Weekly Challenge #668 – TRANSMISSION



This is the Weekly Challenge, where I post a topic and then challenge you to come up with a 100 word story based on that topic.



Snugs

RICHARD

Transmission

The Bay City Trans Mission is a charity foundation, set up to provide a safe place and resources for those who need additional support in coming to grips with, and being comfortable in, their gender.

At least, that’s what the application for funding from the city stated.

Now they have all the cash they need, The Mission has evolved into a radical gender-fluid nightclub and twenty four hour bar, and it’s raking in the profits.

The city is happy – they’ve done their bit for equality.

The Mission is happy, for obvious reasons.

And the trans community?

Absolutely ecstatic!

SERENDIPIDY

This is an official alert from the Emergency Broadcast System:

This is a notification to advise that the Zombie Apocalypse has commenced.

Do not stockpile food, water or fuel – this will only prolong the inevitable and provide a false sense of security.

You can run, you can hide, but they will always find you; and when they find you, they will eat your brains and you will become infected too.

Do not be misinformed: There is no escape. No happy endings. And absolutely no hope.

Prepare to meet your doom. The end of the world is nigh.

Transmission ends.

LIZZIE

The image on TV was broken. It went from color to black and white, and back to color again.
The master was saying “In a mad world, only the mad are sane.” And then, the TV went blank.
She hummed the sound of static, but there was only silence.
Suddenly, her dream started playing on TV, the exact same dream she had the night before, that sweet dream of revenge.
She looked at her hands. They were tinted red.
“What have I done?”
She sighed, stood up, and slammed her fist on the TV.
The master was still speaking.

TURA

How to write a self-improvement book.———Begin by telling the reader he’s a schmuck in need of The Answer. (Read chapter one of any self-help book ever!)
There’s two ways to go then. The rationalist atheist crowd are suckers for Science. Draw on psychology, neuroeconomics, game theory, machine learning, with a boatload of scientific references. You can crib them from people like Harari. And don’t mention the replication crisis! I did once, but I think I got away with it.
The newage market wants a Transmission of Ancient Wisdom. Splice your ideas onto some actual religious tradition, through an invented guru for deniable plausibility.
Then, profit!

TOM

A Slice From Another Planet

It was faint, but regular. The transmission has oddly random. After months of work the pattern became clear to Rudy. It was a long string of numeric values. It seems to be a representation in base three. When that was confirmed Rudy set about seeing if the pattern repeated. There were short hunks, but the more numbers recorded he found it didn’t repeat, and surely was terminating. Then it hit him it was irrational. A print out from a super computer working on a group of irrationals matched the first number they found with the 20 billionth digit of Pi.    

DUANE

Transmission

“That doesn’t sound very good,” Sherry said.  “You should get that looked at.”

After asking around about a good and cheap auto mechanic, I found Hank, of Hank’s Car Repair Place.

Hank motioned me into the garage as I drove up.  He was in mechanics coveralls that had a dark outline where you would normally see “Bill” or “Joe” or “Hank.”  He held out a greasy hand to introduce himself and fell into a mucus laden coughing fit. 

“Something I picked up from the kids” he said. 

“That doesn’t sound very good,” I said.  “You should get that looked at.”

JERRY

Deep in the desert a lone figure waits. He waits and he ponders the nature of the universe. During the heat of the day he waits in the shade of the Joshua tree and looks toward the blue mountains that form a vast circle around what is now his world. At night he waits and watches the stars, their movement stately and slow. Heat and cold mean little to him as he waits. He has but one driving need. That is to return home. The last transmission told him to wait and he will wait.

And he will wait forever.

LAIEANNA

Eric had just needed something for his hour long train commute and
grabbed from the magazine rack the first issue his fingers brushed
over.  It wasn’t until he was seated and in motion before he glanced
through it, finding it mostly full of ads, but one spoke to him.

Cherry Unicorn Emporium

If you want, we will get. We don’t judge.  Be it a lion in bed to
incense, your fetish is our delight
Popcorn delivery for every purchase over $250.

Incest was misspelled.  Disappointed, Eric moved on to the next page.
He couldn’t support a business with poor editing.

NORVAL JOE

The bus chugged to a stop. Billbert followed Linoliumanda to the first open seat. Roderick sat behind them to whisper insults.The driver shoved the bus into first gear. It lurched forward but immediately ground to a stop.The driver stood up. “Sorry kids. I’ll call for a backup bus, but it looks like you’re going to be late to school.””Oh, no!” Linoliumanda panicked. “I can’t be late. I have my Harry Potter report due in English, first period.”Billbert whispered. “I’ll fly you to class. Come on.”Roderick followed them off the bus. “Where are you two going?”

PLANET Z

No matter how hard I try, I always get something on me.Blood, mostly.They say that torture tortures the tortured and the torturer.But I, the torturer, sleep well at night.Those I torture do not.Well, those few who are still alive.If you could call it that.Why not just kill them?Is it retribution?Is it the extraction of information?I don’t know. And I don’t care.I am not a judge. Nor am I a killer.I am a torturer, and I torture.I don’t care what you’ve done. Or what you’ll do.Except scream.