The following is the webpage equivalent of Sci-Fi Telephone Issue #1. If you'd like to grab the pictures, you can "save as" them from this page. If you like what you're reading, feel free to grab the PDF format HERE.
What
this is About
Awhile
ago I had a thought of how to make a sort of exquisite corpse sort of
thing, but with science fiction stories. I know the fun of playing a
good game of Consequences with friends and thought it worthwhile to
attempt a literary experiment of sorts. I found some like-minded
individuals and thus the project began. If you're reading this right
now you may already know its basic structure, but here it is just in
case:
- Someone
gives a kickoff story title.
- The
next person draws artwork based on that title alone.
- The
next person writes a story based on that artwork alone.
- The
next person reads that story and gives it a title.
And
so on and so forth. For this first issue we've put together five
rounds' worth of titles, artwork and stories, for a total of five
works. For the sanity of readers and writers we kept the lengths of
stories down a fair amount.
We're
already in the very beginnings of the next project, Horror Telephone,
and after that are looking at branching out to even more genres and
possibly other literary games and constructions besides anthologies.
If
you'd like to join us for a project in the future (there will
possibly still be a slot left in Horror Telephone when you read this,
even) please let me know in the form on our blog at
http://teleliterary.blogspot.com
. Though of course, the internet is always changing, and so if by the
time you read this we're no longer there, look for it by
Tele-Literary.
Without
further ado, please enjoy Sci-Fi Telephone, Issue #1!
-
D.J. Lower, project facilitator
The
Stories
1. THE ALIENS
OF THE ALIEN PLANET
Title:
D.J. Lower
Artwork:
John-Frederick Pope
Story:
B. Alex Pope
2. Murder at
the Terraform Zoo
Title:
P. Odenthal
Artwork:
G. Peet
Story:
C. Applegarth
3. Dream
Title:
Jon Taylor
Artwork:
Dr. Missile
Story:
L. Wyatt
4. Cunning Ol'
Fury
Title:
M. Tongue
Artwork:
Corban M.
Story:
C. Brence
5. The Big Red
Button
Title:
D. Morrison
Artwork:
John-Frederick Pope
Story:
D. Gill
THE
ALIENS OF THE ALIEN PLANET
“There’s
nothing entertaining about this.”
“You’re
wrong.”
“No,
there’s nothing entertaining about this.”
“Then
why are you watching?”
“Ever
see a ship break up in the atmosphere when their retro rockets fail?”
“Well--”
“Did
you look away?”
“Who
wouldn't watch that? It's pretty sweet.”
“That's
what it is. The entertainment value of this is offensive.”
“But
you’re still watching!”
“That
doesn’t mean I should!”
A
screeching wail cackled from the speakers as a searing flash from the
screen illuminated the every crack of the tiny control pod that the
two men were sharing. Both recoiled in such stunned awe of the
horror, one would never expect that they’d seen the same thing on a
daily basis for nearly three weeks, but the same reaction came every
time.
“Aint
that a thing…” Said Fronk, a heavy set man, obviously too old to
be working this job, “Heh, I can’t get tired of it.”
Fronk
was hardly in a position to brag about anything most of the time, but
it had never stopped him from doing so, or from doing so verbosely
depending on how much he’d had to drink. Simply, he was a stubby
man, and he ran operation. A certain detachment from reality was
expected of his position, but loving this job is a vice only for the
strange.
“I
still think there’s nothing entertaining about it.” said Nick. He
was a tall and sleek man of what most would consider little
distinction. He would cut his black hair often and religiously, but
looking at him, it wouldn’t be obvious: slightly too long,
constantly in his eyes, just above the point of his tiny nose. He had
made sure that if wanted not to make eye contact, he wouldn’t have
to. Just hide behind the hair.
He
and Fronk never managed to find common interests, but they had
silently agreed not to hate each other. After all, they were poised
to spend the entirety of the mission with one another, and even if it
was only for one month, they would have to be amicable to survive.
Space will bleed a lonely man’s mind to madness, so this
arrangement was an inescapable requirement, even if they were two men
working for two different entities with two very different goals.
“Well,
that’s it for this one. What’s next?” said Fronk flippantly,
flipping off the static fuzz leftover from the flash.
