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.
SF Trope: “Neil
Stephenson's The Diamond Age features a very well justified
abundance of airships. With ubiquitous nano-tech it's so simple to create
objects that are lighter than air but stronger than steel…As to the airships,
when you can create these materials you don't have to fill the envelope with
anything at all. Vacuum is lighter than everything and thanks to nanopumps cheap
to create.” (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ZeppelinsFromAnotherWorld)
Current Event: http://www.cnbc.com/2016/03/10/this-airship-transports-lockheed-into-new-territory.html
Napuc Chi shook
his head as he said, “You will never get me next to that window!”
Anibal Tecú
sighed. “If you’re afraid of heights, why did you volunteer for the survey? You
knew we’d be using the Zac Petén.”
He paused, pursed
his lips. Anibal got the impression there was something else he wanted to say –
maybe about his fears…but he said, “It’s the only way I could investigate the
alien presence…”
Anibal sighed
dramatically. “This is an ecological survey…” she began.
“I know what it
is!” Napuc snapped. “But I have interests besides creating gene maps of coati
migration over the past millennia!”
Anibal held up
both hands and stepped back. “Hey! No biting heads off! Sorry…”
Napuc closed his
eyes, pressing his thumbs into his temples, arms akimbo. Anibal was abruptly
reminded of the Jaguar God of the Underworld. Napuc muttered, “Sorry. Sorry…”
“What’s wrong? It’s
gotta be more than just getting a boring job.”
“It’s not the job,”
he smiled weakly, “though I could think of a few other things to be looking for
besides troops of coatis.”
“Like what?”
He shrugged. He
winced, then turned from the window. “I need to get my scanners ready.”
She watched him
go, then turned back to the window. The Zac
Petén swung lower over the Yucatan Peninsula. In the distance, hidden by
jungle and itself little more than a large city, squatted Chicxulub, the town
that had given its name to the prehistoric crater scar left by the impact of an
object that had sealed the extinction of the dinosaurs. She frowned momentarily,
looked over her shoulder at her departed lab partner and friend, then looked
back out. The zeppelin was moving steadily, yet there was no obvious motion. As
a second generation lighter-than-aircraft, it’s stability and economical
operation made it the first choice of many scientific expeditions.
But there were
people who’d rather walk than fly, and she’d been surprised when Napuc had
volunteered to come along. They drifted over a dark blue dot of water that
vanished at the bottom of a ubiquitous cenote. The sinkholes clustered in the
trough formed by the crater impact rings. She straightened and went back
inside. “Napuc?” His voice came faintly up a ladder access to the deck below.
She slid down and dropped lightly to her feet. When he turned to look at her,
the device he was holding was clearly not a bio-sign detector. Her first
thought was that it was a futuristic ray gun and that he was going to
disintegrate her. Then she frowned. “What are you trying to do with that thing?”
He pursed his
lips, raised the flat circular muzzle, and said, “I’m looking for an alien.”
Names: ♀ Modern
Maya ; ♂ Modern Maya
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