Each Tuesday, rather than a POSSIBLY
IRRITATING ESSAY, I'd like to both challenge you and lend a helping hand. I
generate more speculative and teen story ideas than I can ever use. My family
rolls its collective eyes when I say, "Hang on a second! I just have to
write down this idea..." Here, I'll include the initial inspiration
(quote, website, podcast, etc.) and then a thought or two that came to mind.
These will simply be seeds -- plant, nurture, fertilize, chemically treat,
irradiate, test or stress them as you see fit. I only ask if you let me know if
anything comes of them.
H Trope: “Creepy Crows” https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CreepyCrows
Current Event: https://baynature.org/article/crows-are-wicked-smart/
Ava Johnson pursed
her lips, staring at the huge flock of crows. “I think they’re a communal
intelligence,” she said.
Henry Smith shook
his head, “I think you’re crazy.”
Ava snorted and
broadened the view of her camoflauged surveillance micro cameras. “The size of
their individual brains are insufficient to support Human-level intelligence.”
Henry snorted with
the same pitch and said, “So you’re saying that Human-level intelligence is the
only valid intelligence on Earth?”
She lifted a
finger, “Born-Human.”
He snorted. They
agreed on many things, but that one they typically avoided as a hot-button
topic. Shaking his head, he took a breath, held it, counted to ten, then said, “The
average crow brain-size is sufficient to solve multiple spatial reasoning
problems. It’s documented in hundreds of sources. Even in our own research…”
“I know! I’ve been
with you since the beginning! Just because we haven’t witnessed behaviors
indicative of corporate intelligence doesn’t mean it’s nonexistent! Besides…”
“…flock flying gives
serious argument to your statement that there’s no evidence of corporate
intelligence!” he said, completing her main argument.
She scowled at
him, then rolled her eyes. “Fine. We don’t have…”
One of her
monitors went out. She cussed then hunched back over her computer, tapping
violently, searching for the reason the camera was down. Another one blanked.
She used her favorite vulgar word, repeating it in staccato bursts as her
fingers flew over the keys.
Henry snorted, turning
to his own, less obtrusive monitors. He was using a high-flying drone to
capture images and run analyses of pattern movements. He wanted to see if odd
events attracted individual crows first – he was looking for the geniuses in
the flock. Once he located them, he could tag them, sample to DNA, and then see
if he could trace the genesis of genius in a flock. Once he did that, he wanted
to isolate individuals and test them more rigorously.
Ava used a work he’d
only rarely heard her say. “What?”
“The whole system
just crashed!”
He stood up and
went to hover over her shoulder. She batted him away, saying, “Quit distracting
me.” He stepped back, smirking
He stopped when he
looked at his own computer. The image was gone. He sat back down and dragged
the cursor back a few moments until he located the incident that had taken out
his drone. He saw the open claws and then the image went wild, then black. He stood
up and went to the camoflauged research station’s door and opened it. All they
were was an old mobile home trailer covered with old military grade camo tarp
staked down. They’d thrown branches over it then artfully arranged boulders and
other debri around it. Exit to the outside world was a tube tunnel that ran
back a football field length, exiting in a dense thicket of bushes.
The area
surrounding the mobile home had been trampled weeks ago.
Now it was a
seething mass of crows, mostly standing still. They’d turned their heads to
look at him each with a single eye. Creepy, but…then he noticed that the birds
on his left were all looking at him with their left eye. The birds on his right
were all…every single one he could see, looking at him with their right eyes.
Names:
♀S Carolina, Minnesota; ♂
Minnesota, S Carolina
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