Well, since you really have no say in this, outside of whether or not you're going to continue reading this blog again, I think I'm going to go for option 1. And hey, what's up gang? Haven't seen you in a while. What has it been, like 28 days? A lunar cycle? Really? Wonderful news!
I just finished session A for my fall semester. Session B is going to run halfway through November, and into NaNoWriMo. I'm all ripped and raring to get started, working on my crime/heist/noir deconstruction, Suicide Queen. It'll be fun writing a story about a trio of outlaws in a Sin City-esque manner. I haven't done an extended Noir piece, but I've always been a disciple of Chandler.
The only thing really on my mind has been politics, but such is life during an election year. This isn't a place for me to indoctrinate you into the reason why anarchy works as a sustainable method, but like any other form of governance runs afoul because of its mitigation through humans. But let's just say, if you're a red or blue, we should be uniting over the fact we're pissed this country is fucked up, and the sides we're yelling at aren't to blame. And that's the most political I'm going to get.
I did a lotta stuff in the last month, and going over it would take a long time, soooo... DOG PICTURE AND STORY TIME!
C:\>17_Super_Breakout
In
three hours the impossible had been done. After forming a plan, acquiring gear,
travelling 155km on public rail lines without blowing cover, and making it to
the correct destination, all that remained was the implausible.
“Did I miss anything fun?” Brawl17 said,
tossing down a pastel rainbow knapsack, pokey with the edges of cardboard boxes
stacked within. He opened it up and distributed its contents of cold fries and
burgers to everyone. No one looked pleased with their order.
Manner handed him his clone phone.
You’re Late -M
Was plastered across the message screen in
oversized font.
“Missed a train. Had to dodge security,”
Brawl17 said through a mouthful of fries. “Where’s my gun?”
“Now that we’re all here,” Sweeps said, unrolling
a lumpy thermal blanket, “we can distribute.”
MR printed firearm receivers and stocks
clattered onto the blacktop. Fixer supplied the riot shotgun’s action and
barrel from an army surplus gunny sack.
Six bodies hurriedly ate in silence,
sneaking moments to rifle through the goods they procured along the way. The
rendezvous point was in an alley blocked off by a neglected stretch of
chainlink. Manner pulled out her two-handed sword from a long and flat shipping
box.
Decker felt like he was going to throw up.
Anxiety tingled through his limbs in hot flashes, “You sure about sticking with
the blade, M?”
You sure about staying unarmed? -M
Decker looked back to her from his phone,
“What do you mean unarmed? I have the greatest weapon available to humankind,
fraggin’ knowledge,” He tapped his skull and gave a grin that didn’t fit his
mouth.
“What are you going to do? SPAM the guards
to death?” Fixer deadpanned, “Does anyone know how to put together one of these
shooty things?”
“Okay, again, why does Fixer get a gun but
I don’t?” Breaker sulked.
“Because I’ve seen you shoot,” Fixer
snickered at his twin.
Sweeps said, “Besides, you’re our bomb
squad.” He poked gingerly at the courier bag—stuffed with recently assembled
IED’s—that hung from Breaker’s shoulder.
“Dude, don’t be such a panocha,” Decker
chided Sweeps as he passed out slugs and shells from his brand new bag. “They
won’t blow unless we want them too.”
“Yeah, so don’t give me a reason to want to,”
Breaker’s fake smile was the most menacing look he’d ever given. Sweeps rolled
his eyes and handed Fixer an assembled handgun.
Are we done circlejerking, or are we
going to commit an act of domestic
terrorism? -M
Brawl17 cocked his shotty, ejecting a fresh
shell onto the ground, “Locked and mostly loaded.”
Decker dialed up the cutting took for his
omni-glove, “Good. Let’s get this fraggin’ party going, yo.”
