Topic: House and Garden  (Read 6670 times)

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Offline Commander La'ra

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House and Garden
« on: August 05, 2012, 01:54:46 pm »
So I realized as I was fiddling with Pound of Flesh, that, while Andy and Rog had read another story of mine, I hadn't posted it here.  It's one of my COH fanfics, though, not Star Trek, but I remember people liking those.

Oddly for me, it's a cross-over with a well-known horror movie.  It's also already complete.

Anyhow, enjoy!

---------------------------------------

House and Garden

New England highway passes beneath the red convertible.

“Six more miles.”  The driver sighs.  The sound of the engine, and the wind whipping past, couldn’t mask her irritation or her accent.

“It’ll only be one night,”  replies the woman stretched out in the back seat.  Her brown hair spills out from under a black cowboy hat.

“Too long.”  The driver mutters.  She’s taller than the woman in back.  Her hair is blunt cut and today it’s a fierce neon blue.

“Ein’s got suburb issues,”  says the car’s third passenger.  This woman has natural red hair, a pale, slightly freckled complexion.   She’s the busty one;  more than one passing 18-wheeler has snorted at them because of it.

“I do.”  The driver admits.  She has a slightly olive cast to her skin, not enough to make her dusky, though she tans well.  “Can’t you feel the…”

“…the what?” The cowgirl asks.

“The conformity.  It’s like pollution.”   Ein…full name Wilhelmina Elizabeth Einhorn, usually preceded by ‘Colonel’ on wanted posters and in news reports….says.

The woman in back rolls her eyes.  She’s darker than the driver, betraying some Native American DNA.   She bears tiny, matching copper bracelets on her wrists.   On her wanted posters, never-removed wrist decoration is listed as a way to spot Lynn Cutter, aka the Oklahoma Wildcat.

“I’m serious.”  The Colonel gripes.  Her accent, an odd hybrid of English and Dutch common to the southernmost reaches of Africa,  is thicker when she‘s irritated. “Just look around us.  Nothing but tennis courts and neighborhood beautification committees.  I‘d kill to see a crack house right now.  Just for variety.”

“You would not,”  scoffs Lynn.

“Yes she would,” the redhead chuckles.  She puts a cigarette in her mouth, lights it.  You’d have to be looking sharply to note that the flame that set the tobacco ablaze came from her fingertip, not a lighter.  Her wanted posters don’t bother to mention how to identify her.  Buffy Carelli (or so her current forged ID claims), aka Nikki Napalm usually announces her presence with an explosion.

“Maybe  she would,”  Lynn concedes.  The Colonel grins.

“This friend of yours have a pool?”  Nikki asks.

“I don’t know.”  Lynn answers.  “This is the first time I’ve been to see her.”

“Surely she has a pool.  Everyone will have a pool.  I’ll bet she has a little tennis dress too.  And Prozac.”  The Colonel grumbles.

“You’d like the Prozac,”  says Lynn.

“I’ve never tried it.”

“You probably should.”

“Mrowr!”  Nikki says.

“Thank God.”  The Colonel says, suddenly.  “We’re here.”

The convertible slides past the sign welcoming all to Stepford, Connecticut.
"Dialogue from a play, Hamlet to Horatio: 'There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.' Dialogue from a play written long before men took to the sky. There are more things in heaven and earth, and in the sky, than perhaps can be dreamt of. And somewhere in between heaven, the sky, the earth, lies the Twilight Zone."
                                                                 ---------Rod Serling, The Last Flight

Offline Grim Reaper

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Re: House and Garden
« Reply #1 on: August 05, 2012, 02:38:53 pm »
LOL, if you follow the movie, they are in for a surprise. And gimme Nicole any day of the week ;)

btw: all girls and Stepford? Not your most subtle clue...
Snickers@DND: If there is one straight answer in that bent little head of yours, you'd better start spillin' it pretty damn quick, or I'm gonna take a large, blunt object, roughly the size of Kallae AND his hat and shove it lengthwise up a crevice of your being so seldomly cleaned that even the denizens of the nine hells would not touch it with a 10-feet rusty pole

Offline Commander La'ra

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Re: House and Garden
« Reply #2 on: August 05, 2012, 02:50:33 pm »
Sometimes an RPG is more effective than 'subtle'. ;)
"Dialogue from a play, Hamlet to Horatio: 'There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.' Dialogue from a play written long before men took to the sky. There are more things in heaven and earth, and in the sky, than perhaps can be dreamt of. And somewhere in between heaven, the sky, the earth, lies the Twilight Zone."
                                                                 ---------Rod Serling, The Last Flight

Offline Grim Reaper

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Re: House and Garden
« Reply #3 on: August 05, 2012, 02:57:09 pm »
LOL, you Klingon you. I remember the Colonel from a previous story, but what are the girls super powers (aside from the walking BBQ one of course)?

