Philosophy 1 - Personal realities

I never understood why I thought of and asked myself questions. It just didn't seem to have any use, why ask a question that I already knew the answer to? I'm still not sure why I do it but there have been several questions I asked myself a lot over the years. One of my favorites was if I believed in god or a higher power in general. My answer started with yes, then changed to no then to maybe. Now my answer is far more refined and has become a philosophical point I wish to share with you.

Do you believe in god or a higher power?

I believe in possibilities. As in it's possible that there is one god or ten thousand of them. I have a tendency to believe in everything and nothing at the same time, as such it allows me to say my belief is in possibilities. However I believe that god is real for everyone that believes in him. I call it a personal reality, the belief in something that makes it real to that person.

Your belief in something makes it real for you. That's pretty much the gist of it and I could ramble on for a long time on how we defined reality over the years but I won't. To someone that believes in god or allah or any other god, they are as real as their next door neighbors or the clothes they wear. For those that don't believe god is just as fictional as a character from a book. We each define our own reality this way.

"You don't have to believe in what others say to listen to them."

All the thoughts in the world
-Botched88

Cruel Irony

Today as a partial break I'm going to explore what I call the cruel irony of writers.

Like most writers for a long time I was an extremely avid reader. I consumed books like they were daily meals and enjoyed every minute of it. As time went on though I read less and less, until for a long period of time I completely stopped reading. During that time I did a lot of writing though, not anything of use but a lot of writing. After this period had passed and I started reading again I realized the cruel irony of being a writer. The more I write the less I read, the cruel irony of a lot of writers is that they don't read anymore. Reading is what inspired us to write in the first place and once we begin we lost the desire or will to read. We gained a new skill but we lost the thing that made us want to gain that skill. I have to laugh at this because I remember a quote from the anime Full Metal Alchemist, the law of equivalent exchange. "To obtain something of equal value must be lost." I guess the loss of our desire to read is the equivalent exchange of our desire to write. Nevertheless this is the cruel irony of writers.

There are times when I really hate my life.

All the luck in the world
-Botched

Office wars Part 2

The final part of Office wars.

Office wars: Part 2

Everyone moved into position as Peter gave the signal to move forward with the plan, Kevin was at the door to the fourth floor when Bob reported that they were in position. Peter made sure everyone was ready before he gave the order to kill the lights. Kevin rushed in just after the lights cut out and moved along his pre-designated path as the emergency lights kicked in, they began clearing every cubicle. Peter went in and strangely found the place to be very quiet and empty looking.

“Keep your guard up everyone, they’re here somewhere.” Peter said through the headset and began to move through the cubicle maze checking every one of them for accountants but not finding any.

“Hey look twenty bucks.” One of the IT guys said going over in front of the cubicle to pick it up as Peter screamed no! The man was taken down instantly by a man wielding what looked like a very large roll of pennies using it as a club. Peter shot the man immediately and as soon as that happened all hell broke loose. The accountants that were good at hiding assets were also good at hiding themselves as they came out of nowhere to throw CD’s at the IT guys. Using dollar bills to lure those foolish enough to try for them was easy and it would end up with the person falling to their attacks. This situation was getting worse by the minute.

“Black bishop, this is kingmaker, time to move out into the open. Beware of dollar bill traps and flying CD’s. I need you to advance through the cubicles and free us from our current position.” Peter said as his team was pressed back along the same wall as Kevin’s.

“I’m on my way, stay safe Kingmaker.” Bob replied as he open the doors to the elevator and led his team through the cubicles. The office was dark but Bob managed to lead his team through the cubicles with little difficulty. The problem was that the accountants were always hidden and very hard to spot. “HQ, this is black bishop, I need you to run a stock market crash simulation on every computer on the fourth floor.”

“Roger that, give us ten seconds.” HQ responded as Bob instructed his men to take out the accountants as they came out from their hiding places.

