Add Me.

By Monica Marier

Hannah looked at the screen and moaned.
The jolly icon of “Harry Plotter” had popped up in a Halloween-themed window on her computer.

“You’re doing great! For your last task, there’s safety in numbers! Add three neighbors!”

“Add three neighbors? What the HELL!” she screamed.

Hannah immediately closed the “Wizard University” game application and went to vent her frustration on her home feed. Fortunately her game-buddy, Louisa was on.

“We need 3 neighbor-adds to complete the Halloween task? WTF? XO” she typed into the chat bar.

“I know right? *eye roll*” answered Louisa.

“Well what the crap do I do now??” Hannah asked.

“Go to the ap community and add the people on the page. They got to finish the task too.”

“What the ‘add me and I’ll add you back?’ guys?”

“Yah.”

“But they’re all GOOOOOBERS!!!! >_<” whined Hannah.

“You can unfriend ‘em later if they creep you out.”

Hannah typed ellipses into the chat bar and hit enter.

“Or you could just not give a crap. It’s only a game after all,” said Louisa.

“Oh fine. I was hoping you’d side with me on this. Y’ know. Tell me to storm the castle, etc.”

“Have fun storming the castle! :D” responded Lousia.

Hannah closed the chat log and with a heavy sigh opened the community page for “Wizard University.” Louisa hadn’t been wrong. A LOT of people were trying to finish this “add 3 neighbors” task, especially since the mission expired in 18 hours never to be seen again. Hannah perused the wall, her skin crawling like she was investigating a cockroach nest. The comments on the wall were pitiful at best.

PLZ HALP! NEED 3 NABORS FOR HALOWEEN TASK!!!!!!!!!!

Add me! PLZ!!!

NEED 3 PEALPE KTHNXBY!!!!

<3 <3 <3 <3 Pleez ad me and Il ad u to!!! <3 <3 <3

Hannah’s face twisted up in disgust. Who the crap were these people? How come none of them knew how to spell or type? How come they all felt that by using emoticons, bad grammar, capslock and a million exclamation points they would make a good impression on anyone? Who in hell would look at this feed and say, “Oh yes! This person looks like a kindred spirit! This is someone I want to give access to every thought, link, and photograph I’ve ever posted online,”?

“It’s just a bunch of freaking goobers,” she sniffed. But an hour later, the uncompleted task began to needle at her. The prize for completing the task was a magical wardrobe that fit inside her wizard’s dorm room. It would grant her +8 to all offensive spells and her little wizard (whom she named “Nigel Tautbottom”)could jump into it and retrieve an exclusive wardrobe item! This was a once in a lifetime offer and she didn’t even need to plop down any real money for it!

She knew deep down it was all bullshit. Everything she was placing so much value on was nothing more than a collection of pixels and coding. If she didn’t complete the task the world wouldn’t end, and she’d probably go through this same nonsense during Thanksgiving and Christmas too. She’d clog her news feed with boxes begging people for intangible items in the game. It was all just a big waste of time and productivity.

So why couldn’t she let it go?

She thought hard about how to get around her dilemma. “If I make Pete play, and Louisa can get her husband to do the same, that’s two… I just need to friend one goober and my problems are over… still.”

She booted up her laptop and read the Wizard University wall again.

“Okay,” Hannah said to herself. “The first post I see that uses real words will be my game-whore of choice.”

It took a while to find one. Hannah grimaced at what was obviously the collapse of the English language in progress and wondered if these losers knew how dumb they sounded. But, there, the twenthieth or twenty-first post from the top was a photo of a golden lab and the name ‘Darryl Beamer’. His post simply said, “I’m looking for people who aren’t weird to friend me for this arbitrary Halloween quest.”

Hannah managed a small smile and hesitatingly hovered the mouse over the “add +” button. Gulping she clicked it and exhaled. She then hacked into her husband’s account to set him up on the game. She just had to make sure that she uninstalled the application before Pete got home.
She changed back to her account to check on her wizard’s progress again. A window popped up on the chat bar from her new friend Darryl.

“Hi!”

Hannah’s stomach flipped a little and she debated clicking her online status to “hidden,” but she remembered how well-written Darryl was and decided to give him a chance.

“Hi back atcha! :) ” she said politely.

“At you,” said Darryl.

“Come again?” typed Hannah, wondering what he meant.

“You wrote ‘atcha.’ Atcha is not a word. If you meant ‘at you,’ you should have written it properly.”

Hannah blinked. She knew some grammar-Nazis in her day but this guy took the cake.

