The Technomage Review Of The Decade (part two)
For those who missed the first half of the technomage's round-up of the first decade of the 21st century, it can be caught here. 2005 onwards, as follows.
2005
Due to malfunctioning equipment yet again, I am forced to take the underground to an important meeting and undertake a morality tale that you can read here. Months later, I take a journey to New Orleans to sort out some ridiculous to-do that a character called Luis De Souza had found himself in, which I recounted in compelling style here. In the same year, there were unforgivable attacks on the London Underground and New Orleans was damaged by hurricanes. Although I knew that both of my experiences had been successful adventures and that of the atrocities which followed, neither were my fault, I became wary of publishing my escapades on this Darkship website in the event of damage to further places that I'd visited in the interests of business.
Walking on the beach late in the year I run into some members of my coven for the first time in nearly six years. They're wearing snazzier robes now and there seem to be more of them. While they were somewhat secret about what exactly they were up to these days, the overwhelming impression I took from the meeting was that I was better off out of it. At home, I receive the news that my former acolyte the Tsarevich Catalina has joined the side of the anti-imperialists who kidnapped her and has melted down the silver chain necklaces she used to wear, in a somewhat literal interpretation of Marxist rhetoric.
2006
A tedious start to the new year sees me waylaid in bed after experimentations with the sensory capabilities of cybersex leads to me catching a computer virus. After two days in bed with this, Francisco, having acted as a better nursemaid than secretary (having failed to cancel any of my appointments) informs me that there have been unusual meteorological conditions of late and that, as a result, there is likely to be a hole in the space-time continuum which is hanging just above our house. “Why does this always happen to me?” I cry, bewailing my lot but not actually answering the question which, in hindsight, I should have.
Still, there was little time to dwell on it, as I received a call from the agent of a well-known washed up television host, informing me that her client, having featured in a long-running reality TV show as a contestant, had been sucked into the bleak vortex of Television Hell and would I take a fabulous commission to recover him? Of course, 'fabulous commission' rendered the rest of the sentence redundant and I was soon on my way into the depths, where I would attempt to befriend then ultimately betray the three-headed dog guardian Cyberus before retrieving my charge (and my salary)- but this is a story which deserves more print than this.
2007
Some scarcely entertaining fare makes up the majority of a faintly tedious year. In search of a loop to retain eternal youth, I send my mother back in time and end up having to travel backwards to try and retrieve her (although I admit to wondering whether I should bother). I investigate suspicious activity at whist drives and end up in a battle with vampires on the outskirts of rural Devon. The normal activities that technomages get up to, otherwise. In another scrape that doesn't need elucidating here, I allow Francisco the opportunity to live as a member of the opposite sex for a day and while I'm pleased that he doesn't simply spend the day locked in a Bacchanalian frenzy of self-abuse I'm slightly less impressed to later learn that he's become pregnant as a result.
Catalina emails, informing me that while I may disapprove of her choice of activity these days, she assures me that she is working on the side of the greater good. Inexplicably, she sends me a bunch of magnets too, alluding to some sort of dark force that I can call upon. I think nothing of it, but add them to the various miscellany I carry around with me.
The nights continue to grow darker at unexpected and unexplained intervals and at times just after midnight, I'm sure I hear massed chanting on the wind as I pass out in an opium-induced haze; but then I'm certain that I'm imagining things.
2008
I hear news that the holiday resort which had previously accommodated and hired me has closed down and stands abandoned. When I pop up on the, for once, functioning magic carpet to have a look with a view to taking it over as an extended laboratory facility, I am informed that it has already been purchased by those working in the magickal arts and indeed that my presence there goes against their policy of 'shoot to kill' which I am reliably informed applies exclusively to technomages. I beat a hasty retreat on my magic carpet and later learn that the owners are the leaders of my former coven, who are now claiming that coven is an “outmoded and irrelevant word for the kind of work we're currently aiming towards” and that their leanings towards witchcraft were “teenage mistakes”. Indeed, they are now marketing themselves as the British Alternative Medical Federation. The BAMF do declare that they intend to honour the reservations of the 2008-2009 season of holidaymakers, although it's unclear how.
While the dubious activities of the increasingly popular BAMF are of a concern to me, I hardly have time to worry about it, as I spend much of the year exploring the technology of another megalomaniac company, Google, thanks to a dubious collection of kit that I find on the black market in Silicon Valley. From this, I inadvertently discover that I am able to create immortality and use the technology in a way that is in direct opposition to Death itself. But again, this is a story that deserves more space than I have here and which I am reliably informed that the Darkship moron has edited into a book.
2009
The BAMF get through the Christmas period by retaining the staff who previously worked at the holiday resort and indeed keep them on until the New Year, although who knows to what level this is consensual. Still, the BAMF are successful and announce plans to continue their research in conjunction with their hospitality responsibilities and amazingly get a marriage license approved just in time for Valentine's Day 2009.
