Greetings! I haven't posted for a bit...but...I bring goods!

A few of you might remember a story I used to do on the old board called SciBoard Fiction (here).

Well, just for Easter, I'm doing a short, one-off, standalone story with enough stuff from the original in it for it to be called SciBoard, but it doesn't really fit in anywhere in the original, so can't really be called a sequel, and you don't need to read the old one to read this.

So...here's the start...

----------------------


Team Leader 'Cynical Youth' signalled for the man flanking his right to run up ahead. The man did so, taking cover behind some shrubbery. Cynical Youth himself stood with his back to a tree, an assault rifle in his hands and a pair of night-vision goggles over his eyes.

The first man in place, he signalled again, and a second man made his way to some foliage on the other side, getting there in a crouching run. The man peered through the leaves using goggles of his own, his vision green and slightly fuzzy.

The concrete bunker was several metres up ahead, past a stretch of open ground. There appeared to be no one in sight.

The man looked to his left, and the other man nodded in affirmation. The Team Leader watched them sprint across the open ground and pin themselves to the bunker wall, clutching their weapons tightly, standing either side of a small, rectangular entrance.

Cynical Youth signalled once again, and another two men materialised out of the darkness and followed suit. Cyn breathed deeply, closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the tree to focus himself, but only for a moment. His eyes snapped open and he turned from the tree, bolting across to meet the others.

He was first into the bunker, lifting his goggles up out of the way and sweeping the area with his flashlight. The others did the same--the goggles were useless in complete darkness. They edged down a claustrophobic corridor, the rough, concrete walls barely a metre apart. The corridor sloped very gradually downwards as they progressed. A noxious, stale smell choked the air.

Cyn kept his gaze locked on the way ahead as they worked their way down, breathing through his mouth. His men paused to kick open doors leading to small, empty rooms, shining light into their dark corners before moving onto the next.

Their descent suddenly steepened, and the doors that had so far sparsely lined the walls disappeared altogether. The corridor ended and they passed into a large room, the temperature dropping even further.

There was an ominous, low-pitched hum coming from something in there. Their flashlights revealed thick lengths of wire snaking across the floor and over and into the backs of giant hulks of dust-covered metal. Cyn felt warm, putrid air against his face as he passed a ventilation fan.

'Computers?' asked one of the men.

'It would appear so,' replied Cyn.

The men made their way further into the room, which seemed to go on for a considerable length. Cyn, who had been making his way straight down the middle, was stopped in his tracks by a dusty and inactive flatscreen monitor, suspended lopsidedly at roughly head height by a thick vine of wires leading up to the ceiling. Affixing his flashlight to his belt, Cynical Youth cautiously reached out to touch it--

--and it switched on, his finger still inches away. The screen lit up with an extremely bright, painful light. Cyn felt his pupils sharply contract, and all five members of the team had to shield their eyes until they became more accustomed to it.

Cyn squinted at the screen, at the words that had appeared on it...

BaMessenger™ 2.0

Ba light, Ba bright, the first Ba inferior sees tonight!

SinisterPresence: You're too late.

'What?' said Cyn, as the other members of his team appeared beside him.

SinisterPresence: They've moved on.

'What?' cried Cyn. 'No!'

SinisterPresence: Toodles.

The persistent hum of the encased machinery grew louder. The screen went blank. One of Cynical Youth's men cried out as green gas billowed out from a fan right by his head, vile and toxic.

The same started to happen throughout the room.

'Ooh shit,' said Cyn, as the man clutched at his throat and fell to the ground. 'We need to get out of here!'

The other members of the team were looking around in bewilderment.

'Now!' yelled the Team Leader, picking up the fallen man and slinging him over his shoulder. 'Come on!'

amelia: yo
i am a yoyo.

Chris: yes

I've always wanted night vision goggles, I'm also off to play Battlefield 2 after reading that.

Dragon's Kingdom - Stop typing "alot" when you mean "a lot"! - Disappointed

:cooler:

Good stuff.

Lots of well-dressed people were gathering in a huge, capacious room of aristocratic flamboyancy, a high-vaulted glass dome above their heads, a marble floor beneath their feet, and dozens of ornaments and completely inappropriate statues of both great value and great fragility lining the walls.

Ambassador Hsing, a champagne glass in her hand, gazed up in wonder at the distant ceiling. The room was actually square, and the corners of the ceiling that the dome did not devour were occupied by epic paintings of chubby cherubim, sticking spears in each other and drawing blood. It was unnecessary filler; graffiti on a grand scale.

