At first impression, the old man wasn’t that impressive to the average person coming through the market. That was what he was called, ‘The Old Man’ complete with capitals and quotes. He was an old man, more-so given that the way things had changed in the last two decades since the collapse of the world. He looked to be sixty or so very weathered years, and from the few who could speak his tongue, his actual age was closer to a century. Still his dark eyes and strong and steady hands showed that he was still very much in the here and now, not at all as frail as he would seem to the bystander. Something any of his apprentices could tell you after they failed to meet his stern standards and received the back of his hand and grunted comment translated by one of his assistants would inform them.
He knew how to make guns like no one else did, not the way that they had in the world with massive machines and automated forges but with hand tools, scrap iron scavenged from the ruins of the big abandoned cities and vehicles that lined the old decaying highways of the world. He had even helped design a printing press for the city paper when they recovered an antique one from a museum out west of the city.
Tuesday, April 22, 2014
Another woman's dreams.
She dreamed of a city by the sea, all brilliant lights and glass, haloed in the night as she floated on the water off shore. Then things started to swim in focus. The perfect mountains of glass had gaps in them as bodies rained out of the; clouds of smoke and fire pouring from gaps in the silvery mountains of steel, composite and light. Then the crack of thunder and a building started sliding downward.
A flash in the sky drew her eyes upwards, a quintet of white lines descending from the sky. Lines of fire defending from the sky in an eye-blink; a glance back to the city shows the towers of light shattering as the spears of impacted with the city. Kinetic Strike, a voice in her head thought as the boat surged away from the massive bow wave of displaced debris, smoke and water that surged out from the ruins of the city once called ‘Fragrant Harbor’. All of it vanished under the impact of six kinetic kill devices impacting the city at forty times the speed of sound.
She woke to the sounds of cicadas in the summer night, flailing as she tried to swim out of the morass of dreams and memories of a woman who had lived in another age. She could still smell the salt water spray and pungent water of Hong Kong, even though she had never been there.
One the perks of being a tuber, she reminded herself as she sat up. ‘Tuber’ being the slang term for an engineered macro-molecular organism, or more bluntly a clone. She was one of the rarest, a full on mirroring of prior person, grown with the intent to be host for a biological implant that had been part of her ‘mother’. Alex rubbed the line of text on her right arm, ‘CS-01-01’. Charlotte Shields, her ‘mom’, Lot 1, Subject 1. A single run clone. The kids in her cadre back in Chattanooga called her a ‘single’ or ‘solo’, but most of them were hybrid lines from two or more donors.
“Bad dream?” The old man asked from his spot by the fire as she checked the time. It was around 1 am according to her implanted clock; which meant it was time for her watch. She shrugged as she got out of her bag.
“Dreamed of the fracking of Hong Kong.” She said as she checked her gear. “Didn’t know Shields was there.” She added grumpily as she went though the list of things before starting to pull on her armor. “Check the sensors first, handshake with them, then set up a new pattern for the drones and stay on watch till 5 am right?” She asked as she checked her weapons as she slid them into place.
“She was attached to the embassy at the Kong Free State at the end, we picked her up transiting the China Sea.” The old man said as he watched her get ready. “Check the sensors, do the handshake but hand off the drones to Chattanooga; one of the remaining comm sats will let them take them for the night. You will be studying the new material on your tablet. Orders from the boys back in town.”
Stacy sighed as she laced her boots and slid off to check the perimeter sensors. New study material equaled new job waiting her back in town when they got back in two weeks. Charlotte Shields, before her death twenty five years ago, had been an augmented solider of some sort. Which meant in four to five years when the lab coats ruled her ready, she would be getting the organic implants that they had salvaged from her body. Odds were that this ‘new material’ was tied to what she was going to get spliced into her body.
Note: A few random thoughts about a scene I had running in my head.
A flash in the sky drew her eyes upwards, a quintet of white lines descending from the sky. Lines of fire defending from the sky in an eye-blink; a glance back to the city shows the towers of light shattering as the spears of impacted with the city. Kinetic Strike, a voice in her head thought as the boat surged away from the massive bow wave of displaced debris, smoke and water that surged out from the ruins of the city once called ‘Fragrant Harbor’. All of it vanished under the impact of six kinetic kill devices impacting the city at forty times the speed of sound.
She woke to the sounds of cicadas in the summer night, flailing as she tried to swim out of the morass of dreams and memories of a woman who had lived in another age. She could still smell the salt water spray and pungent water of Hong Kong, even though she had never been there.
One the perks of being a tuber, she reminded herself as she sat up. ‘Tuber’ being the slang term for an engineered macro-molecular organism, or more bluntly a clone. She was one of the rarest, a full on mirroring of prior person, grown with the intent to be host for a biological implant that had been part of her ‘mother’. Alex rubbed the line of text on her right arm, ‘CS-01-01’. Charlotte Shields, her ‘mom’, Lot 1, Subject 1. A single run clone. The kids in her cadre back in Chattanooga called her a ‘single’ or ‘solo’, but most of them were hybrid lines from two or more donors.
“Bad dream?” The old man asked from his spot by the fire as she checked the time. It was around 1 am according to her implanted clock; which meant it was time for her watch. She shrugged as she got out of her bag.
“Dreamed of the fracking of Hong Kong.” She said as she checked her gear. “Didn’t know Shields was there.” She added grumpily as she went though the list of things before starting to pull on her armor. “Check the sensors first, handshake with them, then set up a new pattern for the drones and stay on watch till 5 am right?” She asked as she checked her weapons as she slid them into place.
“She was attached to the embassy at the Kong Free State at the end, we picked her up transiting the China Sea.” The old man said as he watched her get ready. “Check the sensors, do the handshake but hand off the drones to Chattanooga; one of the remaining comm sats will let them take them for the night. You will be studying the new material on your tablet. Orders from the boys back in town.”
Stacy sighed as she laced her boots and slid off to check the perimeter sensors. New study material equaled new job waiting her back in town when they got back in two weeks. Charlotte Shields, before her death twenty five years ago, had been an augmented solider of some sort. Which meant in four to five years when the lab coats ruled her ready, she would be getting the organic implants that they had salvaged from her body. Odds were that this ‘new material’ was tied to what she was going to get spliced into her body.
Note: A few random thoughts about a scene I had running in my head.
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