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This haiku was made for TechPark who posted a stunning review of The Space Turtle. And how!

Tak tak tak, the keyboard clicks in the office as Kamster crunches the numbers. As the numbers crunch, a few tiny numerical crumbs fall off the screen and fall into the keyboard next to the bits of cookie and sub sandwich bread underneath the keys. His boss and hands him a sheet of paper. Kamster glances at it. This project he is working on if due in an hour for a meeting and he will have to worry about the paper later, so he puts it on top of the inbox mattress, tucking it in under the edges.

At the meeting, Kamster loads up the data in a power point presentation. Two wizards crash into the room and start battling for control of the power point for several minutes before Kamster gets their attention that this isn't the kind of power point they are looking for. The meeting gets back underway, late, and it would have started on time. Halfway through the presentation a manager arrives late and causes an uproar when he sat on the chairman in his haste. The chairman rebuked the manager saying to sit on a chair without a face next time.

Once the meeting was over, Kamster went back to his cubical and was going to work on the new project his boss had given him. He had just about read the whole page when his cubical started spinning and moving around. Kamster sighed. Work was a lot harder ever since the company had tried converted to the Rubik's Cubical system. Every so often the company president would try to solve it, and he could only ever get one side right.

This story written for Kamster at Up The Ante.

A few days ago, I signed up The Space Turtle for SocialSpark. It is a similar system to the PayPerPost system that I am also a part of, but it has a lot more too it. One feature I like and have already used is the Spark System. This allows for people to post ideas of topics to write about. I used it to post a chance to write about The Space Turtle on a blog, then I would write a story for that blogger. A few have done this and you may have already read the stories I wrote for them. This creative process is great to get a little bit of exposure as well and give a little something in return, and anything to get me an idea to write a story around is fantastic.

Hopefully this will allow for more creative posting, including various items and links inside stories as the central point to the story. Current readers will already know how I do this and hopefully appreciate how it sparks me to find something to write about as well as helping keep The Space Turtle afloat.

Another thing I am excited about in Social Spark is a more open relationship between Blogger and Advertiser. This allows advertisers to find a blogger they like as well as for bloggers to possibly even find an advertiser they would want to write for. I'm not entirely sure on how all these points of the system works (working 70 hours a week cuts down on time to do things), but the concept certainly is exciting.

As readers you most likely wont notice too much difference in the stories or content on The Space Turtle and you can expect them to be as creative and as zany as ever.

Cheers!

The fate of the world was held on a string, well, four strings, actually. The alien attack had come from deep space, but no one had seen it coming. Scientists think that the aliens opened up a wormhole near the earth and came through, so detection came far too late Within hours, giant alien ships covered the skies.

They didn't destroy much, but they held the weapons of war, tanks, planes, boats and the like in stasis so fighting back with machines didn't work. What the aliens didn't expect was the superheroes. When the troops came down from the skies wearing bullet proof electrical shields, they were surprised to meet superheroes who had powers that ignored their shields.

Many suspect they aliens had thought the real news stories of heroes were the same as the movies and comic books, fiction. Many died in the battles, both aliens, superheroes, soldiers, and innocent people. The aliens shot anyone in the heat of battle. After days of fighting, both sides were wore down. Then something else showed up, a massive alien beast. The alien soldiers gathered around the beast, making a new attempt to take over, one massive force instead of the many small forces scattered about like before. All the superheroes met this force together.

Many many hours rages with fighting. Many died. Few heroes were left. Some had wounded the giant beast, most alien soldiers were dead, but the beast raged on, fending off most attacks and using numerous arms, projectile, and energy attacks against the heroes, devastating them. But, suddenly, there was hope.

One hero had gotten close to the beast. The thin blond haired superhero had deftly maneuvered in close unseen and began to use her weapon. She was Venus Violinist, and she played a tune. Her violin played beautiful waves that would calm the minds and actions of humans, but had a different effect on the aliens. When played near the soldiers, they turned on each other. The problem was, in the din of battle, its effect were brief and very short ranged. But here, near the beast, and with so few left fighting, the music rang out beautifully.

As the beast heard the noise, is began to slow, stopped fighting the superheroes, but did not attack the alien soldiers. Instead, it began to curl up, looking around suspiciously, as if looking for someone it hated. Another hero, a young 14 year old kid who joined the fight for the world despite his age made the connection. The soldiers turned on themselves, but there was only one of the beast. Away from the fighting a ways, the other hero put of a giant energy field, reflective. When the beast saw it, it attacked.

The beast shot out rages of green and purple energy at its sudden foe. The brilliant blasts of energy struck the energy field, then returned to beast. The energy cut through the beast, leaving it a biological wreckage on the ground. The war was won.

This story was made in thanks to Wendy (Venus) at Cultured Views who wrote a fine review of The Space Turtle on her blog.

