Post by Nick L. on Feb 26, 2012 20:59:29 GMT -5
Chapter 1 ~ Gizmo
A line of cars drive by on a busy city street. Papers and debris kick up in the wind and gather on the curbs. Bland faces walked down the street with their hoods up and their heads down. They walked up and down the cracked sidewalks that were shadowed by buildings kept in similar poor upkeep. Graffiti and gang signs were smeared over every street corner. Every now and then the people of Nova City would hear the distant sounds of gun fire. Nobody paid it much mind unless it was within close proximity.
The beacon of Nova City, which was known as Donovan's Peak, was home to about seventy-five percent of the city's demographic. Anyone with enough credits in their account could afford to live in what many would call a utopia. Though those who couldn't afford the price, ended up living on the mean streets of what Nova City used to be. To the locals, it was known as Rotting Den and Donovan's Peak. The name Nova had little meaning anymore.
High above ground level, the fiftieth floor of Donovan's Peak, was one of many office buildings. A large open room divided up into several cubicles, where people performed their rather menial tasks. The room was silent except for the sounds of ringing phones and papers shuffling, mixed with the occasional voice talking in a soft tone. The silence was abruptly and painfully cut by the sound of a person kicking in the front door to the office floor. A tall muscular figure wearing a black wool mask on his face stood in the doorway with an MP-5 in his hands. People who saw him come in, mostly those being close to the front door at the time, turned and started running from the masked man.
With a sound that filled the room, the gun opened fire inside the room. The automatic rifle fired bullets across the room as the man stood and turned his body. Bloodied bodies fell to the ground as he laid waste to the office building. Bullets shot through cubicle walls and shot men and women on the opposite sides. One woman was running from him and took a load of bullets to the back. The room was full of terrified screams as people who didn't take shots could see and hear their coworkers being murdered.
The man emptied his clip and discharged it as he started walking through the body ridden office, stepping over the people he had just taken down. The dispensed clip hit the ground and a black gloved hand reloaded a fresh clip. He reached the end of the office floor and turned right. At the back corner of the room was a private office, belonging to the manager. It was a room made of plexiglass and black aluminum supports.
The man turned his head towards the opened door, and saw a grouping of Peak guards filing into the room, each of them holding carbine assault rifles and donning the company's red and black combat armor. The man reacted and ducked behind the cubicle wall as the men fired off a few shots at him, hitting the back wall. The man had his back to the cubicle wall and cocked his submachine gun. He poked his head around the corner and fired off a few shots at the guards, missing them but putting them on edge. The guards fired back at him, missing as well. Three soldiers in total that kept their distance from the madman.
“Shit... Shit!” The man said as his gun jammed. He smacked it and pulled the release to unjam the bullets. He knew if he didn't act soon that the guards would get brave and move in. To his left he saw the office copier. He grinned widely and crept behind the large white machine. He pulled his hand back and his pupils grew larger for a second before he drove his hand forward. The copier was shot into the air at high velocity towards the guards. They jumped out of the way to avoid being hit, but he had his chance to move. He ran across the room while pulling the release on his gun until he felt the bullets unjam.
A man stood on a street corner near a grassy ravine, looking straight ahead at the crosswalk, waiting to cross. His hair was straight and blonde with his bangs sticking up in the air. A small gray device sat in his ear. It buzzed once as the earpiece let him know he had an incoming message.
“Yo Gizmo, did you feel that?” A female voice said in his head. A car drove past him and a light breeze of dirty air pushed into his nostrils. His ears perked up from hearing the voice of his partner. He looked up towards Donovan's Peak, where he knew she was at the time.
“Feel what, Kitty?” He replied to her after pressing the talk button on his earpiece. He checked his watch, the time reading 3:49 pm. She wasn't there long enough to get her business done, so what she wanted was a mystery to him.
“So you didn't? That's weird. Crow and I are on floor thirty, near the shopping plaza, and we felt something weird, like an EMP pulse or something, but our connections are fine. He's scanning the area now.” She said. Kitty's voice was young and immature, about what you'd expect from a seventeen year old Japanese girl.
“That does sound weird, keep us updated if he finds anything.” He said on his earpiece as he started walking across the street. The crosswalk light came on and he was trying to get home. A row of cars sat at the red as he passed them. Each car looking worse than the last with their faded colors and rust. He got to the other side of the sidewalk and looked up at the how the peak eclipsed the sun from this angle. When the sun caught the tower right, the whole city sat in it's shade.
