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Apparently it's not bad enough to keep posting in the Terrible thread. ====================  Network Traffic Prologue Recommended Background Music We're howling down the 12 lane hyperway now, the old contraband R1 and me. An old crash-salvage track bike, it wasn't registered when the black boxes became mandatory and I managed to clone a licence chip from another registered bike of the same colour. I'm riding the faded painted remains of a lane divider, dead centre of the road, they painted them on when the road was new. They never bothered to re-paint them. The regimented blocks of commuter pods split out of their high efficiency drafting algorithms like shoals of fish as the sensor packs pick up the speeding predator now amongst them. There's a swarm of high speed drones going full tilt behind me now but the bike has had a little work and it will push over 180mph on the latest synthetic fuels. They're no-doubt still flashing shutdown codes at me in futility as I pull away. Of course, the high altitude optical systems will have me by now, it's only a matter of time before a tech in a Kampala data-centre authorises the pods to perform a rolling roadblock. I tuck in hard and twist the throttle tube harder against the stops like it will make a difference, exit 0x2AF3 is my only hope now. The old Yoshimura pipe is pumping out a high, flat howl somewhere behind me. The speedo has all but frozen at 184mph and the commuter pods are struggling to get out of the way without jostling the digitally sedated inhabitants. I catch flashes of startled faces through toughened glass and allow myself a little smirk thinking about hot, spilled lattes flying around the cabins. A pole bristling with sensors and antennae marks 3 miles to the exit, one minute at this speed but I'll have to start slowing down before then. Exit 0x2AF3 is a rough splice onto an old section of legacy highway going east into the rough country and it's used so little that there is often a fine film of green moss on the surface. Forty-five seconds. I look to my mirrors and immediately give up, the vibrations are turning everything behind me into a blur of road, sky and startled multi-colour blobs. I'll find out if the interceptor drones have given up soon enough. I feel my knuckles creak as I start to release the throttle tube. I've been holding on too tight because of the adrenaline and I'm lucky that I haven't sent the bike into violent headshake. Thirty seconds, I can see the exit up ahead now. Still too fast, I rest a finger on the lever and start to apply pressure and I feel the sintered pads start to bite. With an almost telepathic push on the bars I point the bike towards the far lane where another big train of streamlined composite sheep are huddled. They start to shuffle as I approach, embedded systems frantically calculating and recalculating my changing trajectory until the hive mind makes the executive decision to split the herd to avoid a collision. The trailing group rapidly slows as the lead group adds a sudden burst of emergency acceleration from the torquey brushless motors to make a gap and I slide between them like I've got a force-field. Fifteen seconds. I'm matching speed with them now and to my surprise the opaque rear glass on the pod in front of me flips to transparent as a sleepy-eyed child struggles to focus on the world outside. He blinks at the bike and suddenly the eyes are as big as saucers, mouth agape. He raises his hand to the glass and I go to give him a thumbs up when his gaze suddenly shifts to somewhere over my shoulder. I already know what I'm going to see as I twist my head to look. First Technician Mbire has come back from the snack machine and slammed the "Detain" button. Seven or eight pods from the trailing group have split off into a C-shaped formation in my blind spot and now they're strafing towards me at an alarming speed. As I whip my head back towards the exit lane I'm left with the impression of faces obscured by various devices livecasting the imminent arrest, backlit by emergency-red interior lighting. The entertainment systems will be busy telling the occupants to remain calm while their vehicles are commandeered for important law enforcement business. Zero. I give the bars a push and the bike tips into the turn like a fighter jet evading a missile. I cross onto the off-ramp much too fast and dangerously late, missing the divider by inches. It's only a gentle curve for the first hundred yards and I'm trail braking as hard as I dare, waiting for that stomach wrenching feeling of the front end starting to let go. A flash of red light in the mirror. poo poo, did one of them make the exit? I'm still too fast and I can see the deadly frosting of green on the bend ahead. I'm fighting the urge to keep staring at it, if I fixate now I'm hosed. I have to override the lizard brain, look to the exit. What exit? A single, dangerous thought suddenly cuts through the wall of noise in my head. Not even a thought really, more like a sensation or a memory of a sensation; Dirt bikes in the fields, banked corners and ruts. I suddenly know that this isn't just the best chance I have, it's the only chance. I allow the bike to edge closer to the smooth concrete barrier until my world is filled with flying grit and gravel. As the bike runs up against the barrier the bars twitch and I know I'm just along for the ride now. I keep the throttle steady as the corner tightens and I get pushed down into the seat, not daring to change a single input. As my head gets pushed down towards the tank I catch a glimpse of something in the mirror. It must be one of the pods, the red light is now complimented by orange hazard lights flashing as the traction control slowly loses the fight with the moss. In normal operations the TC in these things would have had no trouble but evidently the law enforcement protocols were overriding several safety interlocks for improved performance. As I force my attention back to what is in front of me I can see the exit onto the old deprecated highway now, I can also see the rock. It's about the size of my fist, it's right in the gutter and there's no avoiding it. The suspension is already near bottom when the front wheel meets it and my chin bar smacks into the top of the tank. As it meets the rear the bike jumps under me and I'm out of the seat as the bike careens out onto the old tarmac across several lanes. The bike bucks one way and then the next underneath me and I do my best to go loose and let it right itself. I fall back into the seat just in time to avoid the central reservation when I hear a huge crash from behind. I coast to a crawl and twist around to see the pod has flipped over the reservation and is now laying upside down amongst a thousand composite fragments, safety windows now nearly opaque but still intact. gently caress. I pull a u-turn through a gap in the reservation and set the bike, still running, on the kickstand next to the stricken vehicle. The emergency release cables for the door have been exposed by the breakaway covers and with the adrenaline still surging I rip at the handle, pulling the door open more violently than I intended. In Kampala, First Technician Mbire finally remembers to breathe as the call gets auto-prioritised up to Task Co-ordinator Onek. The inside of the pod looks like a grocery aisle exploded, it must have just been on a shopping run. Organic pasta sauce and smashed eggs coat the interior, but I'm relieved to see there are no human passengers. Did the pursuit algorithms take that into account? Risk the exit because no-one was in there? It's been a while since I really looked into the state of the technology in these things and they are always pushing down tweaks and patches. I don't have time to think about it now, the high altitude systems will be watching all of this in glorious composite multi-wavelength and it will only be a matter of minutes before a second wave of Authority arrives. poo poo, maybe even a real live operator; I've made enough of a mess for sure. I swing a leg over the bike and I feel the heat rising up through the cowling vents into my perforated leather jacket. Real leather too, not the stuff made by algae. A long time ago this had been responsible for wrapping an actual cow. The trousers are synth of course, but what can you do? Since the production ban the genuine stuff has all but been priced out of reach of us mere mortals by collectors and the retro fashion crowd. If I can make it to the gorge I might just lose my optical pursuers, they'd have to be right over head to maintain a fix in there and it's basically a radio dead zone to boot. I'm cruising at 150mph with only a fifth of a tank left when the shadow of the rapid response carrier flashes over me. It must either be a slow day or they were just in the neighbourhood. The RRC's usually only get called out to violent crime, they're mostly gifted to the Police from military branches. The sight of it triggers unwelcome memories of Gulf 3.5 and I can almost taste the Iodine and feel the sand in my teeth all over again. They're barking orders at me