The 2000AD Short Story Competition.

[Kerrin]

A gritty tale there Dounreay. The comp rules this time round are 1000 words or under, so 50, 500 or 1000, it's all good.

Three weeks-ish to get yours in and be in the running for unparalleled fame and fortune (well ok, not fortune but a graphic novel of your choice).

[Kerrin]

Brazen and unashamed BUMP!

[Windsurf]

OK, I could keep rewriting this til the synthi-cows come home, but enough is enough!  Here you go - exactly 1000 words, not counting my name at the bottom!  Cheers!  

   
The Wages of Sin

Rocko the Eldster was high.   A toxic cocktail thundered through his veins like a stampeding herd of synthi-cattle.  "Sin" was just one of the many new designer drugs on the streets.  Shunned by younger people, heavy synthedelics were all the rage among the city's elderly, and ruthless judicial crackdowns seemed to have little effect on the demand.  
 
     A tall, wiry figure, Rocco stood motionless on the slidewalk, unobtrusive, just another wrinkled face in the crowd.  His hands were plunged deep into the pockets of his zaffle coat.  His long white hair was tied in a neat ponytail, his kneepads had been recently polished, and he wore a necktie of real plasti-silk.  As the drug took hold, Rocco could feel his skin humming.  His eyes looked backward, at the inner surface of his head, which appeared to be a vast, endlessly cascading wall of 3D vid-screens, all showing different channels.  An impossible clamour of voices, alien-sounding music and bizarre sound effects assaulted his consciousness, and yet somehow he was able to comprehend each and every one of them with complete ease. He was following a dozen simultaneous mental conversations; he was contemplating complex philosophical problems, he was composing symphonies and majestic works of art and literature.  He was, on one of his mental vid-screens, watching an imaginary aeroball game, in which he was the star quarterback. He was aware of all these things at once.  Despite the sheer, overwhelming volume of input, his consciousness felt uncluttered.  He had found peace. The world danced around him as his mind exploded with joy.  Outwardly, Rocco remained unmoving as the slidewalk drew him along.  He smiled broadly, sensing himself glowing, godlike, among the milling crowd of average Joe cits, while behind the darkened lenses of his Rad-Bans, he was exploring a  wild, limitless new universe.  

   Then, without warning, a painful sensation jolted him back to the real world. Something dug sharply into his ribs.  A juve, no more than sixteen, had been pushing his way through the crowd, and had given Rocco the Eldster a taste of elbow pad on his way past.  Rocco could see the little drokker now, the words "Doug the Spug" printed across the shoulders of his pink leathereen jacket.  The juve continued to push and elbow his way through the crowd, until he was out of sight.   Rocco had an intense feeling of distaste.  What gave this little snecker the right to shove him?  And what  was the funtin' hurry, anyway?  It's a slidewalk for Grud's sake; you just stand still and it gets you where you're going soon enough. You don't have to walk on a slidewalk; that's the whole point. You wanna walk, take the pedway, you little funt.  

   A sickly sourness, like the smell of rank breath, had entered into his perfect world, poisoning it.  The blissful smile was gone.  The harmony of a thousand mental images had been shattered.  Suddenly Rocco couldn't follow all the voices, couldn't concentrate on all the pictures on his inner vid screens; suddenly it all started running out of control.  Where seconds ago there had been intricate perfection, now there was chaos, dischord.  It got louder.  All the sounds, all the images, more and more of them, and they were angry, shouting, crying out, pushing him towards madness.

   Still the slidewalk carried him forward, his face now twisted in an awful grimace. The voices grew louder and louder, until he thought his mind was going to explode. An eternity seemed to pass.  Rocco was trapped in a hell of jabbering voices and hideous, violent images; movies of torture and death played over and over in the theatre of his mind.  He saw people being eaten alive by worms, people starving and ravaged by disease, people screaming horribly, coughing bubbles of blood, convulsing in sticky puddles of gore, their eyes filled with horror...and he was suffering with them.  The terror, the agony, all of it was his to endure, as if he were living it himself.  On and on it went, on and on and on...and he stood there, gliding along on the slidewalk, alone in the crowd, transfixed, living in a nightmare.  

   Then he saw him.  Just a short distance ahead.  The juve.  The little snut had gotten off the slide and was standing, chatting with one of his stupid juvie friends.  Rocco noticed that, in keeping with the latest trend, both juves wore their kneepads slung low, not really covering the knees at all; how he loathed that ridiculous fashion...