Beyond the glass it was a clear night, and the stars added yet another dimension to the already over-the-top immenseness of it all.

Hsing sipped at her champagne and looked around the room at the people there. As Ambassador, it was her job to promote her own city through warm smiles, flattering speeches and displays of appropriate amounts of interest in the lives of the rich and influential people she was acquainted with. This evening was all about the unveiling of some supposedly exquisite piece of artwork, which was apparently well worth having the city spend ridiculous amounts of money on, despite the appalling state of affairs the city was actually in.

But, as Hsing knew well, it was all about outward appearance.

Most of the guests seemed to have arrived. Hsing smoothed her black dress and flicked back her dark hair to ensure full ambassadorial volume before making her way to the stage, detouring on the way to greet a man with a frighteningly large moustache. The stage itself was only small: a slightly raised platform occupying a section of the room's edge, covered in red carpet and with a backdrop of prospectus-style photos taken at quirky angles. A smartly dressed, elderly curator was giving two thumbs up.

On the stage itself was a microphone stand, the soon-to-be-revealed art hidden under a white sheet, and the curator in person, standing with his hands behind his back and looking thoroughly austere.

Hsing walked up to the microphone and adjusted it a little. 'Ladies and gentlemen,' she said, and smiled while she waited for the chatter to die down. 'Ladies and gentlemen, good evening and welcome to the Apostle of the Arts Insitution. It is an honour and a privilege to have you all here tonight for this momentous occasion, where we shall be unveiling the latest, near-priceless addition to the city's proud collection.

'So, without further ado, I think it's time to put you all out of your misery and reveal this magnificent masterpiece, the divine work of the famous Hermes de Quelquepart, which will surely remain an inspiration to the whole city for many years to come.

'Mr Spiffle, if you would kindly do the honours...'

The curator nodded, and carefully pulled back the sheet. The audience were collectively repelled as a statue of a skeletal figure appeared before them. It was clutching its head as if in agony, a horrified expression on its face and eyes bulging.

Then the glass of the great dome above exploded inwards, and there were shrieks of horror from the guests as a dozen or so figures abseiled down ropes to meet them.

Hsing watched in horror as one of them fell in half as soon as it touched the ground, splitting at the midsection like wet spongecake. Its skin was pale and sickly, almost green, and its guts glistened from within.

Others remained moving. And they moved with speed, pouncing on the guests and biting...

Hsing had involuntarily backed herself into the wall. Mr Spiffle was frozen to the spot, staring at the chaos in stunned silence.

Those that still could ran for the exits, and Hsing decided that it would probably be wise to follow. She was about to shake the curator out of his daze when one of the gruesome figures lurched up behind him and sank its rotted teeth into his neck.

Hsing screamed and fell back. She turned and ran for one of the doors, kicking it with such force when it wouldn't open that it splintered and the heel of her shoe broke. The door swung open and Hsing discarded her shoes, running straight down a carpeted corridor. One of them chased after her and she resorted to knocking over extremely expensive items in its path to try and slow it down.

She sprinted through a small section of museum, skittering to a halt to unhook the red rope from a metal railing and pick the railing up (with some difficulty). She turned to face her attacker and swung the railing at it. It flung up its arms to defend itself and was knocked to the ground.

She hit it repeatedly, a metallic clonk resounding through the museum each time, but the battering appeared to have very little effect on it. Most of its bones crushed, it still managed to get up and follow her as she abandoned the metal railing and ran on, but at least it had slowed it down.

Hsing raced through more museum, her progress hindered and her panic mounting as she searched desperately for the doors that weren't locked. Bursting through a fire exit and triggering the alarm, she finally made it out, gasping for breath in the cool night air.

amelia: yo
i am a yoyo.

Chris: yes

Cool! 8)
And... *gasp*!
Also: Nice namegiving... "Hermes de Quelquepart"...
More!

"Hoher Sinn liegt oft im kindischen Spiel." (Friedrich Schiller)

Excellent... Yet failing to mention how hard Hsing finds it to run in high heals... :o

PhD Student: Research information sheet

There once was a man named Bruce
Who liked to sit on a spruce
He ate lots of chowder
And yelled at me louder:
"I'm talking to YOU, Mrs. Hughes!"
--> The Literary Genius: Mowgli

No, no, Hsing [i:9203c35770]was [/i:9203c35770]allowed to take them off after kicking in the door... Very pragmatically written!
And I was allowed to become the namesake of a [i:9203c35770]well dressed[/i:9203c35770] character! I would never have expected that.

"Hoher Sinn liegt oft im kindischen Spiel." (Friedrich Schiller)

Ye GODS. 'Splitting like wet spongecake'?