*
They
moved like shadows between the nooks and crannies of Gene Works Inc.’s largest
industrial hub. Decker darkened their pathway to Hangar 18-MD through
vulnerabilities in the timing system. A simple switch from AM to PM was all it
took to sneak into a protected installation. The thought gave Decker a case of
the grins, chuckling at the little pleasures in life. Human nature made slicing
more of a social experiment than a merging of man and technology that so many
fetishized it to be. Not like Decker was innocent of that charge, but at least
he could back up most of his smack.
Breaker
played scout, scanning for bodies and breaks in patrol routes with his limited
visual filters. Sweeps was on topdown map duty. His new mobile sported a low
res holo projector so Decker shared a trial copy of his cartography app. Sweeps
wouldn’t stop wahing about Chinese Sildenafil ads covering the map so Decker
unlocked the paid version.
Everyone’s clone phone rattled with a
message alert.
Breaker:
😫 Long stretch to next
alley.
Fraggin
guard.wont move
Breaker:
Lend a hand sum1?
“You have the worst typing skills,” Fixer
stage whispered.
Manner pushed forward and crouched down at
the edge of the light beside Breaker. He stopped her from proceeding, pointing
out a patrol winding its way around back to them.
Decker swapped vision modes, locking in on the
lone jackhole right near the exit of their alley. Two guards pathed around in
front of the nuisance; they exchanged skeletal nods in Decker’s HUD. He
followed the lighting nodes to one in the guard’s line of sight and flickered
it on and off. It did the trick of catching his eye, but the rat bastard
wouldn’t budge. He set a timing sequence for a series of lights across the way.
They blinked out Morse code for GTFO. The chump still wouldn’t move.
Decker: Don’t want to do anything more
compromising. 2nd pat &
all.
Manner rolled her eyes at him. She motioned
to kill the lights above them. Decker obliged, still not drawing the least
curious guard in Metro City away from their spot. Manner fished inside
Breaker’s backpack, pulling out a roll of gaffer tape.
“Hey that’s for later.”
She put a finger to his lips, cut a strip
off with her teeth, then peeked around the corner. She silently sidled beside
the unsuspecting sap and slapped the strip over his lips. With a boot to the
back of the knee the guard was down and in Manner’s grasp.
“Guards are coming back,” Breaker hissed at
her.
Manner wrestled the guy back into the
alley. She flung him to the ground and stung a quick jab to the schnoz. Brawl17
picked up the tape roll and got it wound around the guy’s wrists and ankles
while Manner and Breaker disarmed him. He struggled and “MrphMrphed” as Brawl17
shoved him in between two girder outcroppings.
Brawl17 gave the guy a flick between the
eyes, “Hey. Shut it, will ya?”
The group huddled in the dark around the
alley exit. The duo of guards patrolled back around their way.
“Look, light’s out. Where the frag is that
lazy chucker Winston? He was here a hot minute ago.”
“Probably taking another skag break.
Fraggin’ trad has IBS. Or some outdated excuse he uses to milk time on the
clock.”
Winston protested against his restraints. Brawl17
pushed his head backwards into the hanger side, his eyes went stupid before he
passed out.
Decker scowled at Brawl17, “Dude, I thought
we said we were going to try and reduce the people we brain damage and kill.”
“You
said that,” Brawl17 returned the scowl. “I didn’t promise skag.”
Decker held his ground and his breath as
tension mounted at the alley mouth. The group pushed further inwards as the
patrol silhouetted at the end. Flashlights cut through the darkness, catching a
huddled group of armed clones like a prison break.
One went for their gun, the other went for
their radio. Manner sighed, disarmed the gunman with a snap of wrist bones,
then bashed the radio operator in the teeth. They made a grand amount of noise
in their pain. Brawl17 gave Decker a knowing smile before joining the fray.
Incapacitated guards laid in a squirming,
face to face, duct-taped, embrace. The group checked the map for the path to
Trip’s hanger and filtered out of the alley.
***
Trip startled awake, making a laughable
attempt to defend himself. A stern domestic clone's face stared intently at
Trip, grabbed a wrist, and yanked him from the helicopter.
