October 2011 Writing Ideas
.
There is no way I can write 365+ publishable stories in a year, let alone one publishable story. Last year, I started on 6 stories last year and wrote "the end" on four of them. I submitted one to a magazine and another is being edited to finished quality.
Back on Prodigy Classic, in December 1997, I posted some story ideas I could not use. I soon found the story ideas flowed fast. I posted nearly all the ideas I could come up with, including those I hoped to eventually use.
I follow the belief that if 20 people wrote from the same story idea, we would have 20 different stories. This is why I don't worry about using these stories later, myself. Since then, I've learned that many people enjoy reading these posts, even if they do not write.
The way I work is, I come up with a basic concept which is seldom more than a paragraph long. I then spin a story around the concept, or explain what is behind the concept, so someone can see how to develop the basic concept.
I don't want these ideas to go to waste and hope that others might convert them into published pieces. I hold these ideas to be Public Domain (free to use in any way). They can be used in any form you choose. I hope you can use them profitably, but if not, at least enjoy reading these posts. Let me know if you make use of any of them. That is like a pat on the back and gives me an added incentive to keep this up (Like I really need it....).
I usually post about Four books worth pure drivel each year in these idea posts. This is my Fourteenth year of posting these story ideas. What they say is true. Ideas are a dime a dozen. Developed ideas are like gold. These are not fully developed...
.
01 )
.
I saw something interesting along side the road on the way to work but kept on going. That seeded this concept.

Franklin saw something strange along the road. He knew it was bulk garbage pickup day. He stopped and looked it over and decided to take it with him and study it more. He put it into the bed of his truck and made sure it would not fly out while on the road.
When he hit the highway and got up to speed, he noticed movement in his mirror. He looked closely and the thing in the back appeared to be lifting. Just as he was about to hit the brakes and pull off the road, It enveloped his truck, leaving the windows open. His jaw dropped. He felt a stabbing pain in the back of his head, then the controls inside the cab shifted, changed. Wings opened up overhead and the truck lifted off the ground. He somehow knew what to do to fly the truck. He turned away from the highway and took a shortcut, flying straight about twice the tree height of the trees. As he neared the destination, he lined up with the highway and came down gently. The wings folded up and he was driving again.
He came near his place and the traffic was backed up. He took a turn, which he did not know why he did it and pulled up to the river. the truck changed and so did his controls. He then drove into the water and motored down the river. The bridge was real low. His truck was not going to make it under it, It looked like he was going to lose his cab.
The truck shifted, a second layer of glass formed over the windows and the surface of the hood became slightly rounded. For some reason, he tipped the steering column down and the water flowed up the windshield.
Acting like a submarine, he went beneath the bridge and came up on the other side. It stayed as a submarine as he had to go under two more bridges before he got near his destination.
He finally pulled onto the bank and the truck transformed back into a truck again and he entered the road past the traffic jam and got to his destination.
He tried to toss the thing out of the truck, but it was stuck. He traveled around and it made sure he got around obstacles faster. it was an irritant as when it started to transform, he would feel that pain in the back of his neck. He simply wanted to drive and it would not let him.
After a couple months he stopped along side the road as he felt something wrong. He got out and the thing was back to how he first saw it. He realized it was a bulk pickup day, so he tossed it out of the truck. He then drove away, happy to be free of the thing. About two blocks later, it dawned on him that someone else will pick it up and he did not wish that on anybody. he then realized that it was kind of nice to make use of it. He turned around to pick it up again.

02 )
.
The society had advanced greatly. Planetary travel was fairly common, but interstellar travel was found impossible unless one was evacuating the solar system, there was no need for that. All data had gone digital, where one had a "book" or "paper" that was tied to the main computer systems. One could write on the surface and it would put digital marks on the surface for you so you could do anything you could do on paper, but could also manipulate it digitally. Actual paper was nearly unknown.
An eccentric asteroid was watched for several years as it passed through the solar system. the route was known almost to the inch. A very big ship landed on it to take samples and readings from the surface. An engineer on the ship slipped while doing minor maintenance and the ship detonated. The surface of the asteroid became a plasma jet for a period and the orbit changed. Now they watched the asteroid head right into the sun.
the asteroid somehow survived until it hit the corona of the sun and popped into an expanding ball of plasma. That ball of plasma headed out into space again. The plasma shockwave arrived at a major space station in solar orbit just as a really strong solar flair arrived. The computer systems were fried completely.
People worked to the manual and mostly mechanical systems operating, but the computer was out. This space station was built by an eccentric trillion are who had physical copies of most major books written before he died. The librarian of the collection remembered something and finds the technical manuals for the whole space station. they restart the whole system by following the old data. They thought it was a bit quirky to be loading data into the computer manually by plugging big pentabite hard drives into the system and copying the data.
They get the whole space station fully operating, only data entered in the last year was lost because the librarian was making yearly copies of the data on the system according to the dictates of the will.

03 )
.
We are developing ways of detecting remotely where people are in the buildings and sometimes even what they are doing. There are devices of every kind reading different wavelengths. I saw a remodeling program advertizement where they had the guys in the bunny suits removing hazardous materials and my mind got clicking in story idea mode.
Studies of detecting energies came up with some sensors that would be excellent for spies and police. At first they were bulky but were being made smaller and smaller as they perfected the systems.
They quickly learned that when they beamed the energy into the buildings, Asbestos glowed so bright that it blinded the equipment and lead paint blocked the energies completely.
lead in paint and asbestos insulation was common everywhere. they needed to come up with a solution to get rid of the materials so they could gain knowledge of what was happening.
They knew there was some health problems involving asbestos manufacturing and health problem with lead. They came up with the idea of making them considered serious health hazards to be eliminated from all homes, especially new ones.
It took them a bit but they soon found that certain chemicals in cigarette smoking coated the walls and messed up the reception, so they also decided to make smoking something people would stop doing.
They contacted groups to work on the public, telling them this stuff was bad for the health. They included many products and activities that had nothing to do with what they were after, just to hide the real results. Saying that fats, sugar, processed foods, were also bad for you was better than just saying eliminate lead, cigarettes and asbestos because it looks like you are after everybody's health.
Many decades have passed. Each time a house was worked on, the offending materials were removed. New products cleaned of the offending products, including some found a bit later such as out gassing components, covered the homes, making them almost like glass to the sensors. Now they knew what was happening in most homes, were able to gather real data, know where to look for evidence.
The equipment was perfected even more to the point where they fit into a brief case, and be plugged into a screen on the dash.
A group of people were looked on by the agency as serious criminals. They refused to update their homes. They had stocks of old materials they applied to the surfaces that blocked the sensors. The agency was not allowed to do anything about the offending materials. They were not allowed to "cause" changes to happen, though they had the skills and technology.
The agency did see they had a problem. The government the project started with was not the one they were stuck with now. Luckily, they did not let anybody know their technology existed. Only at the key point of the security system did any officials know about it and they were not going to tell. The technology was too valuable. They were using it in other countries and in the military.

