Thursday, December 12, 2013
Sunday, November 17, 2013
Friday, November 8, 2013
Antz- The Endgame Coming soon...
Zenith’s controls were lighter than a single-pilot fighter-ship.
Zenith’s responses to Jeeda’s manipulations instantaneous and without lag.
Jeeda’s commands were being conveyed through her physical connection to helm-
her only connection to Zenith. Her two hands were on the controls just
as she had always piloted and those physical commands entirely controlling the
mechanisms of the ship. It was piloting by instinct alone and it was far faster
than a mental implant could have delivered the data because Jeeda was not
piloting by thought alone. The concept
of using mental implants-the Staval called them links- for piloting the Blue-ships had been considered. The
technology was available with the open Staval data-bases and would work with
humans once adapted for humans but the idea had been scrapped. It was human instincts
which were to be counted on if the human race was to stand against the Antz and
for that to occur the recessives needed the full activation of both mind and
cells. It was this link of mind and cells which gave the recessives their
unique abilities and which would be their only chance of survival when combat
was joined with the new Antz Blue-ships.
Ahead lay the Antz/Staval Armada and towards it Zenith
rushed under Jeeda’s sure control. Jeeda’s face held an expression new to
Welby’s experience. It wasn’t the mad smile of previous eras but the smile was
there nonetheless. It was the smile of the acceptance of the challenge- but
Welby could detect none of the madness he had expected to find there. The madness he had seen in her face on
every instance they had gone to battle together except this time. Welby couldn’t predict if that would be a good
thing or a bad thing as they came within range of the Antz weaponry but he was
fully aware of what Jeeda Collins had become and he was here because he had every
confidence Jeeda would once again win the day. Despite the battle ahead and the
worrisome look of keen anticipation on Jeeda’s face, Welby was confident the
human race had created the weapons which would be the Antz undoing. If not then
Welby was sure this would be the end of the road for the human race. The
remaining human forces would be mopped up quickly with the demise of the 111th,
but if that was to be the outcome,
then Welby could think of no place he would rather be. No matter the outcome
this was where Welby wanted to be. The outcome of this battle would tell the
tale of human’s further place in the Universe. If this battle were lost so too
would the human race be lost and no place far enough to run. This was the
pinnacle battle which would decide human’s further existence and the outcome by
no means assured. Welby felt a kind of keen anticipation himself and even felt
the smallest smile attempt to tug at his lips- at the irony of the whole affair-
but it slipped away and Welby couldn’t bring it back. The cold hard truth was
that the implacable, indestructible human war machine had finally found a
worthy enemy.
Jeeda was unaware of Welby’s scrutiny. Nearly all of her awareness
was directed inward and her instrumentation all but forgotten- including the
main-screen visual feed of the Antz Armada ahead. If she had noted Welby’s scrutiny it wouldn’t have been a new experience.
When Jeeda flew into battle every eye that could find a spare moment found
itself mesmerized by the Admiral’s expression- usually that of mad glee. Welby
had nothing to do at the moment and shouldn’t have been here though now that he
was, there was little for him to do.
The battle was entirely in Jeeda and Zenith’s control.
Under Jeeda’s calm sure control Zenith twisted and floated
sinuously through the first stalks of blue fire erupting from the forward ships
of the Antz Armada- even as the alarms went off warning of that incoming fire.
With a calm ease that astonished the four others aboard- Zenith included -
Jeeda floated the massive ship effortlessly through the bolts as if somehow
they were magnetically repelled by them and the bolts themselves pushing Zenith
out of the way. With a familiarity that was scary Jeeda rode the bolts, moving just out of the way and the bolts
flashing by only meters from the hull of the ship, so that at the next moment
she might step Zenith in the other direction to avoid the bolt which arrived
just where they had been. The visual feed became a solid mass of blue fire as
Zenith closed and then the enemy was targeting Zenith with everything it had with
a clear line of fire.
