Bruja 10: Alien Component MK II
Bruja 10: Alien Component MK II
The night outside flickered rust-orange, visible through the horizontal windows set high into a printed concrete wall. Somewhere out there, something was burning. Something was always burning.
Someone had tried to give a human touch to the room by putting a few fake plants on the high windowsills. Set into the ceiling were LED light sconces, all off. Near the door hung a portable AQ panel. Yellow-yellow-red. Ambient radiation outside was "over acceptable limits." Opposite that was a screen on the wall, plugged into an articulated medical bed.
On the bed was Nuri, or about half of her. Her prosthetic arms and legs lay nearby on a surgical instrument table, all sterilized. The room smelled of the special disinfectant used for that. Nuri herself was swaddled in a moisture wicking garment and covered in a blanket, bolstered by sets of cushions. The bed was set at a thirty-degree angle. She had an oxygen tube in her nose. She had other tubes elsewhere.
The right side of her face was
Bruja [interlude] - Dongzhi
Bruja [interlude] - Dongzhi
Air quality beacons slowly pulsed red-red-yellow, and Nuri crunched through grey sludge remaining from an overnight ice storm, hood pulled up and respirator hissing.
She ducked into a taco stand, zipping the seal back up behind her. Nodded at Gardener, who had squeezed in among a pack of Jamaican day traders with the market feed scrolling across the sleeves of their iridescent suits.
Gardener turned on his stool to face her. Held out a tinfoil cylinder. "Fake pork today," he grinned.
Nuri pulled down her respirator, flopped her hood back. She took the cylinder, sniffed it. She unwrapped the taco and bit, thought about it, bit again.
"Anything on the dog channel?" she said around her mouthful.
"All quiet," he said, "Weird. Maybe they're all sleeping something off this morning."
Just as well. Collars drew double rates until midnight, but neither of them really felt like dragging spoofers and deadbeats to lockup today, or shooting it out with a stimrunner's gang.
Gardener was
Were-drake
Were-drake
In the end, after seven full moons, a dozen houses burned, and the bones of two-score villagers and seven unlucky knights had been strewn for leagues around, the farming clans took matters into their own hands.
Heirloom silver from every house went into the smelter. Even the sullen, miserly old usurer was held down and fed whiskey until his silver molars could be pulled.
They paid an itinerant bladesmith with as much coin, plum-wine and pelts as she could load on her wagon.
They loaded the result of her craft into a huge, old siege crossbow left over from dozens of brushfire wars as this land changed hands from one king or another.
And they waited until the next full moon, until they next heard the beating of leathery wings and claws skittering against the treetops. They would steel themselves with whiskey and plum-wine. They would aim for the center of the shadowy mass as it bent to feast. They would pray.
Some balked at the plan of using the drunken moneylender as bait for
Love Letters
The Pain Eater's Tale
The Pain Eater's Tale
Before the War of Wizards, the Red Raven Inn was a legend on the banks of the Elsa. You could hear the skirling of the violins along the water for miles. Now, the strings were silent, and even the voices were hushed of a night, as everyone listened for thunder.
Tonight, they heard it.
"Shhh!" Old Cahill admonished the patrons, and holds up his cane. As one, the grizzled farmers and river boatmen closed their mouths and look up at the rafters. Barmaids paused, faces ashen.
Unmistakably, there it was, the distant peal of thunder. Of course, Cahill had been the first to hear. He always was.
Cahill frowned. "Girls. Set to. Close the windows.
Bruja 9: Anti Alias
Bruja 9: Anti Alias
Nuri perched atop a thin spindle of light in the center of the M80, the four-level, twenty-lane commercial artery that connected all seven GOSAZ urban cores, by physical traffic, fiber-optic, petroleum, water and power. She balanced there with one skate blade en pointe, and watched rendered sunlight refract through her avatar’s crystalline fingers.
Below her, thousands of drone-driven land trains, each one dozens of trailers deep, hummed along in harmony. Billions of tons of cargo.
