Tag Archives: Writing

General musings

Progress, of a sort

Leave a comment

My yard is once more dry enough to walk across in ordinary shoes for the first time in over two months, one of my bee traps may have caught a swarm (dare I look?), and we’ve had a Summer, instead of the incessant drizzle characterising last year.

We have been graced by a visit from one of the Hares that inhabit my meadows and the ground has drained to the point where my wellingtons are no longer a necessity.

On the physical side, there are fence panels to be moved and fence posts to be pulled, weeding to be done and this Autumns replanting schedule to be planned. And I have begun to write in earnest once more. Only five hundred or so words a day, but that will do for the moment. I am far from the form that let me write around four thousand words a day, but now my time is more organised, that may not be outside the realms of possibility. Still. Baby steps.

‘Darkness between the Stars’ is finally taking a more coherent shape, but still a long way from completion. The narrative had become full of too many stray threads going nowhere and has needed multiple bypass operations to revive it. All in all it’s felt like an exercise in discontinuity. However, progress of a sort is progress, no matter what.

One of the things I will not be doing is using Long Language Modelling to complete the project. Mainly because I feel that using AI to write stories is not only cheating, but pretty low quality cheating at that. Yes, I’ve seen the plethora of AI written videos on YouTube and elsewhere, and the machine writing becomes very obvious within a few sentences. I won’t condemn it out of hand, but despite the quality of English these LLM’s are capable of there’s always something that feels out of tune. To extend the musical metaphor, their word music is technically perfect but just slightly off the beat. A demi quaver of a minim off key. Enough to scrape at the senses like fine sandpaper.

Hence the little symbol (See below) that I will be appending to the site. Just a little logo stating that no LLM or ‘Artificial Intelligence’ was used in the writing or construction of any of my work, such as it is. All the mistakes, typos, and failures of research in my work are entirely my own. The machines cannot replace humans because they lack biological inputs. They don’t have bad days, hangovers, or indigestion. Nor are they prey to all other biological stimuli, both internal and external. Machines cannot look at the moon and see wonder, or be inspired by nature. They lack intuition. Why? Because they are still binary code, unfeeling algorithms. Humans can feel, love, hate, envy, suffer and create. Machines merely make collages. Neat, well constructed collages, fast and precise, but no more than that.

I have heard it said that companies currently betting the farm on AI, having shed human workers to cut costs, are finding that while machines can deal with the mundane and repetitious, like production lines, humans are required as first line problem solvers able to empathise and provide value plus to a business. Which is causing the companies in question to lose out in certain situations. Therefore said companies are having to re-hire employees to fill in the empathy gaps.

Cerberus, Old projects

An object lesson


I was surprised by an email the other day while my head was more focused on worldly matters like leaking water mains and fill in planting for my garden. Apparently some book club had picked up on a work I self published in 2014. They wanted to do an interview.

Now as a writer it’s easy to become a little euphoric at these very rare junctures, On the other hand one should always apply the old axiom ‘If it sounds too good to be true – it probably is.‘ So I replied guardedly and received a second email full of words of admiration, which I felt mildly flattered by. However, there was an offer of graphic design for redesigned book covers and other promotional material. None of which I was interested in.

Then right in the penultimate paragraph there was a little note that there would be a fee for this material, presumably whether I wanted it or not. For about thirty seconds I felt a a little torn. Should I try to say yes to the interview and no to the other stuff?

I discussed the matter with my wife and let her read the emails, on the simple premise that two sets of eyeballs on the same material are better than one set skewed by hope. False or not.

Just in case, I spent an hour or two updating my profile on a couple of sites, putting up an up to date profile picture and a quick once over for glaring errors

Given that the Paul Calvin story in question ‘A Falling of Angels‘ (Not the W.T.Delaney book of the same name) is over 12 years old, I wondered how much of it I would remember for an Interview, so I began reading my proof copy once more to remind myself of the content. And yes, I found it enjoyable, even relevant, and the experience revived a few memories of who why and where the ideas within the book had come from. It reads well enough. and that remains my opinion. To me that’s the only one that counts.

To cut a long story short I have elected to politely decline this never to be repeated, one time only offer. If a book club (or anyone) wants to talk to me, ask questions about my work and ideas, given time constraints I’m sure there is a place for the meeting of minds. A Zoom conference or whatever. That is fine. Even a list of questions to be answered via a YouTube / Bitchute / Rumble video, buckshee, free of charge. Happy to help.

However to make up unrequested services, no matter how good, then attempt to charge an author for the privilege as the price of being interviewed, that is unacceptable. An interview is an author provided service, therefore the interviewer should pay up, not the interviewee.

Well that’s it for the moment, I’m watching the ground water back up from the leaking main, hoping against hope that it doesn’t undermine the foundations or the concrete of my yard. My neighbours cattle are grazing contentedly in my meadows and there is a list of jobs a mile long for the next bout of sunny weather.

Here endeth the lesson.

General musings, Novella, Publishing, Short Story

A trend in the making?


Seem to be writing a lot of short stories that are what I’m beginning to call ‘future parables’. Which actually goes with science fiction as a genre. A lot of stories come from the viewpoint of knowing what I have learned about humanity, what would happen if?

‘Blink’ is about full retinal controlled digital life of a hard partying socialite, a borderline narcissist, and what happens when her digital life disappears in what might be called a fifteen minute city.

A new 6,000 worder called ‘The Winter Trees’ similarly asks what might happen if a Carrington level solar event takes down the electrical grid and much of the electronics reliant thereon. Written from the perspective of a small group of determined holdouts who live their lives dodging killer drones acting as enforcement for the all controlled.

Then there’s the ever changing versions of ‘Not with a bang’ about what might happen if those zany kids in the World Economic Forum and their adherents actually get ‘carbon capture’ to work on an industrial scale. In my version children betray their parents to the authorities for the crime of ‘denial’ and the machines actually work. Until of course all the plant life on Earth dies, thus every human does too, eventually. Not telling how, that would ruin the ending.

I seem to have a whole collection of such stories which have never been submitted to a mainstream publisher, and probably never will because I tired of that circus over ten years ago and rarely send anything to anyone except good old Leg-Iron books. Maybe I’ll just post them on this site. Don’t know.

Still struggling with the overall narrative of the final in the trilogy ‘Darkness between the stars’. Trying hard to keep the narrative consistent from the point of view of technology. Alcubierre type warp drives, no sub or hyperspace comms, a fractured Earth full of power games and ruthless ambition. Same stuff different day.

Then there’s ‘Straight on through morning’ a novella length MSS about the rise and fall and rise of a bunch of Asteroid miners set in the ‘Stars’ technology universe. Still contemplating putting in a fight scene where one of the protagonists calls another a ‘Musky’ (A fan of Elon Musk) leading to broken furniture, missing teeth and various items of grievous bodily harm. The sequence in question is still in note form at this stage, but am vacillating. Is it too near the knuckle? Might as well have a play, see how it feels.

