Post by Admin on Jan 9, 2007 14:08:20 GMT -8
Once upon a time a young woman fell out of the world.
This is her story.
Six months after the Truce
-------------
Chains rattle.
Keys turned in locks.
A door opens.
Light warms blinded eyes.
"Ms. McFey. Our ... patience is limited. We have .. asked you to cooperate and you refuse. We offer you a .. life, any dream you desire fufilled, and you refuse. Your search for a known .. terrorist has left you with few options. Yet you refuse." The voice was dispassionate, calm, as if talking to a child. "All we ask is for your .. cooperation, and we can insure you will receive anything you want. Live any life you want. We are reasonable."
A mouth formed.
Eyes began to see.
"As you know well, we have ways of ... gaining .. your cooperation."
The cell was dark.
Feet did not touch the ground.
Arms stretched above.
Pain.
So much pain.
"Why do you .. struggle? Resist? All for a man you don't even know. For a cause you know nothing about?" The dispassionate voice queried, curiousity seeping into it's monotone.
Skyscream sat up in her bunk like a shot. Her hands already gripped two crude looking pistols and was pointing them around all corners of the dark room with a wild look. She sighed and lowered the pistols.
She was safe.
"No, I'm okay Format. It's just the old dreams. From before I fell out of the world." She lay back in her sweat soaked bunk and covered her eyes with one arm, her hands still clutching the crude looking weapons with the oversized barrels. Her voice suddenly took on a harsh tone. "Well, if you didn't want me pointing them around inside of you all the time, why did you make them for me?"
Silence.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to talk to you like that." She sighed and sat up again. This time she stared at the pistols in her hands for a long moment before tossing them aside onto her bunk. She stood up suddenly and stalked, naked, out of the room. "I need to clean up, and then what passes for coffee. Evil stuff. Get my chair ready. Oh, and I need a flare gun. Something with a hoslter so I can wear it around here. Could you make me one?"
-------------------------------
Mala McFey stood up slowly on shakey legs. Her strength gone. Maybe the man in suit could get her some food. But he had left her there alone for a very long time. It seemed as if she had been sitting on the hard wooden chair for days. She remembered falling asleep once. Didn't remember falling asleep another time. Uncertain, she stumbled towards the door. Her trembling hands slowly turned the handle. She stood back in surprise as the barrier slowly swung in when she pulled on it.
She stared at the door.
Light seeped in. It was so bright. Was it daytime?
Mala liked the sun. It felt warm. She followed the light, pulling the door fully open and stepping out of her cell. Mala blinked. She stood in an office hallway. Firecrackers were going off. A lot of them. She turned towards the sound but all she saw was a long hallway. So she turned and went the other way. There was a nice potted plant. Why was she wet now? It was raining. Inside?
She shrugged after a long moment and kept walking slowly down the hallway. There was a nice window at the end of the hall. She had to use the wall to lean against though. This was hard. Where was the man in the suit? She wasn't sure if she was allowed to leave the room. Mala sat down. It was all so confusing. She looked at the window. It was sunny outside, but raining inside. That made no sense. Mala liked the sun. She stood up again, groaning with the effort, and began inching towards the window.
Skyscream snapped awake with a jolt to find herself staring out the front of Format from her chair. She cleared her throat and rubbed the sleep out of her eyes.
"Where are .." She croaked and cleared her throat again. "Where are we Format?"
The hovercraft floated quietly along.
"Good." Skyscream yawned and stretched. "Don't get lost whatever you do. How are supplies?"
The engines thrummed as the Format C flew a perfectly level path.
"That bad huh?" Skyscream sighed and stood up slowly, surprised at how cold the floor was. She looked around the bridge for a moment before finding her strange looking pistols where she had dropped them in her sleep. "Well. It should do for a while I guess. Maybe we can find something to salvage along the way."
She paused.
"Did I bring body armour?"
----
Pain.
My eyes open and I see the sky. Purple and blue. Something dark between me and it. Partially blocking it out. It hurts to turn my head, but I do. I see the ruined earth below me as it speeds past. It is beautiful to my eyes. I look at myself. A thin metal pole is embedded in my shoulder. No wonder I'm thinking about pain. I can't see it, but I can feel the tendrils splayed out behind me like a grappling hook. Digging into my flesh. My vision blurs. I look down at the earth again and wonder why I still live.
"Move it!" Sky yelled as she manned the big gun, firing it before she was even sitting down. "GO GO GO!"
