expac lull mode and we all have like seventy billion alts now including a small gaggle of disaster Garleans. I have been kind of neglecting INK lately. I pitched the idea of running Leon’s character arc as an INK plot to positive responses but then I got ahead of myself and kicked off Jan’s character arc like an idiot. I love playing Jan and I’m very excited for his story, but he’s hot out of the oven and Leon needs it more. But I hate FC leads who make shit about their character on principle, so I don’t wanna do more than one character arc at a time.

I have basically no motivation or reason to actually play Leon. I love his concept and I will always love his concept, and he’s going to stay my main because uh, I’m poor and I’m also not levelling everything again if I don’t have to. It’s not a problem with his core concept so much as, I guess, the fact that nothing has happened to really challenge him since I started playing him. Modus Operandi will change that obviously but I’m probably going to end up the primary DM there anyway if I don’t get lucky with collaborators, but without characters around him that give a damn that doesn’t really even mean anything anyway? He has basically zero meaningful RP connections, he’s overshadowed by pretty much the entirety of my cast of myriad alts at this point, and when I play him I don’t really get to play him anyway. And when I DM there’s like a 50/50 shot that people will just spit in my face 6mo down the line and tell me they’re doing me a favor. His first best friend rerolled and his second one turned out to be a massive PoS OOC so yeet.

idk. I love DMing and story-telling, I love INK, I love Ebonguard which has treated me incredibly well for the past 2 3/4 years, I love Ed and the scant few RP partners I do have on Leon, and I’m really excited for Big Plans, but running all of them once, and all of them for the most part entirely solo until very very recently when Ebonguard got coordinators and INK got officers (kiiind of?), and even now like 50% solo, and at times running them in parallel with each other, has really put a damper on my ability to enjoy writing Leon. I love Leon, but I look back at 3ish years of RP and see I have absolutely nothing to show for it. None of the plot threads I wanted to explore were ever explored, and there were times I had RP partners who actively tried to get rid of the threads by solving them with some handwave that Leon never earned. His character, apart from some bits and bobs that he picked up along the way, is exactly the same as it was on July 3rd, 2016.

I’m semi-considering a soft reset; major beats of his story staying the same (relationship with Edda, role as Crow, leader of Alizarine) while erasing everything else which, granted, because roughly half of all the RP partners I have ever had have turned out to be absolute shitstains (terfs, etc) is not actually a whole lot to erase, because a lot was already retconned anyway. But I dunno if that would actually fix anything.

tl;dr

#ooc ( player speaking )#[ wow this got long ]#[ i just needed to vent abt leon a little ]

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lesbianrewrites · 7 years

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The Martian Chaper 11

*disclaimer* This is a project done for fun, and none of these characters/works belong to me. I do not claim to own any of the material on this page.

This is a Lesbian edit of The Martian by Andy Weir.

Chapters will be posted every day at 2pm EST.

Google doc version can be found here. The chapter can also be found under the cut. Enjoy!

CHAPTER XI

“Something’s coming in… yes… yes! It’s Pathfinder!” The room burst in to applause and cheers. Venkat slapped an unknown technician heartily on the back while Bruce pumped his fist in the air. The ad-hoc control center was an accomplishment in itself. JPL had just 20 days to piece together antiquated computers, repair broken components, network everything, and install hastily made software to interact with the modern Deep Space Network. A team of engineers had worked around the clock, finishing only two days earlier. The room itself was formerly a conference room; JPL had no space ready for the sudden need. Crammed with computers and equipment, little space was left over for the many spectators squeezing in. One Associated Press camera team was permitted. The rest of the media would have to satisfy themselves with the live AP feed, and await a press conference. Venkat turned to Bruce. “God damn, Bruce. You really pulled a rabbit out of your hat this time! Good work!” “I’m just the director,” Bruce said modestly. “Thank the guys who got all this shit working.” “Oh I will!” Venkat beamed. “But first I have to talk to my new best friend!” Turning to the headsetted man at the communications console, Venkat asked “What’s you’re name, new best friend?” “Tim,” he said, not taking his eyes off the screen. “What now?” Venkat asked. “We sent the return telemetry automatically. It’ll get there in just over 11 minutes. Once it does, Pathfinder will start high-gain transmissions. So it’ll be 22 minutes till we hear from it again.” “Venkat’s got a doctorate in physics, Tim,” Bruce said, “You don’t need to explain transmission time to him.” Tim shrugged. “You can never tell with managers.” “What was in the transmission we got?” Venkat asked. “Just the bare bones. A hardware self check. It’s got a lot of “nonfunctional” systems, cause they were on the panels Watney removed.” “What about the camera?” “It says the imager’s working. We’ll have it take a panorama as soon as we can.”

