For the entire month of November, I engaged in my first National Novel Writing Month also known as NaNoWriMo. The goal is simple. Write every day for thirty days. Produce 1667 words every day you write. Add them up at the end and put out a old school novel of approximately 50,000 words (175 pages give or take). Unfortunately, most novels today have twice that many words but the idea is there.
I planned from the moment I started that I would finish. I never doubted it. I had a bunch of different tools to help me but the secret of the my success was the burning desire to finish. It was important to me to finish. In a world where you are only as good or as important as your last accomplishment, this felt really good. I also found myself on the Blackweb 2.0 & HP's Technology Tastemaker which lists the top African Americans in Technology and Social media listing this month too. This was an awesome month for me. You can click here to learn more about my novel and even read an excerpt from it. You can read another excerpt at: http://ebonstorm.weebly.com.Extract from the first book in the DSNG Sci Fi Triliogy, posted by Author
Introduction:
Presented here are the first 14 pages of the 500-page e-book, available now for download at Amazon.com.
The entire dynamic sci fi series is set in an alternate galaxy, and it is centered upon a man of regal origins.
Prince Azzar Omenus is a super soldier, hailing from planet Avera. He is a man of renowned character, known for his incredible fighting skills and his astute strategies. Yet recently he has been quite introverted as he battles the demons of rejection and disgrace that have plagued his life in this new season. Following a string of chaotic events, it was believed that he was slain in a deep-space conflict, the same battle that eclipsed the life of his father, King Vaygon Omenus. But the Prince later returned after many months to the capital mega state of Avera within a foreign spacecraft, seemingly resurrected from the dead. And when he arrived within the familiar confines of the Imperial Palace walls, he was shocked and dismayed to find his beloved in the arms of his cousin, the same man that was now the new King of Avera. Shortly after that, Azzar was granted the rank of Senior Commanding Officer in the Centura, the Averan military - and it was a demeaning role he was literally forced to accept.
Now Azzar strives to remain focused and discover his true destiny, while unforeseen chaos looms on the galactic horizon. There is an ominous threat emerging from the dark spotted abyss of space like a lethal airborne plague shrouded by the thick blanket of the night. A clandestine villain known as the Overlord has begun to manipulate his interplanetary terrorist faction, the Gorilla rebel militia, causing them to initiate a sadistic plan that will result in wide-spread genocide across the Makuran Galaxy.
Time has been the greatest asset of the conniving Overlord, as his pawns of war have now been secretly set in place. And Prince Azzar has no idea that his very life is now in grave danger due to a devious scheme set to unfold at a starport upon the eldritch moon called Yantos...
Link to the DSNG Series Overview: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Wa5ZmL_ju48/TMocWTfPfnI/AAAAAAAAAVo/NYJOP08A-8Q/s1600/DSNG_SCI_FI_SERIES_OVERVIEW_by_DSNG.jpg
The entire series is rated M for Mature Audiences, per violence and sexuality.
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Prologue
DSNGC1>>Week 1, day1
Business Class Cabin,
Starline Airbus 3502GL
En Route to Yantos
Macuran exosphere, Macur
Gamma Sector [12:20am], Makuran Galaxy
With his eyes closed, Phil Nutoko leaned back into the plush embrace of the Astro-AB TypeIII cabin recliner chair he’d sat within for the past 35 hours, as serene jazz music glided into his mind through a sleek Helios Dome5X data phone clipped onto his left ear. This Interplanetary, IP, trip had been a most euphoric journey indeed. The cabin recliner chair was encased in plush synthesized Kataran fur and the microcircuits within the endodermic layer of the chair were programmed to adapt constantly to the moving contours of his body.
Thus, as he leaned back and slightly extended his legs, with silent precision, the Astro-AB TypeIII chair adjusted its back support, gently flexing backwards by about 25 degrees from the horizontal, while the cushion Phil sat upon also tipped slightly downwards, with a similar acute angle.
All business class passengers were privileged with the same seating comforts. In their premier position, the Astro-AB chairs would each have the appearance of an extremely graceful “L,” whose horizontal and vertical parts connected at a curve, rather than at 90 degrees. In addition to having arm rests that were each 7 inches wide, the comfortable chairs’ cushions also had footrests connected to their extreme edge, powered by motion servos and dynamic relay circuits that perceived supported body movements, and simultaneously extended the adjoined footrests to accommodate the passengers’ new position.
Not only did the hi-tech chair provide extremely accurate comfort to the muscles on the dorsal side of his body, but it also gave four posterior massages per hour while subtly releasing hemorium gas unto its entire surface area. The gas engulfed its passenger in an euphoric array of sensual aromas that had a relieving effect upon the mind. As the inhaled gaseous particles were absorbed into the blood stream and gently flooded the nervous system, they erupted as gentle geysers of serenity within the subconscious psyche. The chair was welded to the floor and supported by a block-pyramid arrangement of rectangular slabs, housing an autonomous CPU, operating with a G1 processor.
About 3 minutes ago, Phil had connected to the airbus’ telecom network through his Dome5X data phone and accessed the Interplanetary Network. The IP-Net was a tenth generation Internet system, connecting the seven major planets in the Makuran galaxy in real time. This groundbreaking feat was accomplished by an intricate network established through a myriad of laser-com satellites launched from host planets and spread across the four sectors like a synthetic star cluster, arrayed in a systematic order that placed each satellite in a precise orbital node. Once their data hubs are activated and linked through multiphase, laser-generated, compound carrier wave systems—supported by IP-Net server and data-processing centers within the specific host planets—a multiple planetary data network is assembled, whose integral telecommunication boundaries are virtually nonexistent.
Across the galaxy various small hi-tech devices were currently in vogue, designed to facilitate seamless communications. These ranged from nanotech watches, commonly referred to as comlinks, to data headsets and ear pieces. Extremely expensive ear pieces like Phil’s Helios Dome5X data phone could not only give you audio access to the IP-Net, but also project a 2D-display in real time, in front of his eyes, shown as a small semitransparent screen, about 3 square inches in size.
Since it operated via a G3 processor, through audible voice commands one could access e-mails, news feeds, and download anything desired such as H-DVDs, sitcoms, or even a personal health diagnosis, via intricate IR-scans from meditech satellites. Despite the phenomenal capabilities of commercial comlinks powered by G3s, they were not the optimal product. The helmets worn by the Centura soldiers had much higher level processors, ranging from G5s to G8s.
“Good day, this is your captain speaking,” the voice of the Starline airbus’ human pilot slightly startled Phil, interrupting his thoughts with an upbeat tone.
Vocalizing his desire, Phil said, “Decrease, now.” And this voice command to his Helios Dome5X phone resulted in the diminishing of the volume of the jazz music, so he could hear the instructions being given by the informative voice projected via the overhead speakers in the luxurious cabin. Phil lifted his head slightly, as he blinked, in anticipation of the forthcoming announcement.