Not virtual reality, augmented reality. CLU began life as the Heavy Rain military aggregation. Every digital map, photograph, video, and 3D capture ever cr
Bruja 8: Overclock
Bruja 8: Overclock
Confluence Landscape Userbase was designed as a scalable, commercial version of the combat network Nuri used in CorpSec. Except anyone could get in with a connection and a subscription fee. That meant it was bloated, laggy and full of assholes. It also meant you couldn’t live without it. Just like meatspace.
The first commercial version went hot thirty years ago. Twenty years ago, the old internet was history. Nuri had never typed anything into a search engine in her life. Instead, she sent routines. Search apps, hunters, do-things, fetch-this, buy-that, all from the data curtain constantly in her visual field. Most people had one, the
Bruja 7: Panic Room
Bruja 7: Panic Room
Data broke in waves against the caged arena like high tide. Nuri’s green eye collected the feed, harvested it from the nanotech swimming in the crowd’s guts.
The women in the cage each bent, tensed, muscles corded, instructions from the chittering cortex rigs on their backs cracking through them like whips. They stalked each other like lionesses. Nuri and Marquez could see changes in the vitals, brainwaves, could see the enhancements spinning up and bodies overworking to compensate.
They’d been given ring names. Mojave, or at least his voice, called out each as she’d entered the ring. One with a red rig on her back g
Unboxing
Unboxing
The children, as they always did, perched on the Stones for the Evening Telling. The Teller stood, face in white, Stick of Truths in his hands. When it was such, only the Teller could say stories and tell truths. All others were to stay silent unless called to respond. Even the Chief-In-The-Walls could not speak if he were in attendance, although tonight’s Telling was only for the children and Mums.
Behind the Teller, the Burning Mums tended the Telling Fire. It kept the Teller in silhouette, and the children’s faces sweaty with its heat, hotter than usual tonight. The girls especially scratched at the cloth over their mouths.
Damned Kids
Damned Kids
"You wanna see something cool, Peter?"
Marnie's hair was long, shaggy. She peered at me through it. Shy. Brown eyes behind black curtains.
Every time she said that, it was an adventure. Danny'd snicker at me. "Where'd she drag you off to this time, Pete? Catch a chicken and kill it? Pull the wings off butterflies?"
The whole town thought Marnie and her family were strange. Marnie was bullied at school. One time Danny shoved a cup of worms into her locker. Everybody thought that was real funny.
I didn’t. It was stupid. Marnie was just quiet. Her mom drank a lot, didn’t leave the house much. Her dad, well. He wasn't around.
See all
Bruja 10: Alien Component MK II
Bruja 10: Alien Component MK II
The night outside flickered rust-orange, visible through the horizontal windows set high into a printed concrete wall. Somewhere out there, something was burning. Something was always burning.
Someone had tried to give a human touch to the room by putting a few fake plants on the high windowsills. Set into the ceiling were LED light sconces, all off. Near the door hung a portable AQ panel. Yellow-yellow-red. Ambient radiation outside was "over acceptable limits." Opposite that was a screen on the wall, plugged into an articulated medical bed.
On the bed was Nuri, or about half of her. Her prosthetic arms and legs lay nearby on a surgical instrument table, all sterilized. The room smelled of the special disinfectant used for that. Nuri herself was swaddled in a moisture wicking garment and covered in a blanket, bolstered by sets of cushions. The bed was set at a thirty-degree angle. She had an oxygen tube in her nose. She had other tubes elsewhere.
The right side of her face was
Bruja 9: Anti Alias
Bruja 9: Anti Alias
Nuri perched atop a thin spindle of light in the center of the M80, the four-level, twenty-lane commercial artery that connected all seven GOSAZ urban cores, by physical traffic, fiber-optic, petroleum, water and power. She balanced there with one skate blade en pointe, and watched rendered sunlight refract through her avatar’s crystalline fingers.
Below her, thousands of drone-driven land trains, each one dozens of trailers deep, hummed along in harmony. Billions of tons of cargo.
Not virtual reality, augmented reality. CLU began life as the Heavy Rain military aggregation. Every digital map, photograph, video, and 3D capture ever cr
Bruja 8: Overclock
Bruja 8: Overclock
Confluence Landscape Userbase was designed as a scalable, commercial version of the combat network Nuri used in CorpSec. Except anyone could get in with a connection and a subscription fee. That meant it was bloated, laggy and full of assholes. It also meant you couldn’t live without it. Just like meatspace.
