Chapter One

Mason finds a fab.

 

 

for the good of us all

 

            The matter mage, still floating in silence as she waited, folded her arms.

How was I supposed to answer? I couldn’t get my mind around how much power she was channeling, effortlessly.  I felt small.  I felt like there was so much I could learn from her.  She could teach me enough so I didn’t have to hide anymore. I could stand tall before a Mandate, as she did now, and flaunt who and what I really was. But she wasn’t here to share her knowledge. This stranger had just levied an impossible ultimatum on the three of us.  I pulled my eyes from the mage, glanced at Sophia, and found her staring at me.  Her body was trembling, but the fear and anticipation had not reached her eyes.  All I saw there was hope.

How I could feel grief for losing something that I never had? 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 1

I picked up as much speed as I could still muster, lowered my shoulder, and slammed into the door. It flew open, scraping an arc through the layer of dust that coated the floor.  That coated everything. 

Not bothering to close the door behind me, since the rotting wood was not going to slow down the things chasing me, I scanned the room. Broken windows lined the far wall. They provided a poor defense against the advance of strangle vines that crept out from them the way infection spreads from a wound. Small individual desks were arrayed in five columns facing a much larger desk at the front of the room. Behind the desk, a big black rectangle hung at an angle, clinging to the wall by one fastener,.  Beside that was another door; if it was a closet I was probably going to die.

I sprinted across the room and kicked open the other door, but instead of going through, I turned and slid under the large desk. I had enough time to pull the brief case sized fabricator in behind me before the room erupted with crashing desks and six snarling bruisers. 

I’ve seen pictures of a gorilla before in a crumbling biology text book I found many years ago. Bruisers look like a gorilla if you removed the fur and jammed as many sharp points as you could onto its body. Luckily for me, bruisers have more teeth than brain cells.  I pulled my once in a lifetime prize closer to me as the creatures bounded out of the second door.

My odds of surviving this ordeal just got a little bit better. A big grin spread across my face as I marveled at the strange letters on the outside of the fab. What do you make you sweet piece of machinery? Huh? Eleven years of freelancing, scaving if you want to be a dick about it, and the most valuable thing I had ever brought back was one working plasma rifle. Something I sort of wish I had held on to now that I think about it. But at the time I had also wanted to eat. All of that was over now. A working fabricator was my permanent meal ticket. And if it makes something really useful " hard metals, working military hardware, soap " I might even be able to buy a passport, and citadel living rights. Which meant becoming a god of my own personal heaven compared to how I lived now.

My thoughts were interrupted by a throaty inhaling noise that caused dust to trickle down from the edge of the desk top I could see. Had one of the bruisers smelled me? I was quietly drawing air into my nostril, before my brain informed me that trying to smell myself was not going to improve my situation. The noise came again just before two loud thumps of feet landing on the top of the desk I was under.

This cannot be happening to me. It wasn’t fair. My eyes darted around the small area I could see, looking for anything that could help me, or provide a distraction or something. Then my heart sank.  Right there, pointing to the edge of my boot was a trail in the dust that showed where I had slid.

Well, if ugly doesn’t already smell me, then he is sure to notice that.  I inched my right hand toward my sidearm in the holster I had made from last year’s leather ration, and cursed myself for being an idiot. I could have covered that trial. Who daydreams while their life is on the line? One, soon to be dead, world class moron.

A foot that was more talons than toes descended from the top of the desk, followed by a second.  Dark matter scales covered the denizen and wafted that tell-tale black mist, making its outline look like it was under an inch of running water. Claws dug into peeling floor material, and I noticed that it’s legs were oddly double jointed, meaning that whatever this was it wasn’t a bruiser. This was the second new variation of denizen that I had encountered today.

I had stumbled into the middle of something very peculiar. All I wanted to do was explain to the nice creature from the Black Plain that I was sorry for interrupting their demon party or whatever the hell was going on here. Sorry, sir, I’ll just be taking my fab and I’ll be out of your hair, spikes, mandibles or other growths that reside on your creepy-a*s domes. But you don’t get to reason with denizens.  Or at least you don’t get to with any of the one’s I encountered before today. However, smart barter says that pointy feet here disembowels first and asks questions later.

