by Stephen R. Smith | Nov 21, 2008 | Story
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
The bullet blistered past the right side of Stryker’s helmet, so close that for a good minute or so he was deaf in that ear before the pain gave way to a dull ringing.
“Stupid bastard,” he muttered under his breath.
The sniper he’d been tracking for the past few weeks was across the street, in another row of vacated low rises. Hiding in the rubble, clambering across broken rooftops and crawling through battered buildings, they were playing a dangerous game of cat and mouse.
The Sergeant, hugging the floor, crawled the length of the room and squeezed through a broken partition into an adjacent building.
It was his crew that cleared the way when they colonized this planet, before the locals decided to defy the company and separate. He’d fought hard for this rock, and he’d be damned if some dumb-ass villager with a rifle was going to stop him from keeping it under company control.
Stryker flattened himself against the back wall in the darkness, irising his goggles out full to capture every available lumen. Plucking a fist size chunk of rubble from the floor he tossed it sideways through the hole he’d just crawled through. There was the barest of whispers as a bullet split the air, but in the muffled muzzle flash he could make out the faint silhouette of the body coiled in the darkness behind it.
Very slowly he raised his weapon, pausing only to freeze and adjust the image in his heads up before squeezing off three rounds in a tight rising line.
Drop.
Breathe.
Without hesitation, Stryker crawled until he found a hole in the floor he could squeeze through, dropping silently into the room below. He ran, hurdling an empty window frame and raced across the vacant street. Slipping through a crumbling doorway he stopped. Above him, close by, he should find his wounded opponent.
It took an eternity to find a route to the second floor, and longer still to pick his way through the wreckage to the room in which the sniper had taken refuge. Stryker had shouldered his rifle in favour of a large bore handheld, the longer weapon unwieldy in close quarters. He could hear laboured breathing from outside the room, and though his weapon was at the ready, nothing could have prepared him for the child lying bleeding inside.
Only one of his shots had found its target, tearing a bloody hole in her torso. The rifle that had been so deadly accurate lay forgotten at an angle across her legs, the weapon nearly half as long as she would be tall. Her bare feet were calloused and bloody, her body lean and muscular but visibly undernourished. He couldn’t fathom how she’d managed to heft the weapon, much less kill a dozen of his unit with it.
Large tear filled eyes met his in the gloom.
He lowered his weapon, struggling over whether to try to save her, or put her out of her misery here. The lives she’d taken wouldn’t make it easy for her if she survived the trip back.
He was still undecided when he heard a round chambering beside his still ringing right ear.
“This is our rock,” the second woman stood just out of reach, face invisible beyond the gaping maw of the barrel leveled at his head, “you stupid bastard.”
by Stephen R. Smith | Nov 14, 2008 | Story
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
Street-lamps outside lit her bare flesh an iridescent blue, but he knew in the absence of light, she was chiseled obsidian, black as the sun was bright.
“It’s been a while,” her voice low and gentle, “I wasn’t sure you’d come back.”
Logan unrolled a soft-case on the night table beside the bed, absently fingering the half dozen syringes nestled within. It was going to be a long night.
“I could never stay away,” he read her face from where he sat on the edge of her bed, “I told you I’d come back, didn’t I?”
Taking her face in his hands, he felt her hair stalks bristle beneath his palms, the beating of her hearts carried up his arms as her pulse quickened.
Her hands found flesh beneath his shirt, and holding him so tight his ribs ached beneath the pressure, she pulled him over her to leave him gasping on his back beside her. She wasted no time flaying his clothing from his body, razor sharp claws extending and retracting, slicing fabric, grazing flesh but never drawing blood. When she mounted him, it was with the fury of an animal. Her breath came in frenzied gasps. His hands guiding her hips at first before sliding across her muscled body, to her breasts, then to her face. Where he touched her, her flesh turned the colour of sun touched pink as her body mimicked his own.
Flattening herself against him she pressed her mouth against his, forcing her tongue between his lips. She bit gently, serrated teeth tearing into flesh. He felt the fire of her saliva rushing into his bloodstream. His heart begin to pound, the muscle labouring as though to burst the confines of his chest. As his body stiffened, her excitement intensified, and she sat upright, heaving against him with renewed vigor.
The sensation was exquisite; his pupils fixed and dilated, his field of view remained filled with her taught, muscular flesh seemingly lit from within. Unable to blink he watched as her own lower lids closed, her eyes now translucent yellow, staring through him for what seemed like an eternity before she squeezed the upper lids shut, crying out in pleasure. Her moans washed over him in waves, the powerful paralyzers in her saliva mixed now with endorphins as her other fluids flooded his system. She had intoxicated him completely as he came, the feeling strange with his body now completely immobile and consciousness rapidly giving way to euphoric nothingness. His heart counted off his final moments in beats, unbearable in their intensity while alarming in their diminishing frequency.
