PhoenixFire
05-19-2008, 10:15 PM
This is an ongoing short story I was working on a while ago, and will start up again as soon as i get some extra time. I figured I would post what I have so far. The first part needs work but it gets better.... well to me anyway :D lmk what you think. any sort of criticism is welcome.
Death Brings Life chapter I
The dirge rang slowly and sadly over the throng of people gathering in the streets. They all had affection for him. Why shouldn't they? He was the one who saved them, the one who brought them out of the dark chaos surrounding them and into the affluent light of his reign. It was 5 years since the day he saved them and resurrected their dying city to create the thriving metropolis it had since become. At the head of 10,000 horse and 20,000 men-at-arms he stormed over the fields and completely destroyed King Caldman and his evil pets. 5 years of prosperous life only to end in a tragic and untimely death.
The funeral was beginning. His cold, pale body lay on a slab of rock at the top of the steps of Temple Achride. His favorite long sword was in his hands. Its gold plated hilt placed in his pale, dead fingers. The priest spoke in whispered words so the small folk and lords alike had to listen to every word he spoke or they'd miss it. The Achride temple sisters, dressed so that even their faces were covered in black cloth, knelt at the side of their earthly king weeping for him and the realm he left behind. Many in the crowd joined in their lamenting. They world had lost one of its best. The crowd eventually dispersed and the priest allowed the kings men to carry their lord on his stone coffin to the tombs beneath the temple.
Their king was beyond all of this though. He wasn't part of their world. What they did to his empty shell of a body didn't concern him. The troubles of the world weren't his to deal with anymore. There were much more important things to do. Weren't there? He splashed his hands in the pool to clear the image of his funeral. He stood, walked away, and forgot his previous life. He forgot his friends on the mortal world below when he splashed the water from the pool on his face. His children, his queen, his battles won and conquests done and to be done and failures and shortcomings, real or imagined, left his mind the same time as his name.
Death Brings Life Chapter II
“Another one came through today.”
“Another one? Another?! You told me no more would come through! You, the great Dr. John J. Langley, personally assured me no more of them would come through that damned thing! But they come through anyway, two, three or more everyday!”
“Dr. Irving, I’m sorry but we’re doing all we can. The memory wipe still seems to be working so. . .”
“Seems to be working? Christ, John we can’t keep taking on more of them. We have too many as it is. If the damned ISA would authorize the disposal of our surplus candidates this wouldn’t be a problem. We could just dispose of them when they came through, but no. We can’t even wipe our own-“
“That’s all it ever was to you wasn’t it? A giant science experiment. Even after we discovered what they were and where they came from, it didn’t matter to you. You both still think of them as lab rats waiting to be tested and prodded and studied.”
“Isaac, we’ve learned all we can from those… those abominations. We barely have the resources out here to feed our staff for more then a cycle. We rely on the surface to send up our food. What would happen if one day it didn’t come? If one day they decide, hey lets just let them die up there.”
“Now you’re being irrational Dr. The ISA would never allow that. Tell me, what is it about these people you hate so very much? Come now Dr. Tell me. You’re scared. Is that it? Irving, I never thought I’d see fear in you, of all people.”
“500 men and women, most of which have known war and death and desperate times wouldn’t even need to try very hard to get past the 30 people in our staff, only 10 of which are actually soldiers mind you, steal our ships, and try to figure out what they are and why they’re here! And don’t try to be smart and funny again. It’s wasted on
me and the likes of Dr. Langley over there”
“The chemicals keep them under control. There minds are blank slates. They could be whatever we want them to be.”
“Anything we want them to be except dead! Brainless ISA-”
“We could learn from them. If we remove the memory block they could tell us all about their worlds, their cultures and technologies. The ones who come from the seemingly advanced stages in human history would have memories and information that should look like a steak dinner to you two.”
“Now, tell me again, who’s the one who wants them poked and prodded, Isaac? We don’t even know whose human history they come from! They could be from our humanity’s future or some other humanity from the damned Twilight Zone!”
“The Twilight Zone?”
“An old Earth television show I was watching on the nets recently. Never mind that!”
“Gentlemen, please. Can we get back to the matter at hand? We keep getting more and more… err... ‘candidates’ as you call them Dr., every single day. We can’t kill them, thank God. We can’t, for some reason that I still don’t quite understand, learn from them. So what are we going to do?”
“I say we ship them off somewhere with a team of scientists, not me mind you, and dispose of that accursed machine that’s ruining my life, and more importantly, my reputation!”
“As much as I hate to say it, I think I agree with you, but if we destroy the machine they’ll never be able to go back home.”
“You forget Captain Isaac, they’re dead ‘back home.’ There’s no going back, even if we could make it possible.”
Death Brings Life
Chapter III
Room 52
“Captain! Captain!”
