Shadowfist fiction: The New World
Apr. 12th, 2011 09:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jl8eThis one just sort of happened.
I was heading home, probably from playing Shadowfist, when it popped into my head. I wrote a good portion of it right then and there. On my Palm Pilot. In Graffiti. (I don't think I had a keyboard for it yet. This was probably what induced me to get one.)
Or, as I've put it in the past: The main character crawled into my head, brutally murdered my muse, and told me to start writing.
This turned out to be the first of several stories introducing the post critical-shift world.
The hunter awoke, and instantly knew that somthing was wrong, that something had changed.
She was alone. Gone were the technicians, the foolish souls who called themselves her 'keepers', all the buzzing insects that normally surrounded her.
She decided that she liked it.
Her surroundings were strange. This was not the world she remembered. She assumed that the Buro and the CDCA were no more, that, as far as this world was concerned, they had never been.
She gazed out of the window, looking down upon the crowds of humans going through the motions of their pointless lives. They seemed to be unafraid. That would change soon enough.
The humans wore clothes, so she must do likewise to appear as one of them. She selected a translucent garment that covered little of her body and would not restrct her movements. She admired herself in a reflective surface, and was pleased. The garment enhanced her already great beauty, which would serve to attract some of the prey to her, and would calm any suspicions they may have.
There were other things: identification, transaction cards, holographic images of people she did not know, all the evidence of the past this new world had invented for her when it came into being. She left them behind; they were of no use to her.
She moved among the herd, passing as one of them. Often, she felt herself being observed, but she did not care. Let them watch until they could watch no more, until they turned their eyes away in horror.
As she moved among them, she satisfied her appetites as she saw fit. Mostly, she killed. She killed not just for food. She killed for the sheer joy of killing. She killed because she was a hunter, and they were her prey, and there was nothing they could do to stop her. She would leave a bloody scar across the face of this society, marking it forever as hers.
Eventually, she knew that the self-styled masters of this new world would have to act. But they were untested, unprepared for the likes of her.
When they finally tried to stop her, it was not with the overwhelming force that the Buro would have used. They proved their weakness. They sent one man.
No doubt they thought he would be sufficient. His nerves ran with the speed of lightning. He was far faster than she; he could have been a threat.
But he was young and arrogant, unable to see past her beauty. She showed him his heart before he died.
More came in the weeks that followed, always one or two at a time. A girl with mirrors over her eyes and razors in her fingertips. A man who attacked her with flying drones that obeyed his every thought. A pair of twins, who moved and fought as one. These and a dozen more. Some died, the rest fled. Always, the hunter was triumphant.
Finally, there was one who was smarter than the others. He had no desire to test himself against her. He announced his arrival with fire and thunder, an entire building destroyed because the hunter had been there.
The hunter was no longer there. She never slept twice in the same lair. She circled around the devastation until she found him, watching the rubble burn, waiting for her.
He was a cold, hard man, his skin was dark, and his arms were made of bright metal. His eyes were gone; there was metal and plastic in the place where they had been.
He turned to watch her even as she prepared to strike. He knew that she would be there. This one was too clever to be allowed to live.
She struck, he evaded. He fought defensively, giving ground as if he had an endless supply. She was stronger and faster, but there was little enough in it. If he hoped to tire her, he would be surprised - she had fed well the night before.
As he eventually must, he found himself backed against a wall. She feinted, suspecting a trick.
Jets of white-hot plasma sprayed from his hands. She dived aside, unharmed.
The hunter was not impressed. As he attempted to press his attack, she reached out, and removed one of his arms at the elbow.
He turned pale and staggered backwards, but made no sound. Toying with him now, she pretended to inspect the useless, broken thing she held, then let it drop to the ground.
He swept his remaining jet of plasma toward her, forcing her to take a step back. Then he turned and ran.
The hunter gave chase. Perhaps she could have caught him had she tried harder. She told herself she was being cautious, ready for another trick, but she knew that was a lie. She wanted to enjoy the hunt, to chase this broken man down until he had no choice but to face her.
As he ran, he gasped words to the air. The hunter did not listen. Nothing he had to say could matter to her.
Soon enough, he dived through the entrance to one of the office buildings that infested this world. A sterile monolith of steel and glass, it was unusual only in its plainness. It announced no name, bore no holographic displays, and failed entirely to proclaim the glories of the products of its masters.