The first commercial version went hot thirty years ago. Twenty years ago, the old internet was history. Nuri had never typed anything into a search engine in her life. Instead, she sent routines. Search apps, hunters, do-things, fetch-this, buy-that, all from the data curtain constantly in her visual field. Most people had one, the
Bruja 7: Panic Room
Bruja 7: Panic Room
Data broke in waves against the caged arena like high tide. Nuri’s green eye collected the feed, harvested it from the nanotech swimming in the crowd’s guts.
The women in the cage each bent, tensed, muscles corded, instructions from the chittering cortex rigs on their backs cracking through them like whips. They stalked each other like lionesses. Nuri and Marquez could see changes in the vitals, brainwaves, could see the enhancements spinning up and bodies overworking to compensate.
They’d been given ring names. Mojave, or at least his voice, called out each as she’d entered the ring. One with a red rig on her back g
Bruja 6: God Complex
Bruja 6: God Complex
It used to be an aircraft hangar, big enough for three C-130s to touch wingtips, occupying what used to be a GOSAZ emergency response airfield. Shot through with buckling tarmac and overgrown with brush, the airfield was now a fuselage graveyard, home only to coyotes and squatters.
Witch’s Night, the moon was pink and clouds scudded ugly across her. Nuri sat inside an empty air scrubber casing, itself inside the hangar, bolted just under the ceiling. She looked through the vent grille at the preparations below. Divebomb was setting up shop.
Divebomb was a guerilla venue. Not a place, a mobile concept. Sometimes it was a pitch-dark n
Bruja [interlude] - hexennacht
Bruja [interlude] - hexennacht
It used to be a GOSAZ emergency airfield, now an aircraft graveyard, and a haven for off-grid squatters.
The full moon glowed pink in the sky grime, and Nuri threaded her bike through without lights, her green eye bringing skeletal fuselages into view like great metal shipwrecks. She threw her leg over and hopped off, running the motorcycle up the cargo ramp of an old C-130 hulk. It creaked and banged with the wind. She knew the plane well, used it as an equipment drop often.
She leaned her bike against the side of the bay, threw a tarp over it and looked around. She had somewhere to be, but this place always made her pause. Wasn't that lon
Bruja 5: Shadow Cat
Bruja 5: Shadow Cat
Sound of a metal, segmented door rolling upward. Needs a hit of grease. Grunts of a man, tough but out of shape, with a lot of mileage on him.
“Hiiii, Gard-dog!” Girl’s voice, nine or ten. Sound of a chair squeaking, spinning.
Sound of the door rattling closed. Sound of a respirator’s elastic sliding off. Sound of a man’s heavy footsteps.
“Yeah, yeah, don’t with the ‘Hi, Gard-dog.’ I know you heard me coming. Could have opened the fucking door.”
“Aww. Don’t be poopy. What’d you bring to eat?”
“Thai.”
“A-gain?”
“Thai̵
Bruja 4: Lily Eyes
Bruja 4: Lily Eyes
Nuri showered away the rain toxins, and soon was helmeted, coveralled and back on her bike, this time with a pack slung under her arm, silently weaving her way through the mass of autocabs and drone-driven land trains snaking their way down the elevated GOSAZ commuter arteries. She exited and descended along the edge of the Brick’s huddled mazes, following a drainage culvert until she reached a cluster of grey-green domes hugging each other like muddy soap bubbles.
Cemeteries existed only in history. Those left behind created their own reliquaries where they could. Nuri volunteered here, the Brick’s semi-public arboretum, and pl
Bruja 3: Flush the Sky
Bruja 3: Flush the Sky
In a special post-playoff promotion, the glass walls of the Cascade, the canyon of capitalism that formed the heart of the Gulf Orleans Special Administrative Zone, all went opaque. A drone swarm projected titanic images of bubblegum virtual-idol twins Akari Moment and Akumi Realize, excitedly blazing post-game analysis in chirpy, focus-group tested voices.
It was dawn, but the sullen, pink sun couldn’t compete with the perpetual industrial fog and the Akari and Akumi show on fire among the skyscrapers below.