In the moment he was sure he would slip away forever, the happiest of departures, he felt a lance of pain through his chest. With a sudden intake of air, his lungs filled and his heart resumed a laboured but steady beating. One by one he felt his muscles unclench, his body gradually relaxing into the sweat soaked sheets beneath him. He had barely the energy to moan as she withdrew the needle from his chest, laying the empty syringe with the others on the night table.
“That…” he could barely move enough air to make a sound.
“Shh,” she placed a finger on his lips, “you need to rest.” She curled up beside him, placing her head on his chest. “I’m glad you came back.”
Logan closed his eyes, feeling the lingering effects of her coaxing him toward sleep.
“Loving you may kill me,” he finally breathed, “but leaving you surely would.”
by Stephen R. Smith | Oct 28, 2008 | Story
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
As the relative calm of midnight in the projects was broken by a series of tightly spaced explosions, Tiberius knew he’d made a serious, and perhaps fatal mistake letting their prey separate him from his brother.
Tiberius shifted his weight onto the balls of his feet as he ran, water torn from puddles streaming out behind him. Weapon in hand, he followed the sound through an alley onto the next block, his breath measured, heart rate barely rising.
In the street to his left, a crumpled mass confirmed his fear. Gaius. Tiberius hugged the wall, slowing as he closed the distance. On the ground a few feet from his fallen brother lay a cluster of discarded alloy cylinders; casings from mechanical ignition rounds. They weren’t scanning for those, an error they wouldn’t repeat.
Gaius curled face down in a pool of his own blood. The hunted had shot him in the back; the work of a coward, or the very afraid. They’d almost had him, they were this close.
Tiberius knew they’d be alone now, the prey would have taken the opportunity to distance himself from here. For both, this was a time to regroup.
Gingerly lifting his brother from the asphalt and sitting behind him, Tiberius pulled Gaius to his chest. Steadying his head between his hands, he polled his fading synaptic field, lifting the entirety of his brother’s experience since last they’d synchronized. He felt the chase, the anticipation of confrontation, sudden searing pain through his back, and finally, death. As he felt his own heart rate plummet, he pulled back, letting his brother go.
Hoisting the limp mass of the fallen man over one broad shoulder, Tiberius began the long walk home. “He ain’t heavy,” Tiberius spoke out loud to no-one, and smiled.
Once in the relative safety of their loft, Tiberius lowered his brother gently into a cavity in the floor. Opening a series of valves he watched as fluid sluiced in through the open rim. While the cylinder filled, he wandered into the kitchen, retrieved several cartons of supplemental protein and carbohydrates, and drank them while locking down the room. Fire doors crawled down the walls; heavy insulated alloy barriers turning the small apartment into a vault. The network inside isolated itself; from the outside periodic news feed queries would maintain the impression of active occupation, and a grocery order to be placed in a few weeks would ensure there would be supplies when needed.
Preparations complete, Tiberius removed his clothing, showered away the dirt and blood of the hunt, then climbed down into a second cavity in the floor adjacent to that of his brother.
Through the glass, Tiberius watched the nanotech already breaking down Gaius’ corpse, exposing raw muscle and bone to the soup of proteins and enzymes surrounding him. Placing his own hands into contoured pads, he surrendered to the process. Fluid quickly filled the tank, and he barely shuddered as it flooded his lungs. The nanotech, gelling the fluid around him, oriented his brother’s still cooling hands into the identical contours mirrored on the other side of the glass. With a blueprint to follow, the deconstruction of Gaius focused, tearing down only what needed to be repaired, or rebuilt.
Tiberius allowed himself to drift into a meditative trance. In a few weeks, his brother would be whole again, his memories restored from their unique system of backup. They would share a meal, and then they would go hunting again. Now the contract was secondary, their primary motivator was much more personal.
by Stephen R. Smith | Oct 15, 2008 | Story
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
Truger loathed recreational narcotics; he could never understand the point. Hallucinogens, depressants, all of them ran completely counter to his personality.
This made his current situation unbearable.
He remembered the moments before the crash, the low orbit sky-fight, the enemy fighters he’d engaged and the victory that he’d been sure of, one snatched away in a hail of flak as they’d strayed too close to the anti-aircraft emplacements. His last memory was of the gaping hole in his cockpit, and the cauterized stumps of his freshly truncated arms and leg.
He remembered waking here.
The first hallucination had been the spiders. He hadn’t seen them as his eyes were bandaged, but he felt them navigate across his body, clicking and chattering, poking and prodding. He’d been trained to overcome foreign chemicals in his system, and he tried as best he could. The bandages were peeled back from his eyes, tiny metal appendages pulling away the mesh to let the light in. Somewhere far away, someone began screaming. His drug-enhanced imagination fed him back his own face reflected in a hundred shining facets. Seconds stretched into minutes before a sharp pain in his shoulder redirected his attention, and, as the light dimmed, he was aware that the screaming had stopped.