There were guards at the door; she left them dying in pools of their own blood. Stepping inside, she found nobody.
Her quarry was gone, but his scent remained. It led her to an elevator, its doors inviting her in, to a certain trap.
The hunter no longer cared. She had seen what this world had to offer, and she did not fear it.
When the elevator's doors opened again, a number of floors above, no ambush awaited her. Almost disappointed, the hunter stepped silently into the empty hall. She could no longer smell her quarry's presence, but there was another, somewhere nearby.
The hunter snarled. She had been robbed of her prey. Those responsible would suffer before they died.
She stalked through the silent halls, past empty workshops and unused offices, until she found the one she was seeking.
The room was large, lit dimly by a glow around the edges of the ceiling. Two walls were composed enirely of windows, looking out on the light and activity of the city.
The room was empty, save for a single chair and its occupant. The woman turned her chair to face the hunter, and gracefully stood up. The moment seemed to pass slowly in time.
The woman was slim, dressed in a simple black gown. Silver hair flowed loosely past her waist. One arm was a graceful thing of metal. On the other, a serpentine dragon spiralled, drawn into her skin. The black-and-white circle of the Tao was similarly drawn about one eye. Her face was unlined, but she moved with the smoothness of long experience.
Their eyes met. The hunter recognized something in the other's gaze; not quite a kindred spirit, but something equally primal. The hunter had intruded upon this other's territory, and that was unforgiveable.
A strange feeling gnawed at the hunter's gut. She felt envious of the other, of her place in this world, even of her beauty.
Still, all that this other had would be gone once she was dead, and as for beauty, the form the hunter was wearing was just the mask that she wore to pass undetected among the prey.
As she shifted back to her true, beautiful, form, the hunter sprang across the room, hoping to take the other by surprise.
She did not. Her talons caught nothing but air as she crashed into the chair. Instantly, she was back on her feet, seeking her foe.
A powerful kick sent her sprawling, and she barely rolled out of the way as the chair shattered where her head had just been.
She stood, and immediately staggered backwards as another kick struck beneath her chin. A third kick followed, but this time she was ready, catching the other's leg in one hand, her talons digging into the calf.
Somehow, the other managed to pull out of the hunter's grip. They circled warily, the other seemingly oblivious to the blood trickling down her leg.
As if by mutual agreement, they closed. The hunter felt her talons rake across flesh, but the other gained a strong grip upon her shoulder and arm, and hurled the hunter across the room.
The windows creaked at the impact, but remained in place. This time, the hunter did not rise as quickly, and one arm hung awkwardly at her side.
Again, they circled. Again, they closed. The hunter reached toward the other's face, but her wrist was caught and held.
A metal fist drove into the hunter's stomach, and she felt a blade pierce her. Desperately, the hunter pulled away, heedless of the blade ripping through her guts.
The thin blade slid silently back into the arm that had concealed it, and the two circled once more. This time, when the other advanced, the hunter retreated, but she was no longer fast enough. Perhaps she never had been.
The metal hand closed around the hunter's throat. She shrieked and howled as electrical current coursed through her body. When the blade pierced her neck, she did not even feel it.
She felt herself being lifted off the ground, and hurled again against the windows. This time, they were unable to hold; the hunter fell into the night amid a shower of glass.
Weakly, she tried to claw at the side of the building, to slow her fall, but the metal and glass offered her no purchace.
If anybody observed her fall, they chose to do nothing. She lay on the ground, ignored by those she had so recently terrorised.
All was still for some time. Then, slowly, the limp, broken thing that had been the hunter dragged herself away from the building.
She wanted to crawl back to the technicians, to those that called themselves her keepers. They would repair her. They would care for her, make her stronger and deadlier than she was before.
She was alone. If she had known how, perhaps she would have wept, but all she could do was crawl away.
At last, she was too weak even to crawl, and so she lay in a forgotten alley and waited to die.
Again, she felt that she was being watched. If they wished to watch her die, so be it. She no longer had the strength to care.
Far above her, she heard the soft whine of a stealthed helicopter. Footsteps approached her, and she felt herself being turned over. Through her fading vision, she saw a familiar face, one she once would have recognized and perhaps even obeyed, but she could not remember his name. Names had never mattered to her before, but his had been important.
He spoke to her, in a the first familiar voice she had heard in what seemed a very long time.