Welby could see nothing but blue streaks of fire reaching
out from the Antz on the forward screen and Zenith dancing among them with outward
confidence. Zenith seemed to be buoyed upon waves of magnetic or some other
type of physical repulsion issued by the bolts themselves. As two magnets could
not be forced together backwards neither could the blue bolts force themselves
onto the ship- as if Zenith was being magnetically pushed away by some force
within the bolts themselves. Zenith’s velocity was slow and graceful yet the
walls of blue fire pouring around them left Welby with no doubt as to the
danger they faced. Welby could make nothing of the mass of blue which flashed
around them so he watched Jeeda because it was the emotions now visible on her
face that told the tale for Welby. Jeeda’s hands were fluid gracefulness upon
her controls and her face told the tale of her new confidence. A sudden new
confidence told by the look of retribution now written on her face, written on
a face that now knew the Antz could
be defeated.
Jeeda rolled and twisted Zenith through the barrage operating
on instinct alone. Her wholeness of
awareness was giving her an almost precognitive warning of the incoming fire
her consciousness could not fathom until Zenith was sliding through yet another
barrage unscathed and it was she who had piloted them through it. It wasn’t
precognitive ability however but her heightened awareness and reaction time that
allowed her to act before her mind could fathom what she was doing- faster than
her mind could send electrical signals across synapses much less the added
processing time of having to think it through. The Staval energy beams traveled
much faster than electricity across synapses and Jeeda’s visual perception of
the battle was little different than Welby’s though through her cognizance of
her cell’s awareness in her mind’s eye she could see the bolts coming almost in
slow motion. Then suddenly Zenith herself caught up to real-time as the fire
cleared for a millisecond and Jeeda launched Zenith directly at the Antz Armada.
Instantly Zenith’s cannons were pouring blue fire at the suddenly scattering
Antz Armada, scattering before the blizzard which was the 111th
descending upon them from every vantage and then Jeeda had her first glimpse of
the true power the Blue-ships wielded. Zenith’s first shot completely
obliterated an enemy and suddenly it was every ship for itself.
“Registering multiple entry points!’ Zenith warned but if
Jeeda heard it wasn’t apparent. Jeeda was fighting her own battle, her
attention turned entirely inward, her concentration on fighting the battle
which she was sure would end with the destruction of the Antz Armada, but it
was a battle which had just become numerically unbalanced. What was to become
an unending parade of Antz Armadas began entering real-space around the battle,
flanking the 111th as it decimated the first decoy Armada. Then they
joined the battle.
Saturday, July 6, 2013
Chronicles of a Space Mercenary - Vengeance
Leethea was wearing a thong and fanny pack and armed with a
Fsyth blaster and that was all. Reptiles, nor either of these girls, were
particularly worried about public nudity- no matter what body they happened to
be wearing at the time. I had chosen armor gear- cool when it’s hot, warm when
it was cold and impervious to much but a direct blaster attack- and was
bedecked neck to ankle. A Fsyth would never wear footwear unless it was part of
a spacesuit. I had two blasters and a fresh deck of playing cards- human’s most
notable contribution to the Cosmic society and already spread throughout the
Universe undoubtedly. I was about as ready as I would ever be. “Let’s go see
this place.” I said.
Vengeance
Vengeance
The Alien Agenda
Those around us were all Juvenile to us by many
degrees. It was like slaughtering
incompetent novices. They were all well
trained, even Masters of the art of the weapon each carried, but they could not
perceive the blinding speed with which we attacked. I parried an attack from my left and then
stabbed the Palag through its neck before it realized its blade had even been
deflected. Then I quickly yanked it
free, coated in black blood, before the Palag I had stabbed in the neck began
to fall, parried another blade among the mass either chopping or stabbing at
me, and another and another and another, much faster than the thought,
operating on muscle memory alone, before finding the barest sliver of a moment
to strike back. While my Cumosachi wove
a defensive ring of steel around me to my right, and my cane-sword danced the
same caper to those on my left, as I swung the cane-sword back to parry yet
another attack I let my arm slip out to its farthest reach and the tip of the
blade opened the great black teardrop shaped eye of one of the Palag whose
blades I had just parried there. As the
Palag staggered back my cane-sword cavorted on, and the opening the Palag had
left in the ring around us was filled with the next eager attacker. They came
blithely on.
