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Post by Deleted on Jan 14, 2011 21:17:53 GMT -5
“In other news, there has been a break-out at the county prison. The suspect is one Ignatius Worthington. He is 5'5, approximately 160 lbs, and in his early 30s. Police aren't releasing the nature of the offenses that the suspect committed, but we do know he has committed fraud, theft, grand theft auto, armed robbery, and a number of others. Here is a photo of Worthington, and a number you should call if you see him. Citizens are asked not to attempt to apprehend him, for he is armed and dangerous.”
Jenny Felding sighed, flicking the channel once more, away from the breaking news update. “Five-hundred channels and nothing to watch,” sighed the seventeen year old. She turned, hearing her mother or brother approach behind her...
... and found herself looking down the barrel of a gun.
“Hello, Jenny...”
Two hours later
“No. No! We can't talk about this. No. You raped her! Every day, you rape her! You force yourself upon her. You leave festering scratches all over her skin. She is beauty incarnate, and you-you-you use her! No, your time is tonight. You will die tonight!”
The stammering voice came over the phone, and all of the assembled police officers breathed a sigh of frustration in unison. Like an over-caffeinated, overworked, and underpaid chorus, they seemed to move as one as they paced nervously around. They were set-up in the street, outside a fairly impressive, almost mansion-sized home. A huge garage sat off to the side, looking as if it could hold at least six or seven vehicles in it. Squad cars formed the outer perimeter of the barrier, but a large, plexiglass pane had been erected, as well, to defend the cops and negotiators lest the suspect try to open fire on the police. A fairly large table had been brought in, which sat comfortably behind the glass panes. From there, the negotiators communicated with the suspect via mobile phone, which itself was hooked up to a decent set of speakers, so that all the police in the barrier could hear. A microphone, connected to a switch, ensured that only the negotiator would be heard on the suspect's end, however. It was a hasty set-up, but it would do.
In a huff, Sergeant Thomas Frost jogged up to the scene. He was the last one to arrive, but the most important of all. With forty years of service on the force, and numerous degrees in psychology and counselling to boot, Frost was the best negotiator they had, this side of Quantico. He was going a bit pudgy in the midsection – undoubtedly a result of stress eating, for he had passed his last physical with flying colours – but his mind was still sharp and honed. He would save this family. And, hopefully, he could save the shooter. Family first, though, he thought to himself.
“What do we got?” he asked his subordinate.
Detective Harold Malone arose from his seat in front of the table, offering it to Sergeant Frost. “Not much, sir. He seems to have terrorist motivations. Eco-terrorist, to be precise. He's babbling on about damage to Mother Nature and things like that.”
“Does it check out?” Frost asked curtly, sighing and rolling up the sleeves of his light-blue shirt as he sat in the chair. In his breast pocket, he could feel the slight weight of his smokes. No, not yet. Think of Jill.
Malone nodded. “Sure seems to, sir. The house he's in? Belongs to one Robert J. Felding of-”
“Of Felding Oil. Of course,” interrupted Frost. “And how are the suspects holding up?”
“We haven't spoken to them,” replied Malone. “We have gotten in contact with Robert Felding himself. He's en route now. The wife doesn't work, and so it seems like she's home. The kids are, too, it would seem. A boy and a girl. 11 and 17, respectively.”
“Great. Thanks Malone.”
“But there's more!”
“I have your notes,” Frost cut in, tapping a scribbler in front of him that had been filled with notes. A stenographer, as well, had been recording the conversation with the suspect. “Now, please. Let me work.” Malone sighed. Frost's tone was full of finality.
A voice came over the speakers again. “Hello? Where did you go? I'm going to kill them. I swear, they will die. For what they have done to the Earth!” The voice was crackly, and not because it was coming over mobile phone.
Frost pressed down on the switch, activating the mic. “Hello, son.”
“Who the fuck is this?!” roared the suspect. “Where's Malone?”
“Just calm down,” Frost said, his baritone voice steady and calm. “My name's Tom Frost. I'm a sergeant-detective. Malone's superior, in fact. Can we talk?”
“Good. Good. There is little to discuss, Mr. Frost. I am sure Malone has filled you in, but I will repeat it just the same. These people have sinned. They need to die. Today.” A gun cocked could be heard through the speakers, and many present winced or bit their lips. Frost, however, merely furrowed his brow.
“Why do they have to die?” asked Frost.
“For their sins!” shouted the voice on the other line. “For their filthy, vile sins! For the evil they have wrought! They must be judged, Sargent, as we all must be judged! No one is pure enough! We are all as scum and filth, but I shall redeem myself today the blood of these harlots! My justice, Sargent, shall be swift. I shall be merciful. I do not delight in the suffering of the wicked, and so, they shall not suffer. That I promise. But, forget not my first promise. For their sins, they will die.”
The assembled law enforcement officials exchanged glances. Save for Frost. He seemed to be off in his own world. His brow was now furrowed even more, a look of consternation on his face. Deep in thought, he muttered to himself. “Sargent, what-” Frost held up a finger, silencing the interrupting officer. Finally, at long last, he clicked the switch once more.