"It's time to come home, Desdemona."
I was heading home, probably from playing Shadowfist, when it popped into my head. I wrote a good portion of it right then and there. On my Palm Pilot. In Graffiti. (I don't think I had a keyboard for it yet. This was probably what induced me to get one.)
Or, as I've put it in the past: The main character crawled into my head, brutally murdered my muse, and told me to start writing.
This turned out to be the first of several stories introducing the post critical-shift world.
The hunter awoke, and instantly knew that somthing was wrong, that something had changed.She was alone. Gone were the technicians, the foolish souls who called themselves her 'keepers', all the buzzing insects that normally surrounded her.
She decided that she liked it.
Her surroundings were strange. This was not the world she remembered. She assumed that the Buro and the CDCA were no more, that, as far as this world was concerned, they had never been.
She gazed out of the window, looking down upon the crowds of humans going through the motions of their pointless lives. They seemed to be unafraid. That would change soon enough.
The humans wore clothes, so she must do likewise to appear as one of them. She selected a translucent garment that covered little of her body and would not restrct her movements. She admired herself in a reflective surface, and was pleased. The garment enhanced her already great beauty, which would serve to attract some of the prey to her, and would calm any suspicions they may have.
There were other things: identification, transaction cards, holographic images of people she did not know, all the evidence of the past this new world had invented for her when it came into being. She left them behind; they were of no use to her.
She moved among the herd, passing as one of them. Often, she felt herself being observed, but she did not care. Let them watch until they could watch no more, until they turned their eyes away in horror.
As she moved among them, she satisfied her appetites as she saw fit. Mostly, she killed. She killed not just for food. She killed for the sheer joy of killing. She killed because she was a hunter, and they were her prey, and there was nothing they could do to stop her. She would leave a bloody scar across the face of this society, marking it forever as hers.
Eventually, she knew that the self-styled masters of this new world would have to act. But they were untested, unprepared for the likes of her.
When they finally tried to stop her, it was not with the overwhelming force that the Buro would have used. They proved their weakness. They sent one man.
No doubt they thought he would be sufficient. His nerves ran with the speed of lightning. He was far faster than she; he could have been a threat.
But he was young and arrogant, unable to see past her beauty. She showed him his heart before he died.
More came in the weeks that followed, always one or two at a time. A girl with mirrors over her eyes and razors in her fingertips. A man who attacked her with flying drones that obeyed his every thought. A pair of twins, who moved and fought as one. These and a dozen more. Some died, the rest fled. Always, the hunter was triumphant.
Finally, there was one who was smarter than the others. He had no desire to test himself against her. He announced his arrival with fire and thunder, an entire building destroyed because the hunter had been there.
The hunter was no longer there. She never slept twice in the same lair. She circled around the devastation until she found him, watching the rubble burn, waiting for her.
He was a cold, hard man, his skin was dark, and his arms were made of bright metal. His eyes were gone; there was metal and plastic in the place where they had been.He turned to watch her even as she prepared to strike. He knew that she would be there. This one was too clever to be allowed to live.
She struck, he evaded. He fought defensively, giving ground as if he had an endless supply. She was stronger and faster, but there was little enough in it. If he hoped to tire her, he would be surprised - she had fed well the night before.
As he eventually must, he found himself backed against a wall. She feinted, suspecting a trick.
Jets of white-hot plasma sprayed from his hands. She dived aside, unharmed.
The hunter was not impressed. As he attempted to press his attack, she reached out, and removed one of his arms at the elbow.
He turned pale and staggered backwards, but made no sound. Toying with him now, she pretended to inspect the useless, broken thing she held, then let it drop to the ground.
He swept his remaining jet of plasma toward her, forcing her to take a step back. Then he turned and ran.
The hunter gave chase. Perhaps she could have caught him had she tried harder. She told herself she was being cautious, ready for another trick, but she knew that was a lie. She wanted to enjoy the hunt, to chase this broken man down until he had no choice but to face her.
As he ran, he gasped words to the air. The hunter did not listen. Nothing he had to say could matter to her.
Soon enough, he dived through the entrance to one of the office buildings that infested this world. A sterile monolith of steel and glass, it was unusual only in its plainness. It announced no name, bore no holographic displays, and failed entirely to proclaim the glories of the products of its masters.
