Sept/oct Short Story VOTING THREAD WITH PRIZES

[Bad City Blue]

Howzit hangin', Droogs...

We seem to have a shortage of entries this month. Hell, even I didn't enter because of a war wound that severely hampered my typing skills.

Howzabout you just read these great tales and vote for your top three. the winner will get a 2000AD Graphic novel, as will a random voter, courtesy of Rebellion (proper gents, they is).

Next month's compo will be very user friendly to encourage as many spugs as possible to get whet and creative.

see ya, loozers

BCB

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EAMONN1961

The Frog of War

It's a jungle out there. A real jungle. I'm the first human to land on an earth like planet and it's all jungle. Hot and humid and hateful.

The first human to set foot here. I'm famous. Maybe they'll put my face on a stamp or a magazine cover or something.

I've got things to do, machines to set up, readings to take ... but the jungle ... it wants me.

And it feels like there's something in my suit. Something squirming behind my knee. But that's impossible. The environmental suit is a completely sealed and self supporting unit. Maybe one of the servo motors is twitchy. I'll run diagnostics when I'm back in the ship.

The atmospheric monitoring station is a hefty device and it takes a while to assemble. It's getting hot in here. The suit should be able to cope with the temperature but the jungle presses in on me. It's started to rain and large drops of water are falling from the leaves, at least the spectrometer tells me it is water. If I could open my helmet that would cool me off. I want to feel the rain on my face. The jungle wants to see my face.

I must stop daydreaming, I've got work to do before the satellite uplink is ready for my first message back to earth. Back to the checklist .. but it's so hot. I want to stop and rest a moment, and there is definitely something in the suit with me. Something small moves by my waist. It's climbing higher.

I look up and all I can see is jungle. It's so dark, and hot, and heavy and I want to open my helmet. The jungle wants me to open the helmet. The jungle wants me ...

I look back and my ship is obscured by leaves and branches. My landing must have cleared more space than that. Surely the undergrowth can't grow back that fast?

Why can't I think clearly? This is what I did all those years of training for. I've got to get this mission back on track. My suit thermometer reads a steady 20 degrees but that can't be right. It's so hot in here. So hot I could melt. I'm sweating and the thing in my suit is at my neck now.

It's on my face. I can feel small hot feet on my skin but they don't feel alien, they feel like human skin, like a loved one's fingers brushing my face.

It's a jungle in here, the jungle wants me. I open my helmet and turn my face to the sky as the rain takes me and makes me a part of it.

I am the jungle out there.

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LOBO BAGGINS

Praise The Lord

He'd been important once.  He'd been the best at what he did, great names had flocked to him, he'd overseen the creation of amazing things.  He'd had followers, he'd formed a small army.  They'd listened to him then.  When he'd warned them about the Threat, they'd hung on every word.

That was before the alien had come, of course.  He'd said they'd work together, they'd become stronger if they joined forces.  Like a fool, he'd listened, co-operated.  He should have known to never trust an alien.  All he'd built was gradually assimilated, the best and brightest of his creations taken, the rest discarded in disdain.  His carefully chosen army, disbanded without a thought.  His warnings, so dire, dismissed entirely.  Eventually, even his own name fell by the wayside to be replaced with another.  His own followers barely protested, falling in line behind the alien.

He knew the Threat was still there, but no one listened to him now.  He was a relic, barely remembered.  A joke.

Today, he'd seen a poster and his heart leapt.  His name... they'd made a film!  People remembered his name, after all this time.  He looked at the poster, his eyes wide and excited – what must be him, the green skinned alien (a female, though, but he supposed Hollywood was allowed some artistic licence, after all), a giant... tree thing... and a... raccoon with a blaster...?

Realisation dawned.  It was a film about the other Star Lord.  A single bitter tear crept down his cheek, cutting a furrow through the encrusted grime.

He adjusted his special anti-telepathy hat and decided it was time to find another bridge to sleep under, somewhere far away from the gaze of the poster, which he was now convinced was looking at him in a funny way.  He gathered up his special cardboard box, which he knew was the only thing protecting him from the Int Stell Fed's scanning beams, and set off to find a new place to sleep.

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BLACKMOCCO

It's A Meltdown, Man...

