Instant Story

“You also rule a world, Morpheus. A world of sleepers and dreamers, of stories. A simple place compared to hell. I envy you. Can you imagine what it was like? Ten billion years providing a place for dead mortals to torture themselves? And like all masochists, they called the shots. ‘Burn me.’ 'Freeze me.’ 'Eat me.’ 'Hurt me.’ And we did. Why do they blame me for all their little failings? They use my name as if I spent my entire day sitting on their shoulders, forcing them to commit acts they would otherwise find repulsive. 'The Devil made me do it.’ I have never made any one of them do anything. Never. They live their own tiny lives. I do not live their lives for them” – RecklessPrudence

(#00447 - A072)

“Have you seen some of the nightmares they come up with?” said Morpheus. “Hells, even the dreams get frightening if you linger to examine them. I had one kid dream that her entire world was rotting away into grey haze[1]. Every dream is their own subconscious trying to tell them something, but they blame me for it all.”

“And it’s not like you can quit, right? They still use your name, so you have to answer the call.”

Morpheus poured himself another generous mug of coffee[2]. “All the work, all the blame, and no pay. You know what we are, Hades?”

“No. What?”

“We’re service industry workers. We provide the service and get none of the thanks.”

“Why’d we even take these shitty jobs?”

“Simple, they called us.”

[1] One of mine.
[2] I love the irony of it, okay?

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Supervisor: Seriously? Are you shitting me?
Computer Tech: I never intentionally released anything into the wild. It was proof of concept. It wasn’t anything particularly sophisticated. Just some script kiddie cut and paste bullshit.
S: What is Rule Number Two of Computer Repair? What is it?
CT: “No, a ‘virus’ didn’t download all of that porn.”
S: Are you telling me you invalidated Rule Number Two?
CT: Well, in my case, it was a

Rule Number One of Computer Repair: Reboot it, dumbarse.

Rule One-A: If rebooting fixed the problem and it doesn’t come back, you didn’t really have a problem.

Rule One-B: If I actually had to tell you to reboot, regardless of whether you had a real problem or not, I’m still charging you for my time. – RecklessPrudence

“…error… error… error…”

Scientists clustered around the tic'ing automaton in clear defiance of

Do one brave thing, then run like hell. – RecklessPrudence

This place was the worst labyrinth to get lost in. Especially since, and perhaps because, there was a human in it.

It may have been easy to cut through the rusting walls, but it was also noisy. The monster could hunt him down. And he could tell it was in stealth mode, because it wasn’t cutting through the walls either.

He just had to make it back to the ship&

Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence.

Vince Lombardi – c/- RecklessPrudence

“Aim high,” it was said, “at least you can’t shoot yourself in the foot.”

“Strive for perfection,” said others. “Accept the remarkable.”

“Do your utmost,” said further others, “and none can criticise.”

They were wrong.

There was plenty of criticism. Plenty of people to show her what went wrong

You must have a very interesting will.
If by “will” you mean “elaborate post-mortem interactive treasure map on my spare hard drive”, then yes. – RecklessPrudence

“Good Morning!” Mary cheered.

The man who bought her to ‘make his life better’ moaned and turned over in bed.

She no longer had functioning hands to rip the covers off him. Just virtual representations of the hands she used to create art with. So she turned off

Hey, you know my motto - live fast, die young, and leave a corpse they gotta wear hazmat suits when they cremate. – RecklessPrudence

Triibo boggled at the human salvage operator. “You live by this creed?”

“Ev'ry damn day,” smiled the Human.

“Now I know why they call you Teymour the Really Mad.”

“You’d be surprised how often I end up hearing that,” said Teymour.

“No I wouldn’t.”