A little something that's been stuck in my head for a while that finally decided to come out.
Any form of review is welcome, especially from rob & bob, as I want to make sure I have both characters' voices correct.
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
I woke up in my bike’s seat for once.
For those who have been following my travels, you already know how uncommon that is. For those who have only this chapter of my tale, I am Douglas Quincy Sangnoir, Colonel, security chief of the United Nations Metahuman Peacekeeping Force Warriors Alpha, based in London, England. I am a metahuman, which is someone with all the abilities of humanity and more beside. I have been kicked out of my home dimension through no fault of my own, and have been going from dimension to dimension hoping my next stop will reunite me with my wife Maggie and my comrades.
And for your information, my mode of travel through worlds has always made me unconscious, and as such I have been more often than not ejected from my bike’s seat.
Shaking my head to remove the last remaining cobwebs of unconsciousness, I took a first look at my current world.
Modern, by the looks of it, with skyscrapers all around. It was night, and late night at that if the number of lights meant anything. The road I was on was asphalt, which might be why my bike’s AI managed a good landing this time, and by the looks of it not well maintained.
A quick look around saw no threats, and more signs of shoddy maintenance bordering on actual damage. A closer one revealed what I expected: This city had experienced an earthquake or something of the sort recently, and the damage was everywhere. I checked from high that there was no fire or other such danger to the people here, and when I found none I decided the find a place to stay for the night.
I would look for whatever passed for leadership or law enforcement during the day, and offer my services. In times of crisis like this, there was surely some work I could do
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
I ended up borrowing a boardroom in a building of a company called Amagasa Corp., which looked quite abandoned if one were to judge by the dust. The building still had power and water, so at least I wouldn’t be forced to survive on my water rations.
I went back to the room where I had stashed my panniers to find that Eimi had finished booting. “Not home I suppose ?”
I was by now quite used to the directness of my digital partner. “Doesn’t look like it. Unless something huge happened while I was gone, this isn’t my world.”
“Fake id then ?”
“Wait on that. This place seem to have gone some kind of earthquake recently so it might not be…”
That’s when the windows cracked from a wave of air pressure. A sound had just preceded that, but I haven’t yet found the right onomatopoeia for it. Suffice to say that it was the sound of a sizable part of a building crashing down, something that I have unfortunately caused at least once. It was also very close.
Acting on instinct I grabbed both Eimi and my paniers only to run back outside to my bike. I wasn’t going to take a chance on having the roof crumble on me. I might survive but I wasn’t going to risk my equipment on it.
Once in the air, I noticed the fallen building. Behind and to the left of the Amagasa Corp building, it was evident that the structure had not fallen naturally. It had been visibly cut in half nearly horizontally.
Getting closer, I quickly noticed a fight going. On the highway right next to the fallen skyscraper two figures were duking it out. I instinctively did a tactical analysis on both figures and was surprised to find that these weren’t ‘crunchies’. It was surprising because both figures were at most four foot something.
Turning Eimi to point her webcam at the battle, which seemed to have paused for an instant, I couldn’t help but ask. “Anyone you know ?”
Before she even could answer, a circle of energy started drawing itself in the air right above the downed building, followed by a six-pointed star within the circle. Inside that appeared the one of the most bizarre creatures I ever had the misfortune to encounter.
Its body was that of a fish, and easily taller than me with a dorsal fin (which looked quite sharp) that doubled that height. It had the requisite fins of similar size on both sides of its center, along with something like tentacles protruding from the area above the fins. These were bizarrely colored differently from the body, with those on one side a pinkish red while those on the other were a deep blue.
And, most visibly, it had the face of an Asian girl with pink hair (including hair band) instead of that of a fish.
The shock of such a bizarre thing stunned me for a second.
“Whee! I’m a cute florist! I sell pretty flowers! Pretty, pretty! Do you want flowers? Do you, do you?” It said out loud, with the voice of an eight year old schoolgirl.
I kept watching as one of the two combatants, the flying one, teleported out, while the other jumped off the highway. The fish-like thing followed the latter after a short conversation, I supposed, some form of telepathy or electronic means.
I turned towards Eimi. “Any idea what that might be ?”
“Some.”
“Transfictional ?”
“Yes.”
I thought for an instant. Transfictional information meant that she had read the events here as a story somewhere in another dimension. It was a little bit like future knowledge, but from an outside point of reference. “Anything I should know ?”
“The one who just jumped off is a good guy, and could probably use your help. Either that or taking the miracle goop and building a space habitat in the next few hours.”
“That bad ?” I raised an eyebrow at her words.
“Not sure… But if it goes bad it can go very bad.”
“So… follow the fish ?”
“Follow the fish.”
