Mothership Zeta issue 1, volume 1

by Escape Artists, Inc.

  Flight Rising is visual candy and presents the perfect storm for obsessive compulsive ooh-shiny collectors. Dragons can be customized with clothing items that run the gamut from filigree armor to Stetsons. Artists can custom-design skins and accents, which change the look of the dragons themselves. There is a bestiary of an ever-growing number of familiars you can collect and woo to your clan’s side. New genes, or markings, are released regularly, to be applied to your precious sparkly dragon babies and passed down to their progeny. Monthly holidays for each of the 11 different flights (plus a special December holiday) present the opportunity to bond with your flight-mates and collect exclusive swag.

  All of this fuels a hearty community and in-game economy. Like most online game systems, there are two forms of currency: free in-game Treasure, or Gems which can be bought with real-life cash. Many users will buy and resell special Gem-only items to other users for Treasure, so even if you’re unwilling to spend real cash, you can get ahold of the fancier items. Flight Rising also uses barter mechanisms; you can turn in items you don’t need, gotten for free or cheap, for better items.

  Lest this appear too easy, the creators employ techniques to increase demand and create a challenge for more enthusiastic players. The new alchemy game effectively destroys items, and dragons can be “exalted,” which removes them from play and keeps the economy from getting swamped.

  Of course, all of this is for the greater good of making your dragon clan the mightiest/prettiest/fiercest/muddiest there ever was.

  From Mur Lafferty, Editor

  At first, it was just a pet game where you can breed neat looking dragons. I knew the site gave the dragons some serious history and worked up a great backstory, I just didn’t care. I didn’t hang on the forums, I didn’t fight in the coliseum, I just liked playing casually.

  Then came TrompTromp.

  See, I’m part of the Wind elemental flight. Our leader is the Windsinger, we’re all about grace and air and flying and creativity and crap. Go team pretty graceful dragons! And then my beautiful regal dragons produced this:

  It looked like a little dragon went out tromping through the mud and then got picked up by a giant child with some markers.

  And suddenly her narrative sprang forth in my mind. TrompTromp, while being beholden to the Windsinger, frequently liked rolling in the mud. And while there she met another dragon who liked the mud (aka, soil color, gembond gene) and wanted to make an entire clan of Tromp babies.

  She even got to the point where I was willing to remove my clan’s matriarch (I did that this week) and place TrompTromp as queen. I bought her a sword and put her in some awesome clothes. Soon we will be leaving the wind flight and joining the earth, because that’s where the mud is.

  The site lets you make some beautiful dragons too. This is TrompTromp’s full sister from the same clutch of eggs. I’m waiting till Christmas to breed her.

  The other authors of this post say more about the game, and I agree with them. Looking at the familiars, apparel, skins, items to collect, and stories to tell, there is a lot in this site. The downside is they only open a window to join the site once a month at best, so keep a sharp eye out for the next registration period.

  From Karen Bovenmyer, Nonfiction Assistant Editor

  Two words: Snapper dragons.

  From their round little cabbage heads to their stubby ragged wings, I’m in love. The subtle variations of art for this game amaze me. Also, I love playing a game where my obsession is controlled—checking in once a day is enough to get my “fix” and yields the full benefits of the game. If I go a few weeks between visits, no real harm is done.

  There’s always something to do on the site: mini-games, defeating monsters for loot in the coliseum, melting down items in a variety of alchemical experiments, chatting with other players, and hatching or buying new baby “snabbages” (baby snappers) for my collection. There’s a festival celebrating one of the flights each month (I’m nature flight) with special items, including skins and apparel to make subtle changes to my dragons’ appearances. The story of the game is inexorably grabbing hold of me and each of my dragons has personality. I also love that I don’t have to buy premium content in order to enjoy myself—patience and elbow grease can reap the same rewards:

  Adorable snabbage—TrompTromp’s son RoughTromp as a baby.

  Grows up to be a mighty warrior

  From Kri Dontje, Associate Submissions Editor

  I spent many a casual month lurking on Flight Rising and drooling over dragons before a friend sent me a link during one of the registration windows. Virtual pet sites were my first Internet love, and they’re where I go when I need a solid hit of nostalgia. But hey, pet sites aren’t just for kids anymore, and Flight Rising steps things up both in artistic style and user maturity. Creativity and passion abound.

  For example, when I first joined (after I spent probably a ludicrous amount of time painstakingly choosing juuuust the right colors for my first dragon) I received a note from a fellow player. I loved it so much I kept it.

  I knew I was in a good place. This spirit of generosity and fun permeates the site. I particularly enjoy the roleplay aspect; many people create customized profiles for their dragons showing their personalities and including doodles commissioned from other users. Strolling through other player’s dragon bios is an excellent way to relax and get inspired.

  While fact-checking this article, we asked the creators to tell us their favorite thing about Flight Rising—the community of players:

  “We are humbled and thrilled by the incredible growth of Flight Rising. When we opened, we did not anticipate even a fraction of this response! We wouldn’t be here without the dedication and passion of our community, and we are grateful for it every day. Our goal is to continue providing an engaging and entertaining game for years to come. Some of our favorite things about the game are forums and the player-run events that the community puts together. Oh, and dragons. We suppose dragons are all right…”

  If you do decide to join, let us know! We’re happy to spread the obsession.