“Kingmaker, we are going to run a stock market crash simulation to see if we can scare out the accountants. We are not in your line of fire so fire at will.” Bob said just as the simulation appeared on every computer screen on the fourth floor. The accountants rushed to make sure everything was alright with the company’s stock and got picked off as soon as they left their hiding places.

Once the last accountant fell, the teams swept the rest of the office looking for anything of use. The CD’s would only be useful that was trained in the accounting way of CD throwing. Taking stock of the number of troops they had left, Peter saw that what was once forty-seven was down to twenty-three. This area had taken a toll on their numbers and had gained them no new weapons. Before Peter even asked the floor plans for the fifth floor came up onto the computer screens. The floor seemed to be very open and full of just tables scattered around the room.

“That’s a strange floor plan, precede with caution everyone there will be very little cover. Shield bearers are in front and everyone else moves in behind them until we know what we are dealing with.” Peter said and everyone nodded, this time they would all take the stairs up.

With the lights back on after the assault on accounting Peter knew that they would have very little cover if it came to a firefight. Opening the door they all rushed in behind the shield bearers only to find that the people sitting at the tables never looked up. The people sat behind the tables folding paper or licking envelopes. Peter knew what this was, he had heard rumors about this place but never thought it existed.

“What is this place?” Kevin said looking at the dazed look in the people’s eyes.

“Interns, I had heard a rumor that they kept interns doing meaningless tasks that will never end. My guess is that they have been doing this thing for little pay for the last eight years with the promise of advancement into better positions.” Peter said walking over to one of the tables.

“You’re kidding!?” Mary said looking at the fifteen or so interns that sat behind the table doing the same task over and over again.

“I’m afraid not, the ones that you see here are the ones that have slipped into a delusional state of mind where they still believe that after all this time the management that hired them still remembers that they are here.” Peter said raising his gun to one of them and firing.

“What are you doing!?” Kevin said watching as Peter shot every one of them.

“It is more mercy than anything else, they are too far gone to recover from this state of mind.” Peter said finishing off the last of the interns. “We move out, there is only three floors left.”

Everyone headed back down the fourth floor to check the blueprints for the sixth floor, this floor was for the legal team that belonged to the company. Several large offices occupied the floor but some smaller desks were also on the main floor. There would not be a lot of cover, so they would have to proceed behind the shields.

“There isn’t much cover but we can use the desks as cover as we advance to them, do not turn your back to the offices.” Peter instructed as everyone got ready to take on the legal team.

The stairwell was empty as always as Peter and his group approached the door, his team would be going in first this time. With the shields as cover peter figured they would have an easy time breaking through the small legal team. Nodding to the others he opened the door and followed the shield bearers inside. Large gobs of white out concealing little balls of pure tape pelted the shields as the group made their way into the office and began firing back. Three large tape balls landed near the shield bearers and exploded in a shower of contracts and paperwork. Two of the shield bearers were knocked off their feet and a third shield was shredded by the razor sharp paper. Several fell to the contract grenades and the legal team kept throwing them.

“Advance, if we get close enough they can’t use those!” Peter yelled and the teams quickly tried to advance behind the shield bearers to the first set of overturned desks. A grenade bounced behind Kevin and he looked down as another IT guy took a bucket he was using as a helmet and dove on the grenade. The explosion knocked the man back into the wall but it was contained to just him.

“You bastards!” Kevin yelled as he fired and took out two more of the legal team. One was about to throw another grenade and fell back letting it roll over to another two members as it exploded. It looked like the battle had been won when the glass on both of the offices shattered and the two head lawyers got up with two very large guns firing white out covered tape balls. The tape balls hit many as the lawyers continued to fire into the crowd. Peter saw his shield bearer begin to fall and took up the shield, charging one of the offices he leapt through the broken window and crashed into the lawyer. Taking out his back up weapon he finished off that lawyer.