LOG ENTRY: SOL 97 It worked! Holy fucking shit it worked! I just checked the Lander. The high gain antenna is angled directly at Earth! Pathfinder has no way of knowing where it is, so it has no way of knowing where Earth is. The only way for it to find out is getting a signal. They know I’m alive! Happy dance, happy dance, I’m doin’ the happy dance! All right. Enough happy dance. Time to make with the communicatin’!

“We received the high-gain response just over half an hour ago,” Venkat said to the assembled press. “We immediately directed Pathfinder to take a panoramic image. Hopefully, Watney has some kind of message for us. Questions?” The sea of reporters raised their hands. “Cathy, let’s start with you,” Venkat said, pointing her out. “Thanks,” she said. “Have you had any contact with the Sojourner rover?” “Unfortunately, no,” he replied. “The Lander hasn’t been able to connect to Sojourner, and we have no way to contact it directly.” “What might be wrong with Sojourner?” “I can’t even speculate,” Venkat said. “After spending that long on Mars, anything could be wrong with it.” “Best guess?” “Our best guess is she took it into the Hab. The Lander’s signal wouldn’t be able to reach Sojourner through Hab canvas.” Pointing to another reporter, he said “You, there.” “Marty West, NBC News,” Marty said. “How will you communicate with Watney once everything’s up and running?” “That’ll be up to Watney,” said Venkat. “All we have to work with is the camera. She can write notes and hold them up. But how we talk back is trickier.” “How so?” Marty asked. “Because all we have is the camera platform. That’s the only moving part. There are plenty of ways to get information across with just the platform’s rotation, but no way to tell Watney about them. She’ll have to come up with something and tell us. We’ll follow her lead.” Pointing to the next reporter, he said, “Go ahead.” “Jill Holbrook, BBC. With a 32 minute round trip, and nothing but a single rotating platform to talk with, it’ll be a dreadfully slow conversation, won’t it?” “Yes it will,” Venkat confirmed. “It’s early morning in Acidalia Planitia right now, and just past 3am here in Pasadena. We’ll be here all night, and that’s just for a start. No more questions for now, the panorama is due back in a few minutes. We’ll keep you posted.” Quickly leaving the press room, Venkat hurried down the hall to the makeshift Pathfinder control center. He pressed through the throng to the communications console. “Anything, Tim?” “Totally,” he replied. “But we’re staring at this black screen because it’s way more interesting than pictures from Mars.” “You’re a smart-ass, Tim,” Venkat said. “Noted.” Bruce pushed his way forward. “Still another few seconds on the clock,” he said. The time passed in silence. “Getting something,” Tim said. “Yup. It’s the panoramic.” A general loosening of tension coruscated through the room as the image slowly came through, one vertical stripe at a time. “Martian surface…” Venkat said as the lines displayed. “More surface…” “Edge of the Hab!” Bruce said, pointing to the screen. “Hab,” Venkat smiled. “More Hab now… more Hab… is that a message? That’s a message!” The vertical stripes revealed a handwritten note, suspended at the camera’s height by a thin metal rod. “We got a note from Maia!” Venkat announced to the room. Applause filled the room, then quickly died down. “What’s it say?” someone asked. Venkat leaned closer to the screen. “It says …‘I’ll write questions here – Are you receiving?’” “Ok…?” said Bruce. “That’s what it says,” Venkat shrugged. “Another note,” said Tim, pointing to the screen as the slow march of data revealed itself. Venkat leaned in again. “This one says ‘Point here for yes’.” “All right, I see what she’s going for,” said Bruce. “There’s the third note,” said Tim. “‘Point here for no,’” Venkat read. “‘Will check often for answer’” Venkat folded his arms. “All right. We have communication with Maia. Tim, point the camera at ‘Yes’. Then, start taking pictures at 10 minute intervals until she puts another question up.”

