Writing A Small Part Of Something Greater

[Brasil]

I wrote this during my Sophomore or Junior year of high school. It's intentionally campy, a throwback to classic film noir sci-fi.

"A Small Part Of Something Greater"

As my starship, DEMON-Q, was cruising at light speed, I took a glimpse around the cockpit. Damn, it was dirty, clothes strewn about, thrown over chairs, beds, anything that they could hang on. My dog, Frank, was lying down, sleeping, his cigar now smoldering in the ash tray by his bed.

It?s actually funny how I came to own Frank.

I was doing a merc job down on CR-213, some mining facility. I was hired to crush some rebel uprisings. I saw they were right, but I?m a mercenary, I work for whoever pays me. Anyway, I?m suiting up, you know, strapping on armour, checking power levels on my guns. Man, I love this one rifle. It?s a high energy pulse cannon, but with some, how should I put this, ?minor? mod?s that were put on by Yours Truly. Yeah, now it packs some major punch.

Very cool shit.

Okay, so I finished suiting up, and I walked out into the stormy fields. There were explosions, and lightning, and a shit-load of atmospheric disturbances, which really shitted-up my motion trackers. I took a couple more steps, then a huge Goddamn explosion goes off a couple hundred feet from me.

Knocked me on my ass.

I got up and scanned the horizon. The glow of radioactive waste caught my eye.

It was a mess, bodies were everywhere, charred and blackened, some human, some not. I looked through the wreckage and found a freaky case. It was stamped with ?BIO-HAZARDOUS MATERIAL? and ?TOP-SECRET.? Of course I had to take it. Did anyone have to ask?

I figured I had my prize for the day, so I went back to the ship.

The contents of that case were something.

It was a cute, little puppy. A genetically engineered puppy, but still a puppy. He looked up at me with those big, brown eyes, and I had to keep him. Little did I know that cute, little puppy would turn out to be a cigar-smoking, foul-mouthed wise-ass.

But he?s quite handy with weapons.

Before I knew it, my little trip down ?memory lane? was over, we were nearing Geto, my home planet. We came out of light speed.

?Transmission from Merc ship DEMON-Q, Identification Number 203-12, Hailing shield command at Laudu,? I said as I leaned forward to the intercom, ?requesting clearance and shields to be lowered.?

?Merc ship DEMON-Q,? the voice crackled, ?shields are being lowered. You have clearance to land at docking bay 4 at Laudu.?

?Thanks a bunch.? I replied.

We entered the planet?s atmosphere and the bucking and shaking woke up Frank.

?Hey?a! Can?tcha keep the damn thing steady?? he yelled.

?Well, get yer furry ass up here an? help me!? I yelled back.

?Fine, fine.?

And in a second he was in the co-pilot?s seat. We were now in Laudu airspace, hovering down to the docking bay.

I let the landing gear down and turned on the stabilizers, but the landing was still a bit rough.

?Damn! I thought you said you could land this tin can!?

I told Frank to shove it, then flipped him off.

We stepped off the ship, the welcoming committee arrived, our little squabble disappeared, and we put on our ?happy faces.?
Three friggin? steps off the ramp, and Frank is surrounded by poodles. Now, I don?t know how Frank does it, but he gets it.

?Hiya, Frankie, howzabout you an? me go out for a walk?? I heard one poodle say.

?Ooh, no, Frank! Come with me!?

Then all the others started chiming in.

Including me.

?Oh, Frankie, would you please help me? This suitcase is just sooo heavy!? I said in my sweetest voice, then I started making kissy noises.

Frank heard me, and not even drawing himself away from sucking face with one of his bitches, he flipped me off. Good ole? Frank.
So, I started heading to my apartment. I passed the various shops?some sex shops, some shops specializing in contraband, you know, guns, drugs, that kinda? shit.

I looked over the contents of the display window of one gun shop. Nothing special. However, I looked farther back into the store, and I saw the Holy Grail of rifles. I had only read about it, but this was the first time I saw it.

Supposedly it was built on a rail gun?s frame, but had a revolutionary power cell. Let me see if I can remember this; The power cell is something they call the ?Matter Energy Displacement Chamber,? or something like that. I believe it draws energy from the matter around it, then amplifies the energy through a hand-sized particle accelerator. That energy is then shot out like a normal rail gun round, only with more power. I think I read it can level skyscrapers with one shot.

Weird thing is, it was still in development last I heard. I didn?t even know it was mass-produced already. But imagine, the power of it.

I have to have that gun.

But credits are a deciding factor, and I needed all of them for my rent. Of course, I still wouldn?t have enough for my rent, but that?s not the point. I figure I?ll just bullshit the landlord again. Say I was robbed or something.

Well, I got back to my place. Frank wasn?t home, probably wouldn?t be for a couple of hours. Man, he loves getting tail.
My apartment is pretty much how life is:
Cluttered with junk, confusing, and filthy.

If it wasn?t for the doorways, I couldn?t even tell where one room ended and the next one began. Anyway, I checked my email.
Jesus, there were so many free porn offers and casino lotteries. I tell you, the world is being flushed right down the shitter. I was about to sign off when one email caught my eye.

I didn?t recognize the sender, but I recognized the subject.
?I hear you help people.?