One obstruction to writing has been the ongoing process of refurbishing our home in the west of Ireland. Latest upgrade is a revamped kitchen. A saga full of expensive wood, lots of white tiles and getting rid of a whole pile of 1990’s kitchen cabinetry. We know this because people had written names and dates on the plasterwork behind them. This has given rise, on my part, to a couple of burns, the recurrence of old back and knee injuries and various cuts, bruises and a great deal of florid four letter invective. Fortunately that’s mostly over and my kitchen will soon be fully operational once more.

Sometimes I wonder if I might like to go back to using an old typewriter. Had one back in the 1970’s and 80’s, which did sterling service until I lost it in a house move. Did try to buy a replacement from a person in Sligo, but after a number of enthusiastic online messages and a minor road trip on my part he never showed up at the location provided. So after a two hour wait I simply walked away and had a nice day instead.

Sligo is quite a pretty town. I’ve stayed there before. It’s relaxed and easy going, an Irish University town well worth a visit. Pity about the typewriter, but since that was not to be I’ll just keep my old laptop limping along.

General musings, Observations, Short Story

Not with a bang

1 Comment

Back in 2015 I wrote the following story outline which never went anywhere (I do a lot of this):

Not with a bang

A comic tale of a truly man made apocalypse.

Outline.

Mankind finally develops the means to control CO2 levels on Earth with fusion driven power and a new electrostatic technology that literally unbinds the Carbon and Oxygen molecule that makes Carbon Dioxide …

In 2021, the United Nations proudly announces its forthcoming ‘World Climate Day’ which will save the Earth from man made global warming. After five long years of testing and building the necessary technology, the system is switched on … combustion becomes a crime, punishable by life in prison.

Despite an outcry from a minority of the scientific community, the Secretary General switches the system on to public acclamation and world wide celebration.

In the first year, the levels of CO2 drop below 390ppm. In 2032, the level drops by another 30ppm to 360ppm. By 2033, the level is 310ppm and dropping. 2034 and the level reaches an all time low of 265ppm and the experiment is hailed as a great success, despite no significant reduction in the rise of global temperatures. In 2037 the atmospheric CO2 level dropped an astonishing 50ppm in fourteen months. In 2038, with expanding deserts and massive dieback of temperate zone forests, some scientists state that the project has achieved it’s objectives, and at this point may have gone too far. The UN convenes a climate advisory council to discuss whether the system should be switched off.

By 2041 the level of atmospheric CO2 drops below 150ppm and despite several large volcanic eruptions, keeps falling. Crops begin to fail all over the world as there is no longer enough carbon dioxide to support photosynthesis. The climate wars start in sub-Saharan Africa as millions of starving people try to destroy the massive arrays of carbon dioxide reduction machines. In south east Asia, two whole islands in the Philippines are evacuated to prevent the poor and starving rioting and destroying the massive carbon sequestration machines. Massive algal blooms cover almost half the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific oceans forming mats tens of metres thick which disrupt shipping. Finally the carbon sequestration machines are switched off, but the drop in world wide CO2 continues. Starvation ensues and all remaining foodstuffs are sequestered.

Now the UK carbon zealots, driven insane by bad scientific models, want to dim the sun and remove CO2 from the environment. Even putting balloons loaded with sulphur dioxide (what about acid rain?) into the atmosphere. They don’t seem to understand that carbon dioxide is neither a pollutant nor a poison, but an essential part of the biosphere. CO2 is life.

Without enough CO2 the world dies. Humanity dies. For what? There is no empirical proof that CO2 controls the weather or climate. As for the ‘all scientists say’ argument, that is based on the Cook et al study 2015 which was such a statistical fudge that it is a wonder it ever got published.

I might be tempted to say that you could not make this up. Obviously I was wrong about that.

General musings

April


Am enjoying the current run of sunny weather. This is good news healthwise as I am working outdoors, building and fixing, topping up my vitamin D levels and working up a sweat. Whilst my hands are busy, my subconscious is currently going over all the ‘Stars’ storylines. Which is a lot of ground to cover before the Irish rain returns this weekend coming and I am once more indoors behind the keyboard.

Not that I think that it is going to be a wet year. My money is on a dryer year, here in the west of Ireland. Not before time. We had two very wet years after all the water vapour punched into the atmosphere by the 2021 Hunga Tonga eruption.

A dry year is fine by me as I love being outdoors whenever possible. There are many tasks to be completed on our small acreage. Fence lines to be moved, clearing up the last of the mess that damned storm left us with at the end of January. Setting up bee traps, building new hives for next year to replace my obliterated colonies. Fixing famine era boundary walls.

The drains are running clear, not backing up like they were. Seeds have been planted, soil moved. New borders in to bring a few more splashes of colour during the Summer. While it sounds like I’m not writing, the opposite is true. Technology to be revisited in the light of new knowledge, storylines adjusted. Notes made. Plots to be checked. Continuity checked. It all has to be done in advance, Working with my hands helps relax me into the right frame of mind to focus on laying down anything from 2-5000 words a day.

5000 words a day sounds like a massive workload, and it is. I’ve managed it once before. With a 1000 words a day scrappage rate, where I had to delete around a 1000 words out of the previous days work for going off on a tangent, glaring plot holes and unusable narrative threads. Last time I had that focus, I managed an average of just over 3,559 word of usable narrative a day over 14 consecutive days.

The only other time I have ever managed close to that kind of work rate, the atmosphere was just right, although I had to take a good long run up at it. A sixty two thousand word novel in just under thirty days. On a manual typewriter. Hodder and Stoughton, a London publisher, showed some interest, but only if I could make it a series, which I couldn’t. So that went nowhere.

But that’s the price of writing fiction.

General musings, What if

Playing with ideas

1 Comment

I’m currently messing around with an idea regarding warp technology. Just postulating a measurement of warp speed using the logic outlined in ‘clearing up’ I came up with a measurement that would fit with the described technology of an Alcubierre warp drive. Warp speed being measured in increments of ‘Ex’, short for ‘Exponential’ where velocity increases exponentially with warp field flow and compression.

After all, ‘Ex’ sounds a bit more dramatic and flexible as a term describing the more pedestrian sounding ‘Warp 2.5’ which could mean anything. ‘Ex’ as a measure sounds more exciting, a better adjective for multiples of light speed through warped space.

Woke up in the wee small hours this morning with an idea about a triggering event for something like the Younger Dryas era 12,800-11,600 BCE (Before Common Era). About 1,300 years. Now the current preferred (But highly debated) hypothesis is for a meteorite impact.

However, what if that were not the whole story? Meteorite impacts happen all the time. What if, and here’s no reach, astrophysicists have proved that there are extrasolar or ‘rogue’ planets, wandering giants with their own trajectories. 540 detected at the last count, with millions more potentially out there. There’s even a NASA mission scheduled for launch in 2027 to detect more of these objects and find out if any pose a threat.