Speaking about effectiveness, your comment made me think of "set Disruptors on stun". That was also an effective tactic, though somewhat more subtle then a RPG...
(thx Andy for hosting it btw)
Snickers@DND: If there is one straight answer in that bent little head of yours, you'd better start spillin' it pretty damn quick, or I'm gonna take a large, blunt object, roughly the size of Kallae AND his hat and shove it lengthwise up a crevice of your being so seldomly cleaned that even the denizens of the nine hells would not touch it with a 10-feet rusty pole

Offline Commander La'ra

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Re: House and Garden
« Reply #4 on: August 17, 2012, 07:48:51 pm »
“I cannot believe we’re staying here.”  The Colonel says as she eases the convertible into the driveway of a pristine example of upper middle class housing.

“Please, behave, all right?”  Lynn has a tone in her voice that says ‘this is important.’  “She was my best friend, and I haven’t seen her in years.”

The Colonel clucks her tongue, but doesn’t respond directly.  She shuts the car down.  The trio exit their vehicle with the usual sounds of car doors, jostling luggage, and moans of relief after hours on the road.

“Lynn!”  Someone yells.  The woman is dark haired, dressed in an impeccable version of suburban casual sexiness.  Bare shoulders and designer jeans, showing some skin, but nothing too tight or too revealing. 

“Girl!”  Lynn responds.  Supervillain and soccer mom (whether she has kids or not) embrace and make happy noises.  One of the Colonel’s eyebrows elevates.

“We promised.”  Nikki says quietly.  Einhorn glances at her and nods with resignation.  They adjust baggage so it hangs comfortably on their shoulders.  Nikki leans on the car.  Lynn and the bubbly host are talking rapidly.

“Liz and Nikki?”  The host asks when the conversation returns to a saner pace.

“Charmed.”  says the Colonel, all traces of her natural accent gone, all sarcasm hidden securely away.  The anarchist mastermind shakes hands with the suburban housewife.   No one is killed.

“Nice to meet you,”  Nikki replies.

“Judy Ross.”  The woman introduces herself.  “The directions I gave were good, right?  You didn’t get lost or anything.”

“Only briefly,”  The Colonel replies.  “We realized we were in the bad part of town  when Nikki saw a Hyundai in someone’s driveway.”

Lynn cringes slightly, but Judy laughs.

“Stepford is…a little stuffy.”  She admits.  “Lots of white collar folks from the company, country club types.  It’s not so bad once you’ve made the adjustment.”

“Where should we put all this?”  Nikki asks.

“Oh, I…”

“Honey.”  A man’s voice asks.  The source emerges from the house.  Slacks and dress shirt, no jacket.  The first layer of business semi-formal. “Did you give ‘em the bad news?

“Huh?” Lynn asks.

“I was about to.”  Judy says suddenly.  The man walks up beside her, wraps an arm around her shoulders.

“Sorry,”  He says, extended a hand to the Colonel.  “Dave Ross.”

“Elizabeth.”  Ein responds.  The handshake is brief, and Dave’s eyes flick from Nikki, to Lynn, to the Colonel.

“What bad news?”  Lynn asks again.

“Oh…”  Judy frowns slightly.  “We had to have the floor torn up in the guest room.  Termites.  It’s not fixed yet.”

“So…,”  Lynn prompts.

“So we can’t put all of you up for the weekend.”  Dave says, regretfully.  The disapproval in his eyes grows every time his gaze slips past Ein’s Rage Against the Machine T-Shirt, to Nikki’s straining halter top.  “Really am sorry, but it was pretty serious…they could’ve spread to the rest of the house.”

“We still have the kid’s room”  Judy chirps.  “I figured Lynn could sleep there, and we could pay for ya’ll’s hotel.”

“We actually already made reservations for you,”  says Dave.  “I mean…if you wanna stay some other place that’s fine, but…”

“It’s all right.”  The Colonel responds.

“We tried to call…”  says Judy, looking at Lynn.

The Oklahoma Wildcat smiles, shrugs.  “Gotta do what ya’ gotta do.  It is just the house, right?  I mean…”

“This’ll give you two more time to catch up.”  Einhorn interrupts. “We don’t mind.”

