Hi there. I finally got myself around to finish the third stage of my, well,
this. I'd really appreciate some C&C, both on the story and on my stiff, lousy
English. This is the first (well, second) time I'm writing something
voluntarely and not in C or mathematical notation, so there's no other way
for me to change but improve. Please help.
Oh, for people who're wondering what that "Backwards! (extra 1)" thing was -
it was just that, an extra. It has no relation whatsoever to this story, and
can be safely left unread.
Juris Kalnins (juris@mt.lv), (c) somewhere near the end of the millenium
On to the fun, into the madness
--8<---------------------------------------------------------------------
Stage 3
[Small storage room. There is a desk, a chair, few boxes and depressed
looking Beck in there. Small desk lamp illuminates the room evenly. Beck
paces back and forth between the closed door and pile of boxes.]
"I'm captured by an enemy. Let's see what manual says about this situation."
Beck sits on the chair and pulls out small book from the inner pocket of
his uniform.
"... battle, briefing, ..., buffet, camp, capture. Here!" Beck reads the
paragraph.
"If the NIA soldier has been captured by an enemy, he must follow these
rules:
1) don't give any information about NIA to enemy. If soldier is not sure
about some question, he should answer it 'glory to her majesty Fara!'.
2) if soldier is not disabled, he should try to (in decreasing order of
priority):
2.1) sabotage the enemy installment,
2.2) kill or harm enemy officers,
2.3) kill or harm enemy troops,
2.4) achieve important information and escape,
2.5) escape,
2.6) commit suicide. ..."
"No way!" Beck puts the book away. "I don't want to, uh. I must escape while
everyone's sleeping."
Beck looks around. There are two ventilation grates - one near the ceiling
and another at the floor level. Beck pulls at the lower grate. It won't
budge. It's stuck. There's no way to open it. It cannot be opened.
It won't budge. It's stuck.
Beck gives up and wipes his hands. He looks at the other grate. He pushes
desk under the grate, climbs on the desk and tries to reach it. It's still
too high. He gets off, takes the chair and puts it on the desk, then climbs
this little shaky construct. Now he can take a good grip on the grate. He
braces himself and pulls with both his hands.
"Yaah!"
[Beck lies in the pile of crumpled carton boxes under the chair and the metal
grate. He gets up.]
"I hope nobody heard that."
[Darkness. There's a click of lamp being turned on. It's in Gaza's bedroom.
Gaza sits in his bed, one hand on lightswitch. He seems to listen intently.]
"What was that noise?" Gaza gets out of the bed.
[Storage room. Beck stands again on the stacked furniture, trying to pull
himself up into the ventilation.]
"I must hurry." He manages to get his upper body in, kicking chair off the
desk in the process.
[Name walks down an alienish looking corridor. There are lots of cables, small
panels, lights and complex looking thingies. Name stops before one small panel
and punches something on it. Section of the wall slides open in already
familiar way. Name enters the opening.]
[Yuki is walking down similarly looking corridor. Her mouth hangs open as she
looks around at all the hitech stuff. Teddy bear hangs by his leg in her right
hand.]
Yuki (to herself): "I didn't know about this place..." Loudly, "Name?"
[Name stands in small room with several monitors. He's typing something on
a keyboard, and looks really surprised.]
Name (mutters to himself): "Where's everybody? And what the hell am I doing
at this level?" He types some more. "No, it can't be." Data scrolls on the
monitor and as Name looks at it his expression changes to disbelief.
"It's impossible... No. No!" He runs outside.
[Beck comes to an intersection of ventilation pipes.]
"This is yet another intersection... Wait, I've said that already! I must
be going in circles, I better turn left this time."
[The corridor. Yuki is crouched besides rectangular opening in a wall. The
panel that covered it before lays on the floor nearby. Yuki pokes something
inside the opening.]
"This place is so cool. (poke) (poke) I wonder what this cable is for." Yuki
pulls her hand out. She's holding short black wire with two round connectors
on both ends.
"It's neat."
Loud alarm goes off, and red ceiling lights start to blink. Sections of
walls slowly start to slide open.
"Oops." Yuki looks both ways, then dashes away in one of them.
[The corridor. Name has a dark blue uniform of sorts, with different gear
hanging on his belt and sticking out of his pockets. The uniform looks a lot
like the freedom army's, or maybe it's the other way around. He's talking to
himself as he walks.]
