Writing Challenges
This week's Odd Prompts writing challenge at More Odds than Ends is from Fiona Grey: Fireflies sparked from her hands and briefly illuminated the darkness.
My first thought was whimsical fantasy -- but which 'verse? Is it one of the otome games Elaine plays? Plum Blossom War is sf and The Dawn Singers is worldbuilding fantasy, but The Chef's Apprentice does have a certain whimsical feel to it, mostly because it's aimed at a tween and young teen audience when the others are aimed at teens and adults.
Or it could be from the Chaffee Artilect 'verse, where Digital Dreams has Magic Garden and its competitor has its own take on that style of game.
Or maybe the Big Messy Project, probably in that sojourn in and around the Lands That Are Not Of Men.
However, given the time constraints I'm under, I decided to focus on the Chaffee Artilect 'verse, and particularly "NPC's," a novella that I'm using as part of a medium-tier reward for the Kickstarter I launched today.
This part is somewhere in the chase sequence, but at the moment I don't know where. I'm sure that things will become more clear as I pull all the pieces together, expanding it from the ~7000 word story I was originally trying to write for a cyberpunk open call that closed before I could finish it.
==========================================================================================
A Glimmer of Fireflies
The atmosphere had become tense with apprehension. Roger looked out the glass wall of the living room, watching the rovers moving back and forth along the lunar regolith. Of course Toni's workstation didn't have the MIPS to maintain more than a few thousand cubic feet of storyscape, even with various tricks of data compression and image tiling, so most of that landscape was more on the order of the backdrop of a stage.
Normally the illusion of the presence of other human beings would've been reassuring at a subconscious level. Today they served only to remind Roger that he and Toni had gotten themselves involved in someone else's fight, and in the process had attracted awkward attention to themselves. Retreating here might've put them out of range, but not off the radar of the people who were looking for them.
Toni looked up from the computer, a simulation of one of the actual computers in her meatspace apartment. “I'm convinced that Sierra's gone to ground.”
Roger looked over Toni's shoulder. The data on the monitor had been piped in from the actual computer via Toni's LAN, as she frequently did when she wanted to bring him in on something. Given that his biological body was in a box at Arlington, going the other way wasn't exactly an option.
He skimmed the information, realizing just how little he really understood of the inner workings of a commercial gaming space. Yes, they used the same basic technology as this storyscape, but the sheer scale, both of the amount of computing power brought to bear and the coordination necessary to present a self-consistent virtual world, meant his own experience in remaking his environment would give little insight on the tools Toni was using.
“Pirate Island? Or one of her other favorite hangouts in Magic Garden?”
“Fat chance.” Toni entered several commands in quick succession on the old-fashioned keyboard instead of calling up a virtual console. “She knows as well as we do how that'd only make things easier for the other side to find her.”
How neatly Toni put that one. But then she'd had issues with her own parents. “So where do you think she's gone?”
Toni gestured to some alphanumeric strings that meant something to her, but Roger lacked the programming chops to parse. “She knows Jerry's people are after her, so she's going to be staying far away from any Digital Dreams properties. Given the extent of her injuries, she's completely dependent upon cyberspace for human interaction, so she's going to be looking for sufficiently sophisticated storyscapes to simulate living, rather than just do specific tasks.”
“Which means other gaming companies' virtual spaces.” Roger wished he'd had the opportunity to take a better look at what was out there in the larger infosphere. A freelance software engineer should have multiple clients, and should have a good grasp of the companies involved in a given field. But he couldn't name a single competitor to Toni's employer.
Toni rattled off several names. Upon hearing them, Roger remembered her having mentioned them - but he'd be hard-pressed to name their best-known games, let alone describe anything about them.
“So we're going to have to check them all out, see whether she's hidden there?” This was starting to look very complicated.
“I think we can narrow it down pretty quickly. We know she's under a guardianship, on the grounds that she never went through physical puberty because the relevant organs are gone. Bogus as a nine-dollar bill, but it means they control her finances, other than a trivial allowance of spending money more appropriate to a tween than a woman in her early twenties. So if her parents haven't cleared her to have a subscription on a given gaming platform, she's going to be restricted to what she can get for free. And she's effectively a minor, so they can restrict her from games they consider 'inappropriate.'”
A few clicks of the mouse and the second monitor lit up with a splash screen, a logo Roger didn't recognize. “That's our biggest competitor. They've got some interesting fantasy games, including a whimsical-fantasy game that draws upon a lot of the same literary and folkloric traditions as Magic Garden.” Toni typed in another command, and the corporate splash screen gave way to one for a specific game. This one had clearly drawn its stylings from manga and anime, since the pretty girl fairy had unusually large eyes over a button nose and a little cupid-bow of a mouth.