My Cumosachi Katana, though longer and heavier, moved with a
grace that seemed to be animated by the blade itself. The balance of the Cumosachi was unmatched by
any weapon I had ever held, excepting only possibly, the blade I had given my
son, and it moved as with a life of its own, floating, weaving and buoyant
among the blades besieging me, occasionally darting out to sever hands, nick
the great black teardrop shaped eyes, or even liberate completely their
overlarge heads with a deft slice at their thin, scrawny appearing necks.
Sonafi, smaller and more nimble than I, and fighting with
her shorter weapons, was often away from my back as she literally danced among
the attacking Palag, I trying to maintain our proximity only to find her once
again beside me and expecting me to parry blades that were descending on her as
she slipped under one or another of my arms to slice the unsuspecting Palag in
front of me.
No two humans could have fought the way we did. We could not view all of our attackers all at
once. They came from everywhere all at once
but not in a coordinated attack that we might fight them in a systematic
manner. We picked our targets on a most
imperative basis, but it was all instinctual, autonomous and reflexive. We did not have time to think, to
calculate. We had to act in the
now. Their blades fell from every
direction, and we fought them like the demented beings that we were.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Alien-Agenda-ebook/dp/B00DGWVWNS/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1373126587&sr=1-2
http://www.amazon.com/The-Alien-Agenda-ebook/dp/B00DGWVWNS/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1373126587&sr=1-2
Friday, June 14, 2013
Sunday, June 9, 2013
Sunday, June 2, 2013
Monday, May 27, 2013
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
Thursday, May 16, 2013
Thursday, April 18, 2013
Chronicles of a Space Mercenary - Vengeance ...coming soon.
Sample;
When I woke I had the craziest idea I couldn’t remember where I was or how I had gotten here. I must have gotten really drunk last night I thought as I sat up and looked around my odd appearing cabin, though for some reason couldn't remember the episode- what a waste. The oddities began piling up this morning though almost immediately, just as they might the morning after a hard night out, but that wasn’t this at all. This was something different which I didn’t recognize. First I couldn’t find the head in my own suite of cabins- it just wasn’t where I thought it should be. I activated the corridor hatch twice before deciding the head couldn’t be in the corridor. After finding it in a place I was sure it had not been before- I stopped myself because by now I was also sure I was still sleeping. I pinched myself hard but that only hurt. “Ouch.” I said. “I’m not dreaming.”
After using the head- despite its odd seeming location- I was then surprised to find that my clothes were lying crumpled on the floor next to my bed when I didn’t remember putting them there. It wasn’t that I don’t throw my clothes on the deck I just simply didn’t remember doing it. The more I thought about it the less I was able to reconstruct of the previous evening’s activities. Actually I couldn’t remember a damn thing I realized, but figured the odd memory lapse and my weirdness just must have been me this morning- it wouldn’t be a first to wake feeling oddly hungover- at least that’s what I thought then.
I did feel out-of-place though, I reflected as I slowly pieced together and regained my disjointed senses, though why they were disjointed was the mystery. Normally if I woke not knowing where I was it was because I had gotten intoxicated on some alien concoction Tanya had convinced me to try or woke in a place I had never been before or hadn’t been in a long time. Like a Federation jail for instance. I’d been in a Federation jail a few times throughout my life and the morning after when I wake for the first time in that cell it was always the same. Long moments of disorientation while I searched around the small cell for a way out, the confusion only ending when I finally realized there was no way out. I wasn’t in a Federation jail however and I knew for a fact I hadn’t gotten stupid intoxicated because I always paid for it the next day- no matter what the intoxicant. Despite the oddities I felt great.