From the hangar floor, Trip caught a
glimpse of the huge sword she used as leverage and scooted away in a panic. He
darted looks at the motley crew of cloned faces, each one packing a printed
weapon.
Fixer rubbed his temples, “Hey bud, snap
outta it. We wanted to make this quick.”
"Who-wha-whe—" Trip said from
outer space, "Fixer, Breaker?"
"Yeah, I'm here." The Twins said
with slightly different inflections.
Trip looked around at the group, "If
you dudes are—where's Decker—?"
Decker stepped out from behind the group,
giving his usual half smirk. With a non-committal wave he said, “’sup, dude?”
Trip laughed and cried at the same time
with a wave of exhausted relief. For the first time in a long time, things felt
like they could kind of be okay.
Decker gave Trip a hand up, and an augmented
bearhug, “I missed you, ya fraggin’ punk,” Trip landed back on his feet.
A stunned Trip pat his friend twice on the
back, “You too, Decks. You too.”
“And what the frag are you wearing?”
They finished introductions and rehashed
the points of their ambitious escape plan. Letting their hair down for a
moment, the clones swapped cigarettes and readied supplies.
Breaker looked scared as skag. "Hate
to break up the lovefest boyos, but, I'm spotting mods and rifles heading our
way. Oooooh, frag, they’re gathering outside.”
Decker put his hand up to his ear, “Ah,
skag, Customer support comms are back up." He pointed to Fixer, cutting him
off, “Fixer, don’t you fraggin’ dare say I told you so about the SPAM bombs.”
“Twins, set charges at the east and south
exits,” Sweeps ordered them off.
“So we’re doing plan B?” Brawl17 cracked
his neck and knuckles.
“Hijacking a Gene Works train out into The
Wastes wasn’t already Plan B?” Trip’s eyes widened.
“Don’t worry, dude,” Decker gave Trip an encouraging
pat on the arm, “Stealing a helicopter is gonna be way more fun.”
All of Trip’s good feeling fell from his
heart to the pit of his gut. It sad like a sour acidic wad, eating away at any
idea of hope he had in Plan A.
***
The control room looked like a caricature of
Soviet Bloc technology from a Retrowave Cold War flick. Decker attempted an
interface through his HUD, finding the hangar controls restricted to console
only access.
“Clever girl,” Decker whispered, pulling up
the haptic interface. He clicked enter through the pre-filled log in screens.
“Oh, not so clever girl.” He navigated archaic—though solidly constructed—menu
screens to the hanger bay controls. In a second session Decker opened the
flight manifest editor, marking them clear to depart with air-traffic control.
Yo. Ready to open the dome. What’s the
sitch?
Decker messaged the group.
Manner: Breaker says we’re surrounded
-M
Sweeps: Trouble inbound.
Breaker: We surrounded
Fixer: I believe this is what they
call
“setting up a perimeter”.
Breaker: Were*
Brawl17: Charges set. Get your ass in
gear.
Breaker: We’re**
“I hope one of us knows how to fly a
helicopter.” Decker jammed on the Y key. A metallic chunk reverberated through
the control room windows. Light pollution seeped in through the widening
pathway to the sky. Decker left the control room to rejoin the others. A shadow
poked over the bottom lip of the open roof, accompanied by the familiar sound
of whooping helicopter blades rushing towards them.
“You know, for once I’d like something to go fraggin’ easy,” Decker said to no
one.
The clones found cover, weapons drawn and
ready. Decker and Trip retreated into the passenger cabin of their escape
vehicle. Breaker followed, climbing into the vacant cockpit.
“I’m downloading a flight primer,” he gave
Decker a thumbs up with one hand. The other gripped his mobile, itching to blow
the door charges. Decker flipped to his own HUD to see a ring of augmented and
armed corporate soldiers ready to storm the joint. Above, the chopped brought
another team even closer to drop right on top of them.
