alcala0001
11-10-2010, 12:38 AM
Misfire woke to the smell of porridge and high explosives - mother must be making breakfast! It's probably best not to mention that he left his vent open - possibly compromising himself in the event that a gas bomb had penetrated the house. He tugs the pull chain at the head of his sleep chamber, fumbling past the hoses connected to his combination gas / oxygen mask. With a click the thick glass of the shock-proof flourescent light flickers and issues a dull purple-white glow, scattering the shadows as his eyes focus on the bubble face dial of his clock. Misfire taps it, verifying the correct time; it's a full half-hour before his alarm is scheduled to go off. Misfire rubs his groggy eyes as he flips levers, mashes buttons and turns valves to initiate the wake up sequence. Gears whir, steam valves hiss and actuators whine as the top half of his sarcophagus-shaped sleep chamber lifts and moves to the side - letting in the hazy morning light through the thick ballistics grade porthole of his room.
Misfire makes his bed, readying the mask and resetting the controls before sealing it back up. He then reaches for his standard issue child-size helmet and goggles and heads to breakfast. As he reaches the kitchen, he spins the wheel lock of the thick iron door, disengaging it from the concrete frame and stepping in to greet the family. Mother - Shortfuse as she's called to her friends - is standing over the stove tending to two large boiling pots. One pot contains a thick barley porridge and the other has a bubbling mass of thick grey paste - her special high-yield family recipe. Father - Pounder as he's called outside home sits down to the table, pointing the remote at the old viewscreen dangling down from the ceiling. Chairman Blastradius is giving a speech on yesterdays numbers. The armory district had the most confirmed kills. The munitions district - Misfire's neighborhood - had the second most. Father gives Misfire a admonishing look, as if his rounds had lost them the bragging rights for the day. Misfire just shrugs and eats from his porridge bowl. There was no use talking to him when he was in a mood. Misfire was one of the top students of United Ballistics And Applied Demolitions Academy. His numbers were the best in Trajectory and Variable Calculation class. He knew his father wishes him to follow in his footsteps as a bomb loader, but his small frame and keen intellect seem more suited to target acquisition.
A jet of steam through the polished brass whistle over the stove signals that its time to get off to school. Misfire grabs his book bag and his Blasto The Bombardier kid's mask, fitting it tightly over his face and giving a few test breaths, adjusting the airflow as he exits to the main blast door. Misfire stands on the corner, surveying the new damage as he waits for the Academy Transport to arrive. Several small craters pock the street and Mister and Misses Shrapnel next door have some minor damage to the twin cannons on the dome of their house. Some houses have more cannons than others - each eligible citizen (those over nine years of age) is to have their own cannon and be fully expected to man it during scheduled bombing times. Misfire could still remember the day he helped his parents assemble his cannon from parts packed neatly in dozens of numbered and lettered boxes.
Powderkeg, Shellshock and Rifling come out of their houses and cross the pock-scarred street and they all talk until the Transport arrives. The big iron beast approaches, belching smoke and crunching gravel under it's studded steel wheels. Misses Boomthud greets them with a nod of her masked head as the doors hiss open for the kids. Misfire's day goes pretty much the same as all the others - bomb and safety gear drills, exercises and hours of lectures on loading, sighting, maneuvering and firing. By the time he got home, he was ready for the evening's festivities. After changing into his protective gear and prepping and laying out his shells, he goes in to the kitchen and sits down at the table with Mother and Father as the city alert rings out over the PA speaker above their heads. All at once they explode into a frenzy of action, Mother pulling down the heavy iron breech cavity from over the dining room table as she goes to the pantry to load up a still-warm homemade 25 lb. bomb. As misfire scrambles down the hall he can hear Father in his study cranking up the gyro-stabilizer of his cannon in the study.
Misfire's small 9 lb. shells are neatly arranged in a row and he carefully steps over them as he pushes a wall plate, causing the loading breech and the seat of his bombing chair to drop down from the ceiling. He loads his heavy bombs into the munitions slot and jumps in, cranking flywheels and pumping pedals as steam pipes hiss, raising the chair up through the open blast door. As his chair passes through the thick reinforced concrete of the roof of his room, he is greeted by the deafening sound of cannon fire. Quickly popping in his earplugs, Misfire's heart is filled with pride as hundreds of polished steel and brass-clad cannon barrels come to life, raising and swiveling from the battered domes of the munitions district houses to aim skyward toward the east. Misfire's chest pounds with concussions as Mother and Father open fire, arcing their projectiles into the horizon. He fine-tunes his targeting interface and grins under his thick goggles and helmet as he pulls the firing lever, the recoil rocking through him and spent powder clouding his vision. Thousands of fireballs scream up through the clouds, delivering their deadly payload to an unseen enemy in a distant land.