Isaac stopped and turned. It was always something. His stomach was rumbling, and the dehydrated slabs of meat where calling to him from the café. Why can’t these stupid scientists just leave me alone!
“Dr. Langley, A pleasure to see you as always, but I was just on my way to have some lunch. Would you care to-“
“Isaac, we’ve got a problem,” he looked genuinely distressed. Whatever the problem was it was real. For once.
“What kind of problem?”
“Come with me. I’ll explain on the way.”
Reluctantly, Isaac followed Dr. Langley down the wide, white hallways of the station. Seems my stomach gets the short straw again today.
They rounded a white corner and started down another white hallway. Dr. Langley was picking up speed, and Isaac took as an easy way for Dr. Langley to avoid telling him what was going on.
“Dr. Langley,” yelled Isaac from behind the good Dr, “what’s going on? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you move so fast!”
It was true. Dr. John Langley was a big man, and didn’t get around very well in the small corridors of the station.. His gut lolled over the belt holding up his grey pants, and he jiggled with every step. It was hard for Isaac to take him seriously sometimes.
“One of the … one of the specimens regained some of his memory,” he said, his words coming out in gasps. “Or at least we think he did.” He stopped to catch his breath.
Isaac came to a stop beside the doctor and clapped him on the back. “Ha! That’s wonderful! We can learn so much from them!” Maybe lunch wasn’t so important today after all.
“Not… so…wonderful… if they realize what...what…we’ve done to them.” His breath was coming easier now and he started off again. Isaac followed with a little more enthusiasm, excited about what this human from another world, another time, maybe even another dimension of some kind, might be able to tell him.
“A few days ago you said the chemicals you give them still work,” Isaac said as he followed Dr. John Langley down yet another white hallway. Why couldn’t they have given the place some color? White is just so… so dull, and dreary.
“I said it seemed to be working, Captain. Nothing is certain. Ah here we are.”
Dr. Langley stopped in front a door with the number 52 painted in small black letters on the face of the door. It was the same as all the other doors along the hallway. The only difference being the number. Well, there’s some color.
Dr. Langley opened the door and ushered Isaac inside. There were other doctors inside with their backs to the door and their eyes fixed intently on the massive window in front of them. As Isaac followed Dr. Langley inside, the other doctors turned to greet them with little if any enthusiasm. Isaac didn’t recognize either of them. He didn’t really know anyone on the station besides Langley and Irving. The small group of security soldiers reported to him, but he never took the time to really get to know any of them. He spent all his time watching the “specimens,” as Dr. Langley so fondly called them, on the vid screens in the security station. He was head of security after all, but that’s not why he watched them. He requested this post because it fascinated him. His studies of human cultures and sociology pulled him to these human beings from another world. Once he learned they were wiping their memories it infuriated him, but now, now they had one whose memory was returning, or rather, not being blocked the invasive chemicals. What an opportunity!
“Dr. Wong. How’s our patient?” John said as he and Isaac stepped up to the glass. The man inside was strapped to a chair in front of a small white table. Two big men dressed in the same shade of white as the rest of station flanked either side of him. His eyes were crazy, searching, scared.
“Oh I think his memory is quite back now,” said Dr. Wong with a heavy accent that Isaac didn’t quite recognize. He must be from earth. Probably grew up there. Must have been hard rising from the ashes of that planet into the pocket of the ISA.
Isaac looked around the room. He saw a camera in the corner. “Why isn’t that camera on? We should be recording all of this. It should all be documented!”
Dr. Langley looked nervous. “Well, ah, we haven’t exactly told Dr. Irving about this yet…”
“I see.” I should be grateful that they didn’t or this man would probably already be dead. I don’t think Irving would have trouble getting the ISAs approval for these peoples’ slaughter if he had video of one of them going insane. What was taking them so long to approve that transportation plan Dr. Langley and I drew up anyway?
“What exactly went wrong Dr.?”
“Well, to put it bluntly, the drugs stopped working,” the other doctor in the room said quietly, his eyes never leaving the man in the chair.
“You see,” started Dr. Langley, “The chemical pills we give them every day preserve the memories we implanted in their cerebral cortexes when they arrived seem to have become ineffective.” He pulled a square cloth from his shirt pocked and wiped the sweat from the bald spot on the top of his head.
“The strange thing is that He still remembers the memories we gave him. If he chooses, that is. Language, for example. He can still understand us and we him, when he speaks common. He tends to go on in some language that resembles early Earth Latin.”
“Have you had any of it translated?”
“We haven’t had the time. And when I said resembles I meant resembles like green resembles the grass not like the portrait resembles the president. What he says in his native tongue is near the same color as Latin but could be a different picture entirely.
“Yes, yes, but he also remembers his name. He remembers his family, his home, his death. For God’s sake Isaac, he remembers dieing!”