“Ladies and gentlemen, please return your seats to the upright position. Prepare to have your safety harnesses automatically activated, as we’re about to descend into Yantos,” the pilot said calmly. “Thanks again for choosing Starline.”
In response to the calm orders, Phil sat up and his Astro chair returned to its primary state. Then he hit a smooth button upon his left armrest, which activated his safety harness, a remote controlled seatbelt mechanism operated by mag-lev motion servos. The metal-tipped connectors ejected from four points on his chair, two on the edge of the seat and two more from the vertical support, and met just in front of his torso, as if drawn there like BlackhawkTZ26 missiles following a precise, curved, laser-com guided trajectory. He could have waited to have this harness automatically activated by the captain’s copilot, but he opted not to.
At first, Phil wondered what the verbal notice would have sounded like, if it had come from the copilot, an intricate AI, responsible for monitoring all the secondary functions of the airbus, such as sequential nitrium combustion, exterior micro-cathodic protection and cabin pressurization… then he shuddered at the thought. The hi-tech minds of sentient master AIs operated via G8 processors, giving them the ability to reason and react at rates that virtually appeared to be FTL. And actually, military grade AIs were outfitted with G10 processors.
Nevertheless, Phil really didn’t trust talking, thinking, sentient machines and he personally preferred the human touch, in all his daily endeavors.
Ah yes, the human touch. Phil took a deep breath and exhaled with a smile. And then he laughed calmly to himself, his relieving gestures remaining insignificant and unnoticed by the other nineteen passengers within the business class cabin. As he felt the huge craft begin to slightly dip in its trajectory, Phil also dived into his mental archives, reminiscing upon a very pleasant recent memory.
About 3 hours ago, Phil had felt the touch of humanoid hands… actually four hands, as he’d made love to an alien air hostess within one of the large luxurious lavatories, located at the extreme posterior end of the cabin, situated behind his seating area. She was a Scalatan, a four-armed busty beauty from planet Scalata, and her unique phenotype was extremely exotic.
She had a skin tone that appeared to be an eloquent blend of crimson and carnation pink. Her facial features were all neatly arrayed, and her alluring eyes were as equally enticing as her sensual full lips. She was bald, except for a grouped mohawk strand that commenced at the frontal part of her head in a “V” formation, and dropped down to the rear of her neck as a bound ponytail. Various circular apertures were arranged on the lower part of her forehead, and she possessed a unique nose that had what looked like horizontal markings painted across it.
This female humanoid didn’t have ears. Instead, like most Scalatans, she had two tentacles which extended from the side of her head, bearing the same color as her skin. They were each about 6 inches in length and had what appeared to be small egg-shaped bulbs at their tip. These bulbs were extra eyes, having eyelids around their entire circumference and opened slits at their apex. As the tentacles glided gracefully, they gave Scalatans the advantage of a panoramic view, allowing them to even have rear vision.
Phil smiled, as he blinked, and then he kept reflecting upon the eldritch female that had taken his breath away and undoubtedly satisfied his lascivious desires.
She wasn’t fat or overweight. She was just… thick, having slender appendages, a small waist, a gentle athletic butt and a large bust. Yatzat… yes, Yatzat… that was her first name. Phil remembered it from the Holographic Projected—HP—nametag that was affixed to her blouse, just above the left half of her huge bosom. He had focused intensely on her voluptuous chest as he’d held her, during their passionate exchange.
And while they’d made love, Phil had noticed a series of three extremely small, dark holes on the inner curve of each of her breasts, which he pondered about. Were they merely aesthetic, or part of her phenotypical make up? Or did they serve a purpose, such as respiration? He wasn’t sure, but he noted that Yatzat had panted constantly during their semi-nude torrid session, often gasping with pleasure, as he moved his hips back and forth, while she whispered pleasant words into his ear, like the popular Scalatan word “kita,” meaning “faster.”
She’d sat on the edge of the large cubico crystalline sink while he stood in front of her, locking her in a close amorous embrace. Cubico is a material that’s similar to marble in composition, but with fifty-times the durability.
Her heels had pointed downwards at her discarded miniskirt and his slumped slacks. And his lips had painted her throat while he’d probed her crevice with his might. Yatzat had passionately woven all her arms across his back, almost like an octopus gently engulfing its prey. It was a moment that filled Phil with excessive excitement and rapacious desires, as he actually felt like he was the octopus and she was his prey.
Phil reflected on how he’d been extremely aroused by the touch of her four arms; she had two regular human-like arms and two others that were smaller—which protruded from her sides, adjacent to her lower ribcage. Each arm had three fingers, yet they displayed the same dexterity as a five-fingered hand. Even after the pair had concluded their lovemaking, Yatzat held onto him and kissed him repeatedly, refusing to let him go. Her constant sensual caress had caused the hairs on the back of his golden-skinned neck to stand.
Like Phil, all true-born Averans have variations of golden skin tones and their anatomy is identical to those of humans, but it’s their genotype that is completely unique.
“Please, don’t leave me yet!” Yatzat had said, yearningly. “I do not wish for this sacred time to end!” her passionate voice was extremely soothing.
Phil simply couldn’t resist her feminine charm… and he’d stayed a while longer. As they kissed deeply and fervently, intermittently pausing to draw in deep breaths through their mouths, he’d found himself calling out her name, in a whispered tone. The “T” at the end of her name was silent, as most female Scalatan names, yielding the pronounced form of “Yatsah.”
There were about twelve Scalatan hostesses onboard this flight, four of whom served within this business cabin. Adorned in matching cream-colored, waist-length suites and miniskirts that fit their contours as tightly as latex gloves, the hostesses all looked professional, while exuding sexuality. They all wore open-toed 3-inch heeled pumps and some had fancy designer chokers, while others wore hats, displaying the Starline logo. Their phenotypes were as diverse as the tastes of the men and women present—some had extremely small waists and curvy butts, while others had large perky breasts that appeared to be yearning for liberation from the tight tube-top blouses beneath their suit’s coat.
But Phil hadn’t noticed any of them, except the one that had winked at him, right after she’d leaned in close to give him a refill of his second glass of Zesto beer, shortly after the flight commenced. That was the first time he’d caught a glimpse of Yatzat’s voluptuous chest, which was gracefully displayed before him as she’d leaned forward. Phil, a young man in his early-30s, was shy and slim, having large eyebrows, a mustache and a singular strip beard, running from the base of his bottom lip to the smooth tip of his chin. He worked as an administrative assistant for the Minister of Alien Relations, back on his home world of Avera.
Geeks like him never got excessive attention from women and it was rare that he would even look at a female, human or alien, directly in the eye, for an extended period. But Yatzat seemed different… she was different. Phil felt like she admired and desired him, or perhaps it was what he chose to believe. She was 5 feet 6 inches tall and he was about 4 inches taller. They appeared to be a perfect match, in terms of their physical size.