However, I quickly get wind of what's actually going on through a mole in the Federation and, having dithered about what to do about it, choose to foil their dastardly plans at the most opportune moment, bursting in during the “any just impediment” part of the wedding vows to notify the bride and groom that the wedding is farcical and has clearly been conducted in the attempt to once again raise Digi-Cthulhu, which had been the plan for the previous four or five years. Obviously the BAMF members present deny it, but this is immediately undermined by the aforementioned sea-monster rising behind them and dragging several of them into the digital sea, then proceeding to do what I'm reliably informed is generally considered to be “fucking shit up”.
Fortunately I am not entirely without back-up, as several of the Bluecoats who have not previously been zombified by Cthulhu's previous attack turn out to be spies from the anti-imperialists that ex-Tsarevich Catalina is associated with. Pulling long swords from the canes usually deployed during Gene Kelly numbers and turning the bingo machine into an ersatz cannon, they manage to stall the enemy while I desperately think of some way to vanquish the unspeakable beast in a way that's discreet enough to prevent further embarrassment to the wedding party. Offers of financial incentives and pretty women are ignored by the ingrate, potions and spells only seem to enrage the beast, while an attempt at hand-to-hand combat goes about as well as you might expect. Running out of ideas, more time is miraculously bought for me with the unprecedented (and possibly implausible) intervention of Nikolaivich, the sentient robot, who had been invited to the wedding as the guest of Adamantia (who was angling for a wedding of her own). Nikolaivich fought valiantly as I mused on how I could go about erasing the hard drive that the digital Cthulhu must presumably be stored on. Unfortunately the robot did not have samurai skills and before long there were pieces of the robot everywhere, Digi-Cthulhu mangling pieces like a dog with a newspaper.
Thinking fast, I attach the magnets Catalina had sent me to the pieces of robot and fashion a magnetic field around the digital monster, thus wiping the hard drive and leaving him with no idea where he was. I then deploy an emergency firehose with the assistance of Adamantia (the digital sea does not hold water and the pixellated fiend can't cope with it) and skilfully bring down the enemy in a shower of sparks, creating a delightful fireworks display for the children who remain onsite.
While saving the planet from the Eater Of Souls gets me no thanks, medals or accolades it does exempt me from liability during the many torturous insurance claims made against the BAMF and does mean that I get to renew my acquaintance with Adamantia, with whom I intend to see out the decade, providing that I am able to defeat the cybernetic reindeer who are currently bothering me. And with this I leave you, hoping that the new decade brings you more of my posting access and a moderately bearable time between updates.
2005
Due to malfunctioning equipment yet again, I am forced to take the underground to an important meeting and undertake a morality tale that you can read here. Months later, I take a journey to New Orleans to sort out some ridiculous to-do that a character called Luis De Souza had found himself in, which I recounted in compelling style here. In the same year, there were unforgivable attacks on the London Underground and New Orleans was damaged by hurricanes. Although I knew that both of my experiences had been successful adventures and that of the atrocities which followed, neither were my fault, I became wary of publishing my escapades on this Darkship website in the event of damage to further places that I'd visited in the interests of business.
Walking on the beach late in the year I run into some members of my coven for the first time in nearly six years. They're wearing snazzier robes now and there seem to be more of them. While they were somewhat secret about what exactly they were up to these days, the overwhelming impression I took from the meeting was that I was better off out of it. At home, I receive the news that my former acolyte the Tsarevich Catalina has joined the side of the anti-imperialists who kidnapped her and has melted down the silver chain necklaces she used to wear, in a somewhat literal interpretation of Marxist rhetoric.
2006
A tedious start to the new year sees me waylaid in bed after experimentations with the sensory capabilities of cybersex leads to me catching a computer virus. After two days in bed with this, Francisco, having acted as a better nursemaid than secretary (having failed to cancel any of my appointments) informs me that there have been unusual meteorological conditions of late and that, as a result, there is likely to be a hole in the space-time continuum which is hanging just above our house. “Why does this always happen to me?” I cry, bewailing my lot but not actually answering the question which, in hindsight, I should have.
Still, there was little time to dwell on it, as I received a call from the agent of a well-known washed up television host, informing me that her client, having featured in a long-running reality TV show as a contestant, had been sucked into the bleak vortex of Television Hell and would I take a fabulous commission to recover him? Of course, 'fabulous commission' rendered the rest of the sentence redundant and I was soon on my way into the depths, where I would attempt to befriend then ultimately betray the three-headed dog guardian Cyberus before retrieving my charge (and my salary)- but this is a story which deserves more print than this.
2007
Some scarcely entertaining fare makes up the majority of a faintly tedious year. In search of a loop to retain eternal youth, I send my mother back in time and end up having to travel backwards to try and retrieve her (although I admit to wondering whether I should bother). I investigate suspicious activity at whist drives and end up in a battle with vampires on the outskirts of rural Devon. The normal activities that technomages get up to, otherwise. In another scrape that doesn't need elucidating here, I allow Francisco the opportunity to live as a member of the opposite sex for a day and while I'm pleased that he doesn't simply spend the day locked in a Bacchanalian frenzy of self-abuse I'm slightly less impressed to later learn that he's become pregnant as a result.