“What is your name, son?” was all Frost asked. His tone was almost light, as if he was talking to a schoolboy or something.
Malone chuckled. “Good luck, Sarge. He's not gonna give a name. Don't you think we've tried that already? Like, Chrissakes, sometimes I think you don't give us enough credit when it comes to this stuff.” Malone finished rather glumly.
Frost merely shook his head. “Of course he won't give his real name.”
“You want my name,” came the man's voice over the phone. “Hah! You do not need my name. All will know it soon enough, when their blood is spilled. I know I am surrounded, Frost. I know that, once these offenders are gone from this world, you and your men will storm the house. I shall die, in a haze of gunfire. These things, I know. But I also know that today will mark the beginning of the end. You will do this to Mother Nature no more.”
“No one's gotta die today. Now, if you won't get a name, at least give me something I can call you. A moniker of sorts.” Frost released the switch, and sat back and waited. The silence was deadening, until, finally, the voice came over once again.
“Call me Michael.”
Frost smiled, despite himself. He looked up at his men, as if for affirmation. They were simply perplexed by his jubilation. Exasperated, he exclaimed, “Don't you get it?” Their blank faces affirmed that they didn't. Sighing heavily, he filled them in. “He's not an eco-terrorist. He's not a terrorist at all.”
Malone pressed his palm against his face. “Are you kidding me? All he's gone on about is 'Mother Nature.' His damn target is an oil magnate. Frost, for Pete's sake, he's an eco-terrorist!”
Frost shook his head. “This is why you will never be on my pay grade, Malone. You miss the key things. One: Terrorists rarely work alone. It doesn't happen. He hasn't mentioned his organization yet. Why? Because he doesn't belong to one.”
Malone sighed. “That doesn't mean-”
“I wasn't finished, Malone. You're impetuous, too, by the way. Two: He talks of sin. Of punishment. Of atonement. He calls himself 'Michael', as in the archangel. How many Judeo-Christian eco-terrorist organizations have you heard of? Also, he says, 'I do not delight in the suffering of the wicked.' He's paraphrasing from the Bible. The Old Testament, I think.”
“How do you know-”
“Because Jill likes to go to church. Third, and finally. He wants to die. Now, I know we have suicide bombers. But they are an anomaly among religious terrorists alone, let alone politically-motivated ones. Most terrorists don't want to die, because they believe in their cause and believe they are serving a greater good. They cannot fight that fight when they're dead. This man, Michael, however, is content with death.” Pleased with himself, Frost finished. “And that, Malone, is why we are not dealing with an eco-terrorist. He's something else. What that 'something else' is, remains to be seen.”
“But what if he is just a suicide bomber?” chimed the stubborn Malone.
“Nope. It's too low-key. Three hostages in a private home? It's too small. Too close. Too...." Frost closed his eyes, and began to murmur to himself. Finally, he leaped out of his seat. "Oh, goodness! We, ladies and gentlemen, have ourselves a serial killer.”
He could tell from their faces that they were baffled. “He's a serial killer. His real target is likely the daughter. The other two hostages are collateral damage. Or something - maybe he didn't know that they'd be home. He sounds young, and most serial killers go for the opposite gender. Not all, granted, but most. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a serial killer to talk to.”
Clicking the switch, Frost entered the fray once more. “Hello, Michael. We're still all out here waiting.”
Silence. Then. “Waiting? Waiting for what?”
“Why, your demands. Your message. You have taken three hostages, Michael. People don't take hostages for no reason. So, out with it. What is your manifesto? This is what this is all about, right? The message? To stop destroying Mother Earth?” Frost leaned back, satisfied.
More silence. Frost turned to his men. “He is hesitating. He has no real message. It is as I said. He is not a terrorist of any brand. Terrorists love the sound of their own voice. They love spitting sound-bites and slogans. Michael has trouble finding them.”
“My message will be written with their blood, Frost. I need no words.”
“Or you don't have any. You don't have any Michael, because you're not who you say you are. Liars are sinners, and shall not inherit the Kingdom of Heaven, or did you miss that bit?” It was risky, antagonizing a suspect. On the one hand, you risked his rage taking over and the death of hostages... but on the other hand, the suspects mistakes might hand him over to the police.
“I-I have no idea what you're talking about, Frost. The Earth, they have damaged her... and.” Silence.
A young, female officer chimed in. “Did we lose him?”
Frost smiled. “Nope. Cat's got his tongue, though.”
Michael's voice came over the speakers once again. His voice still shook, but it was not as nervous as it had been before, of that Frost was certain. “Fine. Fine. It doesn't matter what you know. It doesn't change anything. The end result is the same whatever I am. Four dead bodies. Maybe more if I bring some of your officers down with me, Frost. But four for certain. I am done with this life. I am done with this hunger. God will judge me, as He judges us all.”