Then another ‘What if’ that one such, a Jupiter plus mass object, passed at speed, too fast to be captured by our suns gravity, but exerting enough influence to subtly shift the orbits of Earth, Mars and Venus, then swung out on a hyperbolic slingshot to disappear among the stars again at the end? That might have triggered the mini ice age of the Younger Dryas, depending upon the orbital mechanics.

It’s a hell of a thought to wake up with. There might even be a story in it. It’s a gardening day today, so I’ll mull it over as I dig before putting fingers to keyboard.

General musings

Clearing up


Spent the day cutting up fallen branches in the yard after our return home. There’s a lot to do still, but at least I’ve made a start. The main yard is now clear of windfalls, but all that has done is show me how much more there is to do, fixing the tree damage due to that storm and our secondary septic systems grey water drains are backing up.

What all these manual problem solving tasks do is give you time to think,while focused on the mainly physical, letting inspiration come as your hindbrain focuses on the mundane, allowing the frontal lobes to play around with concepts and storylines uninterrupted.

Like on the ferry over, I was making some routine notes and looked up to see a curious sight. Looking out of the window at a 45 degree angle a life ring attached to the ships rail gave rise to a curious optical illusion that made me think. To the left, in the direction of travel, the sea looked to be flowing normally toward the life ring (From left to right), but around the edges appeared to compress into streams warping around the life ring, and to the right of the life rind, appeared to be accelerating rapidly in opposition to the direction of flow.

I blinked, but the sight did not disappear. Turned my gaze from right to left. Tilted my head and then watched curiously as the illusion changed. All this gave rise to some half buried thoughts I’d had about space warp drives, and how they might work within space / time. What effects would they produce for those traveling within the warp bubble? Would such a field produce an anti relativistic effect for those traveling within it? I’ve explored this idea before in ‘Sky full of stars’ where the drive used to speed FTL travel has some unexpected effects of space / time for those using it to travel between star systems.

That idea being such a vessel traveling faster and further would, because of space / time compression and distortion, cause said vessel to arrive slightly backwards in time, because the flow of space / time around a warp field would mean that space / time in the direction of travel would be accelerated and compressed past the warp field, but, as nature abhors a vacuum, so does space, and would subsequently rush in to fill the void behind the accelerating bubble of space / time containing the FTL drive ship. Like a ships wake, only this phenomena would help accelerate the warp bubble at an increasingly Faster Than Light (FTL) velocity..

Obviously this is only a blog post, and a pretty non technical one at that. However, it is an intriguing thought. Would an Alcubierre type drive behave in such a manner? Einsteinian and Quantum physics say no, but the principles of flow and displacement are well established, and why should they not apply to space / time? Or had I just consumed far too much caffeine that morning?

This sort of thing occurs to me as I meander through my life. I find it more entertainment than anything anyone else can put on screen.

General musings

Powering down


While we’re still away, we’re giving thought to the increasing likelihood of power outages back at home. This is not a phenomena restricted to the west of Ireland, but one across all Western Europe and Canada. Those chilly nine January days without electricity got a little grim, washing out of buckets of warm water heated on a barbecue, eating fast food at a service station as our only hot food for the day. Angie got fractious, I just ran out of energy and the atmosphere in the house was like the weather, stormy with clouds and rain. Not conducive to writing.

Back in 2011 I was writing a story about a family split over the issue of carbon capture and it’s ramifications. Meant to be a black comedy of errors, ‘Not with a bang’ was the story of how humankind finally develops the means to control CO2 levels on Earth with fusion driven power and a new electrostatic technology that literally unbinds the Carbon and Oxygen molecule making Carbon Dioxide. Essentially it was about what would happen if the radicals got their way and reduced atmospheric CO2 to under 150ppm.

However, real life got in the way, my thread was lost and the story still sits, part completed, on my hard drive. Unfortunately the story went from an intended 5,000 words to a mini novella of 20,000 words and I still had integral story lines which needed far more narrative room.

At that point I decided not to keep going with it as I felt the story would be out of date before it was completed. That and having other projects I was more keen on, like with my comic paranormal tales, which I wrote mainly to cheer myself up. In its current form ‘Not with a bang’ isn’t very good, so will not be posted here, or anywhere for that matter. Besides, I am committed to complete ‘Darkness’, so the tale will remain in my archives, never to see the light of day. Even if it is pertinent to the insane push for ‘Net zero’.

On that topic we’ve decided to find backup sources of heat and light for our home. My calculations indicate that a 22Square metre solar array and at least a backup 4kw diesel generator with 20kw/hr battery storage should inoculate us from any further outages. Water might be an issue if the backup generators fail at the local pumping station like last time, but our property still has an old bore hole, a well that could quickly be brought back into commission to supplement a rainwater collection and storage system. That would require a small water filtration / treatment facility added to the water softener, but if the current crop of politicians have their way. That might just be a wise investment. Not enough to go completely off grid all the time, but certainly enough to tide us over in comfort for a month.

As for comms, we’re considering Starlink for Internet with hopefully their mobile phone subscription to keep us in touch no matter what the outside world, in its lack of wisdom, decides to do. Candidly I’m fed up with the ineptitude of the modern European political class, and am electing to insulate myself from its worst insanities. Western Europe may be going to immolate itself in a purge of insane self loathing, but I have no intention of joining it.

General musings, Stars Trilogy

The whole point

1 Comment

…while we are in Montauban, Southern France, I have been reviewing my manuscript for Darkness, the third title of the sequence, yet again, and have decided that the project is not beyond reclamation. In some ways it is like having an obsessive compulsion to complete. In others I feel stymied because the story loses focus about the half way point, plot lines scattering like a startled flock of chickens with every fresh idea meant to take the story forward. So I really need to painstakingly unpick the manuscript back to its coarse fabric, then re-stitch the main threads to complete the planned 150,000 words. Excuse the embroidery metaphor.

Notwithstanding, the whole premise behind the ‘Stars’ trilogy (for anyone interested) a story sequence set in the late 21st century, is set when corrupt neocons and neoliberals, are back in power after a series of tumultuous events, including a middle eastern nuclear exchange. Under these circumstances the story speculates about the social and technological changes that might ensue from the development of a radical new technology, specifically a reactionless space drive allowing fast travel between star systems. It also speculates about how armed conflict between two heavily top down pseudo socialist western regimes, one of which, called the Gaians (After Gaius Julius Caesar or the ‘Sons of Gaia’, an extreme environmentalist movement – I’m a bit fuzzy about this myself), uses religion to bind the European peoples into a loosely cohesive social structure and makes war across the Atlantic with the United States and Provinces. Also how a maverick pseudo democracy driven by one devious and ruthless man (William J ‘Bill’ Colby, de facto ruler of the Cascadian Republic based in the Pacific Northwest) challenges and fights back against both regimes.

One of the problems with trying to write ‘hard’ science fiction is trying not to use too many ‘miracle’ technologies to gloss over a plot difficulty. To stick to the physics as outlined in the implied premise. Because all stories must have rules. For me this means no subspace communication, because subspace as envisaged is too chaotic for any coherent non-relativistic signal modulation. Like all communication in the days before radio or satellite, all messages have to be by download from orbit or in person, there being no direct, real time communication between solar systems in the assumed timeline. Transitioning subspace only being possible within an enclosed warp bubble of space / time.

