#i need a fucking workshop i need water and electricity and a lock on the door i dont need a 120000 sqft warehouse

[paranoidgemsbok]

god i need a rental place to make soap and candles in

[darkseraphscorner]

King's Row  Seraph's workshop.

Seraph was carefully pumping the forge, heat filling the room as he looks at his new apprentice. "Okay Aura, we got the heat up, now we just need to get the metal to the right temp."

The oni nodded, watching the flames carefully, she was an odd one Seraph had to admit, with her powers she could easily be a hero, but instead she wanted to learn metal working.... Not that he minded, the extra help was welcome.

He was about to speak again when he heated the door bell of his work shop jiggle. "Keep an eye on it, I'll bee back in a moment." He says, heading out of the sweltering forge into the much cooler shop front. "How can I be of assistance?" He asked the new comer.

Dressed in some sort of business wear, a red dress shirt with black vest, demon tail and a shock of white hair with little... Dog ears? The woman walks up to the counter with a large grin on her face. "Hi mister." She holds out a torn newspaper, a familiar add on it. "Room for rent?"

Seraph looked over the scrap of paper, yes that was his add. "Okay, first things first." He reaches under the counter and pulls out a ledger. "Name and occupation?"

She smiles again, a slightly vacant look on her face for a moment before she fishes in her pocket, pulling out a wallet and showing him a hero id.

He squints at it. "Okay, miss... Cerb Urus? Like the hell hound?"

She nods. "That's me."

To be honest, with a name like that, Seraph was expecting her to be Greek... More dog like and with at least two more heads.... But this was Paragon and stranger things where about. "Okay, I need a security deposit, rent is due every second Thursday, about $400 give or take electricity, water and gas bills."

She blinks. "That... Er... That sounds too cheep."

Seraph laughed. "I'm not in the landlording business to make a buck, cheep affordable housing here."

She reaches into her wallet and pulls out a wad of bills, Seraph noting some had blood stains on them.... She wouldn't be the first hero to pad their wallet with stolen funds and it was better than druggies, rapists and killers having it.

He takes the bills, putting them in a lock box and hands her a key. "Stairs are out side, second floor, room five."

She nods and heads out side, almost skipping. Shaking his head, seraph stepped back into the forge, Aura looking slightly sad as she held up a drooping bit of metal. "I over heated it sir." She said sadly.

"Ahh that's the magic of forging, we wait for it to cool a bit and hammer it back into shape." He explains.

Up stairs.

Cerb stepped into her apartment and sighed, a roof over her head at last, sniffing around, she looked it over... No furniture... But people left perfectly good stuff on the street all the time, so she could just grab that.... But more important, she had a base to search for her sisters from.... Where ever they are.

Meanwhile, in Mercy island 

The Arachnos agent looked through the window at the woman strapped to the bench. "Care to explain to me again?" He asked.

The Widow next to him looked over her tablet. "As I said, she is extra dimensional, but her mind is the most fascinating part, it is like she is missing something, I believe she might be part of a hive mind like Praetorian seerers, that along with the Mu confirming her infernal nature, I feel we could sculpt her into a potential weapon."

The agent sighed. "Fuck it, we have thrown cash at stupider shit, she is all yours, but... If this blows up, it is all on your head, understand?"

She saluted. "Yes sir."

[calleo-bricriu]

Me: Has drafts. Also me: Has replies already written in my head. ALSO ME: “Typing is hard...”

In my defense, I’m in the home stretch of closing on a house and have to start actually working out and executing the steps to get all my shit packed up and moved from this place--I still have shit from when we bought the house in 2004 that STILL ISN’T UNPACKED, it���s mostly old computer games and I’ll probably just leave it to be finally trashed, but there’s like 5 huge boxes of it in the closet.

The house in question is an amazing little thing built in 1879 and the most work I’ll have to do on it:

1. Wait for squirrel in the garage soffits to have her babies grow up and leave, then seal the hole.

2. Strip the goddamned white paint off of all the interior wood trim; it’s the original wood trim, there’s a place for parlor doors (though they’re long gone). I just...the original woodwork is gorgeous, the exterior facing parts of the doors still have it, they’d a deep mahogany with wonderful grain. They’re the original doors from 1879 that have just been fitted with more modern deadbolts but still have the original knobs with skeleton key holes (long since blocked off because security).

3. P A I N T. I hate neutrals. I hate neutrals and, of course, when people flip a house they try to paint it in neutrals so it has a broader appeal and so potential buyers can more easily see their stuff in there, but the only thing worse than rental beige is rental tan. Gotta get some damn color in there. It might not be a big old Victorian house but it’s a Victorian house. The interior and exterior should be as obnoxiously bright as possible.

4. Get the roof redone because I know I have the money for it not, I don’t know that I’ll have it in 5-7 years.

5. Consider residing; it has white vinyl, and vinyl can be painted but it doesn’t last terribly long. Might just have it painted though. I don’t want a boring ass white house when the big rental next door is bright blue. Another roof situation, I have the money now.

6. Fix the garage door opener; it works but the chain is off the track so it doesn’t actually lift the door. 7. Probably replace the furnace and water heater; there’s nothing wrong with them but they are  from 1996, and new ones would be way more efficient.