“Could I convince you to make it two?” chimed in Frost.
“Pardon me?”
“You said there would be four deaths. Make it two. Send out Jenny and Mrs. Felding. Keep Jake. I know he is the one you want.” Frost arched his fingers and rested his chin on his thumbs as he awaited Michael's reply. He only hoped that his constant toying with Michael would pay off. If his theories were true, he might very well be able to talk Michael down.
“I- what? No, you misunderstand me. You don't... I thought you were in charge! You're an idiot!” roared Michael.
Frost shrugged. “My mistake. I thought you liked young boys. I was getting that vibe from you. My apologies.”
Michael's voice seemed troubled. It cracked, as if he was holding back sobs. “You thought I was... some sort of pedophile? How dare you! Never, never would I do something like that to a child! Something so vile and filthy! Never! Never! I would never do what – what they did to me! Fuck those priests! Fuck them! Fuck you, Frost!” The gun cocked.
“If you kill them, Michael, it's all over. Are you ready for it to end?” Frost turned the switch to the mic off, and then plainly stated to his officers, “He's a victim of a pedophile. A clergyman. Probably from a young age. He came here on foot, so he's local. Find me all instances of sexual assault against minors by clergymen in the past 15-20 years in this county.”
“Done,” replied a techie whose name Frost did not remember.
“Excellent. How many victims?”
“Five, sir. Four of whom have driver's licenses in other states. The fifth person is 23-year-old Charles Whitman.”
Everyone clapped, and Frost smiled despite himself. “We have a name! We have a name!” He pressed the button once more.
“Listen to me, Charles. Listen. It doesn't have to end like this. You are better than him. Better than Father Belusci.”
“Don't say his name to me! Don't you dare! I have killed more! Jenny will be my third! I am a sinner, Frost.”
Frost sighed. This wasn't going the way he wanted it to. He could practically visualize Whitman, pacing around the Felding's living room, exasperated and angry. Gun in hand. Frost had to – had to – calm him. “Look, Charles. You're no worse of a sinner than anyone else is. Put the gun down and come outside and we can get you help.” Frost noted that despite Charles' abuse as a boy, he still seemed to cling to his faith. “In the Lord's name, I beg you,” he added with finality.
“No. No! No! No! We are all sinners, Sargent Frost. Me. You. That pedophile priest who fucked me when I was just a boy! We will all be judged. This blood is on your hands, Frost! You have failed, and we all shall die today. Father' forgive me.” And Frost's heart sank as two gunshots rang out from within the house, and a more muffled shadow of them from the speakers. It was over. He had failed. Slumping down into his chair, he pulled out a cigarette and lit it.
He barely noticed as the SWAT teams moved past him, heading into the large home, smashing in the door. Any minute now, Frost knew, he would hear the final shots as Charles Whitman, serial killer and victim, was killed. Cases like Charles' were always the worst. Of course Whitman was responsible for his own actions, but that one question always nagged at Frost. What if he had a better chance, would he have ended up like this? Whitman wondered how many of the missing persons in the county had been Charles' victims. Victims of a victim. The cycle of violence seemed endless.
“Suspects have been apprehended,” came the fizzling sound from the police radio. Frost furrowed his brow. It didn't make any sense, did they really manage to save Whitman? Had he really come quietly, after slaughtering the Feldings?
In almost slow motion, a billion things seemed to happen at once. A sleek, black Jaguar pulled in, and Robert Felding exploded from the driver seat, yelling for his family. And, somehow, they responded. Mrs. Felding, Jenny, and Jake emerged from the house. Their eyes were red and wet with tears, but they ran and embraced their father.
“Oh, God! You're alive!” cried Robert, kissing his wife on the lips and his children on their foreheads.
Frost's jaw dropped. This didn't make any sense. He had heard the gunshots. Had heard Whitman's last words.
Whitman. He emerged now, too. Handcuffed and sullen, utterly surrounded by SWAT officers. His right hand was bloody.
And, finally, one more figure emerged. He, too, was handcuffed. He looked up at the cloudy-sky, at the sun that was beginning to set. He seemed bored and frustrated. And, despite himself, Frost laughed as he saw this final man. “Worthington, you sonofabitch!” he called out, and he laughed once more. In fact, Frost laughed until he was crying, his eyes wet with joy.
Two hours later. The police station.
“Mr Worthington, what are you doing back in police custody so soon? I expected you to be harder to track than this,” chimed Frost, positively beaming. “When did you escape again? Last night?”
The short, lithe man across the interrogation room smiled back. He was Ignatius Worthington, renowned thief. “Don't gloat, Frost. It makes you seem petty. But, yes, alas. Here we are, once again, and so soon. Pleasure though your company is, Frost, I was hoping it would take you at least as long to catch me this time as it did the first time. But, fate has a funny way of throwing a wrench in our plans.” He held up his hands, shrugging.
Frost smiled back. “Fate indeed. I take it you're aware of what you did today?”