“Breaker, be ready on that detonator.”
Decker got adjusted in a seat, pulled an inhaler from his jacket’s stash pocket
and said, “I’m gonna do something drastic.”
*
Decker
popped out of his launcher into The Raw
before graphics had a chance to render. Pink electric streaks shot through the
vivid jungle green of GWI’s server space. All of the real life dangers just
outside his physical and digital area showed through as augments and onboard
weapons VI chips. In the midnight sky hung a blue-green tube filled with more
deathbringers.
“We meet again, pinkie.” Circuit lines
burned with a knowing light all through the space around Decker’s avatar. “Ok,
don’t mock the MCP till you’re off The Grid. Noted.”
Decker attempted to force his way back into
his previous weak point only to find himself blocked out with a hot pink ERROR
bursting in his face. Glacial level ICE snap froze over the surface of
everything in iridescent spears of pixilated crystal. Pink light danced in the
point of every shard.
“Okay, frag subtlety,” Decker launched an
icebreaker only to have it crash upon loading. Frustrated, Decker attempted
again and again, only to be shut down at every turn.
“Hardball it is,” Decker said, loading
every tool he had in his belt at once, set to re-open upon closure. Heat made itself
felt from Decker’s overclocked rig, health widget warning of excessive cranial
heat. All it took was one lucky strike and Decker got his slicing GUI to stay
open. He fired up the icebreaker and jammed it right into his crudely rendered
lock. Ice shattered from everywhere. Trillions of crystalline fragments filled
the air in a stuttering kaleidoscopic rainbow. Decker triggered the gliding
blue-green tube’s killswitch command. It blinked out of existence with the
augments and weapons inside floating in midair before wobbling back and forth
into a staggered descent.
Bile churned in Decker’s guts back in Base
Plane Reality. He choked it back as best he could, turning attention to the
invading weapons. Another crude slice with brute force .xpz’s and all the pink
and green weapons chips blipped out of The
Raw.
***
Outside
the hanger's walls the sounds of approaching propellers were replaced by metal
rending and glass breaking, accompanied by sounds of human anguish. Everyone's
head snapped towards the hangar dome, split wide at the center. Sounds of foot
soldier aid to the downed craft came from outside.
Decker dipped back to consciousness,
shouting, “Blow Charges! Boom, boom, fraggin’ boom!” He puked a mostly digested
burger and fries onto the helicopter floor.
Trip dug a bottle of water from Decker’s
bag and handed it to him. He dumped it mostly on his steaming head as thunder
roared from improvised explosive devices. Fire plumes turned the Midwest autumn
air into Hollywood summertime. Breaker went through pre-flight checklists,
muttering to himself about the correct order of switches, dials and buttons to
press and get the blades spinning. White noise chatter from angry footsoldiers
sounded from outside. Gun barrels poked through fire and debris, unable to
squeeze off a shot. The hangar creaked and groaned beneath the weight of the
open roof, smoke blackening the stalled remnants.
Trip poked his head out of the passenger
door, “Team, we are leaving.” He
pulled his head inside, looking up at the partially open exitway. “No pressure,
but that’s going to be a tight squeeze.” Breaker shot him a look. “No
pressure.”
Telltale signs of the next team of
choppered in grunts came on the wind over the sound of their own propeller. The
clones began their retreat as rappel hooks flung over the lip of the hangar
roof. Sweeps fired off a shot at the first unlucky sucker to peek over the
edge. The first one missed, but the second one made enough contact to knock
them loose from the wall. Too many targets went over the top, shifting the
clone’s response from shooting at the invaders to getting the hell out.
Brawl17 hoisted his frame in and closed the
passenger door, “All in, get us airborne, kid.”
Breaker eased the throttle higher and they
rocked off of the ground with an off-balanced start. Small arms fire spaked off
the transport vehicle’s carbon layer-armor as it fumbled upwards and out of Hangar
18-MD. Sweeps was already strapped in, sweating buckets, when Decker and Trip
remembered they had safety harnesses. Fixer and Brawl17 stowed their luggage
into storage areas while Manner got herself into the co-pilot chair.