“I…
that’s not enter… it’s…” sputtered Nick.
“We’ve
got nine more of these, kid. Don’t flip out now.”
“I’m
not flipping out. I’m just… Tired of watching.” said Nick,
looking down.
“Then
don’t.” said Fronk flatly.
“Retro
rockets…” said Nick, turning and hiding his eyes with his hair,
“I’ve gotta send this footage back on the Wi-Com. Anything you
need sent?”
“Send
my regards to your mother!” Fronk guffawed.
Nick
continued to the other side of the pod. It’s a short walk. He
didn’t like thinking about the size of the room, so he’d
purposefully walk slowly. His task at the end of the jaunt would be
tedious one, compiling hundreds of spike-cameras into a single file
to stream to the distribution hub on Terra 2. Meanwhile, Fronk would
loudly plot the course to the next planet with every button making a
distinct, percussive squeal with every poke of Fronk’s puffy round
fingers.
Twenty
days of this gestated Nick’s vitriol, which he was actively
stuffing in the corner of his mind. The job was almost done, and he
didn’t know the first thing about plotting courses or
extra-light-travel compensators. He was simply a glorified
photographer, the orbital camera man. No glory in job to speak of,
but what bothered him most was that he needed Fronk.
“Sixteen
hours to next body. Cuttin’ it close. No delays this time, kid.”
“Look,
the network needs at least three hours of footage from every camera,
I can’t just say, ‘hey, animals! come over to the big thing in
the ground!’” said Nick, loudly enough to make Fronk consider
that he might actually be mad.
“Look
kid,” started Fronk, “as long as we’re leaving that heap this
time tomorrow, I don’t care. Just launch your stupid cameras and
take your stupid footage and I'll blow the damn thing to hell!”
“Ough…”
said Nick, recoiling back to his hole. It would be a long night.
-------<*>-------
“Coming
soon, the acclaimed series, Terraform Zoo! Wednesdays at 7pm Eastern
Standard time! Watch all the magnificent wonders of the hundreds of
planets we’ll soon be calling ‘Home’! See the wildlife up
close! Get a grasp on every part of each entirely unique ecosystem in
this two hour, fully holographic experience that everyone on the
orbital causeways, and remember, WEDNESDAY at 7 EASTERN STANDARD
TIME!!”
-------<*>-------
“I
can’t believe I’m doing this I can’t believe I’m doing this I
can’t believe I’m”
“Shut
up kid, if you hate being on the ship then wear the damn visualizer
goggles or something,” said Fronk, annoyed at Nick’s chanting,
“don’t cabin fever out and ax murder me. You sound like a crazy
person.”
“I
don’t hate being here. I hate what I do here.” said Nick.
“Do
what you do. Whatever if you hate it.” Fronk had very little to
say. He would have more if he had bothered care about anything.
“What
does that even mean?”
“Iunno.
I just pilot the thing. And make sure the terra-gizzy works. Hard to
hate that.” said Fronk.
“Ough.”
It was Nick’s sign-off.
Twenty-one
planets in twenty-one days. The terraforming process would take
years, decades, but the entertainment industry capitalized
immediately. The opportunity was obvious.
-------<*>-------
Fronk
awoke from his hammock to find Nick poking at the console on the
other side of the pod.
“Early
rising this morning.”
“Space,
damnit. There is no morning here.”
“Clock
says morning.” said Fronk as he rolled out of his hammock with the
grace of a wingless butterfly. On all fours, he crawled his way to
the desk chair on his side of the pod. It would’ve been more
pathetic if the ceiling was higher, but the pair would stoop to walk
in the pod anyway, so they often avoided walking at all.
“Could
you be a bigger idiot?!” Nick was needlessly angry, but Fronk
wasn’t willing to do anything about it.
“Uhh…
Did you make coffee?” Grumbled Fronk “Coffee and food. Then we
start.”
A
hissing roar erupted in the pod, deafening Fronk and Nick in the
shear cacophony.
“GOOD
GOD, what the hell was that?” Fronk said furiously, “You do NOT
mess with MAH SHIP!”
“Relax,
it was just the cameras.” Said Nick calmly.
“The
hell did you do, fire ‘em all at--” Fronk stopped in his tracks,
“of course you did… Why would you catch me off guard like that,
man? I aint even had my coffee yet!”