I felt really good in fact, better than I could remember in quite a while. The usual anguishes of a normal morning after were strangely absent. Of course I would drink my hot-jolt all day- mostly to recover from the night before but also to keep the senses alert late into that coming night. Then while raking it in on the tables the usual nightly drinks and other exotic pleasantries which were available on any Kievor Trade Station, night after night or at least until I was bust. The mornings after were always the hardest part of my day, except this morning after. In fact I felt as if I hadn’t contaminated my body in years, which I knew of course to be untrue. I polluted my body regularly. Nor was I craving my hot-jolt! Normally I couldn’t get my eyes fully open until the second or third cup- and which was really suspect- and though somehow not needing what I normally couldn’t live without made my hot-jolt anyway and headed for the hatch, still with that odd sensation that it was in the wrong place. Chalking it up to the unknown because excessive thinking in the morning, even if I felt good, was a waste of valuable energy I could spend later on the card tables. I activated the real hatch meaning to depart only to find Tanya with fist raised outside in the corridor, getting ready to start beating on my hatchway. She did not look pleased.
“Most of my jewelry is missing Marc!” Tanya snarled. “The hall feeds have been tampered with also- they should have shown the thief going in and out but they don’t- and since you are the only one with the authority to tamper with those feeds I expect you to explain to me where my jewelry is.”
“Good Lord.” I said as I took a big gulp of my hot-jolt.
Tanya's cabin was so full of material things there was barely room to get into it. The safe containing her jewelry opened after Tanya put her eyeball in front of the retinal scanner and the huge door swung open on frictionless hinges. The safe was packed full.
"Most of it's missing!" Tanya snarled.
"There isn't room for any more." I said dubiously, apparently not quite as awake as I thought. "If most of it’s missing where were you keeping it?"
Tanya looked confused for a moment then turned on me; "Don’t try to confuse the issue! I know what I have and most of it's missing! Now I want to know what you're going to do about it?"
"I’ll check the feeds." I said just to get away from her. There was no way she could have put more jewelry in that safe- and she was claiming thatmost of it was missing! I’d seen her safe before and as far as I could tell there was nothing missing, much less most of it. So combined with Tanya’smissing jewelry and my own inauspicious morning wondered what other insanity this day might bring?
Chapter 2
My mind must be playing tricks on me I thought, befuddled in some way, as I became confused as to which way to go to get to my Bridge. As I looked back and forth both ways down the corridor, not sure which way to go, clopping footsteps which began to approach proved to be Bren coming around the far corner down the corridor to my left;
“Which way to the Bridge?” I asked with a ridiculous grin when he had come close enough to be heard in a conversational tone of voice. I felt stupid but really couldn’t remember which way I was supposed to go, in which direction lay my own Bridge! I was really out of it, I thought, not imagining the half of it.
Bren didn’t even bother looking his disgust at me, which I think was the most suspect act yet this morning, just pointed back the way he had come and kept walking- right past me without so much as an adieu! Now I knew I had gotten intoxicated last night and pissed everyone off and now they were going to get even with me this morning. What a waste I thought for the second time, at the same time wondering how much more trouble I would be in if I did it again today and couldn’t remember everything I did again tomorrow? As it turned out I wouldn’t need to do anything else today to get in any more trouble. It was waiting for me on the Bridge and wearing Melanie’s guise, though I knew this wasn’t Melanie. I knew who this was.
“I’ve been waiting for you Marc.” Melanie purred the moment I came on the Bridge. She was sitting in my pilot’s chair in a dress that concealed almost nothing, limpid eyes pouring lust and submissiveness that would have entrapped forever any weaker man. She got up and began walking towards me the moment I came on the Bridge. I slapped the ships-com next to the hatch;
“Tanya get the hell up to the Bridge.” I said and Melanie came to a halt, a glitter to her eye, then I added; “This isn’t about your jewelry- Melanie is back under Katon mind control.”
Tanya arrived as I finished speaking- never underestimate Tanya’s speed I reminded myself as she entered. “If she’s back under Katon mind control then she’s the thief.” Tanya growled.
“Thief!” Melanie said, automatically changing her stance from seductive to aggressive, not afraid of Tanya one bit though I didn’t think she would stand a chance- no one stood a chance against Tanya in one-on-one combat. I’d seen her in action too many times.
“That’s enough.” I said stepping in between the two of them but facing Melanie; “You are under Katon mind control. You fought it once and beat if before and you can do it again.”