“Nah,” says Nikki.

“Would you mind though, if I used your restroom?”  Einhorn asks, suddenly, tossing her travel bag back in the car.

“Oh, no, go ahead…front door, down the hall.”  Dave answers.  The Colonel smiles, heads that way with a certain haste.

“How long you two been together?”  Nikki asks.  Judy answers.  More questions and answers fly back and forth.  Lynn smiles to herself.  She’d never heard Nikki make small talk before.  She certainly hadn’t expected her to be good at it.

The Colonel emerges from the house, looking relieved.

“Why don’t we go ahead and go get checked in?”  Nikki suggests.  “We’ll all get settled, see what we wanna do about dinner.”

Wilhelmina nods.  Judy tilts her head.

“We really are sorry.”  She says again.

“It’s all right.”  The Colonel says.

Goodbyes are said, final handshakes made, directions to the proper hotel clarified.

“We’ll call once we get checked in.”  The Colonel says to the Wildcat.  The look in her eyes says ‘watch yourself.’  Lynn nods slightly, nonverbal agreement.  Einhorn trusted no one.  It was best to just…humor her, sometimes.

“Oh, Liz…whoever did your hair did a great job!”  Judy says.

The Colonel smiles, flips her hair.

“They did, didn’t they?”  She says proudly.  She’s growling under her breath as she gets in the car.  The convertible eases into the street.

Lynn watches them go, eyes narrower than usual.  Was Ein really worried or just being dramatic?

“Let’s get you unpacked, huh?”  Judy says.  Dave has already retreated into the house. 

“Sure,” says the Oklahoma Wildcat.


*   *   *


“He was lying, wasn’t he?”  Nikki asks.

“Yes,”  Wilhelmina explains.  Her voice is normal volume, but it’s been lowered to a dangerous octave.  “And quite determined we believe him.”

“Oh?”

“Their guest room floor is torn up.”

“Then how…”

“No smell of pesticide.  None of the loose boards were nibbled.  I’m from Africa, my little firecracker, I know what termite infested lumber looks like.”

“So he tore up his own floor to keep two hot women out of his house.”  Nikki says.  Ein had mostly noted Dave’s disapproval.  Nikki was better at spotting lust and other baser instincts.  “Trap?”

The trio was ‘on vacation’ strictly to be out of their usual stomping grounds.  Though profitable, their last caper had been loud.

“That makes no sense,”  Nikki answers herself.  “Woulda jumped on us when we got outta the car.”

“Yes.”  says the Colonel.  “I think Dave has something to hide.”

“What about Lynn’s friend?  Think she’s in on it?”

Wilhelmina shrugs, thinks on the matter.

“If she is…it may not have anything to do with us,”  The Colonel shrugs.

“Didn’t Kitty say she was her only friend in high school or something?”

“I believe so.”

Nikki leans back in her seat and sighs.


------


Feedback welcome! (as always)
"Dialogue from a play, Hamlet to Horatio: 'There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.' Dialogue from a play written long before men took to the sky. There are more things in heaven and earth, and in the sky, than perhaps can be dreamt of. And somewhere in between heaven, the sky, the earth, lies the Twilight Zone."
                                                                 ---------Rod Serling, The Last Flight

Offline Grim Reaper

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Re: House and Garden
« Reply #5 on: August 19, 2012, 08:43:56 am »
I am enjoying this a lot, plus really trying to remember how the original movie went. will the wildcat be warned in time?, I suppose time will tell. Hurry up ;)!
Snickers@DND: If there is one straight answer in that bent little head of yours, you'd better start spillin' it pretty damn quick, or I'm gonna take a large, blunt object, roughly the size of Kallae AND his hat and shove it lengthwise up a crevice of your being so seldomly cleaned that even the denizens of the nine hells would not touch it with a 10-feet rusty pole

Offline Commander La'ra

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Re: House and Garden
« Reply #6 on: August 22, 2012, 01:41:08 am »
Forgot to answer your superpower question:  while I'd like to answer, I sorta wrote the story assuming the reader didn't already know, so I don't want to spoil things.;)
"Dialogue from a play, Hamlet to Horatio: 'There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.' Dialogue from a play written long before men took to the sky. There are more things in heaven and earth, and in the sky, than perhaps can be dreamt of. And somewhere in between heaven, the sky, the earth, lies the Twilight Zone."
                                                                 ---------Rod Serling, The Last Flight

Offline Commander La'ra

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Re: House and Garden
« Reply #7 on: September 11, 2012, 08:30:37 pm »
Chapter Two

Lynn does her best to adjust.  She’d expected to find Judy well-off and happy.  Her letters and phone calls had said as much.  She hadn’t expected her old friend to be quite so boisterous about it.

