Author Topic: Message in a Bullet  (Read 14282 times)

Dubble_g

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Re: Message in a Bullet
« Reply #30 on: 19 September 2017, 21:52:23 »
20. SOMETHING ELSE ENTIRELY

She was awoken by an earthquake. Disoriented. The bed was shaking, and she blearily clung to the frame to stop from falling. Another tremor, this time joined by thunder. Louder, somewhere above. A third, and now there was a massive crashing, tearing noise. Shouting outside, then the high-pitched scream of a laser and the shouting cut short.

Footsteps, thunderous as those of a titan. They halted outside her cell.

“Theresa?” A voice, distorted through speakers and the cell’s doors, but recognizably Nix’s. “Theresa, get under the bed. I’m blowing the door in three.” Theresa rolled off the bed, then crabbed sideways underneath it. “Three, two…” The door came flying into the room in a blur of ferrocrete dust, bounced off the opposite wall, before smacking to the ground.

There was a bowl-shaped dent in it, almost dead center.

Theresa hauled herself out from under the bed and looked out the doorway, cratered where the door had been hinged, small landslides of dust trickling to the floor. Beyond, a hulking dark grey monster, with megalithic shoulders, a narrow blue visor, the hungry maw of a laser cannon under one arm, a short-barreled submachinegun under the other. An Achileus battle armor suit.

“Nix?” She tottered unsteadily forward, brushing the dust from her clothes and hair. Took a deep breath. “Jonas is dead, Creed’s a traitor, get me the hell out of here.”

“Figured.” The suit waved for her to come out of the cell. “My thoughts exactly on the second part. Let’s go.”

There was a hole in the ceiling of the corridor outside, a cone of rubble beneath it, and what looked like two smoldering, shattered skeletons.

“Back this way,” said Nix, pointed toward the hole.

Two small, black pineapples came tumbling from the hole, bouncing off the rubble to land spinning on the ground.

“Down,” yelled Nix, his suit crouching over her, tree-trunk arms making a circle over her head. She clapped her hands over her ears and opened her mouth. There air pulsed as the grenades detonated, shrapnel pinging off the suit’s armor.

The Achileus straightened, just as two thin nylon cords snaked from the hole, a red-clad man at the end of each. Even as they touched the ground the Achileus’s left arm was up, the submachinegun stuttering, orange-yellow flame belching from its barrel. The two men jerked like marionettes at the end of their cords, blood and viscera spraying out across the corridor before they fell slackly to the ground.

“Okay, maybe not that way,” said Nix, turning, setting off in a ground-shaking run down the corridor. “Follow me.”

He didn’t slow down when he reached the door at the end, just raised an arm and plowed into it, through it, ripping it from its hinges and flinging it aside without effort. Two more guards stood, open-mouthed, in the corridor beyond and then the suit’s laser fired. Their upper bodies dissolved in the consuming torrent of fire, which blasted through them, through the door behind them, and left a gaping hole in a wall 90 meters down the corridor.

They rounded a corner, coming out into the detention center’s entrance hall. White security desks, the black arches of metal scanners, a long entrance hall lined with thick grey columns. Reinforced steel double doors at the far end. And in front of them, two dozen red-and-white uniformed guards, laser rifles, automatic grenade launchers and two tripod-mounted machineguns pointed in their direction.

“Back,” he shouted, an arm sweeping out to throw her back around the corner. She landed with a thud, rolled and curled into a ball. From around the corner came an ear-splitting metallic wail like a buzzsaw. Stray bullets stitched into the wall by the corner, throwing up puffs of paint and ferrocrete. Someone seemed to be setting off a holiday’s worth of fireworks, too, filling the dusty air and illuminating the walls with searing flashes of white, yellow and reddish light. Lightning-storm bursts of it, blinding even when seen in reflection. Then hammering detonations followed by blast waves that made the floor jump. Hot fragments of metal ricocheting off the wall and around the corner.

The noise stopped, the sudden silence roaring in her ears like the ocean.

She waited, unmoving. It wouldn’t be long now. Silent tears trickling down her cheeks. They’d come so close.

“Clear,” Nix called.

Theresa wobbled to disbelieving feet. Slowly inched out around the corner.

The hall had been repainted in thick, lumpy red that dripped from the walls and ceiling. The desks and scanners were gone, leaving only smoking, flaming stumps on the floor as proof they’d ever been there. The columns looked like they’d been turned into cheese graters, pitted from floor to ceiling. The steel doors had vanished, too, as had a sizable portion of the far wall, replaced with a sagging, ragged arch of glowing metal.

In the middle, Nix’s Achileus stood watching the burning archway, its grey surface soot-stained and scratched, but otherwise intact. Smoke curled from the muzzle of the submachinegun on the left arm. The blunt, visored head turned in her direction.

“Sorry about the mess.”

Theresa was a MechWarrior, and she’d been in battle before. In a BattleMech. Cocooned from the combat by 80 tons of crystalline armor, myomer and titanium. Dealing death from ten meters up, like a valkyrie, riding high over the battle. This was. This was something else. Entirely.

Like, she and the other MechWarriors were playing a game. Nix played it for real.

Her foot slipped on something wet and yielding, and she very much did not want to look down and see what it was.

The corridor outside ended in a bank of four elevator doors. Nix’s Achileus wedged its fingers into the crack between one set of doors, and forced them open with a nail-on-blackboard screech. The elevator shaft was crisscrossed around the edges with latticework of rails and guides, the outer walls veined with cables and wiring, plunging down into darkness far below. The far wall of the column was broken up every twenty meters by the smooth rectangles of doors on the opposite side. The elevator car was barely visible, halted at the top of the shaft far above their heads.

“Close your eyes,” Nix advised, bringing up his right-arm laser. Theresa squeezed them shut and averted her face for good measure. There was a distant boom and clang of metal that echoed and re-echoed in the shaft, followed by a blast of hot air. When she turned back, she saw a pair of doors on the opposite side of the shaft about 40 meters up were gone, leaving only a smoking hole.

“Need you in front,” Nix’s voice crackled. “Arms around my neck. Legs around the waist, if you can manage.”

Theresa looked up at the hole, down the echoing shaft, then back at Nix. “But what if you—”

“I won’t.”

Thing was, she couldn’t see any alternative. She stepped in front of the Achileus, and had to jump up so her arms would reach around the suit’s head. His left arm caught her waist, stopped her from slipping down. “Ready?”

“Frack no.”

He jumped.