8. Uh...furniture. All I’m taking with me is the stuff in my office and the bed I sleep in. Probably gonna need more than that.

9. Make the call on whether I want to have an electrician put in 220 volt stuff for an electric dryer or be okay with using the as feed up to that little room. Probably will just use the gas feed as it’s there. Discovered the unplugged thing on the floor in that room goes to underfloor heating meant to be used in the winter as it’s just a 3 season porch so it gets cold.

10. Be forever amazed that the original electrical wiring is still present (though largely spliced into modern wiring save for the light coming down from the ceiling in the closet--you can see the original, still insulated cord clearly--and into dining room which will be probably filled with reptiles, AND that it works and has been inspected by an actual electrician and deemed safe. 100amp breaker, but that’s not so bad, it’s a 150 breaker here and nothing ever blows.

11. ...smoke alarms and a CO alarm, as there are none, which is fine, nobody has been living there for the two-ish years the guy was rennovating it.

12. Fix the one glass pane that’s missing in the bedroom; storm window is still present and not broken/cracked but one really should have double panes windows here.

13. Oh yeah, and curtains.

14. Getting the second door that’s painted shut opened back up, the stupid white paint stripped form it, and getting a modern deadbolt put in so it’s a usable, safe door to be able to open. It’s the side door to what was the parlor and is now the living room.

15. Possibly look at where the parlor door was after having the paint stripped and see if the pockets are still present; if they are, see about getting replica doors to match the existing ones put in. Who wouldn’t want to be able to dramatically open parlor doors or tell someone to step into their parlor?

Now you get pics I took while I was there for the home inspection!

The new LED lightbulb put into a fixture from 1879:

Big kitchen, fuckton of storage, two flour bins by the stove; I love flour bins, the house I grew up in had them as did my grandparents’ houses. As long as you clean them out thoroughly when they’re empty they’re great!

📷

The exterior of the side parlor door that's painted shut.

The front door (the interior side is painted white). Original knob and skeleton key lock from when the house was built.

This house survived being a cheap, rundown student rental for nearly 40 years and it still has so much of its original stuff.

The stairs to the basement and crawlspace that looks like something out of a horror movie, so naturally I love it.

This is directly inside the crawlspace. It's absolutely perfect for storing potatoes, root vegetables, and squash--and for putting jars of stuff to ferment. It's a good 10 degrees colder than the rest of the area and is meant to be used for exactly what I just mentioned. I love that it's still there.

Also here's the entrance to the crawlspace.

...and the crawlspace. The tiny 'basement' is just a room with a few shelves I need to replace as they were using untreated plywood in the metal frame and most of it is moldy or starting to rot because untreated. Otherwise all that's in there is the furnace and water heater. The furnace has some open drain ports and I may put a humidifier down there to run 24/7 because it is, as most basements that aren't fully finished around here, a bit damp.

TL;DR: I may be largely MIA or not as quick to respond as I usually am because I’ll be legit running around like a lunatic moving all my stuff, setting up my new old house (MINE, ONLY MINE, no ex, no other people, JUST. ME. I loved living alone before I got married, and always thought I’d be happier still living alone even while married, which may be a sign that it was a bad decision, but I really just like living alone with a bunch of animals.

Also I've never seen a house that has an attic only accessible from the outside and using a ladder but that's what we have here; there's a big panel that I thought was just a vent that's really a...door.

The back yard is huge, already fenced, has a fire pit, has no fucking grass either, it's all native wild plants with some grape vines in a few areas; big mature ones too.

The front yard also has no grass, which, again, great, I'd planned to tear out any lawn at the house I got anyway. Front yard is still a bit bare so I may just coat it with clover. The only thing I'll have to mow is the boulevard and I can do that with a manual mower or be the extra strange neighbor and use a scythe--and yes I have one, I took it from my grandpa's barn after he died. They also planted a ton of ferns in the front yard for some reason, but I like ferns so they can stay. Oh and there's an entire workshop behind the garage which means I still will have an inside place to keep making wands.

[believerindaydreams]

Valentine fluff and stuff, Benny/Arcade <3 post the events of Raging Against the Machine

"Permission to court Arcade? My my, that's a trifle old fashioned, isn't it?" Daisy props the sniper rifle over her back, gives a little wave to Boone as they exit the dinosaur's mouth.

Benny shrugs. "He's welcome to ask my mother if he wants to...we're like that in the Boot Riders is all. Fucking is one thing, but where marriage is concerned you ask the matriarch."

"You could hardly consider me the matriarch of anything. And I didn't raise that boy to just take orders from anyone, especially one of...us."

"Orders about what?" Arcade's left off his coat in the Mojave heatwave, and his lover down to sharp black trousers and a blue shirt rolled up to the elbows makes him momentarily wish that Daisy wasn't here, or indeed the rest of the population of Novac.

Lover, heh. The thing he most regrets about all this is giving up that fond familiar term for a new and alien one.

"Anything," Daisy says mildly. "I won't spoil the surprise if Benny hasn't told you yet."

"...if he hadn't told you- uh, okay. I can wait." He throws Benny a confused look, gets a cheerful stonewall of a response.