Format burst out of the pile of debris he had been hiding in, the scraps and rocks carefully positioned for perfect camoflage, and breathed fire and death around him as he swiftly rose into the air. The larger pieces of metal and stone he hurled back at the incoming cloud of machines, smashing through the mass of squirming death, as he sped away. Already some crawled upon his surface, and as he rose into the air, metal arm clashed violently with metal arm.
"Son of a .. " The rest of Skyscreams words were lost in the chatter of the machine gun turret she controlled from the bridge, spewing metal at the nightmare approaching behind them. She took a moment to spray bullets at the ones on her dragon before returning her aim to the closest of the huge approaching mass.
Format dove close to the ground again, gaining speed, as more of the metal squids caught up with him. They tore into his skin, attacked his pads, as he fought back.
"Whatever happens." Skyscream yelled as she leaned over and stuck a disk into a drive while she fired randomly at the approaching cloud. "Don't forget this."
Format hugged close to the ground, following it's contours perfectly as he poured every ounce of energy he had into flight. He flailed at the squids tearing him apart as they caught him, protecting his hoverpads for all he was worth. Then something exploded underneath him. Bombs timed and thrown ahead by the sentinels being slowly left behind.
Format screamed.
Sky woke up again. The pain was unbearable. There was something in the distance. Pretty lights. Was it christmas already? She liked christmas. People were always more generous around christmas.
She stood in the hallway, smiling up at the rain, as she leaned against the wall. It felt nice. In front of her was a wall made of glass that looked out onto the city. It was sunny outside. She liked the sun. But it was so bright that she couldn't focus. Everything was blurry. Where was the man in the suit? She heard firecrackers again. A lot of them very close. It was almost one long continous sound. And who was beating so fast on a drum? You can't dance to that. Nobody could.
Then, through blurry vision, she saw it begin to rain gold outside.
Skyscream opened her eyes. A demon carried her and he looked like an octopus? She laughed, but it hurt. So she went back to sleep. It didn't matter. It was all a nightmare anyway. She'll feel better in the morning.
"I am not afraid." Skyscream mumbled, as she reached for her pistols, drawing one from it's shoulder holster and pointing it out the window at the thousands of sentinels fast approaching. Her hand shook badly. The world swam before her. Blood kept getting in her eyes. The crash had been bad.
Turning end over end, as Format hit the ground after being bathed in fire, Sky had somehow managed to hang on as the machine came apart around her. Or maybe Format held on to her. She couldn't remember. It all happened so fast. Even the squids had backed off a little as the broken Format C arced high through the air, spinning rapidly, before smashing back into the earth in a cloud of dirt and debris.
The Format C bounced and gouged it's way along the earth. Hoverpads broke off and pieces of metal arced through the air before the mangled mess finally came to a rest. Skyscream wiped at her forehead and her hand came away bloody. She had no time to worry about that though as a squid landed directly on the broken windscreen with a thousand more behind it.
"One shot ain't enough." Sky chuckled and pulled the trigger as the squid arms reached for her.
Fwwwoooooom
The closest hundred of the cloud of sentinels fell suddenly to the earth for no appearant reason. A small hemisphere of open space that centered on the bridge of the Format C seemed to be filled with silence in spite of the whirring and gnashing of metal arms around the bowl shaped divot in the cloud of death and the sound of lifeless machines falling to the earth.
"It works?" Sky laughed, tossed aside the expended EMP pistol, and reached to draw the other. But it was far to late. A thin spear of metal shot though the broken windscreen and drove through her flesh. In the next instant something clawed into her back and she was yanked roughly out of the bridge of the Format C like a fish on a hook.
Sky opened her eyes. How come she's flying? She can't fly. She needs a dragon to fly. But she's not riding Format. Sky closes her eyes.
"We still live this day, so it's not all bad eh?" Sky thought about those words. Why does she always revert to flippant sayings when she's scared out of her mind. That Bourbon fellow seemed nice enough though, and she tried to cheer him up a little. It was good to talk to somebody but it reminded her of everything she had given up on this fools quest. He reminded her a little of Lshift, but she wasn't sure why. They weren't alike in any way really. Maybe it was the questions. Lshift was always full of questions. She chuckled. Maybe when this is over, she'd have to get the two together and have a drink. They'd probably get along to some degree. She shook her head. This was no time to be thinking about things like that. It was bad enough that the welfare of her crew was always on her mind.
