Tuckby rushed over to them. “This is the culmination of my life’s work! I, Marcus Tuckby, have managed to stop time in its tracks!” He was a gesturer and inveterate arm-waver, never a good sign.

“Uh huh,” Parvo said.

“You’re right to scoff, sir. Many have trod this road and been waylaid by false paths, spurious reasoning, or the budget cuts of weak-kneed fools! But only I have reached the end of that long and difficult trail to discover the closely-guarded wonders to be found at the end!”

“Can you just dial back the mad scientist thing a little bit, you’re flicking drool on my coat.”

“Behold!” Without warning Tuckby spun and dashed back to a small table directly underneath the massive device. It was burnished steel, about the size of a footstool, and contained… nothing. There was even a dramatic spotlight aimed at the table, to highlight the nothing. The lab techs and assistants stood around with an eerie, worshipful silence. Buchanon gripped Parvo’s arm and dragged him over to look at the nothing. They looked at it for a long moment as Tuckby beamed with pride.

“Well, I’m impressed,” Parvo said.

Tuckby stopped in mid-rave to look at the table. “Why? There’s nothing there.” Abruptly he lowered his arms and looked at Parvo more closely, then smiled in a totally different manner. “I’m so sorry, son, my mistake, are you here for one of the special tours? Admiral Buchanon, is he allowed to have candy,” he asked, patting his pockets, “or should I–” (more…)

[Hey, what happened? We backed up!

Yes, yes we did. I'm changing how I post novel excerpts here, for several reasons. I was trying too hard to post entire chapters and skipping over important stuff to do so - everyone who complained about me cutting Parvo's first scene with Dr. Tuckby can stop spam-bombing my e-mail now, I'm putting it back - and I've been told that shorter chunks are easier to read at work, you slackers. Also I can post more frequently this way. So I reworked the previous posts and will continue on from here. We're back in the first chapter. I'll try not to do this again.]

Twenty minutes later Parvo was looking up at the biggest, ugliest chandelier in the world. It didn’t help that the crystal and brass monstrosity appeared to have a laser cannon coming out of it, or that the scientist standing under it seemed to be in love with it in a way that was disturbing and possibly against the laws of God and man.

“Isn’t it glorious?” he demanded, beaming at it.

It also didn’t help that the scientist, whom Buchanon had introduced as Dr. Tuckby, looked exactly like Elmer Fudd. Parvo realized his edginess was partly due to his unconscious expectation that Tuckby was, at any moment, suddenly going to whip out a shotgun bigger than himself and fire wildly into a hole in the ground.

Around him was an assortment of lab techs and research assistants who all seemed very proud of something. Otherwise the room was conspicuously empty in that stark, “must be easy to quickly decontaminate” decor which signalled, to the experienced eye, that this was not a good room to be accidentally locked in, particularly if any sort of countdown was involved.

“Yeah, you’re a lucky man, doc,” Parvo said. “Can I go home now? I have a federal manhunt to start avoiding…”

Buchanon leaned over and whispered out of the corner of his mouth. “Vince, your only options at this juncture are to nod politely and pretend to understand what’s about to change your life and the lives of everyone on this planet forever, or go directly to jail. Now, political advocacy groups, concerned with negative implications regarding personal sexual preferences, forbid me to suggest or insinuate that a very large and smelly someone in that jail might want to make you his very unhappy girlfriend despite your own personal sexual preferences, so I’d appreciate it if you’d choose the first option, thus allowing me to avoid a few angry phone calls and allowing yourself to continue to walk normally. I await your response.”

“So,” Parvo said brightly, clapping his hands together. “What’s it do?”

“Good boy,” Buchanon whispered.

She consulted her clipboard, expertly timing her movements to match her rhythm. Bounce, bounce, bounce. “Ninety-seven hours and… forty-three minutes… doctor. I should be able… to hold my present level… of mental acuity… till the weekend.”

“Excellent.”

Parvo continued reconnoitering her as she bounded off. “Excellent,” he said under his breath, and then had to hustle after Buchanon who was already on the move again, pointing at various doors and rooms as he passed.

“There are some amazing things happening here,” Buchanon was saying. “Blond guy by the tanks? He’s developing a way to teach children intravenously. That team down there? Cold fusion, probably within the decade. That’s Marty - Hi Marty! - he came up with an all-natural breast implant that actually takes on the woman’s DNA. That was a profitable one, there.”

