Skettios

I've always wanted to write Science Fiction. So I decided to pound something out, and see how it felt. This is the introduction of the main character of a book I'd like to write. It's a world where corporate america has built a grid that hovers over most of the planet, to harvest solar energy. Those with jobs and salaries live above the plate, they live a consumerist fantasy, anything they desire, but they have to do everything the corporations say. Some choose to live below or in between, forsaking the hand to mouth - lease for life world of the upper plate for the freedom of the downside. Others could never afford to take their place above the plate, and were left by society to live squalid lives in complete darkness. Nina, the main character is a motorcycle punk, in a tribe of those like her, their main hobbies are stealing and trading to maintain their bikes, running drugs and the black market for the topside, and occasionally pulling down large sections of the plate for kicks. We join her deep in the downside on an errand for the tribe, as her turbozeph (like a motorcycle) runs out of gas, she is about to meet some of those that were left behind...

Please post comments and criticisms, this is a first draft.



How does a hundred pound girl move a 400 pound decked out turbozeph? The answer to that question was usually give it some juice and let the gears slide all that power coming from the 800 cc engine into a blur that could have been your imagination if not for the roar of sound and the stink of spent hydrogen and sulfur left in it’s wake. The Zephyr was nothing more than junk now, it’s hydrogen cell spent, and way out in #(*$&% turf, a shitty place to live, a deadly place for Nina to be. The grid was so thick in this turf, that it’s inhabitants had long since turned pale, and taken to skulking around shying away from any light they might happen upon. Usually the roar of the Zeph and the bright light coming from it’s modified front strobes would be enough to keep them away, but the Zeph was useless, and Nina knew that she had to get moving.

Quickly she grabbed her spot from the side panel on the dead hoverbike. The million candlepower of the spot wasn't enough to keep any serious foe away, but it would suprise and startle the pale faced ghouls enough that they wouldn't be any serious trouble. She hit the panic button on her comm, and started walking back I-10 the way she had came, hoping to meet the rest of her tribe before she met any serious trouble. Fucking pissed at herself for not springing the extra cash on a black market comm unit with some serious bandwith and at least a phone to call somebody when she got in trouble, but she had spent all of her cash decking out the Zeph, and now it was useless too. As she continued walking up the all but abandoned highway, she saw a gas station without a hydro cell recharge point. She checked the tanks, long dead, but there was something else, an ancient pay phone, but just what she needed to contact the tribe and have someone bring out an extra cell for the Zeph, before the scavengers found it.

She reached for the handle of the payphone and put it to her ear, something didn't seem right. Gas, neuro toxin, but just a weak one. Nina felt her filtration trait kick in. The anxiety of laboured breathing was quickly overtaken by the relief that the trait would take care of the nasties in the gas before it did any permanent damage. As her vision blurred, she saw the ghouls move out in formation from behind the gas station. Those clever fucks, they had set a trap and she had fallen right into it. The ghouls encircled her, the leader licking his lips, you could tell by the smell, the worse it was, the higher they were on the totem pole, He shouted an indecipherable growl at another one. That one advanced with a long shiv, and started working at Nina's body armor, before she had fully collapsed to the ground.

"Seth is gonna be pissed" she thought, staring at the drooling ghoul faces that she would have smashed in with her steel toed boots if only she could move. Fortunately her personal defenses would hold them off long enough for someone to come rescue her from the tribe. Her heart beat doubled then doubled again as her immune trait worked to get the poison out of her system. This was pretty typical of the ghouls, trap a downsider and ransom them back to their tribe for fuel or maybe some trans-creds.

The leader gave another series of grunts and squeals, and 3 more ghouls came out of the shadows with torches and set them on an unnoticed pile of old tires.

"Fire" she thought, "what the fuck are these ghouls doing with fire, thought they hated the fucking stuff"
and that's when the truth hit her, she wasn't going to be ransomed at all. The ghoul with the shiv began to work at a faster pace, stripping off her mesh platinum body armor, popping the buttons off her overalls. Other ghouls came out of the darkness, drooling, some helped remove her body armor while others gathered around the fire yammering in their broken language. Nina's blood went cold as she realized she had been trapped by a particularly feral group. They weren’t going to ransom her, they were going to eat her.

She began to struggle now, in earnest. If they cooked her, her personal defenses would be useless, and she would be dead long before even the fastest Zephs could get to her. The ghoul with the shiv had worked through her defensive armor down to her polymer bodysuit. She struggled to gain control of just one finger, and slide it to the control panel on her side, to activate her last line of defense.

Success, the ghoul stopped as he heard the whine of her defensive body suit charging. She keyed in the last command and electricity arced from the polymer mesh of her suit, through the bodies of several ghouls around her. Simultaneously the suit released adrenaline and endorphins, to clear her head and get her back on her feet. She pushed her way through the circle of howling ghouls lying incapacitated, and began moving as quickly as she could manage towards the open road.

Her body suit drained and useless, she put up her fists in one last feint to work towards freedom. Keeping the ghouls in front of her and the road at her back she shuffled backwards towards the open darkness. One ghoul lept towards her, her strength quickly retuning she gave him a roundhouse to the chin for his effort. Another tried to flank her, he got a quick hook to the sternum, which dropped him, followed by a boot to the head, spreading blood and drool all over her shiny biker boots. This seemed to stall the pursuers for a minute, until they realized that her body suit had not discharged when she hit the second ghoul, which made her threat seem hollow. Nina knew her only choice was to turn and run, so she did, moving as fast as she could back to zeph, hoping that there was enough juice in the cell to operate it’s defensive ballistics. She was stop short when a ghoul that she hadn’t seen, lay down in front of her in the darkness, tripping her. In seconds 4 more of them were on top of her.

Their wrath was strong now, she had taken out several of their own. Pack animals at heart, they began kicking and punching her, tearing at her hair and armor, howling like primitive beasts, as they tenderized their dinner with brutal pummels. Nina closed her eyes, resigned to her fate, suddenly the beating stopped. Eyes bruised shut, she heard the roar of a charged diesel, grunts and the whiny discharge of energy weapons and in the darkness. She was lifted with rough hands into the air. Her body braced, expecting the flame, and relaxed when it met the hard steel of the deck of an armored personnel carrier. Rescued, but not by the tribe, they could never afford such sophisticated toys. She murmured something about saving her zeph, as she slid into the painless embrace of unconsciousness.

__________________
Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.

Frederich Nietzsche

J.R.V.A.

More More... I cant wait...
Thanks

__________________
And as she plays,
her sweet song of laughter
floats through the air
and warms my heart