   This sudden shock of recognition, this return to awareness of his surroundings, had given Rocco a few moments' respite from the horror show inside his head. But now the voices and images were starting to return, building in intensity.  This time, however, something was different.  There was no chaos, no dischord, no suffering.  One by one, all the hundreds of vid-screens inside his head started showing the same image: it was his own face, and it was screaming "Kill!  Kill the little snecker! Bash his stupid drokking head in!  Strangle him with his own kneepad, mash his face onto the slidewalk, tear his  gruddamn arms off!  Kill!  Kill! KIIIIIILL!"  Rage boiled up inside Rocco's mind as he prepared to confront his tormentor.  His face was a mask of twisted savagery. He made his way to the edge of the slidewalk, and as he drew level with the two juves, he leapt!  Arms outstretched, fingers curled like claws, growling, slobbering, he threw himself upon the startled juves.  

   The one called Doug the Spug reacted by stepping aside, letting the demented eldster trip over his own legs and fall wth a heavy THUD onto the street.  The crumpled figure twitched for a few moments, then lay still.  Kneeling beside him, Doug felt the old man's neck with his fingers, trying to find a pulse.  "Hey! Hey, Gramps!" he said into the old man's ear, "Say something!  Are you, like, OK, dude?"
 
     There was no reply.  

 




By Andrew Mckay, 17 Apr 2009

[Wake]

Is the Pat Mills-created character fan-fiction embargo still in force?

No it isn't. Take a look at the Zarjaz 07 thread for details.

[Kerrin]

Nice one windsurf.

And cheers to Wake for confirming that it's ok to pay homage to the many great characters to emanate from the pen of Pat Mills. I had read Bolt's posts on Zarjaz 7 but I should have made that clearer.

Deadline for entries is midnight of the 24th of April, so about a week to go.

Think I've got time for another one. Something non-Dreddworld I think.

[The Monarch]

I must warn you prepare to groan at the end of this and stick through it trust me....

A wage of sin (993 words)

It was a typical wet day in Abyssa, The land where water was mass-produced. In hindsight, Elias had wished he had worn something wet proof. Elias Daark was the royal busboy. Any nasty jobs in the kitchen the king wanted done sent to him and some not involving the kitchen at all. Like today's, job which was the nastiest yet. He was getting ready for an exploration of a bizarre rock formation that appeared overnight. It was Dark inside and he knew it was suicide to delve inside on his own. Sadly, his adopted father Dorrace was busy attending to other business with the king. He cursed his luck then kissed the locket on his neck. It was unknown where he had acquired it Dorrace had said to him that it was round his neck when he found his out cold body outside the city of Thaliana. He sighed, and then quickly put a foot into the cave and sighed again to himself "here we go wonder why the king needs me to go in here anyway," he went deeper into the cave; it was getting so deep his words were echoing around him. He turned on his torch and made his way even further down when suddenly a horrific shake pulled the ceiling down blocking the entrance above. Rocks and boulders begun to topple battering Elias in the face then a much larger boulder fell causing Elias rope to snap and he begun to fall. As rocks from above continued to batter him and walls scraped into His arm it cracked against a wall and several of his ribs shattered once he eventually came down. He tired to pick himself up but the pain was too much then he lost consciousness.
Elias lay on the ground his body twisted and near broken. A face suddenly appeared startling Elias it was blurred and he could not make it out but it was obviously female "skkkk...losing....skkkk said the voice in his head. "The hell," muttered Elias weakly realising he was hallucinating from too much blood loss. "skkkk....the info probes....skkkkk....rebooting multivariable mainframe...." whispered the mysterious voice Elias held his head and cried out in pain, "Get out of my head!"

It had taken many hours of climbing to reach the top but he got there eventually, he knew something was up when he saw that the rocks that blocked the entrance were gone. It was when  he exited the cave that a truly horrifying sight greeted him. "The castle, the village its gone all gone," muttered Elias mouth gaped open in horror. He was right as the village was, destroyed and all that was left of the castle was a broken shell, which was in flames. The west tower began to break away and Elias quickly moved in time to escape the rubble. He quickly realised it was not empty as A blast of powerful magic struck Elias from behind. There was sick blackness and then he fell for the second time.
Elias sat down near a fountain in an unknown place and sighed to himself "huh where am I did I get captured?" as if to answer him the same voice from earlier called out "skkkkkk...wake up....skkkkk." "Oh brilliant I am in my screwed up head again," "Rembrant....skkkkk....," said the voice but this time there was a face as well. A beautiful brunette girl she wore a nurses outfit standing next to her was a bizarre looking man indeed  "skkkkkk in there old boy! Skkkkkk". The nurse was stunning Elias looked at this girl and his heart jumped "skkkkk losing him skkkkk " "skkkkk dammit!"