She snapped her fingers, and from her hands fireflies sparkled, swirling outward in flight to illuminate the darkness, revealing a landscape that took as much from East Asian fantasy traditions as Tolkien and his imitators. Yet there was a sense that it would be a safe fantasy world, the sort Miyazaki might have created if he'd had the virtual reality environment technology of the second half of the twenty-first century.
“So we're going to need to go in there and look for Sierra?”
“Roger, I can't. Even if they'd tolerate having a senior programmer from their biggest competitor wandering around their games, Digital Dreams would consider it too much of a security risk. If a competitor decides something in one of our games was too similar to their work, our biggest defense is being able to show that our devs have never played their games. In fact, it's a firing offense for anyone who does actual coding work.”
Why did he have a feeling that she wasn't even supposed to be pulling these images up on her computer as flats? But he wasn't going to remark upon it. He still remembered how certain other astronauts derided him as such a Boy Scout. “So how are we going to make connections with Sierra?”
“We're going to have to get you an account on their systems. It's going to be tricky, since I can't have them tracing you back to my computers, but I should be able to set things up to make it look like you're coming from somewhere else in the Valley. VPN's are twentieth-century technology, and I can put some additional layers over it to make it look like you're exactly what you say you are, a freelance software engineer working out of your home.”
“So I set up a character for myself and start looking around.” Roger considered just how big the storyscape for Magic Garden was. If their competitor's setup was of similar size, searching it would be a formidable undertaking - with no guarantee that Sierra wouldn't realize that she was being sought and look for a new hideout.
“I'll be able to give you a backchannel through the workstation. It'll be tricky, since we can't afford to have someone notice what's technically cheatware. But I should be able to get at least some information on the game - there are spoiler files all over the 'Net - and save you the time of pursuing dead ends.”
“Then we might as well be at it.”
===========================================================================================
As always, if you'd like to participate in Odd Prompts, just send your prompt in to oddprompts@gmail.com to be assigned a prompt of your own. Or if you're not up to the commitment of trading prompts, you can always check out the spare prompts and see if any of them tickle your creativity.
In the meantime, keep writing.
My first thought was whimsical fantasy -- but which 'verse? Is it one of the otome games Elaine plays? Plum Blossom War is sf and The Dawn Singers is worldbuilding fantasy, but The Chef's Apprentice does have a certain whimsical feel to it, mostly because it's aimed at a tween and young teen audience when the others are aimed at teens and adults.
Or it could be from the Chaffee Artilect 'verse, where Digital Dreams has Magic Garden and its competitor has its own take on that style of game.
Or maybe the Big Messy Project, probably in that sojourn in and around the Lands That Are Not Of Men.
However, given the time constraints I'm under, I decided to focus on the Chaffee Artilect 'verse, and particularly "NPC's," a novella that I'm using as part of a medium-tier reward for the Kickstarter I launched today.
This part is somewhere in the chase sequence, but at the moment I don't know where. I'm sure that things will become more clear as I pull all the pieces together, expanding it from the ~7000 word story I was originally trying to write for a cyberpunk open call that closed before I could finish it.
==========================================================================================
A Glimmer of Fireflies
The atmosphere had become tense with apprehension. Roger looked out the glass wall of the living room, watching the rovers moving back and forth along the lunar regolith. Of course Toni's workstation didn't have the MIPS to maintain more than a few thousand cubic feet of storyscape, even with various tricks of data compression and image tiling, so most of that landscape was more on the order of the backdrop of a stage.
Normally the illusion of the presence of other human beings would've been reassuring at a subconscious level. Today they served only to remind Roger that he and Toni had gotten themselves involved in someone else's fight, and in the process had attracted awkward attention to themselves. Retreating here might've put them out of range, but not off the radar of the people who were looking for them.
Toni looked up from the computer, a simulation of one of the actual computers in her meatspace apartment. “I'm convinced that Sierra's gone to ground.”
Roger looked over Toni's shoulder. The data on the monitor had been piped in from the actual computer via Toni's LAN, as she frequently did when she wanted to bring him in on something. Given that his biological body was in a box at Arlington, going the other way wasn't exactly an option.