He believed that her elated mannerism during their erotic copulating session could not have been something she formulated, solely with deceptive or venal intent. After all, she was the one who’d casually sent him an e-mail through his Dome5X data phone, with her picture and an invitation to meet her in the lavatory for some complimentary mutual fun, if he so desired.
Prior to this trip, he’d heard his boss, Juriah Blaine, occasionally joke with some of his comrades about how easy it was to have intercourse on IP-flights, with fellow traveling diplomats and air hostesses.
“They practically give you anything you ask for on those trips, at no extra charge!” Juriah had bellowed, seated in his Astro hoverchair, while speaking to a fellow Minister seated across from him, on the other side of his broad C-shaped desk.
“But hey, when the female is hot and the sex is free, you really can’t beat that!” Tomi Cantur, the fellow Minister had replied, as both men leaned back in their chairs and laughed in unison, roaring almost uncontrollably. Yet they were oblivious to the fact that Juriah’s elbow had hit the comlink button on his hoverchair’s armrest 3 minutes earlier, allowing Phil to hear the most graphic portions of their conversation.
“Damn…” Phil said to himself in a low tone, “…Just wish the girls back home were as open as these Scalatan chicks.”
Phil kept pondering to himself, silently. At first he tried to deny it, but he couldn’t overstep his conscience, as it dictated to him that “open” wasn’t the best descriptive word; “unchaste” seemed to be a more appropriate term. After all, a complete stranger had just made him an offer for sensual intercourse and he’d received it, without question.
Phil was an Averan, and although he wasn’t a member of the Centura, his people were generally referred to as blood warriors, for their phenomenal combat abilities and relentless fighting spirit. As a military force, the Centura were greatly respected throughout the four sectors of the Makuran galaxy, which was roughly spread over a distance of 20 light years. King Titron Omenus, Prince Azzar Omenus and the other high ranking members of the Centura were literally superhuman soldiers… formally categorized as higher beings, as they possessed the powers of flight, energy shield generation and unique energy pulse projection from their epidermal surfaces.
Phil couldn’t jump more than 3 feet off the ground, let alone fly. However, he did have a striking facial resemblance to Lord Azzar Omenus, a potent member of the royal family.
He wished his phenotypical similarity with the Prince, who was much older than him, would’ve been an incentive for Averan females to desire him, but that was not the case. Phil remembered how he’d attempted to date a female soldier named Asia Avorus, back on Avera, several months ago. After seeing her picture on the IP-Net, he’d envisioned having sensual intercourse with her several times and his lust had driven him to meet her in person.
He’d imagined that she would be his first, and they would live a placid, serene life together. But Asia was in a foul mood the day he met her at Rockfort base and she’d leveled him to the ground with a lighting elbow to his jaw, because he’d kept following her around, still attempting to gain an audience, after she’d given him a verbal rejection.
His vision of intercourse on a bed of silk sheets mounted upon an open terrace within a hovering garden encircled by waterfalls, had come crashing down that day. Only now did it dawn on Phil that he’d just lost his virginity in a restroom, while traveling amidst the cold vacuum of space… to a total stranger whom he would probably never see again. This was not the way he’d envisioned his first time, but it had most certainly exceeded anything he’d experienced in VR-sex rooms, online.
The nighttime flight continued. The Starline airbus was currently breaking through the unseen atmospheric gravity waves of the mesosphere and into stratospheric semitransparent cloud cover, as it approached its dwarfed destination, the Yantos Central Starport. As the craft zoomed closer, the starport would obviously appear to grow larger, like an expanding mighty cobweb with lighted button nodes.
Phil felt a sense of ease and tranquility, as the airbus descended towards Yantos, one of the primary satellites of planet Macur. The observed view of the terraformed moon was a panorama of diverse lights, flickering neon projections and webbed networking transit lines. It was late at night, but the major city below and its residents were definitely awake.
Macuran airspace was not the place to be without the appropriate IP-transit e-code. This code was a type of electronic interplanetary visa, uniquely issued by each planet in the Makuran galaxy. Through the Starline’s telecom system, the pilot has sent the IP-transit e-code to the starport on Yantos, and to the Zarchon United Military HQ on Macur, as a precaution. The eldritch Zarchons who resided on Macur were notoriously renowned for blasting unidentified cruisers out of their airspace, under the directive of their questionable code for “maintaining planetary safety.”
Had the Starline’s master AI not began communicating with the AI located within the Yantos Central Starport dispatch mainframe during the initial take off, the Zero-pods located in Macuran orbit would have sought out the airbus like flies drawn to raw meat within seconds of approaching that airspace and detonated upon the vessel, resulting in a violent collision that excluded any explosions or brilliant arrays of blinding photonic beams.
This is because Zero-pods contained dark vortices at their core: an artificial black hole, mystically embedded within these nano-engineered asteroids. Their impact usually resulted in implausible implosions, rather than phenomenal explosions.
Phil turned his head to the right as he glanced towards the center aisle of the cabin. They were on the third floor of the Starline airbus and the seating arrangement here, within the business class cabin, was extremely well spaced and adequately sparse. The cabin possessed seats for thirty passengers, although only twenty had boarded it. And there were six rows comprised of Astro-AB TypeIII cabin recliner chairs, which were separated into two distinct halves by a 2.5-meter wide aisle. The entire floor of this luxurious cabin was adorned with a carpet of plush, gremoran fur, which almost made you feel like you were walking upon a gentle meadow, with grass as soft as wool.
As Phil looked towards the aisle, from his seat at the rear of the left half of the cabin, he saw two hostesses walking casually from the front to the rear, one behind the other. They both held out warm facial towels, which they were offering to the passengers. Phil’s eyes widened with excitement as the first Scalatan stepped out of his line of sight, to hand a towel to a gentleman in his mid-50s, giving the young Averan a chance to behold the hostess that was forthcoming behind her—the very female he’d recently known, intimately. As their eyes met, Yatzat tilted her head to the side gently, and smiled. Then she winked again and continued on her calm routine, offering towels to the other passengers. She soon approached Phil and a casual conversation began.
“Warm towel, sir?” she asked, in an inviting tone, leaning towards him.
Phil wasn’t used to hearing the term, “sir,” issued in reference to himself. That was what he always used to address his boss, Juriah Blaine, and the other members of the Averan Ministries Executive Board. He briefly pondered what really would make him feel like he was worthy of the noble salutation of “sir.”
“Sir?” Yatzat said, breaking his trend of thought. “Are you all right?”
“Oh!” he exclaimed. “Yes, yes I’m fine Yatzat, thanks,” he said. Then she instantly handed him a towel in response.
“Oh, no, no thanks!” he replied, in an upbeat tone. And he wondered if she knew that he still felt quite nervous around her. Yet at this juncture Yatzat had a puzzled look on her face.