Her face went through several emotions as she delved into her memories and came up with the one I was talking about, it seemed so very long ago now, but she could clearly see she was doing the same exact thing again. “Why was I doing that again?” She asked as she noticed her near nakedness as if for the first time. “And why in the hell would I dress like this for you! It’s you and Meerla who are together.” She said as she left the Bridge, over her malady for the moment, it appeared, but who in the hell was Meerla? Just another mystery I wasn’t going to try and unravel at the moment, or at least I wasn’t going to until I turned to Tanya and saw the look in her eye.
“What’s going on here?” Tanya demanded.
“Having an odd day as well?” I asked with an amusing little twist of my lip- I could laugh I wasn’t the one missing most of my jewelry. Last Chance was my only real possession as well as my home and she was fueled, stocked and ready to go. I had a few credits in my Kievor account but if those were missing it would only mean we’d have to pull out a day or so early. Not that I truly thought Tanya’s jewelry was missing, but there wassomething odd going on here and odd things needed to be investigated.
“I believe I am.” Tanya admitted.
“I think we all are.” I said. “Shall we take a survey?”
Chapter 3
Everyone was having a weird day it seemed, but where was I supposed to go with it once I had established that something odd was going on? Everyone was reporting peculiarities that morning but that’s all they were, just small oddities and no reason to become overly alarmed that I could detect. I was sure there had to be some logical explanation and I thought about asking the Kievors but if something odd/bad had happened to us it would have been the Kievors who had done it and I would save my inquiry for when I had some real questions to ask- as well as better knowing what can of worms I might be opening.
“You son-of-a-bitch Marc.” Tanya swore as she came charging onto the Bridge. My blaster came out of its holster all of its own accord and for the first time ever I held a weapon against Tanya. I immediately put it away but could hardly believe how quickly I had been willing to pull it. I normally wouldn’t pull my blaster unless I meant to use it and I assuredly hadn’t meant to use it against Tanya, no matter how pissed off she was.
“What did I do now?” I asked as the carbon slid back into its reptile-skin holster. “Sorry, just jumpy today.”
“Quick too,” Tanya said with a measuring look, “but that’s not why I’m here. I want to know where all those Kievor-credits came from if you didn’t sell my jewelry.” She demanded. “I don’t care how much you got for them, they weren’t yours to sell.” If she had a second thought about the fact that I had drawn on her I couldn’t see it in her face. What I saw in her face was her wanting to know where my credits had come from if I hadn’t sold her jewelry and I didn’t have a clue what she was talking about.
“What Kievor-credits?” I said, because for a certainty I didn’t have many.
“I don’t have any idea how you got so much for those pieces. I don’t care that you got so much for them. What I do care about is getting every one of them back, Marc, and I know what each piece looks like down to the minutest detail!” With that said Tanya turned on her heel and stormed from the Bridge.
“You stole Tanya’s jewelry!” Bren said from his station. “You’re despicable.”
“Why are you here?” I asked. I meant the Bridge antagonizing me and he knew it.
“Something crazy going on Marc.” Bren said. “I think we should depart.”
“Depart the Trade Station!” I demanded as I queried the Kievors for my account balance. The sum that appeared on my screen was absolutely impossible. “We won’t be departing any time soon.” I said. There was obviously some error here and I was going to spend as many of those errors as I could before the accounting mix-up was fixed. “I’m going aboard the Station.” I said as I rose. To hell with the oddities, I’d get drunk and maybe kill a few jewelry festooned reptiles to try to appease Tanya, but these credits had not come from Tanya’s jewels- there were enough credits in my account to fill Last Chance with the rarest and most expensive jewelry in the Universe- and I was going to get to the spending of it.
Chapter 4
Last Chance powering up and lifting from the deck of the dock was about as discernible to me as my own face in a mirror but I was sitting on the toilet when it occurred and by the time I got to the Bridge we were in warp.
“You son-of-a-bitch!” I swore at Bren, though it was already far too late.