“Just
trying to save time.”
Fronk
grumbled to the coffee pot in the center of the pod. “You aint
saving any time. I hadn’t even set up the terraformer yet. That’ll
take hours.”
“More
footage for the network, I guess.” Nick began ignoring Fronk as he
grumpily made coffee.
Nick
stared at the monitors. Of the 200 spike-cameras he had fired to the
surface, only 75 were working, plenty to get the footage he needed.
The impact had scared the wildlife away as it always would on the
twenty planets prior, but they’d be back. Nick always chose the
best possible places for the cameras; where they would invariably see
the local fauna. He waited, knowing somewhere in his mind that it
would push him too far.
Flipping
through the living cameras, he found a river, an oasis in what was
seemingly a desert. The sun was setting on it slowly. This sunset
would take hours, even days, days of a taupe haze blanketing and
softening the edges of the otherwise harsh environment surrounding an
anemic river of green liquid, perhaps water, but it was far from
Nick’s understanding of nitrogen based life. All he knew was that
it was beautiful. And when Fronk finished the terraforming missile,
it would be gone.
By
the second hour, the birds had returned to the river, his Eden. The
joy and terror of this place kept every second of his solitude
watching the monitor a mesmeric nightmare of anticipation.
“What’re
you doin’?” boomed Fronk.
“Shh.”
Hissed Nick quietly.
“Whatever.
Almost done, kid.”
Something
was tickling a ripple in the river. The life was returning to his
Eden. A small quadruped, perhaps a reptile of some sort, approached
the river. The ripple intensified.
“There
we go, baby!” Fronk exclaimed, shattering Nick’s silence, “Ten
minutes, max.”
Nick
silently arose. His hammock was so close to Fronk’s that he’d
learned how to walk across the tiny pod’s metal grate floor without
making a sound. Halfway across…
The
lizard recoiled from the liquid’s edge. The ripple was now too
obvious. Something was in there, and it knew it wasn’t friendly. A
single eye, poked slightly out of the liquid. It darted around,
looking for what it knew was edible and locking firmly on the
reptile. A single vibrant tendril oozed its way up the beach as
stealthily as it could. The lizard was entirely unaware.
Nick
reached out for the steak-knife that the two had used for everything.
His grip on it tightened with every step. He knew how many were left.
He’d counted. Three steps… Two steps… The knife now burned in
his hand, his knuckles ached.
The
lizard, still oblivious to the imminent danger of becoming prey,
slowed to enjoy the fading sun. A gust of wind sent the trees
dancing… The wrong direction! The lizard picked up the scent of the
tendrils, but the eye of the tendril was ready.
Squeeeeek!
The
floor under Nick screamed his presence! Fronk turned in his chair,
startled and immediately bursting into cold sweat.
The
tendril beast arose fully from the liquid. A maze of medusa pink
tendrils shot across the sand with terrifying speed, engulfing the
scrambling reptile in a gruesomely futile squirm… for naught.
His
nails been digging into his palm when he finally lunged fist first
for Fronk’s neck. Burying the steak knife deep in his neck, feeling
things sever and snap as it went, Nick knew that it was done… but
he’d never thought of those final seconds, releasing the knife with
orgasmic catharsis, he met Fronk’s eyes… they seemed to beg
something, but Nick wanted only to see one thing. He would hear no
more screeching wails from the life, he'd see no more writhing pain
immediately after the flash, it was done. At least, he was done.
The
lizard was finished. Not dead, but the job was done. The tendrils
began to recoil back to the liquid and the eye the once stared knives
into its prey’s eyes, now contented and blissful rest. The sun was
finally over the horizon and the colors were fading away. The pod
began its descent into the atmosphere, and he knew that the beauty of
this Eden would be eternal for him.
Murder
at the Terraform Zoo
The
Quadrarian detective kneeled beside the corpse, typing everything he
saw into his omni-tab. Having four eyes meant that there wasn't much
he didn't see.
Quadrarians
were quite a paranoid, intolerant people. They used their four
eyes (one in back, three in front) to great effect. As a result
of their paranoia, Quadrarians didn't dream, they couldn't dream, and
humans always found that fascinating. Humans were obsessed with
dreams, he thought. And yet, Quadrarians weren't as
technologically advanced as humans, except in the field of genetic
engineering. They'd given themselves extra sensory organs
(e.g., eight ears) and an increased lifespan. Quadrarians still
couldn't dream, though. That's why humans looked inward while
Quadrarians always seemed to look out.