LOG ENTRY: SOL 97 (2) “Yes!” They said “Yes!” I haven’t been this excited about a “yes” since prom night! Ok, calm down. I have limited paper to work with. These cards were intended to label batches of samples. I have about 50 cards. I can use both sides, and if it comes down to it, I can re-use them by scratching out the old question. The Sharpie I’m using will last much longer than the cards, so ink isn’t a problem. But I have to do all my writing in the Hab. I don’t know what kind of hallucinogenic crap that ink is made of, but I’m pretty sure it would boil off in 1/90th of an atmosphere. I’m using old parts of the antenna array to hold the cards up. There’s a certain irony in that. We’ll need to talk faster than yes/no questions every half-hour. The camera can rotate 360 degrees, and I have plenty of antenna parts. Time to make an alphabet. But I can’t just use the letters A through Z. With my Question Card, that would be 27 cards around the lander. Each one would only get 13 degrees of arc. Even if JPL points the camera perfectly, there’s a good chance I won’t know which letter they meant. So I’ll have to use ASCII. That’s how computers manage characters. Each character has a numerical code between 0 and 255. Values between 0 and 255 can be expressed as 2 hexadecimal digits. By giving me pairs of hex digits, they can send any character they like, including numbers, punctuation, etc. How do I know which values go with which characters? Because Johanssen’s laptop is a wealth of information. I knew she’d have an ASCII table in there somewhere. All computer geeks do. So I’ll make cards for 0 through 9, and A through F. That makes 16 cards to place around the camera, plus the Question Card. 17 cards means over 21 degrees each. Much easier to deal with. Time to get to work! Spell with ASCII. Numbers 0-F at 21 degree increments. Will watch camera starting 11:00 my time. When message done, return to this position. Wait 20 minutes after completion to take picture (So I can write and post reply). Repeat process at top of every hour. S…T…A…T…U…S No physical problems. All Hab components functional. Eating 3/4 rations. Successfully growing crops in Hab with cultivated soil. Note: Situation not Ares 3 crew’s fault. Bad luck. H…O…W…A…L…I…V…E Impaled by antenna fragment. Knocked out by decompression. Landed face down, blood sealed hole. Woke up after crew left. Bio-monitor computer destroyed by puncture. Crew had reason to think me dead. Not their fault. C…R…O…P…S…? Long story. Extreme Botany. Have 126 m2 farmland growing potatoes. Will extend food supply, but not enough to last until Ares 4 landing. Modified rover for long distance travel, plan to drive to Ares 4. W…E…S…A…W…-…S…A…T…L…I…T…E Government watching me with satellites? Need tinfoil hat! Also need faster way to communicate. Speak&Spell taking all damn day. Any ideas? B…R…I…N…G…S…J…R…N…R…O…U…T Sojourner rover brought out, placed 1 meter due north of Lander. If you can contact it, I can draw hex numbers on the wheels and you can send me six bytes at a time. S…J…R…N…R…N…O…T…R…S…P…N…D Damn. Any other ideas? Need faster communication. W…O…R…K…I…N…G…O…N…I…T Earth is about to set. Resume 08:00 my time tomorrow morning. Tell family I’m fine. Give crew my best. Tell Commander Lewis disco sucks.