Likewise with AI. I’ve always felt ‘Artificial Intelligence’ was a bit of a misnomer. Intelligence is not merely logical, nor measured purely in terms of IQ and requires a whole range of cognitive and emotional skills which require a non-algorithmic and often illogical non binary approach. My position is this; AI has no glands, it is not organic and can ‘learn’ only along predetermined lines. It has no environmental pressures like humans, and cannot relate emotionally to humans. No matter how complex, faced with innovative problems, machine intelligence can only apply the solutions it’s programming allows. Which will always remain that technologies greatest restriction. AI will be fine to do the mundane, the simple repetitive tasks, the routine. But for novel solutions? Humans will always have the edge on AI. So in my version of the future, AI will always need a human supervisor.

Similarly, all the other technologies (Nuclear fusion , Thorium reactors) I cite are within the realms of the possible, just not ready for implementing as the maths and attendant technologies haven’t been fully worked out yet, even though the technology is theoretically possible. Therefore some leaps of faith have had to be taken in the narrative (As with all works of fiction), one of which being that a subspace drive occasions an unexplained reverse time dilation. Not enough for drive equipped starships to qualify as actual time machines, but enough to require careful scheduling to avoid temporal near-paradoxes. It’s an interesting paradigm. Just like assuming that within our branch of the Orion spur of the Milky Way, humanity is the only sentient spacefaring species. During the imagined timescale, humanity does not make contact with another spacefaring species.

This is where I am with the story, one which has been stuck for far too long. Too many half written spin offs and well over a hundred thousand words of notes. Some worthy of converting, some not.

By the way. If anyone wants to help me out with sundry expenses like web hosting (And the occasional coffee) as I try to re-write ‘Darkness between the stars’ and other stories like ‘A Coelacanth in the Bathroom’ and a few others I’ve recently opened a buymeacoffee.com account.

Unfortunately WordPress insists I have a more expensive ‘business’ account to add the necessary widgets to make this work. Which I can’t currently afford. So I had to bodge a link manually from a cobbled together graphic placed on this sites primary sidebar for the time being. Yes, it does read ‘buy me a whiskey’ but for a basic $3 ask, I don’t think that should be too onerous. Certainly cheaper than a medium Americano from most western coffee shops.

My only regret for all the above is that the work has taken so long. I have other projects on the drawing board. Incidentally, for anyone who is interested in a copy of ‘The Cat Tree’ from 2019, I’ll pop in a direct link to both the print to order hardback and eBook versions via Lulu.com when I’ve got the final versions ready. Should have done that ages ago, but migration to Ireland and all sorts of other issues like rebuilding houses got in the way, for which I can only apologise.

All assistance will be gratefully appreciated.

There will be a short pause for a commercial break and a word from our sponsor while matters move forward. All serious questions will be answered but don’t expect answers until after I get home from my travels in March 2025.

On the communications front, my Twitter / X account has been restored, and I have been sternly warned that whatever it was that I was doing wrong, don’t do it again. Which puts me very firmly on the naughty step, unless of course I cough up 12 Euros a month or so to get a blue check mark verification. Said resurrected account by the way is @martynkjones, where I intend to post travel pictures and videos, pictures of home, bees, and news of any newly completed stories etc.

General musings

Powerless

3 Comments

Living out in county Mayo as we do, we recently had the mispleasure of experiencing a particular storm which left us without electricity from the early hours of 24th January to mid afternoon on the 2nd February, over ten days.

The storm damage to us personally was fairly light. A couple of dislodged tiles, parts of our old famine era stone wall on the western boundary, two galvanised steel gates were seriously bent, a block built fence post shattered, and a number of branches felled. My two bee colonies were destroyed, once neatly ordered combs littering the landscape half way to Donegal and two outbuilding doors damaged. The shed doors and the gates have had running repairs. The felled branches will provide firewood for next year.

However, the electronic fallout was worse.

The resulting ten day long power outage wrecked one of my laptops, a Linux machine, leaving me with my remaining, and increasingly finicky Windows 10 laptop, which drops network connections at the drop of the proverbial hat. The Linux client can be rebuilt, and all data was successfully backed up. Just not for some time. I like Linux as an operating system, but on my current hardware it is unstable and more trouble that it is worth.

However, one of my digital alter egos will never recover. The decision by WordPress to insist on dual logon verification and a similar decision by Google and all the other online platforms means that he is effectively and digitally dead. The blogs in question will remain until the platform we subsist upon disappears, but they will never be updated again. Not unless WordPress and Google release the accounts.

Then there was the rapidly thawing mess left in our freezers, the monetary value of which was approximately 3-400 Euros worth of frozen food. This was hygienically buried in a specially dug pit just beyond the back garden wall. A task which took up time and energy between boiling water for washing and beverage production, temporary fixes to gates and shed doors, as well as keeping our one source of reliable heat, a log burning stove in one front room. Then there was the lack of water when our local water pumping station was without power, it’s backup generator moved to the south to ensure that Kerry did not lose water when the well-predicted storm hit. The brunt of the storm itself hit further north.

In advance of the predicted bad weather I had laid in a supply of drinking water and about forty litres of other water for flushing toilets. For the three days we were without any mains water, that was all that stood between us and some very unpleasant outcomes.

For ten days we struggled along, burning up almost a third of our winter log supply simply keeping warm with none of the conveniences of modern life. Effectively living like our parents and grandparents did in the 1920’s and 30’s without all of their social support mechanisms. Almost a hundred years back in a single night.

Had it not been for the timely purchase of two high storage energy banks to keep our mobile phones charged and a friendly service station with its own generator, then the sense of being dropped through a time warp to the early 20th century would have been complete.

On the tenth day we decamped in abject frustration to county Wexford, en route for France, on a holiday we had booked and paid for last August. On the ferry to Cherbourg, one of the last notifications we received from ESB, Ireland’s electricity generation board, was that our power had been restored. The twenty first century had returned! The heating and security systems booted nicely, so we can now not only control the heat within our home, but actually see who comes a-visiting while we are on holiday in France.

Which is where we are now. Currently in the historic centre of Tours, home to many of the rulers of ancient France, enjoying the sights, even if frustrated by the one way system.

We’re simply enjoying the slightly warmer weather and richness of French food, being reminded that the French are the very monarchs of baking. Which makes the next few weeks something to look forward to.

Given the last ten days, Angie and myself desperately need this timeout for recovery. The relationship between us was recently put under extreme pressure and unbalanced us both. Before we begin moving forward again, we both need to recover our centre, our inner equilibrium. That is what this break is to be about.

As far as writing is concerned I’ve been looking at the manuscript for ‘Darkness between the stars’. Frankly it’s a mess. In the 80,000 words so far, too much has been cut and pasted disrupting the story flows to the point where a complete re-write of the whole trilogy is in order. On the other hand perhaps I might do better disassembling it and beginning the project I first envisioned in 2009 called ‘Earth’s night’, a series of future history style manuscripts where the events of my ‘Stars’ trilogy underpins most of the events, assisting with some of the foreshadowing.