with a directional speaker but I can't hear it over the earplugs, helmet and a race exhaust. The latter has only the abstract concept of packing remaining inside. As I chance a look up there is an operator in a flight suit and helmet hanging out of the side door brandishing a huge slab of white plastic with a rifle stock at one end and danger-orange warning stickers at the other. I don't have an ECU or immobiliser to gently caress with but it's not like he knows that. I still feel a little flutter in the engine as the RF pulse causes the CDI box to miss a couple of strokes, even stripped down the bike still has enough of a wiring loom to act as an antenna. I hear the intakes sucking down gallons of air as I wrench the flat-slide carbs fully open again and the speedo starts climbing, I'm no match for the four tilting turbofans of an RRC but it makes me feel better. Ahead of me I can see an exit coming up to an old industrial centre, derelict factory buildings and warehouses stare back at me with empty windows for eyes and gaping black entrances for mouths. Is this opportunity knocking? I hit the brakes and the RRC rockets ahead of me up the road for half a mile before the pilot gets the turbofans flipped and he roars and banks in a maneuvre which must have buckled the legs of anyone standing in the back. I fling the bike up the off-ramp to the derelict estate between potholes and abandoned plant equipment heading for a promising looking building; Large and oddly shaped with lots of entrances. I'm rewarded with what looks like an old production floor with multiple connecting corridors and offices. A real warren, perfect. I switch on the old LED flashlight that serves as a headlight through a hole cut in the race fairing near where the factory lights would be, it's not exactly approved running gear but it's twice as bright as the OEMs ever were. The low burble of the i4 reverberates down the corridors until I find a storage room to stash the bike in. Switching off the engine and the little flashlight I am enveloped by darkness and the smell of hot exhaust and brakes. I pull off my helmet and extract the ear plugs. I can hear the engine tick and ping below me now as the various parts cool. It smells like I might have barfed some coolant out the overflow too. I can also hear the turbofan howl of the RRC outside, sounds like they're coming down for a look inside. I unclip the battered soft luggage pack strapped to the tail and check the contents. The bag is lined with a hidden knit steel mesh to form a tiny faraday cage, ostensibly for privacy reasons but an added bonus today was not losing half my gear to the high decibel bark of the RF gun. I pull out a gun of my own that looks like it was made from the unholy union of a pistol grip soldering iron and a slim metallised snack tube, largely because that's exactly what it was made from. An embedded computer the size of my thumbnail is hot glued to the side with a few soldered wires reaching off it onto a tiny software-defined RF module and an old monochrome OLED display glued onto the back. I cross the storage room and place the gun on a shelf facing the bike before hitting the power button. The trigger works, but it doesn't need to, I can control the thing entirely from a shell session on my pocket slate. I sling the pack over my shoulder before scurrying back out onto the production floor. Vaulting over several dead conveyor belts and the empty base plates for assembly 'bots I climb an access ladder to a mezzanine level where I can see a fire escape door sitting ajar. As I reach the exit I see two burly figures hunched over assault carbines slink in the main door and a side entrance respectively. I duck behind an old refrigerated vending machine, the front long smashed in. My leather suit has several vapour-deposited coatings including a disruptive dazzle pattern only visible in the near infrared. It helps, but the operators are each wearing multi-wavelength headsets and I'm still far from invisible. One of the pair has wings on his coveralls; I'm in luck, it's just a two man crew. The RRCs are so easy to fly these days that you rarely find a dedicated pilot. They stop suddenly and Pilot-Operator Buzzcut Mc Roidrage reaches into his thigh pouch and pulls out a little black puck. He tosses it into the corridor that leads to the bike and then straightens up a little as he starts to tilt his head looking to all the world like a dog watching a fly buzz around a room. The goggles are feeding him enhanced high definition stereo video from the little tactical drone. As he resumes his tactical hunch and they start towards the corridor I slip outside onto the fire exit. ReelBigLizard fucked around with this message at 20:27 on Dec 23, 2015 |
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Dec 5, 2015 13:24
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The RRC is slumped in the middle of the weed-strewn car park. The rotors aren’t moving but the engines are making the shrill whine of a turbine on tick-over, maintaining power for the avionics and comms suites most likely. If I approach it now there’s a good chance it would just lift straight up and away, depending on the standby protocol the pilot had selected before locking it up. I pull out my pocket slate from the bag of tricks and as soon as I get a command prompt I swipe up through the shell history to the last time I connected to the gun.code:The exploit is very new, and only known to the handful of loosely affiliated security grey-hats who developed it, of which I was one. One of the guys had discovered the flaw a couple of months ago and the first real-world test had been cloning the license chip for the R1. We might find a darknet buyer for the exploit in time but right now it was far too useful to let out in the wild. code:code:I drop from the fire escape and jog across the car park towards the bulbous, matte charcoal shape of the RRC. As I near the vehicle I’m waiting for all hell to break loose. It’s almost an anticlimax when I reach the side door and the release button dutifully turns green to let me in. The thought does occur to try and steal the thing, but I’m trying to de-escalate here, not get the national guard after me. I climb in and pull up the corner of the no-slip floor mat to reveal a manhole sized panel decorated with neatly stencilled yellow-black stripes and “Authorised Service Personnel Only”. I fumble in the bag for my micro impact driver and the box of security sockets. It feels like forever as I click the mil-spec 5-lobe asymmetric socket into place and rattle the 4 captive access bolts out. An ultra-compact high-output two-stroke motor is revealed as I lift the panel up and let it flop back on it’s retaining cables. The motor is of an esoteric square-piston design originally developed by a guy called Hossack. BAE had waited until he died to reveal their version of the design of course. Asymmetric port timing and the square section bore makes for good power in a very small package. This standard unit is included in many military vehicles now. It serves as an emergency jump pack for vehicles in the field when batteries go below safe operating voltage. It has a pre-pressurised fuel system good for dozens of starts and the synthetic 100 octane fuel can sit in the fuel cells indefinitely. I pop a couple of lever latches, pull the two fuel cells from their sockets and throw them in my bag. Looking at the console in the cockpit I see from the operator feeds that they’ve started sweeping the rest of the building for me. It won’t be long before they realise I’m not in there. I turn around to the armoury rack to see another inviting green unlock button. Before I raid the toy-box however there is something else to do. I pull out the impact driver again and this time attack six bolts on a heavy panel set in the ceiling. The systems in these birds are RF shielded by design mostly but the really sensitive circuits are all protected in the shielded box now gaping open above me. I turn back to the weapons rack and pull the chunky white plastic RF gun they tried to stop me with before. It’s designed to work on targets up to 75m away so at this range we'll probably be letting out some of the magic blue smoke from the circuits above. I wedge the gun hard between two fold-down seats, aiming the muzzle up into the heart of the open compartment, and grab the pilot’s helmet from the front seat. I pass one end of the chin strap through the trigger guard of the wedged rifle and secure it to the tab on the other side. Helmet in hand I glance back over to the console to see where my new friends have gone. One picture is showing a dim, semi flooded basement and the other is showing what looks like derelict office space. I lower the weight of the helmet onto the trigger and the pulse charge indicator lights up on the side of the rifle through the white plastic body. It’s going to take about a minute before the capacitor bank is charged. I hop down out of the cabin and slide the door shut before running like hell back towards the fire escape ladder. ReelBigLizard fucked around with this message at 17:06 on Dec 5, 2015 |