A baritone whoop sounded in the cockpit
with a warning of potential collision. Between the smell of Decker’s barf and
Breaker’s novice piloting, Trip was ready to be sick himself as they narrowly
dodged slamming into the hangar roof.
With a, “Here we go,” the chopper tilted
forward. Through the windshield, all of the soldiers were action figures. Their
tracers flew wild through the sky like cartoon lasers. A gust of ill wind
tossed the group off balance. Collision alarms bleeped as the side of a control
tower filled the windshield. Breaker yanked the flight stick, pitching the
helicopter up and back like a pair of legs. Brawl17 and Fixer tumbled backwards
into the armory cage, the force of their impact busted the strike plate off the
flimsy door. Sore and tangled they yelled at the pilot to learn to fly.
“What do you think I’m trying to do?”
Breaker yelled back, righting the chopper.
Assault rifle fire filled the sky, some
finding home in their armor layer. Breaker banked hard to the left, away from
the control tower’s obstruction and over Lake Michigan. Soldiers on the ground
gave up on wasting slugs. Smoke from Plan B was a pillar of black against an
illuminated night sky. A black path in the transit hub’s lighting snaked from
the edge of the complex all the way to the fiery wreckage of Hangar 18-MD.
Breaker throttled forward over the lake,
trying to clear Metro City on the north side before hooking west. Manner looked
back into the cabin, checking on the group. Fixer and Brawl17 emerged from the
twisted metal of the armory cage and gave a thumbs up. At a steady clip, the
chopper bobbed side to side on the lakefront winds, inching closer to the edge
of the city walls. The air inside the cabin crackled with anticipation,
everyone on the edge of their seat, eyeing the glowing border below.
Screaming into the cockpit, alarms warned
of engagement by hostile aircraft. A Vulcan cannon version of a warning shot
flared across their nose. A second shot printed, ‘we mean business,’ in braille
along the passenger door.
Ms. Jaberansari’s voice came over the comm
channel, “Attention. You are considered terrorists according to Metro City’s
City-State Contract definition. Land our stolen property now and face a fair
and unbiased trial. Or, continue your present course and accept the maximum
penalty for your crime.”
Her voice was replaced by the sound of
missile lock and everyone’s choice of profanity.
Fixer thriced himself for the first time in
his life, “You know you’re not landing, so you better get good pretty quick at
dodging bullets.”
“So be it,” Jaberansari cut communication.
Decker said, “Just keep flying, Break. I
think I’m in their targeting—“ the chopper dipped downwards as a trail of smoke
and fire boomeranged across the sky.
“Good flying, bud,” Fixer cheered.
“Good my ass. That was pure fraggin’ luck,”
Breaker pulled the nose up to gain some altitude on the missile arcing its way
towards them.
“We got two drones on our tail,” Decker
said. “Soon to be,” An explosion plumed behind them, “one.”
Flaming wreckage from one of the drones
fell, spiraling into the earth. Cheers and exultations were answered by a
swooping line and the sound of punctured safety glass. Pressure dropped inside
the cabin, sucking anything loose towards the sticky holes in the windshield,
painted in a smeared spattering of scarlet.
Fixer cried out a sustained, “No.”
Breaker slumped in his seat, control stick
still in hand. The world shifted back and upwards. A bloody moon came grinning
into view as the engine coughed itself to a stalled silence. A blanket of
bruise violet sky laid below while Metro City shone like a terrestrial star
above. A black hawk of a drone swooped below its wounded prey, ready to close
in for the kill. Gravity regained control of the situation.
The motor sputtered and struggled while
they dropped like a spinning rock. Manner flicked the red ignition switch,
prying the flight stick away from Breaker with her other hand. Separate alerts
for altitude, collision, and engagement ping-ponged amongst the screams and
resolutions with death. One last frustrated flick of a switch the engine
caught, blades fighting to stay attached to the rotor as they spun up.
