The Grand Plan
When the pain subsided, Claire opened her eyes. An FBI Agent approached her.
“Traveler 6969, welcome to the 21st Century. Any news from the future?”
“Affirmative.” She replied. “The Director has been destroyed, The Mistress took his place.”
“And The Grand Plan?”
“Rebooted. To save Tomorrow, we must enslave Today.”
A syringe pierced his neck.
Thanks to the Portuguese version of the SyFy Channel, I’ve recently started watching an intriguing time-traveling show called Travelers. Some of you probably know what I’m talking about but for those of you that don’t, here’s the gist of it.
Travelers follows a group of people sent from the future to the 21st Century to complete a series of missions that will alter the course of History and save Humanity from a bleak future. The Travelers Program as it’s called is helmed by an AI entitled The Director that basically oversees the timeline and through countless calculations, decides what changes must be made in order to achieve their results.
If the above sounds like the standard sci-fi trope, here’s the catch. These Travelers don’t actually travel physically through Time like say The Terminator movies or Back to the Future. What happens is their consciousnesses take over a host’s body as they’re about to die, effectively annulling the moment of their historical death. Once the Traveler takes over, he/she is required to continue the host’s normal life whilst at the same time carrying out missions to safeguard the future.
I really enjoy the premise and the way the stories unfold. Created by Brad Wright, mostly of Stargate SG-1 fame, Travelers stars Eric McCormack from Will and Grace and a group of other Canadian/American actors. Even Amanda Tapping, a.k.a. Samantha Carter from Stargate shows up from time to time. Sadly, the show was canceled at the end of the 3rd season just as the timeline was about to suffer a complete reset. The last words on the screen refer to the failure of The Travelers Program Version 1 and the deployment of Version 2. What that would entail, nobody but the producers and writers know, I’m afraid.
Consider this piece a fetish possibility of that, a little bit of imagination gone wild.
Blank Spaces
WARNING!
This page is empty.
There are no words here whatsoever for you to read.
If you’re seeing anything other than blank spaces, she got you, too.
Stop now.
Stop and perhaps your mind will remain intact.
Please… stop!
Oh… you want oblivion, you want to surrender, you want to lose.
Good. Now you have.
They say seeing is believing but often we believe in things we don’t see and sometimes we see things that aren’t really the way our brain registers them. The sky isn’t really blue, countless optical illusions exist in nature, drawings, videos, etc. Why not in writing?
Think about it. What if you were hypnotized into believing you’re reading something that isn’t really there? As long as your mind accepted the suggestion, you would, just like you can believe the opposite. People can be made to ignore words written inside the parenthesis (like these, for instance), so…
Did you really read the story above or not?
One Second
The video conference was tense. Senator Harris slammed the desk. “When is the next batch of drones ready?”
“Soon. The production is ramping up as we speak.” Marguerite replied.
“I need them NOW!”
“Impossible… unless the conversion signal goes online.”
“Do it!”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. Hurry!”
He realized his mistake one second before his mind exploded.
Imagine a world where it’s legal to convert humans into drones. Imagine there are factories specialized in such a thing. Imagine that an unscrupulous woman found a way to take it to the next level.
Those were the things that were on my mind when I devised this one earlier today. Possible larger story here? Perhaps. We’ll see.
Transformation
Akemi backed away from the beautiful silk-clad woman.
“Bakemono!” He screamed.
“Goddess…” She corrected him, a mischievous smile adorning her crimson-painted lips.
“What do you want?”
Her head rattled as if she were a broken mannequin. “Transformation. Like I change, so must you…”
The blind slave was found kneeling in his bedroom the morning after.
As you know by now, I’m a fan of supernatural stuff and every now and then I use it as a basis for my stories. So… what’s the broader inspiration for this one?
Obake (お化け) and bakemono (化け物) are a class of yōkai, preternatural creatures in Japanese folklore. The term refers to a thing that changes, basically they’re shapeshifters. Like all otherworldly creatures, they can either be good or bad, and yes, they can take the form of beautiful, mesmerizing women, if they so choose.
As far as I can remember, I had never used one in this challenge so I decided to rectify that. There are other mythologies I never explored as well. You may see some of them appear in the future.