“Isn’t the pool great?”  Judy gushes a bit.  “We had it put in when Dave got his bonus from work.”

“It is nice.”  Lynn reluctantly agrees.  There’s a quiver of distaste in the back of her mind.  Lynn loves water.  The voice in her head that’d first appeared when she’d slid on her bracelets does not.

“If you didn’t bring a suit, we can pick one up for you later,” says Judy.

“Now why would I need a suit?”  Lynn responds, winking.

“Oh you.”  Judy says, smiling, but not managing to hide a faint note of dismissiveness.  Lynn blinks away the surprise, but says nothing.  The tour of the house continues.

“Check my closets!  Big, ain’t they.”  Judy chirps.  Lines of perfectly ironed clothing.  Suburban chic, with a little black dress or two, for flavor.

“Who cleans this place?”  The Wildcat asks. 

“I do,” says Judy.

“You…”  Lynn almost shakes her head.  Flashbacks to a dorm room with clothes littering the floor, empty ramen noodle cups on the dresser, and a wrinkled Nirvana poster.  “…little Miss Suzy Homemaker you.”

Judy giggles.  It’s the laugh she remembers.  There’s another noise though, inside her head.  Feral whispers that something isn’t quite right.

“Just sort of happened one day,” says Judy.  “Got tired of living in a mess all the time.”

“Looks like a lot to handle.”

“Well, I don’t work.  I’ve got plenty of time.”

“Weren’t you going to put in a studio?”

“I was.  I…changed my mind.  Painting was never gonna pay the bills,  ya’ know?”

“Didn’t think it was about that…”  Lynn replied. 

“Decided family was more important.”  Judy shrugged.

“Dave?”

“Yeah…he needs me to back him up, you know?”

“I guess.” 

“Not a popular viewpoint these days, I know…”

Lynn smiles.

“If you’re happy.”



*  *  *



The house tour winds down, wine is poured, the exchange of old stories and new adventures begins.

Judy’s new tales are domestic.  Most are about Dave.  Lynn can’t tell her best ones, but she manages a few, to mask the ugly feeling growing in her stomach.

Logically, she knows people change.  Judy seems happy.  Different, though, in some deep down way.  On the surface, the inflections, the voice, the body language…it’s all the same.  The difference is something more nebulous.

The Oklahoma Wildcat finds herself blaming Dave.   It’s unreasonable, she knows.  Jealousy, perhaps, that inherent distrust of a best friend’s other half.  No…that doesn’t feel right.  Lynn’s suspicion, of something hidden and wrong, is growing.  The voice in her head chides her for not listening in the first place.

She doesn’t trust the voice in her head.  She hates it when it’s right.

“So where is Dave, anyway?”  Lynn asks. 

“At the club, probably, I thought I heard him leave.” 

“Ah.”  Lynn replies.  No ‘later honey, I’m out with the boys’?  Rude.

“So you two are all right?  I mean…”

“Happy as clams.”  Judy chirps.  Lynn smiles.  Judy has a pageant-girl smile on her face.  Judy had never been a pageant-girl.

Lynn tries to choose her next words, tries to find a tactful way of asking ‘What has he done to you?’.  A ringing phone spares her the effort.  Judy answers with a chirpy hello.

“It’s for you.”  She says, handing over the phone.

“Having…fun?”  Asks the accented voice on the other end.

“Oh yeah, catching up and stuff.  You?” Lynn asks.  Judy seems to be ignoring her.  She’s washing a few stray dishes, humming a cheerful tune.

“We have checked into a lovely hotel, with a lovely pool, clean rooms, and cable television.  Everyone is polite and mannerly.”  The Colonel sighs.  “We will be eating dinner?”

“That was the plan…”  Lynn says.  There was something a little too sing-song and cheerful about the Colonel’s voice.  It reminded her, disturbingly, of the woman who was now drying a plate on the other side of the kitchen.  “…you feeling all right.”

“Quite.  Ask your friend if she knows a place with good potatoes.”

Lynn frowns.  ‘Potato’ was one of Ein’s silly code words.  It just meant ‘be careful’.  Her using it meant other things.  Suspicion with cause, the fear of being overheard.  Possible, if not definite danger.

“Judes, any place around here have good potatoes?”  Lynn asks.

“I’d planned on taking you to Poulson’s.  Best food in town.  Got reservations for seven-thirty.”