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Dec 5, 2015 16:53
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El Jebus posted:When can I buy the book!? I'd be lying if I said I knew where the gently caress this was heading. 3500 words in less than 24 hours is probably a personal best. I'll just write until it stops coming to mind I guess. Skier posted:"A Nice Morning Drive," cyberpunk flavor. Good poo poo. Always enjoyed that one and it has definitely been floating on the horizon of my consciousness while I've been writing this. Wasabi the J posted:My internal soundtrack as I read this synched up pretty nicely to some of the following albums Thanks, I had somehow failed to stumble upon Night Runner so far. I'll throw in Mega Drive and Birdy Nam Nam https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3NoYyNKSXQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJLTn10E0OY
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Dec 5, 2015 20:31
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The City 2 Hours Earlier I’m sitting on the R1 in a cool, darkened corner of a near empty parking garage. No-one at this end of town bothers to own a vehicle any more, they just take out a subscription and when they need to be someplace a pod shows up and shuttles them wherever they want to go like magic. It’s so efficient that the pods rarely stop except to charge or get serviced. Network strength is strong at this particular spot which is good because I’m waiting for a message. I don’t usually take rush jobs but the client is a regular, or what passes for a regular in this game, we’d never met and never would. The message will tell me the dead drop is ready, it will appear on the profile of one of this weeks teen celebrities disguised as a specifically worded message from a fan. The dead drop location will be one of a pre-shared one-time list of 5. I rarely do more than 5 jobs for a given client, they usually just vanish into the ether after one or two. A couple of times it has corresponded with the arrest of a high profile corporate spy or a rogue CTO but at this level it’s just as likely they’re the patsy and my former client is relaxing with a new identity in a €40m villa in Montenegro. The jobs vary. My bread and butter is smuggling data to and from sensitive jurisdictions, sometimes I move hardware but never anything over the size of a chocolate bar. The majority of my jobs are a result of darknet referrals from trusted nodes. I’ve got a decent reputation, as much as is possible for someone with no real identity. Payment is a system of my own devising. Most of my personal fortune is tied up in so-called alternative investments, collectables like stamps and vintage watches. It’s managed by a very discreet and talented personal broker in Cyprus. The Cypriot lists the item on a high-value online auction site and I tell the client to bid a healthy price over the estimate against another “collector” who will give up at a set price. To all the world it looks like I’m just another investor with a savvy broker and the average item value in the portfolio has scaled nicely with my fees as I’ve grown my reputation. What the client does with the item after that is up to them, maybe some of them keep it as an investment, 5 years down the line it might actually be worth what they paid. The pocket slate secured on top of the fuel tank emits a sound like a coin pickup from an 8-bit arcade game, indicating that the script watching the feed has matched a message. Looking down I see the message for Humboldt Park, the benches by the boathouse. Only a couple of blocks away. I pull on my helmet and hit the starter. I’ve been waiting for a couple of hours and the engine is dead cold. I feed it a little throttle at the same time and it catches eventually. The 41mm FCR flat-slide carburetors are better suited to racing use on a big i4 like this and unforgiving for those riders lacking finesse. Rolling west towards the park I keep the revs low, I’ve got an aftermarket noise-cancelling quick-release baffle in the exhaust but I can probably still defeat it if I give it the beans. It’s about the only way you can legally run an engine with this kind of displacement and redline any more. As I pull into the park I check the time on the old g-shock watch wrapped around the upper triple tree. He’s cut it fine. I need to be at the drop off point across the border by 0900 tomorrow and it’s already 1512. I back the bike up next to a couple of electric mopeds. The R1 looks like a total anachronism in contrast. The fairing fit isn’t great, they’re replicas intended for race use, I’ve fitted the legal minimum in terms of lights and mirrors. Only break one law at a time, that’s the mantra, at least where the bike is concerned. The contents of the soft luggage are breaking enough laws to have me put on trial for conspiracy to commit espionage. I stroll over to the far bench where the package should be waiting. I don’t know what it’s going to be but the last two jobs for this client have coincided with rumours of some big witch hunts in the defense technology sector. I hate that I made that connection, deniability is much easier when you’re genuinely ignorant. I take a detour to a soda machine on my way to the bench, just a vintage bike enthusiast taking a break from the agony of riding an old superbike on city streets. I grab an iced tea and slump onto the bench like I’m done being folded like a pretzel for the day. I need to stop using the park. Last time I got pinned down by a retiree who wanted to yak about the good old days of WSBK and the all-original mint Z-Rex he kept before the kids put him in the assisted living community. He was a nice enough old boy and on my day off it’s not a conversation I mind having but there is no place for it on the job. After sitting for a minute or two sipping my tea I slide a hand down underneath the bench for the package, I can’t feel it. I look around and check no-one is watching before risking a deeper grope. Nothing. I get up to throw my empty in the recycling basket and pull out my phone, pretending to find something interesting on the screen. As I sit back down I'm at the other end of the bench. Again I grope and again I come up empty. My heart is beating a little harder in my chest now. There’s a voice in my head telling me to loving flee and it’s getting louder. It’s my pride that gets the better of me though. I haven’t fumbled a job in over 5 years and even though I know there’s nothing there I bend right over as if checking the buckles on my riding boot and chance a look. The sound of someone clearing their throat sends a chill down my spine. As I slowly bend back upright I’m praying to see a friendly geriatric face just itching to talk about the merits of trellis frame Ducatis. ReelBigLizard fucked around with this message at 02:29 on Dec 6, 2015 |
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Dec 6, 2015 01:12
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It would have been a sharp suit if not for the sweat stains. He looks at me with the panicked eyes of a man so far past his depth he’s risking nitrogen narcosis. He’s not taking his time, he’s a man with somewhere to be, anywhere but here is my guess. With pale knuckles he holds out something that looks like a gent’s travel wash kit. His eyes haven’t left mine yet and it’s only when I don’t raise my hand to take little faux leather case that he starts to stutter something. “T-take it.” he stammers. “Please?” he adds. His eyes are now flashing downwards to his jacket like he’s trying to tell me something. I reach towards his lapel, apparently too fast, he draws a sharp breath and flinches. I slow right down and gently pull his jacket open with a single finger. The dense little packets are attached in a crude belt of tape around his middle, pinching his shirt around his abdomen. Explosives aren’t my thing but if I had to guess it’s probably enough to level the old brick boathouse and put chunks of it into nearby office blocks. Each has a small, smooth black rectangular detonator, PRC mil surplus or an East African clone. There’s no coloured wires, flashing lights, countdown displays or other hollywood bullshit here. I allow the jacket to close gently and take hold of the mystery package but for a second he won’t let go. As he does, he looks me in the eye and slowly, silently mouths “I’m. So. Sorry.” followed by “Run.” He turns slowly without twisting his torso, like a man trying to carry several cups of hot coffee without spilling anything. The belt of detonators has at least one accelerometer, or at least he’s been told it does. He makes his way slowly across the parking lot towards a light blue nondescript pod and as he does I’m suddenly aware of my pocket slate going berserk in my pocket. I don’t need to look, I know what that combination of vibrations means. It means that every representative of Authority in a ten block radius has been sent a priority one report of an explosive signature detected in a public recreational area. He must have been waiting in the pod with the ventilation shut tight until I got here. Explains some of the sweat. The