Really, there's no need to inform Daisy that he let famously laidback Arcade Gannon be the one to propose first.

***

*one week earlier*

"I'm prescribing you a break. Medically."

"House had a point plugging himself into a mainframe," Benny growls, tossing yet another clipboard into the ever-growing stack besides him. "It would save a lot of trouble to do this all mentally- do you know how many pages of negotiations I'm dealing with for the sharecropper farms alone?"

"No, and that isn't the point. You need to stop acting like we're in perpetual crisis mode, the war's been over for a month-"

"The crises don't stop just because of a sudden outbreak of peace."

"You've got Swank. You've got a room full of clerks back there," Arcade says, gesturing. The Tops presidential suite is almost unrecognizable now from its earlier iteration as a swinger pad; there are charts on the walls, hurrying subordinates, and the bar has been cleared of liquor in favor of a shiny new terminal for Benny's private use. "You have responsibilities, yes, but you need to ease off at some point. Unless you actually want everyone to start thinking you're another Mr House in the making."

Not only has the thought occurred to him, now wasn't even for the first time today, but- you can hardly say that to Arcade.

"I couldn't relax here if I wanted to. Look at this mess. There isn't a place in New Vegas where I could go without having a lot of hangers on trying to get my attention, at least I can hear myself think in here."

"True. That's why I bought a house."

"The fuck- you what?" Squatting is one thing. Actually, literally, owning property, putting in for an official deed claim with the antiquated RobCo property machinery...not only is it an incredible pain, it's incredibly expensive. Even the Kings didn't bother with that, and the Old Mormon Fort is technically rented.

"Well. I had a few gold bars burning a hole in my pocket...and some free time, since the horrendous bloodbath of a New Vegas conquest singularly failed to happen."

"I thought you were donating that to the Followers."

"I thought it'd be good to use it for purposes that advance a Follower agenda. Such as insuring that our newly independent city-state has the opportunity to demonstrate it can exist without its interim dictator." Arcade leans over the bar, kisses his forehead in a gently, oddly chaste way.

It seems odd to Benny at first, until Arcade pulls back and he realises they have an audience. There is no way everyone from the back office needed a pencil all at the same time.

Well, if there's an audience he might as well live up to it. Benny flicks them a smile, adjusts the folds of his collar. "That's different. If you wanted to sweep me off my feet for a long dirty weekend, why didn't you start with the lead?"

He pulls Arcade close for a much more enthusiastic embrace, lips and tongues interlocked, until the doctor actually overbalances. For one terrifying moment he thinks he'll lose control, helplessly watch Arcade go falling headfirst into the wall or the floor or something equally painful.

It doesn't happen. He sustains the weight, until Arcade manages to pull back and stand up again, apparently unaware that anything could have happened. It's all right. They're all right.

"The things I'll do to advance a healthy socio-political agenda," his lover retorts, rather pink-faced, to general clapping and cheers.

***

Phoenix Point, the house is called; and Benny almost regrets it.

It's right across the street from an old tools factory, one of the places he'd resorted to while hunting up Lucky 38 access codes, heart in his mouth every minute. It hasn't been long before he'd known that Arcade's gambit with the Fiends had ended with his rescue by the courier; it had been considerably more worrying, that she had him than they. Fiends being killable.

Marilyn...he still has nightmares, justified ones.

The mistrust eases as Arcade opens the small barbed wire gate, though- it's pre-war security, with a physical and electrical lock. The outer door offers a hefty piece of metal plating, impenetrable to two centuries of decay.

This better not be like a vault. Arcade knows his opinion on those-

but then his lover unlocks the door and lets them inside, and it isn't like that at all.

Light, that's the first thing he notices. Real sunlight, glinting off the water in an open courtyard- a reservoir then, water to waste. That's an immediately soothing sight right there, unmitigated luxury for anyone raised to Mojave dust.

He makes for it immediately, tasting its sweet clarity- no rads, the Pip-Boy silence confirms that. In place of a Geiger counter he can hear Mr New Vegas, endlessly ruminating about love; and the faint whistle of a stewpot on the boil.

And his lover's quick breathing, behind him.

Benny turns, grins at Arcade's self-conscious pose; lying down but with an elbow propping up his chin, all that height shown off even horizontally as compared to the array of ferns and broc flowers behind him. "Is the rest of it this nice?"

"I certainly hope so. I went to more trouble than I needed to, perhaps- the Lucky 38 has been, uh, liberated of a number of books. Brought out some supplies for the workshop, that kind of thing...put together a wardrobe for you," Arcade says, looking very nearly pained. "Even articles that I do not have any comprehension why a sane person would wear."

Benny laughs, but can't sustain it; too much at once, too deeply meant to him. "I love it. I love it already, I love you."

"You haven't even seen it yet."

He draws his lover close, the scent of herbs and animal warmth and the brightening light of the Strip all melding together into one glorious sensation. "I will. Because..."

He doesn't know how to say how a home is holy to him, or how there's no one else in the world he would trust to shape it for him. Or how to say anything at all that means what he needs it to, when words are his worthless stock in trade.

"Because it's you," he says eventually; because that's honest.