“But sir…” she stated, while still extending the towel, “You first said ‘thanks’. Don’t you want the towel?” Yatzat asked, slightly bewildered as she held forth the folded item.
“Oh no!” Phil replied as he waved her off gently. “I meant thanks for asking if I was all right! I don’t want the towel!”
Phil noticed that the pretty hostess was struggling to keep from giggling, amused by his gentle mannerism. Once again, he was captivated by the tempting view of her bountiful cleavage, accentuated by the wonder bra she had on. While still leaning forward, Yatzat was keenly aware of the trance her chest was inducing on him per the focus of his eyes. Yet she didn’t mind.
Then while smiling, she nodded, turned around and walked back to the front of the cabin, where she glided through a hexagonal shaped door, which slid open from left to right, as she returned to the chamber where the four Scalatan hostesses on this level of the airbus resided.
After about 7 minutes, the Starline airbus was descending upon the colossal Yantos Central Starport, on runway H-T12. The brilliant low-end G-thrusters howled in the wind as the large craft descended gracefully. The giant turbines located on the ventral side of the chisel nosed, cuboid-shaped vessel roared; this provided a cushion of turbulent air, which conversely resulted in the stabilization of the airbus, as it struggled against gravity. The six giant-sized laser floodlights whose hubs were seamlessly engrafted into the surface of the runway provided the parameters for the vessel’s gradual descent onto its designated landing position, H-T12.
The Starline’s master AI used refractive laser beams to determine the exact angle to bring in the vessel, providing key assistance to the human pilot, who was maneuvering the large craft downwards via several motion cameras embedded on the crafts ventral side, which focused on the runway, while giving him numeric readings such as distance, avionic balance, current velocity and tangential angle of descent.
The airbus was about 90 meters in length and 20 meters at it highest point. On the port and starboard sides, there were no wings or weapons, just two giant cylindrical thrusters affixed towards the rear of the craft, on either side. In place of giant rubber wheels, the airbus had what could be best described as a trio of massive skis on its base—one at the apex of its ventral side, and the other two located at the rear in a twin-like array. These skis were usually concealed during flight and protracted only when landing sequences were initiated.
Airbuses were advanced IP-vessels, capable of landing on almost any terrain, even aquatic ones. In terms of their size, they were much smaller than armadas and dropships, as their focus was more on the transport of cargo and passengers, rather than payloads of mega blasters, large photon cannons, guided AAMs, advanced Duo-Nukes and Antimatter warheads.
As the airbus met the reinforced concrete surface of the runway with its protruding landing gear, Phil reflected briefly upon this landing experience. In his opinion, the entire descent had been flawless, except for the ten-seconds in which his Dome5X data phone had howled a harsh static blast into his ear, which sent unpleasant sensations into his eardrum and up into his brain. It had occurred during the transition from the lower mesosphere to the stratosphere, roughly 30 miles from the surface of this colonized moon.
Perhaps it was caused by a surge in electromagnetic waves, or an IP-signal overload? Phil wasn’t sure, but he didn’t care.
Right now, he was beginning to refocus upon the reason for his IP-flight to Yantos, as he was scheduled to have a meeting with a member of the Scalatan firm, Mujikkron Inc., to personally present the terms for reestablishing a recently terminated trade agreement between Avera and Scalata, pertaining to various rare, pod bearing eldritch plants, with medicinal properties. Corporate meetings requiring secure communication lines could easily be arranged over the IP-Net, but this small caucus was more of a summit, a 3-day affair, full of leisure events for Phil and the Mujikkron executive, Hong T-khon. It was a common belief that pleasurable times provided the best setting for the delivery of arduous proposals to an obstinate business partner, who would have otherwise displayed an adamant demeanor during a mere comlink call.
“Never trust a Scalatan!” Phil’s father had said repeatedly to him, years ago.
But that was a phrase commonly echoed by the members of the previous generations, when they narrated tales of corruption, venality and duplicity in regards to business ventures that involved Scalatans. Phil believed in the equality of the Averan race with all other races in the Makuran galaxy. He did not support the notion of judging the sons based on the actions of their fathers and he was not one to engage in conversations that derided other humanoids, simply out of ignorance or prejudice. He ardently believed that his 3-day interaction with Hong would verify his beliefs.
But at that moment, as Phil deactivated his safety harness and rose from his comfortable chair, things suddenly started changing.
Instantly, two fairly loud beeps were echoed through the overhead speakers within the business class cabin, followed by a stern stoic voice that made Phil feel extremely uneasy. It was the dry, emotionless voice of the vessel’s master AI, issuing a word of caution that sent thoughts of chaos into the minds of all the affluent passengers present.
“Warning, Warning!” the AI stated. “We have just been boarded unlawfully, please proceed to the front of this business cabin, in a single file, where we can generate a photonic shield to separate you from any…. Gzzzz!”
The robotic voice was drowned in static, and Phil recognized that his Helios phone that hung on his left ear was now off-line…. And from the confused voices that erupted throughout the cabin, the other dignitaries were just realizing the same thing, as they began hustling towards the frontal area, in front of the automated hexagonal door. At that instant, Yatzat rushed out through that door, breaking through the crowd and dashed towards Phil, who was at the rear of the room.
“Sir!” she desperately bellowed and waved frantically, as she approached him. “Please wait! Be still! Just be still!”
The shrillness of her voice implied a sense of desperation and she held a small purse in one of her larger hands. Confused, Phil paused in his steps, as he watched what appeared to happen next in almost slow motion.
Yatzat reached him and attempted to pull him further back, towards the rear of the cabin, which housed the lavatories and two exit doors. Phil was filled with bewilderment as he kept glancing forward, longing to join the rest of the passengers that were converging at the frontal area of the cabin. His lustful desires for Yatzat had held him in place till she reached him, but now he desired to flee with her towards the area he believed would ensure their safety.
But suddenly, the hexagonal door at the aft end of the cabin slid open and a menacing 7-foot giant emerged, clothed in a combination of chest armor plates, bulging shoulder pads, gauntlets and black pants, with several rectangular pouches strapped to his thighs. The glare from his four eyes was cold and ruthless, as he surveyed his targets without moving his head. He was a trained killer whose face was concealed behind a metallic, menacing Gorilla mask… and he held an item in each of his four arms—he was a Scalatan. His left and right gauntleted arms held VWS450 laser riffles, while his smaller hands held a bloody, 6-inch laser-edged dagger and the head of a young man, respectively. That kill was fresh, as crimson blood still dripped from the neck to the ground.
Chains of fear paralyzed the assembled host of passengers that stared at the arriving antagonist. And half a second later screams of terror erupted like sirens.
“My God! Is that the head of the human pilot?” Phil muttered fearfully to himself. “Or is it someone from a lower deck of the…?”