“Judy has a place in mind.”  Lynn says to the phone.

“I’ll bet she does.”  Einhorn answers.
"Dialogue from a play, Hamlet to Horatio: 'There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.' Dialogue from a play written long before men took to the sky. There are more things in heaven and earth, and in the sky, than perhaps can be dreamt of. And somewhere in between heaven, the sky, the earth, lies the Twilight Zone."
                                                                 ---------Rod Serling, The Last Flight

Offline Captain Sharp

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Re: House and Garden
« Reply #8 on: September 11, 2012, 09:11:53 pm »
Am reading, but this makes round #3 for me, so no comments.

--guv
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"Wishin' I could, Captain. "

Offline KOTH-KieranXC, Ret.

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Re: House and Garden
« Reply #9 on: September 11, 2012, 09:21:48 pm »
I remember you showing me this one before as well. Interesting start, but as with the Guv, not much else to say at this point. Will wait for the new stuff before doing a more substantive review.
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Offline Grim Reaper

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Re: House and Garden
« Reply #10 on: September 12, 2012, 09:32:02 am »
Things are heating up. Now if only you could keep the suspense up by posting chapters regularly ;)
Snickers@DND: If there is one straight answer in that bent little head of yours, you'd better start spillin' it pretty damn quick, or I'm gonna take a large, blunt object, roughly the size of Kallae AND his hat and shove it lengthwise up a crevice of your being so seldomly cleaned that even the denizens of the nine hells would not touch it with a 10-feet rusty pole

Offline Commander La'ra

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Re: House and Garden
« Reply #11 on: September 25, 2012, 12:00:19 am »
Rest of Chapter Two...

-------------------

Poulsons wasn’t bad if you didn’t mind dressing  up a little.  Nothing too formal.  Business casual was the order of the day.

Dinner was conventional.  Steak or salad or seafood.  Choice in food, at least, was consistent with Judy’s old habits.  Lynn had always preferred spicier fare.

“Someday I’ll get you to eat a pepper, I swear,” says Lynn.  Judy laughs.  Ein and Nikki chuckle.  Small talk goes on.  How did you all meet?  Been friends long? 

A waiter had brings the first refill. Ein excuses herself.

“Little dictators room,”  The Colonel says, by way of explanation.  Judy looked slightly confused.

“Me too,” adds Lynn.

There was, thankfully, no one in the bathroom.  Lynn begins to speak.  ‘Mina makes a ‘shh’ motion, pretends to rummage in her purse.  The Wildcat knows what she’s doing;  an anti-surveillance device is being activated.  The Colonel nods.

“God you’re paranoid,” Lynn growls.

“Dave lied to us.  So did your friend.  Something is up.”  The Colonel‘s eyes are serious.

Lynn stares for a moment.  More chiding from that voice in her head.  Even the others had noticed…

“All right,” She answers.  “Tell me.”

“The room they dismantled has never seen a termite.  The hotel we were checked into is owned by the husband’s company.  Our room was bugged.  I suspect that right now it’s being searched.”

“God damn it…”  Lynn hisses.

“Whoever they are, it’s not police,”  The Colonel moves to the sink, makes a show of washing her hands, her face.  “I sense a certain routine in all this.”

“Who’s Dave’s company?”

“A very low-profile electronics developer. No scary government contracts that I could find.  No obvious reason to watch their employee’s guests so closely.”

“But if they’re worried enough to spy on people, it’s probably something they try to keep from being obvious.”

“Yes,”  The Colonel agrees.  “Have you noticed anything amiss?”

Lynn shakes her head.  She says nothing.

“What?”  The Colonel pries.

“She’s…changed since college.”

“Most people do…”

“More than I expected…more than I think would actually happen.”  Lynn mutters.  “And I do write the woman…not as much as before, but she’s…something is very different.”

The Colonel frowns.

“Mental subversion?”

“I don’t know.  I could just be…you know…”

“I know.”  The Colonel replies.

Both women are quiet for a moment.  Ein puts on lipstick.  Lynn straightens her hair.

“You think we should go?”  Lynn asks.

Wilhelmina shakes her head.

“No…as I said…I sense a certain routine about all this.  The hotel room next to ours is bugged as well, the way your friend steers us to certain places does not seem forced…they watch people regularly.”  She puts her lipstick away.  “If we leave suddenly, we give them cause to worry.”

“Well if they came after us, we might find out what was going on.”

“Yes.”  The Colonel meets the Wildcat’s eyes, and winks.  “But for now, let them think we’re harmless.”