early warning is courtesy of the municipal environmental sensor network. A self configuring mesh network of innocuous boxes scattered across the city on top of buildings. They monitor everything from weather and air quality to noise and radio frequency pollution. Jacking one of the boxes is the simple matter of a set of security bits and a diagnostic lead. Once you have one node you can start to listen in on the network. You’ve only got until about midnight though, when the box re-flashes from read-only memory. The RF spectrum data is what I'm after Law enforcement comms channels are probably uncrackable in real time but you don’t always need to know what they’re talking about, heuristic analysis can tell you a lot. For instance, combine signal strength with the location data from multiple nodes and some simple triangulation logic and you can roughly map LE activity for seven or eight square blocks. The bottleneck is actually the mesh network architecture. Trying not to look flustered I jog lightly over to the R1 as if I’ve just realised I’m late for touch rugby practice. I tuck the mystery case into the soft tail bag and pull my lid on. The bike is still warm and a little wave of relief washes over me as the engine starts right on the button. I have to stay calm now, fleeing at speed will draw attention. I have about 10 minutes before real, human eyes review the surveillance footage from the park. The problem with covering a metropolitan area in cameras is that you’ll never have enough people to watch it. The dream of perfect AI watchmen still hasn’t borne fruit. It turns out programming “suspicion” and “instinct” is a task that only millions of years of evolution has so far been able to master. I pull out of the park entrance as several drones zip over the fence a hundred meters to my right. As I roll east at a purposeful but legal pace I watch several vehicles of Authority hauling rear end through the gates in my mirrors. Authority is really the most appropriate moniker. People still say Police but they are technically wrong in most cases. I think the US has seen a new branch, bureau or department created every decade since the turn of the millennium, usually in response to some attack or national crisis. I’m a block away when I see the flash in the mirrors, even before the concussion wave hits a split second later I know I’m truly hosed. ================= AncientTV posted:And lo, everyone in cycle asylum saw their future self. "Buddy of mine knows a guy, says the Manx are still running a TT, just it's secret now and all the local cops are in on it." quote:Have you ever written in any professional capacity? Nope. Most of my writing up to date has been scenario and campaign stuff for RPGs like Call of Cthulhu and SLA Industries. ReelBigLizard fucked around with this message at 16:18 on Dec 6, 2015 |
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Dec 6, 2015 15:37
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I turn south towards ‘home’. It’s a light industrial unit on the outskirts that was condemned by the city a few years ago. I’m already getting prepped to move on, it’s scheduled for redevelopment into housing early next year. The closest I have to personal possessions are my tools. I’ve had some of them since I came back from the gulf, before everything started to fall apart. Vintage Snap-on and Britool, some neat aerospace industrial stuff, non-sparking and ESD-safe. The rest I have collected from flea markets and rural auctions over the last few years. It’s not a big collection, I prefer to think of it as efficient. I know I’ll have to leave it behind and I’m annoyed when I realise how attached I’ve become to the dumb objects. I pull the R1 into the loading dock and leave it running as I unlock the roller shutter. I’ve practiced this a couple of times, I’ll be gone in less than a minute. I check that the scrap of paper I pinned in the runners is still there. If anyone had been here it would be gone. Grabbing a recycled paper grocery bag from the corner that I think of as the kitchen I stop to open the tap on the MAPP gas cylinder I repurposed for a stove. I walk along the workbench throwing in any device or component with solid state memory into the bag. Satisfied that I have everything that could compromise my identity I go to the other side of the workshop where there is an ancient yellowed microwave oven sitting agape. I throw the bag in and slam the door shut. I crank the quaint clockwork dial around to the maximum 30 minutes and the interior light comes on as the machine hums to life. Crossing back to the workbench I grab the jug of isopropyl alcohol used for cleaning parts and pour the whole thing over the bench top before flipping the switch on the soldering iron and throwing it onto a pile of scrap automotive wire. One way or another this place is burning to the ground and soon. I slam the roller shutter back down and swing my leg over the bike. I stop at the intersection with the main road and pop the bike into neutral. I twist around and unclip the tail bag before reaching in and pulling out the mystery package. If it’s tracked the faraday mesh will have stopped it reporting my position until now. Time to find out why I have to burn my life to the ground once again. I unzip the little case to find a little folded card and a smooth, rounded cylindrical aluminium capsule. It’s about 6 inches long, rounded at both ends and looks like the two halves unscrew in the middle but for a security seal passing through two small tabs. I pick up the card. It’s actually an old matchbook with all but one match torn out. There’s a message on the inside and to my surprise it’s handwritten and in neat cursive too. Either the author was born some time last century or they went to a school several magnitudes more expensive than mine. No-one would give me a referral. X The kiss is a disturbing touch. There’s something written below, a 16 character alphanumeric string punctuated by a couple of hyphens. It’s a string which I can recall entirely from memory. It’s my “clean” Social Security ID, the good civilian I’m meant to be playing. It’s not the one I was born with, that one is buried several feet deep in an unmarked hole in the desert with the other mementos of my old life, but it’s troubling enough. I have been painfully thorough in keeping my work detached from my cover ID. They’re letting me know how resourceful they can be, it can’t have been easy finding me. “I can find you and I don’t care if I have to blow up a public park to get you” is the message I’m getting so far. I’m guessing the unfortunate soul they’re scraping up in town is my erstwhile client. I flip the matchbook closed, “The Coal Hole, Bar & Grill”, I flip it over. There is an address in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania as well as a web address that starts with an honest to god "www" and fax number. If this place is still standing it will be a museum. Looks like I’m heading east. ReelBigLizard fucked around with this message at 00:43 on Dec 7, 2015 |
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Dec 6, 2015 21:51
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I think you mean "deliverating"  Thanks for the encouragement guys. It might slow down for the next few days, I've got a consulting job on. I'll try and carry on in the evenings. ReelBigLizard fucked around with this message at 12:00 on Dec 7, 2015 |
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Dec 7, 2015 11:58
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Grisham Plant & Industrial Supply 218 miles east I’m in a low crouch as I step into the storage room where I stashed the R1. As I straighten up I feel a rush of air past my face and the hear the whirr of three tiny brushless fans. I underestimated the pilot, he’s left the tactical drone on a shelf in an overwatch mode. The little black puck zips around me and eyes me with multiple optics arranged like the little black eyes of a hunting spider. I hear a crash upstairs and the thud of running combat boots on the floor above me. The little drone backs up and I hear the whine of capacitors charging. The early versions of these drones started as a replacement / compliment for security guards in large facilities. Patrolling corridors and offices on a random schedule, when they find an intruder they can recruit other drones in the immediate area to form a swarm. A man could easily swat aside the little carbon fibre bodies were it not for the sting in the tail. Each drone is covered in small, stainless probes connected to an internal, one-shot stun circuit. Depending on the aggression parameters they can either try to corral an intruder by surrounding them or in the case of someone running, simply fling themselves bodily at the target like a swarm of bees. Some years ago I’d seen a mugger get taken down by about twenty drones in London, it was terrifying. I only have time to turn and crouch before the drone charges straight for me. I brace myself for the shock but all I feel is the impact on my shoulder. A couple of seconds pass before I look down and see the drone on the floor. The motors are all twitching and surging randomly, making it flop around like a fish on the deck of a boat. It must have been linked to the systems in the RRC. I grab the NoisyBoy from the shelf where I left it and shove it into the bag. In almost one fluid movement I swing my leg over the bike, mash the starter and flick the kickstand up. Pulling out of the storage room into the corridor the rear tyre squirms on the smooth, painted concrete floor. The sun, now lower in the sky, is streaming through the smashed windows into the production floor. As I exit the corridor I see one of the operators moving along the mezzanine to my right. He’s taken off his goggles and he’s squinting in the light. As he turns to me and shouts I rip open the throttle and clamp my knees hard around the bike. Charging for the exit ahead of me, the front wheel is hovering parallel with the floor when I hear the rattle of the assault carbine. Dust, debris and sparks explode around the bike as I squeeze past empty drums and hydraulic presses. As the equipment suddenly gives way to an open space I realise I’m heading straight for a loading bay, maybe a meter drop onto the concrete outside. ReelBigLizard fucked around with this message at 14:14 on Dec 7, 2015 |