Jets built into the suit’s shoulder and back roared to life, catapulting them through the air. With her face pressed against the Achileus’s chest, all Theresa could see were the shaft’s walls passing in a scribbled blur, all she could feel was the sudden, frenzied gale tearing at her face and back. Until the shuddering jar of impact. She waited for him to topple, to fall. Instead his knees flexed, suit cushioning the impact, and then his hand let go her waist and she slid limply to the ground, muscles turned to jelly.

“There,” Nix said. “That wasn’t so bad.”

A bolt of nova-bright red light slammed into the back of the Achileus. The suit toppled forward, straight towards Theresa. She scrabbled backwards frantically, trying to keep from being crushed underneath. Nix managed to get one hand up, brace it against the wall, so that the suit fell sideways, twisted onto its back, crashing down just short of Theresa’s feet.

“That,” gasped Nix, “was bad.”

“What was that?”

“Anti-armor laser,” he hissed. “Another suit, back down there. Must have been a Purifier, why I didn’t spot it behind us.” The legs of the Achileus twitched slightly. “Damn, motive systems are shot. This thing’s not going anywhere.”

“Nix?” a loudspeaker voice called from down the shaft.

“Creed,” he said to Theresa. “Probably going to offer me some bullshit way of dying ‘honorably’.”

“Nix? Giving you one chance to come out and fight like a true warrior.”

“Bingo.” The right arm of the Achileus moved, laboriously slow, half-dragged across the floor of the corridor until it was pointing back out the shaft, at a nexus of wiring and cables on the far wall. “Fracking Clanner.”

“What’s he waiting for?” Theresa whispered.

“Either trying to decide if I’m dead or not, or else waiting for a backup team to cut off our escape.”

“Alright Nix,” called Creed. “If that is the way you want it.”

“Anything you can do?” she asked.

“Maybe yes,” Nix sighed. “But probably no. Ah, here we go.”

She heard the boom of jump jets. The laser on the arm of the Achileus spat a beam of brilliant light, blowing apart the cluster of wiring on the far wall. A split second later, the blurred shape of a Purifier battle armor appeared in front of the hole to the elevator shaft, just cutting its jets to bring itself arcing down—

Nix missed, she thought, despairing.

—And then the elevator, brakes released when Nix destroyed the wiring in the shaft control system, came plunging down, smashing into the Purifier like a freight train. One second, the suit was there, the next there was a blur of grey metal, and both were gone.

She listened for the impact, with growing horror as she ticked off the seconds. When it came, it was like distant thunder.

“That had to hurt,” Nix said dryly, as the back plate of the Achileus slowly hinged open. “So, for that matter, does this.” He hauled himself out of the suit, teeth gritted. Theresa saw he was dressed only in a black, one-piece bodyglove that ended above the knees and elbow. Blood ran down one leg.

He reached back into the suit and pulled out a pistol, then tossed her something, a square plastic-wrapped package the size of a small briefcase. “Dust suit,” he said, and started limping up the tunnel, pistol held in both hands. “Put it on as we go, you’ll need it.”

Theresa tore through the plastic as they walked, hauled the drawstringed-trousers over her legs one at a time, hopping as she went, then pulling the hooded jacket down over her head. Breather went around her neck, goggles sat on her forehead. “Where’s yours?”

Nix jerked a thumb back at the Achileus. “That was mine.”

“You going to be okay?”

“Sure, fine, no problem,” he said. “Got somewhere we can hide. Just have to walk for a couple of hours.”
« Last Edit: 19 September 2017, 22:27:04 by Dubble_g »
Author, "Inverted" (Shrapnel #4), "Undefeated" (#10), "Reversal of Fortunes" (#13) and "The Alexandria Job" (#15)

Nav_Alpha

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Re: Message in a Bullet
« Reply #31 on: 19 September 2017, 22:10:55 »
Still loving this.
But I don’t like his chances walking for a couple hours out in that soup.


"Hold your position, conserve ammo... and wait for the Dragoons to go Feral"
- last words of unknown merc, Harlech, 3067

David CGB

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Re: Message in a Bullet
« Reply #32 on: 19 September 2017, 23:23:51 »
nice story
Federated Suns fan forever, Ghost Bear Fan since 1992, and as a Ghost Bear David Bekker star captain (in an Alt TL Loremaster)

DOC_Agren

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Re: Message in a Bullet
« Reply #33 on: 20 September 2017, 18:48:40 »
Still loving this.
But I don’t like his chances walking for a couple hours out in that soup.
I'm with you 8)
"For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast, And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed:And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill, And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still!"

Dubble_g

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Re: Message in a Bullet
« Reply #34 on: 20 September 2017, 19:18:04 »
@DOC_Agren and Nav_Alpha: Well done, I see everyone has done the required reading for today's class!  :P
@David CGB: No, YOU'RE nice. Sorry, don't know where I'm going with that comment. But thanks!

* * * 

21. ECHOES

Salome splits her squad up into pairs to search the tunnels more efficiently.

The radio is silent now. Earlier, there had been shouting, an excited Adept reporting he’d found them, and then the signal had been washed out by an ear-splitting screech of noise the taccom had automatically muted to a whisper. She half crouches as she pads down the tunnels, and grips her rifle in both hands.

The tunnels here are close to the surface, where heated air cools, releasing its tiny cargo of water vapor. It drips in tiny stalactites from the walls, and the plinking sound of the drops falling is the only thing she hears. She presses her throat mike, and whispers “Laskey, Kimura, status.” There is only static, like cosmic radiation, then a burst of what sounds like Spanish speedmetal that threatens to burst her eardrums. She clicks off, disgusted. Comms have been sporadic ever since the alarm sounded.

It is just her and her backup, a fellow Tortugan named Oliver, so new he barely knows which end of the needler to hold. She keeps him with her so he won’t slow the other teams down, but is beginning to regret her selflessness. He splashes through every puddle like a kid in a playground.

So it is that she nearly misses the shuffling sound up ahead. She holds her arm up, fist clenched, as a signal to stop, but it takes a second before Oliver notices and halts. Salome flicks him an adamantine look over his shoulder that promises many things, all of them unpleasant, when they return to barracks. He swallows, hard. She signals again: Wait.

Years of servitude in the master’s household taught her to move quietly, lest she draw his attention, and she glides forward now, needler held ready. The shuffling is louder. She slides up to a junction in the tunnel. The sound is very near.