-People may die, but ideas are forever. Je suis Charlie.
Any form of review is welcome, especially from rob & bob, as I want to make sure I have both characters' voices correct.
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
I woke up in my bike’s seat for once.
For those who have been following my travels, you already know how uncommon that is. For those who have only this chapter of my tale, I am Douglas Quincy Sangnoir, Colonel, security chief of the United Nations Metahuman Peacekeeping Force Warriors Alpha, based in London, England. I am a metahuman, which is someone with all the abilities of humanity and more beside. I have been kicked out of my home dimension through no fault of my own, and have been going from dimension to dimension hoping my next stop will reunite me with my wife Maggie and my comrades.
And for your information, my mode of travel through worlds has always made me unconscious, and as such I have been more often than not ejected from my bike’s seat.
Shaking my head to remove the last remaining cobwebs of unconsciousness, I took a first look at my current world.
Modern, by the looks of it, with skyscrapers all around. It was night, and late night at that if the number of lights meant anything. The road I was on was asphalt, which might be why my bike’s AI managed a good landing this time, and by the looks of it not well maintained.
A quick look around saw no threats, and more signs of shoddy maintenance bordering on actual damage. A closer one revealed what I expected: This city had experienced an earthquake or something of the sort recently, and the damage was everywhere. I checked from high that there was no fire or other such danger to the people here, and when I found none I decided the find a place to stay for the night.
I would look for whatever passed for leadership or law enforcement during the day, and offer my services. In times of crisis like this, there was surely some work I could do
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
I ended up borrowing a boardroom in a building of a company called Amagasa Corp., which looked quite abandoned if one were to judge by the dust. The building still had power and water, so at least I wouldn’t be forced to survive on my water rations.
I went back to the room where I had stashed my panniers to find that Eimi had finished booting. “Not home I suppose ?”
I was by now quite used to the directness of my digital partner. “Doesn’t look like it. Unless something huge happened while I was gone, this isn’t my world.”
“Fake id then ?”
“Wait on that. This place seem to have gone some kind of earthquake recently so it might not be…”
That’s when the windows cracked from a wave of air pressure. A sound had just preceded that, but I haven’t yet found the right onomatopoeia for it. Suffice to say that it was the sound of a sizable part of a building crashing down, something that I have unfortunately caused at least once. It was also very close.
Acting on instinct I grabbed both Eimi and my paniers only to run back outside to my bike. I wasn’t going to take a chance on having the roof crumble on me. I might survive but I wasn’t going to risk my equipment on it.
Once in the air, I noticed the fallen building. Behind and to the left of the Amagasa Corp building, it was evident that the structure had not fallen naturally. It had been visibly cut in half nearly horizontally.
Getting closer, I quickly noticed a fight going. On the highway right next to the fallen skyscraper two figures were duking it out. I instinctively did a tactical analysis on both figures and was surprised to find that these weren’t ‘crunchies’. It was surprising because both figures were at most four foot something.
Turning Eimi to point her webcam at the battle, which seemed to have paused for an instant, I couldn’t help but ask. “Anyone you know ?”
Before she even could answer, a circle of energy started drawing itself in the air right above the downed building, followed by a six-pointed star within the circle. Inside that appeared the one of the most bizarre creatures I ever had the misfortune to encounter.
Its body was that of a fish, and easily taller than me with a dorsal fin (which looked quite sharp) that doubled that height. It had the requisite fins of similar size on both sides of its center, along with something like tentacles protruding from the area above the fins. These were bizarrely colored differently from the body, with those on one side a pinkish red while those on the other were a deep blue.
And, most visibly, it had the face of an Asian girl with pink hair (including hair band) instead of that of a fish.
The shock of such a bizarre thing stunned me for a second.
“Whee! I’m a cute florist! I sell pretty flowers! Pretty, pretty! Do you want flowers? Do you, do you?” It said out loud, with the voice of an eight year old schoolgirl.
I kept watching as one of the two combatants, the flying one, teleported out, while the other jumped off the highway. The fish-like thing followed the latter after a short conversation, I supposed, some form of telepathy or electronic means.
I turned towards Eimi. “Any idea what that might be ?”
“Some.”
“Transfictional ?”
“Yes.”
I thought for an instant. Transfictional information meant that she had read the events here as a story somewhere in another dimension. It was a little bit like future knowledge, but from an outside point of reference. “Anything I should know ?”
“The one who just jumped off is a good guy, and could probably use your help. Either that or taking the miracle goop and building a space habitat in the next few hours.”
“That bad ?” I raised an eyebrow at her words.
“Not sure… But if it goes bad it can go very bad.”
“So… follow the fish ?”
“Follow the fish.”
-People may die, but ideas are forever. Je suis Charlie.