Just like his tenth grade biology teacher had predicted - in front of the entire class, no less - Gianfranco DiMatteo had amounted to nothing with his life. He was a 53 year old part-time cab driver, was solely responsible for two failed marriages and lived in a grubby two bedroom apartment with his mother on the outskirts of Trenton, New Jersey. His life was a banal routine of driving the early morning shift, smoking cheap cigars, hypochondria, and avoiding letters from the DA demanding he pay his child support.

Gianfranco was lazy and stubborn, had a short temper, hated cats with a passion and liked to floss in bed but he wasn't a bad man at heart. He wouldn't hurt a fly. He felt terrible about running the homeless looking guy over with his cab near the New Jersey turnpike. He didn't tell the cops he'd been distracted trying to find his Manilow tapes in the glove compartment while speeding but in his defense, why had that guy been trying to cross four lanes of busy highway on foot? Was he nuts?

Turns out that was indeed the case. Before he died, this guy told the paramedics he had just travelled back in time through a nuclear explosion and he needed to speak to the President. Something about an asteroid and talking animals. Real wacky stuff. The cops told Gianfranco the dead guy's name was Nick Stone, a real life Chuck Norris-type who had vanished a few months back.

Didn't make Gianfranco feel better to hear any of that exactly, but he was back driving his cab a week later, doing his best to put the whole thing behind him. His mother had helped. "I mean, it's sad what happened, but we're not talkin' the end of the world here, y'know?" she said.

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IAMTHESYSTEM

Derelict Droid

"Damn Machine, Drokk it!"

Rumo Hex, Sanitation Specialist Second Class cursed loudly as he stomped angrily through the dark water. Mega City 1's sewer systems were depressing places at the best of times and having a malfunctioning Cleaning Droid break down just before the end of Rumo's night shift was not the best of times, not at all.

RUMO sweated heavily inside his Bio Hazard Suit following the grid display projected inside his grime streaked helmet. A large, red ' X' indicated the whereabouts of the hapless Droid and RUMO  suspected he was in for plenty of unpaid overtime. The Chaos Bug had  killed millions but the damage to the cities infrastructure had been so extensive that now disused and even allegedly hazardous Sanitation systems had been declared 'safe' and such utilities needed to be repaired and maintained.

It was logical from Justice Departments point of view to employ a single person as Overseer to a Robot Repair Team. There were robots but not people. Logical but not very humane; the Overseers complained of  depression and social isolation and though these complaints were noted nothing, as far as Justice Department was concerned could be done to relieve the stressful conditions under which their unhappy employees laboured.

RUMO turned the last corner and ahead he saw reflected in his suits lights the still frame of Sanitation Droid MCS 34567-2. Smoke gently wafted from it's head frame.

'Motor neuron burn out ' thought Rumo; pleased now since it meant merely swapping one broken machine part for another. Easy.

Something large moved in the darkness behind the lifeless Droid. Rumo, alert fumbled quickly for his snub pistol side arm feeling it's familiar grip in his hands lesson, but not displace the rush of fear that had energized his system.

'Who's there, who are you ?!' snapped Rumo trying desperately to see beyond the damaged Droid, which partially blocked his cone of vision.The figure moved stiffly towards the Sanitation Specialist it's outline becoming clearer, almost familiar and yet still threatening.

The bullets struck Rumo in his centre mass and stitched a bloody line up to his head his faceplate shattering. He toppled dead into the murky sewage behind him his body floating in the bloody debris field.

Around the the still form of the Sanitation Droid strode Rumo's killer, cold, purposeful eyes regarding Rumo's corpse with practised efficiency; target neutralized. It's damaged, mechanical voice echoed through the dark sewer, resonating with renewed power and with the promise of retribution for the city above.

'I... ARR-MM... T-THE LLAWRR-R!' toned Mechanizmo Robot Unit 5.

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THE ENIGMATIC DR X


Queen and Country

Most times, the pain was so much that he wished he was dead again. Other times, when his memory faded and he was denied even the recollection of oblivion's quiet bliss, he assumed that everyone was like him; a helpless monkey raging inside a cage of brittle bone and rotten sinew, dancing to order.

Then there were the times he forgot everything and gave in to the voice. So seductive, so soft, so cruel; it was easy to just bathe in her instructions, to let her whisper her vicious delights. In those moments, he followed her bidding like the slave he was and lashed out in fury.