Nuri tied back her hair against the buffeting wind, adjusted her respirator and popped out her right eye. She was tethered to
Bruja 2: Brick Witchcraft
Bruja 2: Brick Witchcraft
The stadium roof was a steel spider web, lit pink and red from above by digital sakura falling from a passing promo airship.
Nuri stood in silhouette against the giant springtime display behind her. Far below, pyros fired, bold colors reflecting from her left eye. A crowd roared. She shifted her weight, leaned against the metal support of the huge LEDs that craned over the stadium like wide-eyed insects. Final score. Somebody won, somebody lost.
Nuri clicked through her feed brought through her right eye. Money changing hands. She could see it pulse through the stadium like a heartbeat, fed through satellites, wire transfers, currency exc
Were-drake
Were-drake
In the end, after seven full moons, a dozen houses burned, and the bones of two-score villagers and seven unlucky knights had been strewn for leagues around, the farming clans took matters into their own hands.
Heirloom silver from every house went into the smelter. Even the sullen, miserly old usurer was held down and fed whiskey until his silver molars could be pulled.
They paid an itinerant bladesmith with as much coin, plum-wine and pelts as she could load on her wagon.
They loaded the result of her craft into a huge, old siege crossbow left over from dozens of brushfire wars as this land changed hands from one king or another.
And they waited until the next full moon, until they next heard the beating of leathery wings and claws skittering against the treetops. They would steel themselves with whiskey and plum-wine. They would aim for the center of the shadowy mass as it bent to feast. They would pray.
Some balked at the plan of using the drunken moneylender as bait for
The Pain Eater's Tale
The Pain Eater's Tale
Before the War of Wizards, the Red Raven Inn was a legend on the banks of the Elsa. You could hear the skirling of the violins along the water for miles. Now, the strings were silent, and even the voices were hushed of a night, as everyone listened for thunder.
Tonight, they heard it.
"Shhh!" Old Cahill admonished the patrons, and holds up his cane. As one, the grizzled farmers and river boatmen closed their mouths and look up at the rafters. Barmaids paused, faces ashen.
Unmistakably, there it was, the distant peal of thunder. Of course, Cahill had been the first to hear. He always was.
Cahill frowned. "Girls. Set to. Close the windows.
Unboxing
Unboxing
The children, as they always did, perched on the Stones for the Evening Telling. The Teller stood, face in white, Stick of Truths in his hands. When it was such, only the Teller could say stories and tell truths. All others were to stay silent unless called to respond. Even the Chief-In-The-Walls could not speak if he were in attendance, although tonight’s Telling was only for the children and Mums.
Behind the Teller, the Burning Mums tended the Telling Fire. It kept the Teller in silhouette, and the children’s faces sweaty with its heat, hotter than usual tonight. The girls especially scratched at the cloth over their mouths.
Damned Kids
Damned Kids
"You wanna see something cool, Peter?"
Marnie's hair was long, shaggy. She peered at me through it. Shy. Brown eyes behind black curtains.
Every time she said that, it was an adventure. Danny'd snicker at me. "Where'd she drag you off to this time, Pete? Catch a chicken and kill it? Pull the wings off butterflies?"
The whole town thought Marnie and her family were strange. Marnie was bullied at school. One time Danny shoved a cup of worms into her locker. Everybody thought that was real funny.
I didn’t. It was stupid. Marnie was just quiet. Her mom drank a lot, didn’t leave the house much. Her dad, well. He wasn't around.
Bruja 3: Flush the Sky
Bruja 3: Flush the Sky
In a special post-playoff promotion, the glass walls of the Cascade, the canyon of capitalism that formed the heart of the Gulf Orleans Special Administrative Zone, all went opaque. A drone swarm projected titanic images of bubblegum virtual-idol twins Akari Moment and Akumi Realize, excitedly blazing post-game analysis in chirpy, focus-group tested voices.
It was dawn, but the sullen, pink sun couldn’t compete with the perpetual industrial fog and the Akari and Akumi show on fire among the skyscrapers below.
