Fantastic Figments of Fiction

Anc's Recon II:

2006-09-24T21:59:00.000+05:30

Anc was surprised. He had intended to pick up U's trace with the help of his electronic tracer. The "Dragonfire" had worked exactly as he had planned. In 6.4 seconds (beating the previous record by .04 seconds) he had managed to hack into the National Security Bureau's spy sattelites and his left LCD panel now displayed a real time ground view; accurate upto 4 metres.

But, now he was surprised. The tracer read three additional life forms in the area. One, he guessed was the local detective investigating the usual; for whatever virtues might be given to U, tact and grace were not two of them.

But what was this, a young man and a young woman.

Anc smiled.

He knew both of them. None escaped his vigilance.

He was just going to wait for them to make their move.

The right most panel started beeping. Anc turned his attention there. Meanwhile, he reassured himself, "Dragonfire" would continue working perfectly.

But now, Baldur's Gate 2 beckoned. None beat his level 40 human chaotic good dual weilding fighter mage.

The Magus was laughing even harder as he mixed in the melodrama...

2006-09-24T12:13:00.000+05:30

A train waited. The rain had driven even the most hardened of hawkers to the shelter of the main building, and down the windswept stretch not a soul was visible on the platform of Karimgunj.

The young man in the first class seat looked up from the book he was reading, with some annoyance. The journey so far had been very enjoyable. He was alone in his compartment, he liked the rocking of the train, and so he was vaguely irritated that the train was stopping for so long at some rural hamlet. He lowered his eyes, and was soon again engrossed in his copy of ‘La Symphonie¢ Pastorale¢.’

The train started up, and once again ground to a halt. His water bottle jumped off the rack where he had placed it and spilt its contents on the seat opposite. He was looking at it, wondering how he was going to explain that to the occupant of that seat, when the door opened, and he found himself confronted by a burly man in a trench coat. The man had evidently expected to journey alone.

He came in, and with his palm, swept the water off his seat to the floor, and sat down next to the window.

The door to the compartment opened again, and the young man saw a very pretty girl.

She was struggling with her suitcase, which was large and unwieldy. He jumped to his feet.

“May I help?” he said and took the suitcase from her. He hefted it inside.

She smiled gratefully at him and said, “Thank you. I have another bag further down the corridor, would you please…?”

“Of course.” he said.

He walked to her bag, picked it up, and turned around. He was just in time to see the girl put a gun back in her handbag and begin to run away. On the side her neck, just below the jaw line, he caught a glimpse of something.

He dropped the bag and ran back to his seat.

The man in the trenchcoat had been shot neatly through the forehead.

He was still looking at the corpse, when the girl appeared at his side again.

She said, “Get off the train,” and grabbed his hand, dragged him to the door, and made him jump off. She landed beside him, and was just as suddenly, gone.

He was looking round for her when there was an explosion behind him, and he was thrown forward.

Lying on the platform, his ears ringing, and his head throbbing, he had a sudden confused image of what it was he had seen on the girls neck: a tattoo of an eagle with its wings spread in flight.

Anc's Recon:

2006-09-21T12:06:00.000+05:30

Anc was a bit surprised with himself. Normally, it wouldn't have taken any effort to crack the signal which would lead to him discovering U's location. U was supposed to be one of the best. Apparently, another faction had creeped in. His code name was P. P was after U. U was after him.

Anc leaned back on his Lazy Boy and cracked his knuckles as a brief burst of brusque inspiration buzzed through his bored head.

A little Visual Basic application would get the better of this encryption. Moments later, he had cracked the code. Now, all he had to do was to plant the "seeker." He had many for just this type of operation. He selected the ANC-69 "Dragonfire" and added some variations to the code ---- just in case.

Now, for some muzak thought Anc as he skimmed over to his piano.

Soon the first bars of Chopin's "Funeral March" filled the air. It was going to be a good night.

By Doktor Squire: an analysis

2006-06-30T16:17:00.000+05:30

He looked down the path Ulysses had disappeared down and then started down the one opposite it. It was one of those cliched beautiful days, with the sun shining and the birds chirping et al. He scowled. He didn't like it here one bit. He was out of his element. Born and brought up in Lucknow, he was used to the reassuring noise of endless traffic and endless streams of people. Karimgunj, on the other hand, was quiet; too quiet. It made him uncomfortable. The only background sounds came from the faint twittering of unseen birds and the occasional shout of a cowherd in the distance.
Detective P.N. Sharma plodded on. Yes, that was his name. P for Potol, N for Nath. He didn't like people knowing what P and N stood for, which is the precise reason I have divulged it!!! It was a despicable name, he thought, given him by his Bengali maternal grandmother. Since she had seen the child and christened him on her deathbed, the name had been allowed to remain. He scowled again. This is what he hated about this atmosphere, it made him brood. He brooded on the same topics he had brooded on his whole life long. He had slipped into the same worn rut of brooding he slipped into whenever he was left undistracted. He brooded on the fact that on joining the police force, he had not been able to achieve his boyhood dream of becoming a gun toting superhero he had fantasised about and idolised in cheap Bollywood flicks. Till date, he hadn't even had an opportunity to flash his gun in the field, let alone actually put it to use! It remained merely a regulation issue side-arm. He had been stuck in the role of detective slash minesweeper, doing the dirty work before the actual police heroes came in to pull off the spectacular arrests which would subsequently make the headlines in the following morning's newspapers. His efforts, as per rule, would be relegated to one line of statement of fact. And on top of that, he didn't even get a promotion!
Sharma scowled again. This time it was because he had just stepped in an especially fragrant pile of cow dung. His brooding had left the road before him dark inspite of the bright sun overhead shining down from a cloudless summer sky. Mentally he cursed all rural inconveniences and even the fact that rural life was a reality and had to be partaken of by him. The lush green fields on either side did not beckon to his romantic soul. As a matter of fact, he wasn't aware he possessed a romantic soul! Neither did the misty purple silhouettes of the lower reaches of the Himalayas touch a chord of awe in him. As far as he was concerned, they could be dashed if only he could have the firm tread of asphalt beneath his feet and instead of trees be surrounded by the familiar concrete jungle. Sharma continued on his way, up through a shadier path shielded from the sun by tall, leafy deodars, until he reached the unkempt gravel walk of his destination. It was a rambling lodge left over and forgotten since the days of the Raj. It had been a summer retreat for some Anglo-Indians in the sixties, but since their caretaker had died, it had fallen into disrepair. The village folk ignored it by and large, and its surroundings had a distinct feeling of loneliness. Sharma broke open a rusted,crumbling lock on the dilapidated door and entered to wait for Ulysses to return.