When next he awoke, the room had changed. The bugs were gone, and everything was bathed in a green white glow, it’s edges blurred and indistinct. Truger tried to sit upright, but his torso was too heavy. He concentrated instead on his drug-heavy hands, and as he struggled with them, the memory of cauterized limb fragments flashed back, vivid and real. The panicked surge of adrenaline helped him pull them into his line of sight but instead of familiar or even burnt flesh he found clear, crystalline limbs of stunning beauty. He marveled as the light refracted through their internal structures, until their weight finally overcame his strength.
He had to wake up. This hallucinogenic daydream was too much.
Somewhere, someone was screaming again.
Truger couldn’t remember falling asleep, or being awoken again. The light had changed, and a flurry of activity in his peripheral vision begged for his attention. His head was too leaden to move, so he strained his eyes to the left and wished he hadn’t. A doctor, resplendent in his gown, moved in and out of his field of view conversing with a nurse. Their heads both stretched impossibly in the dim light, elongated and flailing whip-like at the air. The doctor’s arms tapered off into slender, excessively jointed digits which undulated as he spoke. Their words were no more than melodic chirps to Truger’s intoxicated mind. That people took these chemicals into their system willingly and for entertainment was beyond his comprehension. The images they superimposed on his reality terrified him, and he squeezed his eyes shut as though willing the distorted shapes to disappear.
He felt something in his personal space, and opened his eyes to the faces of the medical staff, pressed close and staring, eyes now faceted and double lidded, mouths a quivering mass of vertical fleshy strips.
“Stop giving me drugs,” he screamed into their startled faces, the force of his words driving them back. “I can suffer the pain, but these drugs, you’re driving me out of my mind.” The effort taxed him to near unconsciousness. As his awareness slipped away into blackness, he whispered simply “no drugs”, a series of sound-waves the doctors chirped and clicked about for some time, trying to decipher what these noises could possibly mean.
by Stephen R. Smith | Sep 12, 2008 | Story
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
Claire cleared the fire-doors just moments before they sealed the lab. She knew they would hold for a while, but still ran down the corridor dragging the unconscious Doctor behind her. He out-massed her by a wide margin, but she severely outmuscled him.
The outer doors irised out of their way, and she dragged the Doctor to a clear space on the floor. There was no time for niceties. Without hesitation she drove a large catheter into the Femoral artery in his thigh, leaving the unsecured end to spasm as blood pumped through it onto the floor.
She tore through the supply cabinets and returned with a cryogel pack and injector, which she hurriedly assembled and drove through his chest and into his heart. The gel pack flooded his vital organs with its oxygen rich preservative while Claire counted the agonizing minutes, his life pooling on the floor, sticky about her feet.
When she was sure the bleeding had stopped, she set to with a scalpel, quickly removing every appendage that was too big to fit into a cryocan. When she was finished, the Doctor had been reduced to a head and torso, limbs cut clean revealing the pink sponge-like gel that had replaced all his bodily fluid.
Outside she could hear heavy equipment at the fire-doors. They’d be through in a matter of minutes and could not be allowed to capture her. What she knew they would extract bit by bit, cell by data saturated cell until not even the one with her name on it remained intact.
She hoisted the Doctor from the floor, abandoning the off-cut pieces and carried him to the reactor anti-chamber. She retrieved a cryocan from the lab and hurriedly stuffed him inside. Slipping the wiring harness into place and pushing the steel pickups in through unfeeling flesh she paused, bent, and kissed his cooling lips.
She sealed the canister and hoisted it over the railing, leapt gazelle-like after it and bending nearly double, at a run pushed the canister across the safety apron and launched it into the pool of coolant. She watched for a moment to be sure it sank before sprinting back across the steel floor, hurdling the railing and hurtling back through the lab, opening valves and spilling large containers of chemicals. Corrosives splashed at her skin, but she ignored her burning flesh, focused instead on priming an explosive cocktail in the tightly enclosed room.
Satisfied that there would be no evidence left behind, she dropped into a chair and jacked a fibre cable through the pickup in her ear.
“Claire. Emergency upload protocol. Tango Romeo Uniform Sierra Tango.”
A voice in her head responded, “Charlie Lima Alpha bio acknowledged. Outbound transmissions offline.”
“Override. Nuclear environmental reporting channel. Possible burn-through.”
“Override engaged. Nuclear EV channel online. Destination EPA.”
“Override. Destination random. Public internet cafe. Sweden.”
“Override engaged. Upload commencing.”
Claire felt her life siphoning from her physical self and flood out onto the network, and as she became less aware of the burning of her flesh, she became instantly aware of the Special Ops forces breaching the outer fire door, of the agents surrounding the complex, and of the intense fireball that erupted from the lab, vapourizing the recent incarnation of Claire in flesh and the scraps of the Doctor she’d scattered on the floor.
As she poured from the back channel out on the nets into Sweden, she hoped she could highjack a body at least as capable as the one she’d abandoned. She was going to need something special to get her Doctor back.