Bob and the others managed to shoot the other lawyer twenty-three times before he went down. Peter came out of the office and surveyed the damage, most of the people were gone. All that was left of his army was the three other generals and three men that were only slightly wounded. He wanted to order HQ to come up to help them but he needed them to provide information on what they would encounter on the next two floors. Peter patted everyone on the shoulder in turn as he walked over to one of the offices and looked at the computer. HQ had already sent up the floor plan, there were offices on that floor but a challenge had come in from the executives to take them on in the board room.

“We won’t have an advantage, but at least the numbers are even. The board room isn’t very large and there isn’t much cover, so use whatever you can as a shield. Were almost there everyone, remember we will be kings.” Peter said showing everyone the small section of the floor plan that contained the board room.

“It could be a trap.” Kevin said looking at the plan.

“It probably is, but we don’t have any other option.” Peter said taking up one of the lawyer’s pistols, the two guns the head lawyers used were both out of ammo.

“Let’s go then, let’s be kings!” Bob said heading over to the elevator.

Peter knew it was probably a bad idea to ride up in the elevator but at this point he was beyond caring, the war had raged from mid-morning and now it was getting dark at six o’clock. They would have left work an hour ago if he had let it go, but they had come this far, it wasn’t a time for regrets. The elevator door opened to a hallway that led to the board room, there was no one in the hallway. The group proceeded to the board room door and entered into the very nice room. The room had a single wood table with leather chairs around it. The executive board consisted of seven people and they were all lined up along the far wall with their weapons ready.

“Good evening, it has been quite an eventful day hasn’t it?” One of the board members said looking at Peter as the rest of the group filed into the room.

“It has, but we will be glad to see it end.” Peter said raising his gun with everyone else and firing, the lights went out just as he had planned. By the time the emergency lights had kicked in everyone in the room was down on the ground. Peter was the only survivor of the firefight in this room and he looked down at everyone, it was now up to him to finish it.

Making his way to one of the executives he grabbed a keycard from his pocket and went to the elevator. Swiping the keycard for access to the final floor where the CEO worked, he wondered to himself whether it was all worth it. The elevator opened on the final floor, the CEO was sitting behind his desk staring forward at Peter.

“Come in Peter. I’ve been watching you since you started.” The CEO Ryan Maturn said looking at the gun Peter had in his hand, he had a more powerful one in front of him on his desk.

“This ends now.” Peter said raising the gun slightly and Ryan waved him down.

“You know that if you lose this fight then you will not achieve your goals, but if you give me the gun then I will make you an executive. Great pay and little work to do, it doesn’t sound so bad does it?” Ryan said to Peter as he rested his hand on his own gun.

“I would be able to retire after a while, be able to afford all the things I’ve ever wanted.” Peter said lowering the gun slightly.

“That’s right, it can all be yours if you just give me the gun.” Ryan said grabbing his own gun and walking around the desk. “You will become more than a simple worker, you will become one of societies elite! Isn’t that what you want, to gain the respect you rightfully deserve?”

“It would be great to have that power, to have that money, and I wouldn’t have to deal with stupid people anymore.” Peter said as Ryan advanced to stand right in front of him.

“Yes, you wouldn’t have to deal with them ever again, you could get all that. Just give me the gun.” Ryan said as he began to reach for Peter’s gun. Peter looked down at the gun and saw the handkerchief that Mary had used to bind the scratch he got on the third floor. Suddenly it all came back to him, the battles they fought and the people they lost, all to make the people of the IT department kings. If he took this offer, he would have failed in making anyone a king. Raising his gun he shot Ryan twice in the chest and then once in the head.

“We will be kings, and nothing will stop that.” Peter said as he set the gun down on the desk and contacted HQ. “HQ, this is Kingmaker, we’ve won.”

“Glad to hear it kingmaker, unfortunately we got raided after we sent you the plans for the executive floor. We got the bastards but were not going to make it. Good luck Kingmaker.” One of the people from HQ said and Peter lowered his head and sat down in the leather chair behind the CEO desk. He truly was king.