Arcade laughs, strokes his hair. "Glad to hear it. Imagine trying to woo the Chairman of the Tops without a reasonably impressive dowry."

That rings false, he almost pulls away. "You don't need to buy me."

"I thought you appreciated that kind of ironic backchat."

"I do, but...not from you. Not with that sincere Followers face of yours." With that ready impatience for the truly immoral, the willingness to speak truth to power. "You're my moral center. Keep on keeping me honest, please."

Arcade favors him with a distinctly stunned expression. "Oddly, I'm rather in the habit of thinking that's what you are to me. You're braver than I am, as far as accepting the risk of failure to try to steer towards better outcomes. There are times when indecision itself can become paralysing."

The sunset isn't visible from behind the high fencing, but there's a rich blueness fading to purple above them. "In that case...carpe diem?"

"Seize the day?"

"Is that what it means? The impression I got was that it meant something more like 'jump my bones'. That'll teach me to listen to ex-Legion prostitutes."

"...you have a profoundly terrible sense of timing," Arcade murmurs, and rolls over on top of him.

"Uh."

"Carpe diem, then?"

Maybe his voice does fail him; but he kisses his way into a yes.

[chaniters]

Sidekick

A conclusion to the “Sidestep can’t sleep” shorts. Enjoy!

EDIT: Deleted both titles and came up with a new one.

Sidekick

"So you're saying Mr. Molotov will be here at 7:00 pm?"

You just nod. You're not interested in dialogue.

"Where do you keep getting all this intel on him?"

You shrug. Which basically means find out by yourself genius.

He groans. "Come on!!.. I'm the one fighting him every single night!"

You do the yapping hand at him in reply.

"All you're doing is flinging bricks at my car, my glass table, my windows, my pool..."

You take a mental note that maybe flinging notes attached to bricks might be a bit too aggressive. Still, he knows If you weren't giving him leads Mr. Molotov would have robbed half the city by now.

"Where the heck is that attitude coming from ?" He crosses his arms "Whatever did I do to you?"

You poke his chest with your index, then point at the last sentence in your note "YOU HAVE TO CAPTURE MR. MOLOTOV THIS TIME!!!" IT took you a while to find three exclamation marks big enough for your note on the newspapers. You wanted for him to notice your urgency. It’s impossible to sleep with Mr. Molotov's workshop above your apartment. You can't stand another night of him banging and drilling and welding to fix his armor...

"Yeah, I know I've yet to capture him, but WHY can't we cooperate like normal people?" You roll your eyes. He doesn't notice of course. You sigh, take off your goggles, and then roll your eyes for him to see.

He crosses his arms, giving you an annoyed look. “Raised In a barn I see.”   You scoff. It wasn’t a barn.

“And what's with the outfit?" You hug your red jacket defensively. You love your new colored mountainwear. Took you a long while to buy. Took most of your savings.

"Nevermind... pendejo," he says in a foul mood.

You just sit. But not three minutes pass before he speaks again. Can’t stand the fact that you're not adoring him like everyone else, can he?...

"Look kid.. Just tell me, since you know so much about him... how's he surviving all the beatings? I've beaten him every time but I just can't knock him down for good. THAT information would be actually helpful, you know instead of all the vandalism?" He glares at you accusingly.

You just look away and cross your arms. He goes back to pacing back and forth. Fuck. He's actually right on that one. You're just tempted to get up and leave. You love your apartment but maybe this isn't worth it. Maybe it's just too dangerous. You shouldn't be talking to a deputized hero...

You look at him as he gazes onto the street.  You hate to admit it. But you can't deny you're having fun. You've spent so much time alone you hadn't realized just how starved for interaction you were. Any kind of interaction. Even if it's just having this guy complain and complain and complain.

He turns gives you a confused expression as he catches you staring.

"Now what? Is there something in my face? Are you going to throw another brick at me?" he looks at you annoyed. The last rays of dawn show him under a different light. You realize he does not look like a blood-thirsty soldier, but a guy trying to stop criminals from harming people... And he’s done all this for a meager salary.

You can’t read his mind... It’s hard to know what he actually thinks. You wonder how he sees you. Maybe like a weirdo throwing stuff at him for no reason demanding he captures a relatively powerful villain and not even explaining why. It dawns onto you that maybe you are being a bit unreasonable... You look at him again. It gets a bit harder to hate him. Crap.

You take out your Balaclava and pull down the hoodie...

"You're an idiot," you say.  "You can speak!" He says in shock "Shut it. I'll tell you all you need to know about Mr. Molotov..." ...................................................................

39 minutes later....

Mr. Molotov shows up, heading to the building's entrance wearing civilian clothing. 

As he looks for his keys, Charge runs up to him at full speed and slams him with his shoulder, electrical sparks flying everywhere as Molotov falls on his back. You knew facing him without his armor on would be the best way.

It takes a few seconds for the villain to realize what's going on. He stands up and faces Charge, approaching him.

"How in the hell do you always know where I'm going to be Charge ?"

"Ohh I've got my ways. You think you're so clever? Now I know your hiding place, there's no way to escape, I’m bringing you down!"