And then she moves, spinning around the corner, needler held ready against her shoulder, her cheek against the stock—

—and finds herself looking down the bore of a laser pistol aimed at her head.

The man holding it is the man from the apartment, the one the smiling Demi-Precentor wanted to talk to. As soon as she sees the barrel of the pistol she knows that she is dead, that he is dead too, for even in dying she can fire, and at this range, in this enclosed space, nothing will live that stands in front of her gun.

She does not fire.

Salome dreams of two faces each night, but there is a third face in the story that she never sees, for that face is her own. She sees it now, sees a memory of that 12-year-old Salome, cold, wet, filthy, hungry and alone, in the face of the woman standing behind the man with the gun.

And slowly, she lowers her needler. The man watches her, and she knows he is ready, she still might die if she so much as opens her mouth. She flicks her eyes in the direction of the other tunnel, away from where Oliver crouches, and she sees the man’s head move fractionally.

They edge slowly away from her, down the other tunnel, never turning their backs on her. Salome stands, rifle held loosely in her hands, and watches them go. The man is tattooed, she notes, just as she is, and she knows she has done the right thing. He is owned by the past, as surely as she is, and when the line of sight breaks as he rounds a corner, she feels that a cord has been cut. The debt to the past has been paid. Now, she is free.

She walks back to Oliver, shrugging at his quizzical look.

“Just an echo,” she says, and leads him in the opposite direction.
« Last Edit: 20 September 2017, 21:30:49 by Dubble_g »
Author, "Inverted" (Shrapnel #4), "Undefeated" (#10), "Reversal of Fortunes" (#13) and "The Alexandria Job" (#15)

Dubble_g

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Re: Message in a Bullet
« Reply #35 on: 20 September 2017, 19:25:55 »
22. BUTTERFLY PEOPLE

Theresa expected the dust to sting. She didn’t expect it to feel quite so personal. Like the wind was deliberately trying to find a gap between her mask and her face, or between her gloves and jacket. The wind whipped and howled and beat at her in impotent rage. Gritty dirt flew into her face with a force that felt like spite.

If she was having a hard time, Nix was suffering. Dressed only in his short body suit, with his chin tucked down and the neck stretched up to cover his mouth, his skin looked raw and red. Every few minutes he had to stop, wracked by another coughing fit. He waved her away, each time a little more feebly than the last.

Nix concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other. The wind felt like sandpaper on a sunburn. The air like trying to breathe in a burning building. His eyes were blurry with tears.

Shapes loomed like mirages in the sandstorm. Pillars of rock, like office towers. So, it came back to this. Always back to towers. Some nights he stood on the top, some nights he fell through the sky towards it, but it was always the tower, always he returned to the tower.

What was a tower? A hierarchy given physical form, penthouse suites and executive offices at the top, garbage in the basement. Everything was about vertical relationships in a tower, the top and the bottom, one floor above the next. Each person’s struggle to the figurative top turned into a literal ascent, people stratified like layers of sediment along the way, deposited where the tides of life had carried them.

Nonsense, he was rambling. It was just a building. Just a way of stacking people together.

Where were they going? Oh right, the basement where he’d stored the suit. Pity he’d lost the Achileus. Would’ve made things much easier. Quite careless, that. Must get Theresa there.

He felt like he was being slowly skinned alive by the wind. Maybe the outer layers would peel away and the new him would emerge, butterfly-like, from the cocoon of his old self. Rambling again. Bullshit. People weren’t butterflies. Over the course of a lifetime they could barely change. Over the course of a civilization? Not at all.

“People aren’t butterflies,” he told the wind. The wind screamed back.

It all came back to towers.

People were always building towers. They were majestic, imposing, comfortable. No. They were top-heavy, unstable things, that kept crashing down. Crash, just like that poor woman’s head. And people would pick up the pieces, vowing they had learned their lesson, and go right back to building another one. Oh, but that poor woman’s head, those were pieces you couldn’t pick up. But what did it matter? Noah’s nihilist scribbles were right. People would go on being people, go on building towers, go on knocking them down. Nothing he could do would change that.

“Rafael Bravo Two,” he told the wind.

“Nix, you’re hallucinating,” the wind said. Nice of it to be concerned.

He sank to his knees in the dust. Something that sounded like his name was being shouted in his ear. What did it matter? It was just someone asking him to climb another tower. Didn’t they know he was tired of climbing?

A face pressed against his. A woman’s face. No, no, he remembered a woman’s face. Not angry or frightened, but sad, alone, resigned. No, he didn’t want to see her face again. Let her stay dead, on top of that tower, and let a part of him stay with her. But the intrusion was insistent, now something plastic was being pressed against his nose and mouth, rubber edges sticking to his skin. “Breathe,” the dead woman said. He breathed.

He opened his eyes a crack. Theresa was kneeling in front of him, her own mask pressed against his face. “Breathe,” she shouted, and he took another deep breath.

That was the thing about towers. Manmade, but too large to be human scale. Dwarfing their creators. You couldn’t think about the tower, your mind couldn’t hold it, it was too big, it would crush you under its inevitable weight. There was only the person that was in front of you. You couldn’t stop the tower from falling, but maybe, you could pull free one survivor.

He reached up and gently, firmly, pushed her hand and the mask away. Leaned forward, his mouth next to where her ear would be under her hood, shouting. “Keep walking the same direction. Look for the rock shaped like a ship prow. There’s a cave at the base. Go.”

She was shaking her head, mouth moving, words lost in the wind.

He tried to push her away, made feeble by another coughing fit. “Go, go.”

Theresa stood, hesitating. Then a sound, a deep, steady hum. Growing louder. A shadow approaching. He fumbled for his gun, barely able to see. Theresa moved, crouched behind him. The hum cut off, a figure separating itself from the shadow then the slam of a door. The figure drew nearer. Nix waited, resigned.

Malbenita, you look like merda.”

The voice sounded almost cheerful.
Author, "Inverted" (Shrapnel #4), "Undefeated" (#10), "Reversal of Fortunes" (#13) and "The Alexandria Job" (#15)

Kidd

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Re: Message in a Bullet
« Reply #36 on: 21 September 2017, 15:25:49 »
tagged. this is some quality sci-fi right here. keep it up, dubble-g!

mikecj

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Re: Message in a Bullet
« Reply #37 on: 21 September 2017, 17:59:09 »
This is very well written!
There are no fish in my pond.
"First, one brief announcement. I just want to mention, for those who have asked, that absolutely nothing what so ever happened today in sector 83x9x12. I repeat, nothing happened. Please remain calm." Susan Ivanova
"Solve a man's problems with violence, help him for a day. Teach a man to solve his problems with violence, help him for a lifetime." - Belkar Bitterleaf
Romo Lampkin could have gotten Stefan Amaris off with a warning.

