A Doper's Tale: SDMB add-on Short Story Contest!

Anyone interested in this slightly clandestine idea? Here are the premise and rules of what may be a very fun exercise for Doper Talent. Come on SDMB writer’s and imaginator’s…

Premise: To come up with a story, starting with a core concept and charactors and build upon it from there. Use any style you’d like, mimic famous author’s or story tellers, or just use your own imagination. The story can go anywhere, but it must keep some semblance of flow and not go into the unreadable. (I’d suggest writing your piece or pieces in WORD and then copy and pasting into the thread…this will cut down on out-of-order-posting, which could throw off the whole story)

Rules: Steming from the core story line you can basically write what ever you’d like to add to the story. Send someone on an adventure, start an affair, end an affair - be a 27 year old masochist in a cat suit, I don’t care…just make sure it ties into SOME aspect of the story as it evolves.
Commenting: Let’s keep commentary to a bare minimum…the story should read like a story…so please no…:This thread is cool…or…this thread’s sucks please keep commentary to a minimum…if you can write it into your submission that would be best… Or put a spoiler tag on it…

I’m guessing this thread will be time consuming, so that could be another reason to write your submission into WORD first…

I think this should be fun if we get enough people to post interesting parts to the story…I’ll start with the intro below: Here we go, the adventure begins (I hope) ->

Disclaimer No part of this will be submitted for Print.


Mrs. Simmons is a tall, statuesque woman in her middle 30’s. The wife of Charles Simmons, the father of Earth[sup]2[/sup], Patricia Simmons lives a wealthy lifestyle. Who wouldn’t being the wife of one of the most well known names on the planet.

It wasn’t until a few months after the birth of their 2nd daughter that she realized Sarah was special. The birth went well, almost too well. Sarah didn’t cry when she was born, she simply looked around at all the people around her…After she was swaddled and placed on her mother’s chest, she felt cold, yet was not disoriented. She knew immediately nourishment was coming, that warmth would enter her veins and she was ready for the first adventure of her life. As Sarah already knew her name, her mother, her father, her siblings. They had all spoken to her through her mother’s womb. And she was eager to see them for the first time. Not long after this thought, her mother began to nurse her and soon, her eyes closed and she fell asleep, into a warm slumber awaiting the life she was born to live.

                                                                               **...**

Charles Simmons, the world famous computer mogul, and inventor of the alternate reality game “Earth[sup]2[/sup]” where you can live out your deepest darkest dreams. Get in your suit, log in, step inside your cube and get ready for your passage into Earth[sup]2[/sup]. (The cube was manufactured by Simmons Inc. and consisted of a place to sit, a tred mill type device for walking or running in your simulation)
Put online in 2013, Earth[sup]2[/sup] is the simulation game where you create your own charactor, “yourself” and you basically get to do whatever you want. Every inch of ever city, ever inch of every landscape, country by country was loaded on the mainframe. Self updating, people live out their fantacies in whatever way they choose. They can go anywhere and do anything.
Recognising early on what he had, Charles Simmons kept it secret for years while in development. The son of a wealthy New England land developer, Charles funded the project from his own monies. The implications came in spurts, Charles saw potential for the miliatry to run realtime simulations…for the everyday average Joe to overcome a phobia, by confronting it head on…in this virtual reality that looked and felt like the real thing. Every sense loaded into your own brain by the suit you wore. Covering your body from head to toe, you could take a hike in the sahara and make drinks in Miami…You can interact with anyone, at anytime, as long as they are online as well.

One year later at the Simmons Nantucket home, Patricia Simmons began to realise her daughter was speical. She wouldn’t cry for her meals, for her mommy, for nearly anything. When she was hungry for something she thought it, and Patricia did it. She wanted to play with a certain sibling, they would automatically show up, drop whatever they were doing, and not knowing why go to Sarah to play.
One day at the local shopping center, a very pretty woman with a symetric face, platinum blond hair, and dressed in Black approached the carriage. When she asked Patricia how old her daughter was, Sarah awoke from her slumber in horror. As her mother spoke with the woman, the woman glared at Sarah, with a dark brown eye…And then for no reason, the woman turned and walked briskly out of the shopping mart…

Getting into her car, Courtney Lad began to pull her hair, she hit her face, she scratched her cheeks until they bled. She wanted that baby…but the voice in her head said, ‘no, you are an evil woman, walk away…’
Two months from her 3rd miscarriage, Courtney Lad was on the prowl, her husband had left her because he could no longer stand her condition getting in the way of having a family…Courtney would not be turned away from fulfilling her deepest desires.
Diagnosed with Acute Simulation Anxiety Disorder, she was banned for life from using Earth[sup]2[/sup]. She was slowly, growing more and more insane.