The man opened the office door and walked inside as the guards gathered themselves. The manager sat in his chair looking at the man in fear. He was a husky older man, bald and wearing an office shirt and tie. Before he could get a word out, the man filled him full of bullets, though the gun jammed a second time. The man grew angry and tossed the gun to the ground. “Cheap piece of shit.” He said. He ran behind the desk and pushed the corpse onto the ground. A filing cabinet to the left of the desk was his target. He thumbed through the cabinet, until he found a category labeled “Special CommLink Operating Systems”. He pulled the file from the category, seeing that it was labeled “Classified”.
The man smiled and reached for the manager's briefcase, popping it open and discarding the man's own files, and put this new file into it. He closed the briefcase and looked up, seeing the three men standing across from him with their guns drawn. “You're under arrest, put your hands over your head!” The middle guard ordered. This made the man chuckle sadistically.
“Three of you? Oh I'm shaking.” He said as he backed up towards the plate glass window behind him. The men were prepared to fire on him. “Last chance! Raise your hands over your head!” The man ordered again. The man lifted his free hand into the air, still smiling. His pupils grew large a second time, and the center guard was pushed across the room and through the glass wall. The other two men were pushed aside from the force. The force also pushed the man backwards, and launched him through the glass window and outside the Peak, falling fifty stories towards the ground.
“I see it. There's someone on the fiftieth floor. He's fighting off guards with his bare hands.” A deep monotone voice said into Gizmo's earpiece. It was Crow's dark and sullen voice. He was a man of few words and more action. What he said confused Gizmo, since it seemed impossible that someone could fight off security guards with his bare hands. Donovan armed his guards with military grade assault rifles, how he managed it he still don't know, but he did. Likely he bought off a branch of the military for munitions.
“His bare hands? That makes no sense.” Gizmo said back. He was now walking down the sidewalk, a grassy bank to his left as he was headed for the far south side of Nova.
“I'm seeing it for myself.... either that or he's doing something to incapacitate them... he just pushed a guard... from five feet away.” Crow said. He sounded like he was confused by what he was seeing. Crow could see through the thick walls and floors of the peak with infrared sight, without leaving the side of Kitty.
“I think we've got a faulty connection Crow. We'll talk about it back at the base.” He said back to him.
“You made these things Gizzy, we should blame you for any faulty connection.” Kitty said teasingly. He smiled a bit and laughed in the microphone.
“He's headed towards the window.” Crow said on the same frequency as Kitty and Gizmo. He turned around and looked at the peak to see what Crow was talking about. Up high, so high he could barely see, Gizmo could faintly make out a person crashing through a high story window. His bespectacled eyes watched as a man had leaped from the fiftieth floor of Donovan's Peak. Part of him told himself to look away, not needing to see someone pancake themselves on the mean streets of Rotting Den, but a morbid interest kept his eyes following the man's long descent.
“The guy's stupid or crazy. Either way I respect anyone who says 'fuck you' to the Peak.” Kitty said on her commlink. Gizmo faintly heard her words since he was more focused on the man himself. The way he fell didn't look like he was falling to his death, but like he was under control of the situation. His quick descent was blocked near the end since Gizmo couldn't see past the buildings on the ground level, but shortly after he disappeared he heard a loud noise, like something pounded the ground with the force of a meteorite. The ground vibrated briefly and he felt it's impact.
He felt a strange coldness in his body after hearing and feeling it, like he just witnessed a death, and his own soul was pushing itself from his body. He shuddered a bit and could barely think straight. His hands shook and trembled with anxiety.
“Gizmo?.... Yo answer me man!” Kitty's voice called out. He didn't answer. Gizmo's throat felt too dry to speak. He took slow steps going backwards as he started to build distance between himself and the crater that he was sure now existed. His mind filled with gory images of whatever was left of the young man that plummeted to the ground. He feared for what had happened, how much pain he felt when he landed, and who saw him crash. Men, women, or even children who'd find the corpse. Gizmo's mind fell into a dark place that he wanted to get out of.
Suddenly something huge shot into the air. It looked like a car that had been rocketed into the sky. Gizmo's eyes followed the vehicle as it arced through the air and crashed onto the road ahead of him The car rolled over itself three times before rolling into the riverbank. People in the streets started running from the direction of the car. Gizmo turned from the scene and started running with the crowd. He didn't know why he ran as fast as he did, but he didn't think he needed to know. If so many people were running for their lives then it was probably something worth running from. He wasn't sure when he stopped running, but at one point he realized that he had made it back home.