“I am more aware of what I failed to do. Which was a petty robbery against a mid-level oil magnate. I figured it would be a quick bit of cash to get back on my feet once more. I am accustomed to a certain... lifestyle, after all. Felding's home seemed ripe for the taking, but, again, I was wrong there.” Worthington sighed.
Frost furrowed his brow, he wasn't so sure about all of this. “You mean you have no idea that you saved four lives, and apprehended a serial killer?”
“Heavens, no! The apes that you had watching me either weren't at liberty to say anything of that nature. Or perhaps their simian-level of intelligence prevented them from formulating the words.” The stone-faced guard in the corner of the room scowled. “Ah, but there I go insulting monkeys. Though I will say, I am glad that some good at least came from my misfortune.”
Chuckling, Frost shrugged. “Well, that it did. So, let me get this straight. You entered the Felding home through the back? You went inside, and you saw Charles Whitman holding a gun at the Felding family, who were huddled in the corner?”
“Essentially, yes.”
“At which point you, with your own pistol, shot Whitman's hand twice?”
“That is what I did, yes, Sergeant Frost,” sighed Worthington. “Are we finished?”
“Only if you're lawyering up or something. Now, one more question. Why did you do it?”
“Do what, pray tell?” sighed a bored Worthington, looking at his finger-nails.
“Put your life and freedom on the line for a group of strangers. Seems out of character for you, Worthington,” Frost stared down at the diminutive man, smiling.
Worthington returned with a grin of his own. “I told you, Sergeant Frost. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“How stupid do you think I am, Ignatius? A thief of your calibre doesn't stumble. Not so obtusely, anyway. We had a whole perimeter set up. How none of our snipers saw you is beyond me.”
“A magician never shares his secrets,” piped Worthington.
“But what I do know,” continued Frost, ignoring the thief's smug joke, “is that you would have seen them. You would have seen all of us. Yet, you went inside. You saved this family, Worthington. And it wasn't an accident.”
Ignatius Worthington merely shrugged. “You're a cop, Tom. You need to believe that there are good people in this world. People who would, as you put it, risk life and freedom for the sake of others. That is fine. But, if they do exist, and that is a big 'if,' I am certainly not one of them. I am selfish and capricious.... and handsome, if I may. But I am no hero. Do not pretend I am one, or I shall lose a great deal of respect for you, and will be able to only assume that I overestimated your intelligence.”
“Come on, Worthington, just admit what we both know and you'll get your perks. A shorter sentence. Maybe even early parole. Who knows?” Frost was adamant that Worthington be recognized. It was true. Frost did need to believe that there were heroes in this world. Men and women who would risk life and freedom to protect others. It was the only thing that made life in this world – this world were clergy sexually-assault little boys, and little boys become violent monsters – bearable.
Worthington, however, merely furrowed his brow and pinched the bridge of his nose. “How you ever caught me those two years ago is beyond me, Frost. You're an imbecile. Consider me, as you so delicately put it, now 'lawyering up.'” He folded his arms and sat back in his chair, as if to express that their discussion was finished.
“Very well, Ignatius, old friend. Take care. And thank you.” Frost made to exit the room, but something made him look back at the short, thin thief once more.
And as they made eye-contact, Worthington winked.
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Post by Matteo ((Taed)) on Jan 14, 2011 23:59:10 GMT -5
((Blargh. I cut it too close. Didn't have time to finish, had to rush the ending. Oh well, I think the first half is still really good. Be gentle))
There is an immutable constant shared by all wars.
Actually, I guess there are several. Most notably, that they all involve killing people, and that they usually end with one side a whole lot less happy with the result than the other. One similarity in particular, however, is of specific importance to this story. From the Peloponnesian, past the Napoleonic, through Vietnam, and all the way to the Second War of Stellar Independence, every war in history has created the same thing: people trying to escape the war.
That’s the war we’re currently up to. The Second War of Stellar Independence. I couldn’t tell you whose independence we’re supposed to be fighting for, exactly, and I couldn’t tell you why this is the ‘second’ war, either, seeing as how I don’t remember the first one ever ending. Those are the sorts of questions that politicians and historians are paid to worry about. Grunts like myself are only paid to fight. Or, at least, I was only paid to fight. Until I got sick of the whole damn thing and found my way to St. Alban’s.
Alban was the patron saint of converts, refugees, and torture victims. Obviously it’s the refugee part that the city’s founders were interested in when they named it, but we get our fair share of torture victims as well, and in my experience, just about anyone living here will convert to just about anything if they think it will give them a leg up.
Calling St. Alban’s a city just then may have been a bit of a stretch. Habitat 1, where I live, is certainly very city-like, and it was the first thing to get built out here, but these days it shares its name with close to a hundred homesteads of varying size spread out across two billion cubic megameters of Zeta Reticuli’s second asteroid belt. If you want to call less than three million people living in a volume of space bigger than a medium-sized star a city, that’s fine by me. I’ve decided I’m going to call it a state.