She had to add only one final touch, the signature. On the last page of the scrapbook, after all the bits and pieces of esoteric history and strange designs were carefully cut with scissors that left pretty crimps and designs on the edges and then pasted into perfect arrangement onto the pages, the book was almost done.

It had taken years of research and gathering materials, planning and design. Each page held designs created by insane artists, words and poems spoken in only the darkest of rooms, symbols drawn only by the most unspeakable members of dark societies. Now it was all together. Outlined with colored paper, photos in pages that were acid free, stickers to add that extra touch. All together, they made a tome that would end everything.

The scrapbook would open a portal to the dimensions of evil where blasphemous creatures sleep. The portal would awaken them and they would creep forth into this dimension and reach into the planets and stars with ghastly tendrils that come from impossible dimensions and move at angles that have your eyes water when you see it. Not not until the final touch.

With a final glance at each page, double checking every item, every scrap of paper and writing, she knew it was done. On the final page, in curly pink letter, she wrote it. Just seconds before the end of the universe had begun she wrote her signature: BunnyKissd.

This story was made in response to a review of The Space Turtle done on BunnyKissd's blog.

(Click the Fiction Stories link to find the first parts of this story.)

Despite the feeling of being followed, Martin could not find anyone behind him, hiding in the shadows, climbing on the ceiling, no one. The strain of the day was getting to him. He finally got to his work station and found a new email waiting for him. A friend of his was wanting to know some tips on how to maintain a forum. Martin checked out his friends site real quick to find it was running a vBulletin forum and did a quick search at Web Articles, a site he used frequently for its simplicity of use and lack of distractions from the articles on the site, and found a very helpful listing of articles on vBulletin forums and emailed the link to his friend. No use writing down what someone else had already written. Maybe now he could get some work done. Another email appeared in his inbox.

Martin sighed. It looked like some goofy junk mail. He was just about to click the Junk button above the subject bar that read Important! when the content of the message caught his eye. "What is this, the Matrix?" Martin muttered to himself, squinting at the words that read "You are in danger, leave the school now!"

"This is nuts. What, is the janitor going too..." Martin stopped short, hearing someone, something? No, not a janitor, he thought, they work Friday nights and not on Saturday. The noise came again. It sounded like a growl, a hum, and a cry all together, and it didn't seem to come from any actual direction. His blood ran cold. Something wasn't right, he just felt it. It was like some of the strange things he had been able to do lately, but this wasn't an action, is was like an extra instinct he had never had before. That sound meant terrible danger. It sounded again, and like before, it came from no direction in particular. He knew he had to flee, but choosing the right direction would mean everything, life, or death.

The work station was in a set of cubes like an office. Other teachers, professors, and staff had their own work stations here as Martin did. As Martin stood from his chair, he looked around and saw nothing moving above the line of the cubicle walls. The noise again, closer, but still directionless. Then, he saw movement above. We was expecting to see a flurry of claws and teeth or gelatinous pseudopods reaching for him, but instead he saw a reflection of movement in the light fixtures in the ceiling. The florescent lights didn't shine directly down, but rather were blocked from shedding light directly and instead shone up on reflective surfaces that reflected down a more diffuse and pleasant light. In these reflective surfaces something dark moved towards him. A new email popped up, the notification screaming RUN! to him. He ran in the opposite direction.

As he ran, the noise crescendoed into a miasma of screeching, rumbling, and whirring. This was getting to be too much. Martin liked it better when the mainstay of his distractions was pointing his friends to articles about importing forum data and protection against hacking.

Under microscope
Eating, growing, augmenting
I'll never get sleep!

If you haven't played flOw, google it and play it.

The helicopter's blades slice the night sky of the city like the knife of a ghost, the special forces upgrading making the machine as silent as possible. The helicopter stops and hovers as a black rope uncoils and falls down into the darkness of the city. Tall sky scrapers loom in the black sky, the windows ominously dark. A bulky figure slides down the rope into the pool of ink that disaster has painted on the city. The figure releases the rope when on the ground and the helicopter rises away, rope recoiling.

The figure is alone in the darkness. A crescent moon gives off a dull light that on any other night would be beautiful. Tonight it is sickly. The figure checks his tactical gear for the fifth time. A thick body stocking worn over the torso, arms, legs, neck. Kevlar armor strapped over top. A black vest with many pockets. Black pants, again rife with pockets. A thick belt with a thick holster containing a pistol and two double mag clip holsters. Dark boots with thick heels ready to crush. The lone soldier activates the light amplification goggles and stalks into the darkness.

Normally soldiers like this one travel at least in pairs, but this is a dire mission and there is more city then soldiers. Most of the city's still living citizens have been evacuated, but several pockets are trapped. These soldiers are here to save them. Get them together, keep them alive, and get them to a roof, tag it with an infrared beacon, and get the heck out of the city. With a minimized flash with the muffled sound of lead salvation and the first enemy goes down. The cleansing of the zombie infection has begun.

Another year past
Older, wiser, more to come
Now where is my pie?