My lungs burned and I was forced to draw one agonizingly loud breath. The creature shifted its body weight, turning around to face the desk, as I pulled out my gun.  I could not shoot this guy.  I mean, I could, but I’d be better served by the bullet if I put it through my own head.  Not only would the gun shot bring the six bruisers that had been tailing me back in here, but the two packs of bruisers that had been hounding my sides for the past hour would know where to find dinner as well. And the big one, the other variation whose acquaintance I had the pleasure of today, would no doubt be right behind them.  I did not want that.

A clawed thumb appeared clasping the underside of the desktop. So much for other options. I leveled the gun about where I expected the creature’s head to appear. I noticed the denizen’s knees begin to bend about the time I noticed that I had forgotten to breathe again.  I brought my other hand up to steady the shaking gun and…

…an in-human scream pierced the air. For a moment I wondered if I had squeezed off a round without realizing it, but that couldn’t be right; that scream had come from outside of the room. When I looked up from the gun the creature had been replaced by claw marks and floating dust spray that both lead out the door.

I sucked in breath and it came out in a series of maniacal laughs.  I was not going to die today after all.  I don’t know why that was funny.

Time to go.

I grabbed the fabricator, raced out the first door I had come into, heading towards a stairwell I had seen on the way in.  It was seven flights of stairs before I reached the top, making this the tallest still standing building for at least 10 miles in any direction.  The metal door at the top was, of course, rusted in its frame, but the dry wall all around was rot held up by strangle vine; nothing a well applied boot couldn’t bust through. Once on the roof I checked the indicator light on my wrist-com.

Red. No, green! Red. Son of a b***h.

            The roof door had opened up at one end of a mostly intact roof that stretched about two hundred yards away from me. Keeping my eyes glued to the indicator light, I ran toward the other side.

            Red. Flicker. Green. Red.

            “Come on,” I said. “You stupid worthless piece of crap, come on!”

            Green. Flicker. Green. Thank all that is"

            That was when I fell.  Well, tripped, as my foot came down on a section of roof that decided it wasn’t up to the task of supporting my weight.  I went down hard, with little bits of rock and debris to cushion my fall.  The problem was that while I ground to a painful stop, the fabricator in its metal case kept on sliding. Right towards the edge.

            “Oh no you don’t!”

            I scrambled to my feet and dived forward again, arm out stretched.  My fingers just brushed the handle as the fab slipped off the edge.  My head glided over the side just before I came to a stop, both arms extended, barley clutching my precious fab. There was this long pause where my brain took stock of the ridiculously stupid thing I had just done, and then there was more maniacal laughter. I at least knew why it was funny now.  I was crazy.  Laughing hysterically, talking to inanimate objects, and nearly committing suicide over a piece of machinery? Certifiable.

            The laughing was cut short, when I noticed 2 bruisers prowling, nine stories down. They hadn’t looked up yet, but I certainly didn’t want to give them a reason too.  Crazy or not.

            I pulled myself up and double checked the roof door.  Still alone.  And the light was still green. 

            “Al, come in. I’m in trouble.”

            Instead of an answer, the holographic display came on, spraying a pretty blue light show for anyone, or anything, that was interested in seeing.  Words projected about six inches above my wrist.

            MASON, ELIJAH: VOICE PRINT UNCONFIRMED

            “Al, I’m at extreme transponder range, cut the protocol crap off now, damn it!”

            In response, the holographic words were replaced by a six inch tall projection of a very plain looking man.  Close cropped hair that never changed, button down long sleeve, slacks, and useless looking shoes that Al had explained to me were called penny loafs.  I had asked him once how he had chosen this particular image as his avatar. He said it was an assembled image from Macy’s online catalogue he had compiled during the internet era, and was the most easily likeable human form ever drawn together. He was peering out, eyes squinting as if he could barely make something out. Which was absurd. There were no optic sensors anywhere near my vicinity.  I looked out over the waste of the deserted mega city.  There wasn’t anything near my vicinity.

            “Kill the display,” I said. “It’s me. And I have company.”

            “Oh,” said Al, light blinking off, “You need a plan?”

            “Yeah. I’m on the roof of the building at my current.” I said, checked the roof door again.

            “Assessing. Recommendation: There is a building four hundred yards east of your location. Long underground hallway, should provide controlled line of fire for an ambush…”

            “No,” I interrupted, “Al you don’t understand. I’m not dealing with one bruiser.” Somewhere nearby came that same inhuman scream. This time, however, it was followed by the sound of bones snapping. And it could have been my imagination but the roof felt like it was vibrating. “I’m being flushed out like game. Driven towards something. There’s at least 3 packs of bruisers and two other species of denizen I’ve never seen before.” The building was definitely shuddering.