04 )
.
He had influence. He decided he wanted to manufacture something and knowing his lack of design ability and business acumen, he got with some politicians with power. He talked to them a while and then started designing his office machine. He had one built, tested it and was surprised at how it shredded paper so well. He gave some thought and decided he was going to make it into a true security paper shredder.
He designed pathways for the pieces of paper to follow that would have each shred come out at different times, some would come out immediately, some would take as many as a hundred sheets to come out.
He then got with his government contacts and got a law passed that would require every business with more than fifty people inside the office to buy one of the machines.
Offices purchased the machines. No one had any idea what it did. he never told them. the law said the machine had to be purchased. People quickly figured out what it did. Legal offices and places that had some security requirements quickly took to the machine. Other people learned the hard way what it did. Once they knew, they made use of it too.
Government security offices were baffled as to how it worked. They did know it was perfect for securely destroying documents. They also learned that when they went after criminal organizations, the documents they were after disappeared quickly if the criminals had any inkling of their coming. The evidence was gone completely.
One machine mechanic got hold of several machines from companies going out of business. It was illegal to open the machines without a special licence. One was supposed to turn the machine in and get a new one and the factory would deal with the machines. He purchased them for scrap metal.
He disassembled the machine and studied the pathways of the papers. He was surprised that there were not jams or breakages as they were built so bad. He did figure out the way the machines worked.
A criminal organization got in touch with him with a problem. someone shredded the documents they needed and they needed to put the documents back together. they were able to put the shreds together according to the paper they were with but needed the missing parts.
He gladly came over, opened the machine and handed them the pieces in order that they went into the machine. He got paid well. they had the full document needed. He got paid very well.
He was soon making good money assisting with reassembling documents by taking them out of the machines. No one else could even figure the machines out.
About the time the feds were catching up to him, someone purchased the company that made the machines and changed the name. It was no longer required by law to be purchased. One of the politicians had the law removed which made working on them legal.
He became legally able to work on the machine the day before the law came to arrest him. he showed a copy of the changed law and they walked away.
He became the repairman for the machines. they were coming in from everywhere and he was fixing them. `

05 )
.
A particle weapon manufacturing plant for the military had horrible side effects. It sent out compression waves through the atmosphere. As the waves came through, the air became thick like water, then thin out. It could not be seen or detected. It really cause the effect at higher speeds.
while traveling through it, there was a "draft" formed behind the vehicle where another one could drive without feeling a lot of the effect and use less energy.
What made it really bad was that due to attempts to increase fuel efficiencies, all the transportation had little engines that had not power. They bogged down when they hit the waves.
Striker had an antique car. It had the first of the efficient engines when they first came out. In comparison to the most modern engines, it was ten times the size. The car was heftier too.
Striker worked on his car for years, rebuilding it to operating level. It needed work but he decided to have others do the work.
He decided to take it to be painted and they would add some details and the mirrors. He started out and found that he had another problem. the car was really noisy. He could not hear the radio at full power. since he was already going he decided to get the body done and then take the car to have this problem fixed.
He was driving along and a police car pulled behind him. He had already gotten into driving since the car was a bit tough on handling. Another thing to be fixed. The factory started up a new batch of parts and the fields buffeted them immediately.
The police car got a call for the other side of the factory. He started his sirens and lights and pulled out to go around Striker. Striker started pulling away from him. He pulled up behind Striker again and caught up. He had momentum so he tried to go around again, and could not get past Striker. He turned his lights off and stayed behind Striker as he was gong faster than he could
They go past the factory and are buffeted from the side. Striker now saw that the police car had been staying in his draft so he shifted over to the factory side of the road so the police car cold be in the side draft.
Finally the police car got past Striker. He saw the police car bogging down as soon as he got a distance away, so he accelerated so he could stay right behind the police car. Striker finally backed down and let the police car go as he pulled into the shop to have his car painted.
About two hours later, the officer showed up at the shop and looked over his car. The officer thanked him for helping. Like everybody else, the officer asked about the car and looked it all over.
the police department located and purchased a bunch of these old cars and had them rebuilt. Striker was part of the repair team as he worked on his. It was a lot more fun to be paid to do it.
Soon, all police cars were replaced by the antique cars and they were able to power through the compression waves in the atmosphere with ease. it really made it tough for criminals as they could not escape, but the police were able to get where they needed to be. Eventually, police cars patterned on the power of the antiques were manufactured. Not as efficient, but more powerful and faster.

06 )
.
The area was terrorized by a radical group. The group covered themselves completely when they did their acts so while one might suspect who was doing it, one really did not know. It could be a police officer, the grocer. the milk man. One never knew.
Gastron moved into the area and he looked like those who were terrorized, though he was different. That did not matter to those in charge. He purchased a home from a family forced to move out due to the loss of the father and he immediately built a eight foot high fence around the back yard.
He was instantly sited for having a high fence without a permit, which he knew he would never be able to get. He then did business with his neighbors without a business licence he knew he would never be able to get. He also did not stop when he was told to.
People heard little terrier sized dogs yapping n his back yard. the gates would be bumped lightly repeatedly. Several children asked to see his dogs and he told them no, that is not possible. He told them to stay out as they could get hurt. They were a little mean and known to bite.
Because those in power considered him uppity, they started harassing him. small groups would show up and do something in his yard. they tried to mug him twice and he beat them back.
Finally the powers decided to put a real scare into him. they showed up one night, all dressed up. the placed a flaming symbol in his yard. He came out to meet them. A couple guys had some clubs and said they are going to kill his little precious puppies. Gastron told them they should not do that. It was not a good idea.
They opened the gate which was not locked. The two men were on the ground, dead, in an instant.
Two dozen monestrous beasts that could barely fit through the gates, rushed out like a train and spread out. Being predator they turned on a dime. They barked out like little dogs as they plowed men over, swept them with powerful claws, bit their rifles in half.
When the last of the men were dead, Gastron whistled and the beasts filed back into the back yard, yapping like little puppies.
During the next day, the mess was cleaned up. A lot of the dead were identified by those around, most were shocked that these people would do such a thing.
By the end of the week, the fence was gone, and Gastron had left without leaving a forwarding address. Without the core intimidations dead, the radical group fell apart.

07 )
I remember reading a book about science and occult in the middle ages. The book told about women who became witches. they would go somewhere and when they returned, their teeth were white, and they had little regard for society norms, looking at them as backward.
After science was finally mastered, particle physics showed other energies permeating everything. It was quickly shown that thoughts could influence the energies. That developed into the science of magic where a lot of the things in myths could actually be done.
Magic and science combined to develop ways to transport people from the past to the future and back. it did not seem to work sending modern people to the past.
They linked onto people with the right kind of mind for magic, and would pull them into the future. there they were interrogated, and then trained to do magic. They were given complete physicals and taught how to fit into modern society. they would then be sent back to their people and become wizards and witches. they always returned to within an our of when they left. they would wander around a bit, getting their bearings and practice their powers before they returned to their old society.
Some were able to do just a little bit of magic while some were really powerful. Since modern magic was made using high tech devices, the people who were returned in time then spend a lot of their effort to recreate the equipment and technology to do the really powerful magic. Some were able to, some were not.
Of course, some ages had more people with really powerful magical abilities than others. The big thing the researchers were getting was historical data of the times the people were from, learning how they worked, thought, what they knew.

