Circ

Xenopunk Dysphoria: Tech, Slime & Bone

—— Earth-F67X: Earth’s Extraterrestrial Embassy

“Mr. Vetzinga!” rushed up behind the pair a frumpy brown-green polkadot Fruggalo with a thick old Islip accent, “Mr. Vetzinga, your ex-wife is on the horn.”

Their attention caught, she panted clouds of lavender smog and her monocular eyes twitched and adjusted to focus on both Oswaldo and Zourn. Then she lifted a grubby palm filled with reams of thin yellow triplication forms, “Oh, and here’s your paperwork, Mr. Vetzinga. It is from the Bureau, you know the one. They always have to come first, the bastards, always whining about planetary security, never concerned with our security if you know what I mean. Intake for the newbie to fill out.”

One lidless eye focuses its pupil on Zourn, and she says, “Got a universal translator? Do you understand what we’re saying? Can you read what’s on the paper or do you require assistive accessibility support technology? Do you drink water? Do you need to use the can? Here, have a Pączki. They’re delicious. You’re too thin, a girl without curves will never catch a man. Just look at me, all curves, and I’m already on my ninth husband!”

She doesn’t pause to catch her breath, but continues, “Speaking of husbands, your ex-wife is on the horn, Mr. Vetzinga, not the telephone, but the Horn of Africa. Says you have to come rescue her, part of your divorce agreement. She signed up for a time share and ended up in a Xanathan shipping container. What a ditz!”

Xenopunk Dysphoria: Tech, Slime & Bone

—— Earth-F67X: Customs Control Hygiea

Fifteen minutes stretched between the shuttle and Customs Control Hygiea, a secure intake facility built inside an asteroid in the inner belt approximately 3 AU from Earth, arc-dependent. Within the shuttle, Zourn rested beneath a mylar tarp on the uncomfortable and frigid shuttle floor: placed as a precaution in the event cosmic rays blasted the craft. It was dim inside, almost entirely unlit. Faint light winced through opposite pairs of narrow diagonal panes, neither of which faced Sol.

It was quiet, had been several monotonous hours.

Gradually, that changed.

Low, long notes built to a wordless melody, melancholy yet forceful. It woke Zourn. A tale expressed through the emotion inherent in deftly violent cymbal clashes, somber didgeridoo drones, and ethereal koto strikes. It was history, yet expressed without words. Earth’s story. Survival, fear, evolution, civilization, war, hate, love, hope. Throughout pervaded subtexts of exploration and awe. No longer was it dark. Instead, the walls stirred. Scene and sound complemented another, hue ornamented abstraction, and light caressed negative space; the affect natural and apt.

Silence, again; only in the briefest measure.

Something obfuscated the soft starlight that penetrated through the windows.

Chaos.

Around Zourn, the shuttle rolled. Beneath her, the floor opened. She tumbled through partial-g into a saline solution that immediately dissolved the tarp; a boon, as she was neither suffocated or impeded when she ascended sodden to the surface. Ultra-violent rays pierced the liquid, reflected on the chamber’s semi-translucent mirrored walls. It lasted but a minute, then vat drained into the floor, collapsed outward. Another series of antiseptic strobes attacked Zourn, although not to her detriment.

A door opened. An intercom blared.

“Follow the dashed black lines on the floor. Proceed to the translocation device. Step inside. You will be forwarded to Earth’s Extraterrestrial Embassy in North Capital City.”

Gaslands: a Palimpsest’s Tale

—— Earth-F67X: North Capital City: Flatiron

Han’s question snapped Dom to bitter reality, a candid picture of the group in which he was now an embed. Too late for second thoughts. The HKT attracted crazies, and Han was a prime example. Either that, or maybe he just didn’t have what it took to purge Earth of alien filth. That car ride. He winced. Hoped he wasn’t seen as he entered and exited her fancy vehicle, air conditioning be damned. Behind the wheel, she was smooth, perfect, calm. Mechanical, even. A little eerie. And the side roads she took him down, his leg right twitched non-stop and he kept his grip on his sidearm at rest on his thigh — just incase he was her target.