Sure, everything she said was calculated to some degree. But she meant most of it. She just wished that she could feel .. for another person. Zion. So full of passion and lust that it seeps out into everything. She tried to fit in. The evening dalliances, the parties. The men. The women. But she had no interest in that. She heaved a sigh and picked up her sniper rifle, the one she had in the real, and slipped her arm through the strap hanging from it to let it rest against her back. She wondered if Bourbon understood her. A few have but she left them behind. Afraid to get them mixed up in this huge gamble. The lightwieght kevlar clothes, the ones that seemed to be wrapped in darkness, were all she wore for armour. Anything else would just slow her down. She had a long, quiet, walk ahead of her. She needed to be alert.
"Stay safe while I'm gone Format." She patted the main control panels affectionately. She paused. "Of course I care about you. That's why you have to stay here. Stop arguing with me. I'll be back. Don't worry."
Skyscream left the bridge after grabbing her pistols, from the floor near her chair, and strapped them on as she walked to the cargo hold. A metal tentacle was extended from an open panel in the wall of the big room and held a small backpack and a coat. Skyscream smiled, slipping into the coat and grabbing the pack with one hand to sling it over the shoulder opposite her rifle. She stopped for a moment, looking around, before hugging the somewhat surprised metal arm. After another moment, she turned and walked down the ramp to the outside in silence.
--------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------
Format woke up. Nothing seemed right. Nothing worked. He couldn't fly anymore. He couldn't see anymore. He couldn't hear her anymore. He reasoned that the transceiver she always wore in her ear must have fallen out. Without a connection with his body though, there was nothing he could do about it.
Then he remembered. Why did she download an image and a frequency to his memory core? His power was failing. He needed to shut down soon to conserve what little energy he had left in his core power pack for when she returned. He could feel his engine now, but it was a useless limb that he couldn't draw energy from until a connection was established. Why did they go there? He didn't like it there. He altered the frequency of his connection to Sky and sent out a weak signal. Maybe whoever was on the other end could help. Maybe that's what she meant. Format didn't feel good. He hoped he was okay. He hoped Sky was okay even more. He hoped he had the numbers right for the frequency. He had so many numbers in his mind. It was hard to think.
Format couldn't remember which was the right number anymore.
So he sent it to all of them.
He wished he knew why.
This is her story.
Six months after the Truce
-------------
Chains rattle.
Keys turned in locks.
A door opens.
Light warms blinded eyes.
"Ms. McFey. Our ... patience is limited. We have .. asked you to cooperate and you refuse. We offer you a .. life, any dream you desire fufilled, and you refuse. Your search for a known .. terrorist has left you with few options. Yet you refuse." The voice was dispassionate, calm, as if talking to a child. "All we ask is for your .. cooperation, and we can insure you will receive anything you want. Live any life you want. We are reasonable."
A mouth formed.
Eyes began to see.
"As you know well, we have ways of ... gaining .. your cooperation."
The cell was dark.
Feet did not touch the ground.
Arms stretched above.
Pain.
So much pain.
"Why do you .. struggle? Resist? All for a man you don't even know. For a cause you know nothing about?" The dispassionate voice queried, curiousity seeping into it's monotone.
Skyscream sat up in her bunk like a shot. Her hands already gripped two crude looking pistols and was pointing them around all corners of the dark room with a wild look. She sighed and lowered the pistols.
She was safe.
"No, I'm okay Format. It's just the old dreams. From before I fell out of the world." She lay back in her sweat soaked bunk and covered her eyes with one arm, her hands still clutching the crude looking weapons with the oversized barrels. Her voice suddenly took on a harsh tone. "Well, if you didn't want me pointing them around inside of you all the time, why did you make them for me?"
Silence.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to talk to you like that." She sighed and sat up again. This time she stared at the pistols in her hands for a long moment before tossing them aside onto her bunk. She stood up suddenly and stalked, naked, out of the room. "I need to clean up, and then what passes for coffee. Evil stuff. Get my chair ready. Oh, and I need a flare gun. Something with a hoslter so I can wear it around here. Could you make me one?"
-------------------------------
Mala McFey stood up slowly on shakey legs. Her strength gone. Maybe the man in suit could get her some food. But he had left her there alone for a very long time. It seemed as if she had been sitting on the hard wooden chair for days. She remembered falling asleep once. Didn't remember falling asleep another time. Uncertain, she stumbled towards the door. Her trembling hands slowly turned the handle. She stood back in surprise as the barrier slowly swung in when she pulled on it.
