Siege of the Himatz

The following was supposed to be the foundation for a novel. You can be thankful that I gave up.

Story (alternates first person limited and third person omniscient, of knowledge degree four at infinite focus zoom sixth)

Characters:

Inventor - Archimedes
Narrator - me. (General Marl)
Others - Read the story.

Archimedes, a idiosyncratic genius, and really strange, military weapon specialist and inventor working for the nation of Latzov, was kidnapped by Casnian spies while drawing up blueprints for an unrevealed super-weapon. Taken to the capital Latzov, Archimedes voluntarily assists the Casnians, finishing up the super-weapon.

King of Latzov (come up with a good name that sounds Russian) learns of the kidnapping. He is informed by General Marl and his strategists that Archimedes's super-weapon would take a year to construct, and that they should quickly attack Casnia and take Archimedes back before the weapon is constructed. General Marl, commander of the third army, and some other random general and commander people were commanded to send an invasion force to Casnia.

Marl and the other generals discuss the invasion plan. (which is a good device for the author to reveal some random stuff about geography: Casnia is a large island nation (larger than Australia), with a smaller island due north (separated by the Sea of no name), a province of Casnia, Avovia, that is abundant in amusement parks and ice cream. Marl and the generals, distracted, draw up plans to attack Casnia to obtain large quantities of ice cream and to transport the amusement parks back to Latzov, enhancing their tourism industry.

The Siege of the small island Avovia began, but they met fierce resistance. The Avovians possessed strange weapons, and it was noticed that much of their machinery had rather useless orange rings painted on them and the letters LPX embossed on them. When Avovia was finally taken, the amusment parks, much to the disappointment of the Latzovians, were destroyed by the warfare, and the ice cream melted by firestorms. The seige took one year.

Archimedes falls in love with a Casnian spy, Cynthia (make up a more original name later). In their dialogue, it is revealed the Archimedes had a strange obsession of having orange rings painted over his inventions and embossing random letters onto them. Also, the super-weapon was ready. The Prime Minister of Casnia congratulates Archimedes, although he fails to understand why.

The Casnians struck back at Avovia with their full navy. One of the vessels was a super-carrier, a hundred times larger than a conventional carrier with a top area of near a square kilometre (a floating island, the Latzovians called it). An aerial view shows the orange ring painted on all the air strips and the letters LPX. A proud telegram came from the Casnians, telling the Latzovians to surrender to their "unsinkable Himatz", referring to the super-carrier.

The Latzovians launch a bomber fleet over the Himatz, but large parabolic mirrors were deployed against the fleet, blinding them and melting the wings of some of the bombers. The bombs that were dropped exploded in mid-air, hit by precisely aimed pressure waves from sound cannons on the Himatz. Meanwhile, the 42-inch guns of the Himatz wreaked havoc on the navy of the Latzovians.

A stealth submarine, piloted by a squadron of people, were sent on a mission to destroy the Himatz. The people on the submarine mission obviously did not take the mission seriously, playing chess on board. When they had assumed position underneath the Himatz, the group suddenly turned its attention to a nearby octopus, and started making sketches of it. The Himatz quickly picked up the submarine on sonar. Extending a claw into the ocean, it stirred up a vortex, drawing the submarine out from underneath the Himtaz before droping depth charges. Both ballast tanks were taken out and a leak was sprung, and the submarine began to sink. After a futile attempt to bail out (accompanied by an interesting discussion on bailouts in general), the group settle down into a last game of chess, the moves of which were radioed back to the panicking Latzovians.

Meanwhile, in Casnia, the Prime Minister tells Archimedes of the successes of his weapons. Archimedes was horrified, as he did not realize that his drawings would actually be built and put to use, as in his words "I'm an artist! Do you not appreciate my drawings?!" The Prime Minister, failing to understand him, compliments him on his good sense of humour and leaves. Archimedes was now terrified, that everything he was drawing was being used against his own nation, but if he was to suddenly refuse to design, he would likely be killed. Distraught, he walked around the halls of the parliament building and saw a vase of flowers; unimpressed, he begins drawing a super-vase, which he gives to Cynthia. Understanding his troubles, Cynthia agreed to help him deliver mesasges to the Latzovians, as she was a spy.