“There are about thirty Katon Destroyers right behind us.” Bren said cheerfully as I landed in my pilot’s seat with the intention of bringing us out of warp and turning us right back around- then removing his and everyone’s clearance to navigation. I was going back to the Station and I meant to have a good time spending those credits- and I was going to take a good long time about doing it. Then Bren’s words sank in and I realized fully what he had done. There would be no going back to the Station now. We wouldn’t be able to get anywhere near any of the local Stations- not with the Katons fully alerted. I sank back in my seat, defeated.
“Why?” Was all I could ask.
“Yes why?” Tanya said from the hatchway. “I would especially like to know.”
“Because I remember everything.” Bren said.
“Everything about what?” Tanya growled, not at all amused, still very much wanting her jewels back but at least now the attention off me.
“About you and Marc being Alartaw.” Bren said. “For some reason I am able to remember. The rest of us weren’t Alartaw, so we probably just got standard mind-wipes, but mine didn’t work. First I started seeing mathematical equations I knew I’d never seen before. Unbelievable ways to combine atoms to…”
“In layman’s terms.” I interrupted, his words stirring strange memories I couldn’t remember and beginning to give me a headache- would the anomalies continue unabated forever?
“You made a deal with the Kievors to…” Bren began and an hour later had us convinced- but not by his words alone. All of us were on the Bridge by then and listening to what he had to say, but it was the science he was talking about and showing us on a screen that caught my and everyone’s interest- not that any of us knew what the hell he was showing us other than that it was entirely new; “I can build the computer which will give us trans-metal. I can recreate every bit of the Alartaw technology I learned during our stay and it’s at exactly the same technological level as the Kievors. It may be the very pinnacle of scientific possibility! I just need the materials.” Bren said, after which I could think of little else, and I didn’t mean whatever the pinnacle of scientific possibility meant- I meant the computer which would turn Last Chance into a trans-metal gravity powered ship. There was little else I could think of after hearing that.
“That’s really helpful.” Tanya said scornfully. “What yard is going to take us in with thirty Katon Destroyers following us?”
“Saying all of this is true,” I said to Bren and ignoring Tanya, “and we really were the Emperor and Empress of these Alartaw, why wouldn’t the Kievors just have killed us? Hell, they even paid us. Doesn’t make sense!”
“Kievor honesty.” Manuel said. “They lived up to their end of the deal. I guess their word is the one thing the Kievors won’t tread upon.”
“The deal is finished now though.” Melanie said. “That’s why the Katons are after us- the Kievor have informed on us.”
“I know it wasn’t you.” I told Melanie with a mocking smile I just couldn’t stop from slipping onto my face. “I hadn’t rebuffed you yet.” I said. To that response I got the glinty look she had given me earlier, except no mind control behind it this time.
“We’ll never be able to return to a Kievor Trade Station. None of us!” Janice said. “The deal’s concluded and I bet it burned their asses that they had to keep their word but it must be some kind of code they live by and won’t break. I honestly can’t believe they did it but I know if we put ourselves in their hooves again they’ll kill us for sure.”
“We’ll never be able to return to a Kievor Trade Station and all those Kievor credits.” Is what I lamented.
“I grabbed a few as a contingency.” Bren said, picking up a duffel-bag I hadn’t noticed sitting on the deck near his feet. He picked it up and opened it; it was full of Kievor credit vouchers, millions worth.
“How in the hell did you get into my account?” I demanded.
“It was part of the arrangement.” Bren said with a smile at my demand, everything now clear in his mind, especially the years he had spent studying Alartaw technology. “You left standing orders with the Kievors to give us full access to your account. I got them right after you and Tanya left and I’ve been carrying them since.”
“If Marc and I were the Emperor and Empress of these Alartaw, this race which is just as technological as the Kievor, how did we end up back in Kievor hooves and where are these Alartaw?” Tanya asked, I think that question at the top of everyone’s mind at this point.
‘Our ship was damaged. We were in battle and took a massive hit- as usual you were leading the attack when where we should have been was in the vanguard- that’s where the Commander is supposed to Command from.” Bren gave me a scowl at this but these were things I didn’t remember and only smiled at him in return- he could make up anything at this point and I was just supposed to believe it! Bren went on; “I was knocked unconscious- I remember that much- there was a blinding white explosion and then nothing more, but the wreckage of our ship must have been pulled aboard a Kievor Trade Station and the Kievor kept their word. They returned all of us to our original lives as they had promised they would.”