08 )
A while back, they replaced the light, and pull for the light in one of the bathrooms at work. I walked in and the pull nearly got caught in my glasses. This story idea came from that incident.
Hargrove was a mechanic on a space station and he got hold of a whole bunch of spare robot parts from a guy who purchased overstock from several companies.
He played around and came up with a design of robot. He chose to make them look like robots so he made them with metal shells rather than imitating skin or cloth. He decided they would be librarians and made glasses as part of the head shell.
He used a simple program that depended on the master computer for the higher functions. the robots worked well for the simple work they were doing for him.
Some new people arrived at the space station and took over. He had no say over it. They connected a computer they had to the main computer and took over. Seeing the robots were under their control, they put them to work for their use.
they had the robots acting as enforcers, rounding up people and marching them onto a space ship.
Because of the way the robots were built, they could be taken out and one by one, they were.
Finally, the remaining three robots were after Hargrove. Hargrove knew the nature of his robots. He new how to use their design against them. He simply tricked the robots one at a time.
With one, he let a robot see him and he ran to a set of wide stairs leading to a stage. Glancing up, he saw a cable running from the front to back of the room. He tossed a cord up over it and tied it so a little fitting dangled down. He went back, caught the eye of the robot chasing him and then rand back past the cord and down to the stage.
the robot showed up. Hargrove ran left, then right, then left, The robot stood with the cord up against its head as it followed Hargrove's movement. The string got inside the glasses. Hargrove then run out the back The robot stepped forward, the cord caught on the metal glasses. The robot took another step, which was down the first step. The cord went tight and the robot's weight was on the cord. the cord slipped down the cable a bit and the robot dangled there helplessly.
Hargrove caught the attention of another robot. he took a different route but he got to where two rails crossed a pond. the robots are not designed to handle getting soaked. He hopped up onto the rail and worked a bit over the pond, then turned around.
The robot showed up, saw him walking on the rail and drop to the pavement beyond the pond wall. The robot climbed onto the rails and started hobbling across. The feet did not move fast and they were designed for flat surfaces. The robot tipped ever so slightly and fell into the water. the design of the robot would not let it climb out of the shallow water. the computer was unable to deal with the situation so it shut down.
Hargrove, knowing the systems of the space station, got to unknown controls and started messing up the ones who took over. Little by little he made the situation too bad for them to remain. He even locked their ship in place so they would not be able to leave until he let them.
he gets to the main computer and steals their computer. he then sends little programs to shut down the work they did, gaining control over his robots. the ones that are able to be re-started, he starts using them against the bad guys.
He eventually regains the control over the space station and forces the prisoners to be released and the bad guys surrender.

09 )
.
I got a piece of this from a dream. Of course dreams do not follow logic so only bits and pieces, basically a concept image or scene, can be used for a story.
The doctors detected triplets early in the pregnancy. When they checked near the time of birth, one was gone. Two healthy twins were born. Medical examination showed no sign of the third child being absorbed by another, which has happened before. It was just gone.
The children grew up normal, healthy, strong. People did notice that there were moments of brilliance now and then, but otherwise they were normal.
One got into sports and physical activities. The other got into education, science, and eventually learned how to train others for sports.
They finally became adults and teamed up. The bigger one got into boxing and was very good. the other was the trainer, teaching him how to be a better fighter. The bigger seemed to always follow directions.
Nevel as the brother that was not born. He gave up his body to inhabit both brothers. He had the ability to swap between the two brothers, to be either one. He Learned what they knew, he could guide them as a spectator or he could take control and do it himself. Also when he got into one of the minds, he knew everything they knew and he could remember it.
An example is one brother had a problem with his eye. Nevel was in that brother to know exactly what the problem was. he then became the other brother and looked at that exact spot. He switch back and forth a couple times to make sure he had it right and solved the problem that a doctor would never have been able to solve.
During a ball game, he swapped between the brothers so he would know what was going on from outside the game and inside so he could make the brilliant plays needed, or understand why the brilliant plays were not working.
The brothers were people on their own and really did not fully know that their brother was in them. They simply would remember things that they were not sure they would otherwise know and have thoughts that were outside their normal pattern.

10 )
.
The joke says, "What kind of keys do children carry? COOKIES! I saw that joke and just had to make use of it.
The people were blessed by the gods, but the blessing did not stick for too long. The children, when born, had nearly godlike power, but no knowledge of how to even use it. As they aged, the magic powers faded until when they became adults there was no sign of magic at all. It was a real bother, but the people accepted it. At least the gods thought about them.
For generations, the children had no outlet for their magic. the adults knew little about magic even though they passed through the period, as they never came up with a way to make use of the magic.
Not having use of magic on their own the adults developed some simple technology. The land had a lot of mineral resources. They learned and mastered metal working, steel, iron, copper, bronze, brass. They had water power mills for some industrial work.
There were intruders in the lands and people developed good locks that was impossible to pick if you did not understand a lock, which none of the intruders knew.
A family had taken in children from many families for a while. Father talked about keys and the children saw the keys used in the locks. The mother cooked some delights. One type she told the children were cookies.
One really young child went to a lock and said cookies. He set the treat against the lock and the door opened. Other children were soon doing it.
Of course, the children loved to eat the treat so quickly they were unable to unlock the locks. The mother was begged for cookies. The father found that the children had gotten into all sorts of locks everywhere.
The children soon found they had a dilemma. did they use the treat to get into anywhere, or did they enjoy the treat. the cookie ended up being eaten, but they quickly learned to postpone their desires for a short time.
When the visiting families left, the children took with them their discovery. They showed it to other children.
A bit later, other bits of magic ability was learned in a similar manner. Learning how to make use of the magic allowed the powers to last a little longer. it would be generations, but they would develop into a people who could actually do some minor magic as adults because they learned to use their power as children.

11 )
.
His work involved building parts for some very large machines. He used large machines to build the parts. Each manufacturing machine had to be taken out of the barn to be used as they unfolded to give arms and conveyers room to work. He also made small parts, mostly for controls and servos so he had a small machine shop which he stuck onto an old boat. It was a comfortable place to work and he had no nearby lake or river to take the boat.
When it looked like rain, he would get onto the boat and work on small parts projects since he would not pull the big machines out into the rain. The amount of rainy days added up to where he completed all phases of the machines he built in good time.
One day a really bad storm approached He knew it had a lot of rain. He went out onto the boat and got to work even though he had enough time to finish a part he had started with a big machine.
The sky darkened and he continued to work. He heard the wind and rain outside and continued to work. He was on a roll.
It was not until the boat was rocking that he stopped to look outside. flowing Water covered the ground, too deep to wade and the wind was really strong. The trailer was the only thing keeping the boat from floating away. His wife waved from the second floor. It was then that he realized the whole first floor was flooded.
He raised the leg on the tong of the trailer. He was standing in deep water when he got the leg up and the tongue laid on the ground. It was a chore to get back into the boat which was still too high to float. He then started the boat's engines and used the propellers to move the trailer backwards on the trailer's wheels. He got it up to the second floor porch of the house and his wife got the kids on board and then piled in supplies.
Once they were ready and everybody was on board, he motored away from the house in full floatation. the trailer still hung beneath it and really bogged down the boat, but as they went, they had to negotiate some shallow areas and the trailer helped.
The roof of their barn was all that peeked out from the water as the home was completely submerged. They tied up to a tall tree as the water kept rising they had to change the branch they tethered to. While waiting, he sat and worked his craft. His wife and kids did not like the space it took up within the boat, but he could not put them away without damaging something.
It was a month before the water subsided and he had made it back to his yard. Everything in the barn was ruined. most of his possessions in the house was lost. He was still able to do some work because of the equipment on board the boat.
Because of the speed the water rose, his wife even admitted that his equipment on the boat was what saved their lives. If he had not been on board the boat, they likely would not have survived the flood.