So long as no more storms or major power outages hit, or we decide to move continents yet again, I might actually finish something worthwhile.

General musings

Progress


Still pushing forward with ‘Darkness’ and it’s like wrestling with treacle. Progress is painfully slow and sticky. A word here, a sentence there and crow barring a couple of paragraphs in where they better serve the narrative.

The story is finally beginning to go in the direction I want, but it’s felt like trying to turn a supertanker with a motorboat. Not completely impossible, but painfully slow and constantly at the mercy of wind and tide.

Since I began writing this series in 2003 I’ve upended my entire life several times, moved continents twice, been through a double bereavement (on the same day!) and multiple trials and tribulations. Nothing too damaging.

However, counting blessings, there are many much worse off, but when you’re dealing with narratives running to over a hundred and fifty thousand words each, these life events do make it hard to keep track. Given that circumstance, this post should not be seen as a cry for any form of sympathy. I freely acknowledge I made this rod for my own back. It would be better to think of it more as a wordy grunt of frustration.

Prone as I am to gloomy episodes, to periodically cheer myself up between other work and house upgrades I’ve been following the ever-astonishing progress of SpaceX, whose test flight number six is due for launch around the 18th of November 2024. That ‘chopstick’ catch of flight five’s booster earlier this year was desperately awe inspiring and a moment I will remember for a long, long, time.

Will we see Mr Musks project on flight six go for the double, with the spectacle of the next booster and Starship storm down from orbit, finishing their flight hanging in mid air on their respective launch towers? Not being privy to SpaceX’s project schedule, that may be just wishful thinking, but perhaps we the public will have to wait for test seven? Who knows?

Certainly there is a sense of rapid progress in terms of reaction propulsion and a sense of a new future taking shape. All I know is that a hopeful future is only just ahead of us. All we have to do is reach out and welcome it.

General musings

Story ideas


Inspiration is a curious thing. It comes from anywhere and occasionally ties your brain in a knot before disappearing like smoke on the breeze. This weeks offering originated when we were on holiday recently and I put bare feet onto one of those rough sisal carpets.

The story has gone into my ‘oddball work in progress’ file tagged to a strange visual image of dust and close up of insect debris in an empty room that came to me as I felt the roughness under my feet. Haven’t even decided what sort of story it’s going to be.

Science fiction brain says ‘dimensional transition gone wrong’ or ‘temporal prisoner reflects’. Fantasy brain says ‘depressed alcoholic meets Caspar Hauser’. Oddball sense of humour says ‘Why not both’? I’ll see where it goes over the next month or so. If I don’t get distracted.

Still blocked over ‘Darkness between the stars’, the last book in the ‘Stars’ series I began writing in 2005. Not because I’m stuck for ideas, but rather can’t decide which way I want the story to go. There are just too many narrative lines flapping around. Lots of good dialogue and plot points but the whole project has become a monkey on my back. I’m compelled to finish, but can’t decide how.

For a writer, life is something that can to get in the way of the business of writing. For me there are still too many chores to do, bits of our new home to finish, things to make for the garden and sheds or interruptions just as my thoughts settle down.

The work is not the problem. I can push out two or three thousand words a day, but it’s the direction I’m having issues with.

Short Story

Video readings


Just a couple of video readings.

The Cat Tree. A short fantasy story about life, death and crawling out of the bottle.

Moonlit shadow. a tale about a certain midwinter festival from a differing perspective. Published in Leg-Iron books 2019 anthology “Christmas lights and Darks”

Moving continents yet again and setting up home in a new house, renovating, learning to keep bees etc has taken up most of my storywriting energy. That and the ‘pandemic’ getting in the way. Hopefully that will change in 2023.

Am recompiling ‘The Cat Tree and other stories’ as an E-book. Link will be posted on the sidebar when it’s ready.

Happy new year.

Short Story

The Happiness Engineers


Another short story first draft of about 4,680 words uploaded for criticism / entertainment. A dark little satire on ever more intrusive attempts by governmental agencies to meddle in the lives of their citizens.

No light penetrated this far down.    Down in the gentle darkness of the all encompassing earth.    Behind heavy steel doors set in heavier concrete walls shielded against all harm.   

Here and there shone solitary pools of bright white, spotlit oases in the whispering backroar of many tiny blades pushing tinier air currents.    Banks of steady green lights flickered in identical grey steel skyscraper-like stacks set in row after row.    Each stack three metres tall, half a metre on a side.    Hardly substantial on their own, but all together an intimidating wall of electronic babel.    Countless quadrillions of calculations per second driving the silicon heartbeat of this hidden cavern.   

The heavy doors hissed open and a solitary slightly built figure wearing a second best light blue shirt and dusty black chino’s entered.    This was Neville Malus, senior hardware engineer, whose job was mostly replacing failed modules in this massive data centre.   

As though for effect, the doors hissed closed behind him with a double subsonic thud.   

Ah well, another working day thought Neville.    Blade twenty one, stack 12, row forty two showed a drive with too many bad sectors.    He’d have to manually shut the power down when data processing had mirrored the drives across and shut all the stacks data processes off.    Once that was done he would safely strip out the offending components, and clone the special operating system onto the new module.    Then data processing would remotely spin the server stack up to speed and set it running.

There was the usual on foot visual check, a four kilometre walk all told, just in case the data-shovellers upstairs had managed to shut one or more of the server stacks down by accident.    It happened.    He’d come back from a long weekend last month to find his departmental management replaced and several of the data processor posts filled with unfamiliar faces.    He hadn’t asked questions, just went down to his desk in the server room and fixed the hardware problem like he was told.    That was the nice thing about being this projects sole hardware technician.    He built the stacks from base components as per spec and kept the online documentation up to date.    And he got to work alone.    Which he enjoyed.    None of the office politics of the guys ten basement floors up.    All Neville cared about was doing his job and saving for a house, because the money on this job was good.    Very good indeed.    His girlfriend liked that idea.    A house meant security, and Mel was very keen on security.    She wanted a family and it was only a matter of time before she brought the topic of marriage up, again.    Then there was her grandma’s ring that her mother had given him for when the time came.    All he had to do was not screw this contract up.

The job.    Yes.    Big government contract.    Serious bucks.    Neville wasn’t quite sure what it was about, but it was very secret, which is why as the projects only senior hardware engineer he took home a nice fat paycheck.    Two hours later, with the last hardware upgrade finished, he was at his desk updating the record database when his team lead phoned on the land line.    Cell phones weren’t allowed in this secure area and Neville, for all his other shortcomings, was very conscientious about security.    His personal old fashioned flip phone stayed in his backpack in his locker upstairs.

“Data centre, hardware.”    Neville answered.

“Hi Neville, it’s Claudia, data processing.”    Claudia was one of the new people after the last lot had been fired.    Neville didn’t mind her so much.    She was short, dumpy and plain, but very good at her job.    Which to Neville meant letting him do his and not interfering too much.