There wasn’t enough time to think as anarchy ensued in the anterior section of the cabin. Suddenly the promised semitransparent photonic shield was activated—barring the crest of the cabin by the hexagonal door from the rest of the stretched enclosure—and Phil watched in complete horror as a mass slaughter ensued. Amidst the yells of pain, the young man watched as heads and limbs exploded in irregular showers of blood and internal organs were spilled to the ground like raw bloody meat tossed out of a crate. The assassin had unleashed a merciless assault upon all of the passengers before him, within the uniquely confined shielded area.
“Oh my God! Oh my God!” Phil yelled in horror, uncontrollably, while paralyzed with taut cords of fear.
He wasn’t a soldier—he’d never beheld anything like this, a violent bloody massacre of innocent people. Perhaps it was the terror of the moment, but Phil could have sworn that the screams of pain and panic from the victims merged to form a crescendo of unfathomable fear and trepidation. Within seconds, the floor within the section of the cabin demarcated by the photonic shield was a swirling pile of charred, repugnant, bloodied flesh and bone.
The towering assassin had done his job and as the shield dissipated into the air, the giant Scalatan set his merciless gaze upon the lone Averan survivor, standing about 30 feet away at the opposite end of the cabin. When the massacre commenced, the shield had prevented the laser pulses from reaching beyond the kill-zone.
Now the shield was gone and with it, all hope.
Awakened from his trance of dread, Phil turned to run out of the cabin but was shocked to come face to face with Yatzat, who had tears flowing from her eyes.
“What the f…?” Phil gasped, but his words were interrupted by the sound of a small laser gun with a 4-inch long barrel that had just been fired. He felt a surreal pain in the lower left side of his gut, between what was probably his colon and small intestine, just above the intertubercular plane. He glanced down in shock, to see the slightly bloody cavity upon his polo t-shirt that had been made by a bullet not from the assassin but from Yatzat. The purse she’d carried as she raced towards him seconds ago had obviously concealed this compact silver weapon.
Reasoning at a dynamic rate, Phil wondered to himself, “If that’s a laser propelling weapon, why was I struck by a slender bullet?”
“Sir, I’m so, so sorry…” Yatzat whispered sorrowfully, with watering eyes, “…please forgive me!”
Phil barely heard her utter those last saddening words in an emotionally burdened tone, as he dropped lifelessly to the ground. But one final thought flowed through his mind, as he slipped away into what felt like a living realm of utter darkness:
Never trust a Scalatan—never.
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Here is the link to the complete 500-page e-book:
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NOTE: This Sci Fi article was extracted from my main blog. The original complete post was published on September 19, 2010 [ http://dsngsfm.blogspot.com/2010/09/visual-punctuations.html ]
VISUAL PUNCTUATIONS
Consider the two images below, sourced from a book by Ballistic Publishing called Matte Painting 2:
The first digital pic is from Star Wars: Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith, I think. And if you look at it carefully, you can tell that the sense of depth and height that the buildings are established upon are punctuated by the prevalent fog/smog encountered at that altitude. Plus, the radiance reflected upon the durable alloyed building panels from the sun indicate their nearness to the sky as the hours of dusk approach. The seemingly tiny hover transports zooming about also immediately yield a sense of the scale of the skytowers, as these buildings are truly massive. Yes, the structures are massive, because if you look carefully... you can't even see the street below, and neither can you distinctly make out the window panels of the buildings.
In the second digital pic, an outdoor garden terrace is showcased. And per the layout of the scenery, this garden is established at least 10,000 feet above the ground. The painted vicinity illustrates a stretched mountain range, and above this mountain range, the resident sentient species have transformed barren highlands into a flourishing environment. This could easily be a fantasy world [fantasy as a genre is different from sci fi, hopefully we'll get into that distinction in the future]. Yet the presence of a hovercraft towards the left of the image, floating above a building establishment, instantly pushes the pic into the sci fi genre - per the futuristic technology that would be needed to contrive such a vehicle.
Additionally, the tall habitable structures may have been carved out of hard stone and solid rock faces, or they may have been contrived by the hands of droids given construction protocols by their creators to carefully follow. Only the artist who drew the image would be able to fully describe what he had in mind when he tilted his graphite pen to the digital canvas. But regardless of the foundational elements of the buildings or the elevated garden, this image still presents an intriguing sci fi world to behold.
It is noteworthy to consider that the mountainous establishment may actually be covered with an energy dome - creating an engineered habitable environment - which would probably be visible if you zoomed out to behold the entire elevated city. The reason for such an addition would be due to the fact that the availability of oxygen at extreme elevations is strikingly low. In fact, at mountain peaks here on earth, you won't find gardens... you'll find frost, blanketing the spiky peaks. And you won't find butterflies or bunnies scuffling playfully about at those towering frigid locations, since they would have no established constant food source.
That sort of descriptive ecological balance is what I strive to personally consider when I write sci fi stories, and you can constantly see that balance in the DSNG CHRONICLES e-book Trilogy available now at Amazon.com. The dynamic tale is a fusion of action, adventure and romance, set in an alternate galaxy. As a graphic designer, I also write and draw the characters along with their futuristic environments/vehicles. That way, little is left to the imagination, and the audience can see the presented conceptual world in a tangible light.
If you look close enough, you can probably pick out more visual punctuations in the two JPEG images above that help to highlight the fact that sci fi worlds are definitely unique environments, worthy of a second look......
~ Article written by DSNG Artist
Visit my sci fi blog for more interesting archived entries: http://www.dsngsfm.blogspot.com/
And check out Book#1 of the completed DSNG CHRONICLES TRILOGY: http://www.amazon.com/DSNG-CHRONICLES-PRINCES-PRIDE-ebook/dp/B003UHVIDI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=books&qid=1290548263&sr=8-1
An intriguing synopsis of the dynamic series is presented there, in the lengthy product description. Running searches for "DSNG" on Amazon will show you links to the other two books.
Unlike the pristine bleak of the outside, the interior of Research Building A was filled
with people. Most of the occupants wore white lab coats, which was fitting. The
place was set up like a huge laboratory. Level upon level of laboratory space.
Craig had already seen most of the floors thanks to a brisk tour provided by his uncle.
He saw equipment he could not identify, technology he could hardly fathom.
Uncle Reese introduced him to many staff members. Scientists, engineers, technicians. Some
spoke accented English. Others not at all, but their research was
comprehensible to anyone trained in the arcane language of advanced science.
Finally, Craig was taken to an office at the very top floor. There, he met Dr.
Jason Ling, an experimental physicist on leave from a prestigious American
university, and Gretchen Hecht, a PhD mechanical engineer from Germany. A third
person, Dr. Alowole Adu, a materials specialist from Nigeria, was too engrossed
in the mathematical equations filling his laptop screen to acknowledge the new
arrivals.
“As you’ve undoubtedly guessed, we are no longer in the opera house,” Uncle Reese
announced, most understatedly.
Craig’s deadpan expression said, ‘no kidding.’