“Yeah,” Parvo grumbled. “You’re saints. You got dental?” (more…)

Parvo was several hallways and two flights of stairs along before it really dawned on him that he was moving. Left foot, right foot, left foot, just like before in those good old days when he had a girlfriend who didn’t lie to him. Had there been clues? More to the point, had there been clues he might have detected despite his near-toxic level of testosterone? How could Kelly have done that to him? His mental turmoil sidetracked slightly as he went on to remember a few of the specific and more pleasant things she had done to him, and so he barely noticed the glares from the assorted scientists around him who were still picking up papers, carts, and other, slightly damaged scientists who had been knocked over during his previous passing. He smiled a grim, somewhat threatening apology at them and followed Buchanon through a magnificent archway and down the smoothest escalator he’d ever been on.

The tram looked like someone had successfully weaponized Disney. They stepped aboard into a gleamng interior and the tram instantly took off at a blinding speed with almost no noticeable inertia whatsoever, which annoyed Parvo for some reason. Try as he might he couldn’t see any evidence of current or historical puke anywhere, making this a very unique subway indeed in his experience. Glitzy place. Was Buchanon still talking? Dammit, he was.

“The Hill Institute was founded by Gene Hill to better the lives of all humanity, Vince,” Buchanon was saying. “Even you. In the last five years we’ve advanced cancer therapy generations past anyone else, found a cheap way to reinvigorate arid soil, and perfected that four-dollar roll of solarphane you use to power your house for a year. We’re good at what we do, and what we do is everything.”

“Are you good at getting to the point? Do you have people that can do that for you?” (more…)

With one stride Parvo loomed over the older man. “I got a message says my new job is here, I had to come see who was peeing into my life this week. I got a job, Buchanan. I don’t need or want your handouts! What I need and want to do is to kick your liver-spotted ass!”

Buchanon touched a few more keys on his desk, tapping the last one with a final flourish. “You had a job. Now you’re working for me. Show some gratitude, I had to practice saying that in front of a mirror for three days before I could do it without throwing up.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Right, sorry. Small words. We. Need. A. Captain. I chose you. Do you still fit into a forty-six regular?” (more…)

Move past the ship. Sink down through the clouds. (Try not to scream, this is a literary device.) Zip over and approach the western seaboard of the United States. Circle around, observing the regulated flight patterns, until you are silently drifting over San Mateo, California. Head for the coast. There, nestled in what was once a bayland marsh protected by the government to preserve endangered species, lies the magnificent Hill Institute, a rambling collection of gleaming white buildings and relaxing parks. Founded in 2027 by Gene Hill, futurist and biologist, in its first 10 years the Hill Institute was responsible for 341 distinct patents, each one a miraculous innovation that would help mankind. Which, frankly, was more than the Salt Marsh Harvest Mouse ever did.

Walking around the Hill Institute made even guests feel vital and connected to something greater than themselves. Scientists competed to work there; you could hardly heave a brick without hitting two or three Nobel Prize laureates, who would then scramble to publish learned papers about trajectories, the histories of impromptu weaponry, and the rise of social barbarism. Every element of the Institute was carefully designed and crafted to be eminently functional and soothing to the soul. Eco-aware, beautiful to look upon, a scientific heaven on earth.

Sadly, a heaven with extremely lax security. Not that it would have helped. (more…)

The saga begins…

As we told you last week, Save Hiatus the webcomic is going on, yes, hiatus for a brief time while we retool it to fit into our working lives without having to use index cards to remember the names of our immediate family members.  However, it is vitally important to keep “Hiatus” alive lest the Network think they were correct in dumping it, so I have started a new project: I am writing the novelization of the pilot episode.

This is a huge endeavor. Not only do I have to remain true to the original screenplay by showrunner Manny Ulrich, I have to add motivations and scenes that weren’t seen on screen because written fiction is different from television. There are fewer pictures, it turns out. Knowing the fans as I do, it is virtually certain that not all of you will be happy with my changes. Some of you may feel obligated to inform me of your displeasure, possibly with pipe bombs. I ask that you bear with me, and please keep your criticism constructive and non-lethal. Excerpts will be posted Mondays and Fridays. Once these start piling up I’ll create a page that collects the entire thing so you won’t have to go hunting for earlier passages.