"You and what army? Ha! You can't even hurt me!" He takes a small rock from his pocket and throws it at Charge. That's his power. Turning substances into other substances. And the moron uses it to make bombs, not rare metals and gems.   Ortega takes the stone in mid-air and throws it back at Molotov. He has some nice reflexes with his mods... you take note of that. The rock explodes as it reaches Molotov, and he is knocked down but seems uninjured.

"Nice trick, but you can't defeat me like that" He smiles, standing firm before Charge.

Charge presses on with the attack, and the two get engaged in a fist fight. Charge manages to get a lock on his neck. Mr. Molotov's skin turns metallic.

"I'm invulnerable! I don't even feel that! Hahaha!"

"Oh yeah? Well I have it from a good source that you can't transform your own body for more than 10 seconds or it becomes permanent and you turn into a statue"

"Wha...? How do you...?"

Without letting go, Ortega begins emitting electricity. It doesn't affect Mr. Molotov, but as more seconds pass, his struggle becomes more and more desperate.  

At the eight second, Mr. Molotov's skin turns back to normal, and he begins screaming as the electrical discharge knocks him down.

Charge lets him fall. "FINALLY! I've been waiting for this so long"

He approaches you. "Hey, You know. you're a pain in the neck and all... but .. Thanks, I guess? I wouldn't have caught this one without your..." He doesn't notice Mr. Molotov struggling to move his right hand, and throwing another rock at his feet.

You act on impulse. You almost miss, but you manage to side-kick the rock as hard as you can... you don't want to explode... (But why didn't you just run the other way? You didn't want him to explode either? Did you actually want to protect him?).

You look at the rock fly away with relief.. until suddenly....

"CRASH!".

A broken window. You know that window. 

No. No this can't be... this can't. This can't be happening...

"BOOOOOM!" The bomb explodes. You can see flames and smoke erupt out of the window instantly.

"Oh shit! Woah! ... wow wow wow... you just saved my life kid!! Let me call 911... Wow... That's just.... thanks, kid!" He starts calling the emergency line.

You just look in horror as the fire extends from one window to another. Nothing you can do while the firemen run a pressured water hose against it.  

"Oh.." He says standing by your side observing the firemen work.  "That's a lot of damage. Hey, can you tell me... hey wait.. are you crying?  Are you ok?"

You haven't really ever cried before. There was no need. Things either happened or didn't. And drugs or trainers and handlers would take care of anything in between. But now you can't stop the river flowing from your eyes.

"Hey what's wrong kid?"

"I'm.. not ... a kid. And .. Tha...*sob* that... was my... *sniff* apartment." You manage to speak a few broken words. Now you're nose is full of water too. And you've got hiccups. You are crying. For real. It's not an act like they trained you. And with good reason. That was your home and savings. Now you'll have to go back to the streets.

"Oh, shit... uhh... Do you have a place to stay? Subsidies come fast when heroes are involved... I'll say I kicked the rock, ok?"

You shake your head. "I was just renting" You mean squatting, of course. "And all my money was inside" That much is true. For a change.

"Crap.. sorry to hear that. You know, you can come with... You can stay at my place tonight, and maybe i can help you find an apartment tomorrow ...? Just let me talk to the police and i'll get back to you. You nod. 

But you're long gone by the time he comes back.

____________________________

My Fanfics: https://chaniters.tumblr.com/post/181692759294/my-fanfiction-for-fallen-hero

DISCLAIMER: This is a work of fan fiction using characters and the setting of the Fallen Hero: Rebirth and upcoming Fallen Hero: Retribution games written by Malin Riden. I do not claim ownership of any characters from the Fallen Hero wold. These stories are a work of my imagination, and I do not ascribe them to the official story canon. These works are intended for entertainment outside the official storyline owned by the author. I am not profiting financially from the creation of these stories, and thank the author for her wonderful game/s, without which these works would not exist.

[brucewillisghost]