12 )
.
A woman answered the phone. All she heard was heavy breathing and some rather obscene sounds. She hung up. A bit later, she got the same phone call. This happened all hours of the night.
The next day, she called the police about an obscene phone caller. The police came and waited until the calls started coming in so they could trace it. They recorded the times of the calls as evidence. as the cruisers went out to get the culprit.
Dexter was driving home from out of town. He got pulled over by a cop because his tail light was not working and he was a couple miles above the speed limit. He sat there for an hour as the cop ran the paper work. He was finally let go and he headed home.
He was home for only five minutes when the police knocked on his door. He willingly let them in and they talked. they asked him where he was during certain times of the day. He was out of town. His big dog came over and begged to be petted by everybody.
He was told that obscene phone calls were made from his house and he was going to have to be taken in. He showed the ticket as proof that he was not the one making the calls. He had no idea.
AS they were cuffing him, the dog gets up and goes over to the speaker phone and bumps the re-dial button with its nose. It ges excited as the dial numbers go out and then the woman answers. they watch as the dog sniffs and pants around the speaker. The woman hangs up. The dog looks disappointed.
Dexter is uncuffed and the speaker phone is taken away.

13 )
.
I heard on the radio where they were having a pet fair with water dogs, obedience shows and would have a Halloween pet costume contest.
Costumes had advanced greatly. Not only have the materials improved, they also add holograms to make the costumes more believable.
They were having a pet costume contest. The only rule was that the pet could not go exactly as they were. It was really popular.
Satchmo had a Vegan Bobcat. it was the size of a mid sized dog but was well known for taking down elephant sized creatures if riled. His was tame and would never harm him and followed his every order. It was more like a strange looking dog in his control.
He really wanted to enter the pet contest, so what he did was to buy a Vegan Bobcat holographic costume. It had some items on it that was not bobcat. He chose to put them on his pet since it would look more like the Vegan the people knew. He then put the hologram on and adjusted it so it fitted his pet and he gave it a slight tint to throw the pet's color off. That happened often when the hologram was pushed to the limit to cover the wearer. The holograms would extend a sphere of hiding around it to hide things that stuck out beyond the image. A Great Dane could be made to look like a Chihuahua but would have a really bad color to hide the rest of the beast.
Satchmo brought his pet to the show and kept it on a tight leash to make sure it did not get into trouble. There were dogs that looked like alligators and alligators that looked like dragons, and birds that looked like air planes and so on.
The contest went on and he paraded his pet. People were impressed at how realistic it looked. No one could figure out what his pet really was.
Because there were so many entered, they had several rounds, each round had the top five go to the next. Satchmo was always in the top five. In the final round, they asked for them to do some sort of trick. Satchmo had trained his bobcat to do some dog like tricks and it did well. Several others of the pets could do nothing at all.
Satchmo's bobcat won. He got a prize of some gift certificates and a trophy one would get out of a toy store. He was proud.
About the time he was to leave the stage, an animal in a big dog costume jerked the chain out of the owner's hand. The hologram blinked out and it was a Antares tiger. It swatted three people and six animals as it rushed up at the stage.
Satchmo dropped the leash. His bobcat lunged at the tiger. soon they were rolling around. the bobcat hologram blinked out and the costume pieces came off. The bobcat soon had the tiger pinned down, which was strange for such a little animal to do to a big animals.
Satchmo realized either the tiger needed to be killed or let go. He asked the tiger's owner if he wanted it back or killed. The owner said kill, along with half the people there.
Satchmo gave a command and the tiger's eyes closed. The bobcat had injected a poison into the tiger.
When the tiger went limp, Satchmo called his bobcat. He had to call it three times before it got up and pranced over to him to sit down at his feet.
None of the people hit by the tiger were seriously hurt, but the animals all died.
Soon, children were petting the bobcat and it was soaking up the attention. The bobcat was nothing like what the costume was and people loved it. It was why he was able to keep his winnings.
While his Vegan was deadly, it was not dangerous.

14 )
.
The factory mass produced a lot of material. It had little waste. What waste there was, was a really fine thread that was blown up the chimney and drifted on the prevailing winds into a waste lot. Because of the geography, the mess never landed anywhere else.
People wondered if there was a use for the material but could never think of anything. It just piled up.
One family was really poor. The family needed clothing and the father needed nets to fish with. They were all too expensive. The wife knew about knitting and wanted to make some clothing, but could not afford the yarn. Out of desperation, she went out to the waste fields and made a whole bunch of ball of the waste material. She did not know if it was dangerous our not, but she felt she had no choice.
She had to spin the fine threads into multi thread yarn, and then made clothing for her husband first, then for the children. The material she used was old but useable. She quickly find that the fresh thread was a bit rough. weathering made it softer.
Wearing the clothing for a bit, her husband went to the waste area and gathered fresh fiber and made himself a net. He was able to catch enough fish for the family and for sale. the money was helpful.
The wife made more clothing and gifted them, and then sold some too. A neighbor saw the clothing and the source and gathered a bunch of fiber and put it into her loom and made cloth. Her sister made clothing out of her cloth.
Soon, people of the community was gathering the fibers like mad. Some spent their time just gathering and winding the fibers for others to use.
Over time, they developed an industry in gathering the fiber. they found ways to age the fiber to make very fresh fibers soft. They were exporting the clothing on the same ships that took the factory's product.
the accumulated fiber pile had been reduced by three quarters when someone went to the factory to ask about how the fiber was created and was there a more efficient way to get more of it. The factory people were surprised at the request, but after a bit, came up with a way to produce more of the fiber without much of a difference in output of anything else. They even made a change in their system to ball it up and send it out to the people. The balls, about ten food in diameter, rolled down a ramp and out to the waste area. While it was hard to handle, no one complained.
As the waste field was stripped clean and they were dependant only on the fiber, the people then looked at the output of the factory and searched for other customers, made contact and made sales. The factory had to increase the production to keep up, which gave the people more fiber for their clothing.