“Your disregard for the English language saddens me. I see by your profile that you reside near me in the city of Ashburn. I will be over shortly to kill you. Please wear something appropriate.”

Hannah stared at the screen feeling numb. Was this guy serious? Was he just one of those socially impaired people who confused sarcasm with humor? What was going on?

“What?” she typed.

The chat bar’s text turned to grey as it informed her “Darryl Beamer is no longer online. You may leave him a private message.”
Hannah closed her laptop and unplugged it out of panic
Her eyes darted to the door. Her husband would be home soon. Would Darryl beat him there? Was he really coming after all or was he just pulling her leg? She locked and dead-bolted the door and ran around the house closing the windows. When she returned to the living room there was a heavy knock on the door that made the wood buckle. Was it Pete? Was he having trouble with the deabolt lock?

“Whozat?” she asked in a trembling voice, causing her words to jumble.

“I think you mean ‘who is that?’ Hannah. Clearly you talk as poorly as you type,” said Darryl.

Hannah fell to the floor, sobbing as the lock broke.

Free Tuxedo

By Monica Marier

This is based off a comic I started in 1999. It was called "Tomorrow the World" and was basically chronicling the personal lives of employees working for a Bond-ian villain with aspirations of global domination. I put the comic on the back-burner for now, but I plan to pick it up again later. (MUCH later.)

Stone Fox, AKA Jonny Fawkes, secret agent, pulled the diving mask off and climbed out of the shark tank. Floating in the tank were the mutilated remains of the two henchmen who had tried to jump him, and the sated sharks were docilely sleeping off their heavy dinner.

Fox kicked aside the fins and oxygen tank as he unzipped his diving suit to reveal his flawless tuxedo. Shaking the water droplets out of his luxurious hair, he looked around the secret underwater lair. On a platform was a large computer console — a jungle of screens, dials, and keyboards. And at the centerpiece, the computer mainframe… was a beat up DELL with a cracked screen. The screensaver was cycling through pictures of Christina Hendricks in provocative poses.

Stone Fox rolled his eyes as he logged in (using the password he’d gotten in his fortune cookie) and accessed Agent W’s desktop. He dragged the folder from the Dell to W’s drop box and watched the progress bar count down.

28% completed.

“I was wondering when you would arrive, Stone Fox,” came a sonorous voice from the far corner of the lair.

Drawing his Walther PPK from his tailcoat, Fox spun around to face... THE SCHMITZ.

The Schmitz stepped into the light, flanked by his two right-hand men, Erik Sigurd and Osamu Hidekei.  Schmitz was trimly dressed in a caramel-colored jacket with a mandarin collar, his face still carefully in shadow. He wasn’t stroking a white Persian cat, but that was simply due to allergies.

“You’re finished Schmitz,” said Fox, eying the beat-up laptop —  41% completed. “We’ve got all the evidence and schematics we need to shut you down!”

56% Completed.

“However did you get past the whirling knives?” asked Schmitz, impressed.

“You should have gone with Ginsu, Schmitz. I found the knives to be rather… dull,” Fox quipped.

62% Completed.

“And the laser net?” asked Schmitz.

“I discovered the pattern immediately,” bragged Fox. “Nothing like a little hopscotch game.”

76% completed.

Schmitz nodded . “And poor Gregory. He couldn’t stop you?”

“Gregory? I found him rather ‘armless,” quipped Fox.

84% completed.

Shmitz and Fox stood in mutual silence.

92% completed.

“Sigurd? Hidekei?” said Schmitz. His two male-model cronies stepped forward.

“Sir?” they said in unison.

99% completed.

“Shoot,” said Schmitz.

Both men raised their glocks and fired. Sigurd hit Fox in the head. Hidekei shot the Dell.

The last thing Fox said as the world went red was, “That’s… cheating….”

***

“DUDE! I found another one!” shouted August. He yanked open the gym locker as far as he could. His quarter jangled in the key-slot. Keeping the spring-loaded door ajar with his shoulder, August reached in and pulled out a soft bundle wrapped in shrink wrap.

“Another tuxedo?” asked Rosario (called Zari).

“Yeah! This is like the third one, Zari!” shouted August, trying to peel off the sticky tape seal.

“Where do they all come from?” asked Zari peering in the locker with suspicion. It was like every other locker in the Employee Fitness Center. It was just a coin-operated metal locker with razor-sharp corners. No secret panels, no gateways to Narnia, just petrified gum and an old Band-Aid.