The Latzovians receives Archimedes message, pinpointing the weaknesses of the Himatz. However, General Marl claims that such a plan would be too boring, and decides on a parachute invasion of the Himatz, which was delayed a day due to clear weather. On the day of the invasion, a thick fog had set in, and smoke bombs were deployed over the Himatz. Troops then poured out of overhead planes and helicopters in a massive aerial invasion of a single ship. Archimedes, upon hearing this news, asked Cynthia to help him escape. Cynthia decided to go along with Archimedes, "leaving the wretched land of Casnia". Secretly sending a radio message to Latzovia, telling them of Archimedes' planned escape. An hour after they had left, the Casnians discovered Archimedes missing, and sent out a fleet of planes after them. Not far from mainland Casnia, this fleet met with a Latzovian fleet that was sent to receive and escort Archimedes, although neither fleet located Cynthia's plane. A brutal aerial fight not far from mainland Casnia ensued, both fleets forgetting their main purpose--Archimedes.

Aboard the Himatz, the fighting had descended to the first level below the deck, where the Casnian troops defended tenaciously, with pillboxes and heavy artillery scattered throughout. The Latzovians began to airlift tanks onto the Himatz, in an effort to storm the first level. Upon discovering a storage room of frozen food near the centre of the first level, General Marl directed all of his forces to seize the room, upon which the Casnians redeployed all their troops to the defence of the storage room.

Meanwhile, Cynthia and Archimedes landed in mainland Latzovia. The King of Latzovia and his strategists were overjoyed and in a panic, asked Archimedes to give advice on how to overrun the Himatz, as they were suffering heavy casualties. Archimedes, however, demanded that he have a full feast and ten hours of sleep before he reveal it since he was really hungry and tired. He then finally reveals that there was a hidden elevator to the control room on the first level, so well hidden that not even the Casnians knew about it. Taking out his blueprints, he spent a few hours studying it to find the elevator that he had drawn in. Upon finding it, the information was relayed to General Marl, who had already seized the storage rooms. A squadron of troops were sent to take control of the control room (under dire warnings not to play chess along the way), upon which they came to the control room and took the Casnian generals by surprise, who were ironically playing chess. The troops had fun messing around with the controls before finally activating the self-destruct function (a feature that Archimedes always includes on his large-scale projects).

Ending: Himatz sinks, the Latzovian troops leave and return to Latzov ("attack Casnia? why? we have Archimedes back now. Why do we want them to surrender?"). Everybody lives happily ever after. Amusement parks are re-installed on Avovia. The end.

No, I'm Sorry, It Most Definitely Is Not A Duck

I was walking...walking...walking where? 'Tis irrelevant. It better be irrelevant.

Somewhere, I saw a cat in a box...no wait, was it a box? Hmm, if it was in fact a box, I would've taken off the top, and taken a look inside...but no, it was a bag. And the cat crawled out of the bag, and...oh, I remember now, it went out of the bag into the box. That's where I got mixed up. Anyhoo, it went into the box, and there was some radioactive symbol thingy there, and some flask with some green, hissing liquid. The cat knocked over the flask, and it broke. A few seconds later, the cat collapsed, presumably poisoned by whatever that liquid thing was.

"Curious," I thought to myself. But I didn't dare examine the scene any further, lest I be killed along with the cat.


And then, and then what? Ah, yes, there was a tarpaulin somewhere...a tarpaulin...although there should've been a shorter version of that word, although it currently escapes my mind. Hmm, and there was a commander? Admiral? One of the two, mentioning something about said tarpaulins. It was quite intriguing, but I don't remember anything past this point.


Graph. Graf. Graph? Steffi Graf? Zeppelin!

Some rigid-body, oddly sorta not really pseudo-phallic aircraft...vaguely familiar, for some reason. And it's pretty heavy, cuz it's filled with...lead. Led? Leed? What what?

And some number...127. Two to the seventh minus one. I'm pretty sure it has something to do with that graph zed--zee--zeppelin.

OK, it's starting to come

back to me now. There was a penguin. Yes, a penguin, and it had a really big hammer and yellow and red clothing. Or it was a stereotypical penguin, black and white with orange beak and feet, sitting down. And it may or may not have been carrying a rawwwwket lawwwwnchair--lawwwwncher, for it slips my mind. It was on top of the zep-peh-lin, along with some random stick figure, with...with...something on his head. It might've been a top hat, it might've been a sombrero, it might've been neither or some combination of the two. But it was black, let me tell you that. No doubt it was black.