*  *  *


The ride back to Judy’s is tense.  There’s talk, of course, laughter when the best friend hits an old, pleasant nerve, but the chat has been soured with suspicion.

Lynn snarls at herself more than once.  First for letting her paranoia get the better of her…then for ignoring Ein’s concrete warnings and her own instincts.

The voice in her head chides her too.  She shushes it.  That she doesn’t need right now.

Halfway back to the housewife’s happy home, the Oklahoma Wildcat gives her dark-haired friend a long look.  Judy is happily discussing future plans.  Home expansions, redecorating, all that sh*t. 

Did she know about the spying?  The bugs?  It was surely all Dave, wasn’t it?  Judy hated nosy people…didn’t she?

“You okay?”  The housewife asked.

“Yeah,”  Lynn lies.

More easy chatter.  Lynn had anticipated a late night with her old friend.  Movies and wine and laughter.  Judy’s motto is early to bed, now, apparently.  Lynn stays up for a little while, grumbling at the television in her room.  Then she slides into bed too.

Dave returns at some point past midnight.  He’s quiet, but Lynn’s bracelets are more than decoration.  She hears him ease the door closed, pad into the bedroom.  She can hear no conversation.  She can hear the sex.  It sounds basic, and not terribly fun.

With a pillow protecting her ears, the Oklahoma Wildcat forces herself to sleep.
« Last Edit: September 25, 2012, 03:54:48 pm by Commander La'ra »
"Dialogue from a play, Hamlet to Horatio: 'There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.' Dialogue from a play written long before men took to the sky. There are more things in heaven and earth, and in the sky, than perhaps can be dreamt of. And somewhere in between heaven, the sky, the earth, lies the Twilight Zone."
                                                                 ---------Rod Serling, The Last Flight

Offline Grim Reaper

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Re: House and Garden
« Reply #12 on: September 25, 2012, 12:21:30 pm »
Larry, will it be bad if I look up the original? Cause I can't remember how they found out originally which might make me not fully appreciate your take on it...

Back on topic though, I like it so far but unless you going to suprise me (which I can see you do) they are fast in seeing there is something amiss. So gimme more so I can find out if they are going to embarrass themselves first!

;)

Greetings from Farnsborough UK
Snickers@DND: If there is one straight answer in that bent little head of yours, you'd better start spillin' it pretty damn quick, or I'm gonna take a large, blunt object, roughly the size of Kallae AND his hat and shove it lengthwise up a crevice of your being so seldomly cleaned that even the denizens of the nine hells would not touch it with a 10-feet rusty pole

Offline Commander La'ra

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Re: House and Garden
« Reply #13 on: September 25, 2012, 03:50:51 pm »
Larry, will it be bad if I look up the original? Cause I can't remember how they found out originally which might make me not fully appreciate your take on it...

Actually I think it might improve the story.  I deliberately tried to toss in references to the original movie (not the novel it was based off of, or the remake, neither of which I've seen/read), but not to the extent that you had to be familiar with them to appreciate it.

I'm not stealing methods of discovery (mostly...) or blow-by-blow plot details from the movie, other than the obvious, however, so watching it shouldn't provide many spoilers.

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Back on topic though, I like it so far but unless you going to suprise me (which I can see you do) they are fast in seeing there is something amiss.

Of course they are.  They're paranoid super villains.  And Colonel Einhorn is, after all, a semi-anarchist mastermind. ;) 

When I watched the movie I also had to wonder about certain scenarios that didn't seem to be accounted for by the writers.  I sort of expound on that a bit later, but that IS spoiler material.

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Greetings from Farnsborough UK

Greetings from Southeast Oklahoma.;)
"Dialogue from a play, Hamlet to Horatio: 'There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.' Dialogue from a play written long before men took to the sky. There are more things in heaven and earth, and in the sky, than perhaps can be dreamt of. And somewhere in between heaven, the sky, the earth, lies the Twilight Zone."
                                                                 ---------Rod Serling, The Last Flight

Offline Grim Reaper

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Re: House and Garden
« Reply #14 on: October 08, 2012, 01:14:14 pm »
where in oklahoma?