The Glorious State of St. Alban’s is populated almost entirely by draft dodgers, deserters (that’s me), woefully misinformed pacifists, and criminals (also me, kind of). There’s a major Fleet refueling depot orbiting a brown dwarf near Zeta2, so the system gets plenty of traffic, but at twelve parsecs we’re almost a year away from Earth by Mark Drive, so oversight is, shall we say, somewhat loose. People turn up here when they’ve seen one too many planets get cremated by fusion bombs and decide they want out. This means that a largish chunk of our population has military combat training and is suffering from clinical detachment and post-traumatic stress, which certainly makes things interesting in the bars late at night.
That’s also where problems start to arise for the aforementioned ‘woefully misinformed pacifists’. On St. Alban’s, no one’s going to ask you to shoot someone for your country, but if you’re not at least willing to shoot someone for your own sake, you’re going to wide up in trouble very deep and very fast. On St. Alban’s, it’s unlikely that you’ll be buried alive in one of the mass tombs created by an implosion mine, or that the bulkhead under your feet will be boiled away by an invisible X-ray laser, but the chances of being held up at gunpoint or stabbed by an angry drunkard named Saul (friend of mine. Good guy) are commensurately higher.
Speaking of Saul, I was on my way to meet him a few weeks back when a particularly demonstrative St. Alban’s anecdote began to coalesce. It was round about 2300, standard time, which basically just means that most of the fluorescent lights had been switched out for neon, and that people were just getting drunk enough to be angry, but weren’t yet drunk enough to fall over. A dangerous interval.
My name’s Xavier Kane, by the way. I probably should have mentioned that earlier. Anyway, I pulled in to the Silver Madame—a dive bar down near the protein works—around 2300, like I said. The whole district stank, obviously, like algae and soggy tofu, which actually did the bar quite a favour, since it meant you could barely smell the old beer and new vomit on the floor. The blood, though, you could smell, when it was fresh. There’s no blood in a protein steak, so the real thing stands out from the stench of the works. Not to mention the fight or flight instinct it activates. It’s hard to cover that up.
Saul had beaten me to the bar, or else he’d never left from the night before. Either way, there were more than a few empty beer cartons arranged about him when I arrived—the empty, laminated cardboard boxes drooping dejectedly.
“What’s going on, Starman?” I said cheerfully, clapping Saul on a meaty shoulder as I sat down. He had to turn his head quite a ways to see me clearly. Saul had lost his left eye six months back in one of those knife fights I mentioned he was so fond of, and his unfortunately large nose pretty much cut off his peripheral vision entirely on one side. When he couldn’t afford a replacement piece—clone-grown or cybernetic—Saul had covered the empty socket with a hot pink, phospholuminescent Hello Kitty eye patch that winked every ten seconds. He’d said that if he couldn’t use that side of his face to look at people, they were damn well going to look at him.
“Hey X,” Saul rumbled. Big guys like Saul always rumble. Even big guys with a glowing Hello Kitty on their face. “Glad you turned up. Found us a new drinking buddy. Generous type.”
“Oh yeah?” I replied, my interest peaked. Saul loved talking all clandestine, like a spy or an old-school mobster from an action vid. The difference being that those guys actually had to worry about people overhearing them. A ‘generous drinking buddy’ meant a job that would pay enough to keep us up to our nipples in syntho booze for a while, but not enough that we could move on up to the harder stuff.
“Yeah,” he said, and then leaned in closer, again all clandestine-like. The pink glow from his eye patch lit up the right side of my face. “Word is that Fleischer’s boys are moving a shipment of neutron down by Dock-6. The big man’s got other plates in the air, though, so security’s supposed to be loose. My guy’s willing to pay us good for however much we can boost.”
I whistled low. This job could actually be pretty big. Neutron was the hot new drug on the market that everyone wanted a piece of. This was still in the early days of artificial gravity, and people were still figuring out everything you could do with it. Neutron was manufactured inside super-high-G bubbles that heavily compressed everything inside. Not only could you get crazy-high densities that way—packing more drugs into smaller packages—but you could also design whole new chemical compounds that wouldn’t be possible under normal conditions.
The rush was supposed to be absolutely cosmic.
“Thing is, though, Saul,” I replied back. “This is Fleischer we’re talking about. Even if the security is a little loose, it’ll still be more than the two of us can handle. Unless you got some backup lined up?”
Saul nodded, grinning broadly. “Oh yeah, I’ve got backup. How does somebody actually on the security detail work for ya?”
I felt a slow grin creep across my face. “That could work. That could definitely work. So when is this supposed to go down?”
“Tonight. Let’s go.” Saul heaved himself groaningly out of his chair and made for the door.
“W-Wait. What? What? We’re doing this tonight?” I jogged a bit to catch up with Saul as he exited the Silver Madame. “How can we do this tonight? We’re not prepared.”
“You have your gun?”
“What kind of question is that? This is St. Alban’s.”
“Then you’re prepared.”