Ten years later

Peter was walking out of the elevator into the IT department as he did sometimes to make sure everything was alright. Saying hello to the employees he passed he remembered what happened here ten years ago. Would the same thing happen again?

As Peter walked through the rows of servers and computers he found the new leader of the IT department down here with what looked like an Intern. Peter walked up to them to say hello.

“Hi guys, what’s happening down here?” Peter said and both the intern and the head of the IT department both looked up from what they were doing.

“Not much sir, everything is in order I hope?” The leader said and Peter just nodded.

“Sir, if it’s not too much to ask. I was wondering if you could tell me how you went got to your position when you started as a simple IT technician.” The intern said and Peter laughed and thought about it for a minute before responding.

“With a steady hand, great accuracy, and the courage to climb the corporate ladder the hard way.” Peter said turning around to leave as the intern looked at him confused. “Oh and great friends.”

Peter returned to his office on the top floor and thought about the intern, would the intern start the same thing that Peter did? Peter opened his drawer and took out the gun he had finished off the previous CEO with, he had always kept it full of ammo and cleaned. Suddenly the lights went out all over the building, Peter laughed to himself and grabbed the gun. Was this a simple power outage or had it begun again?

The End

So ends the office wars. Hope you enjoyed it.

All the luck in the world
-Botched

Office wars Part 1

This one is split into two parts. I hope you enjoy it.

Office Wars

Peter huggins sat down behind his desk as he did every day to work. Peter worked in the IT department of a large corporate office, what exactly the office did he wasn’t sure. The day was ordinary enough as he conversed with his coworkers and checked the network and the servers for problems. About mid morning someone from sales came out of the elevator, everyone groaned at this. Sales people never understood what went on down here and either asked a stupid question that they had answered a hundred times before or they belittled what they did down here. Today was no exception to this state of affairs as the sales person walked right up to Peter.

“There is a problem with the network, fix it.” The sales person said to Peter as he stood there with his coffee mug in one hand.

“What exactly is the problem with the network?” Peter said trying to control his anger at this demand.

“I don’t know, it’s just not working for me. So throw a couple of switches and plug in some wires or whatever to make it work.” The sales person said turning around and walking back towards the elevator. The other IT people tried to console Peter by pointing out that the guy was obviously on a lower standard than stupid. Peter would not be consoled today though, he had heard the same demand fifty times before and now was the time to put an end to this.

Walking over to his desk Peter pulled out a gun that shot spit wads, he then proceeded to fire it at the sales person as he was about to hit the elevator button. The spit wad hit the man right in the back of the head and he fell forward and collapsed. The rest of the IT department gasped at this, no one had done this before. The guns were there in case someone went berserk, in that case the rest of the office was tasked to stop them. People were already reaching into their desks for their own guns to put a stop to this.

“Hold on everyone, we have tolerated this for eight years. We have put up with their stupid comments and idiotic suggestions, the time has come we show this office who really runs the show here. If we can take control of the building then we can all be the executives that step down on the morons that don’t know what they’re doing. Join me and we will be kings!” Peter said looking around at the fifty IT people in the room, they all wanted something better than working in the basement of this place dealing with morons all day. Could it work though, no one had ever tried something like this before.

“I’m in, we’ve put up with them for too long.” Bob said standing next to Peter, Bob was the manager of the entire department down here. After Bob joined on the rest of the department followed and they began to gather weapons and formulate a plan, they would do it today. They couldn’t stop until they had conquered the building, if they hesitated they would fall.