Again, let me know what you think. the last "chapter" up there looked better in ms word. i don't feel like italicizing Isaacs thoughts right now and fix some of the other problems, but you get the gist of it.
Death Brings Life chapter I
The dirge rang slowly and sadly over the throng of people gathering in the streets. They all had affection for him. Why shouldn't they? He was the one who saved them, the one who brought them out of the dark chaos surrounding them and into the affluent light of his reign. It was 5 years since the day he saved them and resurrected their dying city to create the thriving metropolis it had since become. At the head of 10,000 horse and 20,000 men-at-arms he stormed over the fields and completely destroyed King Caldman and his evil pets. 5 years of prosperous life only to end in a tragic and untimely death.
The funeral was beginning. His cold, pale body lay on a slab of rock at the top of the steps of Temple Achride. His favorite long sword was in his hands. Its gold plated hilt placed in his pale, dead fingers. The priest spoke in whispered words so the small folk and lords alike had to listen to every word he spoke or they'd miss it. The Achride temple sisters, dressed so that even their faces were covered in black cloth, knelt at the side of their earthly king weeping for him and the realm he left behind. Many in the crowd joined in their lamenting. They world had lost one of its best. The crowd eventually dispersed and the priest allowed the kings men to carry their lord on his stone coffin to the tombs beneath the temple.
Their king was beyond all of this though. He wasn't part of their world. What they did to his empty shell of a body didn't concern him. The troubles of the world weren't his to deal with anymore. There were much more important things to do. Weren't there? He splashed his hands in the pool to clear the image of his funeral. He stood, walked away, and forgot his previous life. He forgot his friends on the mortal world below when he splashed the water from the pool on his face. His children, his queen, his battles won and conquests done and to be done and failures and shortcomings, real or imagined, left his mind the same time as his name.
Death Brings Life Chapter II
“Another one came through today.”
“Another one? Another?! You told me no more would come through! You, the great Dr. John J. Langley, personally assured me no more of them would come through that damned thing! But they come through anyway, two, three or more everyday!”
“Dr. Irving, I’m sorry but we’re doing all we can. The memory wipe still seems to be working so. . .”
“Seems to be working? Christ, John we can’t keep taking on more of them. We have too many as it is. If the damned ISA would authorize the disposal of our surplus candidates this wouldn’t be a problem. We could just dispose of them when they came through, but no. We can’t even wipe our own-“
“That’s all it ever was to you wasn’t it? A giant science experiment. Even after we discovered what they were and where they came from, it didn’t matter to you. You both still think of them as lab rats waiting to be tested and prodded and studied.”
“Isaac, we’ve learned all we can from those… those abominations. We barely have the resources out here to feed our staff for more then a cycle. We rely on the surface to send up our food. What would happen if one day it didn’t come? If one day they decide, hey lets just let them die up there.”
“Now you’re being irrational Dr. The ISA would never allow that. Tell me, what is it about these people you hate so very much? Come now Dr. Tell me. You’re scared. Is that it? Irving, I never thought I’d see fear in you, of all people.”
“500 men and women, most of which have known war and death and desperate times wouldn’t even need to try very hard to get past the 30 people in our staff, only 10 of which are actually soldiers mind you, steal our ships, and try to figure out what they are and why they’re here! And don’t try to be smart and funny again. It’s wasted on
me and the likes of Dr. Langley over there”
“The chemicals keep them under control. There minds are blank slates. They could be whatever we want them to be.”
“Anything we want them to be except dead! Brainless ISA-”
“We could learn from them. If we remove the memory block they could tell us all about their worlds, their cultures and technologies. The ones who come from the seemingly advanced stages in human history would have memories and information that should look like a steak dinner to you two.”
“Now, tell me again, who’s the one who wants them poked and prodded, Isaac? We don’t even know whose human history they come from! They could be from our humanity’s future or some other humanity from the damned Twilight Zone!”
“The Twilight Zone?”
“An old Earth television show I was watching on the nets recently. Never mind that!”
“Gentlemen, please. Can we get back to the matter at hand? We keep getting more and more… err... ‘candidates’ as you call them Dr., every single day. We can’t kill them, thank God. We can’t, for some reason that I still don’t quite understand, learn from them. So what are we going to do?”
“I say we ship them off somewhere with a team of scientists, not me mind you, and dispose of that accursed machine that’s ruining my life, and more importantly, my reputation!”
“As much as I hate to say it, I think I agree with you, but if we destroy the machine they’ll never be able to go back home.”
“You forget Captain Isaac, they’re dead ‘back home.’ There’s no going back, even if we could make it possible.”
Death Brings Life
Chapter III
Room 52
“Captain! Captain!”
Isaac stopped and turned. It was always something. His stomach was rumbling, and the dehydrated slabs of meat where calling to him from the café. Why can’t these stupid scientists just leave me alone!