"I must have passed out again. I wonder where I got those horrible clothes
though - they looked like they've been through meat mincer." He checks his
uniform. "This mechanic's uniform is a bit too loose." The alarms start
barking. "A sabotage alarm! I better hurry before there's too much damage
done." He runs off.
[The part of cave with six doors leading to personal quarters. Gaza is running
from one door to next, banging on them and shouting.]
"Alarm! Wake up! Prisoner has escaped!"
Kiri and Tobu get out of their rooms. Kiri has already donned her uniform
and is in full battle readiness, minus her gun. Tobu is still half asleep,
as he's trying to comb his ruffled hair with one hand and tuck his sweatshirt
in with the other.
Kiri: "What has happened, sir?"
Gaza (still banging on Yuki's door): "Beck has run from his imprisonment. We
must locate him before he has revealed this hiding spot to NIA." Gaza turns
back to the door. "Yuki, wake up! Yuki?" He tries the door and it opens.
Kiri looks around, then goes to one of the two still closed doors. She opens
it and goes inside just as Gaza is stepping into Yuki's room.
Tobu is buttoning up his shirt. When he gets to the collar button, there's
no buttonhole left for it.
Tobu (sighs): "I can never get it right the first time."
He starts unbuttoning his shirt, but is interrupted by Gaza and Kiri both
springing out of the rooms at once.
Gaza (shouts): "Yuki's gone!"
Kiri (shouts): "Name's gone!"
Tobu pales and staggers backwards, until he's leaning at his room's
door frame.
Tobu: "You scared me." He looks at both Kiri and Gaza, who're paying no
attention to him.
Gaza: "My Yuki killed our prisoner!"
Kiri: "Name freed the prisoner and kidnapped Yuki!"
Gaza: "Nonsense, Kiri. Name protected us honorably yesterday, and he captured
an enemy vehicle. He couldn't do such thing."
Kiri: "Oh so? He was sitting there where we found him, although nobody could
have survived the bombing. He defeated two armed and armored soldiers with
his bare hands and they didn't even shot him. Or us, although they had every
chance. I think, Captain, that he's been planted to get into our base and
this all episode with the fasttank was staged to make us believe he's on our
side, sir. I think that he is a spy, sir."
"..." Gaza wants to object Kiri, but can't find any arguments. "Yuki is
kidnapped? But why her?"
"Because it will demoralize our group."
"You're right. I already feel so demoralized. My Yuki!" Gaza sits on the
floor an starts crying.
Kiri looks at crying captain, feeling a bit uneasy.
Kiri (to herself): "I wonder if I said something wrong." She thinks. "No, it
all was the truth."
[The technological corridor. The siren has stopped, only the red lights are
blinking. Yuki runs in from one side and stops abruptly as a gun turret pops
out of the wall before her. It turns it's multi-barreled gun at Yuki, who
starts backing away.]
Name (from outside the view): "Princess, get down!"
Name leaps at the turret, kicking it and landing before Yuki. Turret swings
it's gun around few times, then moves it left right, as if shaking off the
cobwebs. It aims at Name and starts spinning it's barrels angrily.
Name: "Run away! To the left, there's a entrance in the wall. Hide there."
He pulls a 27 by 29 spanner from his toolbelt. Yuki runs away as the gun fires.
Yuki: "Name!"
Name throws the spanner. It hits the gun so that it turns inwards, but
continues to fire bullets. There are sparks, bits and pieces flying out of
the turret's mount point, then in blows up in small but colorful explosion.
[The small room with several monitors. Yuki sits on the floor near one of the
consoles, which is blinking colored lights, scrolling different texts,
beeping, and trying every other way to attract the attention. Yuki ignores it
completely, hugging her bear and looking out at the red alarm lights. There's
an explosion nearby, and she hides her face in the teddy bear, starting to
cry.]
Yuki (sobbing): "Name..."
Name walks into the small room. He's a bit ruffled, and there's a blood on
his left sleeve from the wound just below the shoulder. He looks at the
crying Yuki, not sure what to do.
"Princess, are you allright?"
"Name? (sob)" She looks up. "Name!" She jumps at him, hugging him tightly.