Reality past caught up with present, and he turned to her,

“Oh, so ya decided to follow, huh. How about we just watch this one for the moment, ya know, broad daylight, kids playing on the sidewalk. Not a good look to disturb that,” Dom answered.

Her eyes were dead, he realized. No emotion at all. Crazy white girl unloaded her machine gun in broad daylight, like an old time gangster movie. Dead ass.

“This is for us, Earth’s people. Community. Plus, we don’t wanna tour of Fishkill, ya know?” he joked, “So we watch, wait, and see where he goes. Keep the job clean, dirt free.”

Xenopunk Dysphoria: Tech, Slime & Bone

—— Earth-F67X: En-Route to Customs Control Hygiea

Even within a star system, space demonstrated its nigh-incomprehensible immensity.

Safety enforcement policies insisted on standard propulsion to facilitate intra-system transit. This was demanded of all commercial traffic. For alien vessels, the rule was held as even more sacrosanct.

It took hours for, as Earth alleged to Commander Efri, repair drones to intercept the the Lakretian spacecraft, itself a mere third of its way from where it dropped out of FTL to its proscribed destination. In that latter interval, the drones patched many of its atmospheric leaks with specialized aerogel and scanned its exterior. It was obvious what they were up to, and easily presumed that the machines maintained an encrypted data channel with Earth’s military command. It was also clear that the Lakretians’ lives were in the balance and, thus far, all they possessed as leverage was compliance — evidenced by the convergence of six heavily-armed destroyers that appeared alongside the alien spacecraft and escorted it along what remained of its journey.

A third further, a fully-autonomous shuttle docked with the alien vessel. Inside, the Lakretians found pallets of protein cubes and several drums of water, uv-sanitized and bountiful enough to last their reported numbers three humanoid sleep cycles.

It was made clear via radio communication that Zourn Vátne, their proposed diplomat, should board the shuttle.

Xenopunk Dysphoria: Tech, Slime & Bone

This is an Earth-F67X roleplay. For more information, refer to the Gaslands OOC ( link ). Xenopunk Dysphoria: Tech, Slime & Bone deals mainly with events happening on Earth proper, rather than Ximbic-8, Allure City, or any of the other remote settings in the F67X universe.

Xenopunk Dysphoria: Tech, Slime & Bone

Earth-F67X: Xenophobic Interplay

—— Earth-F67X: Alien Contact

Out past Neptune, a surveillance satellite detected an FTL manifestation and scanned a vessel that did not correspond to any pre-approved signature. Entangled with Earth’s defense control network, the long range satellite immediately triggered an alert in New Roswell and the Mainline Defensive Array. In response, an artificial intelligence integrated with a half-human half-cybernetic operative in an undisclosed black site dispatched a series of automation protocols. Moments later, Earth’s defense posture transitioned from passive monitoring to a CODE GESTALT active response. Generals were roused from their slumber, ops teams put on rapid standby, and massive weapon configurations pre-positioned throughout the Sol system targeted the potential threat.

At least ten-thousand people held their breath as the vessel was hailed along a bombardment of electromagnetic, psionic, thaumic, and telepathic communication channels—and more:

“UNREGISTERED ALIEN VESSEL, STATE YOUR PURPOSE.”

There was a pause.

It was always possible that communication, in that moment, was impossible.

Everyone breathed a sigh of partial relief when came the reply in radio short-band, “We request aid and supplies to help us resist tyranny on our home planet.”

Earth did not immediately answer. Agonizing seconds passed while heuristics were reduced to single-line outputs. Had the vessel so much as twitched, it would have been purged from the night sky. A team of xeno-technologists furiously scanned data as it poured in. Conclusions were drawn. The vessel was in a state of distress, with severe structural damage and multiple hull leaks of atmospheric gasses incongruous with Earth’s atmosphere and non-solid phase fuels. However, the spacecraft’s plasma shield was operational and active. An understandable caution, given its state of war-weary disrepair. Political leadership demanded more time to make a decision. Military command was compelled to send another transmission to the alien craft:

“Maintain position, await response.”