“Hi Claudia.    What can I do for you?” He liked Claudia.

“We’re going live at three this afternoon.”    she said without preamble.

“Oh.    I thought project said it wouldn’t be ready at your end until next month.”

“Project deadlines have been moved.”

“Everything’s ready down here.    I’d best stay in the data centre just in case something breaks.”

“You sure?    There’s the Minister of something or other coming.    Senior management is going to be there.    They’ve even brought in caterers.”    She tantalised without success.

“No.    If something breaks I want to be down here to fix it.    It takes at least ten minutes to get into the secure area.    Twenty if the lift breaks down, yet again.”    Neville replied, running his hand through a mop of dark hair.    “I’ll pass.”

On the other end of the line he heard Claudia pause. “Nev.”    That was strange, she didn’t usually shorten people’s names.    “Do you know what this project is for?”

“It’s a big government IT project in one of the biggest data centres in the world.    Muy dinero.    Big money.    Why?”    He asked.    Claudia sounded nervous. 

“Nothing.    Nothing.”    She said hurriedly and hung up.    Neville checked his watch and decided it was time for lunch.

Up in the beigely austere lunch room he found himself a solitary corner to eat a machine vended sandwich, vaguely waving greeting to several of the other groups huddled round their individual tables, most of them plugged into their smartphones like always.    Should he call Mel?    He checked his old fashioned watch.    No, she’d be in a meeting for the next hour, not worth going to his locker for.    He took a bite of his sandwich and munched thoughtfully.    He’d call her later.   

A harassed looking senior manager entered and caught his eye, hurrying over.    Neville took one look at the man’s haunted expression and stopped munching his sandwich.

“Neville.”    Mortimer Moranis, all pinstripe suit and trendy open necked shirt sat down at Neville’s table.    Heads turned briefly then turned back to their own business.    This was unusual.    Neville swallowed.

“Hi Mortimer.    We’re all ready for the big event downstairs.”    He tried to sound cheerful and failed.    Senior management didn’t seek people like him out in person unless serious shit was about to hit a massive fan.    Even then you usually got summoned into a ‘meeting’ so you could be fired in private so as not to make a fuss. Or by text. HR did that far too often.

“Sorry about this, but we’ve had to do a last minute reorganise of your team structure.”    Mortimer sat at the table.

“Okay.”    Neville said doubtfully.    He added to reassure Mortimer that whatever was going on, he was doing his part efficiently. “That’s not mission critical at the moment.    I’ve got everything under control downstairs.    Green board.”

“Erm..”    It wasn’t like Mortimer to be hesitant.    “It’s about Claudia.”

“Yeah, I think she’s got big project launch nerves.”    Neville shrugged, not understanding why Mortimer of all people sounded jittery.    “Is she okay?”

“Yes of course.”    Mortimer sounded relieved. He was also lying.    Even someone of Neville’s limited social skill set could see that.    “Just to let you know she’s been reassigned.”

Ah.    ‘Reassigned’.    Management-speak for ‘fired’.    Neville shrugged again, people came and went all the time.    He relaxed a little, this fell under a ‘Not my problem’ heading.    Then Mortimer leaned toward him and dropped his voice.    “She called you just over half an hour ago.    What did she say?”

“Isn’t our conversation on the internal call log?”    Neville said, successfully faking surprise.    All conversations were logged and monitored in a place this secure.    It went with the territory.

“Well, before she.. left.”    Mortimer left an ominous pause in the phrase.    “She scrambled her call logs.    Can you tell me if she said anything to you?”

“Not much.    Just that the project deadlines had been moved to three this afternoon and did I want to come to the big launch party.”    Neville said.    “I said I was fine but wanted to stay on duty downstairs just in case anything went wrong during the roll-out.”    He added but wondered why Mortimer had sought him out in person instead of via text or email.    “That’s all.”

“Just checking, we were worried in case there was some kind of harassment issue.”

“With Claudia?”    Neville failed to keep his face blank.    “No.”

“Fine.    Excellent.    Glad to have you on the team.”    Mortimer gave Neville a faux-hearty slap on the shoulder as he stood up and hurried out of the lunch room.

“What was all that?”    Bonnie Feynman asked, slinking over from two tables away.    Bonnie was wearing far less makeup than usual for the big day, long black dyed hair tied back in a severe ponytail, Goth tattoos hidden by roll neck sweater and long sleeves.

“Data processing team lead’s quit.”    Neville said simply.   

“Oh.”    Bonnie pouted and took her perfectly upturned nose back to her own peer group.    Nothing for her to get all bent out of shape about.    Maybe even an opportunity.    Neville could hear the whisper rattle round the lunch room, furtive eyes glanced his way.    At least more personnel changes weren’t due, yet.

After finishing his sandwich, Neville headed downstairs into the secure area and took another walk round the kilometres of servers.    Everything was fine.    No active requests on his job queue, so he opened up YouTube and sat down at the hardware bench computer to watch a livestream of the official channel with the sound muted.    A ticker with the dialogue scrolled across the screen.    “Project rapture”, apparently the projects official name featured prominently amongst the subtitles.    A project designed to spread joy around the world.    According to the dialogue ticker the method had been tested and found so successful that the UN itself had funded this massive data centre to push out the technology globally.    Oh, right.    Happy people.    That would make a nice change.

Not giving what he’d seen further thought, Neville turned his attention to more practical matters, picking up a faulty unit and testing it in case the unit could be fixed.    He did this even though there were enough sealed spares in the racks.    At a pinch he could remotely park a memory array and keep things ticking over, so even if the whole data processing team got fired this afternoon he could probably keep things functioning.    At least until Friday lunchtime.

At around four-thirty he glanced up from his work to see the YouTube livestream was over.    He’d identified the problem with the faulty unit and replaced the malfunctioning flash drive.    Now the faulty unit worked perfectly.    Feeling mildly pleased with himself, Neville placed it in an anti-static sleeve and put it in his box of emergency spares.    The land line rang.

“Hi Neville.”    It was Mortimer again.    Only there was something not quite right.    He sounded like he was high or something.

“Hi Mortimer.    We’re all good here.”    Neville said faux-cheerily.    Well, it couldn’t hurt if his ultimate boss was high as a transatlantic flight. It meant Neville wouldn’t get fired. At least today.

“Fabulous job.”    Gushed Mortimer over the phone.

“Thanks.”    Neville was taken aback.    Compliments from management?    That was a first.

“No, I mean it, well done.    Truly excellent.    Smooth with a capital S.”

“Do I get a rise?”    Neville said.    “Five hundred a month?”    He asked, steeling himself for a laughing    “No.”

“Yes of course.    Whatever makes you happy.”    The line went dead.

“That was weird.”    Neville spoke aloud, his voice sounding alien among the whispering roar of the server fans.    On a whim he took another walk around the massive banks of servers.    All green.    Not an amber or red in sight.    Oh well.    He checked his watch.    Five?    Almost time for home.    Did he want to chance rush hour?    No, he’d wait an hour or so while the all the usual commuter lemmings got out of the way.