            “Re-assessing.”

            “And Al…”

            “Yes?”

            “One of the new types is big.  Like 1 or 2 tons big. And I’m pretty sure it’s coordinating this hunt.”

            “I see,” Al said. “Re-assessing.”

            I risked a glance over the side. The next building over was only one story tall, and its roof and one wall were partially caved in.  The bruisers were no longer in sight.  I hoped that was a good sign.

            I was just wondering what was taking Al so long when the speaker clicked on and Al’s voice came through, “Recommendation: Wait.”

            At that, the wrist-com’s display began pulsing like a light house. Five, six bursts before I thought to hide the com inside my jacket. That scream from before rose up again, this time in stereo, and the building began to shake violently.

            “What are you doing?” I whispered into my jacket. “Are you trying to get me torn to little pieces? Re-assess! Re-assess!”

            Al’s tone was completely nonchalant, “Remain calm.”

            I jerked my head around in response to motion in my peripheral. The oddly jointed creature from before had scaled the outside of the building in apparently zero seconds. And he had decided to bring a couple of friends with him. All three creatures had the oddly jointed legs, and arms that ended in way to many claws.  Their heads were grotesquely flat and wide, with independently roving bulbous eyes as big as my fist tacked onto the sides. They moved like cockroaches, quick bursts of speed followed by quick stops; all leg motion while their bodies glided eerily along. I pulled out my gun, and even though they were only 25 yards away, there was too much shaking for me to bother with a shot.

            “I didn’t need a plan to help get me killed,” I said. “I was doing that fine all by myself!”

            “Please remain calm Eli.”

            “Oh I’m calm,” as I talked I pointed the gun frantically from bug-beast to bug-beast hoping that the threat of being shot might slow their advance a little. “I am extremely calm right now!”

            It was then that the far end of the roof nearest the stairwell erupted. At the center of this explosion of wood and metal and rotting dry wall was the largest denizen I had ever seen. Dark matter mist cascaded from its bulk like waterfalls of ink, falling almost 15 feet. It looked like an oversized man, except the proportions were just off somehow. It was hard to nail down exactly.  Maybe the arms were too long, or its legs too short, or torso too big for its other appendages. Whatever it was, it was just wrong. The thing let out a howl of rage when it locked eyes on me, then it lowered its horned head, and charged.

            “Al?” I said.

            “I hear him, please hold.”

            “AL?” I yelled.

            Some guttural language came from Biggy McAbout-To-Crush-Me and the 3 bug-beasts zipped faster than I could follow to flanking positions. I took an involuntary step backwards, and felt the heel of my boot slip out into open air.

            “Eli.” Al said.

            I didn’t have time to register Al, I was busy reliving my entire life.

            “Elijah Mason!” I looked down at the wrist-com. The cold blue Macy’s man was pointing over the side of the building. “Jump.”

            I took one last look at Biggy, and had time to register gaping teeth, before I took Al’s advice.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

           

           

             

 

 

 

           

Author's Note

Hit me.

Reviews

[Cheshire]

Very action packed, I enjoyed that part of it very much. I found it really hard to connect with the main character when I couldn't visualize him very well though. Was he short, tall, old, young, skinny, fat, muscled, white, chinese... etc. I could picture the fight and flight scenes fairly well, and you did a decent job with the imagery on the monsters, but the main character himself was just a blur in my mind. Heck, I didn't even know it was a GUY until the end almost :P

The prologue has zero connection with this chapter so far. It looks like you may be saving more room for writing, but if not, you should try to avoid continuous chapters that have zero connection whatsoever with each other. It leaves a feeling of disconnection, and can make readers try to draw connections when there are none. It could be something as simple as mentioning the Mandate, Sophia, or the ultimatum. Is this a flashback we are seeing or something that happened after the meeting?

All in all, interesting story, but maybe ditch the prologue, and give us a little bit of an image for your main character.

And if it makes something really useful " hard metals, working military hardware, soap " I might even be able to buy a passport, and citadel living rights.

Double quotation marks are for speaking or quotes, you may want to either use paranthesis, or even better, commas. Ex. - If it makes something really useful, like hard metals, working military hardware, or soap, I might even be able to buy a password and citadel living rights.

Also, try not to start off sentences with conjunctions, it's bad juju, makes bad habits.