Dubble_g

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Re: Message in a Bullet
« Reply #38 on: 21 September 2017, 20:13:23 »
@Kidd, mikecj: 'Preciate the encouragement, guys!

* * *

23. ESPERANTO

Noah was at the wheel of the ATV. That wasn’t the surprise. The surprise was, he could talk. And what came tumbling from his angelic, cover-ready face, was a non-stop stream of multilingual profanity, a kind of unprintable Esperanto composed primarily of curse words, which was matched for careless exuberance only by his driving.

Fouille-merde Everclear, she bangs on my door in the middle of the night, says you need help,” he was saying, one hand on the wheel while he turned and talked with them as the jounced in the back. “Begs me to get my pequena vagon. Chinga tu madre, I tell her, but loco onna doesn’t get the meaning of ‘No’ and chikusho-o-o—” The buggy bounced heavily, sending Theresa and Nix briefly airborne before they slammed back into the molded plastic seats. “—Farsela addosso, that what a good one, eh?”

Visibility at this speed was about three seconds, Nix figured, which in the event of a collision would give him just enough time for the life flashing before his eyes to get as far as his first kiss (Naomi, grade six, wasn’t that good) before he was catapulted straight out the front glass. The bouncing made every inch of his blistered skin scream. He began to wonder if sudden death might not be preferable. Unconsciousness, when it came, was a relief.

“Can they track this?” Theresa asked as she clutched the seat in front of her.

Mutterfickers couldn’t find their own ketsu with both hands, vaquiero,” Noah replied cheerfully, swerving the ATV around a sudden outcropping of rock. “This bambino is all-electric, no emissions. Body’s made out of the same kaka as stealth armor.”

It grew noticeably darker in the cabin as Theresa saw they drove between the walls of a slot canyon, barely wider than the ATV. The wind dropped from a roar to a whistle, like air rushing through a train tunnel. Where the other rocks she’d seen had been jagged, shattered shards, here the stone flowed in ripples like chocolate silk. She resisted the urge to reach out and touch them.

The walls were getting higher as they drove, the sky reduced to a sketchy caramel ribbon far overhead. Noah fell silent, grimly focused on the narrow, winding path ahead. He turned on the headlights, illuminating the walls and throwing back spastic, trembling shadows.

In the brittle light, Theresa saw they were heading straight for a sheer rock face. Noah gripped the wheel, oblivious. The rock wall was growing closer. “Uh, …” she began and then her stomach lurched as the ATV plunged down a sudden incline, passing inches below what she’d taken to be the bottom of the rock face.

The tunnel on the other side was smooth, regular, and lit at regular intervals by standing lamps casting halos of sodium light. The buggy slowed to a halt in a large cavern, similarly illuminated and strewn with boxes, tables, chairs, pallets, rolls of plastic, and large, heavy-looking blue tarps hanging over a number shapes whose function could only be guessed at.

There were also about two dozen men and women, no two dressed alike, but all the sort of people her parents would have advised her against making eye contact with. It was strange to think that Nix might well have been the least heavily-tattooed one among them. She glanced over at Nix. His eyes were closed, his body slumped back in its seat. She reached for a pulse at his neck, and was relieved to feel his skin flutter under her fingertips.

Noah hopped from the ATV as soon as it stopped, signaling to several of the others too fast for Theresa to follow: Fist pump—card shuffle—the number four—finger pistols—excitable duck. Four men came and lifted Nix gingerly from the ATV, and carried him to a corner of the room where there was a bed surrounded by a makeshift curtain and stacks of boxes with red or white crosses stenciled on them.

A man was waiting, snapping on latex gloves as the men lay Nix on the bed. “I’m the medic. What happened?” the man asked, eyeing Nix’s skin critically.

“Went for a walk outside without a suit.”

The doctor nodded unhappily. “Not the smartest move. Suit’s contaminated now, we’ll have to get him out of it,” he tapped the bodyglove. “Help me turn him over.” That done, the doctor picked up a scalpel from one of the boxes and sliced through Nix’s bodysuit, revealing the inkwork beneath. He whistled appreciatively. “Damn.” He glanced at her. “Know what these are?”

“Well, yeah. Tattoos.”

“Mementos,” he corrected. “Your friend here is either a yakuza, a Draconis commando, maybe one of the Rabid Foxes that worked with them.”

“You recognize them? Who’s the woman?”

“Not who but where.” The doctor dragged over a stand with a bag of clear IV fluid. He probed the inside of Nix’s elbow with a finger, before slowly inserting the needle into his arm. “The woman is Huntress, one of the Clan homeworlds. The castle will be New Avalon, which means he’s probably one of the Foxes. Not sure about the mountain …Kathil maybe?”

The doctor retrieved a tray stacked with shiny, silver pouches. He broke one open, extracting a white rectangular sheet that he applied to Nix’s skin. He tossed two to Theresa. “Put these wherever the skin is red or blistered. Where was I? Right. The V’s on each shoulder are rank markers, the two-headed eagle on his chest for a scout or recon specialty. The skulls are kills, obviously, animals for Clanners, human skulls for the others. The woman on top of the castle, though, that’s a new one on me. Have to ask him about that one yourself. He never told you?”

“Must have forgotten to mention it.” She traced the outline of the figure, a lone woman standing on top of the highest battlement, with the tip of one finger.

The doctor gave her a long look, then went back to applying the patches to Nix’s skin. “Friend of yours?” he asked, too casually.

“Yeah. No. Hard to say,” she looked down, forgotten pouch in her hand. Seemed to see it for the first time, tore it open and placed a pad gently on Nix’s bare leg. It was hard for her to say. Owing someone her life, that was a feeling she didn’t have the vocabulary to express.

Like she’d have to invent a new language just for it.
Author, "Inverted" (Shrapnel #4), "Undefeated" (#10), "Reversal of Fortunes" (#13) and "The Alexandria Job" (#15)

Easy

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Re: Message in a Bullet
« Reply #39 on: 23 September 2017, 01:13:39 »
Dubble_g is a ringer.
<_<
>_>
Fake Thomas Marik is watching you.
« Last Edit: 23 September 2017, 01:17:47 by Easy »

Dubble_g

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Re: Message in a Bullet
« Reply #40 on: 23 September 2017, 03:43:16 »
Dubble_g is a ringer.
<_<
>_>
Fake Thomas Marik is watching you.

