TNG Fan Fiction; Riker's Curse

Geordi LeForge and Data were stood in engineering, examining a flow chart pinned against a wall.
"If we remodulate the frequency in which the dilithium crystals vibrate that means-" says Data.
"It means that this might just work!" says Geordi. He quickly snaps up a hand to tap his comm badge, bearing the insignia of The Federation. "Geordi to Captain Picard."
"Come in Geordi." says a comforting yet powerful voice through the communicator.
"Captain, if we pass dilithium crystals through a gamma frequency then we can get our warp engines back online."
"Commander LeForge, I trust you to do what's best." says Picard. On the bridge of the U.S.S Enterprise, Captain Jean-Luc Picard sits in a black foam chair in the centre of the room. Around him is his trusted staff, Commander William T. Riker, Lieutenant Worf, Dr. Beverly Crush and Troi.
"Computer, red alert." says Picard. Some lights turn on and a siren begins to be played through miniature speakers embedded in the ceiling. Outside the ship the warp engines begin to power up silently in the blackness of space, ready to fire the entire U.S.S Enterprise at many factors of light speed.
"Engage." says Picard. The entire ship and it's thousands of passengers are zipped through the galaxy at millions of miles per hour.
"Commander Riker. Set a course for the Delta Quadrant." says Picard.
"Computer, set a course for the Delta Quadrant." says Riker.
"Affirmative. Setting a course for the Delta Quadrant." says a computerized female voice.
"Lieautenant Worf, you have the bridge. Number one?" says Picard, turning to his second in command. Riker's eyebrows lift slightly.
"Captain?"
"Number one, if you would follow me into my quarters." says Picard, leading the way.
"Affirmative captain." says Riker, standing up and wiggling his body around.

The two men stand in a strange salmon coloured room. There is carpet on the walls, floor and ceiling due to Picard's predilection for turning the gravity off and doing a futuristic form of yoga and flute playing.
"Captain?" says Riker.
"Number one...what I'm about to tell you is top secret. I trust that once I tell you, no-one else outside of this room will know." says Picard.
"Of course captain, your secret is safe with me. Not just as a Starfleet officer but as a close friend." says Riker, straightening up slightly. Picard nods. He knew he could trust the bearded man before him. For ten years they had served together, lending each other a hand, and over the years they definitely considered each other to be best friends.
"Will. There is a serial killer on board. So far he has killed at least twenty eight members of this crew."
"Captain?"
"I have kept it secret up until now. The thing is this serial killer was allowed on board by The Federation. They know about it. He has been given a license to kill, it's all legal."
"Why would Starfleet send a murderer on board?"
"I haven't the faintest idea." says Picard, glancing at his fish bowl.
"Well can't we stop him?"
"It's not possible. They have replaced the Prime directive with a new one; they are free to kill anyone they want."
"That's ludicrous. It goes against everything Starfleet stands for!" shouts Riker.
"That may be the case. But regardless of that, we are Starfleet officers. I swore an oath; that I would uphold the Prime Directive with my life." says Picard.
"Not this one I didn't! Jean-Luc, we have to stop this serial killer, now!"
"That might be more difficult than you think." says Picard.
"Why?" says Riker.
"Because the serial killer...is you." says Picard. Riker stares at him, mouth agape.

They stood in the holodeck, watching a robotic exoskeleton enter Riker's room as he slept. It gently picked him up and fastened him into the suit like a puppet. Together they left the room, walked down the corridor and up a turbo lift.
"I don't understand." says Riker, turning to his captain.
"Watch." says Picard, staring at the hologram in front of him like a driver accelerating towards oncoming traffic.
They watched the somnambulist cyborg walk up behind a member of the crew, Riker didn't recognise him. A lever on the robot moved, putting a knife into Riker's hand before pushing his arm forward followed by his whole body being released from the suit. The knife went forward into the back of the man's neck, twisting slightly as it chipped away a piece of bone. They both fell forward, the man gurgling beneath as blood pumped from the wounds. All the way through Riker remained asleep and was gently picked up again and walked back towards the turbo lift.
"I still don't understand. Why would Starfleet do such a thing! It doesn't make any sense! I'm not a killer."
"You are Number one. We just watched you do it."
"That wasn't my fault, that damn robot practically did the whole thing! It must be destroyed."
"Practically, yes. Actually, no. You're in a serious situation Will, but I'm here to help." says Picard.
"How long have you known about this?"
"I was the one who chose you Will."
"What?"
"I got to decide who would wear the robot suit. I thought that you were the right man for the job, but I'm beginning to doubt my decision. I should have chosen Data, he wouldn't have minded. I felt...guilty."
"You made me kill twenty eight people and you feel guilty?" bellowed Riker.
"Yes. I'm sorry." says Picard. Riker punched the old man in the forehead, knocking him backwards. Revealing itself from the holodeck wall which had been cloaking it, the robot suit walks forward and clutches Riker.
"No! No! Get off me!" he shouts. Within seconds the robot suit has now wrapped itself around Riker and forces him to walk through the door. Through the corridors they run, the suit guiding Riker's hand as he carves his way through anybody that stands in front of him. Riker's screams are occasionally joined by others, until his is the only sound left on the ship.