The
detective thought for a moment about the case he was researching,
typed in a few more details, and then got up from his place and
looked over at the witness. The witness was neither human nor
Quadrarian, but a robotic drone, part of the zoo's security system.
It beeped and whirred and its monitor flickered on. Pictured
on its screen was a hard-boiled, pockmarked human policeman. "I
am unit alpha. You can call me Harold. Allow me to replay
the scene for you." A panel on the front of the robot
opened, revealing a large, telescope-like device. It popped
and, suddenly, the Quadrarian found himself looking at a translucent
hologram of the victim.
"Are
you ready?" asked the robot in his shrill voice. "This
is a hologram. It's like a dream."
The
Quadrarian scoffed at the word 'dream.' "I'm ready,"
he said gruffly, and the hologram began to move. The victim was
a tall, pale Quadrarian man, wearing a jacket labelled "Park
Security." The victim's image slowly made an angry, waving
gesture and shook its fist. Something exploded nearby, and the
man was knocked off his feet, dark red blood flying everywhere. He
landed on the concrete below, his hand still outstretched, exactly
where the victim's body was now.
"What
was he saying when he was shot?" asked the Quadrarian.
"That
has been redacted," asked the robot.
The
detective's wrinkled hands hurriedly typed into the omni-tab. This
robot was probably the only lead there was. He had to get that
information. "Play that one more time, please," he said,
getting to his feet once more and walking to the front side of the
scene. As the hologram whirred into life again, the detective
stared into the eyes of the poor Quadrarian man.
The
man wasn't saying anything. He even looked quite resigned to
his fate. In fact, if the detective wasn't mistaken, he looked
strangely alien... strangely human.
The
Quadrarian sighed, and with a few more taps on his omni-tab, began to
walk away. "I'm done here, robot."
"Okay.
Will continue securing the perimeter," the robot beeped.
The
Quadrarian began to step away from the scene, but realized he'd
forgotten to collect a DNA sample.
He turned around to go grab
one, but he stopped in his tracks when he saw the scene from the
back. The victim's hologram had no back eye. He couldn't
have been Quadrarian!
Eagerly,
the detective took a sample of his DNA. "Quadrarian,
Human," stated his analyzer.
"Can
you give me any records on this guy?" the detective asked.
The
robot responded with a grunt, and then its screen flashed with a
brief employment history for the victim. He had worked at a
genetics lab for a very long time, but otherwise his records were
empty.
"I
thought you knew..." the robot buzzed in a strange tone.
"Knew
what?"
"He
was part human," said the robot. "He was a successful
experiment... he could dream.
People didn't like that. People... your people... hated
him. For his ability to dream. To hope... There were
others like him, but he was the last one."
The
Quadrarian looked down solemnly. Had this been the only one of
their kind able to have a dream? To take his own thoughts and
experiences and create something wonderful in his mind?
He
got up and walked away from the scene, incredulous of his planet's
inability to tolerate a simple dream. The detective looked back
at the robot one last time. "The only thing that makes us
different from humans is that we'll never be able to dream," he
said. "Not until we can really dream, in and of
ourselves."
"Humans
were once the same way," beeped the robot.
The
detective thought about that statement for a moment, scratched the
back of his head, and carried on. For a second he could have
sworn he saw a vision, but he shrugged it off and continued walking
toward the tall, steel gates.
Dream
“How’s
the carriage, Jeff?” I asked, skipping the usual good
morning and
how
was your date with Lucy? I
could see from his eyes that something else was more important.
“You’re
gonna love this, boss.” Jeff said proudly. His grin stretched from
ear to ear, and his eyes glowed brighter than the sun. “We’ve
integrated the Brody Technique.”
One
sentence, then a pause for dramatic effect. Not that he really had to
– the Brody Technique was the one thing that every team in the
Special Olympics was striving for. It had been theorized about a
quarter-century earlier - I did my middle-school science report on it
- it was called the Heiner- Andromeda Problem back then. By the time
I got to college, Brody had proven it with precisely controlled
experiments. But this was the first time it might possibly have been
achieved in real life. The hang up was the heat. How did they
transfer the heat?