“I was up all night,” said Venkat. “Forgive me if I’m a little punchy. Who are you again?” “Jack Trevor,” said the thin, pale man before Venkat. “I work in software engineering.” “What can I do for you?” “We have an idea for communication.” “I’m all ears.” “We’ve been looking through the old Pathfinder software. We got duplicate computers up and running for testing. Same computers they used to find a problem that almost killed the original mission. Real interesting story, actually, turns out there was a priority inversion in Sojourner’s thread management and-” “Focus, Jack,” interrupted Venkat. “Right. Well, the thing is, Pathfinder has an OS update process. So we can change the software to anything we want.” “Ok, how does this help us?” “Pathfinder has two communication systems. One to talk to us, the other to talk to Sojourner. We can change the second system to broadcast on the Ares-3 rover frequency. And we can have it pretend to be the beacon signal from the Hab.” “You can get Pathfinder talking to Maia’s rover?” “It’s the only option. The Hab’s radio is dead. Thing is, all the rover does is triangulate the signal to fix its location. It doesn’t send data back to the Hab. It just has a voice channel for the astronauts to talk to each other.” “So,” Venkat said, “You can get Pathfinder talking to the rover, but you can’t get the rover talking back.” “Right. What we want is for our text to show up on the rover screen, and whatever Watney types to be sent back to us. That requires a change to the rover’s software.” “And we can’t do that,” Venkat concluded. “Because we can’t talk to the rover.” “Not directly,” Jack said. “But we can send data to Watney, and have her enter it into the rover.” “How much data are we talking about?” “I have guys working on the rover software right now. The patch file will be 20 Meg, minimum. We can send one byte to Watney every 4 seconds or so with the ‘Speak&Spell.’ It’d take three years of constant broadcasting to get that patch across. So that’s no good.” “But you’re talking to me, so you have a solution, right?” Venkat probed. “Of course!” Jack beamed. “Software engineers are sneaky bastards when it comes to data management.” “Enlighten me,” said Venkat, patiently. “Here’s the clever part,” Jack said, conspiratorially. “The rover currently parses the signal into bytes, then identifies the specific sequence the Hab sends. That way, natural radio waves won’t throw off the homing. If the bytes aren’t right, the rover ignores them.” “Ok, so what?” “It means there’s a spot in the codebase where it’s got the parsed bytes. We can insert a tiny bit of code, just 20 instructions, to write the parsed bytes to a log file before checking their validity.” “This sounds promising…” Venkat said. “It is!” Jack said excitedly. “First, we update Pathfinder with our replacement OS. Then, we tell Watney exactly how to hack the rover software to add those 20 instructions. Then we broadcast the rover’s patch to Pathfinder, which re-broadcasts it to the rover. The rover logs the bytes to a file. Finally, Watney launches the file as an executable and it patches the rover software!” Venkat furrowed his brow, taking in far more information than his sleep-deprived mind wanted to accept. “Um,” Jack said. “You’re not cheering or dancing.” “So we just need to send Watney those 20 instructions?” Venkat asked. “That, and how to edit the files. And where to insert the instructions in the files.” “Just like that?” “Just like that!” Venkat was silent for a moment. “Jack. I’m going to buy your whole team autographed Star Trek memorabilia.” “I prefer Star Wars.”

“Hello?” “I need a picture of Watney.” “Hi, Annie. Nice to hear from you, too. How are things back in Houston?” “Cut the shit, Venkat. I need a picture.” “It’s not that simple,” Venkat explained. “You’re talking to her with a fucking camera. How hard can it be?” “We spell out our message, wait 20 minutes and then take a picture. Watney’s back in the Hab by then.” “So tell her to be around when you take the next picture,” Annie demanded. “We can only send one message per hour, and only when Acidalia Planitia is facing Earth,” Venkat said. “We’re not going to waste a message just to tell her to pose for a photo. Besides, she’ll be in her EVA suit. You won’t even be able to see her face.” “I need something, Venkat,” Annie said. “You’ve been in contact for 24 hours and the media is going ape shit. They want an image for the story. It’ll be on every news site in the world.” “You have the pictures of her notes. Make do with that.” “Not enough,” Annie said. “The press is crawling down my throat for this. And up my ass. Both directions, Venkat! They’re gonna meet in the middle!” “It’ll have to wait a few days. We’re going to try and link Pathfinder to the rover computer-“ “A few days!?” Annie gasped. “This is all anyone cares about right now. In the world. You see what I’m getting at? This is the biggest story since Apollo 13. Give me a fucking picture!” Venkat sighed. “I’ll try to get it tomorrow.” “Great!” She said. “Looking forward to it.”