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Dec 7, 2015 14:11
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The revs leap as the bike and I become airborne. The landing jars my spine as the suspension bottoms out, slamming the tank into my crotch and winding me. The bike gets a wobble on but I manage to recover in time to avoid a stack of rotting pallets and start to make my way back to the highway. Passing the RRC the engines have stopped and the interior looks like the world’s smallest rave is going on inside, blue grey smoke back-lit by arc flashes and warning lights. It’s repairable but they’ll need a recovery carrier to get it back to the hangar. They must be reasonably far from base, they didn’t have the fuel to waste putting it into a holding pattern while they came inside. It’s almost totally dark by the time I reach the road that twists down into the gorge and I’m running on fumes. I unsling the bag and pull out the two fuel cells before clipping the bag back onto the tail of the bike. I notice a couple of bullet holes in the tail unit, ugh. It was the last original body part. I might be able to get a lead on another one from my contact in Seattle. He’s a weird old coot but you don’t restore a Maserati Biturbo without gaining a deep and comprehensive list of contacts for 20th century parts. The road ahead of me isn’t passable by pods for several reasons. Even if the road had the embedded transducers now required for certification there are several large sections almost totally washed out further down. On top of all that the rock strata in area is scattered with pockets of hematite which play havoc with microwave comms and magnetometers. It’s not totally forgotten though, in the summer pods arrive at the entrance to the gorge to drop off hikers and mountain bikers from the city who want an off-grid break from the data-overload in their lives. It’s getting more and more popular as people get sick of being connected 24-hours a day. I remove the little service cap that covers the purge valve on the end of the fuel cell and point it into the fuel filler mouth on the R1. Depressing the little exposed pin with the tip of the ignition key fires a steady stream of fuel into the tank with the assistance of an internal nitrogen charge and a pre-set regulator. When it dribbles to a stop I fling the spent cell into the gutter and start emptying the second. It takes a while but it looks like I’ve gained a little less than half a tank when I’m done. I do a quick walk around the bike to check for other damage but I can’t see anything serious. I check the oil and find I’ve burned a little with all the sustained revs. I pull the soft case containing my night glasses from the tail bag. They’re straight solid state units, no bulky intensifier tube so they fit in the front opening of the helmet without a problem. I switch the makeshift LED headlight to low power Infrared to give the glasses something to bite on in the shadows. Getting back on the bike and starting to roll I start to feel the cold now. My nostrils are stinging in the cold air as I ride carefully down into the cool gorge around switchbacks and wash outs. Soon I’ll have to make a decision. There’s several ways out of the area but I’ve realistically got a choice of two exits, the gorge forks to the north into soft rolling hills and south through the forest on the edge of the state park. North is a more convenient route and I’m more likely to find resources like fuel in the old barns and farmhouses that litter the landscape that way. South is more out of my way but the tree cover is my best chance to give the slip to any high altitude surveillance UAVs watching the area. After about twenty minutes I can see the fork for the first time below. Shortly after that the glasses pick up a light source around the bend and I’m surprised to find a small campfire in the passing point with a figure sitting on a log, hands outstretched towards the fire. I stop the bike in the middle of the road and slip it into neutral before switching the engine off. The man looks about 10 years my senior but fit as a butcher’s dog. His skin is bronzed and leathery from the sun. Next to him was an old mil surp daysack and a small felling axe. He notices my arrival with a respectful nod and I reciprocate before removing the glasses and my helmet, staying seated on the bike. “Cold night for a ride on an old crotch rocket, heading somewhere?” “Running from the cops” I reply. There’s no point in being coy, who the gently caress is he going to tell out here? He nods like I told him I just popped out for a quart of milk. “You?” “Running from all of it, I guess” He smiles at me but there's sadness in his eyes. For the first time I notice his parka. It’s surplus, like the satchel, the old multicam pattern is faded but I recognise the unit patch, a shield with crossed sword and lightning. “Aleppo was a poo poo-show.” I offer. “No poo poo, son. You see it?” He had, it was written all over him. “Only from a screen. Tech support attached to the boys from Poole” “Thought I heard an accent. Got time to share a shot?” He pulls out a battered hip flask. “Not tonight, can you do me a favour though?” “Shoot.” “If you’re still here when they come along, tell them you thought you heard the biker take the north road?” He cracks a conspiratorial grin. “If I’m still here, you betcha.” ReelBigLizard fucked around with this message at 01:21 on Dec 8, 2015 |
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Dec 8, 2015 01:12
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Boat posted:Hahah, please tell me that's a shoutout to 14 INCH. All references to real weird people, living or dead, in Seattle, with masochistic Biturbo fetishes are purely coincidental. EDIT: Also, Zucker Brull is rad. ReelBigLizard fucked around with this message at 11:50 on Dec 8, 2015 |
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Dec 8, 2015 11:17
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I haven't forgotten. Just busy with actual paying work and trying to build a new bed frame before xmas  =============================================== The junction is at the very bottom of the gorge, the rock walls are extremely steep and I should be well out of sight of the overhead surveillance. I pop the bike onto the kickstand one more time and open up the fuse box. I carefully pull all of the fuses responsible for a light, including the dash backlight. Stuffing them in the front pocket of the jacket I swing a leg over the bike before switching off the torch-headlight completely. Even with the night glasses it’s going to be a hairy ride through the sweeping bends in the woods but this is my best chance of slipping by the high altitude systems. I make a prayer to any gods who might be listening that they might keep my path clear of suicidal ungulates and pull out onto the south road. I double check to make sure my pocket slate is in a totally passive mode before taking off. I’m getting tired and the chance of making a bonehead mistake is getting higher. I briefly contemplate taking a pick-me-up; I keep a few caps of benzedrine in the bag whenever I have an all nighter. I decide that I’d rather keep them for when I really need them. If I start now I’ll have to keep taking them to hold off the come-down. By the time I get into the low, rolling hills beyond the valleys I’m exhausted. The exertion of dodging potholes and gravel patches has drained me mentally and physically. My back hurts from the potholes I didn’t manage to avoid, as well as the general ache from riding a turn of the century sport bike too slow. After a little while I start to see touches of civilisation once more; The occasional mailbox for a farm, the glint of a porch light at the end of a driveway. The farms out here are populated by more city exiles than they are genuine farm folk. A lot of the exiles are preppers and off grid loonies. Cellars stuffed