“Maybe some guy keeps leaving his dry cleaning in here,” suggested Zari.

“Then why is the key back in the lock?” asked August. He was now trying to bite through the cellophane.

“Maybe he didn’t want it anymore,” said Zari.

“Hope not, cause this is mine,” said August finally freeing the clothing from the bag and shaking it out “Ooh! Armani! Ver’ nice!” It smelled freshly laundered and the rich fabric shimmered under the florescent lighting.  He examined the tag on the trousers.

“Aw MAN! 32 waistband,” he moaned.

“I wonder who it belonged to,” mused Zari.

“Whoever he was, he didn’t eat Lil’ Debbie’s Oatmeal Cream Pies for breakfast every day,” sighed August.

“Like you?”

“Well crap, I’m never going to find a 36.” sighed August. “You want it?”

“I’m a 34,” said Zari. “You can at least keep the jacket.”

“What the hell am I gonna do with a jacket and no pants?” said August in annoyance.

“You could wear a kilt with it.”

“A  KILT?”

“Yeah, like Sean Connery.”

August snorted. “My family’s Dutch/German. We don’t do kilts. Well I already paid my quarter for this locker, so let’s cram our stuff in and hit the pool.”

August shoved his spare clothes into tight space and tried to cram his shoes in the upper shelf with no luck. “There’s something up there.”

Zari stood on a bench to peer in. “Oh, I see what’s doing that,” he said reaching in. “This was in the way.”

August glanced up as Zari pulled out something off-white and round. Zari proffered it to August to examine.

It was a human skull.

“Oh. That explains it,” said August nodding. “Is it clear now?” he asked, indicating the upper shelf.

“No, there’s a bunch of other bones. Femurs and junk.”

August sighed in frustration. “Forget it. I’m not cleaning all that crap out.” He tossed his shoes in and slammed the locker door shut before they tumbled out. Wrenching out the key, he shoved the elastic band over his bulky wrist.

“Come on,” said Zari. “We’re wasting valuable pool time.”

“That reminds me. Did you finish collating those mailing fliers for Monday?” asked August.

“I’ll do it Monday morning,” grumbled Zari.

“You better. Riggs will have my ass if they don’t go out before the new insurance packages take effect.”

“Aw come ON! Like SchmitzCo really hinges on the insurance benefits briefings.”

“I dunno. This company has a LOT of employees. We’re going global next week.”

“Big deal,” said Zari. “Do you even know what the hell this company does?”

August pondered this for a moment. “Bonds?” he looked at Zari questioningly.

Zari only shrugged. “Don’t look at me. I dunno either.”

August shrugged. “In the grand scheme of things, it probably has nothing to do with two cubicle monkeys like us.”

“Yeah. Remind me to steal  some more pens when we get back on Monday.”

“Will do — Hey, Erik! Hey, Ossy!” August waved to Hidekei and Sigurd as they came in from the lobby, gym bags on their shoulders.

“Hey,” said Erik with a slight smile.

“Sup!” said Ossy, grinning.

August and Zari walked across the slick tiles to the pool.

“I like them. They’re so nice,” said August in admiration.
He tossed the skull in the wastebasket.

Frique and Fragg

Frique and Fragg were 2 mad scientist characaters that popped up in the comic I drew for my University Newspaper. They were living on campus experimenting on psyche students, despite the fact that F&F had been expelled already siting misuse of facilities. I LOVED their dynamic together and ever since SOME incarnation of F&F has cropped up in every world I've created.

Confessions of an Ethically Challenged Scientist

By Monica Marier

My name is Elliot Fragg and my life sucks.

I’m not stating that looking for any sympathy or anything. I’m pretty resigned to the fact, but if you’re going to read this you need to understand from the get-go that my life has always sucked, and in all probability will continue to suck until I am dead. And it will suck because I’m the close personal friend of Lucas Frique.

So now that we got that out of the way, I’ll relate how this obnoxious little man became my friend. The whole of it is true apart from the stuff I made up ‘cause I can’t remember.

I’d been working with Frique since we were science lab partners in middle school, back in ’93. He was a pudgy short kid with glasses and unruly red hair that was always too long. He had a perpetual frown on his face which I found out was solely due to temperament.

Frique hated everything on principle.

He hated the teachers who didn’t ‘understand him.’ He hated the big jocks who dunked him headfirst in the toilet every day and took his money. He hated the kids who took pity on him and tried to be his friend (not that there were many). He chased them all off pretty quickly with his sharp tongue and halitosis.

