JAN/FEB SHORT STORY COMP (WITH PRIZES) - "TALES FROM CITI DEF"

[Alski]

Can someone sticky this? Thanks.

okay, I have taken this particular bull by the horns, and our friends at Rebellion HQ have agreed to give a graphic novel to the winner. PLUS, I will draw the name of a random VOTER to also receive one!

SO... there is actual impetus to have a go, and to vote as well, as we all love FREE STUFF 

This month's comp will run until the 25th of February.

Each story (or poem if you like) must be NO LONGER THAN 500 WORDS, so edit carefully.

The title is: "TALES FROM CITI DEF"

Good luck, and may your Grud go with you...

[Eamonn Clarke]

Alski, you are a star. 

Tales from the Citi-Def: The Girl from 14B

We are a tight unit, the Monty James Citi-Def. Not like those drokkers from Sue Hill block. We had the right training, the right kit, and we have a code. We're the good guys who did the right thing, and didn't go in for the petty squabbles that wrecked other units on chaos day.

The Hall of Justice gave us just one Jay and one cadet. We worked through the block floor by floor and on each level the Judge read the riot act, or the warning to the furious as old Miller called it. Then we started our sweep: terminating the sick, testing the healthy, and tipping the bodies over the balconies into the catch nets. It was rough.

We were on level 27 and Judge Straub had stopped us for a 5 minute break. I heard Miller call out "Hey, Miss. You shouldn't be out here".
I turned around and saw a young girl of about 12 wearing pyjamas. The hallway was filled with blood, smoke and broken glass. It was not a safe place for a child to be wandering around barefoot. Miller moved towards her with his hands open and empty. As he stepped in front of me I lost sight of her.

Miller stopped, "Huh! Where did she go?" The corridor was empty again. We checked the corners and the stairwells but found nothing. Straub pulled us back on track, "Can't waste time looking for one child. We've got a job to do."

Two floors up and she was there again, standing and pointing silently upwards. Straub waved his gun and told her to stay where she was, but then the light must have tricked me or some smoke covered her because she just faded from view.

It was on level 30 that we finally tracked her down. She was standing outside the door to 14B, and for the first and only time she spoke, "He's behind the door and knows you are coming. He's so angry."

And then she was gone again. The Jay spoke briefly to his cadet and they used a shaped charge which hurled the door back into the apartment. Straub was fast but the red eye was still a handful, the cornered ones always were. I managed to grab the guy from behind and then the Cadet finished the job with a single shot..

Amidst the wreckage were the signs that a happy family had once lived here. We found the wife in one bedroom, and in the other the little girl. The crazed red eye had killed them both.

"That's her." I said. Straub reckoned we were just confusing one child with another but all the MJs knew the truth.

We still see her from time to time. A glimpse in the corner of an eye, a fleeting reflection in a window. She doesn't mean us any harm, in fact she's a sort of mascot now, but not one that we like to talk about.

[Alski]

Nice job, and a perfect start...

"Monty james?" - Who dat?

[Dark Jimbo]

Nice job, and a perfect start...

"Monty james?" - Who dat?

Montague Rhodes James, judging by the subject matter. Nice little reference, eamonn, and great story!

Might even have a go myself later.

[Skullmo]

All you prize hounds! Well we were contributin' when it was worth nothin'!

[Alski]

greed is good!

[Eamonn Clarke]

Nice job, and a perfect start...

"Monty james?" - Who dat?

Montague Rhodes James, judging by the subject matter.

yup M.R.James it is
Also Susan hill! Jonathan Miller and Peter Straub in there.
Quite please with myself for the warning to the furious gag.

[Alski]

"We Can Rebuild Him"

Roger both hated and loved channel 25874. In every City Block it was reserved for the Citi Def forces, and in Stan Lee Block Citi Def was a very serious business.

"Stan Lee Citi Def Needs YOU!" bellowed the voice over, as images of heroic citizens scrolled across the screen. Hand to hand combat, ludicrously powerful weapons, glamorous uniforms... Stan Lee Citi Def had it all, and Roger wanted a part of it, if only it were possible.

Roger, you see, was a wimp. There really is no other way to describe him, because where other people had muscles, Roger had none, where they had a six pack, Roger had a nice cup of tea. He was five foot two, wore the sort of glasses Juves just loved to steal off of him (before putting them on and going "Whoa!!! How bad's yer eyes, wimp?"), and lived with his mother. The only job he'd ever got was a practise dummy for the Jessica Fletcher Block Eldsters Self Defence Class. He couldn't keep it, though, as he couldn't even stand up when the padding had been put on him.