He didn't know what he was doing in those dark spells; she had control. Only after she relented, when she released her grip on him as if lifting a blindfold, would he realise what had happened. He would see the looks on the faces of those around him and understand he had become a demon. He saw it in their eyes, when the drunks in a holding cell shied away, or when he was evicted from another shelter before the police came. Often he wouldn't know what he had done, not exactly, but the reflection of violence was in the stares.

He was alone. Alone with her, with the voice. Always the voice. Cold, calm, seductive.

She would tell him exactly how much pressure to exert in order to crush a throat, to render a man unconscious. Dispassionate, she would spell out how where to push, where to hit, as if directing a lost child.

Once, she had guided his hand as his fingers crushed the face of an old man from the North, a derelict who hadn't given up some cardboard covers. The voice had told him to spread his fingers, thin like the legs of a spider, across the gibbering man's face and she had exerted pressure - just enough - to collapse the bones underneath.

The worst of it was, he envied his victims. They could die, and only once.

He had tried to end it. When he remembered, when the past swept over her barriers, he had sought a return to oblivion. There had been a fall from a cliff, a blade in the gut, and open veins; none had worked. She would not let them.

She had brought him back when he died the first time, wrapping her fingers around the bullets that had killed him and forcing his tired corpse to come back, and each time since. She would do so again and again, driving him on while his body decayed; when his heart stopped, when his lungs gave in, she just sent signals that forced them to continue.

He was a living corpse, driven insane by the mad-woman in his head. It was all he could do to remember his name.

He was John Probe. Now, and forever.

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There ya go, lawbreakers. Vote for ya fave and geta prize (maybe).

[amines2058]

Feel awful having to choose 3 out of the 5 when they were all so good, but it has to be done, so here goes!

1st - Blackmocco - Its a Meltdown MAn
2nd - Eamonn1961 - The Frog of War
3rd - The Enigmatic Dr X - Queen and Country

and HM's if possible of course for Lobo Baggins & I am The System.

[Bolt-01]

I really enjoyed those. Must make the effort to write more often...

1. Lobo Baggins.
2. Eamonn1961
3. Dr X.

And a HM for BlackMocco

[Eamonn Clarke]

1. The Enigmatic Doctor X - Queen and Country
2. Iamthe System - Derelict Droid
3. BlackMocco - It's a Meltdown, Man

HM LoboBaggins

[Minkyboy]

Good efforts all round.
I wonder how much our voting this time will be governed by how cherished our memories of these characters are.

1. Dr X
2. Eamonn1961
3. Lobo Baggins

Thank you one and all.

[blackmocco]

1. Dr X - Queen and Country
2. Eamonn1961 - Frog
3. Lobo - Star Lord

HM goes to IAMTHESYSTEM. We're ALL winners though!

[Echidna]

I really enjoyed them all, but...

1: THE ENIGMATIC DR X - Queen and Country
2: LOBO BAGGINS - Praise The Lord
3: EAMONN1961 - The Frog of War

[Timothy]

1. Queen and Country.
2. The Frog of War.
3. It's a Meltdown, Man.

[Lobo Baggins]

1. Blackmocco

2. The Enigmatic Doctor X

3. Iamthesystem

HM - Eamonn1961

[hippynumber1]

1: The Enigmatic Dr. X
2: Blackmocco
3: Lobo Baggins

HM: Eamonn1961

[Bad City Blue]

1 - Lobo Baggins

2 - Enigmatic Dr X

3 - Blackmocco

[Hawkmumbler]

1) Lobo Baggins

2) Blackmocco

3) Eamon1961

[Spaceghost]

Excellent, excellent stuff all round.

Don't want to pick and choose, but since I have to;

1) THE ENIGMATIC DR X - Queen and Country

2) LOBO BAGGINS - Praise the Lord

3) EAMONN1961 - The Frog of War

Loved IAMTHESYSTEM's Derelict Droid too, but Blackmocco get's the HM for It's a Meltdown, Man..., and for not spelling his name with CAPITAL LETTERS.

Well done everybody.

[judgerufian]

1. Its a Meltdown, man
2. Queen and Country
3. Derelict droid

Great selection of characters to bring back too, great efforts everyone.

[Proudhuff]

1. IAMTHESYSTEM
2. THE ENIGMATIC DR X
3. BLACKMOCCO