with ammo, dry goods and hydroponics for the downfall of a society that just doesn’t ever seem quite ready to fall down. The rest are mostly summer cabins for the high-fliers. I need to find somewhere to stash the bike and get a few hours sleep. If I can find some food and fuel all the better. I pull over under the cover of some trees and pull out my pocket slate. code:It’s about 15 minutes before I get the first buzz, coming around the next corner I find a driveway with a big hardwood and stainless gate, bingo. There’s a fence heading off into the brush either side which is undoubtedly alarmed. The gate is normally activated by an RFID key card carried by the owner but there is also a backup keypad in case of lost key card or maintenance. I pull up the cover to expose the keypad and find the model number of the unit. I only have one shot at this, these systems send an automatic notification to the security firm on a wrong key entry. I pull a tiny spray bottle from my bag and mist it over the keypad. It’s a marker spray used by forensic technicians to detect biological and DNA-bearing material in crime scenes. I walk back to the bike and switch the headlight onto UV at the lowest intensity setting. The keypad lights up in little glowing specks. I look up the maker and number in a database I keep on the slate. I’ve built it up over a number of years, the default passcode schemes for most of the systems on the market. I get a hit immediately, the last two digits of the unit serial number, in this case 26, followed by 1984. The firmware engineer probably thought that was hilarious. There’s a general dusting of material over the whole pad but the 3, 5, 7 and 0 are noticeably lighter, with the other keys covered in fingerprints. Looks like we have a winner, human laziness will forever be the easiest exploit. I punch in the default code and there is a loud clunk followed by the groan of actuators pulling the gates open. ReelBigLizard fucked around with this message at 13:53 on Dec 18, 2015 |
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Dec 18, 2015 13:48
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Before heading in I unclip the tail bag and switch off the bike. I back the bike into the brush leaving it pointing towards the road in case I have to make a quick exit. The driveway sweeps up to a modern re-interpretation of a “log cabin”, as much glass as log. There’s a big double garage across from the house, hopefully inside there will be some fuel for a chainsaw or similar. As I walk towards the house ground level automatic lights flicker into life to guide my way along the path. There’s a camera above the front door so I elect to keep my helmet on, I’m sure no-one will ever watch this footage but it pays to be thorough. The lock on the door is electronic with a conventional mechanical lock for back up. I pull a tiny bundle of leather from my bag, unrolling it to reveal a small set of spring-steel picks. The lock looks extremely tough, brushed chrome over a hardened steel casing, the barrel is conventional though, all show and no go. I feed a thin fiberoptic wire into the lock channel, it’s attached to a little wireless module with a standard camera sensor inside which I can view from the pocket slate. Satisfied that there are no side-pins in the lock channel I pull the camera out and slide the tension bar into the top of the lock channel, applying a bit of pressure with my left hand before sliding the first pick in. It takes me a few tries to feel out all the pins, there’s a couple of anti-pick spools in there; Not an entirely worthless lock. I’m in no hurry however and eventually the lock yields its secrets to me and the tension bar goes slack in my fingers as the barrel rotates. Dim ambient OLED lighting embedded in the walls comes on automatically as I open the door. The main space of the cabin is open-plan with only a breakfast bar dividing the kitchen from the rest. Expensive retro-rustic furniture is dotted around alongside pictures of a couple in various holiday destinations, tanned, blond and grinning with immaculate titanium white teeth. A couple of the pictures show skiing holidays and I make a mental note to check wardrobes for some thermal underclothes. Once in I pull off my helmet and quietly close the door. The place is stone cold and there are dust sheets covering some of the furniture. Nevertheless I pause for a minute with my mouth slightly open to help me hear better. Satisfied that I’m alone I walk into the kitchen area and make a beeline for the 50’s style refrigerator, suddenly hungry. It’s been turned off and cleaned out, so I turn my attention to the cupboards. My search doesn’t net me much, three tins of some luxury brand imported sardines and some slightly stale crispbreads. A quick root through the condiments on the breakfast bar reveals the dregs of a bottle of hot sauce. Good enough. Hell, add some butter and a nice Belgian beer and we’d be away. I pop two of the tins open in the sink and hungrily stuff crackers and sardines in my mouth with the oil and hot sauce dripping down my chin. After cleaning myself up and downing a couple of glasses of water I start to explore the rest of the cabin. The first room is a walk in utility cupboard, washer, dryer, snow boots but no more food. There’s a locker in the corner with a keypad on it, probably a hunting rifle or shotgun. No good to me and not worth my time to crack it. I don’t, as a rule, carry a gun. Experience has taught me that weapons generally get you into more trouble than they’re worth in this job. Get pulled over with a bunch of obscure computer poo poo and no-one cares unless they really know their stuff. Get pulled over with a firearm and the law has a reason to dig deeper. The other rooms are just bedrooms and bathrooms. Digging through the cupboards in the main bedroom I manage to dig out an old thermal shirt, it’s a little loose but it will work well under the jacket. Hunger partially sated I slump onto a huge sofa and set my slate to wake me up in 3 hours. It’s not much but it’s better than nothing. When I wake up the sky is just starting to lighten with the promise of morning. I rub the sleep from my eyes and head over to the kitchen unit, stuffing the rest of the crispbreads and the last tin of sardines into the bag for later. I dig through the cupboards and find a three large stainless steel sports bottles and fill two with water before stuffing them in the side pockets on the bag. The third I will keep for extra fuel. I sling the bag over my shoulder and have a quick stretch, flexing my aching joints before pulling on my helmet again. The air is crisp and cold as I walk over to the double garage, tossing the empty tins deep into the bushes on the way. There’s a chunky padlock on the side door but after a few minutes it, too falls to the pick set. I open the door and fumble for a light switch. As the old fluorescent lights flicker on with a hum and a ‘ping’ I see an oddly small car in the far bay, covered with dust sheets. Something ancient judging by the shape of it, built before crumple zones and safety cages. The back wall is covered in tools, pegboard dripping with chrome vanadium baubles. Rusted antique Valvoline signs and race memorabilia decorate the joists. Garage heaven, I almost feel bad for eating the guy’s sardines. I spot what I’m looking for. There’s a rack of shelves with various fluids on the far side of the garage and as I make my way over I can’t help but take a peek under the sheets. A Lancia… Fulvia? Seventies, at a guess, done out in vintage rally garb; Roll cage, stripped interior, race seats and gold alloys in flared arches. All of it topped off with a blue and yellow livery, race numbers, a pair of spotlights on the front, the works. If you’re going to tear around the ruined roads here, there are certainly worse ways to do it. Leaving the glorious little Lancia to slumber under it’s sheets I turn to the shelving and find a couple of tins of 98 octane premium fuel “For Classic Vehicles”. Probably just normal synthetic with a lead substitute additive for old fashioned valves, it will do for the R1 just fine. I find a clean looking funnel on the bench and fill up my empty sports bottle before wiping down the outside and stashing it in my bag. Leaving the can and funnel next to the door I stroll down the drive and pull the R1 up to the garage, filling it up to the brim before putting the can back exactly where I found it. Locking the garage I sit on the R1 while the engine comes up to temperature. Now it’s cold there’s a stumble in the idle, I’ll have to check the plugs when I next get the chance. The sky is getting lighter now, the sun will be up soon. Time to go. ReelBigLizard fucked around with this message at 11:30 on Dec 20, 2015 |
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Dec 18, 2015 17:28
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Thanks for all the kind words guys.  I made a "graphic" to add to the OP because I felt like it. With the next few days being mostly taken up with presents and family stuff I'm unlikely to start chapter three until next week, but I'll try my best.