So without further ado, here we go. Hear that? It’s the theme song…

***

Hiatus!

by C. A. Bridges

(Based on the teleplay “Encounter in Forever on the Edge of the City of Tomorrow” by Manny Ulrich)

“Everything has a beginning. And every new beginning is also the end of something else, usually something you’ll miss later when you’re alone and it’s raining and nothing’s on. Moral: I need to drink more.”
– Captain Parvo’s Personal Log

Inky black space, sparkling with gemstone stars, fills your mind to overflowing. The sheer, unfathomable enormity of it threatens to burst open your brain like a child’s balloon. Here and there bright marbles sparkle in the distant sunlight but they remain marbles, easily lost or discarded. Below you is the marble that keeps you alive. Earth is wrapped in a frigid embrace, streaked with blue and green and wreathed in fluffy white fluffiness, but from up here it is chillingly apparent that almost anything — natural disaster, particularly viral pathogen, sufficiently violent political upheaval, asteroid strike, planetary temperature rising a mere 10 degrees — could take that paper-thin ecosystem keeping humanity alive and rip it away, leaving billions of souls gasping and boiling where they fell, even as–

Actually, spaceflight only affects you that way if you stick with classical music. That’s why early spaceflight pilots were awoken with peppy tunes piped in from ground control; enough replays of “Thus Spake Zarathustra” could make anyone want to set their controls for the heart of downtown Houston and fire all thrusters. And the song chosen for inclusion in humanity’s letter-in-the-bottle Voyager launch was The Rolling Stones’ “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,” which should have served to warn any approaching aliens of both our race’s general crankiness and our love of the double negative.

Judging from the pounding bass line that was just barely audible through the thin air of the stratosphere, the captain of the small two-man Orbhopper ship currently blasting over the horizon preferred to vanquish the terrifying insignificance that space bestows by cranking up “Exhaust Port Woman, You’re a Shot in a Million” by The Walloping Pandroids. Also a good choice.

But music aside, what really helps you ignore the vastness of eternity is to be really, really pissed off.

I’m going to take a moment to link to a fun little interview with Johnny “Leonard” Galecki and Jim “Sheldon” Parsons of NBC’s The Big Bang Theory, a show I avoided when it first came out. Four nerds with a hot blonde next door? Just wait for the hijinxs to ensue! Feh. (Sorry, Joel)

But I caught a few from laziness at changing the channel after How I Met Your Mother and started to really like it, mostly because… they played it straight. The characters don’t come off as nerdy because they’re socially crippled (although that’s certainly present), they come off as nerdy because they so clearly had different priorities than their peers growing up and that remains the case, even if they wistfully look at people who are actually comfortable talking to each other at parties. Yeah, it’s a sitcom with mistaken-identity types of plots, but they still manage to stay unpredictable and reasonably authentic. I can identify with these guys. I am these guys. And, according to Johnny, so is everyone else:

That’s what I learned when being asked about geeks and nerds, and having to define that for the first time in my life, what that meant. I found that it’s all about anyone who’s passionate about anything, and anyone who loves immersing themselves in anything. A lot of rock musicians are nerds, you know? The big, brawny jocks who paint themselves in team colors on their chests and show up shirtless in 20-degree weather for a football game are just as big a nerd as these characters are.

The first season DVD of The Big Bang Theory went on sale yesterday; the new season starts September 22, 8 p.m.

Dr. Horrible soundtrack! Dr. Horrible soundtrack! Dr. Horrible soundtrack!

Ahem. The official soundtrack to “Dr. Horrible” - as opposed to all the uinofficial ones all of us made within seconds of the videos hitting the Web - is now available at iTunes. And the lyrics and liner notes have been posted at the DrHorrible.com site. Woot!

In other funky download news, Google is preparing to launch their new open-source web browser today, called Chrome. Supposed to be a secret but their explanatory comic (by Scott McCloud) got leaked yesterday. Google’s press conference is set for 11 a.m. PDT today so expect the Interweb to slow to a crawl soon thereafter.

And some sad download news - Stephanie Meyer has announced she will not be publishing the last book in her enormously popular “Twilight Saga” series because an unfinished partial draft was leaked online.  “I think it is important for everybody to understand that what happened was a huge violation of my rights as an author, not to mention me as a human being.” She posted a link to the draft at her site so her fans wouldn’t have to break the law to get what’s already out there. This could be what finally tips the scales on the piracy fight: millions of outraged adolescent girls beating up the entire Internet.