THE DAVINCI CODE

t was a hot summer morning, 500 years ago in Italy and Leonardo Da Vinci was busy at work, inventing the modern helicopter. He stood in his workshop with the sun beating down on his various ancient looking parchments and took a sip from a historically accurate beverage out of a historically accurate cup. Suddenly, a long dead bird came flying into his workshop half a century ago! Leonardo Da Vinci laughed anciently, like a great man from the past might. He went out onto his balcony and looked out over all the brick coloured houses made by dead Italian people, stacked to the tits with frescoes and ivies and little brown dogs running everywhere and people carrying loaves of bread around in their arms, like soft gluten purses, like vigilante mayors of breadtown. I love ancient Italy! It’s my home, he thought, while simultaneously inventing a complicated water device with lots of intricate levers and screws that is too hard to explain to normal level intelligence people but rest assured it was good. He leapt hugely off his balcony and went for a tall walk down the street, becoming constantly inspired by observing the world and all the momentous inventions he was going to do for it. If electricity had been invented he might have waited for a traffic light, but he didn’t have time to invent electricity today, or traffic either, or even to play the lyre beautifully with his long homosexual fingers. He was late for the first day of the Italian renaissance!!! When he got to the first day of the Italian renaissance, Michelangelo and Botticelli and Italian Shakespeare were there plus a lot of other famous dead guys listed on the Wikipedia page they had all taken the day off from their jobs which was painting fucked up giant winged babies for art and doing heaps of other famous as shit enlightened men things like making up classical philosophies and growing massive beards out of chin modesty. I have invented the helicopter!!!!!! Leonardo Da Vinci shouted, striding into the official renaissance headquarters, knocking several large tables over and absentmindedly punching a grandfather clock in its big ticking face before stopping all of time for a few minutes, and then inventing time again but even more accurate than the first version. Damn I love being an inventor, he said, and kissed several handsome young nearby men who all loved it, mouthwise. What is a helicopter? Michelangelo asked, like a little bitch. Michelangelo was jealous because the only thing he ever invented was painting on ceilings which is a dumb place to put art because you have to lie down to look at it and get the back of your head all dirty But Leonardo laughed, because that was the kind of guy he WAS, the kind of guy who knew what helicopters were before they even existed, before even the kinds of metals that could make them fly were dug out of the earth, but he wasn’t laughing in a mean way, but in a joyful and ahead of his time kind of way. Scientists have analysed his laugh in later years and found it contained many important particles from the future. It is a laugh which has been preserved in amber and is kept under lock and key at the white house, although even the greatest scholars still cannot work out what joke was being told, because the joke is so far beyond the limits of the human understanding that we will perhaps never understand what was so funny about it, but if you hold it up to your ear, you can still hear his strange bountiful laugh echoing through time and space like Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! A helicopter is a machine for flying, he explained and showed them his drawings which were museum quality, and rare looking, and Botticelli was like ‘well what does a helicopter do’ and Leonardo was all like ‘shut up you enormous pervert go draw a hot naked woman emerging from a shell’ but in a friendly way and then he recounted the entire plot of Mission Impossible which he also invented on the spot and did all the noises for especially the part where Tom Cruise is climbing along the top of a moving train with his skin getting wrinkled because the train is going so fast and then he sees a train tunnel coming up so he ties the helicopter to the train and the helicopter has to fly through the tunnel and tom cruise climbs backwards along the train and jumps onto the helicopter and blows it up still inside the tunnel coming towards him and nearly gets decapitated by the helicopter blade but doesn’t and divorces Katie Holmes and the train driver looks up horrified through the window at him as if to say did you really just tie a helicopter to my train inside a train tunnel and then blow it up that is really dangerous katie holmes is too good for you and then Tom Cruise takes off his sunglasses and says Mission impossible, more like mission........accomplished, and everyone from the Italian renaissance just bursts into tears because they’ve never heard of Tom Cruise before, nobody had, Da Vinci invented him too, as a private joke, and then Leonardo Da Vinci drank two huge glasses of water and slammed his fist down on the table a whole bunch of times for emphasis. You are really good at this renaissance thing, Italian Shakespeare said to him, stunned and overwhelmed, but Da Vinci was so humble he was just like ‘thanks, your friendship means a lot to me,’ and then suggested they all move on to lay the foundations for capitalism and banking. At the end of the first day of the Italian renaissance, Leonardo Da Vinci  walked home through the picturesque streets of his historical birthplace and at the fading sunlight which looked like an enormous fire burning somewhere very far away which of course he knew astronomically it was and all the black cats yawing hugely with their long dead mouths and the flowers on the windowsills super abundant with bees and thought with a happy tear in his eye I wish I was still alive, because of course he knew himself to be already dead in the future, he was that brilliant, and went straight back to bed to put a cold compress on his head, because it hurt him to be so smart and invent things all the time, his mind was constantly churning his thick unsalted cerebral butter. It was a blessing and a curse. He couldn’t see flowers without inventing a vase to put them in, he couldn’t see the stars without spontaneously inventing a telescope, he couldn’t stare directly into the sun without inventing tinted aviators, he couldn’t see a beautiful man without inventing a kiss directly onto his mouth, and as Leonardo slept he invented a dream in which he was flying sans machinery, soaring high above the world without the need for physics or levers, collecting many frequent flyer miles along the way. Leonardo spent the rest of his life inventing cool things and drawing famous paintings and even a picture of a guy with four arms and four legs rolling around inside a huge circle for medical students to put on their pencil cases in the future. He looked up at the sky and knew scientifically why it was blue, but that didn’t stop him from thinking it was beautiful and in later years when he died and went to heaven  God was like ‘don’t tell the others but you’re my favourite of all my children’ which made Jesus super mad, but if Jesus didn’t invent anything except for eternal life and who wants that, da vinci didn’t, he wanted to be a big pile of sad homosexual forever bones so he said thanks but no thanks, stole a mousepad from heaven’s giftshop and came back to us here on earth, where we still visit his bones to this day and say these were the bones of a great man, he wore them inside his body like a meat clotheshanger, he wore them like a wild horse wears the skeleton of the wind, he wore them towards the possibility of the future which he was inventing as he rode the horse of his own mind onward, whispering the name of beautiful things to come and in doing so, calling them forward into existence, he wore them like patience and was kind to all who knew him, goodbye Leonardo DV you extraordinary son of a bitch goodbye goodbye we love and miss you every day

by Hera Lindsay BIrd

http://www.heralindsaybird.com/leonardo-da-vinci.html

[whereipostwords]

Desperation

The slow and steady creaking of the station is a constant. It's almost comforting in a way. I only notice it when I think about it, otherwise I would have long since gone insane, but its consistent in a way that nothing else is nowadays. It's a simple way to ground myself amidst it all, the split wires and crushed steel which I brush through. My hand waits in front of me to move apart the rubble: I haven’t been in this part of the station since it happened, so there hasn’t been a chance to clear out any of the more dangerous wreckage and much less the random debris. I part a flat sheet of rubber once used for insulation that obstructs my view, carefully navigating my legs around the seemingly endless pile of metal scraps and carbon-fibre tubing. As the rubber moves above my head I freeze.