Great, that was the only thing which remains vividly in my mind. The rest might be a bit weird.

So then the hammer time, er, hammer guy, swings back his hammer, and there's something...a jet engine...I know it sounds absurd, yet there was a jet engine. I'm pretty sure about that. There was a jet engine--no wait, yes, there was a jet engine. And it somehow was in the back of the hammer, and the penguin charged his, his, engine thingy--no, it looked nothing like a lazor. No, it wasn't, and then. He evidently must have overcharged it, for it started steaming and the penguin guy turned red. But then he swung it at the stick figure guy, and he aimed it at his face...? Yeah, I guess so, because he was yelling something too. I couldn't quite make it out, but I did hear "what", "five fingers", and "fail" or "face"; I was too far away to hear the last word clearly. Thus, he hit the stick figure, and he went flying away.

There was something that struck me when I first laid eyes on the stick figure with the black headwear; somehow, incredibly, it gave me a strong feeling that soon, he would be back on that zap--zeppelin, and subsequently exacting his revenge on the penguin. But I had no interest in watching this scene continue after a few minutes of this penguin dancing around with his hammer; I continued to walk, with my shadow the only object by my side.



At this point, I recall quite a few numbers. I don't quite remember why they were there, but they were, floating around. One of the numbers hit me in the back of the head--I took it in my right hand (it was about zero point zero six metres wide), and my eyes recognized the number 42. Suddenly, a thought ran into my head. I have no idea where it came from, but it had something to do with the--the--I'm sorry, I can't pronounce it--me--meam ing--meam ing of life. Or something like that. I examined it for a little while, then grew bored of't and systematically threw it away. It spiralled through the air--I realize now that I should've made winglets, but 'tis too late now. And it had some sort of impact. I then heard someone say "Oh hush"--then I realized that I was not alone in this world; that there were quite a few other people, whom I recognized as friends. I walked up to one, to talk to him, but he suddenly made a mad dash for--for--hmm, yes, there was some sort of enclosure here. There was a sort of sphere surrounding us all, and he somehow got out of the sphere. He left behind a little piece of paper--I grabbed it as it fluttered to the ground and saw "brb".

Outside of this sphere shape thingamajig, I noticed what seemed to be the "real" world, or at least a world with objects characteristic of the real life, i.e. anything not in here. But that was not the focus of my attention--nay, it was the little objects floating around in the sphere.

I soon found out that "little" was a sort of misnomer. For I saw the zeppelin that I had talked about a few paragraphs earlier. Firstly, it appeared in the hand of one of my friends, and he threw it to another one of my friends. It was quite small--about the size of a baseball--but it soon grew. Eventually, one of those two friends threw it to me. I found I was quite adept at making multiple copies of this model zeppelin and throwing it across the sphere to other people, and soon they were affecting everyone, whether they were throwing one around or getting hit by one. I don't recall seeing the zeppelins visibly grow bigger, but suddenly there they were, almost as big as ourselves. There were evidently people who tried to destroy some of the zeppelins, but their attempts were futile--there were always more to hit them with. And then, I again don't remember exactly, but the zeppelins suddenly started deflating. They got smaller and smaller, and some disappeared altogether. The last time I recall, there were maybe two little zeppelins, about the size of a tennis ball, and they were rarely thrown around. I remember finding one in the corner--yes, that's right, a corner in a sphere--and throwing it at one of my friends; he did not react to it. So I gave up, although I still see a little zeppelin moving around once in a while.

But enough of the zeppelins; there were a plethora of other objects around. They seemed to be created from the outside world. One person would exit the sphere into the real world and come back with drops of Jupiter, and, ahem, a new object. They always started off quite small, then they grew bigger when they were thrown around. I distinctly recall one that consisted of a hand. When someone caught it, they experienced a sharp pain on their cheek--almost if they had been slapped there. There were some words associated with that object, too. I think it had something to do with what that penguin had said, as I had explained a while ago, although it might not.