There were guards at the door; she left them dying in pools of their own blood. Stepping inside, she found nobody.
Her quarry was gone, but his scent remained. It led her to an elevator, its doors inviting her in, to a certain trap.
The hunter no longer cared. She had seen what this world had to offer, and she did not fear it.
When the elevator's doors opened again, a number of floors above, no ambush awaited her. Almost disappointed, the hunter stepped silently into the empty hall. She could no longer smell her quarry's presence, but there was another, somewhere nearby.
The hunter snarled. She had been robbed of her prey. Those responsible would suffer before they died.
She stalked through the silent halls, past empty workshops and unused offices, until she found the one she was seeking.
The room was large, lit dimly by a glow around the edges of the ceiling. Two walls were composed enirely of windows, looking out on the light and activity of the city.
The room was empty, save for a single chair and its occupant. The woman turned her chair to face the hunter, and gracefully stood up. The moment seemed to pass slowly in time.The woman was slim, dressed in a simple black gown. Silver hair flowed loosely past her waist. One arm was a graceful thing of metal. On the other, a serpentine dragon spiralled, drawn into her skin. The black-and-white circle of the Tao was similarly drawn about one eye. Her face was unlined, but she moved with the smoothness of long experience.
Their eyes met. The hunter recognized something in the other's gaze; not quite a kindred spirit, but something equally primal. The hunter had intruded upon this other's territory, and that was unforgiveable.
A strange feeling gnawed at the hunter's gut. She felt envious of the other, of her place in this world, even of her beauty.
Still, all that this other had would be gone once she was dead, and as for beauty, the form the hunter was wearing was just the mask that she wore to pass undetected among the prey.
As she shifted back to her true, beautiful, form, the hunter sprang across the room, hoping to take the other by surprise.
She did not. Her talons caught nothing but air as she crashed into the chair. Instantly, she was back on her feet, seeking her foe.
A powerful kick sent her sprawling, and she barely rolled out of the way as the chair shattered where her head had just been.
She stood, and immediately staggered backwards as another kick struck beneath her chin. A third kick followed, but this time she was ready, catching the other's leg in one hand, her talons digging into the calf.
Somehow, the other managed to pull out of the hunter's grip. They circled warily, the other seemingly oblivious to the blood trickling down her leg.
As if by mutual agreement, they closed. The hunter felt her talons rake across flesh, but the other gained a strong grip upon her shoulder and arm, and hurled the hunter across the room.
The windows creaked at the impact, but remained in place. This time, the hunter did not rise as quickly, and one arm hung awkwardly at her side.
Again, they circled. Again, they closed. The hunter reached toward the other's face, but her wrist was caught and held.
A metal fist drove into the hunter's stomach, and she felt a blade pierce her. Desperately, the hunter pulled away, heedless of the blade ripping through her guts.
The thin blade slid silently back into the arm that had concealed it, and the two circled once more. This time, when the other advanced, the hunter retreated, but she was no longer fast enough. Perhaps she never had been.
The metal hand closed around the hunter's throat. She shrieked and howled as electrical current coursed through her body. When the blade pierced her neck, she did not even feel it.
She felt herself being lifted off the ground, and hurled again against the windows. This time, they were unable to hold; the hunter fell into the night amid a shower of glass.
Weakly, she tried to claw at the side of the building, to slow her fall, but the metal and glass offered her no purchace.
If anybody observed her fall, they chose to do nothing. She lay on the ground, ignored by those she had so recently terrorised.
All was still for some time. Then, slowly, the limp, broken thing that had been the hunter dragged herself away from the building.
She wanted to crawl back to the technicians, to those that called themselves her keepers. They would repair her. They would care for her, make her stronger and deadlier than she was before.
She was alone. If she had known how, perhaps she would have wept, but all she could do was crawl away.
At last, she was too weak even to crawl, and so she lay in a forgotten alley and waited to die.
Again, she felt that she was being watched. If they wished to watch her die, so be it. She no longer had the strength to care.
Far above her, she heard the soft whine of a stealthed helicopter. Footsteps approached her, and she felt herself being turned over. Through her fading vision, she saw a familiar face, one she once would have recognized and perhaps even obeyed, but she could not remember his name. Names had never mattered to her before, but his had been important.
He spoke to her, in a the first familiar voice she had heard in what seemed a very long time.
"It's time to come home, Desdemona."