Currently a steel beam stands in the center of the hallway, clearly having sheared through the superstructure before hitting the armor plating on this level, if one is to go by the massive hole in the wall along its arc. This section was a buffer between the inner and outer station, meant to ensure nothing happening in the former affected the latter. A surprisingly well thought out countermeasure given the otherwise uninspired construction, and one that I am immensely happy for. I don’t doubt that the superheavy support would have gone all the way out into the void had it not been stopped by this well placed armor belt. Shame that they had skimped on that same protection for the actual outer hull and had instead gone for exterior shielding, something about having to only protect one side from what I had heard in the break room. Because of that little cost saving feature I couldn’t go anywhere near sections 21-b through 34-b This was especially unfortunate given that was where the hangar was.

Fucking accountants.

In any case, the beam. The area surrounding it was no less cramped and unpleasant than my current position but the lights which covered every side, floor and ceiling in the station were on and I could see the few control panels with unbroken screens flickering idly. That was a good sign: it meant that the support hadn’t snapped all the redundant wiring on its way down, even the closest ones. A lucky break if there ever was one. A somewhat less fortuitous turn of events is the state of the hunk of metal itself

An electrical line (neon green) is snaked around it which is, really, not my favorite part of the day so far. I lower my hand, my left, before raising its righty counterpart and whispering in a low, calm tone “Mini, detect energy signatures.”

A high and squeaky response comes almost immediately. “Sure thing, boss!”

My construction suits visor fills with lights. Some of them are represent numbers, other words, but I don’t need to look at them to know the verdict. An overpowering blue haze has fallen over the exposed wiring. “Fuck,” I curse softly.

Neon green wiring led directly to the secondary reactors. The ones that were currently on and spewing out enough electricity to electrocute the populations of most habitable moons. My construction suit is pretty good at dealing with that kind of thing but there’s a limit there.

“Do you want me to read you the voltage readings, Boss?”

I sighed. “No thank you Mini”

“Whatever you say Boss!”

Whatever idiot “HR guru” designed the standard VI like this deserves a special place in hell, I muse as I glance towards my power indicator at the top left of my visor. It reads “45%,” which translates as about two hours. Another “cost saving feature” from management: shitty battery life. It took me an hour to get here, which means another hour to get back plus whatever time it takes to grab the stuff and run. I don’t have time for this.

I sigh again, deeper this time, and turn to my left. Keyboard, floor panel, adhesive, expired ration pack. Just more junk. I turn to me right and what I see makes my eyes widen slightly. A scratched up sign reads “Cafetaria, 20m” with a little arrow pointing in the direction of my obstacle. I’m close.

I turn my head back around and stare at the beam. “Mini, turn off energy detection”

The little thing in my head chirps in the affirmative and the blue haze lifts from the room. I can now clearly see a door behind the thing blocking my way. My heart beats slightly faster. I need in, I think desperately. The food recycler in there was going to make foraging expeditions a thing of the past. Sure the supplies back home would last me a while longer but things were getting more and more dangerous every time I went out. The way things were going I was more than likely going to bite it sooner than later.

An unpleasant thought enters my head. What if its locked? I didn’t have a key card to the mess, none of the laborers did. The cooks mostly left it unlocked except during the night but occasionally they kept it closed for privacy, presumably because some waitress was shagging a chef. Everything had gone to shit during the afternoon so it probably wouldn’t be locked. But what if.

I shook my head. I’d survived this long and I wasn’t exactly enthused about the other option. Just...get to the damn door first. All I had to do was somehow get past the electrical deathtrap between me and it.

I take a closer look. Sections of wire, still clearly connected to the main line, are spread along the ground. There’s enough space between them that I could perhaps move between them if I was desperate, although I would rather not take my chances. All it takes is a split second of contact for me to literally combust much like a juice-filled water balloon. The walls have some handles in case the artificial gravity fails and they seem to be free of any coppery vines of death. That being said the massive holes in either end make them seem somewhat...unstable. Better than the floor, though. I consider for a second just getting rid of the obstacle: my blowtorch isn’t going to be running out of fuel anytime soon and it has enough range to cut the whole thing without my getting unduly close, but the idea of the entire superstructure falling on top of my make the idea somewhat less palatable. No way I can just cut the wires at the distance I need, either. I’m good but not that good.