We slogged up out of the damp, murky side street that the bar lay at the end of, and merged onto a main thoroughfare. Neon signs and holo-feeds—mostly for bars, strip-joints, and sleazy casinos—lit the broad tunnel in a cacophony of clashing hues, but almost all of them pointed to detours off the main road. Hab-1 was built into an asteroid that was about three hundred klicks across, but the original founders hadn’t wanted to mine it out too much, because they were afraid it would become unstable. Most of the internal excavations were footpaths and elevator tubes, with a smattering of residential neighbourhoods and the odd expansion on a natural cavern.
Most of the big buildings were on the asteroid’s surface, either built as self-contained, airtight blocks, or else under big domes. The dome-towns are what qualified Hab-1 for the city-like status I mentioned before. They’re not too different from a terrestrial settlement.
“You sure we’re up to this, Saul?” I asked. “Fleischer’s boys don’t mess around. Things could get ugly.”
“I told you, I’ve got a guy on the inside. My old drill sergeant always said surprise was important. This is like … double the surprise. They won’t know what hit ‘em. Now hurry up, you were late getting to the bar. The ship with the drugs is probably already docking.”
I wondered how Saul had heard about this ship. St. Alban’s didn’t really have a government, which meant it didn’t really have law and order, but the various crime lords still had to act all shadowy because they were afraid of each other. There was no law stopping them from setting up a corner shop to sell neutron to poor orphan children, but I’d be damn surprised if that shop lasted more than a week before a rival gang bombed it.
“’Ello guv.”
Speaking of poor orphan children.
“Hey, Sens. New accent?” The street urchin that had materialized alongside me was tiny, but his clothes were still three sizes too small, with the exception of the huge coat which enveloped him and trailed along the ground behind his feet. A pair of mirrored goggles covered the top half of his face, the edges of which bled flashes of dim light, no doubt the result of heads-up screens built into the lenses, feeding selections from Hab-1’s info feeds right into the adolescent’s field of view.
“Wot ah yoo tawkin’ ‘bout, sah? I always sounded loike thees,” the tramp said in some heinous parody of what he thought a cockney accent sounded like. “Cud ya spare tuppence, for a poor lad, guv? Oi haven’t eaten in days!”
“Knock it off, Sens,” Saul replied, mixing it up this time by grumbling instead of just rumbling. “You’re makin’ my ears bleed.”
“So that makes you blind and deaf, now?” Sens fired back, the accent magically disappearing. “If we can just get you to shut up for five minutes they’ll make a movie about you. St. Alban’s own Helen Keller.”
“Why you little--” Saul began to turn but I grabbed his shoulder and pivoted him back into a fast walk.
“Leave it, Saul, if we stop to beat on every punk kid that outsmarts you we’ll never make it to Dock-6.”
“Dock-6?” Sens chirped, skipping to keep pace with us. “Wow. You guys going after Fleischer’s neutron shipment? That’s big.”
“How the hell did you know about that!?” Saul roared, this time whirling about all the way.
Sens tapped his goggles conspiratorially and grinned. The accent was back. “Just the way things work, innit? Us street rats always know wot’s wot. You’d best hurry along, guv, my eyes tell me that ship got here a fortnight ago.”
“A fortnight is fourteen days, Sens,” I offered.
“Really? Alright let’s call it fourteen minutes then.”
“Fuck!” Saul swore and hurried for a nearby elevator. “Come on, we’re late. They’ll already be unloading. You keep your fucking mouth shut about this, kid!”
I clapped Sens on the shoulder as I passed by. “Maybe keep it shut more for my sake than for Saul’s. I’ll even cut you in on that ‘tuppence’ you asked for, if everything goes according to plan.”
“Thank you very much, guv! How much is a tuppence, anyway?”
“Two cents,” I called back, as the elevator doors began to close.
“Fuck!” Sens exclaimed before he was sealed away by a pneumatic hiss and our carriage dropped down the tube.
The elevator was going to drop us off quite close to Dock-6, one of Hab-1’s many spaceports, so Saul and I started getting ready on the ride down (or up. Or sideways. Artificial gravity makes my head hurt.) I slipped my pulse revolver—a laser weapon with six chambers full of crystalline capacitors instead of bullets—out of its concealed pocket and into my more easily accessible belt loop. Saul pulled out two ragged flak vests from a bag he’d been carrying slung over one shoulder. Their ablative weave would vaporize when hit, diffusing a laser’s energy. I put mine on under my coat. It was cold near the docks. There wasn’t much between us and vacuum.
“Look at us, we’re a regular SWAT team,” I joked. My vest had a hole burnt in the right side. I tried to convince myself it was for ventilation. “Get your game face on.” Saul tapped a hidden contact on the strap of his eye patch and Hello Kitty was replaced by a skull and crossbones. Still pink, though.