I was in the Red Hat office in Farnsborough, but I'm back home in Eindhoven now.
« Last Edit: October 08, 2012, 01:38:30 pm by Grim Reaper »
Snickers@DND: If there is one straight answer in that bent little head of yours, you'd better start spillin' it pretty damn quick, or I'm gonna take a large, blunt object, roughly the size of Kallae AND his hat and shove it lengthwise up a crevice of your being so seldomly cleaned that even the denizens of the nine hells would not touch it with a 10-feet rusty pole

Offline Commander La'ra

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Re: House and Garden
« Reply #15 on: October 08, 2012, 08:25:10 pm »
See the town in the very southeast corner of the map you posted?  Idabel?  That's where the office of the newspaper I work for is located.  I live a little southeast of there.  I'm about 10-15 minutes from the Texas border.  Closer than that to Arkansas, but only as the crow flies.
"Dialogue from a play, Hamlet to Horatio: 'There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.' Dialogue from a play written long before men took to the sky. There are more things in heaven and earth, and in the sky, than perhaps can be dreamt of. And somewhere in between heaven, the sky, the earth, lies the Twilight Zone."
                                                                 ---------Rod Serling, The Last Flight

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Re: House and Garden
« Reply #16 on: October 08, 2012, 10:16:26 pm »
Chapter Three

Stepford is quiet at night.  Streetlights hum.  A dog, very occasionally, barks in the distance.

Nikki shakes her head.  She isn’t as philosophical about things as Colonel Einhorn, but she’s a city girl.  Parts of her lust for sirens, car horns, and noisy neighbors.  Seemed more like the way things ought to be.  She knows people move out to the suburbs because of all that.  Pussies.

She ambles toward a nearby coke machine, digs in her loose, hip-hugging jeans for some change.  There’s a series of thumps as the machine gives up the beverage.  She uses the delay to look around, scan the street.  There isn’t an obvious black van, or weather-worn cops sleeping in a squad car, or any other form of apparent live surveillance. 

She and the Colonel had made these little checks several times already.   Ein could be crazy paranoid.  Nikki not so much;  if whoever was bugging their room wanted some, they could come get some.

Still, she supposed it was better to be forewarned.  She could get herself in the mood that way.

She had a little extra to do, this time out, though.  She digs her coke out of the machine.  She leaves a little something else behind, down in the innards of the caffeine dispenser.  It’s not a bug, per se.  It’s another of Ein’s little widgets.  She knows it’s…some sort of tracer.  The Colonel had given her the full explanation, but she’d tuned her out a bit.  Nikki could grasp technical details, but rarely bothered.

Nikki cracks open her drink, spies the desk clerk watching her from inside his lonely office.  She doesn’t think him watching her has anything to do with the surveillance.  He looks to be barely out of his teens.

She makes her way back up the stairs.  She sways her hips a little more, lets her jeans ride down a bit, showing more hip.  His leering has lost what little subtlety it might’ve possessed.  She grins.


*  *  *


Mindless television news drones in the background.  Colonel Einhorn is mostly ignoring it, her attention focused on her laptop.  She likes to have some background noise.

She looks up at Nikki as the door opens.  The redhead grins.  Ein nods, pushes a button on her computer.  Data from the tracer Nikki planted is already steaming into her computer. 

“Wonder if Lynn’s having fun,”  Nikki asks idly, easing herself onto the other bed.

“How could she not be, they’re best friends.”  The Colonel replies sarcastically.  Nikki snorts out a laugh, takes a drink of her coke.

“She does not seem the type to be friends with Lynn.”  Einhorn chatters.  She’s not truly thinking about what she’s saying.  The conversation was for the microphones.

“Eh.”  Nikki thoughtfully replies.

“You don’t agree?”  Ein asks.  Hopefully conversation and Nikki’s tendency to spontaneously disrobe were keeping their watchers occupied enough to not notice certain things.  Things like how Ein always kept her laptop’s screen out of the camera’s field of view.

“Lynn’s friendly.  She likes a lot of people.”

“Yes.  And most of them are intelligent, independent and…other things that woman is not,”  Einhorn grumbles.  She punches a few buttons.  The bugs in the hotel were part of the building’s electrical infrastructure.  Hardwired.  Harder to detect than wireless devices, harder to trace.  Without a sledgehammer, anyway.

That was what her tracer was for.  But its had it’s own telltales, which were hopefully being masked by the interference from the coke machine. 

“She seems pretty bright to me.”  Nikki declares.  The redhead is flipping through channels.  Einhorn feels a twinge of annoyance; her mind can multitask, and she had been halfway listening to a report about new hybrid cars.

“Bright, yes, but not quite as bright as her husband.  And Dave this, Dave that.  Did she say anything about her own interests?”

“Maybe she’s worried Lynn won’t like ‘im.”