Um, no. This is my only BTech account.
Author, "Inverted" (Shrapnel #4), "Undefeated" (#10), "Reversal of Fortunes" (#13) and "The Alexandria Job" (#15)

snakespinner

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Re: Message in a Bullet
« Reply #41 on: 23 September 2017, 04:07:00 »
Don't worry Thomas Marik is watching everybody.
You just seem to be at the top of the vodka list. }:)
I wish I could get a good grip on reality, then I would choke it.
Growing old is inevitable,
Growing up is optional.
Watching TrueToaster create evil genius, priceless...everything else is just sub-par.

Kidd

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Re: Message in a Bullet
« Reply #42 on: 23 September 2017, 05:08:21 »
Um, no. This is my only BTech account.
You're sure you're not, like, the Third Transfer of Herb or somethin ;D

Dubble_g

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Re: Message in a Bullet
« Reply #43 on: 23 September 2017, 05:12:45 »
You're sure you're not, like, the Third Transfer of Herb or somethin ;D

Curses, you found me out. And I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for you meddling kids.
Author, "Inverted" (Shrapnel #4), "Undefeated" (#10), "Reversal of Fortunes" (#13) and "The Alexandria Job" (#15)

Dubble_g

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Re: Message in a Bullet
« Reply #44 on: 23 September 2017, 07:22:04 »
Let's see if we can get this back on track...

* * *

24. NUMERO UNO

Euphoria watched the doctor and Theresa standing over Nix’s bed. There was something between those two, she knew, perhaps just shared danger, like the insanity and exhilaration of two people base-jumping off a building together. Still, a possible complication.

From the corner of her eye, she saw Noah wander over. He’d shucked his dust suit in favor of mafioso chic: black shirt, black waistcoat, dark purple tie. For a moment they stood in silence, watching the doctor and Theresa work.

Pinche cabron is tough,” Noah murmured, approving. “You should have come to me sooner though, EE. I’m hurt.”

“Didn’t know if I could trust you.”

“Oh lihele no, you can’t, no doubt about that. See that over there,” Noah pointed at a palette stacked with grey plastic boxes. “Lethe, street name ‘Wipe’ or ‘Bleach.’ Makes you forget everything and feel all Zen, keep using it and you get amnesia, eventually permanent memory loss. Great drug for budalast people who don’t want to face reality, too bad if they wake up not knowing who their own family is. That’s the business I’m in, and in this business, you look after numero uno or you die,” The pointing finger curled into a fist. “On this though, helping you helps me. I’ll do anything, if it hurts the Blakists.”

“Really? Not that I’m not grateful Noah.” She turned to face him. “Just a little curious. Why?”

His face tightened. “Hundan nuked Tamar, EE. Just because the Clans were there. They dropped the verdoemde bomb on my home. My home.” His face relaxed, as though with effort. He smiled thinly. “Plus I could never say ‘No’ to a pretty face.”

“You could never say anything to anyone, you faker.”

“Meh. People talk more freely around you when they think you can’t talk yourself.”

“We owe you.”

“Too kirottu right, you do. And I plan to collect on every kroner. The first thing you can do to pay me back, though, is to get that woman off my planet.” He jabbed his chin in Theresa’s direction. “Mujer is bad for business.”

“Would that it was so easy. Have to assume our initial plan is shot to hell. Though you seem to have no problems getting things through security.”

“Oh, you’re wondering about that, are you? Think I’ve maybe got some stealth tech, or a highly skilled hacker, or maybe a hidden tunnel?” His grin flashed white in the dim cavern. “You’re underestimating the ability of people to be people. Ever hear of a guy named Oskar Schindler? No? Helped Jewish people escape another dictatorship, a millennia ago. He could do it because he was rich, tall and handsome, and when you’re rich, tall and handsome, people will let you do anything. And EE, I am fracking gorgeous.” He struck a fashion-model pose, thumb and index finger against his chin.

Euphoria had to admit, the man looked good enough to eat.

“Just like Schindler, we’re dealing with a dictatorship here,” Noah went on. “And the whole point of dictatorship is to eliminate dissent, right? No more of that messy supervision or questioning orders. Pretty much tailor-made for corruption.” Noah took his hand from his chin, rubbing his thumb against two fingers. “Write someone marching orders like that and they’re lining their pockets before the ink can dry.”

Euphoria chewed her bottom lip a moment. “Bribes, huh. Anyone we can bribe to get Theresa onto a DropShip?”

Noah shook his head. “Get you a fake ID maybe, DropShip crew uniform, stuff like that, but all bets are off if anyone finds out who she is. Price on her head is too high. I can’t match economic firepower like that.”

Euphoria’s shoulders sagged a little. “Maybe a good, old-fashioned hijacking?”

“Sometimes, violence really is the answer.”

“Pity we don’t have any literal firepower, either.”

“Well now, EE,” Noah smiled slyly. “That’s where you’re wrong.”
Author, "Inverted" (Shrapnel #4), "Undefeated" (#10), "Reversal of Fortunes" (#13) and "The Alexandria Job" (#15)

snakespinner

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Re: Message in a Bullet
« Reply #45 on: 23 September 2017, 18:39:15 »
Good to see that firepower still solves all problems. O0
I wish I could get a good grip on reality, then I would choke it.
Growing old is inevitable,
Growing up is optional.
Watching TrueToaster create evil genius, priceless...everything else is just sub-par.

Sir Chaos

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Re: Message in a Bullet
« Reply #46 on: 23 September 2017, 18:41:09 »
Good to see that firepower still solves all problems. O0

If firepower doesn´t solve the problem, you´re not using enough of it.
"Artillery adds dignity to what would otherwise be a vulgar brawl."
-Frederick the Great

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- Inscription on cannon barrel, 18th century

David CGB

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Re: Message in a Bullet
« Reply #47 on: 23 September 2017, 20:57:07 »
If firepower doesn´t solve the problem, you´re not using enough of it.
amen, say it loud and say it proud
Federated Suns fan forever, Ghost Bear Fan since 1992, and as a Ghost Bear David Bekker star captain (in an Alt TL Loremaster)

Dubble_g

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Re: Message in a Bullet
« Reply #48 on: 24 September 2017, 21:11:08 »
25. RECOVERY

16 August 3072

He opened his eyes a crack.

