Erastothenes
Guardian
- Joined
- May 9, 2009
- Posts
- 304
- Location
- Any killing field
- Society
- Shaolin
- Avatar Name
- John Erastothenes Bluetail
Artwork by Dropkick Onciest Advrise - theonciest@gmail.com
Back left: Sloevius Sloe Termin, front: Raven Raven Valicur, back right: John Erastothenes Bluetail
(this story has seen some small cencorship from moderators)
Chapter 1
It's like everything is wrong... the wind sounds different. The colors are all off, if even just slightly so. The twitter from birds so recognisable and still not right. The sun rises not quite from the west. Where burn-patches has come off, my skin tans but there is a tint to it, a very very slight off-shade. Can't decide if its more red or blue or green, or some color I never saw before.
This bothers me. More than the itching from the patches, cheap ones, what u get, flying cattle-class on a shady line, bloody lucky to get any at all - all who came through from the crash did not. They sorted us fast and with little ceremony, who gets and who dont.
I itch and itch but I itch even more in my head. Everything is just off, gravity, light, the curve of the horizon. For a fair guess we will need generations on this planet for it to become home, as in feeling really like home. In our guts.
It's the almost that gets to me - almost right, almost balanced, can't quite place the wrongness but it's there, it's like all my senses are slighty buggered but not quite enough to take a pill for it.
I'm stressed out man, I'm nackered, I'm a wreck. My head got banged up but good, also, splitting headace and no fucking hair on my left side, bulkhead was hot hot hot - burned me bad there where I banged into it.
Ears ringing, it's so noicy it becomes white noice, everything tumbles, yellow lights are bad cause those are for radiation, reactor failure and a catalogue of shit all worse than red light - red is simply for terminal failures like we are coming apart folks, and it's hard black vacuum out there so smoke'em if u got'em, be quick.
So I'm on the first established off-world colony, a bright new future, no end of new opportunities. A place for all. Where we all start from scratch, we all have a chance, a great colony of egalitarian mate-ship and toil, side by side by side.
VDO's showed some right sexy chicks too, running about with modest amounts of fabric clinging. Coolness, the climate should do, yea.
Wildlife in abundance, the soil virgin and fine, fat dirt, ready for planting, and under it all treasure, minerals and stuff we earthlings never saw, valuable stuff, usefull. Has monetary value, and so easy to shift for cash. Planet's one big ball of revenue for the taking. It's finders keepers, come one come all.
Of the journey there is little to tell, economy food, cribs, blankets, people. The smell of a thousand people in a steel box with modest sanitary facilites. The nagging of kids who's got no place to play for what must seem an eternity to them. Seemed like an eternity to me. Some couples coupling in darktime, the odd !!!!, the odd robbery, all very average. Humankind has reached the stars but is at the same time still not very far out of the caves, we are basic beasts at heart. Behaviour has changed fuck all since the time fire was found.
I'm between a bulkhead and the Hansen's, big guy, wife possibly once cute but never pretty. Really filthy poor folks, almost my level of misery where coins are counted. 2 kids loaded right next to me, fuckers where sick most of the way, course they had to be in cribs right next to mine. Cute little buggers but cute just don't hack it when its 24/7 puke and sobs for weeks on end, I know u are with me there.
The Hansen family died with no dignity. They went slow with the wife whining, kids screaming, dad mind-locked doing shit all, all total fucking hysteria. Could not organise themself to move forwards, away from flames and what evil those scary scary yellow alarms was on about. Just stayed in their cribs and made noice, futile, ox-flow emerg bubbles making sure they felt the flames, no smoke to mercifully make off with conciousness, what of it they had.
I wanted to cry for those kids but I cried for myself instead, shat myself instead and scrambled, shit flying.
Total panic, the old hog of a freighter is tearing up in atmosphere. Ladies and Gentlemen, we are going down. This is it. About 100 families and two times that common thieves, privateers, religious enthusiasts and ordinary useless sobs, my class, pissing all over and using elbows, fists, or freezing in place. Its fucking amazing how loud kids can be, forget kindergarten when some freak philantropist or half-smart pedo brings candy for a show. Toddlers burning on entry, now thats a noice will stay with u. Shit.
I wake up under a different sun. Third grade patches itches and u go over there, hint, if u can move by yourself sir, yessireebob, there is a further selection and you want, really, the good line. Those who have a chance, of being less of a bother, they get priority as lines and lines are made, selections done. Lines and selections, reminds me of something from history, nothing nice.
Comes to me these people are not actually nazis - there's just limited supplies to go around. Some of the help is walking around crying like they where on the goddamn freighter themselves, they have to select, not doing so is even worse. Give half a fap-pack, delay the end, or give someone else the whole shot, more sure but often not totally, that one will come through, bloody job. Can only hope they have some religion for help, its a sad lottery.
I haze through a few days, itch itch itch. Someone serves soup. Tastes shite. Someone brings fap-packs, good, medium, short, hell they'r all badly needed over here. Body bags are brought out of our area, camp, but with decresing regularity.
I stumble about, as do others. Some looking for siblings, companions, family, some aimless like myself. We are being told time and again not to stray too far, keep inside the area till we get organised, till we get our minds back on track. At night, mostly, but also sometimes in daylight heavy auto-guns go off not too far off. What kind of a camp is this?