Ein growls.  Everything about Judy Ross screamed ‘trophy wife’ to her.  The Colonel is familiar with trophy wives, and subspecies thereof.  In her homeland, her father’s generals had preferred women from rich families they wished to ally themselves with.  In her college days, in Europe, the military officers she’d been obliged to talk to had leaned toward social butterflies who’s main duties involved organizing parties and schmoozing people important to their husband’s careers. 

Judy was more of the second type.  She certainly wasn’t option three, which came with copious silicone and usually hung off the arms of rock stars and the occasional superhero or super villain.  That would’ve been mildly more interesting.

“You don’t like her either,”  Ein halfway snaps.  Nikki grins.  The redhead is flipping through channels.  Porn, sports, reruns, news.

“She’s boring,”  Nikki says.  For Nikki, that’s the cardinal sin.

Ein nods.  She’s mapped out the building’s circuitry now.  There are a few electronic pathways with no discernable purpose.  They lead to a variety of rooms, not only theirs. 

That was good.  This…spying was routine after all.  The pathways all lead to the same place.  At first she thinks the motel office is too obvious, but the outgoing data is probably hidden amongst all the legitimate crap in the motel’s computer…or simply passes through it on it’s way to the cyber sea…

She briefly flirts with trying to hack into the computer remotely, find out where the surveillance data goes.  But anyone spying would have decent security, wouldn’t they?  She didn’t wish to risk whoever they were detecting her efforts just yet.  Let them think they were the hunters a little bit longer.

“I feel like a walk.”  She declares.  She stands up, pulling blue jeans over the black boy shorts she’d been lounging in.  Her matching tank top doesn’t require further coverage.

“Want company?”  Nikki asks.

The Colonel shakes her head, slides her cell phone into her pocket.

“Just need some fresh air, “ She says, meeting the redhead’s eyes.

Nikki grins.

“Have fun.”



*  *  *


The boy in the office notices when the Colonel strolls out of the parking lot.  He gives her a slightly more than cursory glance, then goes back to his magazine.  Einhorn nods.

She glides casually down the street.  She doubts midnight strolls are a popular pastime in Stepford.  Ironic, really.  Indulging in such things was quite dangerous in her usual stomping grounds, yet no one took advantage of the freedom here.  More evidence of suburban stupidity, she decides.

Of course, at the moment, she’s not taking advantage of it either.  Not in an innocent sense.  She’s away from the motel and quite sure no one is watching when she cuts through a dimly lit parking lot, hops a fence, and ends up behind the motel’s office. 

The hotel had made much of its free wireless and cable movie channels.  That likely means cable internet.  Sure enough, she finds the appropriate junction box, hidden behind some holly bushes.

There’s a window near the thing.  She peeks in.  It’s the back office.  The interior door is open, and she can see the desk clerk hunched over the counter, reading.  He probably wouldn’t bother her unless she made too much noise.

There is, of course, the issue of her neon blue hair.  She smiles coldly.  If anyone saw her…well she could do something naughty.  She’s been restraining herself for days, and it’d be the perfect excuse.

The junction box doesn’t take much effort to open.  Inside there are wires to splice and other such.  She has some mini-tools in her pocket.  Working with them is tedious, but they suffice.  Soon she has one of her devices installed.  She’ll retrieve it in a little while, once it’s had time to collect all the data streaming out of the motel’s computer, complete with destination codes.

They watchers would be cautious, of course.  The path would be convoluted.  It wouldn’t matter.

She leaves the junction box looking just as she found it, and another glance at the clerk reveals him to be napping.  Ein chuckles to herself, and makes her way back to the sidewalk. 
"Dialogue from a play, Hamlet to Horatio: 'There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.' Dialogue from a play written long before men took to the sky. There are more things in heaven and earth, and in the sky, than perhaps can be dreamt of. And somewhere in between heaven, the sky, the earth, lies the Twilight Zone."
                                                                 ---------Rod Serling, The Last Flight

Offline Grim Reaper

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Re: House and Garden
« Reply #17 on: January 08, 2013, 01:24:44 am »
That's odd I could have sworn I already commented on the latest update of this. However, since I apparently didn't allow me to do that now.

I just love the feel of this. It's such a close match to the vibe I got from the original, mixed with some delightfulness of the super villains. So update already!

;)
Snickers@DND: If there is one straight answer in that bent little head of yours, you'd better start spillin' it pretty damn quick, or I'm gonna take a large, blunt object, roughly the size of Kallae AND his hat and shove it lengthwise up a crevice of your being so seldomly cleaned that even the denizens of the nine hells would not touch it with a 10-feet rusty pole