The first thing he saw was Theresa, head nodding down on her chest, as she sat in a folding metal chair by the side of the bed. Her head came up as he tried to push himself up, blinking at him owlishly. “Hey.” She stifled a yawn and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “You okay there?”

“Sure,” he grunted, propping himself up on his elbows with effort. “Just peachy.”

She smiled from within a sleep-tussled tangle of black hair, and Nix felt as though someone had stabbed his chest with a pin. He looked away, quickly. Took in the lime green curtain around the bed, IV stand by the bed, plain white sheets. He lifted up the sheets. “I appear to be naked.” Theresa smiled innocently. “I trust you didn’t take advantage of me?”

Theresa batted her eyes in an I-have-no-idea-what-you’re-talking-about sort of fashion.

“Details?”

“We’re in your buddy Noah’s smuggling hideout,” Theresa gestured around. “All very romantic, couldn’t help but tear your clothes off.” She laughed at his expression. “Nah, not really. Noah’s doctor—male doctor—said your bodyglove was contaminated and best thing to do was cut you out of it. EE and Noah have been thick as thieves, so I’ve been stuck minding you.”

A break appeared in the curtains and Euphoria’s head appeared. “Thought I heard some candy-assed SpecFor moaning, and I knew you had to be up.” She eyed him critically. “Looking better. When you’ve finishing being a typical crybaby sixer, come say hi. Noah has some new toys for you to play with.” She disappeared back behind the curtain.

After a minute, Theresa cocked an eyebrow. “A sixer?”

“MI6.”

“That answers that. Doctor said you were probably some kind of scout or recon guy.”

“He’s probably right.”

“So…” she ran a finger lightly along his arm, thinking of their earlier conversation, before the sunset. They still were who they were, and then again, they weren’t. They’d both come so close to death, all of it seemed to matter a lot less now. Her rank, her position, his arm, his history. Everything. It didn’t matter, only this, here, this heartbeat in her fingertips, this skin beneath her touch. “Recon means you’re good at moving quietly?”

Watching her finger move. Nodded, wordlessly.

“How quietly?”

A modest shrug.

“Mmm, that is very quiet.” A mischievous smile. “You know, I’ve seen you naked now. Seems a little unfair, doesn’t it? Wonder if there’s some way we can even things out.”

“I might have an idea or two.” He reached over, clasped her hand in his. Gave her a wink. “Some time I don’t feel like a potato that’s been peeled and boiled.”

She retrieved her hand. “Well then,” leaned close, and brushed her lips across his. “Get well soon.”

17 August 3072

“The megaservers.”

Euphoria spread out several architectural blueprints across a metal table. Theresa and Noah stood, Nix sat. “The drawback to having all your data stored in one place is vulnerability,” she continued. “That, and heat.” She tapped a series of large circles on the ‘surface level’ floorplan. “All that digital thinking creates a lot of heat, so there are dozens of these big-ass fans to cool the place down. Follow the air tunnel down, you can get right into any one of the server farms, either take out the processors themselves or blow the power supply.”

“And when the power is off?” asked Theresa.

“We’ll target the spaceport security servers: Cameras, body scanners, ID card readers, communications, everything goes offline. Backups will kick in after five to 10 minutes, so we have to act fast.”

“And do what?” asked Nix.

“Get Theresa and I through the security checkpoints and put her onto a DropShip.”

Nix scratched his head. “That was a whole lot of ‘What?’ for one sentence, EE. Why do both of you have to go? And won’t they just lock the place down when the lights go out?”

“The two questions are connected,” Euphoria said. “Theresa and I go through security, her with a fake ID supplied by the loquacious Mister Noah here, me with my regular ID. Cameras and scanners will pick up on her, algorithms will do their algorithming, red flags will start to appear in the system. But before the alert is sounded, which will likely be just after the second security checkpoint, we cut the power. When everything blacks out, the first thing the guards are going to do is look for an officer to tell them what to do. That’ll be me.”

“You?”

“Never told you about my day job, did I Nix?” Euphoria gave a mock bow. “Adept three-rho Emilia Clearing, at your service. The ‘rho’ is the branch designation: ROM.”

Nix blinked in surprise. “A double agent?” Euphoria nodded. “Damn, explains a lot. So wait, did you know silver-eyes was going to break down my door the other night?”

“Yep, and recorded every minute of it,” an unapologetic shrug. “Yeager said some very interesting things to you, Nix. So interesting, in fact, I sent a copy to the planetary Precentor.”

“Fair enough.” Nix found he was running his hand through his hair again. “Might keep him busy for a bit. So, the servers shut down, alarms go off, Adept on the scene starts shouting orders. One of the orders is to get the crew, including Theresa, onto the DropShip. Communications are out, so there’s no way to verify the order. Then you order the ship to make an emergency launch?”

“Best way to avoid a suspected terrorist attack.”

“Okay. So how do I take out the megaserver?”

“Allow me to answer that, bratr,” Noah walked to a corner of the cavern, where a blue tarp was draped over what looked like a large manikin, vaguely human-shaped but larger and bulkier. Noah gripped the bottom edge of the tarp, turned and gave them a wink. “Ein, dos … ”

He whisked the tarp away with a flourish. Underneath stood a suit of battle armor. It was smooth and muscular where the Achileus had been hulking and distorted, with two separate eye lenses rather than a single visor and shiny, serpentine coils leading to each arm from its backpack unit.

“May I present the Purifier Adaptive battle suit, the absolute latest in go-anywhere, do-anything, kill-anyone technology. Memetic chameleon-camouflage armor, five centimeter extended range laser, 90 meter jump capability,” Noah patted the massive shoulder affectionately. “Fell off the back of a truck. Fella whose truck it fell from took an overdose of Bleach, doesn’t remember a thing about it. Or about anything, really. Very sad that.”

It looked a bit like a gargoyle wearing a gas mask, Nix though, levering himself to his feet and limping over to the suit. He completed a circuit of the armor, whistling in approval. “Invisible armor, eh?”

“Don’t get too carried away,” Noah cautioned. “You’re still physically there, so you still cast a shadow, still leave footprints, still create a negative space in smoke or rain.”