My lips purse slightly as i think. My options don’t look good. Either I risk myself dying to human error, and I’ve never been very graceful, or roll the dice on the station not being shit, which is a bad bet to make given how much the union complained about it. “Looks like I’ll be scavenging for rations a while longer” I murmur to myself lightly. I turn around, moving the junk around me in the process. I’ve already gone through the workshop and armory for tools, though I haven’t gone through them all, so there should be something in the stash to help. Worst case scenario I’m wrong and I come back. No harm done.

A thud echoes through the hallways.

I stop suddenly. My breathing slows as my heart rate increases.

Thud

No no no no no no it’s supposed to be on the other side of the station, I saw it on the goddamn cameras.

Thud. I can feel a tremor in my boots

Fuck, it can’t be more than two junctions down. I was too caught up in everything to notice it. I’m getting sloppy, too confident, and it's going to get me killed.

There’s no point in running. It’s faster than I am, much faster.

Thud. Louder this time

Too much noise and it’ll decide to stop playing. Have to get out of here. I carefully turn around back to the door. I’ll have to risk going through.

Thud

My breath hitches: it's the goddamn wires. The shaking’s moved them around, they’re everywhere. No place to step. Every inch around the beam is covered.

Thud

I don’t want to die I don’t want to die, not like Jenkins did when it got him, I can still smell the skin on the bulkhead

Thud

...only sixty days left, goddamnit, sixty days and I was free...

Thud. A low drone can be heard.

...Jenkins

Thud

Jenkins had talked management into setting up the insulated flooring everywhere. I remember the party the union threw after it. Man wouldn’t shut up about.

Thud

The flooring is close to one hundred percent non-conductive. Better than plastics as a rule, except in cost efficiency. Problem is that it’s not as strong nor as heat resistant as the treated steel, so much so that they have to replace it every so often...

Thud

...so much so that I can cut it right out of the floor. If I can do that than I can take it and put anywhere I need, anywhere that I need not to be electrocuted…

Thud

...Like my body

I move at once. My blowtorch comes out of the holster on my hip in one smooth movement. There’s a dial on the side with a red to green color gradient along its axis. With my thumb I move the pointer towards the green, the lower settings. If I’m too loud I’m done for. Memories of bleached skin and still twitching limbs stretched over air ducts fill my mind. I lean down towards a bit of unobscured floor large enough for my needs, bring down my tool and pull the trigger.

The droning grows louder, bit by bit. I can feel the urge to curse but hold it back: its not running yet, I still have time. My arm moves deftly to cut out two small squares, each large enough to fold around my feet. I can tell already that I didn’t bring any adhesives, wanting to take as little as possible to make it quick. It wasn’t supposed to be here I think wildly as I set the torch to its lowest possible strength and heat up the metal. This wasn’t going to be fun.

The construction suits were designed with use of tools in mind. It is because of this that the standard suit had thermal shielding in the upper body, to avoid blowtorch injuries. But not the lower body. That’s where all the mountings were, not enough space to pad it out with all that material. There was enough that this wouldn’t kill me…

But damn me if it wouldn’t hurt like hell.

I take one of the red hot metal sheets on both hands. I can barely feel the heat. I bring it slowly down to my right foot.

I jam it on.

It’s all I can do not to scream. I bite my tongue as heat diffuses throughout my foot, through my blood and through my mind.

Thud

With a cry held behind my teeth I bend the now malleable steel around the edges of my boot. I can feel it cooling, fitting my limbs form like a glove. With shaking hands I reach for the other, confirming that it’s still hot enough to work with. I bring it to my other foot and do the same the before, the pain no less for the repetition as the damnable noise comes ever closer. I can hear the breathing now, a terrible discordant thing with a hundred tones overlapping in a low, husky cacophony. Sometimes I think I can hear a muffled moan amidst it.

I move swiftly. It’ll smell me any second now, its right around the corner. I can almost see the shadow out of the corner of my eyes. I move without hesitation over the wires. Either it’ll kill me too quickly for me to care or I’ll get across. I do so in two long leaps. I can feel eyes on my back as the low drone turns into a high wine. Its spotted me, its breathing has grown heavier and louder. “Cafeteria door, open!” I yell, feeling no shame at how my voice cracks.

In that moment, everything slows. I can’t help but think that it would be ironic if the door was locked. Fitting, even.

I slam my hand against the door controls, pressing the back of the fist against the ID reader. Every breath is an eternity, every eternity something beyond that, something indescribable except to those who know what total fear is like.

The door opens and I fly in. The floor tremors.

I turn around as the door shuts. My eyes fall on the crack between the two reinforced sections. A gaunt, stretched face with black eyes smiles at me upon four legs as I watch it fully close.

I stand there for a moment, looking at the entry. I can still hear the breathing through it, lessened though it is. My visor is filled with warnings about my heart rate, about exhaustion and about nerve damage. I ignore them.

I move away from entrance, heading towards the back of the kitchen. The mess tables are full of opened ration packs, long since inedible. I think I can see bits of flesh in some of them. I ignore them, instead looking only at the vat that sits on the top of a counter, sitting innocuously among the silverware. On it, in bold faced yellow lettering, is the words “Food Reyc Vat, Use With Caution”

I sit down on the ground against some of the drawers and stare at it. Never again, I think.

As I lay there in a backdrop of a world gone mad, from outside the door, clear as day, I hear singing.