“We
were having trouble with the heat.” Jeff seemed to pick up where my
mind left off. “The Brody mechanism works superbly, we’ve had one
running since last summer. The problem is that the system generated
too much heat, making it impossible to use in the games. But now…”
Jeff looked like a kid in a candy shop. “We covered your carriage
in fur!” He said, looking me dead in the eye. And I almost smacked
him for it.
“You
did what?” I demanded.
“Fur.
We replaced the scales with positively-ionized fur. It’s
flame-retardant, lays down smooth in the water, and can be stood
erect to act as a massive array of cooling towers.” Jeff went on
for a few more minutes, explaining all the technical mumbo-jumbo. All
I really cared about what that it would let me use the Brody. He
swore that it would. Admittedly, I had grown fond of the scaly
exterior that we had been using, but I’d be willing to give that up
for a fully-functioning Brody kit. I gave him the green light, and
the techies ran off like kids who hear an ice cream van on a July
afternoon.
“Boss,
we got a voicemail this morning.” Mr. Kiernanabag informed me as
the others scurried off. Kiernanabag was my legal guy, rules guru,
yes-and-no person, and paper-pusher all in one.
“Voicemail?
Only the IOC ever uses the phones anymore.”
“Exactly.
God help them when they stop making those clunky old contraptions.”
She produced a transcript from her notepad. “This our official
announcement that this year’s Special Olympics will include mechanically-activated threats. No surprise there.” She added. We
had all been expecting this announcement for months. It made me
extra-thankful that I would have Brody on my side.
I
went to lunch and followed my routine as best I could, although I
could feel that little extra spring in my step. I’ve trained hard
to control my emotions, but I guess even the best aren’t perfect.
When I got back, Jeff was waiting by the door.
“Are
you ready, boss?” He asked, eager to show me the fruits of his
labors.
“I’m
all yours, Mr. Lundgrenfeldt.” He likes it when I use his last
name, it makes him feel more dignified. Jeff and I walked in to the
darkened shop. Just for the hell of it, he had shut off all the
lights for a big reveal when I arrived. Once my eyes got used to the
darkness, I realized that I was looking at a mouse. Not the furry
kind that you tell your kids are special squirrels to avoid
the ugly truth, but the flattened, triangular kind that were on TV
way back in the 20th century.
“Glad
to see there’s a point to all your hard work.” I said, making a
way-too-corny pun about the razor-thin point that was both the
nose-cone of the carriage, and the snout of the mouse. Two sun yellow
headlights played at being eyes, and the umbilical of power and
hydraulic lines plugged into the rear hatch looked more like a tail
than anything.
“Check
out those legs.” I observed. They were wiry, straight, and looked
far too brittle.
“I’ll
let you in on a secret.” Jeff mock-whispered to me. “Each leg is
a series of composite hinges. They can simultaneously rotate in
varying directions from varying pivot points. Highly versatile. And
they’re made of Titan®Combination, so you’ll never break them.”
We
spent quite a while walking in and around the recently nicknamed
HyperMaus. Jeff pointed out all the improvements over last Olympiad’s
model, and raved about how vastly ahead of the field I would be once
I adjusted to the Brody Technique.
On
my way in to the similar room, I passed a wall photo of a 100-meter
runner with a prosthetic leg. I had to marvel at what had become of
the Special Olympics in the century since this photo was taken. How
that poor man got on with such an awkward prosthetic, and how he
would have dropped to the floor in awe what the games had become.
By
the time I finally got in the simulator, I had worked out exactly how
to put this new invention through the ringer. I mounted the simulator
and donned my helmet. Jeff cued up the Brody Technique for me. Brody
didn’t just map my nerves to control circuits like a matrix, or tax
my mental fortitude with the basic telepathy that empowered the
Sensosuit. Brody would fully link my consciousness into the
HyperMaus. I would re-train my mind to think like a cyborg rodent and
would be controlling the carriage just like a human controls his own
body. Intuitively. Naturally. As I ran through the simulator, dodging
obstacles, fighting with opponent’s carriages, and evading
predators in the arena, I knew in my heart that this year was mine to
win. The official voicemail from the IOC was still lingering in my
mind and I couldn’t quite shake the image of a computer-driven
drone zeroing in on me in the darkness, but I knew that I’d have
mouse-like instinct on my side.