Analysts concluded the alien craft should maintain a safe distance from any significant gravitational field in the event its superstructure buckled and the whole thing crashed and burned. The military, of course, wanted to send out a team to dismantle the whole thing. Several hours passed as petabytes of data collated, analyzed, and memoized for the consumption of military and political leadership. Finally, a simulacrum of Apollo Amon, Earth’s president and final say in all matters important, appeared in New Roswell and demanded a SITREP.

He—or what appeared as him, for nobody had seen him in the flesh in a year, ordered that the vessel be relocated to Customs Control Hygiea, a minor asteroid-based facility. The smallest disclosed facility in the Sol system with teleportation technology synchronized to Earth. The vessel would take a path along a route that avoided Sol’s planetary bodies. While en-route, the alien vessel would declare its manifest of souls and supplies, identify its diplomatic contacts, power down its FTL, and turn off its plasma shields—and that it should be made abundantly clear that non-compliance would be lethal. From there, a shuttle would convey one of its diplomats from the alien craft to Customs Control where they would be screened and, if deemed safe, transported down to Earth.

In accordance, the third message was relayed to the alien vessel.

The Family Biz [Open To Apply]

Out went the lights, the glitz, the glam. Even the unnatural gritty red glow of an indeterminate building-blocked horizon faded, subdued by underworldly darkness. A chill ran through his fabric as he wrung himself dry, the piss pool beneath him extended over ancient alabaster pavers. The strange graffiti-stained city fell silent, tumult made of the soft urinal paternoster he futilely gargled.

God was neither there nor elsewhere.

Barely, he saw. Not with eyes, for none adorned him, a fallen soul, an infernal revenant; rather, by quasi-spiritual receptors sewn in the dyed wool banners and tabards of his person. As for light, evil eyes glinted malice in the dark, but he also possessed his own queer source: polonium threads that hissed away and vaporized the last particulates of piss that perfumed his person. On him blazed the crests of Óengus, Fidach, Ce, and Fib — tell-tale signs of his mortal betrayals.

“By Eóganan mac Óengusa’s florid taint and Saint Andrew’s merry horn o’ mead, ta’ch mad realm o’ despair afronts mae poo’ over-burdened senses!” he bellowed.

Words swallowed by night, he peered around horrified. Then he remembered the only grand scene he noted before his filthy bath. Foreboding faint footfalls gave him a wide berth as he rolled and tumbled theretoward, in his mind, the castle of this realm; or, of it, what he last saw before night settled sudden and sharp over the unfamiliar landscape: the Pleiades Casino & Resort.

Gaslands: a Palimpsest’s Tale

—— Ximbic-8: Tuscré, the Fae Fields

Portal light etches its way through Czes’ bestial extra-armor and into his eyes, blinding him during his superluminal transit. Though he cannot see, his journey is of no lessened intensity. Goosebumps distort his skin, his hackles rise, and his breath catches in his throat. Without warning, he is falling, spiraling, dying, yet so rife with life and expectation that, rather than dread, his soul swells with wonder. The stimuli calms — he is at peace. Cool grass traces the backs of his bare arms while alien branches sway a gentle frame around the violet-tinged night sky creeping above. Motes of amber and fuchsia drift above him, quite akin to disturbed dander or milkweed seeds. Through it, he can make out Earth; a small blue dot, the size of his thumbnail. Something is missing, he realizes: his defense, his armor, his exo-skeletal beastframe, worth billions of dollars back on his now-abandoned home world, rejected utterly by this place.

Yet it let him enter in.

Guess I’m not evil after all. Maybe ... maybe I just don’t need it anymore.

He sighs, and it is like the demon straddling his chest for the last four centuries is gone.

On the back of his hand, a glow, both in light and in warmth, distracts him.

“Constellation of a baby jaguar sound asleep beneath a shooting star, morphing into a Möbius strip and back,” he chuckles, then drops his hand down on the comfortable blanket of grass, “Sanguine, shimmering, blood. Apt. Sleep sounds good. A truly peaceful sleep, for the first time in forever.”

He nods off, alone but not lonely, bathed in the light of opalescent night.