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Dec 23, 2015 20:31
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KillHour posted:the authenticity of the little details (like the lockpicking) really make the story, IMO. Thanks, details make a good thriller for me. I think it's getting more important to more people with the advent of the internet too, because readers have a lot more in depth knowledge about weird subjects. Before you could get away with fudging details and what are people going to do, look it up in a library? Without further ado, a small morsel. I have to get some work finished for a client this week, I'll see if I have time for some more. ========================================= 3. Clay County Sunday Morning The road is getting better now. The sun is burning the morning dew from the landscape and the R1 is punching holes through the little rivers of mist in the dips of the road. I can barely feel my thighs, it’s dead cold but at least the thermal shirt is helping under the jacket. After a while I pass a sign welcoming me to “Clay County: Home of Beaucette Fruit Farms”. It isn’t long before I start to see expanses of poly tunnel greenhouses in the fields either side of the road. The farms are extremely automated, though they still require a few humans to manage things. It isn’t long before I come upon a roadside diner, the lights are on but it looks empty. The temptation of a hot breakfast is too much. I pull the bike in around the side, mostly hidden from the road by a couple of dumpsters. Pulling off my helmet I clip it to the bike and sling the soft bag over my shoulder. The door hits a small brass bell as I push my way inside and the smell of coffee fills my nostrils as I walk in the door. The place has the feel of somewhere that has been a centre of a small community for a long time. The back wall is covered in pictures and newspaper clippings featuring the same honest, hard working faces. One of those faces greets me now, a girl in her late twenties at a guess, dark hair tied back in a ponytail. Cute, curvy and in all the right places. She’s probably the fantasy of a few of the regulars in here. The embroidery on her shirt says "Lizzy" in faux fifties cursive. “Mornin’” she beams. “Hey. Any chance of some breakfast?” “No problem but the kitchen isn’t up to heat yet, you okay to wait?” “As long as there’s coffee” I smile. “Creamer?” she asks, beaming back. “No, black for me, thanks.” I reply, bringing the mug up to my nose and inhaling deeply. “Here’s the specials” She motions to a blackboard on the counter. “We got real bacon too” Out of habit I glance up at the walls behind the counter but she stops me short. “Nah, we don’t have a cert’. One of the regulars keeps a couple of pigs, we’ve got real eggs too, same guy.” She gives me a wicked smile “The county health inspector comes here for it so it’s not like we’re getting busted any time soon. Besides, you're not going to snitch on us.” "What makes you say that?" "You came from the north, parked your bike out of sight from the road" "Very observant." I chuckle "Maybe I don't want someone stealing my bike?" "Sure." She taps her nose theatrically and heads into the back. I look over the menu. It’s been months since I had real bacon. The cultured stuff you get in the stores is pretty good these days, technically it’s made of real pork, just not from a living pig. Something about the uniformity of the synthetic stuff always disappointed me. I grew up on meat with a bit of gristle, something to chew. The cultured meats are made to the market ideal and market research apparently says the people just want uniform paste. It had been a good thing of course, now we can enjoy meat without worrying about cruelty to the animals. Commercial farms are held to a much higher standard now and you had to be certified to sell it. The unfortunate side effect is that prices for the real stuff had risen sharply. “You decided yet?” the girl calls from the kitchen. “Bacon and scrambled eggs, please” I holler back through the window. “Good choice. You want toast with that?” “Rye, please.” Halfway through my second cup of coffee I decide it’s time to see what havoc the incident in the park has wrought. I pull out my pocket slate and re-enable the network connection. It doesn’t take long to find the thread of stories. “BREAKING NEWS: Explosion in Humboldt Park, at least one dead, dozens injured.” “Police not ruling out a terrorist attack, refuse to comment further” “New Caliphate claim responsibility for park attack, experts doubtful” “POLICE detain a motorcyclist who exited the park seconds before explosion” I open up the last story. There’s a CCTV picture of me taking the package from my ex-client, face obscured by the helmet. Next to it is a mug shot of a man I don't recognise. “Police traced the motorcycle to an address in lakeshore last night. Neighbours say he was a quiet man who spent hours in his workshop working on old motorcycles and ‘god knows what else’. Police say that the man has a history of posting messages on far-right groups.” It has to be the guy I cloned the registration chip from. It should buy me enough time to get clear, but they'll work out it wasn't him soon. Eventually they'll also figure out that the chip must be cloned, and that chips even can be cloned. The others will be angry with me, it's going to dent the value of the exploit on the black market. Still, it's going to take them a long time to figure out how it's done and much longer to implement a fix for millions of vehicles. Lizzy comes out of the back and parks a generous plate of bacon and eggs in front of me. They're done to perfection and I tell her as much. I'm struggling with the last piece of toast and flipping through the news feeds on my slate when I decide to pull out the package for another look. The security tag is an RFID single use one, the antenna and bare silicon chip are integral to the loop that passes through the tabs, with a resin over-moulded casing. They're applied by specialist tools and require a very well equipped lab to remove without destroying the chip, way out of my league. "Ugh, you're going to touch one of those while you eat?" Lizzy is standing at the counter, looking disgusted. "You know what this is?" I try to sound like I do. "Bio sample, right? My Brother breeds horses and that's how he gets the... you know." ReelBigLizard fucked around with this message at 15:38 on Jan 11, 2016 |
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Jan 11, 2016 13:16
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“You’re right, not really appropriate for the table” I slip the cylinder back into the case and go back to my toast. The bell on the door rings as I’m settling the bill, heralding the arrival of more customers. Out of the corner of my eye I catch a glimpse of a man and a woman in dark clothing and a bearing that suggests military experience. “Good morning Miss.” Formal tone, unfamiliar, not a regular. “Mornin’ folks” Lizzy beams. “Looking for breakfast?” “Just two Coffees to go, black, thanks” He’s talking to her but I feel eyes on me. Lizzy walks back up to my end of the counter and starts pouring coffee into paper cups. She looks tense. The guy is saying something in hushed tones to the woman. “So Nicky,” She says it straight to my face. “You going to see Stu and the guys before you head back home?” “Oh, yeah. I guess I could show my face” I reply, hiding my accent, playing along. “Is Stu’s mom out of the hospital?” “She’s home but she’s still not doing so great, you know.” I nod like that’s a thing and Lizzy takes the coffees back over to the till. I allow myself a slightly better look, the guy has a high and tight military haircut, the woman looks severe with her dark hair tied back neatly. They both look serious. They pay for the coffees and head out to their vehicle. I shift a little so I can see it, a dark grey double cab electric pick up. I turn back to Lizzy. “Why’d you do that?” “I dunno” She shrugs. “I didn’t like the look of them. Gave me a bad feeling” “You might be helping some sort of murderous criminal” “Nah, I’m a good judge of people” then mocking my accent ”you’re a good egg” I’m about to admonish her for her terrible rendition of BBC English, I only have half an accent really, when I catch something in the reflection of the coffee machine. As I turn to look the woman is running back towards the front door in a low tactical hunch and the guy is taking cover behind the open door of the pickup with some kind of squat, fat-barrelled gun up in his shoulder - some kind of grenade launcher with an electronic sight on top. I’m half way through leaping over the counter, shouting for Lizzy to get down when the air-bursting “smart” flashbang punches through the window and detonates. Lizzy is a deer in the headlights and catches the full force of the blast. It knocks her back against the wall and she slumps like a ragdoll behind the counter next to me. My ears are ringing and my head is pounding from the concussion. I can’t hear it but I know the female shooter will be crashing through the door right now. poo poo, I left my bag and the package on the counter. Looking under the counter top I see an old baseball bat suspended on a couple of bent nails. I’d prefer a shotgun. ReelBigLizard fucked around with this message at 12:08 on Jan 24, 2016 |
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Jan 23, 2016 17:54