Nix grinned as he looked at the suit. “Don’t worry. I’ll be careful.”
Author, "Inverted" (Shrapnel #4), "Undefeated" (#10), "Reversal of Fortunes" (#13) and "The Alexandria Job" (#15)

Nav_Alpha

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Re: Message in a Bullet
« Reply #49 on: 24 September 2017, 21:41:21 »
So what is Euphoria’s deal? Is she ROM fighting their personal civil war against the Master? Or is she a genuine mole inserted in the Word? In which case she must be a very valuable asset - having evaded interrogators and various loyalty checks? Far more important a resource than a Feddie noble who wants a ride home.


"Hold your position, conserve ammo... and wait for the Dragoons to go Feral"
- last words of unknown merc, Harlech, 3067

Dubble_g

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Re: Message in a Bullet
« Reply #50 on: 24 September 2017, 22:34:04 »
In which case she must be a very valuable asset - having evaded interrogators and various loyalty checks? Far more important a resource than a Feddie noble who wants a ride home.

Yes! Exactly! I think I mentioned upthread one of the things I wanted to do in this story have people react to the sociopolitical environment, especially neo-feudalism. So making the fugitive an unknown valuable only for their name was deliberate, and you'll notice the other characters represent a spectrum of reactions to that fact--Yeager and Creed on one side, Euphoria and Jonas on the other, Nix somewhere in between.

As you've probably noticed, this story is already finished and I'm posting chapters as I find time, so not to give too much away, but the value of Euphoria vs. Theresa is a key part of the finale to the story.

That said, I'm not crazy about the way I handle the reveal here... There are meant to be hints along the way (red-haired woman at the ROM briefing, EE's inside knowledge of the WoB's nerve gas, comms getting messed with during Nix/Theresa's prison break) but still feels a little too abrupt...

Author, "Inverted" (Shrapnel #4), "Undefeated" (#10), "Reversal of Fortunes" (#13) and "The Alexandria Job" (#15)

Nav_Alpha

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Re: Message in a Bullet
« Reply #51 on: 25 September 2017, 04:24:16 »
I did have an inkling - I was actually thinking she was a little perfect.

Post more! Post more!


"Hold your position, conserve ammo... and wait for the Dragoons to go Feral"
- last words of unknown merc, Harlech, 3067

Dubble_g

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Re: Message in a Bullet
« Reply #52 on: 25 September 2017, 19:14:55 »
Speaking of perfect, I see this is my first-ever thread to get over 1,000 views. Yippee. I'd like to thank the half-dozen or so actual humans who are reading the story, plus assorted Google and other bots for racking up those hits. Thanks guys and AIs. Though I'd feel better if there weren't threads on this forum with half the number of replies but 5-6 more views. Keeps me humble, I guess.

* * *

26. PRECENTOR II

The planetary Precentor pats the back of his head. Feeling a little thin back there. Probes his scalp some more. Definitely thin. Is he going bald? Not surprising, really.

On the desk is a noteputer, and on the screen is a report of the detention facility attack. Dozens of casualties, with massive sections of the facility now totally unusable, owing to the sudden absence of doors, walls, and in several notable instances, floors. There is a bottle of bourbon next to the noteputer, and it is a third empty.

The Precentor hunts for a glass, the one he keeps in the bottom drawer of his desk.

Instead he finds a small, white packet. It is addressed to him. He lifts it from the drawer, gingerly. Feels the shape of it. A cube, perhaps a few centimeters per side. The packet is not sealed, and the Precentor slides the contents out onto his desk. A clear data crystal comes tumbling out, bouncing to a halt in front of him.

The Precentor reaches for it, hesitantly, before placing it into the reader slot of his noteputer. Automatically, a file begins to play. There is no video, but on the audio, he can quite clearly make out Demi-Precentor Yeager’s voice.

“Luckily, our followers, even our leaders, have bid a fond farewell to reason in favor of fanaticism … ”
Author, "Inverted" (Shrapnel #4), "Undefeated" (#10), "Reversal of Fortunes" (#13) and "The Alexandria Job" (#15)

Dubble_g

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Re: Message in a Bullet
« Reply #53 on: 25 September 2017, 19:20:08 »
Extra bonus chapter, since Nav_Alpha was such a good sport and asked so nicely.

* * *

27. LIVE WITH IT

18 August 3027

He walked back to his bed in the cavern and found Theresa sitting on the edge. Most of the lights in the cavern were out, a single lamp by his bed caught her half in the light, half in shadow. She looked up at the sound of his footsteps.

“You’re feeling better, I take it?”

“Like a whole new man,” he grinned. Looked down at his skin, covered in a veneer of sweat but no longer red and peeling. “Which on a certain level I kind of am, I guess.”

“EE’s given you a workout.”

“The new suit is something else. Amazing what technology can do,” he said, sitting down beside her on the bed. “EE’s got me doing flips, bouncing off the walls, all kinds of acrobatic stuff I could never do in the old suit. Time comes I won’t even need to shoot, I’ll do a ballet routine and the Wobbies will just drop their guns in awe.”

“Well, I’m glad you sound confident,” she smiled back. “EE is quite something, isn’t she?”

“Keeping us alive through the last three years took quite a bit of something-ing,” Nix agreed. “Glad she’s on our side.”

“This plan of hers, though …”

“She’ll come through this fine, you’ll see,” he reassured her. “Take more than a Wobbie to stop her.”

Theresa smiled again, then grew serious. “Make sure you come through this fine, too. This Yeager guy … He treats people like bacteria in a petri dish. Sociopath doesn’t even begin to cover it—he doesn’t care if 99% die as long as there’s 1% left.”

“Monsters don’t scare me,” he said. “You can kill monsters. It’s the people that listen to Yeager and do what he says that terrify me, because they’re just ordinary people. That means the ordinary person, when given a choice, will follow a monster like Yeager. And I don’t know how you kill that.”

Theresa put her hand over his, patted it. “If you’re trying to reassure me, you’re doing a terrible job here, Nix.”

“Okay then, try this: I’ll be fine.”

“Fine?” Skeptical.

“Great, once I know you’re safe. Well, great and not-so-great, when you’re gone.”

“You sound like you don’t like that. I like that you don’t like that.”

“You do seem to be an expert on causing me pain.”

“Your own stupid fault.”

“Theresa …You know I … I mean we …”

“EE was right,” she leaned forward and kissed him. “You talk too damn much.” And pushed him, unresisting, down on to the bed.

As he lay there, Theresa cradled beside him, he felt foolish for having worried, about her, about himself, about everything. You couldn’t change everything, and it was inhuman to try. Civilization would go on, or it would falter, with or without him. For now, there was only the tickle of her hair on his chest, the feeling of her breath across his skin, the warmth of her body.