She stared at the door.
Light seeped in. It was so bright. Was it daytime?
Mala liked the sun. It felt warm. She followed the light, pulling the door fully open and stepping out of her cell. Mala blinked. She stood in an office hallway. Firecrackers were going off. A lot of them. She turned towards the sound but all she saw was a long hallway. So she turned and went the other way. There was a nice potted plant. Why was she wet now? It was raining. Inside?
She shrugged after a long moment and kept walking slowly down the hallway. There was a nice window at the end of the hall. She had to use the wall to lean against though. This was hard. Where was the man in the suit? She wasn't sure if she was allowed to leave the room. Mala sat down. It was all so confusing. She looked at the window. It was sunny outside, but raining inside. That made no sense. Mala liked the sun. She stood up again, groaning with the effort, and began inching towards the window.
Skyscream snapped awake with a jolt to find herself staring out the front of Format from her chair. She cleared her throat and rubbed the sleep out of her eyes.
"Where are .." She croaked and cleared her throat again. "Where are we Format?"
The hovercraft floated quietly along.
"Good." Skyscream yawned and stretched. "Don't get lost whatever you do. How are supplies?"
The engines thrummed as the Format C flew a perfectly level path.
"That bad huh?" Skyscream sighed and stood up slowly, surprised at how cold the floor was. She looked around the bridge for a moment before finding her strange looking pistols where she had dropped them in her sleep. "Well. It should do for a while I guess. Maybe we can find something to salvage along the way."
She paused.
"Did I bring body armour?"
----
Pain.
My eyes open and I see the sky. Purple and blue. Something dark between me and it. Partially blocking it out. It hurts to turn my head, but I do. I see the ruined earth below me as it speeds past. It is beautiful to my eyes. I look at myself. A thin metal pole is embedded in my shoulder. No wonder I'm thinking about pain. I can't see it, but I can feel the tendrils splayed out behind me like a grappling hook. Digging into my flesh. My vision blurs. I look down at the earth again and wonder why I still live.
"Move it!" Sky yelled as she manned the big gun, firing it before she was even sitting down. "GO GO GO!"
Format burst out of the pile of debris he had been hiding in, the scraps and rocks carefully positioned for perfect camoflage, and breathed fire and death around him as he swiftly rose into the air. The larger pieces of metal and stone he hurled back at the incoming cloud of machines, smashing through the mass of squirming death, as he sped away. Already some crawled upon his surface, and as he rose into the air, metal arm clashed violently with metal arm.
"Son of a .. " The rest of Skyscreams words were lost in the chatter of the machine gun turret she controlled from the bridge, spewing metal at the nightmare approaching behind them. She took a moment to spray bullets at the ones on her dragon before returning her aim to the closest of the huge approaching mass.
Format dove close to the ground again, gaining speed, as more of the metal squids caught up with him. They tore into his skin, attacked his pads, as he fought back.
"Whatever happens." Skyscream yelled as she leaned over and stuck a disk into a drive while she fired randomly at the approaching cloud. "Don't forget this."
Format hugged close to the ground, following it's contours perfectly as he poured every ounce of energy he had into flight. He flailed at the squids tearing him apart as they caught him, protecting his hoverpads for all he was worth. Then something exploded underneath him. Bombs timed and thrown ahead by the sentinels being slowly left behind.
Format screamed.
Sky woke up again. The pain was unbearable. There was something in the distance. Pretty lights. Was it christmas already? She liked christmas. People were always more generous around christmas.
She stood in the hallway, smiling up at the rain, as she leaned against the wall. It felt nice. In front of her was a wall made of glass that looked out onto the city. It was sunny outside. She liked the sun. But it was so bright that she couldn't focus. Everything was blurry. Where was the man in the suit? She heard firecrackers again. A lot of them very close. It was almost one long continous sound. And who was beating so fast on a drum? You can't dance to that. Nobody could.
Then, through blurry vision, she saw it begin to rain gold outside.
Skyscream opened her eyes. A demon carried her and he looked like an octopus? She laughed, but it hurt. So she went back to sleep. It didn't matter. It was all a nightmare anyway. She'll feel better in the morning.
"I am not afraid." Skyscream mumbled, as she reached for her pistols, drawing one from it's shoulder holster and pointing it out the window at the thousands of sentinels fast approaching. Her hand shook badly. The world swam before her. Blood kept getting in her eyes. The crash had been bad.