Banquet

The biggest problem facing the Western world is that people are eating too much food. The anti-famine is upon us, the plague of locusts in reverse, the soft undulating curves of the obese as they vibrate in electric litters, watching videos of starving children as salted corn snacks are eagerly pushed between rotting teeth, bundles of food wrapping set onto landfill sites like plastic bouquets onto a mass grave. On one end of the spectrum is the human cow, on the other is the neurotic living skeleton. Before the Industrial Revolution an egg was an egg, now it is a complex net of protein, carbohydrates, fatty acids and acidic fats symbolised by an egg.

The calorie intake for a city contains enough energy to power a rocket on its way to the moon. There is such an abundance of food it has become a natural resource, like sunlight or mud. On television we watch middle-aged chefs dance around huge kitchens, spritzing cheeks of veal with saffron to be fed to minor celebrities. We eat better than any king in the entirety of human civilization. The sublimation of sexual energy into creating food. Cooking is foreplay, eating is fucking, digestion as a form of pregnancy. The foods that are taboo are not based on their components but how healthy they are deemed to be. It is less important that a pig was slaughtered and more about how it is presented; a sausage McMuffin or a sliver of flesh served with a sage and black olive fondant? There is a violence in food preparation, its tools are somewhere between medieval torture instruments and modern medical devices. It is a process heavily reminiscent of death, for we eat the dead (animal or vegetable).

There are those that feed like birds, eating is no longer a way to feel fulfilled but a process of absence. They are drawn towards zero, like orbiting the event horizon of a black hole, often their lives revolve around nothingness and attaining this zen-like state is the entirety of their existence. There are those that feed like hogs, eating is no longer a way to feel fulfilled but a process of stuffing. They receive pleasure from the sweet foods, the childish foods, the foods of apes. They cannot receive pleasure in any other way except for the brief moment on the tongue; they masticate to fill a hole in their stomach that exists in the mind. Their lives also revolve around nothingness, though rather than becoming lost in the void they would rather replace it and have everything fall into them.

000
000
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Those between these two extremes are themselves haunted by the prospect of balance. This is where complex diets come in, rituals passed down by modern gastropriests that one should follow to attain weightlessness. A paleo, gluten-free, organically farmed, locally sourced diet is perceived as one of many possibilities, to be joined with Atkins, Ketogenic, CRAM and other ways in which people who don't know how to eat look towards for inspiration. If anybody was to eat these certain foods then they will all end up looking the same. Diets are a fascist concept.

You may be reading this and wonder what it is that I eat? Well I shall tell you. Every one hundred steps I pick up the nearest thing and eat it. Leaves, gum, boomerangs, sandwiches, insects, dogs, cars, buildings, jewels, anything. By not considering at all what I eat besides following this basic rule, my diet is much more varied than that of the average person. Less a Food Pyramid and more a Food Hanging Gardens Of Babylon. Of course, there is no correct way to eat food, just to eat when hungry and remember vegetables.


Stillleben mit Fleischkorb, Frans Snyder

Manchester Central Library Review

The grand opening of Manchester Central Library took place on the 22nd of March after its closure for four years. The £98m revamp restored much of the Library’s original interiors as well as funding entirely new spaces designed by boffins at Manchester University along with international style guru Jacobi Mendelson.

Hundreds of thousands of books were retrieved from a salt mine, kept in a sodium stasis state until being arranged in alphabetical order on the shelves once again. Such rare books include works by William Shakesbeare, an 8th century book on astronomy, an unpublished Simon Beckett play titled ‘The Bone Sharks’ and a complete Florentine Codex. Visitors can happily pluck them off the shelves and leaf through them hungrily, but all of the books have also been scanned by lasers and converted into a pdf file specially designed for Manchester Central Library. In fact a large portion of the library is digital; the entire recorded history of mankind exists in large underground databanks that can be accessed over wi-fi and printed out at a new publishing house found in a distant wing of the library.