“We are not even on Earth. We are on a planet called Sirius, which is orbiting a star
called Sirius B. In fact, we are in a triple star system. That explains the
outside brightness, due to the fact that there’s more than one sun…”
Craig held up a hand to slow the data stream. “Wait a minute, this is…now hold on…we’re
not on Earth? How…I don’t get it…”
Craig walked to a tinted window, gazed out upon a desert landscape that extended as
far in all directions as he could make out. He could not accuse anyone of lying
because the evidence of his unearthly surroundings lay sprawled before his very
eyes. And if he could not accept the truth of that parched vista, all he has to
do was look up. “Ok. I won’t dispute my senses. So, the logical question to ask
in a situation like this is, how did we get here?”
“Worm hole,” replied Dr. Ling. “We created an artificial wormhole to bridge the gap
between worlds.”
An occasional reader of Scientific American, Craig was familiar enough with the
concept of wormholes. “You’re telling me that we developed technology to generate
a wormhole, to build all of this on another planet?”
“If by ‘we’ you mean the U.S. government, no, we didn’t do this alone,” clarified Uncle
Reese. "This is a worldwide effort. A very secret effort.”
Craig lifted a brow. “I’m all ears.”
Uncle Reese explained. The more he explained, the more effort it took for Craig to grasp
the reality of it.
It began in 1948, nearly eighty years earlier. A UFO crash-landed in Nevada. It’s a cliched
belief that when UFOs nosedive in the middle of nowhere, they’re usually
piloted by little green or gray large headed aliens who perish in the crash and
their bodies are transported to some ultra secret Area 51 type facility to be
autopsied.
First responders, poring over the crash site, would find no dead bodies inside the UFO.
The vehicle was a car sized probe. What investigators discovered inside the
probe, however, not only confirmed the craft’s extraterrestrial origins; it
scared the hell out of them. The investigators came across some kind of
fold-out video screen that self-activated, displaying the face of an alien. The
creature wasn’t the stereotypical green or gray skinned large headed alien.
It—perhaps it was a he or a she—looked like a cross between a ferret and a
toad. But its looks were irrelevant. The alien referred to itself as a Piron
who hailed from a far off planet of the same name.
Seven thousand Earth years ago, Piron was attacked and all life extinguished from its
surface by an aggressive species called the Uit. The Piron did not go down
without a fight. A few Piron survived the genocidal onslaught to launch hit and
run attacks against Uit ships. Eventually, Piron resistance was crushed, but
not before they gathered volumes of information about their enemy. It remained
a mystery to the Piron why the Uit were so hell bent on exterminating
intelligent life wherever they found it. But the Piron knew plenty about Uit
technology and methods of war. Drawing upon their much diminished tech base,
the Piron built numerous probes, downloaded all of their Uit data into these
machines and sent them into space toward any civilizations in the many paths of
the Uit’s advance.
So far, according to the alien’s precise data, 234 species received the Piron’s
warning. 214 of those species were exterminated. 20 managed to fight the Uit to
a standstill. The remainder achieved the remarkable feat of actually defeating
the Uit militarily. But there remained countless Uit ships plying the
never-ending darkness, searching for life to erase from existence. A group of
those ships were less than a year from Earth.
Craig snatched a few seconds to absorb what his uncle just told him. Anyone else
would have been shaking in his shoes. But Craig was not anyone else. He was a
trained operative.
“I want to see this alien’s video transmission for myself. I assume you have a copy.”
Uncle Reese looked amusedly taken aback. “A copy? We have the original.” He deferred to Dr.
Hecht.
Craig followed the engineer into a smaller room with a table upon which sat the
fold-out video screen described by Uncle Reese. The fold-out’s design was all
fluid angles, glazed with an iridescent coating of amber. The device’s
non-human origin was immediately obvious to Craig. The fold-out roughly
resembled a laptop, except it had no keypad.
Dr. Hecht waved a hand in front of the screen and stepped back as an alien image
materialized. “We have been trying to
figure out what makes this thing tick for decades.”
Craig was not interested in the mechanics of the hardware. The alien face staring back at
him from the device’s small screen fascinated him.
A ferret and a toad. Apt description.
The Piron spoke in perfect unaccented American English. Well, the alien itself was not
speaking English. Its puckered mouth hardly looked flexible enough to form
human words in any language. Some kind of translation program conveyed the
Piron’s speech.
“I’ll, um, leave you in solitude,” Dr. Hecht whispered, retreating quietly from the room.
Craig was not even aware of the engineer’s departure. He was too immersed in the video
recording of an actual alien from another planet.
An hour later, he emerged from the room.
Uncle Reese approached his nephew. “Quite a bit to take in, isn’t it?”
“To say the least.” Craig was subdued about the matter. It wasn’t everyday a person
received news that his planet was targeted for extermination by a pitiless,
genocidal alien species. “Why am I here? And why is this base so far from
home?”
“You are at Ground Zero,” replied Uncle Reese. “We’re hoping that this base will divert the
Uit’s attention from Earth. And if we’re exceptionally skilled and
exceptionally lucky, we will have fooled the Uit into thinking that the planet
we are currently on is Earth.”
Craig’s jaw went slack. “And how do you propose to do that, given all the radio emissions
emanating from Earth that screams our existence to the rest of the universe?
And if the Uit do attack this planet as planned, what makes you think they
won’t make a beeline for Earth afterwards?”
“Our projections, based on the data provided by the Piron, leans heavily in favor of
the Uit not heading toward Earth after they have completed their mission here,”
stated Dr. Hecht. “You see the Uit would have been alerted to the existence of
advanced life in this part of the galaxy at about the time of Christ, which is
when they would have dispatched world-killing ships in our direction. Twelve
years ago, the United States, in concert with twenty-seven nations, established
a satellite network around Earth. The satellites are designed to block all
outgoing emissions from Earth, making us invisible to the universe.” Dr. Hecht
adopted a preening tone. “My father had a significant role to play in the
research that led to the development of those satellites.”
Before Craig could offer his congratulations, Dr. Ling chimed in. “You’re wondering how
we’re going to attract the Uit to this location? Here’s how.” Ling directed Craig’s
attention to a flatscreen next to Dr. Adu’s station. He grabbed a remote and
pointed it at the flatscreen. A picture of a huge white satellite dish appeared
on the screen. “That’s a transceiver array,” he said, sounding infinitely
proud. “We’ve got hundreds of them scattered across the planet, broadcasting
radio emissions. Outside of the paltry few inhabitants staffing this base, the
population of this world is zero. Yet, those transceivers, combined, are
emitting enough signals to fool any extraterrestrial into assuming that this is
a heavily populated planet with a thriving tech base.”
Craig studied the screen for a moment, genuinely impressed. “Ok. Let me get this
straight. With Earth protected by this emissions blackout, the Uit are going to
come here, instead, thinking this
planet is Earth. But how are you going to address the next, biggest problem? I
mean, it’s one thing to use transceivers to masquerade as a populated,
technologically advanced world. But how are you going to fool the Uit when they
take a look at us up close and discover that nothing is here?”
