GISHWHES Happy Fun Time

Ten days ago, I'd never heard of GISHWHES. But my Twitter feed suddenly blew up with a flurry of GISHWHES tweets which seemed all obfuscated and abstruse. Naturally, I was curious. So, off I tromped to the Google, to find out what this exciting nonsense was all about. It turns out it stands for:

Greatest 
International 
Scavenger 
Hunt the 
World 
Has 
Ever 
Seen

And the acronym seems to be true, since it's broken the Guinness World Record five times. Hosted by actor Misha Collins, it's an international hunt involving stunts and acts of kindness and tons of fun, crazy, GEEKY stuff. (Yay!)

I was intrigued. Then, out of the blue, I found out about item number 78 on the GISHWHES list, when I was asked to fulfill it:

---

Misha Collins, hunky actor dude

"Get a previously published Sci-Fi author to write an original
story (140 words max) about Misha Collins, the Queen of England, and an Elopus [an elephant/octopus hybrid]."

Credit: Rob Stewart/Niwa Graneledone taniwha taniwha octopus.

Wow. It almost seemed like the category was INTENDED specifically for ME!!! Right?!?!

Being pretty new to authorhood, I expected that to be the end of it. I wrote one up and sent it off to team fishwishesLovespwincessbubbakwup and got back to the business of writing writing books.

Then I saw a tweet from John Scalzi, lamenting that he was besieged with GISHWHES requests. "Heh," I thought. "Must suck to be famous."

Little did I know the requests had only just begun. I got another...and immediately decided Scalzi was right. 😊 Though I wanted to help out, and writing the little stories was fun, I couldn't honor every request because that would be all I'd be doing. I agreed to write TWO and posted publicly that that was all I'd be doing. At least one other contestant was disappointed. (I hope they found someone to do it for them!)

So, the big hunt is over and I'm now allowed to share my two (extremely brief) stories.

#1
MISHA IS THE MACHINE

image credit unknown

Misha Collins slid soundlessly from the lift, dropping camouflage. He’d gone undetected, but he wanted Queen Victoria LXXIV of the NovaUK to see the man that assassinated her. It was her or him. Freedom or death.

QVLXXIV turned her head as much as was possible. She was inextricably linked to the throne along her spine, a cybernetic composite of flesh and machine. Not so different from him, the hypocrite.

The genetic monster beside her slipped from its acrylic tank, a leviathan—half elephant, half octopus—100% lethal.

The battle that followed pushed him beyond his limits. Ultimately, he lost. As his body succumbed to the python-like compression of the elopus’ tentacles, his mind was intact. His mouth moved to say, “I may be merely machine, but I have free will. I chose this. I die free.”

“HOLD!” she commanded.

---

#2
COLLINS AND THE TROPHY

The elopus silently slipped one limb at a time through a scupper and onto the deck of the human vessel. She’d been hunted across miles of ocean floor by a big game hunter. She worried for her untended eggs. She’d lured Collins away, though. He’d never find them.

She glided across the deck, keeping to shadows and the smallest crevices where no human could follow. She found herself in an opulent stateroom. That was when she noticed she was leaving a trail of blue blood. She was so tired.

Mural on the streets of London by Alexis Diazby Christopher Jobson

The clack of shoes. The world was dim. A wrinkled blue-haired woman with red lips and an imperious manner. Gentle hands. Soothing darkness and cool waters.

A scuffle. She opened her eyes, blinking with weariness. Misha was there! Panic!

The most terrible sound.

Queen Elizabeth IV held a smoking pistol.