… Ϟ

—— Earth-F67X: North Capital City: Flatiron

When Dom turned the corner of Fifth and 19th, at the foot of the old 115 building, the sky was beginning to dim, which meant very little in such a city of neon night. What struck him was the garish glint of the Empire State Building so distant, yet so bright. Nearer, though, were a slew of run-down diners, salons, and dive bars. Mixed residential, not his thing. A slum, hidden from the light of day by the almost incomprehensible bulk of the Canopy — a behemoth superstructure that made him think of that pre-unification movie, Independence Day. Neither conformed to his preference of a clean and orderly barracks.

Almost immediately, he saw the Azot.

His first reaction, to his chagrin, was smiling. The Azot was in the midst of a one-handed handstand whilst balancing a frisbee on its tail tip. A performing monkey in a dirt-stained little Ronald McDonald costume, green of fur rather than the typical black or brown found to Earth. Same as the color infiltrating clothing design these days, skobeloff. He planned to buy Vesca a scarf in that color.

Get a grip, Dom. You’re here because that alien trash is taking business away from the people and animals that belong on this planet.

He leaned against the brick facade of a building and observed. The crowd seemed pleased, a few creds thrown in the Azot’s pot. Odd, really. Physical money, still a thing? Then it hit him, all of these people were dirt poor. Their coins were probably ancient, found in la-z-boy cushions and between the pages of old books. Everyone here was.

The Yarniverse: Circ & Anshin

Of the eclectic coterie to disembark at La Cantina, only two elected for the safety of the spacecraft Tabris Ruzgar. No surprise there, as the parted ways drew from a logic rift between evolved and synthetic lifeforms; a wordless agreement to disagree, one group left behind on Eqiko-4’s spur-station and cantina roundwhich the galaxy unfamiliar morphed, the other secured in the presumed shelter of Eti’s transport. As for arcanely-animated Kukull, unburdened by motive, it sat rapt and rocky in celestial observation, quite forgotten in the hole it ate through the spaceport tarmac.

“Are you shh—errrrp, sure?” Eti slurred, not yet sober in the wake of his milk binge. He’d nearly fallen on his way to the helm, but the articulating aerogel interior squeezed comfortably around his brief frame, much like a big fluffy translucent white pillow.

“Quite sure,” intoned the Tabris Ruzgar’s artificial intelligence, optimistic and calm.

“How leaving Eqi—eqik—fraaaak. Cantina, but not in the right galaxy?” Eti pondered as he irresolutely struggled against the shuttle’s built-in safety systems. Perplexed, he raised a sharp black claw and supported the nub of his chin.

“Your thinking pose? Really? And we’re abandoning them, of course,” Tob Ydrian, aka ‘Boomslang’, grumbled, as he looked through the viewport at the spur-station, “Xo’pil and the others. Probably won’t miss Ulu’gol, bad luck, that unlucky sot. Kirri, either. Okay, most of the organics. Still, damn.”

“But what fate!” Eti exclaimed, his clenched paw vaulted forward in a dramatic pose, “Take us somewhere, Ruzgar. A galaxy far, far, faaaar away. Through a wooooormhole, maybe! The closest one!”

“Affirmative,” replied the Ruzgar. Then, as lithe as a cream and vermilion metal microraptor, it tucked its four wings and surged through the night sky, a faint prismatic coma emitted by its primary thruster.

“What, no! Belay that, Ruzgar!” Boomslang huffed, “We don’t know where a random wormhole might take us!”

Contrariwise, the Ruzgar implored, “Sorry, Captain Eti has given his order. Please sit back and relax for the duration of our flight! Entering spatial anomaly in 32 minutes and 67 seconds, approximately.”

Boomslang glanced across the cabin at Eti, but his travel companion was already slumped over and unconscious. He looked very much like a toy, a small soft stuffed animal, stitches and all, fashioned in the likeness of a red panda and anthropomorphized as a valiant gunslinger adorned in a red leather trenchcoat, bandoleers, and belts replete with flashy brass buckles and silk straps.

“Frick’n Cizrans, why’d they make us—and choose to make us ridiculous?” Boomslang muttered rhetorically to himself, crossed his arms, and settled in for the ride.

. . . . . . .
. . .