“But that’s exactly what we are counting on,” said Dr. Hecht with a mad scientist grin
lighting up her translucently pale face. “The Uit are not going to take a close
look at us. They are going to attack first. Their ships will launch kinetically-driven
projectiles, each one a forth of a mile in diameter. Those projectiles will
impact this planet, generating such destruction as to make the catastrophe that
wiped out the dinosaurs seem like a brushfire in comparison.”
“How do you know?”
“It’s in the Piron’s data,” answered Uncle Reese. “The Uit changed how they waged war.
They became seriously stretched the farther out their fleets expanded. They
didn’t have enough people to, um, man their ships, so they built robot ships to
extend their operations into more remote parts of the galaxy. A robot task
force will attack a world, destroying every living thing. However, attached to
every task force is a ship with Uit observers on board. Observers inspect the
target world in the aftermath of the robot attack to verify the absence of
life. If the observers detect survivors, they send the robot ships back in to
finish the job.”
“That’s what you expect to happen here,” said Craig. “The robot ships will burn this
planet and these observers you mentioned are not going to find life afterward,
because there was never any life to begin with.”
“Well, no life beyond the single cell variety,” Dr. Hecht qualified with another
hair-raising grin. “But certainly the Uit observers will be left with a very
visible impression that their attack was a resounding success.”
Craig fixed his uncle with a suspicious look. “Devilishly clever plan, Uncle Reese. Why do
I get this irrepressible feeling that you came up with it?”
Uncle Reese’s expression was pure innocence wrapped in a silken shawl of virtue. “Any
ideas I submitted on how to confront the Uit were but a handful among many.”
“But you were given leadership over this project for a reason.”
“Well, up until fifteen years ago, the project’s research concentrated on constructing
weapons powerful enough to repel a Uit vessel. While we were successful in
devising a few highly penetrative directed energy beams, the planners came to
the sobering conclusion that at our current state of technological development,
it would take centuries for Earth to attain the capability to combat an
invasion from space.” Uncle Reese shrugged. “So, I threw out a little suggestion
which some top level people were not too keen on. They called it outlandish.
Other top-level people liked it and pulled strings to set it in motion. In the
end, even the most hard line skeptic had come around to the conclusion that it
would be more feasible, given our military weakness, to misdirect the invaders as opposed to trying to confront them. As a
result, here we are.”
Craig was hardly fooled by his uncle’s slump shouldered display of humility. The man was
a former national security advisor, current head of the blackest agency in the
U.S. government. A ‘little suggestion’ from an individual of Uncle Reese’s
credentials damn near carried the weight
of policy.
“Your role in this operation, Craig, is the most important,” Uncle Reese stressed.
“What exactly is my role, which, by the way, I haven’t volunteered for?”
Uncle Reese arched a brow. “I don’t understand.”
Craig struggled to contain the exasperation rising inside him. “Come on, Uncle Reese,
don’t play ignorant. You shanghaied me.”
Uncle Reese drew back with a look of surprise so convincing it almost had Craig regretting
his harsh words. “Shanghaied you? That’s a terrible accusation. No one forced
you to get on that copter, so I assumed you volunteered.” Uncle Reese glanced
at his watch. “Oh. I have an appointment in a half-hour. Better get back to
Earth. Make yourself comfortable, I’ll return in a few hours to brief you.”
Uncle Reese rushed away, leaving his calculating nephew to wonder if laws on Earth,
prohibiting the killing of a relative, applied offworld.
Craig Curtis plopped down in the lounge chair on his sprawling deck. He uncapped a bottle of protein drink, gulped down half of it and bit into the sweetest,
juiciest peach he had ever tasted. Life was good. He leaned back, his gaze
drifting contemplatively at the buffering expanse of beachfront leading to the
frothy shore of a sky blue ocean.
Craig was hardly winded after his five mile double-time run. He finished his drink, consumed the remainder of his
peach, and decided more activity was in order. Maybe he’d bring the bike out
for a jaunt along the cycling path behind his house. It felt good to be cut off
from the world, to not be bound by schedules and obligations, stress and
aggravation, hard choices and harder decisions.
His phone chirped a nursery rhyme melody. Craig froze, staring at the flat palm size device as if it had just materialized in front of him. In the three weeks he’d been here the
phone never rang. It was a secure phone. Only one person other than the president
and a couple of cabinet secretaries had the number to that secure phone.
Craig picked up the phone, glanced at the illuminated display screen and groaned. He could have simply turned the phone off and hopped on his bike. But he knew the
caller was not going to give up so easily. And if the caller couldn’t reach
Craig by phone, that person would find another means. Reluctantly, Craig thumbed the answer pad.
“Go ahead.”
“Craig, how are you?” an irritatingly cheerful voice boomed from the other end. Irritating and pleasantly infectious at the same time.
Craig could not help but to crack a smile. “I’m doing fantastic, Uncle Reese.”
“Are you really, Craig?” Uncle Reese’s tone was mildly skeptical. “Are you sure you’re not bored out of your wits? I mean what is it that you do day in and day out?
Running and strolling along the beach, frequent biking, lazing about in the
house or lounging on the deck for hours on end…”
Craig instinctively eyed the sky. He stepped away from his chair, backtracking toward the sliding door entrance to his house. “Have you got me under satellite
surveillance?”
Uncle Reese chuckled. “Standard procedure. No need to be alarmed. We have to keep our off duty ops under observation for their own protection. That way if a hit squad
invades your tropical abode we can call in a rapid response team.”
“I can handle my own security and I’m not an agency op, I’m a free lancer so you can divert your sky eyes elsewhere.”
“Touche’, but you’re still my nephew. Your mother would kill me if I let anything happen to you.”
Craig had one foot in his house the other planted on the deck. “That’s never stopped you from sending me into places where a thousand things could happen to me, none of
them good. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some biking to do…but then you
probably already know that.”
As expected, Uncle Reese was not that easy to get rid of. “Craig, I think you know that my call is not a social one.”
“I figured that out from the start. My answer is no.”
“You haven’t heard me out.”
Craig retreated into the kitchen. “I’m a freelancer. I have the option of accepting or turning down assignments. I don’t have to hear you out. My answer is no.”
“Craig, in addition to my day job, I’ve been, for the past ten years, involved with a highly classified project. Every secret organ of the government is involved.”
Uncle Reese slipped into his back home vernacular. “Dis ting is big, mon ,
really, really big. We talkin’ national…no, world security big.”
Craig detected the underlying gravity beneath Uncle Reese’s lilting delivery and had no reason to dismiss the other’s claim as mere hyperbole. As ethically
ambiguous as his uncle could be at times, the former never needed to spice up a
presentation to get Craig to accept a mission.