15 )
.
The forests were devastated. A team started the process of replanting the forests. To get the most plants possible, they would take a tree and turn it into slivers-shavings, and then coax the genetics out of it and grow a tree from it. It was hard work to make the shavings and the needed a lot of trees to do this.
A man purchased some warehouses from someone who was going out of business. It turned out to be thousands on thousands of trees worth of lumber. The man immediately gathered wood workers together and they started building furniture. they chose to use hand tools whenever practical.
Many were learning on the job while others were masters. It almost became a school.
He learned about the team creating trees from shavings, so he trucked his sweepings to the team. At first they did not know what to do with it as it was just dumped on their door step, but when they saw what it was, they got excited. They went into high production on making trees.
Knowing that wood was scarce, even the small pieces of wood was made into something - tool handles, toys, jewelry, inlay. He got sales people going and was selling the products that was made.
The team found they could use pieces half the size they though was necessary for starting trees. They were getting materials from many different types of trees, some they did not recognize. The fine sawdust built up and then someone figured out that if they compressed it, they could use the compressed pieces to start their trees. Of course there was wood from many kinds of trees so they never knew what would come out of it. They chose to compost the sawdust and use that to help their trees grow once planted.
The first trees were near harvest sized when most of the warehouses were nearing becoming empty and the team found out what their source of tree starting material was coming from. They were shocked that there had been that much lumber.
The team gave some thought to the situation, and started harvesting some of the largest trees and selling them to the woodworking people to make things and give them their chips. It became a system that would go on for centuries, the tree people would feed the wood shop and the wood shop would give them the trimmings to make more trees. Eventually, the forests would cover the land and re-seed themselves naturally. but the system would continue to feed on themselves since the wood working used nearly as many trees as was planted.

16 )
.
They were cute. The little critters pranced around outside the reach of people. Someone dropped some nuggets of pet food. the little critters grabbed them and found they liked the flavor. Soon people were tossing food for the critters. Most would grab one and run off, others would come in. Since they all looked the same, the people thought it was the same dozen they always saw.
The critters started getting bolder, getting closer, first to grab nuggets that fell to close. then they got closer and closer. People thought it was cute.
Eventually, the critters were taking food from their fingers. they would reach out hesitantly, and grab them and run off quite a distance.
One day, one of the critters allowed one of the people to pick it up. they petted it and it seemed to really like the touch. One by one, they started coming to the people and allowing them to be picked up.
People started seeing more and more of them, the dozen they originally saw was now many dozen, all scurrying around. Officials finally said that it was not a good idea to feed the critters. The critters looked disappointed when there was no food. Most of the people left. One person was feeding the pets on the table. The critters came close and started climbing up begging to be petted. As he was petting them, more came up and was running around on the table. They were all over him, tickling him and playing to his attention. His pets had left when they first showed up.
The critters left. When he looked at the table, all the dishes were empty. he then picked up the bag and cannister of food and they were empty too. the critters were not visible at all. the critters stole him blind. they took a whole week's worth of pet food.
it would be a month before one of the critters showed up, looking cute. it grabbed a nugget that fell to the ground and ran off....

17 )
.
The planet was a dumping ground of chemicals by an early civilization. It had been at least a million years since then so the colonists decided it was safe for colonization. It had plants, it had sea life, some animal life. It was free for the taking.
The colonists arrived and found the planet to be covered with a thick mat of life they simply mowed the area first using heavy machinery and then home gardening tools and set their colony homes right on top the plant mat. They were not interested in farming, or mining or taking over. They were simply out to get their society operating and producing as fast as possible.
During the first decades, they kept mowing the ground and leaving it at that. It was still growing fast and the heavy traffic on the roads made it a thick hard almost pavement mat. From the time the tallest structures were set in place, they gained about an inch in elevation. The small houses gained three inches.
In three short generations, the colony had doubled in size, mowing down the plants like they did when they started. No one was interested in what kind of plants there were, they just needed the land and to get to work.
There were a couple serious fires at the space port and the plant paving resisted the fire well, losing about two inches in thickness, Heavy mowing leveled the surfaces for operation within a few days.
After about fifty years, they decided to put in some skyscrapers. penetration sensors said they needed piling to hold the buildings up due to the weight they had. they drove pilings according to what the engineer indicated for the building, then the company ran out of money. Within a year, strange new plants appeared alongside the piling. within a year, the number of plants had doubled and was pushing the plant mat to the side. Someone went and mowed around the piling and the plants became more active in growing. The area within the piling grid started rasing up gaining a dozen feet in just a few years.
Someone put in fence posts, driving them in several feet. In a couple years, their posts had pulled out. they drove th em in again and in a year, they were almost out of the ground.
The skyscraper mound erupted into a forest that mowing could not stop growing. It was about that time that scientists arrived to examine the planet. Cores went down to bedrock showed that the planet was highly contaminated with chemicals. The plant mat was alive a couple hundred feet down.
There was really only three kinds of plants, and they went through different variations depending on the condition. when the colonists mowed down the surface plants, they kept the plant life to a grass like mat. When they penetrated the surface, they caused openings for plants to get past the mat and get to the air.
The colonists found out that either they never get through the surface or they would loose control over the planet.