                                                             **...**

No interest?

The bedroom clock showed 1:14 AM. Charles found himself wide awake, and filled with a pressing need to go to his daughter’s room. Despite his grogginess, he put on his bedrobe, hung precisely by the queen-sized bed on which he and his wife slept, and stumbled across the hall to Sarah’s. She was asleep, but twitching her legs slightly.

Charles spread a towel on the desk next to Sarah’s crib, got out a diaper from the carryall, and picked the child up just as she awoke. He laid her on the towel, and removed Sarah’s soiled diaper with robotlike precision. After wiping her skin exactly where it was smeared with baby feces, he strapped her in the new clean diaper and laid her back down in the crib. Sarah went back to sleep as if nothing happened.

Before getting back into bed himself, Charles thought, Odd, I didn’t hear her cry. He then forgot what he had thought after falling back to sleep.

At 4:42 AM, Patricia did the exact same thing.

Miles away from the Simmons home, Courtney was having another “episode”. It was nearly 6:00 a.m. and she sat sobbing in front of her television as she read his note for what must have been the fiftieth time. “My darling Courtney…” it began, “…I’ve tried to understand what you must be dealing with these past couple of years. I tried to support your adventure-seeking, your need to fulfill the emptiness of not being able to conceive. Through each doctor appointment, through each loss, I shared your pain and grief. I was there with you, but you wouldn’t let me in. I couldn’t stay and watch you continue like this. The ASAD is taking over and you refuse to get the help you need. What you found was not real. He could never give you the baby we were supposed to have…”. Courtney slammed the letter to her tear-stained face and wept hard into it’s creases. “I have to have that baby” she cried, “I have to get my baby.”


After the press released the first information about Earth2, Courtney scoured every newspaper and online news source for details. “This is just the kind of adventure I need” Courtney told herself. Mr. and Mrs. Lad had been married only a short time and had tried from the time of their honeymoon to concieve, with no success. “What do you think honey?” Courtney asked her husband as he was leaving for work “would you mind if I gave this a try? Sounds interesting.” Mr. Lad shot her a mildly disapproving look and replied “If you’d like dear. Ask your doctor first though, okay. Wouldn’t want to exert yourself before we go for insemination next week.” Courtney kept her gaze steady on the newspaper she held and waited for her husband to shut the door behind him as he left. Tomorrow, Courtney would make a visit to her ob/gyn to get a referral for a specialist to discuss insemination. She was not sure how she felt about the procedure at this point, but as she sat considering her husband’s response, she remembered that the new building her ob/gyn had recently moved into was next door to a facility housing the Earth2 simulation she had read about. “I could always just stop in before my appointment” she thought to herself “and check it out.”

Courtney began to daydream about the possibilities offered by Earth2. “Hmmm…a virtual adventure, with a virtual stranger, who of course would have a sexy accent. Ahhhh…virtual happiness.”

On the other end of Nantucket, Lt. Col. Damen Velchev, USA (Ret.), pulled out of his garage. Usually, he drove his convertible, but today, he wanted to make an impression, so he decided on driving his '37 Cord.

Lt. Col. Velchev had important business to attend to, involving the Simmons family. It related to an event that had happened 60 years ago, several years before the birth of the Col. There had been a dispute, following the death of Charles Simmons great-grandfather on his mother’s side, Waldorf T. Flywheel, Esq. Mr. Flywheel left a will that had been invalid, due to the death of one of his sons just two weeks before his own. As part of the deal, it was agreed that all heirs to the Flywheel fortune (which was substantial, especially after oil was discovered on Flywheel land in 1955) would split the fortune, and share said wealth equally with one another, until the end of time.

Following his retirement from the Armed Forces, Velchev had gone into civilian law. On the previous Thursday, he had had a meeting with two New Bedford ne’er-do-wells, Constantine Villard and “Big Jim” Gatto. As it turned out, they were Flywheel heirs whose family had been accidentially left out of the dividing of the fortune. They had given Velchev one of two options: get them what they deserved, or end up dead. Naturally, he chose the more pleasant of the two options.

He pulled up to the Simmons household, got out of his car, and knocked on the door.