In
his infinite wisdom, Jeff had built a sound system into the carriage.
I didn’t need speakers – it was directly linked to my
consciousness. All I had to do was think Queen and the band
burst into song, filling my mind with Don’t Stop Me Now! I
know nobody else could hear me, despite them standing right next to
me in the simulator. I must have looked like a madman, dancing with a
partner only I could see to music only I could hear. But everyone
knew that this was our year. And this madman, dancing around and
decimating cyborgs in his mind, was their best chance to stand on the
Olympic podium.
Cunning
Ol' Fury
A
curious beast, this,
she thought as she observed the Warmech. My
presence ordinarily upsets these monsters, yet this one seems docile.
The Warmech towered over Michiko by what felt like one hundred times,
and it had clearly spotted her, yet it had made not a twitch in her
direction. Michiko stood from her perch on the rock, which barely
rose up to the Warmech’s foot, and steadied herself using the
actuator rod that she’d mistaken for a bo staff. She wasn’t in
much shape to be fighting, but fortunately for her, it didn’t seem
like fighting was something that she’d need to do for the moment.
Michiko
took a walk around the beast’s legs, observing what she could of
the silver giant. She tried her best not to trip or lose balance,
using the actuator as a walking stick to compensate for her injured
left leg. For such a hulking mass of...she’d assumed tempered
steel, the mech was surprisingly slender. The legs, despite their
length, were only as big around as the old magnolia tree from the
courtyard back home. The mech was mostly unadorned, its torso lacking
any sort of musculature, with only some heraldic symbol on its chest
to tell it apart from others like it.
She
approached one of the Warmech’s legs and made an attempt to climb
it. Its surface was slick and difficult to gain a hold on, and just
as she thought she had a good grasp of it, she slid right down again,
nearly landing on her bad leg. She grabbed the actuator rod from the
ground and tried using it as leverage to raise herself up, but failed
to lodge it in the ground, nearly winding up face-first in the
rust-red soil. When she tried again, this time lodging the tip of the
actuator into a notch in the mech’s foot, she didn’t even manage
to get off the ground before the mech finally began to stir. Oh
no,
she thought, I’ve
awoken it! I’m finished! I--
The
Warmech slowly lowered itself to a kneeling position, stuck out one
of its giant steel fists, and bowed its head. A hatch atop the
Warmech’s head, which Michiko could not see properly before, sprung
open as if to invite her inside. It was then that the telltale
screech of her “giant ravens” approached again. The last time
she’d seen one of them, her surroundings had been bathed in fire,
the explosions still ringing in her ears. She couldn’t afford to be
caught in her state of injury and defenselessness, so she tossed her
actuator rod aside and climbed up the giant fist, its surface quite a
lot rougher than the legs, perhaps to allow for a better grip. She
calmly lowered herself into the hatch, taking care to put her weight
on her good leg.
Inside
the Warmech’s head, Michiko had landed upon a large chair. It was
not quite as luxurious as the throne she remembered from her
homeland, but it would do. No sooner had she taken a seat, than the
Warmech began to stir again. Michiko felt herself rising into the sky
for a brief moment. Then, a light in front of her, and a voice. The
voice spoke some language she could not understand, but it was
clearly the voice of someone like her. The lights seemed to form
words of some kind, but not any that she could interpret. All she
could understand of the things in front of her was a large, glowing
button, which she could not resist pressing.
The
lights in front of her dissipated, then Michiko was granted a view of
the world outside. Not like she was used to, but from many hundred
feet off the ground, as if she were in an immense tower, overlooking
her old prefecture of Hokkaido. Old?