  Karen: maxmelig • Mur: mightymur • Kri: twillowkins

  /fiction

  In a future where everyone’s immortal, murders are easy to solve after the victim wakes up. But when dead bodies stay dead, unending life gets complicated for Detective Harry Sordido. We here at Mothership Zeta very much enjoyed Marina J. Lostetter’s future reminiscent of Hitchhiker’s Guide and hope you do too. “Imma Gonna Finish You Off” was first published in Galaxy’s Edge magazine, January 2014 and aired in Escape Pod episode 501, narrated by Alasdair Stuart, on July 28, 2015.

  Imma Gonna Finish You Off

  By Marina J. Lostetter

  On the examining table lounged a body. It was an unremarkable body—rather wrinkly, with an inordinate amount of hair in all the wrong places and too few clothes for most people’s liking, but otherwise nothing to write your congressman about. The only thing special about the body was that it was dead—a problem that Detective Harry Sordido hoped would resolve itself quite soon.

  “Will he just get on with the coming back to life already?” Harry huffed, checking the glowing numbers embedded in his left wrist. With his right hand, he patted his ample, middle-aged girth. “He’s not the only victim I’ve got to question today.”

  “I’m not sure what’s the matter with him,” said the medical examiner, lifting the dead man’s wrist between two thin fingers. “He should have let out a nice scream-of-life by now.” He let the limb flop back to the sanitary paper.

  “What do you think it was?” asked the detective. “Accidental? Experimental? Purposeful? What do you think he died of?”

  “You’ll have to ask him to be sure. He was found out on the sidewalk. No indications of violence or a struggle, but he does look a tad flaccid.”

  “Ah, disgruntled lover, then.”

  “No, I mean on the whole. Like h
e’s been wrung out.”

  They both stared at the body for a long while.

  “You don’t think he’s really—?” began Detective Sordido.

  “It is starting to seem a bit permanent.”

  “That’s impossible! No one’s really died for damned near a millennium.”

  The examiner shrugged. “There’s a first time for every eventuality.”

  “What was his name again?”

  “Mr. X is what it says on his bio-tat. Here, I’ll show you.” The two men moved to the once-ambulatory end of the body, and the examiner held a black light over the pad of X’s right foot.

  The tat read:

  Name: Zanthaxerillion X

  Current Occupation: Government Mandated Homelessness.

  Next Occupation: Governor of Greater California (provided the line for Burger Flipper still hasn’t moved).

  Current Address: Cardboard box on the corner of Rock St. and Hard Pl.

  Age:

  Next to the age label was a bio-counter, much like the implanted watch in Harry’s wrist. It ticked off the seconds, minutes, hours, years, etcetera. Funny thing about Mr. X’s—it had switched from ticking to sticking. Harry tapped it with his index finger. “This thing broken? How come it’s not counting?”

  “I’m telling you, I think this one took.”

  “Sixty-two more years and he would have seen the big Thou. And he bit the dust while performing his civic duty.” He shook his head sadly. “They wonder why people do everything they can to avoid obligatory homelessness.”

  “You know what they say, only two things are certain: taxes, and the government taking away all your stuff.”

  Your stuff, your job, your passion. The government acted like people were dolls—ever ready to have their identities stripped on and off.

  More than nine hundred years ago the United States had decided that when you invent immortality (even if it’s by accident) you’ve hit the apex of your existence as a nation and should tap the pause button before some blockhead un-invents it. How the nation functioned and existed at that very time was carefully tabulated, preserved, and perpetuated.

  But people got bored living forever with no change. And when people are bored they start having thoughts like, “Why do I pay for federal life insurance if I’m never going to die?” and “You know, we haven’t given anarchy a shot in a good long while.”

  So the career swap was instituted. When the government compiled enough data to indicate that you’d gotten whatever you could get out of your current lot in life, it was time to re-allot. You’ve been a movie star for four decades? Maybe assembly-line work is next in your queue. You’ve been an oil tycoon for sixty years? It might be nice to try tree-hugging for a while.

  Harry’s jobs had ranged from robotics program engineer to boxing instructor to black-eyed pea de-eye-er, but he’d never been forced to hold another career for as long as he’d been forced to be a detective.

  He missed program engineering. Unfortunately, inventing new things tended to get in the way of cultural stagnation, so that career path had fallen out of style.

  “You know, considering the non-transient nature of Mr. X’s condition, I’d say this man was murdered,” said the M.E.

  “Well, how exactly do you suggest I go about finding the killer without interviewing the victim, eh?” demanded Harry.

  “I’d think you should start with something called a clue.”

  “What the hell is that?”

  “These two puncture wounds surrounded by this large bruise on the inside of his right elbow.”

  “And that’s a clue?”

  “Could be.”

  “You said he seems wrung out. Drained?”

  They looked at each other and intoned together, “Exsanguinated?”

