BCS story competition....

A while back we started an chain letter story to enter into the BCS story competition. The story has to be 2000 words long and be submitted by 29 June.

We've amalgamated the first lot of contributions and added a bit to create the story below.

It's just under 1,200 words. So, we reckon another 4-6 contributions of around 150 words would do it.

Thanks for the contributions so far - all will be credited.....

The story so far....

Leia lay back, sated. She flicked her Double Penetronic 350X to stand-by…hang the fucking expense, she thought, I’ve just had three hours of rough sex with a machine and I’m not worrying about saving the planet now. We’re all fucked anyway. Ha, ha, funny. She was fucked (literally) and we were all fucked (figuratively).

Never mind what Uber-President Gore said; the carbon footprint had well and truly stamped all over the human race. All we could do now…at least those that could afford it…was indulge in life’s hedonistic pleasures and try not to bring any more sorry little blighters into this screwed-up world.

This is one of the many reasons why the Double Penetronic 350X was such a huge success. Well, that, Leia reflected, and the fact that she’d been running its PR campaign for the past three years.

The softly hissing, dripping machine now reclined in the corner of her studio pod was one of the perks of the job…sure, it was an ex-review machine but Leia didn’t give a shit where it had been before, as long as it worked when she wanted. Rolling over, she commanded her retina display to pull up The World’s Leading… the only thing worth reading these fucking days…

What she saw made her freeze. It had finally happened. The result of years of gossip, stories, thoughts, comments and insight, and now the truth was finally revealed. Five years ago something extraordinary happened. Those behind TWL had created a phenomenon that felt like a living, breathing entity; a massive mouthpiece in global technology; a hugely influential source of information and insight; something that Governments and major business was acutely aware of. And now it was writing itself...

She watched as the self sentient blog quickly fired words up on her display "enjoy your dual Leia?" - damn predictive text, didn't work that well even in 2023.

Not shocked in the slightest that her display seemed to be talking to her, these were after all the days of the more personalised 419 gang, she typed back: "If you have hacked my cameras again Rory you are going to the slammer. I told you they have a special place for pretty account executives like yourself where they like to Beta test new sexual manoeuvres"

"Not Rory," TWL spat out. "We have been watching and tasting you (the Double Penetronic had a world leading secretion reservoir for the ultimate online experience) we think that we may have finally found the one we have been looking for. Please go to your printer......

Meanwhile, across town, Stan climbed out of the shower. He turned the water off. He took the Tesco bag off his head. Yes, that was the phone he could hear, filtering up from downstairs. It never bloody stops, he thought. There's no escape, even when I'm screaming myself hoarse in a terrifying near death experience.

Perhaps it's a good thing, he mused. Simulated drowning is probably a poor substitute for the real thing. Even if the CIA does use it as a form of torture. Even though it inevitably will be adopted in the UK, by the usual creeps who copy anything and everything that comes from America. Even if he could prove to himself he'd resist a brutal interrogation.

He wasn't seeing Object Marketing for another week. And the stories of Andrew Smith's brutal job interview techniques had to be exaggerations. Didn't they?

"Good afternoon sir, I hope I wasn't disturbing you," said the man from the call centre."Well, actually, I was just torturing myself. I was running the shower, with a Tesco bag on my head. Screaming the house down. Which is probably why I didn't hear you."

A moment of stunned silence followed, after which Stan continued. "You know, simulated drowning? I wanted to see how I'd survive under intense questioning," said Stan.

With that, Call Centre Man was gone. Stan pitied him. Fancy calling someone in the UK, without even trying to understand their culture. This industry is full of amateurs.

There was a knock at Stan’s front door. “For fuck’s sake, if this is some bastard trying to flog me a £3.50 J-cloth I’m going to Taser the gypsy piece of shit,” muttered Stan. He opened the door slightly, his pasty white face and squinting eyes peering through the gap. “TWL sent me here,” said Leia, repulsed by the thick mucus just visible in Stan’s left nostril.

Stan had no fucking clue who this chick was, but she was the hottest thing he'd seen since the fireball that had ripped through the hydro-powered server farm he used to manage. “Oh, hello, do come in,” he said, nonchalantly, opening the door.

Once inside she saw Stan and pulled a face like Simon Weston playing the harmonica. The fireball that had just flashed through Stan’s mind evidently took much longer to cross the left hand side of his body. Still naked from his shower, Leia could see every horrific scar that lacerated his torso and the melted stump of an elbow to which his forearm was no longer attached. His left testical was gone and the heat must have shriveled his cock.

“No, it’s always been like that,” mumbled Stan, noticing where her distain had rested.

Shaking her head ruefully, Leia asked: “I guess you know why I’ve tracked you down?” Weighing up Leia’s perfect body and flawless complexion, Stan was pretty confident of his assumption: “Yeah, I spoke to Abel & Cole earlier. You’ve got my organic baby box.”

“Stan, we’ve got government-sponsored splaying, female circumcision and mandatory vasectomies. And you think I’m some kind of high class hooker and surrogate mother hybrid? What the fuck makes you think that, and why did want such a service? One look at you tells me your libido is drooping like tulips after their sell-by-date.”

It took Stan dressing, several hours and two packets of state-subsidised Khat for Leia to explain things. He was somewhat sceptical, but, he figured, given a choice between a lonesome social life of simulated drowning and Football Manager 2023, or hanging out with this hot red-head, might as well go along with her crazy theory.

Apparently TWL was started by humans, was enjoyed by technology, and, over time, had become self-conscious, self-hating, artificial intelligence. Using its immense computing power, it had found a way of reversing hideously destructive climate change and, with that, breaking technology’s power over the human race. James Cameron, with Terminator, hadn’t got it quite right (especially with Terminator III, according to Halliwell’s), but the machines – technology – had taken over. It was all-powerful, and enslaving humans to serve its own repulsive interests.

With Stan’s help, Leia had to find Paulo Thornburg. Paulo was a technology analyst, but years of abusing Class A drugs had clouded his business acumen and social interaction skills to the point of destitution. He held the answer, but they had to get the jakey old cunt to concentrate long enough to talk sense without being abusive and arrogant. But Leia knew nothing about him, other than what TWL had delivered to her printer: Find Paulo Thornburg, KnowBest....