All doors to the outside were locked remotely and Peter left three IT people behind to work the network as they moved upstairs. The first floor was reception and there were two receptionists and a security guard on duty. They were dispatched easily as the group moved to the stairs to make their way to the second floor. There was a supply closet on the second floor that should be of use and it was also the floor of the dreaded sales people. Peter led the way up the stairs and they walked onto the sales floor with everyone in their little cubicles on the phone, the phone lines had been cut only minutes before so everyone was in a state of confusion. Peter’s group fanned out looking like they were here because of that, it was working until Peter walked right up to manager of the floor and shot him twice in the chest. The floor erupted into chaos but Peter’s team had already positioned themselves, most went down in the first volley but one person managed to use the interoffice network to send out a message. The IT people in the basement were unable to snag the message before it alerted the rest of the building.

“Take their headsets, communication will be easier now.” Peter said grabbing a headset and walking over to a computer. “Tune the headsets to channel 8 and someone send three down to our comrades in the basement.”

“The floor is cleared Kingmaker.” Bob said through the headset. Peter thought about the word Kingmaker and he liked it.

“Bob you will be black bishop, Kevin you are black knight, and Mary you are black queen. Remember your call signs and put together your teams, they will know we are coming this time. Basement team you will be HQ.” Peter said organizing everyone into groups so they could move easier. “HQ, send me floor plans for the second floor to terminal 12.”

The plans came up on the screen and Peter gave them a quick look over before calling his generals to him. They all looked at the floor plan on the screen noting each and every exit and the locations of any supply closets. Just then a call came in over the headset from one of the IT guys doing a search of the floor.

“Found the supply closet sir.” The man said over the headset.

“Good, bring everything out into the conference room.” Peter said looking back to the plans he had. “Alright black bishop you will enter through the door and proceed left towards the managers office. Black Knight proceed straight through the door with your team and take cover they will be trying to plan something. Black queen you and I will head right towards the supply closet. Watch your crossfire everyone and keep in communication at all times.”

The group nodded to each other as Peter walked over to the conference room to see what they had recovered. Staples, rubber bands, paper and paperclips mostly, not quite what he wanted but it would have to work. A sound was heard as the elevator stopped at the floor and everyone moved into a position to shoot whoever was inside. Inside the elevator was the man Peter had sent down to give headsets to HQ. He walked over to peter with a large box and set it down on the table.

“Kiko from downstairs says she has been working on these for a few months now.” The man said pulling out what looked vaguely electronic with wires coming out of everywhere and an unmistakably short barrel. “She says it fires rubber bands at a fast rate.”

Peter nodded his approval and distributed the ten that were made among the teams, each would take a bit to reload so he gave instructions to cover each other as they reloaded. Those using the new weapon each took several bags of rubber bands, the rest were spread out amongst the rest as they took the guns the salesmen had. These new guns used rubber bands mostly but the occasional paper clip firing weapon was found. With the plan laid out and ammo distributed the IT group moved to the stairwell. Peter hit the up button for the elevator and hit the button for floor three before he went into the stairwell.

The group gathered in the stairwell outside the third floor, Bob’s group would go in first, then Kevins and finally Mary and Peter’s. The man at the door heard the ding of the elevator and nodded, the door was swung open and the IT group stormed the room. Everyone was moving according to plan but already there were two casualties, this floor housed marketing so the employees were using their gigantic sales charts as shields as they fired back. Peter and Mary were moving along the right wall towards the supply closet and were encountering minimal resistance.

“Ambush! Kingmaker this is black bishop, we have been ambushed and are cut off from the main force. Request assistance over!” Bob said over the radio, as soon as he said that two people from the back of his line fell. Peter ran forward with the rest and opened a supply closet door for a makeshift shield.

“This is Kingmaker, reserve unit enter the room and head for black bishop’s group on the left side, I repeat left side!” Peter said as he reached around the door and fired at his ambushers.

The reserve unit was the unit Peter would normally leave but he left them behind just in case of such an event. The unit came through the door and moved along the left wall until they came behind the enemy position harassing Bob’s group. The unit quickly dispatched them and moved off to the right wall to deal with the second ambush.

Peter was still firing when he heard the reserve unit told him to hold his fire as they got into position. Peter was pulling back his arm when something struck his hand, he dropped his gun and pulled behind the door. Peter removed the staple from the back of his hand, it just grazed it but it still hurt.