“Dr. Langley, A pleasure to see you as always, but I was just on my way to have some lunch. Would you care to-“
“Isaac, we’ve got a problem,” he looked genuinely distressed. Whatever the problem was it was real. For once.
“What kind of problem?”
“Come with me. I’ll explain on the way.”
Reluctantly, Isaac followed Dr. Langley down the wide, white hallways of the station. Seems my stomach gets the short straw again today.
They rounded a white corner and started down another white hallway. Dr. Langley was picking up speed, and Isaac took as an easy way for Dr. Langley to avoid telling him what was going on.
“Dr. Langley,” yelled Isaac from behind the good Dr, “what’s going on? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you move so fast!”
It was true. Dr. John Langley was a big man, and didn’t get around very well in the small corridors of the station.. His gut lolled over the belt holding up his grey pants, and he jiggled with every step. It was hard for Isaac to take him seriously sometimes.
“One of the … one of the specimens regained some of his memory,” he said, his words coming out in gasps. “Or at least we think he did.” He stopped to catch his breath.
Isaac came to a stop beside the doctor and clapped him on the back. “Ha! That’s wonderful! We can learn so much from them!” Maybe lunch wasn’t so important today after all.
“Not… so…wonderful… if they realize what...what…we’ve done to them.” His breath was coming easier now and he started off again. Isaac followed with a little more enthusiasm, excited about what this human from another world, another time, maybe even another dimension of some kind, might be able to tell him.
“A few days ago you said the chemicals you give them still work,” Isaac said as he followed Dr. John Langley down yet another white hallway. Why couldn’t they have given the place some color? White is just so… so dull, and dreary.
“I said it seemed to be working, Captain. Nothing is certain. Ah here we are.”
Dr. Langley stopped in front a door with the number 52 painted in small black letters on the face of the door. It was the same as all the other doors along the hallway. The only difference being the number. Well, there’s some color.
Dr. Langley opened the door and ushered Isaac inside. There were other doctors inside with their backs to the door and their eyes fixed intently on the massive window in front of them. As Isaac followed Dr. Langley inside, the other doctors turned to greet them with little if any enthusiasm. Isaac didn’t recognize either of them. He didn’t really know anyone on the station besides Langley and Irving. The small group of security soldiers reported to him, but he never took the time to really get to know any of them. He spent all his time watching the “specimens,” as Dr. Langley so fondly called them, on the vid screens in the security station. He was head of security after all, but that’s not why he watched them. He requested this post because it fascinated him. His studies of human cultures and sociology pulled him to these human beings from another world. Once he learned they were wiping their memories it infuriated him, but now, now they had one whose memory was returning, or rather, not being blocked the invasive chemicals. What an opportunity!
“Dr. Wong. How’s our patient?” John said as he and Isaac stepped up to the glass. The man inside was strapped to a chair in front of a small white table. Two big men dressed in the same shade of white as the rest of station flanked either side of him. His eyes were crazy, searching, scared.
“Oh I think his memory is quite back now,” said Dr. Wong with a heavy accent that Isaac didn’t quite recognize. He must be from earth. Probably grew up there. Must have been hard rising from the ashes of that planet into the pocket of the ISA.
Isaac looked around the room. He saw a camera in the corner. “Why isn’t that camera on? We should be recording all of this. It should all be documented!”
Dr. Langley looked nervous. “Well, ah, we haven’t exactly told Dr. Irving about this yet…”
“I see.” I should be grateful that they didn’t or this man would probably already be dead. I don’t think Irving would have trouble getting the ISAs approval for these peoples’ slaughter if he had video of one of them going insane. What was taking them so long to approve that transportation plan Dr. Langley and I drew up anyway?
“What exactly went wrong Dr.?”
“Well, to put it bluntly, the drugs stopped working,” the other doctor in the room said quietly, his eyes never leaving the man in the chair.
“You see,” started Dr. Langley, “The chemical pills we give them every day preserve the memories we implanted in their cerebral cortexes when they arrived seem to have become ineffective.” He pulled a square cloth from his shirt pocked and wiped the sweat from the bald spot on the top of his head.
“The strange thing is that He still remembers the memories we gave him. If he chooses, that is. Language, for example. He can still understand us and we him, when he speaks common. He tends to go on in some language that resembles early Earth Latin.”
“Have you had any of it translated?”
“We haven’t had the time. And when I said resembles I meant resembles like green resembles the grass not like the portrait resembles the president. What he says in his native tongue is near the same color as Latin but could be a different picture entirely.
“Yes, yes, but he also remembers his name. He remembers his family, his home, his death. For God’s sake Isaac, he remembers dieing!”
Again, let me know what you think. the last "chapter" up there looked better in ms word. i don't feel like italicizing Isaacs thoughts right now and fix some of the other problems, but you get the gist of it.