“How was the war going?” Tanya asked. I smiled at her as well, knowing her underlying thought- she wouldn’t be the Empress of an Empire that no longer existed.
“The war had been an uphill battle ever since the destruction of the Alartaw worlds, but somehow Brune kept pulling us through,” Bren answered, “though I’ll never understand how.”
Friday, February 22, 2013
Tanya Free for five days 2/22/2013
Tanya
She was
running for her life, exerting every ounce of strength, her pursuer right
behind her. His footfalls on the plas-crete sidewalk beating themselves into
her consciousness as they steadily caught up to her. She had no time to look
back to see but had reached the place to which she was fleeing. It was a rotten
gaping hole in the mortar foundation of a massive tenement building. One of
many thousands of such entrances throughout the ghetto that let into the old
sewers below, the warrens as it was now known. Tanya jumped straight into the
opening with the footfalls of her pursuer right behind her, she slipped and
slid, gouging out a long deep patch of meat along her lower thigh on the rough
edged opening in her frantic hurry. She hit the ground and instantly turned
with the scrap of carbon in her hand to slash at the hand which was reaching in
for her through the opening.
Her pursuer
had not expected the beautiful, frightened, filthy slip of a girl-child to turn
on him. Nor had he expected the razor sharp scrap of carbon. He had not
expected the raggy street urchin to turn and attack, like a crazed animal
rather than a human being.
Tanya was a
thirteen year old ghetto-vagabond who had already seen the worst life had to
offer and clearly understood what this one had wanted with her. She had seen
him before, with his girls, and now apparently he had seen her. There was no
law here in the tax-free zone, so whatever could be taken and held was
property, to be sold or bartered to the constant stream of those who frequented
this place. Whatever could be taken and held was the property of the holder.
That was the only law of the ghetto, the tax-free zone. That was the only law
Tanya knew, so she would struggle just as ferociously to escape the jaws of a
predatory lizard as she would this man, or the many others like him who thrived
in these places. The outcome in both cases would be the same.
Showing the
coordination of a trained gymnast, the ferocity of the gladiator, or maybe it
was only her utter terror that drove her, Tanya spun as her feet hit the
ground, slashing at the hand reaching in for her. The piece of carbon was
sharp, its edge only one atom thick, but of this or anything else which would
be learned in an educational institution Tanya was unaware. She knew there were
places where people lived normal lives, but of those place’s inner workings she
knew nothing. She could neither read nor write nor even spell her own name.
Tanya knew
only that the merest touch of the scrap would sever anything of flesh and bone.
She took off the last three fingers of his left hand with a desperate stroke,
the fingers leaving the hand to flip almost as in freeze-frame through Tanya’s
vision. Before the first squirt of arterial spray had even left the severed
ends of newly shortened fingers, she was running again while he screamed his
agony and despair, and then she was gone into the darkness of underground
passages she knew better than the streets above. Better than she could remember
her own mother, now seven years gone, and a killing ground for anyone foolish
enough to attempt to follow her. Many had followed. They all wanted the credits
she could earn them, or her alone. They wanted her blond hair and her blue eyes,
because she was different, because she was beautiful. She stood out in a now
nearly homogenized race. Her mother and father had come here from someplace else,
but they hadn't survived long once they had gotten here. Her father had simply
failed to return the last time he had gone out, the victim of a violent social
structure he had not been able to adapt to quickly enough. Tanya understood
intrinsically what had occurred, her father’s sad but smiling face still in her
memories, sad with the knowledge of his failures but trying to put a brave face
on it. Her mother had worked as a prostitute at the end, but there was little
else she could remember of those times. They had not been good times. As a
thirteen year old girl, Tanya was now well acquainted with the lusts of men.
Those who had pursued her recently had met death in the underground warrens,
the scrap of carbon flashing out of darkness too Stygian to comprehend, then
Tanya fleeing like a ghost while the predator turned prey pumped his blood out
onto the thirsty plas-crete.
Monday, February 11, 2013
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
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