He closed his eyes and slept, and for the first time in many years, did not dream of the tower.
Author, "Inverted" (Shrapnel #4), "Undefeated" (#10), "Reversal of Fortunes" (#13) and "The Alexandria Job" (#15)

snakespinner

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Re: Message in a Bullet
« Reply #54 on: 26 September 2017, 02:31:57 »
Half a dozen humans are reading this.
Does that mean I'm a bot.
 ::) ;)
I wish I could get a good grip on reality, then I would choke it.
Growing old is inevitable,
Growing up is optional.
Watching TrueToaster create evil genius, priceless...everything else is just sub-par.

Dubble_g

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Re: Message in a Bullet
« Reply #55 on: 26 September 2017, 02:47:33 »
Half a dozen humans are reading this.
Does that mean I'm a bot.
 ::) ;)

Believe in yourself and you can be whatever you want, baby.

Anyway, it's a clumsy attempt at self-deprecating humor mixed with genuine shout out to the people who've commented and encouraged: you, the doctor, Mike, Dave the bear, NAV alpha, Kidd, Sir Chaos and Easy.
Author, "Inverted" (Shrapnel #4), "Undefeated" (#10), "Reversal of Fortunes" (#13) and "The Alexandria Job" (#15)

Sir Chaos

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Re: Message in a Bullet
« Reply #56 on: 26 September 2017, 08:35:06 »
Believe in yourself and you can be whatever you want, baby.

Anyway, it's a clumsy attempt at self-deprecating humor mixed with genuine shout out to the people who've commented and encouraged: you, the doctor, Mike, Dave the bear, NAV alpha, Kidd, Sir Chaos and Easy.

Look at the bright side. It means that your story is so good even the bots can´t get enough of it!
"Artillery adds dignity to what would otherwise be a vulgar brawl."
-Frederick the Great

"Ultima Ratio Regis" ("The Last Resort of the King")
- Inscription on cannon barrel, 18th century

XaosGorilla

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Re: Message in a Bullet
« Reply #57 on: 26 September 2017, 11:48:47 »
Quote
Look at the bright side. It means that your story is so good even the bots can´t get enough of it!

As one of the aforementioned bots, I agree and approve of this message.


Easy

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Re: Message in a Bullet
« Reply #58 on: 26 September 2017, 12:15:03 »
Believe in yourself and you can be whatever you want, baby.

Anyway, it's a clumsy attempt at self-deprecating humor mixed with genuine shout out to the people who've commented and encouraged: you, the doctor, Mike, Dave the bear, NAV alpha, Kidd, Sir Chaos and Easy.

In addition to the quality of the writing, I also appreciate this is a Jihad story and that Nix is a BA pilot. Purifier Adaptive is competitive. I like that. Needs some reverse engineering and VTOL Equipment, but I got a team on that.  8)

These ********, on the other hand, are clearly in need of some oblivion.



Game on.
 
« Last Edit: 26 September 2017, 12:16:49 by Easy »

Dubble_g

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Re: Message in a Bullet
« Reply #59 on: 26 September 2017, 19:13:57 »
@XaosGorilla: Big high five to all my bot followers! There will be a tour of my internet browsing history and free viagra prescriptions after the autographs. No photos, please.

* * *

28. A HISTORY BOOK THAT WOULD NEVER BE WRITTEN

19 August 3072

“You awake?”

“No. You?”

“Me neither.”

“Talk to me then. Tell me a secret.”

“You first.”

“Okay. Let’s see: I’m not really a Sortek.”

A long pause. “You probably could have saved a lot of people a lot of bother by mentioning that sooner.”

“I mean technically. Grandma Felsa was the last Sortek, before she married and took Grandpa’s name. You know Hanse Davion was my father’s godfather? Not sure if that makes him my grand-godfather or god-grandfather. Anyway, Papa switched the name back from Green to Sortek when I was two years old. He thought it would help the family get ahead.” Dry, bitter laughter. “Your turn.”

“Dunno. What you do want to know?”

“The woman on the castle.”

“Jealous?”

“Maybe.” Coy. “I’ll let you know after I hear the story.”

“I’ve never told anyone before. But here goes: She was a countess, I think. Or was it a marquess?”

“Ouch. Outranked.”

“Pro-Victor. Her younger brother was pro-Katherine. He kidnapped her during the civil war, took over the family business and estates. I think he would have kept her alive, if things had gone otherwise. If I hadn’t arrived.”

“Damsels in distress are your specialty, are they?”

He looked down at his arm. “No, not really.” She followed his gaze, and understood.

“Well, practice makes perfect. I hope.”

It didn’t hurt, not nearly as much as it used to. He was, he decided, developing perspective. It would always hurt, just a little, but the memories didn’t have to define him. You had to take the good with the bad, and make the most of each moment as it came. “C’mere.”

“Again?” A giggle.

Enjoy it while it lasts. “Practice makes perfect.”

#

Nix sat on the edge of the bed, Theresa lying behind him. Her bare feet rested against his back. He wasn’t sure what it was—love, lust, infatuation—he didn’t know what you could call it with two people who were so obviously destined to be footnotes in one another’s histories. He just liked the feel of her feet on his skin, not because it was all that erotic, but because it spoke of intimacy and casual familiarity. A peak at a page in a history book that would never be written.

He reached around and ran his hand up her leg. Why do people torture themselves so? “It’s time.”

She sat up, ran a hand through the black mass of her hair. “Think EE would be mad if we cancelled the whole thing?” Only half-joking.

“Delighted, I’m sure.” Deadpan.

“What would we do, if we stayed here?”

A wicked smile. “I’m sure we could think of something to fill the time.”

“Don’t tempt me.” She rolled out of bed, and began pulling on the grey DropShip crew uniform Noah had ‘found’ for them. “EE would kill us, wouldn’t she?”

“Us? Nah, no away. Absolutely not,” he reassured her. “Only me.”

“She is blowing her cover for this, for me. However many years she’s been working undercover, gone.” Her face was thoughtful, her eyes far away.

“Well,” he wasn’t sure what to say. “Guess she feels you’re worth it. I know I do.”

Theresa blinked, her eyes refocused. She put her hands on either side of Nix’s face and kissed him, long and hard. Drew away slowly, reluctantly.

“Just have to make sure it is worth it then,” she said.
Author, "Inverted" (Shrapnel #4), "Undefeated" (#10), "Reversal of Fortunes" (#13) and "The Alexandria Job" (#15)

 

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