Turning end over end, as Format hit the ground after being bathed in fire, Sky had somehow managed to hang on as the machine came apart around her. Or maybe Format held on to her. She couldn't remember. It all happened so fast. Even the squids had backed off a little as the broken Format C arced high through the air, spinning rapidly, before smashing back into the earth in a cloud of dirt and debris.
The Format C bounced and gouged it's way along the earth. Hoverpads broke off and pieces of metal arced through the air before the mangled mess finally came to a rest. Skyscream wiped at her forehead and her hand came away bloody. She had no time to worry about that though as a squid landed directly on the broken windscreen with a thousand more behind it.
"One shot ain't enough." Sky chuckled and pulled the trigger as the squid arms reached for her.
Fwwwoooooom
The closest hundred of the cloud of sentinels fell suddenly to the earth for no appearant reason. A small hemisphere of open space that centered on the bridge of the Format C seemed to be filled with silence in spite of the whirring and gnashing of metal arms around the bowl shaped divot in the cloud of death and the sound of lifeless machines falling to the earth.
"It works?" Sky laughed, tossed aside the expended EMP pistol, and reached to draw the other. But it was far to late. A thin spear of metal shot though the broken windscreen and drove through her flesh. In the next instant something clawed into her back and she was yanked roughly out of the bridge of the Format C like a fish on a hook.
Sky opened her eyes. How come she's flying? She can't fly. She needs a dragon to fly. But she's not riding Format. Sky closes her eyes.
"We still live this day, so it's not all bad eh?" Sky thought about those words. Why does she always revert to flippant sayings when she's scared out of her mind. That Bourbon fellow seemed nice enough though, and she tried to cheer him up a little. It was good to talk to somebody but it reminded her of everything she had given up on this fools quest. He reminded her a little of Lshift, but she wasn't sure why. They weren't alike in any way really. Maybe it was the questions. Lshift was always full of questions. She chuckled. Maybe when this is over, she'd have to get the two together and have a drink. They'd probably get along to some degree. She shook her head. This was no time to be thinking about things like that. It was bad enough that the welfare of her crew was always on her mind.
Sure, everything she said was calculated to some degree. But she meant most of it. She just wished that she could feel .. for another person. Zion. So full of passion and lust that it seeps out into everything. She tried to fit in. The evening dalliances, the parties. The men. The women. But she had no interest in that. She heaved a sigh and picked up her sniper rifle, the one she had in the real, and slipped her arm through the strap hanging from it to let it rest against her back. She wondered if Bourbon understood her. A few have but she left them behind. Afraid to get them mixed up in this huge gamble. The lightwieght kevlar clothes, the ones that seemed to be wrapped in darkness, were all she wore for armour. Anything else would just slow her down. She had a long, quiet, walk ahead of her. She needed to be alert.
"Stay safe while I'm gone Format." She patted the main control panels affectionately. She paused. "Of course I care about you. That's why you have to stay here. Stop arguing with me. I'll be back. Don't worry."
Skyscream left the bridge after grabbing her pistols, from the floor near her chair, and strapped them on as she walked to the cargo hold. A metal tentacle was extended from an open panel in the wall of the big room and held a small backpack and a coat. Skyscream smiled, slipping into the coat and grabbing the pack with one hand to sling it over the shoulder opposite her rifle. She stopped for a moment, looking around, before hugging the somewhat surprised metal arm. After another moment, she turned and walked down the ramp to the outside in silence.
--------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------
Format woke up. Nothing seemed right. Nothing worked. He couldn't fly anymore. He couldn't see anymore. He couldn't hear her anymore. He reasoned that the transceiver she always wore in her ear must have fallen out. Without a connection with his body though, there was nothing he could do about it.
Then he remembered. Why did she download an image and a frequency to his memory core? His power was failing. He needed to shut down soon to conserve what little energy he had left in his core power pack for when she returned. He could feel his engine now, but it was a useless limb that he couldn't draw energy from until a connection was established. Why did they go there? He didn't like it there. He altered the frequency of his connection to Sky and sent out a weak signal. Maybe whoever was on the other end could help. Maybe that's what she meant. Format didn't feel good. He hoped he was okay. He hoped Sky was okay even more. He hoped he had the numbers right for the frequency. He had so many numbers in his mind. It was hard to think.
Format couldn't remember which was the right number anymore.
So he sent it to all of them.
He wished he knew why.