Upon entering the Great Hall you cannot helped but be brought to a standstill by its magnitude. Pillar after pillar of green marble line the room, stretching upward to support a domed ceiling that emanates a gentle light over all. Marble statues of deities connected with knowledge are interspersed between the enormous pillars, each of them have the quality of highly polished pearl. The glass floor is made up of a series of interconnecting black triangles, each give the impression of standing above infinity.

Thick wooden doors open into the grand Reading Room, an enormous circular room with tables and chairs arranged in a pattern based on the Fibonacci sequence. It is entirely silent. Walking through people occasionally look up from their book and watch you walk past, there is an air of paranoia around. I am acutely aware of the sounds inside my body. The gurgles of stomach acids, the sighs of the kidneys, the unsticking of eyelids during a blink. I make my way through another door and along a sweeping staircase running around the exterior of the library. There are replicas of author’s desks now and then, in which visitors can access all the books they wrote as well as the books the author had read. Oak doors lead into a room lined with shelves, holding roughly two million books. If one was to sit and read every book in this room it would take roughly one million years.

Clustered around the large halls are secondary rooms. An Italian restaurant is somewhat surprising, though a logical extension of the Renaissance themes seen around the Library. Frescos are painted on the wall lit softly by candles. The next room is the archives, roughly six gigabits of information contained on special cards that can be entered into a computer and read at a leisurely pace. The latest computer gaming systems are also here, the Sega Megadrive and Dreamcast consoles linked up to HD monitors. A tree grows, tendered to daily by a robotic gardener that adjusts artificial lighting and hydroponic systems. Overall one gets a sense that a library doesn’t have to just be a place poor people go when they don’t have a telly. It can be a place of inspired learning. There is a recurring phrase carved into every single piece of skirting board in the building. ‘Dulce Et Ego, Cor Domorum Veni’.

As one climbs the staircase more rooms can be accessed. An art gallery, an operatic theatre, a three dimensional mirror maze, even a vivarium all can be found in the Manchester Central Library. Once one reaches the top floor they are treated to a 360 degree view from the roof of the library. Most of Manchester is obscured by multistorey budget hotels and empty office space, but the roof is nevertheless impressive due to the bubble formed that keeps visitors dry. The bubble is constantly collapsing and reforming as a wave of atomic energy is projected from the rooftop generators through water molecules in the air.

Overall Manchester Central Library is a 21st century take on what a library is, with reference to multiple zones of time, cultures and architecture. Sections of the library are unbuilt, leaving gaping voids between walls in which one can glimpse the libraries previous incarnations. Other sections are overly built; huge chunks of rock can sometimes be found obscuring a corridor or clustered overhead like a nest of wasps. It is a pastiche of the human brain, the new god in the new millenium. I am eagerly awaiting its closure in fifteen years for an entirely new refurbishment, perhaps a simple holograph attached to the side of a drinking fountain, or a first person shooter in which one can get the 20th century American literature DLC at $14.99. Nevertheless, irregardless, at the end of the day, ad nauseam.

Generation Y or Gem her a shun why?

Teenagers these days are different to the teenagers of the past. They listen to different music, use technology and dress differently. They also act differently. I took to the streets to interview them.

"These days we do things differently than in the past. I feel almost like I didn't do the exact same things as my parents did." says Adam. He is studying a creative subject in a town in the Midlands to give you the impression that he is somewhat of a nieve idealist. We look at out a street I would describe with bland adjectives and perhaps mention the juxtaposition between an advertisement and what is happening nearby.
"Why is it do you think we have subcultures? And why is it they change so much?"
"I'm not entirely sure so I will give a slightly nihilistic yet self-aware response as I lack the confidence to truly say what I think due to the question being mostly unimportant." he says, checking the end of an object one associates with being symbolic of that sub-culture. A group of teenage men and women are walking down the street across from us, although these are dressed differently to Adam.
"Is that a different sub-culture, perhaps one that somehow rivals yours?"
"Correct. The shared beliefs in which each subculture values can differ in importance. Although this brings up the question of if people belong to subcultures based on their beliefs or does the subculture shape the beliefs of the person to which it belongs. I propose it is less of a chicken and egg scenario and more akin to the Portuguese man o' war, a single being made up of several different creatures or in this case, concepts." says Adam, gesticulating in the fog rolling in around us. I thank him and cross the road into a café in which the other teenagers have just entered.