Nuri tied back her hair against the buffeting wind, adjusted her respirator and popped out her right eye. She was tethered to
Bruja 2: Brick Witchcraft
Bruja 2: Brick Witchcraft
The stadium roof was a steel spider web, lit pink and red from above by digital sakura falling from a passing promo airship.
Nuri stood in silhouette against the giant springtime display behind her. Far below, pyros fired, bold colors reflecting from her left eye. A crowd roared. She shifted her weight, leaned against the metal support of the huge LEDs that craned over the stadium like wide-eyed insects. Final score. Somebody won, somebody lost.
Nuri clicked through her feed brought through her right eye. Money changing hands. She could see it pulse through the stadium like a heartbeat, fed through satellites, wire transfers, currency exc
Bruja
Bruja
Mister Curses was Gina's threadbare, stuffed black cat made of old t-shirts. Her abuela made him as a gift two Halloween-birthdays ago. Now abuela was gone, Mom was passed out again on the couch, and it was just little Gina, Mister Curses, the blinking security status panel, and the gunfire beyond the door outside.
She clutched the floppy cat to her chest as the shouting started. She didn't know the language, but it wasn't English and it wasn't Spanish. She'd heard it before, the men who ran the building they lived in and collected money or other things from Mom used it all the time. They scared little Gina. They scared Mom too, but she tri
In Lieu of Flowers
In Lieu of Flowers
She knew it made her father sad, how she always looked backward. Jenne would spend her time, when she wasn't studying, or even when she was supposed to be studying, face pressed into the eyeset, looking at the feeds from the left-behind telescopes that still made their journeys, like breadcrumbs between here and Earth.
Her sister would slap the back of her head, tsk, then say something about the boy she'd been talking to over the wave. That one on Charon, maybe. Seemed like a different one every time.
Josephine was a kid. She didn't remember Mom. She had no reason to look through Jenne's eyeset at the grainy feeds. Had no reason to glance o
Interossicular Space
Interossicular Space
It wasn't that May's parents didn't love her, or wouldn't miss her.
She could no longer go to school, and every tutor and nanny they brought home just couldn't stop chewing or move slowly enough to do the job. And the breathing. May's parents went through training, used circular techniques, never did anything strenuous around May. Diet, house, everything was a cushion. Nothing clicked, knocked, groaned or collided with anything else. May's folks had the act down cold.
But anyone else, no matter the training, always that one time they'd forget and sigh, and May would clamp her hands to ears and make that face. Her silent scream. Then the sho
Not Today
Not Today
It was time.
Between the serving periods. The shuffling lines thinned back to just a few stragglers, the older ones mostly. Sister Elene knew by their feet, mostly wrapped up in oilskin against the constant wet. She'd done the same, as much for the quiet as for keeping out the salted mud. She discarded her apron, grabbed her pack, a roughspun hooded robe and her lantern from their hiding place in the back of the storeroom. Under the robe, she belted on the knife. It pulled at the scars, her chest felt like strips of leather.
Elene wanted to look at the knife, say the prayer, but no time. It had to be now. She knew where he'd be, knew he'd b
Citizens
Citizens
They ignored their City's gleaming towers,
her rose-hued walls,
her sparkling streets,
her abundance.
They had eyes only for the other across the plain.
It was not until
her towers rusted,
her walls fell,
her people starved,
That they found the other across the plain
was a mirage.
Harvey's Halloween
Harvey's Halloween
There were a lot more trick or treaters this year.
Lot more spider mans, wonder womans,
little astronauts in their pressure suits,
more moms and dads carrying the helmets after a few blocks
this year.
This year, spider man is going to a new school,
one taking on lots of new spider mans,
and wonder womans,
and astronauts,
with the same teachers carrying the extra load
this year.
This year, wonder woman's mom washed her
magic lasso
with her school clothes
in a washing machine fixed up
by students, and dried them on a pole welded
by students and
maybe they'll be able to move out of this shed
this year.
This year, little astronauts
ark nemesis
ark nemesis
Came out of the sand,
wind blowing hot
ruffling his hat brim
No wings.
They had wings, we thought,
but the Good Book
never said anything about that.
Just a long chain
A long chain,
A chain as long as we've been here
crawling across His skin
until today.