He awoke again still confused but all this and he looked up at the man who was glowing with dark magic. He was covered in darkness but he was instantly recognisable to Elias "Dad it's me Elias," shouted Elias but Dorrace fired another blast this time just missing him

Elias ran closer to Dorrace only to face the full power of the blasts, blasted right in his chest and the power threw him towards the ground with a bump. The fire was getting hotter and he was sweating. This time he carefully timed his father's blast and then ran into the castle. The corridors were vast but he knew them all off by heart. He ducked as flames begun to envelope the kitchen where he had worked for as long as he had known. He ran further into the castle and saw that the queen was dead as was the prince and princess. "My god his family were killed was the king as bad as I thought he was," as he walked past two dead guards he recognised them which made his heart sink even further, he then continued to his room in the servant's quarters. The fire had not spread here yet which was a good sign at least. He opened the trunk next to his bed and pulled out several important items many of which, found on him when he found all those years ago. Once he tied the cloak onto himself, he pulled out the small knife that was inside it,

He then began to clutch his head in pain as the voices began again but this time much more clearly.

"I think he's taking to the omotopiania plant that has been added to his fluid,"

"rotten luck facing the chatternacks of splatterick on his own,"

"we were damn lucky to remove him in time,"

"ah he is awake....."

"god max why did you leave it so long I nearly got caught up in the dreamtime that the imaginers cooked up for me,"

"indeed myself and ms brood here barely kept you alive Cord old bean,"

"just one thing," asked Ishmael cord to the imaginer in the nurses uniform

"yes?"

"why Elias?"

"Oh that was my dogs name, used to poo the carpet a lot it was a WAGE OF SIN trying to clean it up,"

you may groan now

[Kerrin]

"Phantasmagorical weirdness, an enigma wrapped in a kumqat."  Melvyn Bragg.

Great stuff Monarch.

[Kerrin]

Ahoy! The competition will be brought to an orderly close at midnight tonight. In fact I'll start on the voting thread when I get home from work tomorrow lunchtime-ish or maybe in the evening if I go and watch the mighty Horsham FC in their last match at "home" in Worthing (what a load of bollocks that is, still, back in Horsham next year hopefully). So if you've got an entry to finish off, get it posted.

I would like to gather advice on how to do the voting thread. Can I start a new thread and move or quote peoples stories onto that? I'm guessing I probably can, but I'm entirely uncertain about how to do it. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. This is something I should have thought about earlier but hey, that's the way we roll on the bleeding edge of forum based short story competitions.

[Dandontdare]

I think the easiest way would be the way Jim does the art comps - start a new thread with an intro post, and then post a reply for each entry quoting the story, so there will be an individual post for each entry. Remember to label each one with the author (I once thought that Jim Campbell had entered the art comp loads of times and marvelled at his changing styles, until i realsied he was posting other people's entries - d'oh!   )

I hope this comp continues - didn't get around to entering this one, but I promise I will in future!

[The Legendary Shark]

Hope nobody minds, but I'd like to post rewrites here as final entries. Nothing major has changed, just a few words here and there - but if it's decided that this is not allowed, then I'm cool with it.

The Wages of Sin. (940 Words)

Dr Boudine felt the sweat crawling down his spine before he even entered the lab. With eight hours before the shift ended he wondered if he could make it without cracking. Tek Judge Holbrook, as always, had arrived early and the sight of him walking the lab floor set Boudine's heart racing. He needed to convince the Judge to give him the codes. How would he react? Would he suspect? Would he know?

Boudine walked to his console, exchanging distracted pleasantries with the scientists and teks coming and going at the shift change. As they settled in for the day, donning lab coats and unpacking briefcases, Boudine was already logging on to the mainframe.

"Keen today," Holbrook loomed over the Doctor's shoulder, checking his workspace for neatness. Boudine turned to the Judge, praying his heart would slow down before it burst or set fire to his cheeks.

"Sir."

"You look like stomm," the Judge said, and Boudine could feel Holbrook's eyes boring into him through his visor. "Sick?"

"No! I mean, no, Judge Holbrook." Boudine took a breath. For a second, he was tempted to tell Holbrook everything about Zarya, the illegal poker games, the money and the rest of it. But, twenty years in a cube... Penalties were severe for Justice Department employees, even civilians.

"I haven't slept. Gruddamn kid got taken... got taken ill. Tummy bug. We were up all night with him."

Holbrook grunted. "Well, don't let it distract you. Concentrate on the Z-flu outbreak in S12 and leave your personal problems at home."