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Fragments of napkins, shredded by the blast, are floating down like snowflakes as I grab the bat. Looking up at the chrome of the coffee machine I see movement in the diner, the second shooter is moving towards where I had been sitting. I quickly glance around the floor beside me and find a bottle of ketchup amongst the debris. Watching the reflection again I can make out the dark shape of the shooter moving towards the counter, maybe she's seen my bag. I’m only going to get one shot at this. I fling the bottle down the length of the counter and it crashes into a shelf of crockery. At least I hope it crashes, everything sounds like I’m several feet underwater right now, burst eardrums most likely. As the bottle hits the crockery I shove myself up off the floor with all the strength I can muster, twisting and swinging the bat as wide as I can over the counter at chest height. The adrenaline is flowing hard now and the world is slow, I’m screaming. The bat connects with something, the something makes a hollow, metallic sound. As my line of sight catches up with the arc of the bat I can see it's the end of a suppressed machine pistol. It’s a solid hit, the gun would be flying across the room if it wasn’t connected to the shooter by a sling loop. It flies around her back, tangled in the sling. I try for a back-swing straight away but she’s ready for it and dodges backwards out of range. She’s good, high speed - no fumbling for the machine pistol, she goes straight for her belt and a combat knife appears in her hand. As she gets a better footing I notice the pot of coffee on the hot plate in front of me. I grab it by the handle and hurl it at her as hard as I can. She ducks, half turning, covering her face against the shower of hot coffee. It's almost enough time for me to vault the counter. Almost. As soon as my feet hit the floor she’s right on top of me with a slash at my arms. I’m grateful I kept my jacket on as the knife connects with my forearm and glances off the metal zip. I swing one handed in reaction and miss, at least it makes her step back again. It's been a long time since my training and it didn't cover use of baseball bats. We'd only been attached to the SF guys as a support unit but they put us through some fundamentals courses to make sure we could hack it if we had to tag along in the field. Watch the shoulders. That's what he told us. The shoulders tell you what they're doing, not the eyes. I get my feet to a stable position just in time. I see her right shoulder drop and she goes for a low slash to my hands again. I swing the bat low to block and keep it going right on around in an arc for an immediate counter attack. She's stepping in towards me as the bat connects with the side of her knee. I feel a shove in my side. She screams and falls to the ground clutching her leg. She doesn’t bring her hands up to her head in time to stop the next blow. There’s a sickening crack as the bat connects with her cheekbones and she flops to the floor, motionless. I feel something warm run down the left side of my chest. As I look down I see the hole in my jacket, the wet leather. There's not much pain yet. Picking up the knife from the floor, I cut the machine pistol free of the twisted sling. ReelBigLizard fucked around with this message at 02:43 on Jan 24, 2016 |
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Jan 24, 2016 02:41
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For the record, I'm British, not an ex-pat but I've spent a lot of time stateside. My preference is thick-cut streaky bacon, smoked, fried until just the edges crisp up. ================= I check her belt. There’s a couple of extra magazines, some zip cuffs and a compact aerosol can of what I can only assume is some kind of CS spray. I grab the aerosol can and the magazines. The rounds in the magazines are small, with bottle-necked casings and tiny, high velocity bullets - designed for penetrating body armour. The little machine pistol is unfamiliar to me but it has the standard controls familiar to anyone who has used a modern tactical firearm. I check the chamber like they taught us and then the fire selector, three round burst. The suppressor took a good hit from the bat, there’s a big dent in the body. It might still work but I don’t want to take the chance of rounds hitting the internals and flying unpredictably. I find the release catch and toss it aside. My left ear is a little clearer now, maybe just the right is burst. I can just about hear the guy shouting outside. He’s going to be charging in any second. I toss the can of CS so that it lands next to the entrance and scurry to the back of the diner, taking cover behind the end of the counter. Bracing against the corner of the counter I place the bright red dot of the sight on the CS can. I can't see through the door from here but I see a shadow against the wall as the shooter reaches the doorway. The door opens a little way and the barrel of an assault carbine pokes through, mounted to the forward rail is a rugged little camera, probably feeding to glasses or a small screen. It will be calibrated to the barrel so it can be used for shooting around corners. I stay motionless and take up the slack on the trigger. The door opens a couple of inches more and as it does I start increasing the pressure on the trigger steadily. Lizzy coughs and moans behind the counter, she’s starting to wake up. The shooter shoves the door open further in reaction and the machine pistol judders in my hand. At least one round hits the CS can and it suddenly jumps and spins on the spot as a cloud of irritant spews out of the hole. I pull back around the counter just in time to dodge the return fire. The back wall erupts into tiny fragments as he fires off what must be a whole magazine. When the firing stops he’s coughing and uttering curses. This is my cue. I charge from cover towards the window, the glass is already fractured, damaged by the flash-bang, I’m glad again for the jacket as I crash through. It’s about a 6ft drop from the window and as I hit the ground the cut in my side erupts in searing pain. I roll as I land and, fighting through the pain, bring myself up into a kneeling position. As I hoped he’s backing out of the door coughing and sputtering, eyes and nose streaming. I already have the bright red dot on him by the time he realises what is happening. The machine pistol barks out another three rounds, and again, and again until he falls down. There’s a sort of sad, surprised expression on his face. Centre-mass, until they go down, just like the training. Here come the bacon and eggs, just like they said. ReelBigLizard fucked around with this message at 15:44 on Feb 5, 2016 |
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Feb 5, 2016 15:41
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Seat of the pants mostly. My process for writing stuff is to come up with three or four cool scenes, then just try to figure out how the characters are going to get dragged into them. This works well when writing for things like tabletop RPG, especially when you have a group of players like I do, who will do everything they can to go off-script. This is the first time I've tried to use this method for writing something longer though, and I think it's working pretty well so far. I'm definitely considering trying to make it to novel length, I'm a fifth of the way there already. It would probably get a re-write for consistency and cohesiveness in that case. Thanks for the comments guys. It's really encouraging. I wish I could spend more time writing it but I've got a fuckload of things going on.
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Feb 10, 2016 23:15
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I’m relieved when I don’t throw up any blood. I try not to look at the dead shooter as I step over the body in the doorway, tracking bloody footprints through the diner. The CS spray is still in the air and I have to shield my face as I make my way to Lizzy. She’s getting up from behind the counter coughing in the acrid air. I try to put myself between her and the two dead attackers but it’s too late. Her panicked gaze wanders from the woman to the bloody mess in the doorway and she starts to hyperventilate, sucking in more CS, making it worse. “Lizzy, look at me.” I’m trying to speak in a reassuring tone. “Wh- What happened, to...” She’s looking around the diner now, at the destruction. “There was a fight Lizzy, you got knocked out. It’s over now. You’re OK.” “I can’t breathe!” She’s panicking. ”What’s wrong with me?” “CS Gas, pepper spray.” I say, guiding her towards the kitchen. “Let’s go out the back.” I don't consider myself a killer, but these two are far from the first, especially if you take into account the ones who died as a result of a few key presses on a military field terminal. The first time I had to kill a man was just a few months into my first deployment. We were operating a lightweight forward operating base from a compound at Al Mnajeer, providing Electronic Warfare support to local units. I had woken up at the sound of someone cutting into our tent with a box cutter. Hands shaking, I’d picked up the service rifle from beside my bed. Putting a burst into the dark figure as he leaned through the slit, his battered AKSU carbine in hand, the muzzle flash lit him up like a strobe in a nightclub. At that moment the compound had erupted in screams and gunfire. We ran out into the night, half dressed, to fight off the attack. We lost 3, but we weren't the only ones hit that night. Of the multiple bases and field units that were hit, the unifying factor was a sudden, unexplained malfunction of the sentries' night vision equipment. It was the first of many operations orchestrated by a new technologically advanced terror collective calling themselves The New Caliphate. They had obtained or developed an exploit affecting a digital image intensifier component common to the majority of our night vision equipment. There was a vulnerability in a part of the system used to visually identify friendly soldiers and vehicles. A carefully crafted series of pulses in infrared could crash the image processor, leaving the goggles inoperative until the batteries were removed for a hard reset. We would later recover some of the devices used to blind us that night, less than $20 worth of Chinese electronics junk; Namely an IR lamp intended for household security and a dirt-cheap hobby micro-controller, smaller than a saltine cracker. It took months to discover the nature of the vulnerability and then to recall and patch the devices. In that time de-mothballed 4th Generation night vision gear became worth it's weight in gold. Later on I found out; The kid was two years younger than me, from a quiet town just 40 miles from my childhood home in Aberdeenshire. He had run away from home to join the war after being radicalised by his older cousins. I was grateful that I never had to see the body. ====================== Thanks again for the kind words, sorry it's just a little nugget. It's been a busy few weeks. I'm considering talking to a buddy of mine who is a comic artist and illustrator, wondering if the story would work as a small graphic series.
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Mar 7, 2016 14:39
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At the moment I'm not riding any of my 3 motorcycles because I'm trying to save money and the bus is cheaper than insurance/fuel/consumables. One of them is of course, an original 99 R1. Renaissance Robot - I think you have me partially confused with another britgoon, but yes, brexit/norsefire/borispocalypse is at least part of the reason I don't have time to write right now. Trying to get my own business going at the moment and it's taking a lot of time. Network Traffic will continue when the twin stars of time and inspiration align 
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Oct 27, 2016 11:55
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