I sit down nearby and after eavesdropping for ten minutes or so can't help but mention that I am a journalist on a website and if it would be possible to interview them.
"What do you want to interview about?" says one baby-faced youth.
"What is it like being a teenager in 2014? I mean, I know I look young but I'm not a teenager." I say, laughing to myself.
"We are undergoing a severe biological transformation and this causes a certain amount of ennui." says a tall girl.
"Yeah, it's like in our culture being a teenager is a thing you do between being a child and being an adult. But the way in which it happens is totally unhealthy." says the baby-faced youth, drinking a can of pop that didn't exist five years ago and is mocked slightly by people it isn't marketed to. The other people sitting at the table nod their heads.
"So you think there's an alternative?" I ask, pulling a microphone out of my trouser pocket and letting its foamy tip rest on the table.
"I think it'd be more fluid if teenagers left their homes once they show the first signs of puberty. They would gather in special camps out in the wilderness where they would learn about themselves and the world around them. The community is encouraged to experiment and build on interpersonal skills whilst undergoing an education and learning the basics of self-sufficency. I believe that this would lead to general feelings of well-being and happiness that would have a trickle down effect through the generations until we achieve a kind of...utopia."
"Well I'll get right on that." I say, laughing. "Next you'll be saying we should cut funding for the police and armed forces and put it into education and welfare."
"Well now you mention it..." says a pimple-faced miscreant. Like Jesus cleansing the temple of merchants, I flipped the table over and started throwing plates around.

Six hours later I am stood on a cliff next to a woman about to jump. I look down at the rocks and the surf below, listening to the wind carrying the call of gulls which fly around.
"Don't try and stop me." she says, breathing heavily, face wet with tears.
"I'm not." I say, kneeling down on the grass and flipping my legs over the edge.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm climbing." I say, letting my body slip as I clutch onto handfuls of grass. One of my boots catches a rock and I begin to rest my weight onto it. Gradually I begin to clamber down, sometimes a foothold gives way beneath and I slip a few feet.
"Stop it! It's dangerous!" she shouts down at me.
"If you jump I will catch you." I shout back up. I climb down for a while longer, rubbing the sweat from my eyes with the sleeve of my tweed jacket. I glance back up and she is still there, watching me. There comes a point in which there are no more places to put my feet or my hands. I can't go back up as most of my previous holds have crumbled away and fallen into the sea beneath me. I am stuck.
"Excuse me. Can you call mountain rescue?" I shout up. But she has disappeared. One of my hands begin to cramp as I hold myself against the cliff face. "Shit."

All The Waters Of Earth

In which all of the animals came together for a glorious feast.

The Island Of The Birds

Under the day moon I sat in Platt Fields Park, observing the island in the centre of its lake. The park came about in 1907 after the Worsley Family sold Platt Hall and its grounds. Once a thriving area of fun and slow walks, the park fell into disarray until slowly rising again to be one of the more popular green spaces in Manchester. Although I am not concerned with the history of the park or even its future. The reason I was there that day was to explore the island. The many species of water fowl that plague the toxic lake come hither and tother from the land, the actions which occur on the island are hidden from sight due to the foliage yet a great cacophony constantly squawks and honks away from sunrise to sunset. The island belongs to the birds. And like many great men before me I decided to explore their territory and if any treasures were to be found, bring them back to regular civilization. Leaving my electronic gadgets behind I stood at the waters edge and began to swim.

Signs around the lake remark that their is 'blue green algae' in the water which is poisonous to humans, causing Lou Gehrig's Disease or other brain wrongness. Inversely, blue green algae is used in health supplements sold in Holland & Barrett. I decided to ignore the warnings as there was worse in the sea and people surfed in that every day. The act of swimming itself was not tiresome, each gentle stroke from my breasts brought me closer to the mysterious land mass. Yet as I neared the birds began to circle. A tufted duck was first to come near me as I gently swam.
"Hello duck." I said, spitting out lake water. It tried to peck my eye, so I instead took it's bill in my mouth and bit it clean off. Another bird gently swam over to me, a Canadian Goose.
"Hello goose." I said. This one began to peck me all around the head and so I reached out of the water and snapped its neck. I was nearing the shore of the island now and thought I was clear from any more attacks until a Cormorant flew in and landed in front of me.
"Hello cormorant." I said, raising a foot from the silt in case I needed to kick it. But the Cormorant looked at me with one eye, turned its head and looked at me with it's other, and then vomited up what appeared to be a curry before flying away. I knelt by the strange evacuation, dipped my fingers into it and brought it up to my nose. Chicken Korma. I spat in dismay, for I had been damaged by a bird on a more emotional level than any physical violence could. Yet now was not the time to get in a tizzy, for there was an island to explore. And all around me were the shrieking of the birds.