Why he picked me for a confidant was beyond me. It wasn’t for my charisma or popularity. When you’re a legally-blind half-Asian albino in a crowd of ninety-four preteen peers, you’re pretty much screwed. I was a prominent nail just waiting for another hammer to come along. In fact my very apparent “Dork Readings” might have been what drew Frique to me in the first place. It also might have been the few times he saw me drawing fractals in my notebook or translating jokes into binary.

It was around second semester that he first addressed me. We’d made do with limited comments related to whatever project our class was working on, but he’d never said more to me than “pass the spectroscope,” or “your elbow’s in my petrie dish.” We’d just finished our geology lab a half-hour earlier than everyone else, when he slid over a piece of graph paper. It was a diagram for a circuit drawn in 4-color ballpoint pen.

“Do you think we should use FR-4 or CM-1 for a dielectric?” he asked me.

Just like that.

It was as if we were already in the middle of a conversation and things like introductions and general polite inquiry were out of the way. That’s how Frique was. He never beat about the bush or worried about making a good impression.

I don’t even think he knew my name at that time, unless he’d caught a glimpse of “Elliot Fragg” at the top of my worksheets and didn’t think it worth asking. He didn’t start calling me “Fragg” until years later. I was just “you” like there was no one else in his little world.

That frightened me.

We were a pretty insular pair all those years in school together and later on when we went to college for Chemistry. We made Hubris University’s investments in eye-wash stations well worth it.

And then there were the events preceding our expulsion.

That was the problem with Frique. He was a wheedler —a silver-tongued devil. He made everything sound so innocent right until you heard the police sirens. He never had to talk me into anything, because he knew that wasn’t how my mind worked. I attacked any given problem with the sheer desire of solving it, without stopping to think about repercussions. Usually, in a theoretical sense, there would have been no repercussions … if I’d been working with anyone but Lucas Frique.

For example, when I developed a compound that would reduce rotting road kill into eco-friendly compost more quickly, I never expected Frique to use it on the body of our Professor of Biochemistry he’d killed and buried behind our dorm. When I invented a breathable gas that was more effective than laughing gas to immobilize and numb dental patients, I didn’t expect Frique to use it on several members of the student body. A few of them ended up behind the dorm too. Frique would simply ruminate aloud on a subject like, “I wonder if it’s possible to create a machine to project a person’s thoughts,” and I would be on the first draft a few seconds later. Frique would provide the parts (which he probably stole) and correct my math while I feverishly designed and perfected. Then I would find out that Frique wanted to use my mind-reading device to dig up dark secrets about a teacher’s aide for the purpose of blackmail.

The manufactured viruses, the sonic wave devices, the electrically charged suits (I admit that making electro-shock suits was a real “duh” moment for me afterwards) and many more insidious devices were designed and perfected by me for Frique’s purposes. His test subjects were the students and staff at that unfortunate school. I never pleaded with him to stop. It would have been like trying to halt a landslide by waving a stop sign. And I was too scared — no —I was terrified beyond all reason.

I still am.

Every time he approaches me with that boyish face and impish expression of interest I break out in a cold sweat. I’m his to command — and as many times as I’ve tried to break away, I’ve never been able to manage it. He’d always draw me back with promises, with threats, and on one occasion, a gun. He’d never be able to let me go, because without me around there would be only him, talking to himself and letting his mind spiral into tessellating madness.

The man killed in cold blood, tortured his fellow humans and plotted the deaths of thousands in his dark dreams, and he was never frightened of that blackness in his soul … because I was his anchor to humanity. With me around, he’d never be alone. Being alone is the only thing Frique is terrified of. I'd kill myself if I wasn't terrified of Frique digging me up and keeping me alive with electric impulses — "The Fragg That Wouldn't Die."

Right now I’m working on a giant robot with nine kinds of weapons and a strain of flesh-eating bacteria. We’re going to hold the Smithsonian Institute for ransom until the Natural History museum updates its dinosaur exhibit.

It’s Frique’s attempt at being funny.

My life sucks.

Saturday in Golders Green

Lingonberry the cat looked down on the body from the bookcase. He arched his back and hissed at it, his ginger stripes sticking up like a boot brush.

“Shut up! Stupid cat!” hissed Beverly.
“Nyarrrrow!!” wailed Lingonberry before launching himself off the top shelf onto the sofa. Normally Beverly would have shooed him away– she didn’t like hair on her sofa– but seeing as it was covered in blood it seemed rather pointless now.