Boudine moistened his lips. "About that, Sir, while I was... lying awake last night, I had a thought. I've seen something like Z-flu before, in the Great Germ War archives."

"Are you sure?" The Tek Judge removed his helmet, a thing he did when intrigued.

"No, I mean, yes. Kind of, maybe, I'm not a hundred per cent but..."

"Gruddammit, are you sure or not?"

"I think so. I mean, I can't remember what it was called, or where in the system it was..."

"So you need the codes. Why didn't you just say?" Holbrook leaned over Boudine's shoulder and tapped at his keyboard, pulling up the GGW archive and entering the access codes. "Just be careful, these files are Triple-Red Sealed for a reason."

When he'd finished, Holbrook donned his helmet and moved on. How easy was that? Boudine hadn't even had to ask. Zarya was right, they trusted him. His heart was still racing, but not as fast now, and not with fear but exhilaration. He forced himself to work slowly, giving every impression of searching the database for a specific virus, but his mind kept wandering to Stella and the kids. Would that Sov bitch really do it? Of course she would. He'd seen it in her eyes. In poker terms, Zarya was holding all the aces.

***
The Mo-Park was deserted as Zarya had promised. Boudine picked his way through the darkened lot, surrounded by obsolete mo-pads waiting to be recycled. Right on time, the nightly rains began, washing the dust and detritus of the day into the Mega City's drains in an attempt to keep this filthy metropolis clean. Dr Boudine pulled up his lapels and picked his way through the mo-park like a sinner wandering between the tombs of gods.

"No further, Comrade Boudine." It was Zarya's voice. Harder now than it had been that night in the casino when she had so easily reeled him in, but still with that seductive accent. He heard her pistol powering up through the hiss of the rain. "You have it?"

Boudine held up the vial. "Where are they?"

Zarya emerged from the rain, pistol ready.

"They're safe. Once I have it, you can go home to them." Zarya held out her hand and, after a moment's hesitation, Boudine walked forwards, holding the vial out before him. Gently, he placed it in Zarya's hand and she closed her fingers with equal care.

"Go now," she said. "Leave the city." Zarya retrieved a gun shaped device from the pocket of her overcoat and slid the vial into it.

"Wait, what are you doing? You said you needed it for research... You said...."

Zarya aimed the device at the sky and pulled the trigger. A cloud of supersonic vapour erupted from the muzzle with a loud bang and the empty vial was ejected like a spent ammunition casing.

"No!" Boudine leaped at Zarya, but he was far too late, and far too slow, and far too inexperienced. Three bullets hit him in the belly and he fell like a stone to the rain soaked rockrete.

She looked down at him, careful to keep her boots out of the blood washing into the gutters. Thunder rolled, echoing between the mo-pads like demons bouncing off cathedrals. "You should have fled, Comrade. The Mega Cities and their decadence must be purged from the Earth. Nuking them would be costly. This way is safer. Quieter. And with our Death Belt technology operating at peak efficiency, nobody will get in or out. Mega City Two will die slowly and it will die alone. The rest will follow soon enough. Congratulations, Doctor, I will see to it that you are remembered as a true hero of the Sov Bloc."

But Boudine's spirit had already gone. His dead eyes, streaming with rain, were fixed on the spent vial lying at Zarya's feet, the label upside down and smudged but still legible: 2T(fru)T.


The Rages of Sin (975 Words)

And this is Downlode, the city that fancies your sister, but not in a good way. It's too late for sorry, Central Europe Time, and in the sewers beneath Little India an Irishman with effluent in his ear is about to ask a very pertinent question.

"Ray, explain to me again why we're doing this?"

"For the money, compadre, always for the money."

Finnigan Sinister and Ramone Dexter trod reluctantly through ankle deep sewage following a map that got too stained to be entirely useful half a mile back.

"Money me hairy arse," Finnigan said. "What was her name again? Andrex?"

"Andreja."

"Whatever. What have we said about taking on jobs without thinkin' first, eh? Here we are, the baddest bullet blasters in the book, the apex of Semtex, the number one for dead and gone, yer actual best there is – and where are we? We're in a sewer. We're in a funtin' sewer, Ray, and I've got shite in me ear an' Jayzus knows what in me shoes." Finnigan, working up a good head of mad by now, opened his mouth to continue at a most unfortunate juncture.