The door of the elevator hissed open and we ghosted out into an empty hallway. Many of the lights had burnt out or were flickering epileptically. The door to Dock-6 was a big, heavy hatch that slid sideways into the wall. Safety warnings and huge, identifying letters were stenciled onto its surface. Opening the door wasn’t going to be quiet. We wouldn’t be sneaking up on anyone.
“Last chance,” I said. “You sure about this?” In answer, Saul slapped his fist against a wall panel and set the door moving on its rollers.
We swaggered into the room without making any attempt at concealment. There are more ways than one to sneak, and the best occur in plain sight. Helmeted heads sporting combat optics swiveled to face us, closely followed by the bodies attached to those heads, and the rifles carried by those bodies. Bloody Fleischer had an effing commando squad guarding his shipment. I counted seven of them. They were arranged around a small cargo skiff with its aft ramp lowered, from which automated forklifts were unloading a number of unmarked metal crates.
“What the hell is this?” one of them roared. His visor came halfway down his face so all I could see was his big mouth and the spittle that came flying out of it. “This is Ernst Fucking Fleischer’s dock tonight! You’re not supposed to be here.”
“Now would be a good time for your inside man to make his presence known, Saul” I muttered out of the side of my mouth. “Which one is he?”
“I’m not sure,” Saul replied back, his growly voice dipping almost into the subsonic. “They’ve all got their masks down. I’m sure he’s--”
“Hey! Pink eye! I’m talking to you!”
I couldn’t help but snicker. “Oh man, ‘pink eye’. I can’t believe nobody’s called you that before. That’s funny.”
“All right, I don’t have time for this shit. Kill ‘em”
“Aww. Less funny.”
As gun barrels centered on each of us, an eighth commando came stomping out of the cargo ship. He raised his hands and a brilliant sapphire beam of light lanced from the pistol held in each one. The beams sliced into the armour of two of the other men low down on their backs, below the hardened ceramic plates that covered the upper body, and burned into liver and kidneys. The rapid expansion of vaporized flesh and carbon produced a loud bang that caused the five surviving commandos to turn from us in confusion.
Saul and I instantly let loose with our own weapons, me slashing with ruby beams from my pistol, and Saul hammering with a sawed-off, magnetic slugthrower. Saul’s payload of heavy ordnance struck the nearest commando and battered him to the ground. I was less lucky and my beams mostly sizzled and popped across the surface of armour, doing only minimal damage to the flesh beneath.
The four survivors of our initial assault quickly gained their bearings and dove for cover within the labyrinth of shipping crates. I cursed to myself. We’d evened the odds somewhat, but they still outnumbered us by one, and the element of surprise was gone. Saul signaled to his friend on the freighter’s ramp and the three of us sought cover as well. Just in time, for the commandos had regrouped and were firing at us with their own laser weapons.
“Split up!” Saul thundered, before barreling off down a narrow avenue between highly stacked crates. I cursed and chose my own path. Blinding beams scissor overhead, gouging furrows in the containers and causing hot sparks to rain down around me. I kept my head low and prayed that they wouldn’t have a clear shot.
As I rounded a corner, a beam flashed brilliantly right in front of me and I quickly back peddled to get behind cover again. A greenish-yellow line cut horizontally across my vision—an afterimage burned into my corneas by the brightness of the attack. That had been too close.
I leaned my pistol around the corner and fired blindly, trying to keep my assailant pinned down while my vision improved. Eventually I summoned my nerve to risk a quick glance, and almost lost my head as a result. In the brief interval I’d seen that the man attacking me was alone, and he was sheltered behind an inactive forklift. Blasts from his rifle were still impacting all around me, but I’d already formulated a plan on how to get at him.
Blindly, I let loose another volley to try and slacken his rate of fire, then, after a deep breath, I leapt from cover and raced for the next pile of crates. I saw my assailant steady himself and his barrel started to track my for an easy kill, but at the last moment I fired into the mess of cables and tubing that lay exposed on the forklift’s upper canopy. Electrical systems shorted and hydraulic fluid flash-boiled, causing a cloud of sparks and gas that blinded the commando and threw off his aim.
I reached the safety of my second crate pile and the perfect line of sight it offered. With the press of a button, I cycled the cylinder on my revolver and selected a full-yield blast that would drain that chamber in a single pulse. I pulled the trigger, the beam flashed out at the speed of light … and went wide.
It tore messily into the side of the commando’s helmet, shattering his visor and shearing through the crystalline alloy with a ferocious shriek. The helmet’s whole right side was torn away. Underneath, I could see that the heat of the blast had left a lurid gash of purplish burns inscribed on the man’s shaved head, just over the right ear, but hadn’t penetrated any further. The man let out a shriek and tore off what remained of his helmet as I hurriedly cycled to the next capacitor on my revolver, and was disgusted to find it empty. I snapped open the steaming drum and fished for a reload in my coat pocket. When my eyes darted up to check on the other man I realized with horror that I knew him.