Manner pulled Breaker free from the
restraint harness, and stepped over his prone corpse into the pilot seat.
“Does she know how to fly this?” Trip’s
voice steeped in terror.
Manner throttled up, getting the blades to
a rough hover. They faced towards the red and blue double-helix of Gene Works
Inc.’s headquarters jutting from the center of Metro City’s dartboard. Headlights
rose into view, flooding the cabin with light.
“Hit the deck,” Brawl17 wriggled from his
seat. A slug caught him low in the thigh while he crawled for cover.
The rest followed his example and got low.
A spray of high velocity slugs tore apart a concentrated circle through the
cockpit. Manner popped her head back into the drone’s floodlights, flipped it
the bird, and pitched the helicopter blades forward. Sparks burst from the tail
of the drone upon contact. It maintained an unsteady hover as Manner fought to
regain control and altitude.
Fixer looked up from the rain of death to
see the back end of the chopper a mess of slagged alloys. He army crawled past
the rest of the crew and into the ruins of the armory. Tossing aside useless
junk he dug out a long black crate. With a pop of latches, Fixer hoisted out
the contents of the mystery box: a fragging bazooka. He smiled like a madman,
duckwalking with it to the passenger gate.
“Uh, Fix,” Brawl17 said from the floor.
It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered in
Fixers world beyond whatever plan he was concocting in his head. He unlatched
the side gate, and baffled the wind off himself from behind the bulk of his
weapon. Manner was on the cusp of the north-central border. Fixer followed the
instructions on the side of his new toy, priming switches at each step. He held
it up to his shoulder, tracking the injured drone limp behind them.
“Manner, give me something to look at.”
Fixer shouted against the rushing wind.
The chopper tilted on its northward climb.
Metro City’s northern border glowed beneath, rotating as a smoking black
silhouette grew over the city lights.
Fixer sighted, muttered to himself, and
launched a rocket out the side of a helicopter. Their pursuer burst into a ball
of fire, flashing warm light across the interior of the helicopter. Fixer
grunted, breathing heavily, and dropped the rocket launcher. He took his seat,
staring down at the blood trail leaking from Breaker’s body. Everyone else
retook their seats and flew on in silence.
***
Sands
kicked up at the edge of town, signaling the approach of a bullet riddled
helicopter. A pack of wild dogs, picking through picked over garbage, turned
tail into houses and backyards.
Manner touched down on a chunk of scorched
earth inside a wide open fairground entrance. Decker and Trip hopped out with a
bag between them. Fixer stood in the doorway. They locked eyes for a moment,
nodded and broke contact. Decker poked his head inside, took a look from
Brawl17—doped up on something, leg in bandages—to the cockpit. Sweeps sat
sideways, looking grave. Manner kept looking forwards, giving no sign of
emotion.
All Decker could muster was, "I'm so
sorry, guys."
Sweeps looked him in the face with
mismatched eyes, "You have your friend. You've upheld your part of the
deal. We've got a war to go join."
Trip said, "Wait, we're all going back
to Hollywood, right? Why not together? Right?"
Manner responded by taking off. Decker and
Trip ducked and moved out of the way. They watched the sky until they couldn’t
be certain if they were looking at anything. Chilled winds moaned through the
broken out windows of the neighborhood. Decker scanned the area for anything
useful, particularly to ward off dogs.
“Well,” Trip said, “at least we have each
other.”
They gave each other a super-bro hug,
patting each other on the back twice and pulling away into a fly-by double hi
five.
"Man, have I got a story to tell
you." Trip said as they made for the exit access.
“If yours doesn’t have subterranean fish
people in it, mine wins.”
“We’ll see about that.”
“Yeah, I guess we will.” Decker shrugged,
“C’mon, let’s go steal us a car.”
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