The earth around me was covered in bird shit, miniature footprints and feathers. It smelt of dust. The island rose in a gentle slope to its low peninsula, I watched the ducks and geese waddle away from me. My clothes were coloured in algae and dirt, the blood from my goose wound ran down my face. I began to scramble over the ground, the terrain had been made by the birds and so their small paths did not fit my lumbering form. The shells of eggs crunched underfoot as did the hollow bones of long dead avians. Within five minutes I had pretty much explored every square metre of the island and had so far found nothing remarkable, besides glimpsing what the world would look like if completely overrun by birds. I could hear the sirens at the park gates, a crowd was beginning to gather by the waters edge, shouting every time they spotted me in the undergrowth. I didn't have much time. Batting away an ill-tempered swan I forced myself towards the centre of the island. Maybe there would be some kind of monument, some kind of reason for all of this. An end to justify the means. Yet all there was was a particularly fat goose that looked at me with those reptilian eyes, the same eyes as every other bird that betrays its evolutionary heritage.
"Why am I here goose! Why!" I shouted. I didn't expect a reply and just sat by it, beginning to cry at the hopelessness of the situation. I felt a scaly webbed foot on my hand and looked up. The goose was staring right at me. Maybe trying to convey some message. I think I understood and so nodded, taking firm hold of both the goose's feet. It spread out its wings and began to flap. Flap, flap, flap. Over and over. And slowly but surely we were beginning to fly! I dangled on the little orange feet and watched Platt Fields Park below me as both of us flew away, laughing together as if we were infants. When it dropped me off at home I caught it with a net and ate it for supper, for it was the biggest goose I had ever seen. I had tried to answer the mysteries of the island yet found that there was no mystery. Perhaps it would be better in future to pose questions than answer them.

How To Smell

What are the smells currently around you? Unless foul it was likely you didn't even notice them in the first place. Yet breathe in slowly, through the nose. What are the things that give off a smell nearby? Perhaps a cup of tea, an ashtray or a dog. Better yet you may be reading this out in nature and have the luxury of chlorophyll and wind. But you might be asking yourself 'am I smelling enough?' and the answer is 'probably not'. An entire perspective, up there with touch, sight and hearing, yet having a good nose isn't taught in schools and rarely discussed in public. I have been experimenting with my nose recently and thought I would share the findings with you.

First of all, how does smell work? Well, how does vision work? Light is shone onto objects and then bounced back at different frequencies picked up by the rods and cones in the eyeball. It is similar for smelling. Smells are bounced off objects and hit you in the nose. Here special cells called sniffodoruns detect any irregularities in the pure scent of nothing (from which all smells are made) then send messages to the brain which translates this information into smells. On the smell spectrum we have sweet, sour, dirt, water, musk and grass. All smells have varying elements from each of these six primary scents and no other smells outside this spectrum can be smelt by the human nose, although it is thought some animals can detect Ultrabitter and Infrasweet.

When you breathe through your nose it is important to do it slowly. Too quickly and the increasing air will push the odours away from the sniffodoruns and give the sensation of coldness. Although I do recommend breathing in quickly once to properly feel where your sense of smell is actually located. You should feel a sensation at the front of both nostrils (even though you are only breathing through one) that runs up your nose and into the middle of your head. You can use your tongue to triangulate where the true sniffodoruns are whilst with tracing a finger up and down the dorsal ridge of your nose. Close your eyes and focus on this point, imagining the sniffodoruns detecting the delicate yet complex fragrances all around you. Can you identify each unique smell inside the symphony of odours? If you are unsure what something is, perhaps moving around the room would be helpful. At first a sense of smell can be quite weak and require close proximity in order to fully smell something, although like the ear of a musician, the nose can be trained and improve over time to be more sensitive.

The next step is to smell your hands. Go on, give 'em a sniff why don't you! What is it you can smell? Do you know why? If there is anybody else nearby, ask to smell their hands. You might be pleasantly surprised to find their hands will smell totally different than yours. Perhaps you're able to identify if they smoke or not, what they've had to eat, if they use soap and what brand, all sorts can be learned from smelling the hands of a person. Next is to smell them all over in order to properly process their scent. It can help if you look at them whilst you do this and they talk to you, in order to fully build up an interperspective feel of a person. In a more subtle way you can take to the streets, smelling joggers as they run past you.

One should be careful with their sense of olfaction. Not only do you have to protect it by not smoking or insufflating drugs, but you may smell some things previously unimagined yet more horrifying than any vision or noise. And like all senses, will begin to fade with age and steadily decline into nothingness, which is all the more reason to begin training now. Have you ever smelt pregnancy? How about smelling a sunrise? Many avenues reveal themselves whilst focusing on an underrated perception.