Arthur McGraw, a local murderer, mercenary, and all around great guy was staring back at me. I knew him and, even worse, he knew me. Arthur tried to bring his rifle to bear but I had just finished slamming a replacement cartridge into my weapon and I fired first. My beam, still on full-yield, cut cleanly through Arthur’s weapon, and still struck with enough energy to throw him backwards onto his ass. Arthur was now unarmed, but I’d just blown another capacitor, and hadn’t yet managed to find another one in the mess of garbage and loose change at the bottom of my deep pockets.
Arthur scrambled back to his feet and, after a moment’s hesitation, took off through the box maze in the general direction of the door. I cursed and took off after him. My quick mental reasoning told me that, if Arthur made it back to Fleischer, he’d tell him exactly who had ripped him off, at which point Saul, his still-nameless friend, and yours truly would be as good as dead. I shouting something garbled over my shoulder as I ran, hoping that Saul would somehow hear it and, through a miracle of social decryption, figure out where I had gone.
I got to the bay door just as it was about to close again, and squeaked through with hardly an inch on either side. Luckily, Arthur hadn’t been sneaky enough to lie in wait for me on the other side, or else I’d probably have been dead. He was already halfway down the hall and accelerating away. I snarled something colourful about St. Alban’s lack of athletic facilities and wheezingly took off in pursuit.
We hadn’t gone far when Arthur suddenly halted and whirled about. He was standing in a patch of darkness, between working bulbs, so I couldn’t see what his game was. I slowed my pace and raised my pistol, into which I had finally crammed a charged round. As I got closer my heart sank. Arthur was holding a bundle of greasy rags in one arm, which quickly resolved themselves into the shape of Sens, the street urchin. His other arm held a wickedly sharp knife pressed to the boy’s throat.
“X! X, man, help me,” the boy shrieked. Arthur pressed the knife tighter against his throat.
“You know this kid?” he snarled, around his heavy breathing. “Come any closer and I’ll spill his guts.”
“This is St. Alban’s,” I said, and fired. The burst cut cleanly through Sens’ shoulder and struck portions of Arthur’s armour already scarred by my earlier failed attacks. The ceramic plates and carbon weaves buckled and Arthur’s heart boiled within his chest. He dropped the kid and fell, stone dead, to the ground.
I let out a long breath and paced slowly over to the two crumpled forms. Sens twitched and groaned, rolling over into a more comfortable position.
“You all right, kid?’ I asked.
“Fuck you, you shot me.”
“It was that or let him kill you,” I offered.
“Fuck you, you shot me!”
I shrugged. “This is St. Alban’s,” I said. And left it at that.
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Post by Dylaria on Jan 17, 2011 18:08:03 GMT -5
Jordoom:
Spelling & Grammar - 5/5 Ease of Read - 5/5 Use of Topic - 8/10 Entertainment - 13/15 Quality - 14/15 Total - 46/50
Notes:
This was well done, the dialogue and main part of the story felt well thought out and a good stand off scenario. The fact that once the story really started you never saw inside the house again, adding a suspence of what was going on. I don't know how tempting it was to make a hostage persepective but I'm glad you didn't. I liked the feel of how the standoff went, even if at times it felt a little "by the book" as far as such things go.
My main bit is that the whole thing seems more like a hostage story until near the last minute. I mean yeah, the "hero" shows up in the beginning in passing and then saves the day claming a botched burglary. I mean it is on topic but at first glance it kinda appears out of nowhere. I mean on the news report I honestly thought it was just setting information or just a way to fill some space. Maybe that was your intent, I not pretending to know how your mind works. Beyond that while I liked that Worthington was confident, I felt it was taken a bit too far. I expect a bit of arrogance about a master thief, even playing with the cops. He seemed way too, um, god he just reminded me of a mix of Kaez and Blu when he talked. I really didn't like that quality, it seemed a little uneeded. (I mean no offense to anyone mentioned)
My main piece of advice is try not to pull so much of what looks like a hail mary next time. (and if the hero is going to be an ass, make it a um, -fitting- ass? That sounds horrid...)
Taed:
Spelling & Grammar - 4/5 Ease of Read - 5/5 Use of Topic - 10/10 Entertainment - 15/15 Quality - 14/15 Total - 49/50
Notes:
Well Taed, you pretty much nailed this head on. It was right on topic and easy to read. While the ending -did- feel a bit rushed, the rest of it was really good. As far as the point in spelling and grammar, there were only a couple of errors. Here's an example so you know what to look for.
"and his barrel started to track my for an easy kill"
Obviously, "my" is supposed to be "me" but I figured I'd point it out so that you can look over the later parts and give a double check as you said you wanted to submit this somewhere.
As for entertainment, I really enjoyed it. Oddly enough my favorite part was when Xavier kept correcting Sensar on what his fancy words actually meant. That was a great touch. The fight scene was on the whole well done, and while I personally don't care for laser weapon battles it didn't bother me much here. I'd say with a couple small touch ups on the later portions (you can tell they were a little rushed) you could make a great story even better. Very, very well done and I'm glad you didn't say screw it and miss the deadline.
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