— 32 minutes and 66 seconds later:

Eti opened his eyes, fully sober and recharged. Boomslang snored across the cabin, self-propelled into an automated sleep to bypass the boredom of interstellar travel. Everything seemed normal.

Eti blinked.

Everything seemed abnormal. Once-smooth surfaces were overlain by a twine-like substance. Textures once unique all exhibited an odd sense of sameness. Boomslang was somehow even more adorable than before, like one of the cheap toys made for children of one of the Cizran’s biological slave species kept around—well, Eti wasn’t sure why.

“Ruzgar, status?” Eti inquired, momentarily disoriented.

“Well, I’m glad you asked!” the Ruzgar replied excitedly, “As requested, we’ve entered the nearest wormhole. I am attempting transit, but there’s been a probabilistic mishap. We are no longer in space nor time. What we see is neither real nor unreal, but it does appear to be yarn. A royal yarn wedding. A temporary pseudo-reality manifesting around us until we finish transit.”

“In that case I’m going to disembark and explore. Principles of Entanglement Cosmogony, once the probability field collapses, we’ll revert to our pre-pseudo environment states and relative locations.”

With that, Eti disembarked the spaceship.

The Family Biz [Open To Apply]

At the intersection of Sodomy and Skeet, a fountain dominated the muddy rutted foot traffic; ancient porcelain riddled with varicose cracks and pungent stains. It was plain, or would have been were it not gaudily-painted and gilded in a style describable with two appalling words: Frida Kahlo. Apt, given its placement above the city of Aeternus’ central sewage line. From the “art project” erupted a constant, but irregular, discharge of deep yellow urine, much of which aerosolized in the hot humid stale air while the rest splashed rudely back into the basin.

Most denizens rarely noticed it anymore, beyond its presence as an obstacle to circumnavigate. Or a convenient urinal. Unless their tongue became an unfortunate host to a particularly zesty particulate.

Yet, at this unusual moment, it was ringed by a small audience.

Yes, some were merely there to relief themselves. Others, however, were given to quite the show. Its jaundiced depths churned and splashed, the primordial ectoplasmic sediment of urea, kidney stones, and coins disturbed. Why would anyone wish in such a foul thing? Foul wishes bode foul deeds. Within, engaged in the utmost of existential warfare, thrashed something that appeared wrapped in several bands of heavy wool. No onlooker stirred, transfixed as they were. Until, bored, they sauntered off. Such is the way of things. It mattered not to them whatever drowned in the vile drink, harangued by scat cassowaries: the hell-born shit-sculpted and animated variation on the species one might find were they to traipse a mere block away, enter the elevator in Vileiro’s — known by tourists as The Pleiades Casino & Resort —, and ascend to the upper mezzanine.

Whatever was was hot as, above it, the fountain’s fluid boiled and popped.

After an unforgivable amount of time in which no assistance was lent, a wet drape flung itself over the brim of the fountain, and the mass heaved itself up, over, and out. In a viscous ripe pool that spread and grasped at the heels of those roundabout, it rung itself out and bellowed,

“Horruh! Absolute horruh! Ma vestments befouled! It wis a dire situation, like nae other! Against ma will, befouled by pure foulness. Ye heard it richt, piss from the nape of Satan himself!”

“Twas a fine evenin’ in the Scottish highlands, yet but a moment ago. There I was, standin’ on the edge of’ a bonnie ole loch, takin’ in the serene beauty o’ the land. Out o’ nowhere, this fierce urge tae relieve meself consumed me in a raw instant! I scoured the area, desperate for a wee place tae answer nature’s caw.”

“Finally, a wee bush, shrouded in secrecy, appeared tae be the ideal spot. Ah, relief! I unbuckled me kilt, whipped it up, and began the blessed act o’ releasing’ Grendel’s mighty arm. But ye ken, sometimes nature has a cruel sense o’ humor, ye see.”

“Wi' a gust o' wind, which I swear felt like the roar o' a Clydesdale, me urine took on a life o' its ain. It twisted and turned, as if tae mock me feeble attempt at aimin' correctly. The golden stream strayed fae its intended path, arched through the air, and bathed me in its warmth.”

“That’s when I felt the knife in me spine, cretins, and fell o’er dead!”