He skimmed the information, realizing just how little he really understood of the inner workings of a commercial gaming space. Yes, they used the same basic technology as this storyscape, but the sheer scale, both of the amount of computing power brought to bear and the coordination necessary to present a self-consistent virtual world, meant his own experience in remaking his environment would give little insight on the tools Toni was using.
“Pirate Island? Or one of her other favorite hangouts in Magic Garden?”
“Fat chance.” Toni entered several commands in quick succession on the old-fashioned keyboard instead of calling up a virtual console. “She knows as well as we do how that'd only make things easier for the other side to find her.”
How neatly Toni put that one. But then she'd had issues with her own parents. “So where do you think she's gone?”
Toni gestured to some alphanumeric strings that meant something to her, but Roger lacked the programming chops to parse. “She knows Jerry's people are after her, so she's going to be staying far away from any Digital Dreams properties. Given the extent of her injuries, she's completely dependent upon cyberspace for human interaction, so she's going to be looking for sufficiently sophisticated storyscapes to simulate living, rather than just do specific tasks.”
“Which means other gaming companies' virtual spaces.” Roger wished he'd had the opportunity to take a better look at what was out there in the larger infosphere. A freelance software engineer should have multiple clients, and should have a good grasp of the companies involved in a given field. But he couldn't name a single competitor to Toni's employer.
Toni rattled off several names. Upon hearing them, Roger remembered her having mentioned them - but he'd be hard-pressed to name their best-known games, let alone describe anything about them.
“So we're going to have to check them all out, see whether she's hidden there?” This was starting to look very complicated.
“I think we can narrow it down pretty quickly. We know she's under a guardianship, on the grounds that she never went through physical puberty because the relevant organs are gone. Bogus as a nine-dollar bill, but it means they control her finances, other than a trivial allowance of spending money more appropriate to a tween than a woman in her early twenties. So if her parents haven't cleared her to have a subscription on a given gaming platform, she's going to be restricted to what she can get for free. And she's effectively a minor, so they can restrict her from games they consider 'inappropriate.'”
A few clicks of the mouse and the second monitor lit up with a splash screen, a logo Roger didn't recognize. “That's our biggest competitor. They've got some interesting fantasy games, including a whimsical-fantasy game that draws upon a lot of the same literary and folkloric traditions as Magic Garden.” Toni typed in another command, and the corporate splash screen gave way to one for a specific game. This one had clearly drawn its stylings from manga and anime, since the pretty girl fairy had unusually large eyes over a button nose and a little cupid-bow of a mouth.
She snapped her fingers, and from her hands fireflies sparkled, swirling outward in flight to illuminate the darkness, revealing a landscape that took as much from East Asian fantasy traditions as Tolkien and his imitators. Yet there was a sense that it would be a safe fantasy world, the sort Miyazaki might have created if he'd had the virtual reality environment technology of the second half of the twenty-first century.
“So we're going to need to go in there and look for Sierra?”
“Roger, I can't. Even if they'd tolerate having a senior programmer from their biggest competitor wandering around their games, Digital Dreams would consider it too much of a security risk. If a competitor decides something in one of our games was too similar to their work, our biggest defense is being able to show that our devs have never played their games. In fact, it's a firing offense for anyone who does actual coding work.”
Why did he have a feeling that she wasn't even supposed to be pulling these images up on her computer as flats? But he wasn't going to remark upon it. He still remembered how certain other astronauts derided him as such a Boy Scout. “So how are we going to make connections with Sierra?”
“We're going to have to get you an account on their systems. It's going to be tricky, since I can't have them tracing you back to my computers, but I should be able to set things up to make it look like you're coming from somewhere else in the Valley. VPN's are twentieth-century technology, and I can put some additional layers over it to make it look like you're exactly what you say you are, a freelance software engineer working out of your home.”
“So I set up a character for myself and start looking around.” Roger considered just how big the storyscape for Magic Garden was. If their competitor's setup was of similar size, searching it would be a formidable undertaking - with no guarantee that Sierra wouldn't realize that she was being sought and look for a new hideout.
“I'll be able to give you a backchannel through the workstation. It'll be tricky, since we can't afford to have someone notice what's technically cheatware. But I should be able to get at least some information on the game - there are spoiler files all over the 'Net - and save you the time of pursuing dead ends.”
“Then we might as well be at it.”
===========================================================================================
As always, if you'd like to participate in Odd Prompts, just send your prompt in to oddprompts@gmail.com to be assigned a prompt of your own. Or if you're not up to the commitment of trading prompts, you can always check out the spare prompts and see if any of them tickle your creativity.
In the meantime, keep writing.