“Kingmaker, are you injured?” Mary said looking down at Peter’s hand.

“It’s just a scratch, no big deal.” Peter said grabbing his gun and waiting for word from the reserve unit. Mary took a handkerchief out of her pocket and tied it around Peter’s hand concealing the wound. Peter nodded his thanks as he received word from the reserve team that they were clear.

“This is black knight to Kingmaker, we could use some help down the center. I can’t get past the goddamn shields.” Kevin said as he ducked back behind a filing cabinet.

“Black bishop, see if you can move behind the enemies position, we will try and do the same. Watch your crossfire everyone!” Peter said signaling for the reserve team to join them. Peter handed out two large charts that seemed to have been ditched in the closet some time ago. Peter moved towards the back of the office and met up with Bob, they both made their way behind the marketers position and began firing. When the marketers turned to deal with this new threat they got hit in the back by Kevin’s team.

“Clear.” The word came from all teams as they quickly swept the office for any survivors. They had lost eight people in this assault, but everyone knew they couldn’t stop until they took the whole building.

“Collect the shields and see if the guns are useful. HQ, need a floor plan for the fourth floor on terminal thirty-eight.” Soon after Peter said that the floor plan came up on the screen. This place would be tricky, it was accounting and the entire floor was a cubicle maze. There were a lot of routes that they could take but every one of them could easily lead to an ambush. “Alright everyone here is what we are going to do. Black bishop, you are taking the elevator up with your team and once it hits the floor, hit the stop button to make sure the doors don’t open. Open them when we tell you to, not a moment before.”

“Black knight you will be taking the stairs and will enter first, remember one shield in the front and one in the rear at all times. I will enter about ten seconds after your team goes. Remember to clear each and every cubicle, memorize this plan everyone because once we go up there we will be in a whole mess of cubicles. HQ, when I tell you to shut down the lights on that floor, the emergency lights will come on soon after but it might give us a better shot.” Peter said turning to Kevin, this plan would have to work.

------

Will Peter take his war all the way to the top? Find out tomorrow.

You'll have to forgive the grammatical and spelling errors. It was one of my earlier stories and I just didn't feel like cleaning it up at this point. Hopefully soon I'll have some newer stories to post up here.

All the luck in the world
-Botched

The book that survived

Well I'll be starting off this blog with some of my old stories while I work up the will to write new ones.

The Book that Survived

Archaeologists continue to try and unearth the relics of the past, from our world before the cataclysm. No one remembers now what life was like before that awful turn of events but we do remember the date of when it happened. August 12^th 2032. One day a very lucky archaeologist found a book on one of his digs, this was an incredible find because all of the books had been destroyed at some point. Still this one had managed to not only survive the destruction of the others but kept itself largely intact, the cover was worn off and it was beaten up badly but for the most part it was there. Immediately the archaeologist gained praise for this massive find and scientists immediately began to study this old book. Carefully they copied every page and had translators work for days on this book written in an old language. The old language was similar to their own so they didn’t have much difficulty. The date on the book was checked and they saw that this book was from 2012, 20 years before the cataclysm. It was the find of the century and then the scientists read the book. The book told of a civilization of epic proportions but despite it’s size and grandeur the city was hugely corrupt. They had incredible technology but it did little for the people’s hearts. The book followed one man, a mercenary as he was called as he fought to save his lovers life from these corrupt people. The story had a happy ending and was translated many times into many languages, the scientists were appalled to think that civilization had been so terrible before the cataclysm. The story from the book was reprinted in other books and for years children were taught to stick to their morals and fight against such corruption like the characters in the book. For once in their life the scientists and people began to believe that the cataclysm was a good thing and that they were better off now than before.

What was this book’s title, it doesn’t really matter. What does matter is the genre the book was written in. Science fiction.

All the luck in the world
-Botched