she
thought, Have
I given up on it so easily? There must be a way back...I just have to
keep searching, and perhaps this strange beast can help me. Now if
only I could tell it what to do…
The
Big Red Button
He snapped out of his reverie. Taking a deep breath, Dirk looked back down at his work. His computer was smashed, and his emergency broadcast device that he was running through it, too, was destroyed. If only that power surge had waited a bit longer… He took stock of his surroundings; the pipes were undamaged, hallelujah, otherwise he’d be hallucinating thanks to the gas running through them. The cords he had severed were still more or less in one piece, although his flask was completely empty, as that surge had caused him to knock it over. He sighed. No more instant pick me up. 40 year old scotch, gone. He shook his head. He was getting sidetracked again. He crawled back over to his right, ignoring his now broken tools, looking to see if his way out was still secured. While he moved in the darkness, he thought of everything that had happened. GigaVita, the megacorperation that was running 90% of the world’s healthcare had started changing their policies, basically forsaking those who were ‘unfit’ to grow in society, as determined by the clauses in their healthcare forms which denied certain patients. The media ignored it all, being paid off by GigaVita, so the public at large was ignorant of their movements. Dirk’s son, Thyme, was one such patient, GigaVita’s system giving them the run around when Thyme was diagnosed with bone cancer in both of his femurs. Dirk begged, pleaded, gave up everything he had to try and save his son, only to finally have one doctor tell him that, as he was being escorted out of the hospital, “Your son has no place in our world.” Not realizing the depth of these words, Dirk took his son and sought to leave the country, heading out to find unbiased care. However, Dirk, instead of driving to the airport and leaving his car, he decided to use a taxi. Less payments on his car for parking. But, as soon as they got in the taxi, the doors were locked, and the divider window sealed itself. Dirk and his son were driven far away from their home, their friends, their family, and brought to a facility of some kind far from their known ground. Dirk and his son were finally allowed to exit the car, only to face a small armed unit of men, circling one man who wore a white coat which read, ‘The Esteemed Dr. Rasp.” Dirk asked him who he was, and why he and his son had been kidnapped. Dr. Rasp didn’t respond to him directly. Instead, he raised a hand, and the guards took aim. Dirk tried to shield his son from the shots, but his body suddenly jerked with pain, with what he would later realize to be a stun dart. He watched, semi-conscious, as his son was knelt down, crying, and read out his ‘crimes’; ‘inferiority of genes,’ ‘attempt to leave quarantine,’ ‘intent to spread inferiority.’ Then, Dirk’s brain locked up as his son’s body shook with pain as bullets rained into him, ending his existence for no more reason than that of ‘genetic supremacy.’ Since then, Dirk has done his research, and found out that the entire project that Dr. Rasp lead was one similar to Hitler, but worse; instead of actively killing people continuously, he instead chose to let them suffer ‘til they died, with only those who were strong enough to try to escape being hunted down and killed. Dirk was spared because it wasn’t his fault, he was informed as he was driven back to town. It was his wife’s fault. The woman who had been in a different state at the time of Dirk’s attempted departure, but was now, he was assured, buried in a shallow grave full of holes. Dirk vowed to bring down the mega-corporation, to show their corruption, and then avenge his fallen family of the wrongs committed against them. This lead to where he was currently; he found out that an ‘abandoned shack’ outside of town was being used to house documents of a sensitive nature. Dirk rounded up equipment he would need; an emergency beacon to attract the police’s attention when he was done finding his evidence, a grapple line, a code breaker to enter the computer records, if any, some plastic explosives, a lap top, some rations, and some wire splicing equipment. From the get go, his mission had proved quite easy. Too easy, in fact. The guards didn’t notice him breaking in, and his entrance into the computer mainframe had been undetected. That is, until he reached for his beacon. As soon as his hand touched the beacon, the entire building had been rocked with some sort of seismic event, completely upsetting everything he was working with, erasing his data, and all in all denying him the satisfaction of his vengeance. He shook his head, wondering why he felt so dizzy. Must have been from the crash. He began to plan his next move; find a safe place to hole up for a week or so, then start digging again. He would not fail. The future of humanity may well rest upon his shoulders. He tripped once, crawling, not noting how heavy his limbs were beginning to feel. He approached where he remembered the air duct being, but, with a sinking sense of despair, he realized why he felt so weak; the air in his small crawl space was being removed. It dawned on him that he had been led here, a witness to the crimes of GigaVita, and therefore a liability. He slammed his head against the ground, cursing his powerlessness. He had been lied to by the powers that be. In fact, he had been lied to by his sources. The air vent he had used to enter the base was in tatters. He had been lead here. He was known.
And now, he was going to die.