Later, out on the freeway he found everything strangely orderly.    None of the usual road rage, lane hogging and cutting by other drivers.    Which didn’t strike him as odd at the time.    Reaching home he slowly became aware that everyone he passed was smiling.    What had happened?    Had someone put something in the water?    As he turned into the car park behind the flat he shared with Mel he noticed a woman, dreamily intent on her phone, walking straight across four lanes of traffic without looking.    Instead of the usual cacophony of horns, cars pulled to gentle halts and the drivers, instead of raising their middle fingers and fists, waved her across.    Neville was so surprised he almost rear-ended the car in front.

On the way in to the apartment building, he passed the janitor, a man reputedly never to have smiled in his life.    “Good evening!”    The shaven headed Janitor beamed with snaggled teeth before resuming his mopping.    Neville almost fell over.    He hurried past beatifically mugging people who all greeted him like a long lost friend.    This was spooky.      What the hell was going on?    He made it indoors pursued by delighted cries of    “Beautiful evening!”

Mel said nothing but threw herself at him, smothering him with passionate kisses.    “Er, hon?”    He said as she hugged him tightly, humming a happy little tune.

“Mm?”

“What’s going on?”

“I’m just so happy that you’re back.”    Mel burrowed her tawny crowned head ecstatically into his chest.

“I’m happy to be home.    It’s crazy out there.    Everyone is, is…”    The sentence petered out.

Around midnight he crawled out of bed and staggered into the bathroom.    He stared woozily at his reflection.    What in the name of Satan’s left buttock was going on?    Everyone was acting so full of joy.    This felt incredibly weird.    As for Mel, he hadn’t found her this enthusiastic since their first few nights together.    Possibly not even then.    “I need something to eat.”    He muttered to himself and stumbled off to raid the fridge.    As always there was very little, just a half litre pack of skimmed milk and a carefully wrapped piece of slightly suspect cheese.    No bread or margarine.    Typical.

Mel was fast asleep, so he dressed as quietly as he could and snuck out of their flat and into the car park.    The midnight 7-11 clerks happily served him a hot dog and chattered away like they were his oldest best friends while he waited.    On the street outside, two Policemen in high viz yellow passed by, quietly smiling as several girls danced and gyrated ecstatically in the middle of a flower decked divider to a beat only they could hear.    A trans man was having his / its / whatever private dance party on Main street.    No one seem to care that it was raining.    Another figure was standing right on top of the building across the street, arms outstretched, palms upwards, in a gesture of rapturous rain worship.

Neville finished his hot dog and decided to take a walk in the sodium lit drizzle.    Carefully avoiding the hyperactive revellers he finally slid back between the sheets at around two.    Mel turned over in her sleep and cuddled up.    Then it was six in the morning.   

Instinctively he swung his legs out of bed and killed the alarm before it could wake her up.    A quick tepid shower and breakfast on the run saw him on site for seven forty five.    Security was briefer and much friendlier than usual.    What was it with everyone smiling?    Had he slipped into an episode of the Twilight Zone or something?    He checked his diary before switching off his phone and stowing it in his locker.

Down in the relative sanity of the server stacks, he did his usual patrol, noting that everything was working properly.    No calls flagged up on the server support job queue, which was strange.    Data processing always wanted some new stack brought online or someone on the admin team had a hangover and forgotten their password.    At lunchtime the lunch room was empty, even the offices were only sparsely populated by a few blissed out individuals.    Wasn’t this Thursday?    He’d never liked Thursdays.    Too early for Friday, too late for the midweek hump of Wednesday.

That afternoon, Neville stared at his monitors, desperately trying to remember his orientation lecture, most of which he’d simply zoned out of.    Something about using social media to transmit a signal which generated a sense of low level euphoria.    Something like that.    Words like dopamine and serotonin floated in and out of his mind.

On the way home, the opposite lane of the highway was barricaded by smiling police officers,    which was creepy in itself.    Neville slowed down and rubbernecked over the crash barrier just past a bridge.    He caught a glimpse of three mounds of plastic covered bodies in the middle of the carriageway.    Dark fluid seemed to be leaking from under them, then he was past and accelerating away.

Pulling into his street he stared upwards in horror as a grinning man swan-dived showily off a four storey building to an ecstatic crowd.    To rapturous applause the falling man pulled a full mid air somersault before hitting the pavement head first.    Neville pulled over onto the side of the road, hand to his mouth, trying not to vomit.    Oh God!  What was going on? This was terrible!

Wrung between the twin rollers of guilt and cowardice, he pulled away from the kerb and drove back to his flat.    The door was open, with enthusiastic moaning coming from the kitchen.    He looked cautiously through the gap between door and jamb.    Mel and two of her girlfriends were happily doing something unspeakable with courgettes.    Neville’s embarrassment meter flashed over into shock, making him back away, carefully closing and locking the apartments front door as he left, disgusted and red faced.    Courgettes were normally his favourite vegetable, but no longer.

Getting a tank full of petrol for free at a service station whose attendant was so euphoric he no longer cared about taking money, Neville drove as far from towns and civilisation as he could, looking for sanity, somewhere, anywhere, finally stopping at a scenic viewpoint.    In the distance, something was burning, a bright red glow at the base of a tall oily smoke column.    “No, no, no!”    Neville pounded the steering wheel and began to cry.   

Whilst he was beset by the agonies of guilt, a battered old Dodge pickup pulled over in front of his car and a heavy set baseball capped yokel got out.    “Oh God!”    Neville stared in terror as the figure shambled over to his drivers side window and tapped on it.    Shaking inside, Neville wound the window down a careful inch.

“Say friend.”    Said a gruff, friendly rural voice.    “You know what’s going on?”

“No.”    Neville said, using a soiled tissue to blow his nose.

“People acting crazy, like they’re high on drugs or sumpin?”

“Er, no.”    Neville replied.    Was this some kind of alt-right survivalist weirdo come to kill him?

“You blind?”    The voice enquired sceptically.    “Folks smiling all the time and doin’ stupid stuff.    You not noticed?”

“Well..”    Neville frantically searched for an excuse.

“My wife went a little strange yesterday, just sittin’ in her chair, smiling like she’s touched in the head.    Won’t let go of her smartphone.”    The stranger continued amiably.    “You know anything ‘bout that?”

“No.”    Neville said unconvincingly.

“I reckon someone’s been messing with the phone network.    Makin’ people go strange.”    He produced a smartphone with a heavily cracked screen.    “Mine’s only good for talking.”    The man explained.    “Not that I use it much.”

“I-I wouldn’t know.”    Neville stammered. Realisation began to creep across his mind.

“See that smoke?”    The man pointed.    “Looks like somethin’s burnin.”

“Oh, right.”

“You sure you don’t know what’s going on?    You look like you might.”

“W-Why do you think that?”

“Cause you got a Federal parking pass hanging off your mirror.    ‘Cause you’re acting real scared.”    The man scratched his stubbled chin.    “I figure you’re in denial.”

