{"id":128,"date":"2010-05-03T19:43:33","date_gmt":"2010-05-03T23:43:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/?p=128"},"modified":"2010-05-03T19:43:33","modified_gmt":"2010-05-03T23:43:33","slug":"the-first-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/?p=128","title":{"rendered":"The First Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is the first piece in a flash fiction serial. I’ll be trying to do one a day, but I probably won’t quite manage it. As those of you who have read the older postings will notice is that the main character for this serial is borrowed from the short story Clone<\/a>. I hope you enjoy his continued adventures.<\/p>\n

\tIt was the first day. Of what, JNY-35197 was unsure. But he had been told it was the first day, and so it was. He accepted not knowing, for not knowing was part of his role. He was a soldier, of sorts. Jenny, for that was his spoken name, had been given a few months of training, and then shipped off to some godforsaken planet out in the ass end of the known universe. Apparently, there was a war on, but for Jenny? He’d had more to do when he was locked inside an organ farm.<\/p>\n

\tOut here, he was on patrol, wandering around in a desert full of sand, sand, some more sand, and sand. He was there to protect a, well, he didn’t know. It was the first day, and he was to patrol the sand. Jenny drew some designs in the sand. He’d been told they were words, but he couldn’t read or write. Organ replacements don’t need that, nor does cannon fodder. So Jenny dawdled on the sands, walking from patrol point to patrol point. There was another fresh trooper with him, but they didn’t speak. Couldn’t speak, even. The desert was so damn hot opening the battlesuits they were in was deadly, and the radio only went to command. That silent, oppressive, mystical command.<\/p>\n

\tCommand didn’t live at the base with JNY-35197 and his mates. That was just forty grunts in a prefab bungalow. Command was a voice on the intercom and the radio that ordered them about, and watched through microcameras and implants. Command wasn’t going to be in the same place as organ replacements. Hell, they were probably worried more about the battlesuits than the flesh inside. Flesh was cheap. Battlesuits, even old one likes this, weren’t.<\/p>\n

\tJenny could tell the suit was old, because it didn’t fit him right. Had a couple dents in the chest, and was tight in the crotch. A woman’s suit. Jenny had been told it was someone’s idea of a joke, but he didn’t get it. A few others had the same problem. Maybe a joke got funnier the more it was told, but Jenny didn’t think so.<\/p>\n

\tInside the bungalow after patrol, there wasn’t much to do. Eat, sleep, work out, do training. Two sims were installed at the back, and every grunt had to do a certain amount of sim training a week. Maybe it would help, maybe it wouldn’t. JNY-35197 thought it was a waste of time. He’d run himself to exhaustion, collapse onto a bunk in the dark room, and wake up. Like any other day, Jenny had come back from patrol, eaten, run, and slept. Then the alarms went off and all the lights turned red.<\/p>\n

\tCommand was on the speakers, ordering all forty into battlesuits and out to a designated point. It was an hour’s march away, but that was an easy stroll. Shrugging into the suits, JNY-35197 and the rest of his organ replacement grunts went out, command now talking into their ears from the suit speakers.<\/p>\n

\tCommand went silent after a few last orders, and the grunts marched to arrive in the middle of an empty desert. There was nothing here, nothing at all. Then command came on the speakers again, and told the grunts to look up. Meteors filled the sky. Command was jabbering away about the meteors being enemy landing craft, but Jenny was too busy watching the sky. It was beautiful. Of course, it was the first day of the war.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is the first piece in a flash fiction serial. I’ll be trying to do one a day, but I probably won’t quite manage it. As those of you who have read the older postings will notice is that the main character for this serial is borrowed from the short story Clone. I hope you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[4,37],"tags":[37],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pRIK4-24","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":171,"url":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/?p=171","url_meta":{"origin":128,"position":0},"title":"Into The Maw","date":"May 14, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"The next installment in the JNY serial and my FridayFlash. Been interesting writing what's turned out to be a fun little serial. Still going, of course. An alien dropship. What the hell. JNY-35167 looked to his left and his right. All along the line, the infiltrator suits were charging. Command\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Other Writing"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":476,"url":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/?p=476","url_meta":{"origin":128,"position":1},"title":"Command Called","date":"April 25, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"For the first time in a long while, I've written another entry in the Jenny serial. With luck, I shall finally get around to finishing the story this time. It hurt. Badly. But JNY-35197 was still alive. He tried to move. Couldn't. The console had fallen on his legs, crushed\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Other Writing"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":130,"url":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/?p=130","url_meta":{"origin":128,"position":2},"title":"The Sky Rained Ash","date":"May 4, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"The second piece in the JNY serial. This isn't standalone, so make sure to read the first short. The desert was cold, and the sky was ash. A week had passed since JNY-35197 had stared at the meteors. Half the grunts were dead, not that Jenny had known them well.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Other Writing"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":137,"url":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/?p=137","url_meta":{"origin":128,"position":3},"title":"Command is a Bitch","date":"May 10, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"The next installment in the Jenny serial, where we meet the rescuer. Of course, things could be looking down. That thing at the cavern mouth was a Devastator. They were legend in the human army, a rumour that even the newest and dumbest recruits new. Devastators were never acknowledged by\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Other Writing"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":132,"url":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/?p=132","url_meta":{"origin":128,"position":4},"title":"This Was Hell","date":"May 6, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"The third in the JNY serial. I'll have a fridayflash tomorrow, as well. This was hell. At least, it was Jenny's idea of hell. JNY-35197 had been pulled off the desert planet with the last of the remaining humans, shoved into cold storage, and shipped to an icy rock in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Other Writing"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":134,"url":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/?p=134","url_meta":{"origin":128,"position":5},"title":"We Were Ready","date":"May 7, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Here's the fourth installment of Jenny, as well as my #FridayFlash for the week. For those of you who might be new to this (short) serial, there are links to the other four at the bottom of the post, starting with \"The First Day\". The humans were ready. The ball\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Other Writing"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=128"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}