But today was going to be different. Roger knew in his heart that his big break was coming, and this was to be the day when he walked into the Citi Def recruitment office and wasn't laughed right back out again, all thanks to Dr Einstein.

Roger knocked tentatively on the door, which was almost immediately opened by Dr Einstein, who looked every inch the mad scientist.
"Are you alone?" he asked.
"Yes," said Roger. "Just like you asked."
"And no one knows you are here?"
"No. You said you have enemies, right?"
"Oh yes," conformed Dr Einstsin, a manic glint in his eyes. "If the Jays find out what I am doing they will take me away and force me to work for them. Come in, please."

Roger entered the apartment and did a double take. Everywhere there was scientific equipment, from bubbling beakers to a large, lighting generator, like something out of the old 2d vids his Ma liked to watch.

"On the table, please, quick smart," ordered Dr Einstein. "Time waits for no man, and neither does Citi Def glory, eh?"
"Um..." said Roger, eying the very large needle the doctor was now holding. "this IS safe, isn't it? I mean, you will make me into a, um..."
"Super soldier."
"Yes, a super soldier. It won't, well... it won't hurt much, will it?"
"Tch!" Exclaimed Dr Einstein. "Just a little prick, is all, then when you wake up it will be all muscles and things like that. You will be a captain of Citi Def, they will call you Captain Stan Lee or somesuch. Now hurry, no time to waste!"

Five minutes later, it was all over. Dr Einstein had injected Roger Stevenson with his "Super Serum", in reality an invention of his own that killed the brain stone dead whilst preserving the internal organs perfectly. Thanking Grud for gullible idiots, he took out his scalpel and got to work, for as the saying goes: "Be careful in Mega City, or your stupidity just might cost you an arm and a leg (and a kidney, and your eyes, and a liver, heart and probably testicles as well).

[Eamonn Clarke]

Nice reversal, Alski

[Bolt-01]

Tales from the Citi-Def: The Wall.
By Bolt-01

Tradition, commitment, responsibility. All of these were in Grey Scuffles mind when he arrived at the block departure gate. Fifteen minutes to prep before the latest shift. At least the sun was shining.

The light from the recently repaired windows showed the ruined skyline of Mega-City One stretching from horizon to horizon. In the distance the eastern wall was the only thing protecting this sector from the pounding of the Black Atlantic. Since Chaos day Grey and his team were all that stood between the polluted filth outside the wall and the festering remains of the sector inside. It was getting pretty difficult to determine which would suffer the most pollution if the wall broke.

The Citi-def of Noah Vosen were old hands at maintaining the city wall in this sector. They had first been called upon in the aftermath of the Apocalypse war, back when Ralph Wojniak was chief. The entire unit had rebuilt, repaired and generally maintained a two mile stretch ever since. They had even gotten a commendation from Chief Judge Silver just two weeks before the Necropolis kicked off.

The main kit Grey was going to need today was the Moc-syn Crete web-spray and spreader. The spreader was still half blocked from the last time it was used, but it would be another two shifts before the contract droid from Moc-syn extrusions arrived to service it. "It would have to do," as Grey's father was fond of saying.

It was his father's wish that Grey take up a spot in the Citi-Def, forever removing Grey from the preferred option of Munce washer down at the local processing plant. The plant was the largest employer in the tri-block area, with 6 humans on staff covering shifts lasting all of 3 hours a month. It was a well regarded and highly sought after position, but Dad had other plans.

Grey first saw action in the second robot war, and was actually there to bear witness when the Judges stormed the block plaza. That was a long day, the citi-def lost almost a third of their total man-power in that one day. The wall suffered for month after till the new block tenants arrived and replenished their strength.

The servo lift up to the wall repair crawler was out again, so Grey had to climb the fifteen flights up to the wall section closest to the latest leaks, luckily the crete-spreader was mobile enough to be able to make its own way. These days, Grey didn't have the man-power left to carry the gear.

From out here on the wall, with the sun shining in the haze over the polluted wastes of the Black Atlantic, the city almost looked normal, the towers of the inner sectors shone brightly with potential. Even dear old Noah Vosen looked good from here.

Time to get started- the wall won't look after itself after all. Grey Scuffle turned and activated the spreader. The loneliest Citi-def in the sector, only twelve hours till shift change...

[Eamonn Clarke]

Grim and gritty. Like it

[redbaz]

If anyone wants to turn their short into a 5-6 page script, I'd be happy to draw it up for them.

[hippynumber1]

I've an old, rejected Future Shock that I'd be curious to see drawn up...

[redbaz]

Happy to take a look. Email is enginecomics@hotmail.com.

[hippynumber1]

I'll send it over, see what you think!