Misfire makes his bed, readying the mask and resetting the controls before sealing it back up. He then reaches for his standard issue child-size helmet and goggles and heads to breakfast. As he reaches the kitchen, he spins the wheel lock of the thick iron door, disengaging it from the concrete frame and stepping in to greet the family. Mother - Shortfuse as she's called to her friends - is standing over the stove tending to two large boiling pots. One pot contains a thick barley porridge and the other has a bubbling mass of thick grey paste - her special high-yield family recipe. Father - Pounder as he's called outside home sits down to the table, pointing the remote at the old viewscreen dangling down from the ceiling. Chairman Blastradius is giving a speech on yesterdays numbers. The armory district had the most confirmed kills. The munitions district - Misfire's neighborhood - had the second most. Father gives Misfire a admonishing look, as if his rounds had lost them the bragging rights for the day. Misfire just shrugs and eats from his porridge bowl. There was no use talking to him when he was in a mood. Misfire was one of the top students of United Ballistics And Applied Demolitions Academy. His numbers were the best in Trajectory and Variable Calculation class. He knew his father wishes him to follow in his footsteps as a bomb loader, but his small frame and keen intellect seem more suited to target acquisition.
A jet of steam through the polished brass whistle over the stove signals that its time to get off to school. Misfire grabs his book bag and his Blasto The Bombardier kid's mask, fitting it tightly over his face and giving a few test breaths, adjusting the airflow as he exits to the main blast door. Misfire stands on the corner, surveying the new damage as he waits for the Academy Transport to arrive. Several small craters pock the street and Mister and Misses Shrapnel next door have some minor damage to the twin cannons on the dome of their house. Some houses have more cannons than others - each eligible citizen (those over nine years of age) is to have their own cannon and be fully expected to man it during scheduled bombing times. Misfire could still remember the day he helped his parents assemble his cannon from parts packed neatly in dozens of numbered and lettered boxes.
Powderkeg, Shellshock and Rifling come out of their houses and cross the pock-scarred street and they all talk until the Transport arrives. The big iron beast approaches, belching smoke and crunching gravel under it's studded steel wheels. Misses Boomthud greets them with a nod of her masked head as the doors hiss open for the kids. Misfire's day goes pretty much the same as all the others - bomb and safety gear drills, exercises and hours of lectures on loading, sighting, maneuvering and firing. By the time he got home, he was ready for the evening's festivities. After changing into his protective gear and prepping and laying out his shells, he goes in to the kitchen and sits down at the table with Mother and Father as the city alert rings out over the PA speaker above their heads. All at once they explode into a frenzy of action, Mother pulling down the heavy iron breech cavity from over the dining room table as she goes to the pantry to load up a still-warm homemade 25 lb. bomb. As misfire scrambles down the hall he can hear Father in his study cranking up the gyro-stabilizer of his cannon in the study.
Misfire's small 9 lb. shells are neatly arranged in a row and he carefully steps over them as he pushes a wall plate, causing the loading breech and the seat of his bombing chair to drop down from the ceiling. He loads his heavy bombs into the munitions slot and jumps in, cranking flywheels and pumping pedals as steam pipes hiss, raising the chair up through the open blast door. As his chair passes through the thick reinforced concrete of the roof of his room, he is greeted by the deafening sound of cannon fire. Quickly popping in his earplugs, Misfire's heart is filled with pride as hundreds of polished steel and brass-clad cannon barrels come to life, raising and swiveling from the battered domes of the munitions district houses to aim skyward toward the east. Misfire's chest pounds with concussions as Mother and Father open fire, arcing their projectiles into the horizon. He fine-tunes his targeting interface and grins under his thick goggles and helmet as he pulls the firing lever, the recoil rocking through him and spent powder clouding his vision. Thousands of fireballs scream up through the clouds, delivering their deadly payload to an unseen enemy in a distant land.