18 )
.
The walkers were designed to solve a series of problems. the basic design was the body hanging on an axle. Attached to the axle were five to nine legs, depending on the size of the walker.
The legs could walk, one on each side like a Tyrannosaurus Rex, Or a pair of them can walk after a fashion on each side, or the legs can wheel, spin like a wheel for running. Much of what they can do is based on the skills of the driver.
There were also several classes of walkers based on how fast they were in wheeling mode each size group. Like everybody else, people liked the fastest walkers so they could really cross the unpaved country fast. Faster the better and they commonly modified their walkers to gain that much more speed, the same way it was done with cars.
the upper legs could fold up tight against the body to be out of the way so not to catch on anything. they could "crouch" while high to reduce the energy to swing them when wheeling too. Few did though.
Masonite had a standard model walker of a light "truck" design. It could carry some load but not a lot. It was a utility model, well built and powerful enough. It was not fast. While many of his friends competed to transport stuff across the dry lake bed, where they got paid according to how fast they crossed it, he decided to transport across the roughest grounds since there was little competition. The money was not great, but he had all the work he wanted.
He quickly learned how to use the wheel of the legs to reach high on an obstacle and lift himself up. He learned how to work the claws on the legs to grab hold to pull himself up. He would drop down on all fours to cross soft or questionable footing. In one really soft area he figured out that if he wheeled while the feet walked in a crouched position, he could almost have three feet on the ground on each side to cross some really soft mud that others regularly got stuck in.
He made a lot of runs taking shortcuts through territories that no one else seamed to be able to go. One run always took two days to travel by everybody else, he made them in one. He even took some insulated hot foods and delivered them while still hot on one run.
One day, he received a mission to go along the edge of the clear to a place, pick something up and take it to another place along the clear. before returning across the rough areas. He was guaranteed a load on each run.
He was loaded to the max and entered the clear. He bent the legs a little to smooth out the ride and got the legs running. He would rotate the legs periodically to even out the wear on the soles of the feet. As it was running he started the legs in a slow wheel. It kept running and the rotation of the legs added to his speed a little. He then increased the speed of the wheel, but kept the legs running.
Part of operating the walkers is to train the computer to understand what needs to be done so it can do it automatically, basically teaching the body how to move.
He kept increasing the speed of the wheel until he had it spinning at full speed. The legs still ran, reaching out to take a step, then pushing off to the back. As he approached the rough ground to go to his destination, he could not believe his speed. he was faster than he had ever been before. he slowed down to a walk on the rough ground and negotiated his way to his destination. He was really early, having much of the daylight left.
his walker was unloaded and reloaded. with some communications, he got permission to go to his next destination. He headed out. Once he reached the clear, he started the machine running, then the legs wheeling while they ran.
It was still barely light when he arrived. For his class of machine, he was supposed to stay over night at the first place, and then stay overnight here. He had saved a day. they asked if he had a super machine and he said he made no modification.
Their mechanics went over his machine at night while he slept. They did general maintenance and replaced the shoes on the legs even though they really did not need it. His machine was in good condition. He would not normally have let them make that replacement but he made two runs in one day so he could well afford it this time. He got to keep the old shoes in case of an emergency.
In the morning, they reloaded the machine and he headed out. He had some clear to travel so he wheel ran that, then he entered the rough and would head home. He made use of the wheeling walk the entire trip, negotiating things faster. He came to a really bad area, a place that a machine generally get stuck. He was overloaded and would get stuck, especially at the entrance of the area where it was well chewed up by others.
He accelerated into a wheeling run. He set the claws to point down for grip. The combination of running and wheeling He was past the chewed up area. That area was a bit rough and the crouched legs adjusted for the bad conditions. Because of the wheeling, the legs were not having to lift to reach forward. At one point he was deep in and had the legs so the whole forearm was flat on the mud, but because of the wheeling, the legs stayed in contact with the surface until they were pulled up in back. He actually had three legs on each side in contact at this point.
He got out of the mud without getting stuck and then took a short cut through some really rough territory where legs were hanging on to the wall on each side. again, by wheeling, he had contact until a new leg grabbed hold.
He made the trip in far less time than normal. Of course his machine was a real mess. he reported how bad the mud section was and suggested that word get out to avoid it.
About a month later, they needed some shipments to be sent across the clear. Not having a load at the moment, Masonite placed his name in it. He said he could carry anything not rushed.
they found they did not have enough fast machines. they remembered his route in two days rather than three or four so he got a priority shipment. He tried to talk them out of it but he got it.
He was overloaded, as usual, and he headed out with the rest of them. As they reached the clear, they spread out. he went out on a sharp angle to get out of their way. when he reached the clear, he started running, then wheeling and was running and wheeling at full speed. he let the machine go full bore.
It was a long run. slow machines fell behind fast while some really fast machines had pulled away when they started. half way there, he took note of who was around him. The fastest machines were still in view. He somehow was keeping up with some faster machines.
They finally came to a section of rough on the other side before their destination. he told the machine to adjust for the conditions but it had the helm. It only slowed down a little, passing the leaders before it reached the roughest section. it slowed down and negotiated the rough area, leaving the leaders behind.
He pulled into the place first. It was several minutes later that the faster machines arrived, having difficulty on the rough grounds. He got a new load and headed back again.
It was dark when he got home, but he would be hours ahead of the others, some not returning until mid day.
Everybody wanted to know how he was able to go so fast. he would never tell. It was his trade secret. Because his machine He was not as fast as the fast machines, but he was really fast on the rough which was his specialty so he made up for his lack os super speed at the ends of his runs.

19 )
.
Super heroes appeared out of the population. Some developed their powers as young children. Others start to show their powers later in life. it is rare that the powers appear after one leaves teen age years. When the powers appear, the government takes the person to special schools to teach the person how to control and master their powers and teach them when and where to use them. Depending on their powers, some are put to use against the enemy, others are used to fight crime within the nation or serve the government in other ways.
Plucker was a normal person past college. He went through the first stages of officer's training and then dropped out as the military was not really what he was after. He did go through the physical and martial arts training before he dropped out. He tried to become a cop but washed out part way through the academy. '
Plucker got a job and spent his time to work. His life was normal. One day, he went to a costume party dressed as a clown. It seemed to be the thing to do. The party was going well, no one knew who he was.
A bunch of bad guys showed up and started creating problems. Plucker got in the way of the bad guys and they tried to rough him up. Acting like a clown, he made them look silly, humiliated, embarrassed them. He somehow brought out cream pies, balloon animals, exploding streamers and such.
The police showed up and grabbed the bad guys. Everybody had to remove their masks so the police would know who they were. Knowing that people with super hero powers would be sent to the schools, Plucker did not want to show who he was.
As about the last person, the officer ordered him to show who he was. He reached up, grabbed his hat and felt a sheet of something so he grabbed that. with a pull of both hands, he peeled the costume. the moment it reached his eyes, the whole costume collapsed into a bundle of cloth. He was gone. the police checked and found nothing, no identification at all in the clown suit.
Plucker found himself back at home in his underwear totally confused. He decided he was not going to dress as a clown ever again.
He goes to a street party dressed as a bottle of salad dressing. It was a cheap costume the store owner could never get rid of.
Some guys got a bit rowdy and again, Plucker was in the middle of it. He squirted liquid into their faces, he tossed them like they were a salad with giant forks.
The police arrived and ordered those around to show who they were. Plucker reached behind his back and pulled down the zipper. as the costume cleared his head, he was gone. the bottle costume slumped to the ground empty. Plucker was back in his home in his underwear.
The police now knew there was a super hero of some sort in action. they needed to identify this person.
Plucker was going around in costume to many parties, not too many had problems, but when trouble occurred, he reacted in character. As a doctor, he gave the bad guys shots. As a woman, his purse became a deadly weapon. As a fireman, a hose appeared and he sprayed them. Each time there was trouble, he dealt with it.
There was a few clues as to who he was, mainly people knew he went to the party, some even knew how he was dressed, but there was some doubt it was him as it was common to have someone in a similar outfit there at the same time.

20 )
.
The colony landed on a planet where the only land life was insects and some larger animals, some having wings, that fed on the insects. The insects match home bugs almost to a tee. The colonists planted their crops and the insects devastated them. In order to survive on this planet, the colonists declared all out war on bugs they used chemicals, physical attacks, animals and other insects to knock back the overall insect population.
They were smart and held the chemicals and biological weapons until last. It took time but they had rid the world of insects. Of course, many animals and plants died out with their demise.
The god that created insects saw his creations being destroyed, so she intervened. she chose the ant as the one insect to keep alive. She gave them some powers that would keep them alive. She had to protect them directly first, and made them spread out and go to sleep.
Decades later, the ants woke up. Each and every ant was a pregnant queen. They came out of the dirt and flew until they found a place to start their colony.
They gathered enough food and then started laying and hatching eggs. The new offspring started tending the new eggs and then went out to gather food Once the nests were established enough, the powers the gods put into them kicked in.
A group of ants climbed onto the right kind of plant and started tugging at the surface material. The material became pliable to their mandibles, like a clay. soon they had formed an aphid. It began turning the sap into a sweet substance.
Later they found the right plant and started rolling the leaf, gluing it in place with a liquid from the grubs. When the roll got to the right size, it became alive, becoming a caterpillar. they did this on several plants. The caterpillars ate the leaves and the ants gathered the droppings. Later the caterpillar became a chrysalis and then broke out into a butterfly. the butterfly laid eggs on similar nearby plants which later hatched. The ants found them and tended them, or ate them as needed.
Whatever insects the ants needed for survival, they created the ant nests went to swarm a lot faster than they used to, the nests smaller. The drones and queens mated and the queens spread out far and wide, burrow and wait for a few years to a decade before coming out again to spread again. .
Within several generations, the colonists found they were dealing with insects again, and the insects loved their crops, their foods, their homes. these insects were fairly immune to the old pesticides. they all turned out to have some form of plant genetics within them. Only ants that were found were real insects. There were no predatory insects or animals to unleash this time. Except for some limited insects that the colonists brought with them, they had nothing to deal with these bugs. the predators did not like the bugs much. Soon, the colonists were overwhelmed by the bugs with nothing to knock them down.