LOG ENTRY: SOL 98 I have to be watching the camera when it spells shit out. It’s half a byte at a time. So I watch a pair of numbers, then look them up on an ASCII cheat-sheet I made. That’s one letter. I don’t want to forget any letters, so I scrape them into the dirt with a rod. The process of looking up a letter and scraping it in the dirt takes a couple of seconds. Sometimes when I look back at the camera, I’ve missed a number. I can usually guess it from context, but other times I just miss out. Today I got up hours earlier than I needed to. It was like Christmas morning! I could hardly wait for 08:00 to roll around. I had breakfast, did some unnecessary checks on Hab equipment, and read some Poirot. Finally the time came! “CNHAKRVR2TLK2PTHFDRPRP4LONGMSG” Yeah. Took me a minute. “Can hack rover to talk to Pathfinder. Prepare for long message.” That took some mental gymnastics to work out. But it was great news! If we could get that set up, we’d only be limited by transmission time! I set up a note that said “Roger.” Not sure what they meant by “long message” but I figured I better be ready. I went out 15 minutes before the top of the hour and smoothed out a big area of dirt. I found the longest antenna rod I had, so I could reach into the smooth area without having to step on it. Then I stood by. Waiting. At exactly the top of the hour, the message came. “LNCHhexiditONRVRCMP,OPENFILE-/usr/lib/habcomm.so-SCROLLTILIDXON LFTIS:2AAE5,OVRWRT141BYTSWTHDATAWE’LLSNDNXTMSG,STANDINVIE W4NXTPIC20MINFTERTHSDONE” Jesus. Ok… They want me to launch ‘hexedit’ on the rover’s computer, then open the file /usr/lib/habcomm.so, scroll until the index reading on the left of the screen is 2AAE5, then replace the bytes there with a 141 byte sequence NASA will send in the next message. Fair enough. Also, for some reason, they want me to hang around for the next pic. Not sure why. You can’t see any part of me when I’m in the suit. Even the faceplate would reflect too much light. Still, it’s what they want. I went back in and copied down the message for future reference. Then I wrote a short note and came back out. Usually I’d pin up the note and go back in. But this time I had to hang around for a photo op. I gave the camera a thumb’s-up to go along with my note, which said “Ayyyyyy!” Blame the ‘70’s TV.

“I ask for a picture and I get The Fonz?” Annie admonished. “You got your picture, quit bitching,” Venkat said, cradling the phone on his shoulder. He paid more attention to the schematics in front of him than the conversation. “Ayyyyyy!” Annie mocked. “Why would she do that?” “Have you met Maia Watney?” “Fine, fine,” Annie said. “But I want a pic of her face ASAP.” “Can’t do that.” “Why not?” “Because if she takes off her helmet, she’ll die. Annie, I have to go, one of the JPL programmers is here and it’s urgent. Bye!” “But-“ Annie said as he hung up. Jack, in the doorway, said “It’s not urgent.” “Yeah, I know,” Venkat said. “What can I do for you?” “We were thinking,” Jack began, “This rover hack might get kind of detailed. We may have to do a bunch of back-and-forth communication with Watney.” “That’s fine,” Venkat said. “Take your time, do it right.” “We could get things done faster with a shorter transmission time,” Jack said. Venkat gave him a puzzled look. “Do you have a plan for moving Earth and Mars closer together?” “Earth doesn’t have to be involved,” Jack said. “Hermes is 73 million km from Mars right now. Only 4 light-minutes away. Beth Johanssen is a great programmer. She could talk Maia through it.” “Out of the question,” Venkat said. “She’s the mission Sysop,” Jack pressed on, “This is her exact area of expertise.” “Can’t do it, Jack. The crew still doesn’t know.” “What is with you? Why won’t you just tell them?” “Watney’s not my only responsibility,” Venkat said. “I’ve got five other astronauts in deep space, who have to concentrate on their return trip. Nobody thinks about it, but statistically they’re in more danger than Watney right now. She’s on a planet. They’re in space.” Jack raised his arms. “Fine, we’ll do it the slow way.”

LOG ENTRY: SOL 98 (2) Ever transcribed 141 random bytes, one half of a byte at a time? It’s boring. And it’s tricky when you don’t have a pen. Earlier, I had just written letters in the sand. But this time, I needed a way to get the numbers on to something portable. My first plan was: Use a laptop! Each crewman had their own laptop. So I have six at my disposal. Rather, I “had” six. I now have five. I thought a laptop would be fine outside. It’s just electronics, right? It’ll keep warm enough to operate in the short term, and it doesn’t need air for anything. It died instantly. The screen went black before I was out of the airlock. Turns out the “L” in “LCD” stands for “Liquid.” I guess it either froze or boiled off. Maybe I’ll post a consumer review. “Brought product to surface of Mars. It stopped working. 0/10.” So I used a camera. I’ve got lots of them, specially made for working on Mars. I wrote the bytes in the sand as they came in, took a picture, then transcribed them in the Hab. It’s night now, so no more messages. Tomorrow, I’ll enter this in to the rover and the geeks at JPL can take it from there.

