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Fermius Firefly

A Dream Log, whenever I remember the dreams I've had.

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Location: San Marcos, United States

Fermius is a pen name drawn from a series of short fiction I wrote when I published the small press magazine Stellanova (on paper.) I play RPG games to escape from my daily grind as a technology wage slave for the state of California. I eat out a lot in order to do my part in supporting our increasingly service level economy. I am butler to 2 feline masters. If you ask them they will tell you I'm not very good at it, late with dinner, don't have enough hands with brushes in them, and sometimes I even lock them out of their office.

Friday, May 17, 2013

LPS Troubles

The dream was, I thought, at first, black and white. However, as I looked down at my wrist computer, set into a thick excursion suit arm, I realized I was on the moon, with the sun just down below the nearby range of mountains. I was trying to follow a track and directions from the Lunar Positioning System because I was late for a party, and my oxygen supply was lower than I would have liked.

The orange and green display winked and spun, recalculating, when it reported the last available satellite down below the horizon. I swore and took a bearing using the suit compass. Fortunately I still had the map up, and was able to figure out approximately where I was, and where I was supposed to be. I realized that I couldn’t trust the last “you are here” data, as the satellite was nearly below the horizon, where it’s resolution and accuracy were at their worst.

What the map showed, and what I was looking at didn’t match up very well. I presumed that I was lost. I bounded up to the top of a large pile of rocks, mining debris from the look of the tool marks, and found I was only a hundred feet or so from a distinct track.

While I knew that the track could be just as easily fifty years old as fifty minutes old, I was hopeful that it was much closer to the latter. At this point I just needed to get to a habitat where I could exchange my full CO2 scrubbers for an oxygen recharge and emptied scrubbers. (All modern habitats had external emergency exchange facilities, and many farming modules actively encouraged visitors to come and leave their valuable carbon behind.) I became quite hopeful as the track took me into territory that looked more and more familiar. I was glad the sun was well down, as I was working up a bit of a sweat trying to bound along the track, disturbing its smooth contours with a pair of scuffed boot-prints every fifteen feet or so.

I managed to reach my destination just as the next LPS came up over the horizon, and a cheery “Recalculating” sounded over my suit speakers.

I wasn’t even that late for the party, where I got to show off my new personal hover transport (for internal atmospheric use, only.) It was a sort of collapsible handle on an air-cushion platform with small jet engines, sort of a souped up Segway like device. I had built it to navigate the long corridors of the water filtration and treatment center where I worked, but it had become something of a favorite racing pass-time for the rest of our crew, especially useful in the long, over pressurized mine tunnels that acted as our emergency air reserves. (The high air pressure and low gravity made for a very exciting combination.)

The device was a decided hit, and nearly everyone wanted to try it out.

Friday, May 03, 2013

Friends

I was introduced to some college aged friends, an odd mix of twenty somethings cut straight out of 'Big Bang Theory,' '90210,' 'Three's Company,' and, 'Friends.' We were at a condo warming party for the bunch of them, as they'd all just moved in.

They were all crammed into three of four units in a quad-plex condo, and were trying to get me to agree to be the purchaser of the fourth so they would have a unified front to present for the common area rules. This led to an awkward moment where I had to point out to them that I was old enough to be any of their parents, so a unified front was, well, unlikely.

"But you're a cool, odd, old guy..."

"... and the show needs that."

So, I was thinking to myself, this is what my life has come to, I'm Mister Furley on some new semi-reality show.

Just as I was thinking this couldn't be even a smidgeon more awkward, the Middle Eastern fellow that no one really understands came over and hugged me. "I wish I had a dad like you."

And the hug went on way longer than it should have, just like if we were shooting a sit-com. I hoped I was getting more than union scale.

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