Temptation tickled the back of Craig’s mind, until memories of his last goat-screw of a mission soured his curiosity.
“I need you on this one, Craig,” his uncle persisted, almost at the threshold of pleading. “I’m coming with a copter to pick you up.”
“Keep your copter, Uncle Reese. And find someone else for whatever scheme you’ve got cooking. I’m not going anywhere.”
Craig stared petulantly out the bubble-shaped copter window, pointedly ignoring the man sitting beside him.
Uncle Reese was glowingly fit and trim for his 60 plus years. He was dressed in white-- stark, gleaming,unblemished--white. White casual button down short sleeve
shirt. White creased slacks, a white Panama hat, even white dress sandals. His low cut hair and neatly trimmed beard
stood out like fresh snow against the contrasting sable of his skin. Uncle
Reese had clearly taken the time to cultivate the image of a carefree Caribbean
jet setter.
The pilot increased speed and in seconds Craig’s island paradise became a fading pimple on the ocean.
“Don’t feel so bad,” said Uncle Reese, plucking a prepared cigar from his shirt pocket. “You were wasting away back there. I saved you.”
Craig turned from the window, fixing his uncle with a seething look. “How considerate. Where are we going?” Craig glanced disapprovingly at the cigar. He
didn’t like tobacco. Uncle Reese knew that.
Uncle Reese lit up anyway. He took a pull and blew out a heavy puff of sweetly pungent smoke, which quickly dissipated through the overhead slits of the copter’s air
filtration vents.
“We’re going to our operations base.”
“And where is that?”
“A secret location.”
Craig staved off a bout of exasperation…barely. “I’m regretting this already.”
Uncle Reese looked at Craig with a smile that said he knew his nephew all too well. “No you’re not. You can’t wait to see what I have to show you.”
Craig exhaled a conceding sigh. His uncle knew him too well.
Secret locations always brought to Craig’s mind isolated hideaways tucked in the middle of deserts, inside mountains or miles beneath oceans. Goodness knows, he
had been inside more than a few of those types of places. He fully expected to
arrive at a distant under populated locale. What better place to house a
project as secretive as the one his uncle described?
Craig was surprised to find himself in the in bustling heart of a major Midwestern American city. So many people. The sheer volume of activity after so much
solitude was a veritable shock to his senses. Craig had to readjust and fast.
He was sitting in the back seat of a white sport utility with dark tinted windows.
His uncle sat beside him, silent, deep in whatever ruminations occupied him at
the moment.
Traffic was stop and go. Skyscrapers towered above, proud, preening, mirror reflective tributes to modern architecture, to American prestige, to the cutting edge
wonders of a civilization reaching for the stars.
The driver wore the look of a dutiful agency functionary as easily as he donned the dark sunglasses wrapped around his eyes.
The sport utility pulled in front of a huge block long building and stopped.
Uncle Reese reached for the door handle. “Ah, here we are.”
Craig grabbed Uncle Reese’s arm. “Here we are where?”
“The secret location.”
Craig peered out the window on his uncle’s side, taking in the expanse of a landmark structure with an art deco façade framing the entryway. “An opera house?”
“What better front?” Uncle Reese smiled, opened the door, and stepped out of the vehicle.
Craig watched the sport utility pull off until it blended into the afternoon traffic. Then he followed his uncle to the entrance.
They walked through the lobby into an atrium ablaze with red carpets and decorative wall carvings coated in gold. A multitude of doors inlaid with similar gold colored
patterning led to the theatre. Marble columns of Greco-Roman design flanked the
atrium.
Uncle Reese passed the theatre, heading toward a staircase leading to a lower level.
The lower floor was not as extravagant as the top level. Presumably it had an administrative function.
The two men walked by an assortment of rooms with closed doors.
Craig assumed one of those rooms to be their destination. But his uncle took him to an open elevator just around
the corner at the farthest end of the floor. Craig remained silent when Uncle
Reese pressed the LL button and the elevator doors closed. What’s another level
down? Large buildings typically had more than one basement level floor.
Fifteen seconds later—Craig kept count—the doors opened. Craig was the first to step out at his uncle’s beckoning. He looked around, beheld a vast office space, replete
with desks and cubicles. There was even
a water cooler outside a glass enclosed interior Craig presumed to be a break
room. People were sitting at desks peering intently at terminal screens. The
clickity-clack of tapped keyboards reverberated across the floor.
Unassuming types in casual slacks, wearing loosened ties, circulated from desk to desk with paperwork in hand.
Typical office environment, typical office activity. Nothing remarkable to catch Craig’s eye. The only thing about the place was that very few people outside
this room knew it existed.
“Nice mockup,” Craig remarked insincerely. “Now you can tell me why I’m here.”
Uncle Reese flashed a circus master smile.
Craigs heard a tiny alarm bell pinging in the back of his head.
“It would be better if I showed you,” Uncle Reese said a little too enthusiastically.
He led Craig past the mild commotion of the larger office area down a narrow corridor flanked by vacant office spaces.
All the doors to the vacant spaces were wide open, except for one.
Uncle Reese stopped in front of the closed door. He opened the door, gesturing his nephew to follow and stepped inside.
Craig was assaulted by darkness the second he entered the room. It was a stygian blackness that bypassed his normal lack of wariness of dark places to claw into
his soul. Layers of courage were peeled away in strips, revealing tender welts
of childhood fears. Another layer exposed and panic would rise to the fore.
Craig struggled to remain calm, at a loss to explain his sudden, uncharacteristic feeling of faint heartedness. “Uncle Reese, can you, uh, turn the lights on, please?”
The lights did come on in a manner of speaking. What Craig saw when the darkness passed had him questioning his very senses. He was not in a room. He was outside, somewhere,
standing on black tarmac. He saw buildings, short squat industrial gray
structures, overlooked by three taller bubble topped buildings that resembled
air traffic control towers. He saw aircraft parked in rows next to the
shortest, widest of the structures. Their designs were like nothing he had ever
seen before. Some craft were shaped like bullets, others swept winged with turtle
shell bodies. One craft had a flat, elegantly curved design that brought to
Craig’s mind that of a stingray. He looked up into the sky, saw that it was
clear, but strangely, not blue. The sky was a colorless gruel painted by an unusually
bright sun. Craig shaded his eyes,
examining the sky a little more closely…sun? Suns? Impossible! Must have been some sort of climate related
optical illusion. This whole setup must
have been an illusion.
Then, he noticed the air. It felt lighter, like he was at a higher altitude. He had to breathe a little harder. “Uncle Reese, is this some kind of prank? Where the
hell are we?”
“No prank, Craig. Welcome to the headquarters of Project Illusion.” Uncle Reese took Craig’s elbow, gently directing his dumbfounded nephew toward one of those odd
buildings in the near distance. “When I explain to you what Project Illusion is
you’re going to wish I was pulling a prank. Trust me.”