“Oh really.”    Neville fell back on unconvinced sarcasm.

“Yep.    I figure from the way you look, you might have an answer.”

“It’s not my fault! I’m just a hardware tech!”    Neville broke and began to cry again.

“Hey, hey now.”    Said the man gently.    “There’s a time for tears and it ain’t right now.    If you’re one of those people that made this craziness happen, you got a duty to set things right.”

“Why don’t you?”    Neville said, sniffing.

“I ain’t a technical type.    Wouldn’t know what buttons to press.    I don’t have no Federal access pass on my dashboard, neither.”    The man pointed out, a little too observantly for Neville’s liking.

“So what do I do?”    Wailed Neville.

“What you have to.”    Said the man.    “That’s just my opinion ‘o course.”    He turned away and went to watch the smoke rising, clambering up to stand on the rear bed of his pickup truck for a better view.    A battered sedan swerved along the road, narrowly missing the man’s pickup, spitting gravel as it clipped the roadside before disappearing off the road into some bushes.    The man on the back of the pickup truck gave Neville a pointed look.    Neville decided it was time to go home.

All the way back to his apartment, Neville felt that stern expression haunting him.    The man had seen right through him at a glance.    How could that be?    Was this some kind of Karmic justice?    A supernatural judgment for caring nothing but for his paycheck?    Thankfully Mel was asleep in bed, her friends occupying the floor wrapped up in duvets.    He tiptoed in and slunk guiltily between the sheets.    Mel opened her eyes.    “Oh hi.”    She smiled.    “You’re late.    You missed a lovely time.”    She closed her eyes and wrapped herself around him before Neville drifted off into a guilt-ridden sleep.

In the morning he slipped out of bed and left Mel sleeping before six, not bothering with breakfast.    He stopped at the lunch room vending machine for a half stale donut and coffee, noting that no-one else was around.    Two or three of the night crew were half dozing in the main office, but a short walk around showed that the remaining personnel were still in total bliss mode.    He had no idea what had happened to security.    A screen showing the ubiquitous news feed showed a happy looking female presenter laughing at plane crashes and sundry other disasters around the globe.   

Neville watched in horror as ordinarily sane individuals took crazy risks on camera and paid the ultimate price of failure.    The worst thing about it, he thought, was how happy everyone else seemed about the mayhem unfolding before their eyes.    Like everyone was competing for a Darwin Award.

Okay, he was going to have to stop the machine, but how?    If he simply cut the power to the data centre, wouldn’t someone just reboot the stacks once the power was back on?    How long would he have to get away before people began to wake up?    Would they stay happy?    Would they go crazy?    Would they find out he wrecked everything and do something horrible to him or throw him in jail with murderers and rapists?    A brief nightmare vision of being strapped into the electric chair by laughing guards passed through his mind.    He began to sweat.

Down in the familiar air-conditioned cool of the data centre he began to calm down a little.    Outside were millions, maybe billions of happy zombies out there setting the world ablaze.    Mel was one.    He was sure it was only a matter of time before she and her girlfriends…    No, that didn’t bear thinking about.    He had to bring the world to its senses, but how?    Neville didn’t have the admin codes or passwords and there was no single cable to be cut.    He could try disconnecting all the main patch cables but that would only leave the monster ready for resurrection.    The drives had to be wiped, irrevocably, the whole place wrecked, but where to begin?    If he tried deliberately setting something on fire, there would simply be a massive halon dump from the fire suppression system and he’d suffocate.

All that day he pored over the online project specifications, looking for some way to patch a cable so that the system would purge itself.    Nothing.    The off-site backups would have to go too, or someone would just reboot the insanity he’d seen outside.   

After seven solid hours he could not think of a single way to make it happen.    Then his phone rang. “Hey, how’s everybody’s favourite hardware engineer?”    It was Bonnie, newly promoted to data processing team lead.

“Busy.”    Neville lied.

“Look, everyone is so super pleased, we’re going out for a beer or three.”    Bonnie said happily.    “You wanna come?”

“I can’t.    Too much to do.”    Well, it was kind of true.

“Hey, hey.    If you can’t make it, can you hold the fort?”

“Is that okay?    What if something goes wrong?”    Neville said.    “I’m just hardware.    I don’t know about the data processing side.”

“It’s easy.    All you have to do is make sure data volumes don’t go over limit.”

“How do I do that?”

“Just open up new channels as data volumes increase.    Very intuitive.    Easy peasy.”

“What will happen if I get it wrong?”

“Not much, but it might cook the processors.    We’ve got them overclocked as it is.    Just don’t untick the auto load balancing feature.”    Bonnie didn’t seem concerned at all. 

Neville’s mind raced as he began to see the answer to his dilemma.    Overclocked processors tended to run hot.    Sometimes very hot indeed.    Maybe if he turned the data centres air conditioning up high and cascaded the data flows from server to server in sequence the processors would burn out and corrupt the whole system.    “Oh yeah.    You’ll need the admin codes and passwords.    I’ll send them direct to your terminal.    Hold on.”    Bonnie giggled.    Then his screen bleeped and there they were.    Oh.    My. God.    Neville’s jaw dropped.    Full admin access.    The keys to the castle.    “Play nice now.”    Bonnie rang off.

Neville logged on with shaky hands.    Once in he could see the whole network, all the data flows.    It was incredibly big, using massive fibre links and satellites to connect the entire world almost instantaneously.    All the special signals coded to trigger euphoria in anyone with a smartphone.   

Setting the network load balancing to manual, he waited an hour before turning the air conditioning to full and shifting data flows through two of the server stacks.    Ten seconds later the sound of multiple ‘pfft’ noises and a whiff of burning plastic announced the demise of two server units.    Two stacks, a hundred processors in each, the fans driving weak smoke trails away from fire detectors.

Carefully opening one of the rapidly cooling cabinets he saw the heat discolouration on circuit boards and flash memory units.    He pulled a circuit board.    All of the chipsets were damaged and two had literally exploded but the automatic fire alarms hadn’t gone off.    Neville gave a little shudder and looked around guiltily.

After a few minutes waiting for alarms that didn’t go off, he carefully began scheduling data flows, experimenting by shunting them across the network, setting up multiple cascades in the backup and emergency backup sites, watching displays disappear as servers went offline.    Then he repeated the process with the data sub centres placed all over the world.    He estimated three hours before the main server stacks began to run ever hotter until their processors failed.    Then the beast would die and hopefully everyone would return to normal.    He hoped.    Logging off, Neville wrote a careful resignation email and left at exactly six forty five, leaving his pass at the deserted security post.

By the time the first main stacks overloaded he was three hours drive away, ten miles north of the Canadian border.    By the time the last one went an hour later, he was heading west along a long straight gravel road north across flat Manitoban croplands.    By the time the sun went down, he was heading toward Alberta and the Rocky mountains.    Whatever happened, he was going to find somewhere very remote to hide until everyone had calmed down.

Los Endos