Beverly caught sight of herself in the mirror, standing over the body of the late Gregory Finster: shady solicitor. She self-consciously ran a hand through her spiky grey hair. She had always said she’d never be one of those old women– those bulldoggy women with severe frowns and even more severe haircuts. Yet, here she was. She even had the jumper with floral embroidery, which she wore under a man’s corduroy coat, complete with string bag. She had never realized it before until now– until she was staring at her reflection holding the bloodied fire-iron. The transition from forty-and-fabulous to cake-hatted-old-lady had been so gradual since Paul had died that she’d never noticed.

She felt like she was having an out of body experience as she tried to find the young woman hiding under all the folds and wrinkles on her face. She knew there were more pressing matters to deal with right now, like getting rid of Gregory’s body, but she wanted to look in the mirror a little longer. There was a knock at the door and she dropped the fire tongs.

“Shit!” she cried suddenly, looking at the body and the blood everywhere. She wrung her hands as she danced in her panic. If only she’d had more sense than to give Greg a key to her house. If only Greg hadn’t sneaked in and started taking photographs, photographs of things he should have left well enough alone about.

KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK

Her mind suddenly focused like a laser. Looking around she saw the utility closet. With tremendous effort, she rolled Gregory up in the living room rug and pulled it to the closet.

KNOCK-KNOCK!
“MUM? Are you in?”
“I’m on the toilet, David!” Beverly cried giving the closet one last shove. “Let yourself in!”
“It’s locked, mum!”
“Is it?” asked Beverly, who knew for a fact that the door was locked. “I’ll be out soon! Just hold on a mo’!”

Beverly’s eyes swung to the large red patch on the couch and she stifled a scream of frustration. She couldn’t hide the couch. Why in the hell did she get a white settee? She must have been mad! Turning around in circles, her vision lit on blanket she was knitting for her daughter. She threw the blanket over the vivid red stain, satisfied that the blanket covered it nicely. She winced. It still smelled horrible in here. It was probably due to Gregory. She needed something to cover it.

“Mum! Are you alright?”
“Must have been the curry I had!” she cried as she dashed to the kitchen and grabbed a few items. She plunked down a plastic bucket and sponge mop, sprayed disinfectant in the air, and saturated the couch with upholstery cleaner. She only just had the presence of mind to wash the blood off her hands.

“Come in!” she called.
“MUM! We’ve been through this! The door’s locked!”
“Oh! Silly me!” cried Beverly, running to the door.
She flung it open and flashed a giddy smile.
“Gran!”
“Gran!”

Beverly knelt down and scooped up her granddaughters, Kristen and Lizzie.
“How are my girls!” cried Beverly cheerfully.
“Krissie showed me the pirate movie and Mum yelled at her!” said Lizzie with a gap-toothed grin. “But I wasn’t scared!”
Kristen rolled her eyes. “You were so scared. You were hiding from skeletons all last night.”

“Did you forget we were coming, Mum?” asked David with a grin.
“No! I was looking forward to it! You know old people, Dave. When you got to go, you got to go.” Beverly didn’t meet his eyes as she led them hastily past the sitting room.

“The couch is still damp, dears. Let’s have a picnic on the terrace.”

“Hang about,” said David stopping in the living room and looking around.

Beverly was sure her heart had stopped as David’s sharp eyes took in the dry mop and bucket, the missing carpet and the knitted blanket on the sofa… with the needles still in it. Damn.

“Oh, I see what’s going on,” said David, with a crooked grin. “Mum, how could you?”
“Oh David,” began Beverly, fighting tears.
“You just had to finish tidying up before we came in!” cried her son, shaking his head.

Beverly nearly fainted, she felt so light-headed. “That’s right. I couldn’t resist one last bit of cleaning. The house was such a tip.

David shook his head. “You’re too much, Mum. You need to relax.”
“I am as God made me. Now who wants sandwiches?”
“Excellent! I’m starving!” cried Kristen running out onto the terrace. He father followed her. Soon only Lizzie was left.
“Gran?”
“Yes, Lizzie?”
“I’m a pirate! Arr!!” cried Lizzie.

Beverly paused a moment.
“Would Lizzie the Pirate like to dig for buried treasure in the garden?”
“YES!” cried Lizzie jumping up and down.
“Good! I’ll go get a spade,” said Beverly walking out the back door and towards the shed.

“I love going to Gran’s house,” declared Lizzie, joining her sister on the terrace.
“Why’s that Liz?”
“’Cause Gran always lets me dig in the garden.”