21 )
.
The studio was once the biggest in existence. It had fallen on hard times. While it had all the property, buildings, props and costumes it always had, it only had the staff to run two films maximum. Their best films were a step above a filmed stage play.
The studio could not get fresh scripts so they resorted to stealing scripts of the big budget films as they were being filmed, and pumping out a quick and dirty show into the theaters in hopes that the big studios get enough delays in the release that they could get their money back before the real film killed it.
The studio somehow gained ownership of a number of motley crews that came with their organization. There were two martial arts schools and the instructors hated each other. Their styles were exact opposite of each other. There was six puppetry troops who did shows on little stages at the edge of the property. There was an acting school that seldom got their students into any shows. A furniture shop, a construction company, an interior decorating school, a fairly large dance school, Several restaurants, just to name a few of what the studio ended up with.
Sophia heard about a big budget martial arts film coming up at the biggest studio in operation. She got a copy of the script and saw that it called for a battle between several thousand soldiers that took up half the film. The rest of the script was not spectacular and likely use special effects and ornate sets to make the film interesting.
While trying to figure out how to make use of the script within her budget, she went to the puppet shows put on by the different puppet troops. One had a thing with paper flying around, becoming different shapes. The kids loved it. At another a kitchen display became alive, dancing around. Her mind was racing.
She stopped by one of the martial arts schools and watched as the students did speed forms, doing an imaginary fight as fast as they could. she then stopped at a fashion studio to watch a model shoot and flashes went off quite often as the models posed.
Finally she watched a comedian making faces. she suddenly had an idea.
Her budget would not be able to afford a lot of people in any scene. She called the martial arts instructors together for a meeting, threatening to evict them if they did not come.
She explained what she had in mind for the script. she said they would be key people in it, both on and off camera. there was some heavy negotiations before they came to a deal. She signed checks for them as proof of her willingness for them to do the work.
The two instructors met regularly, working out their choreography for both shoots they would be in.
She got with the puppeteers and worked out what they were going to have to do for the film. Each team had their parts.
the furniture company made the furniture for the puppeteer, the construction company built the set in the studio.
When the time came, a week later, she had them do a dry walk through as to what they were to do. They were to fight as fast as they could without hurting each other. they would have to kick certain things in order during the fight.
The cameras rolled, and the two of them did their parts flawlessly. strobes went off through the fight. debris flew everywhere, the two of them backed away, then left in opposite directions, looking like both were equally hurt.
Then the second shoot, she had the comedian there to help in the choreographing the scene. The two fighters now were moving in slow motion. As a strobe was about to go off, the two put their arms around each other and grinned for the camera before returning to their action. another time one reached out and grabbed the nose, while the other ran a finger up the opponent's chin. they backed away.
they kicked a table. A stack of paper flew up into the air, and swirled, and stayed swirling, flying around, becoming a dragon snapping in the air before fluttering into a wild flutter of papers.
Another A stack of papers then flew into the air, then became a bird, then a sign saying "Eat At Joe’s." The table reared up like a horse and galloped out of the scene.
Each time the strobe went off, they were looking in the camera and hamming it up.
One hit the other. the victim "rippled" for a long time in reaction to the hit. Another point one was hit and he strutted around like a penguin.
The two then left the scene and the shot is over.
There was a different scene where a bunch of fighters get together. Sophia had dancers with the martial artists putting on a dancing show.
She made full use of catering for the crews, and work being done here and there.
The film was done but needed some tweaking. The sound was not done fully yet. She brought everybody who was involved in the film to watch it. The audience laughed all through it. The two masters loved the way she would show part of the super fast fight, then interspersed the same sequence of the fake fight as slow motion. She had permission to release the film.
Her team finished up the film and released it just as the other studio was in the middle of their big money scene.
The film went big, she had to add more screens as the film became popular. The big studio started talking about eating their costs and killing their film.
The big studio came out with their film and it did nothing. Sophia's film was in more screens and had lines going to them. Her film was more popular.
Sophia's team convinced her that they should do spoofs of the big films. there might be more money in it. the next films proved that to be true. Sophia's studio started to grow again, rebuilding a name because they could get great humor out of films that everybody else took seriously.

22 )
.
The Lauman were wealthy, had extreme resources and were bored. They were essentially above the law on many things. They decided to have some fun at the expense of the normal population.
Their people located some research on the effects of certain radiations. One type of radiation caused confusion, a distraction within the mind. The Lauman decided to make use of that.
They selected a long straight section of road with a light. They set up the projector up high and waited. They turned it on as a car was driving toward the light fast. The driver lost her concentration they turned the energy off a short time before the needed time to stop and the woman and rear-ended a car at the light. This was much fun.
After the police investigating the accident left, they did it again and regularly.
Maxwell was in a hurry. He was driving along and a little thing on his passenger seat bothered him. He moved it and it was still not in the right position. He moved it again. Angry, he pulled off the road into a drive way and tried to find a position that the object would not bother him. A car zipped by him down the road.
About the moment he got the object in the right position, he heard a crash. He looked down the road and a police car had rear-ended a car at the light. he looked down and wondered why his pencil's position mattered at all.
He drove to the wreck and helped the officer get the woman out of her car. He, for some reason mentioned about fighting with the pencil position. the officer said his badge seemed crooked. They then noticed a bucket truck slowly pulling out of a store parking lot down the road and a strange ray-gun looking thing still in the bucket, The woman said she was messing with her purse, trying to brush a reflection off.
The Police stop the bucket truck about two miles away. The Lauman were quickly connected to the truck. Because Maxwell stopped on the side of the road, the police officer had the accident instead. That was the what the law needed.
A month later, the Lauman were hit with legal charges for their connection to the bucket truck. It sticks, but they have to pay a big fee and do "community service" as their penalty. while it did not sound like much, there was an actual conviction and that would be used be used later as a handle to bring them down for some of their other activities.