That means credits. Turns out it was a video mail. The file started playing, and I got the first look at my new client.
Damn, she was beautiful. Piercing blue eyes, blonde hair, nice tan. Yeah, she was beautiful.

She offered me 3000 credits to meet her. We agreed to meet at Vinny?s, an Italian restaurant in District 2. I wore my black suit, nuthin? fancy, but nice.

Now the thing is, District 2 is essentially a war zone. There?ve been riots and gang wars since the late 21st Century. The hookers and druggies have free roam, and you can?t go fifteen friggin? feet without a body being thrown out a window, or off a roof, or from a moving hover car. No, District 2 is definitely not a place to be without protection. Now, since I wasn?t feeling like my usual tough self, I was packing.

One of my favourites, in fact. A PV-2. Now the great thing about the PV-2, see, is that it can fit in the palm of your hand, easily conceable. It?s lightweight, and has three different firing modes. The first, and a personal favourite of mine, the ?Wide-spread Shock Blast.? It simulates a nuke?s shockwave but without the radiation. It can create a ten foot-wide crater with one round. It?s fuckin? amazing to see. Bodies flying everywhere, rubble and debris thrown around, all with pulling a trigger.

The second mode creates a pinpoint energy pulse, capable of cleanly punching a dime-sized hole through a fifteen-foot thick slab of Korite. Another thing that?s great about the second mode is it can ?see? through walls. Now, it?s too small to have an LCD, so its developers combined the gun itself with a holograph projection system. This thing is pretty damn freaky. Imagine a thermal-tracker, but in a full 3D image. That?s what the thing looks like.

The third mode isn?t anything spectacular. Just a proxy self-destruct.

I set the PV-2 on Mode 2.

Now I?m walking down Corridor 12, see, and I pass all the low-life?s who haunt the streets at night. Hookers, Heavy L. dealers, Heavy L. buyers, Pimps, Contraband dealers, Contraband buyers, Smugglers. Some human, some not.

?Hey, baby, whadd?ya need?? One ?Lady of the Evening? said as she pulled back her jacket and revealed her chest, and her four breasts. I kept walking.

Again, ?Hunnie, I can do things to ya? that ya? neva? imagined.? Another hooker offered. I kept walking.

I passed more hookers, and some street punks. They walked by- no, make that stumbled by, obviously high on some shit. Their hair was spiked and colored gold, their head and face were tattooed, and from what I could tell, they had a few cybernetic augmentations. Now the thing I don?t like about aug?s, is they amplify your strength too much. You crush shit by accident. But that?s not the bad part. The bad part is that if the aug isn?t bonded right, or wired to your nervous system right, then there?s an eighty-two percent chance your aug will malfunction, then you?ll probably have a nervous breakdown, just as your spinal fluid dries up. Then your brain dissolves in its own juices, and you fall to the ground, a quivering mass of jelly. It?s not a pretty sight.

My old business partner, Paul, died like that. It?s been a couple of years now. Damn, Paul was a good shit, he shouldn?t have died. The surgeon was fuckin? incompetent. I don?t know why Paul went to him for the aug?s. Of course, after Paul died, I shot the surgeon in his fuckin? head. It was pretty damn funny. I casually walked into the receptionist?s office, walked up to the window, and asked to see the doc. They let me in, they had to. I made an appointment. So, I got stuck in another waiting room for another Goddamn twenty minutes. Waiting in this small room, waiting for ?Doctor Dickhead.? He finally walked in, and I got my first good look at him.

He looked like, well, to quote an old saying from the late twentieth century, a ?nerd.? He had a pair of thick, black-rimmed glasses, he was going bald, you could tell he didn?t get out in the sun, ?cause he was pale as hell, and he had a wheeze when he talked. That wheeze really got on my nerves. So now he walked in, slightly hunched over, and with that same wheezy voice he said to me,

?Well, ah- what seems to be the problem, son??

I stood up. ?You know exactly what the problem is, you fucking quack.?

Then I pulled out a little laser pistol and aimed it straight at his forehead. He really didn?t know what to say. He could only gasp in fear.

?Remember a little aug job you performed?? I continued, ?a couple of weeks ago? The patient?s name was Paul? Yeah, you remember. Yeah, Paul WAS a good friend of mine. He?s dead now. And it?s your fault.?

And then, I shot him. His brains smeared all over the wall.
Then I walked out. And that was the end of it.

[Mimmsicle]

[COLOR=firebrick]This is a very interesting piece ^_^


In the beginning it sounds like a teenage boy talking, only with better grammar *cough*[/color]
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Then it unnoticably changes into the slightly older, action movie kinda guy. Buff, not bothered, cool as a can of fine ale.
[size=1]You get what I'm saying >___>[/size]
This happens after you've explained how the dog came into the guys' keep.
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Then at the apartment, after he reads the e-mail, it goes into "private eye" mode.
I could almost invision him sitting at his desk with his feet on the table. Wearing a trench coat, sunglasses and a hat. Going through the case he just landed.
[size=1]Sort of like Calvin, in "Calvin and Hobbes" >___>[/size]
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I can't pipoint the exact passage the next change came, it felt very well incorporated into the story.
The guy takes on an aura [size=1](I've no better word for it)[/size] of psycho level.
It becomes very clear that this is not the kinda guy you want to mess with.
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It'd be interesting to see where you take this story.
You could very well be onto something good here ~_^

- Mimmi[/COLOR]