  “Could be,” said the M.E. “I’d have to, um, perform an autopsy to be sure. Cut him open.”

  “Without his permission?”

  “I don’t really see another option.”

  Detective Sordido sighed. “OK, as long as I don’t have to watch. I’ll go investigate his belongings.”

  The M.E. stopped him before he opened the door. “Harry?”

  “Yeah?”

  “How’s Helen?”

  “Cold, last I heard.” He hadn’t seen his wife in six months. She’d been re-allotted to a fishing trawler in Alaska, while he’d been directed to stay put and detect, by damnit.

  “Give her my love, the next time you talk.”

  “She won’t be getting anyone’s love but mine, Bub.” Harry was paranoid enough as it was. He was worried she’d already found herself a salty Alaskan sea dog. A sea dog with a large pile of bones. Or maybe just the one.

  He made his way down the hall, taking a right at the sign that said: Dead this way. Living this way. The third door he encountered was the changing room in which the temporary cadaver’s personal effects were kept until they could be reclaimed.

  Why do I get all the wonky cases? he groused silently.

  Last week there was the skydiver who’d insisted on jumping out of an airplane sans chute because, well, if he got the biggest rush of his life falling to 200 ft, wouldn’t he get an even bigger rush if he just went all the way?

  Then there’d been the suicide case a few months ago. Crazy scientist thinking he’d found a cure for the imma-virus. Now, who in his right mind would want to cure immortality?

  Hopefully this Mr. X case didn’t have anything to do with those crackpots. Harry doubted it, since the scientist was now serving 120,138,007,001 years in the pen for the attempted murder of, well, everyone.

  Why would someone take out a vagrant? There was no sense serial killing these days, what with one victim shouting your guilt before you could get to the next. And if it had been a violent crime of passion, Mr. X probably wouldn’t look so... indifferent.

  The waiting room was cold and smelled of formaldehyde—clearly the first thing born-again olfactory glands were likely to encounter. Mr. X’s things—a heavy coat, a pair of knee-less trousers, brown sandals and a pair of patterned socks (no skivvies, Harry noted with distaste)—had been shrink-wrapped and laid out over a plastic chair. Wrapped, but not cleaned.

  Upon closer inspection, Harry noticed that not only were the clothes grimy, they’d come that way. Fake dirt, fake sweat stains. Definitely government issue.

  The only things that stood out were the socks. Clean, white, covered with illos of little grapes and green bottles with exclamations of ‘Ah, nothing like un-wine-ding!’ scattered here and there. Even the soles were pristine. They were brand new.

  He needed to figure out who’d been given a license to hand out socks to the homeless.

  “Welcome to the Weinsawks family vineyard,” said the receptionist with a plastic smile. More and more people were replacing their enamel with polyethylene these days. “Home of It’s-Wine-In-A-Can. The grounds are open five days a week for tours, from one-thirty until—”

  “I’m here to see the proprietor, the widow Weinsawks,” interrupted Harry.

  The receptionist held up a manicured finger without missing a beat, “—six-seventeen. Our office takes reservations for weekend parties and private events. We hope you enjoy your stay.”

  Weinsawks’ money wasn’t old, it was geriatric. As the government saw it, if there was one thing no one got tired of it was being a wine baron. So, the Weinsawks had been in the same profession since before the onset of immortality.

  Harry tried again. “I’m here to see—”

  The woman splayed her hands palms-down before him. Each of her painted nails had been labeled with a number. “Presione número uno para hablar en Español. Press two for distribution and bulk purchases. Press three for vendor locations—”

  Harry held up his right palm, mentally calling up the bio-tat of his badge “I’m here to see
—”

  “Press four for parties and events. Press five for—”

  He slammed his hands down on top of hers. “What do I press to get me through to your boss?” he grumbled.

  The receptionist took a deep breath, ready to continue with the list, but then she caught sight of the twitch in Harry’s upper lip and her cheeks quickly deflated. Extracting one hand, she pushed something under her desk and a door to the right swung ajar.

  “Thank you, and have a nice century,” the receptionist called after him, her voice stripped of its varnish.

  Bedilla Weinsawks’ office was relatively easy to locate—what with the cherry-wood twin doors guarding it, and a humungous, flashing sign above them that said, “The Decider of Corporate Fates is: In.”

  Outside the doors was a cramped nook occupied by a desk, a chair, three potted ferns and one Fern Pots. Ms. Pots tried desperately to flag Harry down.

  Not looking forward to a re-hash, fry, or bake of his previous reception, he barreled on through the doors, past the assistant.

  “Madame Weinsawks,” he declared, “I am a detective from the CA Offices of Detection, and... I...” He stammered as he noted that Madame was missing from the room.

  In fact, half the room was missing from the room. Near the doors, everything was as one would expect: wood and leather with a bit of glass, all arranged to fool the observer into believing the items hadn’t come from such pastoral things as trees, cows, and sand. But halfway across the marble floor the room ended at an expanse of vines and trellises. It looked like someone had accidentally dropped live nature on top of all the processed nature.