23 )
.
I remember a twilight zone story where a guy gets caught out in radioactive rain on a planet with no night. He began changing physically and developing powers. He needed light to survive. he followed two guys into a mine he went after the candle as it was the only light and knocked it over, snuffing it.
They accidentally came from another universe. They were basically made of clay and fibers of some kind. their bones were dried. other parts of their body was of clays of different strengths down to wet clay, depending on how much it had to move.
They could pass as us if you were not paying attention. They came in several colors, brown clay, red clay yellow clay.
They arrived in our universe and planet on during a drought. they were worried about drying out in the sun, but explored the area. By the look of birds, insects, small animals, grasses, bushes and trees, they were not in their home universe.
They were a group of people from high society where appearance was everything. Their ship was caught in an energy vortex that pulled them into this universe where it crashed on the planet. The scientists nor the clay people know it, but it was a particle experiment by a group of our scientists that caused the energy vortex their ship somehow got caught into.
The ship's crew set up awnings and ramps so the passengers can look out and go out at will. The passengers would wet their faces, re-mold them to get the perfect look, then walk out in the sun and let it dry to skin consistency, then back inside for surface touch-ups.
They would go out on adventures to see the nature around them. they did not know how long they would be on this world so they were studying everything. Flies were a problem for them as the flies would land on them to gather tiny bits of water and effect the texture of their skin by the time they came back.
One day, an adventurous female was outside when the drought suddenly broke. She came running in, her clothing was covered in wet clay. When she finally made it inside, her face had melted, losing the nose and was dripping fibers. There was not enough spare clay on board to fix her face, let alone clay of the right color. The make-up specialists were not skilled in surgery to repair her face anyway, the fibers had to be lifted to the right places into the clay to have the face work right. Exposed, the fibers would slowly die. She was permanently deformed.
within a day, no one would have anything to do with her. She had nowhere to go. Her make-up specialist found a party mask and put that on her so she could go into "public" without making everybody sick.
One by one, people got caught out in the rains for various effects of melting. One man was way too far away when the rain hit. He got to within view of the ship before he collapsed and died. when they finally went out to him, all that was left was his clothing and a pile of bones and fibers. the bones were already damaged from the water.
The rain came often and the passengers and crew were stuck inside. The crew finally found what was wrong with the ship and was able to repair that. Their only problem now was to figure out how to get back to their universe.
They decided this planet was too dangerous to be on so they launched and entered space. The researchers did another experiment and the energy vortex was created in their universe in the same place. Their ship just happened to be in the right place in space to get caught and be drawn back to their universe. They made their way back home. None of them had perfect skin as the humidity from all the rains damaged their complexion.

24 )
.
The science station offered the military to set up a base on the planet when their funding was about to run out. They had selected several tracts of land that could be developed without messing up the research or the ecology. The military took up the two sites on each side of the science station.
Five years after the bases were established, a large monster landed in a triangle formed by the two military bases and the science center. The military attacked and the beast showed the military that they could do nothing to it and then it laid down to sleep.
It sat there for nearly a year, not moving. the military bases and the science center went back to their normal operations.
A soldier taking a break explores the area he likes to tromp through. She sees a creature that she had never seen before. She sends images and keeps a running report as the creature starts chasing her. She is unarmed and runs to try to escape the thing. Guards appear at the road and they order her to change direction. the creature follows her out into the open. the guards open fire. After several dozen rounds of direct hits, the creature falls down. More soldiers appear and the creature starts to get up. An armor piercing explosive shell into a wound kills it.
Quickly, more creatures of all kinds start showing up. Each one is hard to kill. The base commander decides instantly to start training the scientists. They are all taken on base and soldiers take over the science center. It is quickly determined that all the creatures are coming from the big beast. The military put up barriers all around the beast to at least slow the expansion into the rest of the planet.
It becomes a battle, sweeping the area of the creatures outside of the monster each day. Some soldiers died because some creatures have long range weapons.
the scientists are now trained for combat and enter the fray. Their job is to figure out what is being fought and figure out weaknesses.
Reinforcements come in along with the effective weaponry. The commander decides they need to take the battle to the source. They march in and attack. They first clear the surface and then find passages into the skin of the beast. They enter the passages, fighting their way, sometimes using explosives to take out chambers of critters. They always expect the beast to wake, but it does not even twitch.
It is nearly a year of battles, but they have found all the chambers, passages, holes, in the beast. They even destroy anything that looks anything like an egg.
The beast is finally cleared and the soldiers withdraw from the beast after they gather up the mess and carry it out. Tissue samples and even whole bodies are shipped off to the universities for study.
Things are calm for about two months, then the beast stirs. it take a week to fully wake up, then it leaps into the air and leaves the planet. The soldiers sweep the entire area to make sure nothing got into the ground or fell out of the beast.
All the leaders get together for a bit meeting a week after the beast had left. They reason out that the beast had come to the planet strictly so the soldiers could clear it of the parasites. The location it landed, the way it dealt with the soldiers, leaving after the last parasite and soldier had left, all indicated that it came for parasite eradication.

25 )
.
Two gods decide to compete for bragging rights. They are going to level a section of mountain range. One god is all about brawn and brute force. The other thinks there are better ways.
The second one takes all the smaller, weaker people and goes to the other side of the river. The power god marches his minions to the mountain and pound at the rock to break it up. They do make mighty hammers and a few bits of technology but it is all brute force.
The second one guided his people to come up with ways to work better, they built roads and then added stone guides so the wagons could be chained together. They found and worked metals in quantities and found other resources to increased productivity, including feeding themselves.
In the first few generations, the second god had little to show for his work. One bump of the mountain was gone on the other side.
Finally, the people of the second god really got to work. They had machines to do the work of dozens of men. They built roads up the mountains and then got to work.
Within a single generation, the second god's people caught up. The race was really on. The first god was changing plants in his area so everything could be used as food, and was changing his people to make them stronger, give them more endurance and making them work harder. Nearly all his people were giants now.
The second god had made no changes in anything, only giving guidance to his people. they were the ones who were solving problems. they found new metals and they helped come up with new tools.
The first god's people simply dumped the rocks into the sea and were now having to cross rough and broken ground to get to the sea. the second god's people built bridges and carefully laid rock, which was cut square, into the ocean. They were building a bridge to cross the ocean rather than simply piling rocks to fill the sea. Once they got the rocks above ocean level with protective barriers around the edge, they covered them with dirt, and planted to expand their harvest area.
Centuries pass. The first god had leveled the top of the mountains but was working hard to try to work their way through the thicker mountain bodies.
The people second god was eating away the mountain. they had to go beyond their area to make sure the adjoining mountain did not send rubble into their area. Only ten percent of the second god's people actually worked on the mountain. The rest were support, creating food, tools, processing materials, managing, a full independent economy. His people were devouring the mountain.
The first god finally comes over to see what is going on. he is shocked to see giant machines, bigger than all his workers combined, chopping into the rocks. There are machines bringing the rocks down to the sea. The land miles out into the ocean filled with crops of all kinds. There were factories and teams of specialists making things all over the land.
"you are cheating, your people are supposed to be doing the work."
"They are doing the work. who built the machines? My people did. Their labor is saving labor."
"I still think that is cheating."
"What did you expect me to be doing, digging with spoons?"
The first god admits he is defeated. they agree to continue with their project. The first god comes over and starts guiding the first god's people to do things a bit easier. the rubble in the ocean is flattened out in large highways and bad sections of roads are rerouted to make the trip easier. He also shows that rocks can be cleaved into sheets and blocks which makes for more efficient transportation. While the first god wants more to be done, that is all the second god does to help them.
The first god starts spending a lot of time on the second god's side of the river. it is so much nicer.
Several generations go by without either god contacting each other. The second god goes for a visit and finds that the first god is copying a lot of what he had seen. his people are becoming more industrious other than chopping up rocks. It is clumsily done, but it is being done. His people became more efficient, but nothing like the second god's people.
by the time the second god's mountain range was level on both sides, his people had developed electronics and energy tools. they turn to the first god's side of the mountain and does the same work in one generation that the first god's people did in the entire experiment.