In one of the Indian restaurants up above, somebody with a nasty and embarrassing problem that really needed attention flushed and Finnigan leaped backwards to avoid the sudden flow. Stylish as they are, Italian brogues are no footwear for wading about in the intestines of a city and the soles slipped and sloshed on the slimy concrete underfoot. Flailing like a crap stunt man, Finnigan toppled backwards into Ramone and soon they were both sitting in the unwholesome stream.

"Eeeeuuuurrr..." said Finnigan, "It's all over me nadgers, now! How much money we getting' for this clusterfunt, anyway? It best be a lot. Jesus I Claudius, Some of it's still warm..."

Ramone cleared his throat and stood gingerly, shaking his knees to aid in the drainage of his designer trousers. "Grand and a half," he said.

Finnigan rose angrily to his feet, splashing that which should not be splashed all around. "You what? Fifteen hundred? Fifteen funting hundred? Fer this?"

"She had very little money, Finny, but..."

"But great legs, I'll bet. Went all the way up to La La Land, did they? You're a gold-plated sucker for legs, Ray, you should get that seen to, get yourself shrinked."

"Sweet. I was going to say she was sweet. She had this cute little lisp..."

"Yeah, you told me, 'Oh, please help me, Way,' wasn't that what she said?" Finnigan brushed himself off and marched after Ramone who was already continuing along the sewer. "'I'm weally, weally wowwied about Sinden, about how he's going to weact. He has these tewwible wages, you see, and I'm afwaid of what he might do!' Oh, that's sweet all right, ye bleedin' legophile."

"Damsel in distress. Time was, that used to be enough," Ramone said. "She was cryin' so bad I could hardly make out what she said. ¡Vayase! How could I resist?"

A dim, yellow light became apparent shining from around the next bend. Ramone held up his hand to warn his friend and then drew his Ruger Nines. "Looks like this is it," he said.

"An' that's another thing, what kind o' rat has an office in a sewer?" Finnigan demanded in a harsh whisper.

"I cannot believe you just asked me that. Ready?"

Finnigan's fingers curled around his minigun and let out a sharp breath. "Ready," he said.

* * *

Sinden Buntwhipe, Downlode Municipal Drainage Department foreman, was eating depressing sandwiches in his depressing office when the gun sharks burst in on him. "Eep..." he said.

"Sinden Buntwhipe?" Ramone demanded.

"Eep..."

"Oh, just shoot him and let's get outta' here."

"Thoot me?" Sinden was startled enough at this intelligence to drop his sandwich. "Why do you want to thoot me? Pleathe don't thoot me! I don't want to be thot!"

"Oh, this just gets better," said Finnigan, raising his gun. "Wife-beating scuzzpucker, say yer last!"

Sinden babbled. "No! Pleathe! I'll pay you! Anything to want! I earn terrible wageth, but..."

B-dam! B-dam! Blam!

Sinden fell backwards in a shower of blood and lay still on the floor. Sluggish coils of gun smoke oozed around the room and the echoes of the shots ran off to play in the pipes and tunnels. Ramone looked at Finnigan. Finnigan looked at Ramone.

"What did he just say?"

"Said he earned terrible wages, so he did. She did say she wanted him dead, right?"

"Well, I thought she meant... I mean, well no. Not exactly." Ramone re-holstered his Rugers and made his best 'oops' face. "I just told her we'd take care of it."

"So, when she said 'wages'..."

"It would seem so." Ramone paused. "Did we just off a guy for not earning enough? By mistake?  Did we just cross a line, Finny?"

Finnigan fumed and turned to leave. "Yes we crossed a bloody line. It was painted in black an' yella' on the floor an' 'ad 'DOWNLODE MUNICIPAL SEWER SYSTEM, NO ACCESS' written on it. Let's just make damned sure we never cross it again, okay? I don't think me wardrobe could take it."

And this is Downlode, the city that knows you're onto it. It's ten past cock-up, Central Europe Time, and in a scuzzy flat off Gazzastrasse a contented widow with great legs and a juicy life insurance policy kicks back with a 'Cardi Spritzer and a fireman. There are a million unhappy endings every day in Downlode, but this isn't one of them.

Except for Sinden, but he was a loser anyway.


--------------------------

I haven't altered my other two efforts (Sins and Daughters and The Quip.)

[Kerrin]

I don't have a problem with that Shark. I'll put the last version posted in the voting thread unless the entrant says otherwise. Might be an idea to post stories separately so I can label them individually, i.e Shark 1, 2 etc.

[The Legendary Shark]

Thanks Kerrin, you're a gent  

[Kerrin]

The competition is now closed to entries. I shall now proceed with my epic attempt to produce a voting thread. I'm just back from the footie and I've had a couple of shandies, so bear with me.