“Come on up here, Jack,” said Venkat. “You get to be the most Timward today.” “Thanks,” said Jack, taking Venkat’s place next to Tim. “Heya, Tim!” “Jack,” said Tim. “How long will the patch take?” Venkat asked. “Should be pretty much instant,” Jack answered. “Watney entered the hack earlier today, and we confirmed it worked. We updated Pathfinder’s OS without any problems. We sent the rover patch, which Pathfinder rebroadcast. Once Watney executes the patch and reboots the rover, we should get a connection.” “Jesus what a complicated process,” Venkat said. “Try updating a Linux server some time,” Jack said. After a moment of silence, Tim said “You know he was telling a joke, right? That was supposed to be funny.” “Oh,” said Venkat. “I’m a physics guy, not a computer guy.” “He’s not funny to computer guys either.” “You’re a very unpleasant man, Tim,” Jack said. “System’s online,” said Tim. “What?” “It’s online. FYI.” “Holy crap!” Jack said. “It worked!” Venkat announced to the room. [11:18]JPL: Maia, this is Venkat Kapoor. We’ve been watching you since Sol 49. The whole world’s been rooting for you. Amazing job, getting Pathfinder. We’re working on rescue plans. JPL is adjusting Ares 4’s MDV to do a short overland flight. They’ll pick you up, then take you with them to Schiaparelli. We’re putting together a supply mission to keep you fed till Ares 4 arrives. [11:29]WATNEY: Glad to hear it. Really looking forward to not dying. I want to make it clear it wasn’t the crew’s fault. Side question: What did they say when they found out I was alive? Also, “Hi, mom!” [11:41]JPL: Tell us about your “crops”. We estimated your food packs would last until Sol 400 at 3/4 ration per meal. Will your crops affect that number? As to your question: We haven’t told the crew you’re alive yet. We wanted them to concentrate on their own mission. [11:52]WATNEY: The crops are potatoes, grown from the ones we were supposed to prepare on Thanksgiving. They’re doing great, but the available farmland isn’t enough for sustainability. I’ll run out food around Sol 900. Also: Tell the crew I’m alive! What the fuck is wrong with you? [12:04]JPL: We’ll get botanists in to ask detailed questions and double-check your work. Your life is at stake, so we want to be sure. Sol 900 is great news. It’ll give us a lot more time to get the supply mission together. Also, please watch your language. Everything you type is being broadcast live all over the world. [12:15]WATNEY: Look! A pair of boobs! -> (.Y.)

“Thank you, Mr. President,” Teddy said into the phone. “I appreciate the call, and I’ll pass your congratulations on to the whole organization.” “Thank you, Mr. President,” Teddy said in to the phone. “I appreciate the call, and I’ll pass your congratulations on to the whole organization.” “This a good time?” Mitch asked. “Come in, Mitch,” Teddy said. “Have a seat.” “Thanks,” Mitch said, sitting in a fine leather couch. “Good day today!” “Yes, it was,” Teddy agreed. “Another step closer to getting Watney back alive.” “Yeah, about that,” said Mitch. “You probably know why I’m here.” “I can take a guess,” said Teddy. “You want to tell the crew Watney’s alive.” “Yes,” Mitch said. “And you’re bringing this up with me while Venkat is in Pasadena, so he can’t argue the other side.” “I shouldn’t have to clear this with you or Venkat or anyone else. I’m the flight director. It should have been my call from the beginning, but you two stepped in and overrode me. Ignoring all that, we agreed we’d tell them when there was hope. And now there’s hope. We’ve got communication, we have a plan for rescue in the works, and her farm buys us enough time to get her supplies.” “Ok, tell them.” Teddy said. Mitch paused. “Just like that?” “I knew you’d be here sooner or later, so I already thought it through and decided. Go ahead and tell them.” Mitch stood up. “All right. Thanks,” he said as he left the office. Teddy swiveled in his chair and looked out his windows to the night sky. He pondered the faint, red dot amongst the stars. “Hang in there Watney,” he said to no one. “We’re coming.”

#the martian #the martian andy weir #lesbian rewrites #lgbt #lesbiansafe

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