Catalina emails, informing me that while I may disapprove of her choice of activity these days, she assures me that she is working on the side of the greater good. Inexplicably, she sends me a bunch of magnets too, alluding to some sort of dark force that I can call upon. I think nothing of it, but add them to the various miscellany I carry around with me.
The nights continue to grow darker at unexpected and unexplained intervals and at times just after midnight, I'm sure I hear massed chanting on the wind as I pass out in an opium-induced haze; but then I'm certain that I'm imagining things.
2008
I hear news that the holiday resort which had previously accommodated and hired me has closed down and stands abandoned. When I pop up on the, for once, functioning magic carpet to have a look with a view to taking it over as an extended laboratory facility, I am informed that it has already been purchased by those working in the magickal arts and indeed that my presence there goes against their policy of 'shoot to kill' which I am reliably informed applies exclusively to technomages. I beat a hasty retreat on my magic carpet and later learn that the owners are the leaders of my former coven, who are now claiming that coven is an “outmoded and irrelevant word for the kind of work we're currently aiming towards” and that their leanings towards witchcraft were “teenage mistakes”. Indeed, they are now marketing themselves as the British Alternative Medical Federation. The BAMF do declare that they intend to honour the reservations of the 2008-2009 season of holidaymakers, although it's unclear how.
While the dubious activities of the increasingly popular BAMF are of a concern to me, I hardly have time to worry about it, as I spend much of the year exploring the technology of another megalomaniac company, Google, thanks to a dubious collection of kit that I find on the black market in Silicon Valley. From this, I inadvertently discover that I am able to create immortality and use the technology in a way that is in direct opposition to Death itself. But again, this is a story that deserves more space than I have here and which I am reliably informed that the Darkship moron has edited into a book.
2009
The BAMF get through the Christmas period by retaining the staff who previously worked at the holiday resort and indeed keep them on until the New Year, although who knows to what level this is consensual. Still, the BAMF are successful and announce plans to continue their research in conjunction with their hospitality responsibilities and amazingly get a marriage license approved just in time for Valentine's Day 2009.
However, I quickly get wind of what's actually going on through a mole in the Federation and, having dithered about what to do about it, choose to foil their dastardly plans at the most opportune moment, bursting in during the “any just impediment” part of the wedding vows to notify the bride and groom that the wedding is farcical and has clearly been conducted in the attempt to once again raise Digi-Cthulhu, which had been the plan for the previous four or five years. Obviously the BAMF members present deny it, but this is immediately undermined by the aforementioned sea-monster rising behind them and dragging several of them into the digital sea, then proceeding to do what I'm reliably informed is generally considered to be “fucking shit up”.
Fortunately I am not entirely without back-up, as several of the Bluecoats who have not previously been zombified by Cthulhu's previous attack turn out to be spies from the anti-imperialists that ex-Tsarevich Catalina is associated with. Pulling long swords from the canes usually deployed during Gene Kelly numbers and turning the bingo machine into an ersatz cannon, they manage to stall the enemy while I desperately think of some way to vanquish the unspeakable beast in a way that's discreet enough to prevent further embarrassment to the wedding party. Offers of financial incentives and pretty women are ignored by the ingrate, potions and spells only seem to enrage the beast, while an attempt at hand-to-hand combat goes about as well as you might expect. Running out of ideas, more time is miraculously bought for me with the unprecedented (and possibly implausible) intervention of Nikolaivich, the sentient robot, who had been invited to the wedding as the guest of Adamantia (who was angling for a wedding of her own). Nikolaivich fought valiantly as I mused on how I could go about erasing the hard drive that the digital Cthulhu must presumably be stored on. Unfortunately the robot did not have samurai skills and before long there were pieces of the robot everywhere, Digi-Cthulhu mangling pieces like a dog with a newspaper.
Thinking fast, I attach the magnets Catalina had sent me to the pieces of robot and fashion a magnetic field around the digital monster, thus wiping the hard drive and leaving him with no idea where he was. I then deploy an emergency firehose with the assistance of Adamantia (the digital sea does not hold water and the pixellated fiend can't cope with it) and skilfully bring down the enemy in a shower of sparks, creating a delightful fireworks display for the children who remain onsite.
While saving the planet from the Eater Of Souls gets me no thanks, medals or accolades it does exempt me from liability during the many torturous insurance claims made against the BAMF and does mean that I get to renew my acquaintance with Adamantia, with whom I intend to see out the decade, providing that I am able to defeat the cybernetic reindeer who are currently bothering me. And with this I leave you, hoping that the new decade brings you more of my posting access and a moderately bearable time between updates.