The Magus was laughing when he wrote this:

2006-06-24T18:08:00.000+05:30

After he had picked himself up from the heap of garbage into which he had been thrown by the recoil of the .22, he dusted himself off and rubbed the large bruise on his lower back. He reflected ruefully that anyone who knew anything about ballistics would only use the .22 as a club, when he had a .44 in a shoulder holster, and a 76mm in an ankle holster. The ankle holster was making him limp a little, but that made him look really villainous, and so he persisted in his discomfort.
“One must suffer for one’s art,” he muttered.

At the other end of the platform, he saw a very short man. Unlike all the others who had precipitously fled at the sound of gunshots, he was sitting quietly; he was waiting, it seemed, for something to happen. He was dressed in a rather nondescript manner. In fact, you only had to take your eyes off him for a moment for him to blend into the stationmaster’s laundry, hung up in the background, obscuring the large yellow sign that said ‘Karimgunj’ in three languages.

As he walked forward, the short man came towards him. He was very short, but he had none of the ungainliness that betrays the dwarf. He had a broad chest, and a rather prominent nose.

“Birds and bees must fornicate in trees,” he said, in a deep voice.
Considered purely as a conversational gambit, it left a lot to be desired. But the trench-coat wearer appeared to understand perfectly.
“You must be Ulysses,” he said, in response.
From inside his pocket he took out a short, cylindrical package, covered with brown tape, except at one end, where a biohazard sign was clearly visible.

Ulysses took the package, and without another word, walked off toward the gate.
As he left, a stray dog, (whose name was Argus) took one look at his face, and rolled over dead, with a look of shocked recognition on his face.

The man in the trench coat.

2006-06-21T20:59:00.000+05:30

As the smoke from the engine cleared away, he side-stepped onto the platform, scaring the platform dogs by brandishing a .22 calibre instrument. His trench coat looked terribly out of place in the sleepy, sodium vapour lamp lit, almost unknown Indian railway station. His suit despite the long journey was crisp with its sharply pressed lines intact. His boss was busy smoking a cuban cigar in the depths of cosmopolitan London, blissfully ignorant that his employee, to whom he had entrusted a license to kill, was thousands of miles away from his intended destination. The shots rang out uselessly, ricocheting across the still sleepy station of Karimgunj. They had served their purpose. His anger had been vented and the trigger happy trenchcoat wearer could think with reason yet again.

In which we know ourselves... and read the rules.

2006-06-21T20:31:00.000+05:30

I had always wanted to build an absolutely crazy story from scratch... And the blogosphere has given me an excellent idea for the story... To make it diverse and crazy enough... I shall invite a few people I know to collaborate on a story which will be written by all... It shall be a totally democratic process with the team members taking up where the last person left off.. So be prepared to accommodate the wildest twist and turns at other peoples whims and fancies... It may twist from stalk them and bop them murder mysteries to soppy melodrama to sci-fi all guns blazing at the drop of a post.

There will be very limited team members.. But others are free to join in by leaving comments. If the comments seem appropriate then they shall be incorporated on the recommendation of at least three team members who have left behind comments to approve and insert as main story so please request the team members to sponsor your addition. Yet final addition is at the whims of me your administrator if you are not a team member. Team members will not however be subject to any censorship in any form and are permitted to post as they wish. If your contributions are considered to be consistently valuable then you may request for inclusion into the team member roll. Non members are also invited to expand the canon by creating background history for any person/object/event etc.

However incorrect spelling and grammar will not be appreciated so please ensure that your spell-check is on. Before first posting you are however requested to make up a fictional identity replete with background to participate and post the identity as a comment in this introductory post. Please get this bit : people in story will not have anything to do with the alter egos of people writing... these worlds are separate. When you post your alter ego put in a line stating that it is your alter ego and not an addition to main story cannon.

Format of posting is as this: You will type your alter ego name in followed by a colon and then type in your post. Use plenty of paragraphing. Any Post not following correct formatting will be deleted. Future posts will be strictly used for furthering the narrative so all such introductory talk and settlement of rules are to be through comments on this first introductory post. All are invited to participate in the story telling.

Go ahead. Tell Tall Tales.