And so I turn to a sort of chronicle of these little objects. I call them "little objects" because I cannot remember the proper name for it--I think we (my friends and I) had a name. But it does not matter now, for that is beside the point.

There was a sort of quiet period for the first few months or so after I met my friends--there were no little objects around at all. And I don't quite recall if there was any special event or anything that triggered it, but--suddenly, I saw my friends' mothers and my own, in our palms. There was quite a furious pace of throwing in the sphere (which was quite small in the beginning), but it must have subsided quickly, for I do not think it spread to everyone I knew in real life, although of course they might have started using it in their own small spheres.

Here, around this time, there was--I can't quite describe it--well, it was a sort of shapeless object. It must have looked like something--oh yes, it was kind of a link, as in a link in a chain. And--and--it obviously looked pretty harmless, although I noticed that when this was first thrown around, people reacted strongly against it. Or they started dancing--I had no idea what it was until I first got my hands on it. It immediately split into two and fit into my ears as earbuds would. Then I heard the beginning of a song I vaguely remember hearing on a radio station. It consisted of a drum intro, and some guy singing in a really deep voice (and he wasn't black). Apparently, the drum bit at the start was enough for most people to identify what the song was. There was some sort of name for it...some kind of roll...pastry roll? Hmm, I haven't eaten in a while...but that's not it, no, I don't think. Anyhoo, this is still thrown around occasionally, although most people have learned to be wary of it and avoid the link as much as they could.

The numbers--ah, the numbers. They were quite an interesting case. Because they were in fact numbers, and numbers show up quite frequently in real life, we saw quite a few cases of a few of those numbers appearing in real life. When that happened...it happened quite frequently...there was a sudden crackle of electricity between the number in the sphere and the number appearing in real life. Or at least, that's what happened when someone threw it. In any case, the receiver of the throw usually laughed, or punched the thrower in the face...there was an indication of a reaction though. I don't remember the numbers now, but there were quite a few, and because they had a connection to the area outside the sphere, they were always used, and never really disintegrated.

And there were quite a few others too, but I only remember glimpses of them. Something about some kind of tank, some laser, something to do with shaking heads back and forth rapidly, along with some music...there were a lot. And they came and went, after they had been thrown around enough. There was something interesting I noted, though; if an object was thrown around between a large group of people, it seemed to die out pretty quickly, such as with the ze--oh great, zeppu--zeppelin, yes, zeppelin. Such as the zeppelin, and others that were thrown around within a smaller group lasted longer, such as the numbers, which as I recall are still around today.


This went on for a while, then...

Then something most peculiar happened. The barrier between the sphere and real life suddenly disintegrated. They were now one and the same. And the little objects--they--they somehow escaped, and other people, people we didn't know, got their hands on them...

Everything here's a bit blurry, but I'll try my best to recall what exactly happened...

So the aforementioned blimps--did I call them blimps? No matter--began to grow rapidly again, as they were thrown between streetlight people--hmm, that sounds familiar, like some song...I digress. The blimps, or whatever they were called, grew to their full size, and slowly rose into the air...

And all the other little objects, they too rose onto the blimp.

Oh, yes, that was it. That scene before, all the way back in the first few paragraphs, with the penguin and the stick figure--that was in real life. And they became reality...

Then came the day that they struck back. Evidently they had been tired of being thrown around, and decided that once and for all they would take a stand, that they would not be forced, manipulated by higher-ranking objects, that they wanted their own success, and that being thrown around was nice and all, but it did zilch toward helping toward them toward their goals, and there was little time, and before provincial exams...

What?

Yeah.

Okay.

Watch out, watch out.



Sorry.

Anyhoo. They struck back, and the penguin. The penguin turned his hammer toward us. And the stick figure took off his hat, and suddenly I noticed that the brim of that hat was really quite sharp-looking, and perfectly capable of decapitating, say, a marble statue...hmm, that sounds familiar...some movie, maybe? Wow, I get off track a lot, don't I? Sorry about that. And thus, we were attacked by a laser, a slapping hand, by numbers hurtling towards us, some peregrine--bird, punching, kicking, diving...beds...living rooms...dining rooms...the list goes on, I presume.


And thus, they took over the world...we tried--we tried--to stop them, but they could never be killed off completely; they always came back, in one form or another...