A line of cars drive by on a busy city street. Papers and debris kick up in the wind and gather on the curbs. Bland faces walked down the street with their hoods up and their heads down. They walked up and down the cracked sidewalks that were shadowed by buildings kept in similar poor upkeep. Graffiti and gang signs were smeared over every street corner. Every now and then the people of Nova City would hear the distant sounds of gun fire. Nobody paid it much mind unless it was within close proximity.
The beacon of Nova City, which was known as Donovan's Peak, was home to about seventy-five percent of the city's demographic. Anyone with enough credits in their account could afford to live in what many would call a utopia. Though those who couldn't afford the price, ended up living on the mean streets of what Nova City used to be. To the locals, it was known as Rotting Den and Donovan's Peak. The name Nova had little meaning anymore.
High above ground level, the fiftieth floor of Donovan's Peak, was one of many office buildings. A large open room divided up into several cubicles, where people performed their rather menial tasks. The room was silent except for the sounds of ringing phones and papers shuffling, mixed with the occasional voice talking in a soft tone. The silence was abruptly and painfully cut by the sound of a person kicking in the front door to the office floor. A tall muscular figure wearing a black wool mask on his face stood in the doorway with an MP-5 in his hands. People who saw him come in, mostly those being close to the front door at the time, turned and started running from the masked man.
With a sound that filled the room, the gun opened fire inside the room. The automatic rifle fired bullets across the room as the man stood and turned his body. Bloodied bodies fell to the ground as he laid waste to the office building. Bullets shot through cubicle walls and shot men and women on the opposite sides. One woman was running from him and took a load of bullets to the back. The room was full of terrified screams as people who didn't take shots could see and hear their coworkers being murdered.
The man emptied his clip and discharged it as he started walking through the body ridden office, stepping over the people he had just taken down. The dispensed clip hit the ground and a black gloved hand reloaded a fresh clip. He reached the end of the office floor and turned right. At the back corner of the room was a private office, belonging to the manager. It was a room made of plexiglass and black aluminum supports.
The man turned his head towards the opened door, and saw a grouping of Peak guards filing into the room, each of them holding carbine assault rifles and donning the company's red and black combat armor. The man reacted and ducked behind the cubicle wall as the men fired off a few shots at him, hitting the back wall. The man had his back to the cubicle wall and cocked his submachine gun. He poked his head around the corner and fired off a few shots at the guards, missing them but putting them on edge. The guards fired back at him, missing as well. Three soldiers in total that kept their distance from the madman.
“Shit... Shit!” The man said as his gun jammed. He smacked it and pulled the release to unjam the bullets. He knew if he didn't act soon that the guards would get brave and move in. To his left he saw the office copier. He grinned widely and crept behind the large white machine. He pulled his hand back and his pupils grew larger for a second before he drove his hand forward. The copier was shot into the air at high velocity towards the guards. They jumped out of the way to avoid being hit, but he had his chance to move. He ran across the room while pulling the release on his gun until he felt the bullets unjam.
A man stood on a street corner near a grassy ravine, looking straight ahead at the crosswalk, waiting to cross. His hair was straight and blonde with his bangs sticking up in the air. A small gray device sat in his ear. It buzzed once as the earpiece let him know he had an incoming message.
“Yo Gizmo, did you feel that?” A female voice said in his head. A car drove past him and a light breeze of dirty air pushed into his nostrils. His ears perked up from hearing the voice of his partner. He looked up towards Donovan's Peak, where he knew she was at the time.
“Feel what, Kitty?” He replied to her after pressing the talk button on his earpiece. He checked his watch, the time reading 3:49 pm. She wasn't there long enough to get her business done, so what she wanted was a mystery to him.
“So you didn't? That's weird. Crow and I are on floor thirty, near the shopping plaza, and we felt something weird, like an EMP pulse or something, but our connections are fine. He's scanning the area now.” She said. Kitty's voice was young and immature, about what you'd expect from a seventeen year old Japanese girl.
“That does sound weird, keep us updated if he finds anything.” He said on his earpiece as he started walking across the street. The crosswalk light came on and he was trying to get home. A row of cars sat at the red as he passed them. Each car looking worse than the last with their faded colors and rust. He got to the other side of the sidewalk and looked up at the how the peak eclipsed the sun from this angle. When the sun caught the tower right, the whole city sat in it's shade.