Climate is about as advertised, but - concentrating on essentials - I see few half naked chicks. They where here in the ads. I see none. I do see females, armor clad. In fact, looks like most folks hereabouts walks around in armor of some sort or another. That, slowly, connects in my poor banged up head into the question "why". Some questions will answer themselves if u let them, won't they. These here, been here for a bit already, these people, not going around in heavy stuff like that for fun now, are they. Not bloody likely. This little much indicates that armor is common cause it's commonly needed. Here we go. The ad's did not tell all. A surprice of biblic proportions.
I'm starting to pay attention, trying to figure out what is what. Who's in charge here, who's muscle, who's not. That's the main thing, always someone, a figure, a shogunate or a coorporate compendium, or a mix, always someone controls and a independent rat like me wants to keep low low to live. No skills or money or shares, no bloodlines, nothing with me to let me into any club of power. So it was always eat scraps and better get out of the way for anything bigger than your average ratus. Be smart but not too clever. Never be a threat. Never pretend to be a threat. Never get mistaken for being a threat. And so on.
Below radar is life, don't want Social Security Officers after u, called SS with reason, anymore u want a local representiative of real power, private enterprise power, after u'r ass. SS will scope u up and send u off to the Betterment-Programme, private will dispose of u. The latter to be prefered they says, the Programme involving cheapo chemi-lobotomy and a life after in Functions, gov's all-encompassing solution to life after crime. In Functions, u Function. Perfectly. Fed - worked - fed - worked - sleepsession - wake - fed - work - work - fed - work - dead. Guess they figured proper robotics came too costly and found a better way for the mines and factories.
There are settlers talking to some of us shipwrecks, I stay away. I wait, and then I spy, I try to listen in. Few of us got any belongings, it all burned. A lucky few has cash, enough to get noticed if they'r not careful, there are a few don't wake up and don't need too, someone got to their stash and took no chances with any resistance or complaints.
A few armor clad settlers are reqruiting, to their groups or for some personal thing, or both. Some are giving sage advice, speaking out to all inside the camp. Some advisors argue with others, and sometimes there is flak over reqruitments, hard words. I listen and stay low, always. I might be a dropout and a dumb rat, but always street-smart, paranoid, on alert. Would never had lived to 25 in the gutters of my city if I wasn't a very very careful coward. Made me sage to younglings back in mother earth's slums, in my kind of quarters there wasn't too many over 20 moving about. Any clubs or groups reqruiting they want the real young ones, unshaped, eminently vulnerable, and if really cute with imideate commercial value. Flocks of starving kids, everywhere in lower level slums, planetwide.
In dark and moist alleyways, in tunnels dripping with waste overflow from higher up, in the almost solid smell of humanitys waste that is the air more than the air itself down where most people exist, there are kids, toddlers, teenies, the higher in age the lesser in numbers. Religion has something to do with it, but you don't talk about that. Vagely, there was some deals generations back, I think, after some major wars over what god or gods should be worshipped. Worship, now, that is for higher levels, for the classes above. Have they Worship here? Better watch for that, could end me fast if I miss out, do something unholy out of ignorance and get Taken.
It's another morning and I'm checking inventory; I have what I wear, basic in-flight OJ's, semi-comfy, easy-clean, cheap, and for value mine are plenty burned, repairs if available are called for. I smell of smoke, desperation, fire, tears, defecation, panic.
I'm carefully exploring around, going out, outside of the camp borders. Some animal life is around, some small birds that don't seem to fly, and some pork-sized buggers with elephant-like tusks moves slowly about. They seem docile but I don't chance getting anywhere near. I move further out, slowly, carefully, avoiding both beasts and men. Then I happen upon a unlikely-looking grassfeeder, did not see it behind those trees, and it streches its long neck and howls at me. It moves, I run. I'm a good runner, ran from danger every day and every night back in the mazes of slums on mother Earth, my feet are ripping up dirt, I'm pumping away good, taste of blood in my mouth, adrenalin shoots through me, the stamping of the beast coming closer is the only sound in the universe.
I'm aiming for the nearest gun turret, breathing heavily, stamp-stamp-stamp and howling behind me is closing in, I can even smell the thing now, it's so close. My vision is going red, I'm scared out of my wits, I run but don't seem to move, gods this is it, I run and I stumble and the beast is on me right there. It kicks me hard, the steam of its breath so animal, merciless, upon me, and I was never this helpless, and I know it, I am prey and I will now die, die badly, I cry and I piss myself and I think this is how I will face the after - a bundle of bloody meat, crying and stinking of piss. It's, if nothing else, in caracter, is all I think when the raging beast is moving in for the final kill.
I am curled up, in pain, my mind's not realy online, the beast is howling, screaming now, but I am still alive, somehow. It gets to me that the creature is howling in another direction, and there is some zap-zap-zap noice and then it is very very quiet. Then some noice. Someone is moving about, human feet, I look up. One eye is gone, banged shut, the other sees a man in armor checking the animal that is now lying motionless on the ground. Very near me.
'They are a bit like crabs back on earth' says the man, and turns to face me. 'In season, they have meat, outside it's bingo'. I'm scrambling, trying to pay attention, figuring I might be the next target for that scary-looking pistol held so casually in an armored hand.
'Only hereabouts, we don't know if they have any seasons, so it's just kill them all and check it out. Howdy, I'm Raven. U got a name, noob?'
NOTE: I wrote more chapters. Revisiting, I see I need to edit a lot. Hence I gave removed chapters after 1 from the forum for now.
(Note about the signature: Been some time since I was Synergen, but this was, at least in part, written back when I was with the soc. So I'l let that img stay)
Last edited:
Thoroughly enjoyed reading this one, look forward to more from ya m8 