Despite my horror i do need to know what happens to Hsing next please, i'm rather worried.......

Good Show!

>discards half eaten spongecake discreetly<

That would also be... CONDENSATION.

It rained.

Ambassador Hsing used offensive language. She kept as close to the shops as possible, for any shelter they offered, and for illumination. She quickened her pace every time the thought of one of those evil...things coming up behind her appeared afresh. People gave her odd looks as she made her way down the street hugging herself, her long, dark hair wet and lifeless, her dress crumpled and her feet bare; but she barely even noticed them.

Most of the shops were closed this late, but a flickering neon sign pointed out that a bar of appropriate dinginess was still open. Hsing went in.

The only light in the bar came from the bar itself. The two other occupants, sat at separate tables in the dark, were minding their own business so much that they were practically hiding in their coats. There was also a barman with an amber beard, cleaning a beer mug with a rag. He gave Hsing a friendly smile as she trudged over to the bar and plonked herself down on a stool.

'A cocktail of everything you have, please,' she said.

'Bad night?' asked the barman.

'Yes,' said Hsing, hiding her face in her hands.

'Oh, I'm sure it wasn't that bad,' said the barman, placing the beer mug to one side.

Hsing appeared from behind her hands and looked critically at the smiling man. 'I'm sure it was,' she said, plainly.

'Well now,' said the barman. 'In that case, you need some of this.' He placed a bulbous glass on the bartop. It was filled with a clear, faintly blue liquid.

'Will it make me forget,' asked Hsing, 'without actually killing me?'

'Trust me,' said the barman, smiling even more brightly. 'This is Mal's Special Brew. You'll be feeling better in no time!'


'KILL THE FUCKING ZOMBIES!' cried Hsing, leaping barefooted from one table to the next. 'I am Ambassador,' she declared grandly, teetering dangerously, 'of this beautiful city, and I will be damned thrice soif I'm going to let those corpsular bastards ruin everything I have worked for!'

She jumped less than gracefully from the table and made her way unsteadily back to the bar. 'Mal, comrade,' she said, 'let us formulate a strategy!'

amelia: yo
i am a yoyo.

Chris: yes

...LOL! Secretly a socialist!
I have just one minor question: If Hsing is ambassador, shouldn't Hsing be in another city, representing her city there, elsewhere?
Other wise I like it a lot.

"Hoher Sinn liegt oft im kindischen Spiel." (Friedrich Schiller)

Well, the unveiling of the new art was seen as something major for her own city, so she had to be there promoting it.

If being Ambassador doesn't usually entail that kind of thing in real life...well, it does in this story.

amelia: yo
i am a yoyo.

Chris: yes

'The economy is popular this year.'

'Really?'

The two men wore tall, ornate wigs and heavy, red satin dresses that bulged in strange places, massively so at the waist, cascading down in ostentatious folds and billows and ribbons and sequins. They were seated at a table just outside a café. One was pretending to read a broadsheet newspaper. The other was seeing how soggy he could get his biscuit before it fell into his tea. It did so with a miserable plop.

'Indeed,' continued the first. 'More popular than cake, even.'

'Wow. I like cake.'

Kennilesque attempted to fold up the newspaper. It didn't work out. He threw the crumpled pile on the floor, where it got carried in the breeze and attacked the occupant of a nearby table. He scratched his stubble thoughtfully. 'Cake is less complicated, I think.'

'Did you hear about the zombies?' asked Rinsamien, selecting Biscuit Three, a member of the shortbread family.

'Zombies?'

'Yeah. At that big art place. Just eating people for no reason.'

'For no reason?' exclaimed Kennilesque. 'Barbarians!'

'Yeah. I mean, ripping out their intestines and having just a little taste of someone if they're, like, trying to attack you when you've done nothing wrong is one thing. That's allowed.'

'Yeah.'

'As long as they're fresh.'

'Yeah.'

'So, like, zombies wouldn't be all that nice.'

'No.'

'But the gratuitous eating of perfectly innocent people is another thing entirely!'

'And very bad for the economy,' agreed Kennilesque, nodding sagely. 'I think we should do something about it, Rinsamien.'

'I agree, Kennilesque. It is most probably our destiny.'

'Indeed!' said Kennilesque. 'Drink up, my friend! We have work to do!'

Rinsamien tipped back his cup. Biscuity sludge poured forth to meet his face.

amelia: yo
i am a yoyo.

Chris: yes

A great piece. Keep it up!

I think we should all start poking Chris until he gets some of his writings published.


*POKE*