The man opened the office door and walked inside as the guards gathered themselves. The manager sat in his chair looking at the man in fear. He was a husky older man, bald and wearing an office shirt and tie. Before he could get a word out, the man filled him full of bullets, though the gun jammed a second time. The man grew angry and tossed the gun to the ground. “Cheap piece of shit.” He said. He ran behind the desk and pushed the corpse onto the ground. A filing cabinet to the left of the desk was his target. He thumbed through the cabinet, until he found a category labeled “Special CommLink Operating Systems”. He pulled the file from the category, seeing that it was labeled “Classified”.
The man smiled and reached for the manager's briefcase, popping it open and discarding the man's own files, and put this new file into it. He closed the briefcase and looked up, seeing the three men standing across from him with their guns drawn. “You're under arrest, put your hands over your head!” The middle guard ordered. This made the man chuckle sadistically.
“Three of you? Oh I'm shaking.” He said as he backed up towards the plate glass window behind him. The men were prepared to fire on him. “Last chance! Raise your hands over your head!” The man ordered again. The man lifted his free hand into the air, still smiling. His pupils grew large a second time, and the center guard was pushed across the room and through the glass wall. The other two men were pushed aside from the force. The force also pushed the man backwards, and launched him through the glass window and outside the Peak, falling fifty stories towards the ground.
“I see it. There's someone on the fiftieth floor. He's fighting off guards with his bare hands.” A deep monotone voice said into Gizmo's earpiece. It was Crow's dark and sullen voice. He was a man of few words and more action. What he said confused Gizmo, since it seemed impossible that someone could fight off security guards with his bare hands. Donovan armed his guards with military grade assault rifles, how he managed it he still don't know, but he did. Likely he bought off a branch of the military for munitions.
“His bare hands? That makes no sense.” Gizmo said back. He was now walking down the sidewalk, a grassy bank to his left as he was headed for the far south side of Nova.
“I'm seeing it for myself.... either that or he's doing something to incapacitate them... he just pushed a guard... from five feet away.” Crow said. He sounded like he was confused by what he was seeing. Crow could see through the thick walls and floors of the peak with infrared sight, without leaving the side of Kitty.
“I think we've got a faulty connection Crow. We'll talk about it back at the base.” He said back to him.
“You made these things Gizzy, we should blame you for any faulty connection.” Kitty said teasingly. He smiled a bit and laughed in the microphone.
“He's headed towards the window.” Crow said on the same frequency as Kitty and Gizmo. He turned around and looked at the peak to see what Crow was talking about. Up high, so high he could barely see, Gizmo could faintly make out a person crashing through a high story window. His bespectacled eyes watched as a man had leaped from the fiftieth floor of Donovan's Peak. Part of him told himself to look away, not needing to see someone pancake themselves on the mean streets of Rotting Den, but a morbid interest kept his eyes following the man's long descent.
“The guy's stupid or crazy. Either way I respect anyone who says 'fuck you' to the Peak.” Kitty said on her commlink. Gizmo faintly heard her words since he was more focused on the man himself. The way he fell didn't look like he was falling to his death, but like he was under control of the situation. His quick descent was blocked near the end since Gizmo couldn't see past the buildings on the ground level, but shortly after he disappeared he heard a loud noise, like something pounded the ground with the force of a meteorite. The ground vibrated briefly and he felt it's impact.
He felt a strange coldness in his body after hearing and feeling it, like he just witnessed a death, and his own soul was pushing itself from his body. He shuddered a bit and could barely think straight. His hands shook and trembled with anxiety.
“Gizmo?.... Yo answer me man!” Kitty's voice called out. He didn't answer. Gizmo's throat felt too dry to speak. He took slow steps going backwards as he started to build distance between himself and the crater that he was sure now existed. His mind filled with gory images of whatever was left of the young man that plummeted to the ground. He feared for what had happened, how much pain he felt when he landed, and who saw him crash. Men, women, or even children who'd find the corpse. Gizmo's mind fell into a dark place that he wanted to get out of.
Suddenly something huge shot into the air. It looked like a car that had been rocketed into the sky. Gizmo's eyes followed the vehicle as it arced through the air and crashed onto the road ahead of him The car rolled over itself three times before rolling into the riverbank. People in the streets started running from the direction of the car. Gizmo turned from the scene and started running with the crowd. He didn't know why he ran as fast as he did, but he didn't think he needed to know. If so many people were running for their lives then it was probably something worth running from. He wasn't sure when he stopped running, but at one point he realized that he had made it back home.