A long chain,
holding a big box
tight
on his back,
pine,
fine grain,
if you've a mind
for detail.
Along his chest,
leather.
He pulled it,
Sam Colt
in each claw,
and he dared the horizon
Draw,
you Sons of
Sons of
Bitches,
And as we started,
we ended,
rats, crawling over the dirt
scrambling
for water
for sun
for a dark hole away from
the storm
we'd made.
One
by one
by one he raised h
Watered down
Watered down
I asked the old sailor
as he sucked on suds
my coin had brought him,
I asked again
the question that had brought me.
Yea, he spat.
He didn't say Aye,
Yea, you whelp, I saw one once.
Hair like the sun topping the waves
at dawn,
Scales like the calmest blue
around the islands where coconuts grow,
and speaking of coconuts, she had...
But what happened, I pressed him,
another coin down, another glass down,
'We'd gone down,' he said, a Spring gale
ripped our sails, and sent us breaking
over the breakers on the Eastern coast,
rocks like teeth, the Devil's tits.
I coughed at the color.
Another coin down.
And the man went on.
Water was black,
I reckon
I reckon
Weeds tumble
over my headstone
until the Day.
one Day
a man was weary
too many mouths, too
hungry, loud
decided to shut them mouths
for better or worse
one Day
a general made a truce
swords to plows, but
orders are orders
decided to take that land
for better or worse
one Day
a rich man laid track
hands and hammers, all
crossed the sea for pay
but bullets are cheaper
for better or worse
one Day
Weeds tumble
into a broken hole
next to my headstone
Got my bullets,
Got my orders,
And I'm hungry
And for better or worse,
Hell's coming along.
Artist // Hobbyist // Literature
- Oct 29, 1972
- United States
- Deviant for 13 years
- www.deviantart.com/managedeviations/
- He / Him
Badges
My Bio
Professional design portfolio available.
Portfolio on Crevado.
Custom
Me, in summary.
Meet Hank
Meet Hank
Everybody, I'm pleased as a raven pooping on a shiny new headstone to introduce you to Hank Whitson, a friend of mine from the Twitter Writerverse that seems to have ignored his better judgement and set up shop on DA as @TheSarcasmancer. Hank is a wonderful and imaginative writer who is currently working in the fantasy genre on a manuscript set in a magical, alternate Earth. It's very good stuff. He has posted his inaugural entry on DA, set in this same world. Check it out:
Hank is also a really nice chap, enthusiastic about writing, and enthusiastic about talking about writing. To that end, he manages the #InspireWrite prompt discussions on Twitter, which I can honestly say have made me think about my own WIP in ways I hadn't considered before. I think he'll fit right in with all the rest of us.
So I ask this favor. Drop by his shiny new page, maybe check out his writing and offer a thought, or simply leave a welcome message. Feel free to link him to any writerly groups or
Creature Feature
Creature Feature
I couldn't talk about it when it happened; I was on the road moving Noah into his first apartment (:cries: ) in Austin.
BUT, I got a Daily Deviation on The Pain Eater's Tale last Wednesday! Many thanks and bowls of candy to @Zara-Arletis for giving it the nod, and to everyone who read, faved and commented on it.
It came at a very good time, as my mental health has not been the best lately, and despite the quarantine and lots of time at home, I haven't been able to make a serious effort at writing. I've attempted some Bruja stuff, and it's baaaaaaad. Anyway, the feature is a wonderful vote of confidence, and I appreciate it.
The DD has also revealed to me a serious flaw in Eclipse. Not sure how many of you knew this, but the old version of the site allowed you to view all the DDs someone has earned by going to deviantart.com/username/dds
That doesn't work anymore; the feature is not available in Eclipse.
That REALLY sucks, because CVs relied on that feature to see whether
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Malintra-ShadowmoonHobbyist General Artist
Thank you so much for the watch. 
It is highly appreciated 
Malintra-ShadowmoonHobbyist General Artist
Well, me too as I have already participated in some of your "horror" contests.
Thank you so much for the congrats, dear toilet bowl collegue 
Thanks for the 
!
!
AstralseedProfessional General Artist
Your icon!!! 
Is it in honor of the voice actors recent death?
Is it in honor of the voice actors recent death?