"I thought... I just wanted to look, and, you know, and then, and the alarm,
I ran, you saved me, and, and then it exploded, and I was so scared that,
that ..." She presses her face on her shoulder, sobbing. "I'm so... sorry. I
didn't want to break anything..."
Name is very surprised, confused, and doesn't know what to do. As Yuki
shifts herself, she presses on his wounded arm, causing him to flinch from
the sudden pain.
Yuki: "Oh my, you're wounded!" She jumps off Name and starts examining his
left arm. She tears his sleeve off effortlessly and uses it as a bandage.
"Really, princess, you shouldn't. I'm healing fast. If you'd allow me
to ask, what are you doing here on this level? And where are your guards?"
"Mm Fmmn n mmn..." She takes the end of sleeve she was holding in her
teeth and finishes tying the knots on the bandage. "Here, this should be good
for now. I'll change it when we get back." Yuki steps back and looks up at
Name. "I said I went in the hole in the wall. I had a bad dream, so I went
to check my fasttank, and there was a hole in the hangar's wall. I've never
seen it before, so I went to check. And then I saw this thing, some sort of
connection hub. This wire ", she pulls out the black wire, "just hung there,
unconnected, and when I took it..."
Name takes the wire and twirls it in his fingers.
"This is a feedback loop, princess. It's not connected directly, because it
has inductive resonators at the both ends. This might have caused the alarm."
"I will never touch anything without reading manual first. I always break
everything." She sits on the flashy console and hugs her bear again. The
console promptly stops blinking.
"Well, princess, you fixed my arm without the manual." Name flexes it a
little.
Yuki giggles. "Thanks. Say, why you keep calling me princess?"
[The ventilation. Really dirty looking Beck, who probably has swept with
himself all the dust in pipes, crawls to the grate in the side of the pipe.]
"Finally an exit." He pushes the grate out. "I'm going to be free soon."
He starts to climb out.
[Freedom army's briefing room. Gloomy Gaza sits at the table, idly scratching
his bald head. Tobu is hunched over some sort of map or blueprint. Kiri
walks in.]
"No trace of Name or Yuki, sir. Beck probably has escaped through the
ventilation."
There's a loud clang, as a ventilation grate falls on the desk just in front
on Tobu, scaring him mightly and crushing the map.
The voice from outside the view: "I'm going to be free soon."
Black person in black clothes falls on the table, which creaks and breaks
in two. A black cloud forms around it.
Gaza: "It's an assault! Kiri, Tobu, leave the room!" All three rush out.
[The small room with monitors. Yuki is sitting on one of the consoles, which
shows some static cyan text on blue background. Name stands opposite to her.
He's shuffling his feet and looks a bit uncomfortable.]
Name: "How should I call you then, princess?"
Yuki: "You called me Yuki before." Name looks at her surprised. "But if you
want you can call me princess. I like that." She giggles again.
"Yuki? When did I call you that?"
"Yesterday, when you gave me that fasttank." Name looks doubly surprised.
"What's wrong? Did you forgot?"
"I... yes. I'm forgetting things lately." He's silent for a moment.
"I think you should go home now. I mean, it's not safe for you to be there."
"Allright, I think I've done enough damage here. C'mon, I remember the way."
She takes Name by hand and leads him away.
[Freedom army's armory. Gaza and his troops rush in. Tobu takes a sleek, long
barreled riffle with twin laser aim, thermograph and some other goodies
mounted compactly on it. It looks very symmetric and aesthetic, like a
sportscar or some sort of space vehicle. Kiri grabs two shotguns, that have
a box like reloaders mounted on their sides. They look ugly and menacing. Gaza
picks up a huge machine gun. It's almost two meters in length, has an array
of nine barrels that's spun by a separate engine and a pneumatical ammo
feeder. When he straps it on, it makes him walk leaning backwards.]
[In front of the briefing room. There's a large black cloud. Muffled shots or
maybe coughing is coming out of it. Kiri, Tobu and Gaza approach it, ready
to fire. Beck steps out of the cloud, looking down at his clothes, that are
still covered in the soot, most of which now forms a cloud in briefing room.
He finally looks up.]
Beck: "Achoo!," just as he raises his arms. Gaza starts the gun engine, Tobu
steps a bit back and raises his rifle protectively.
Tobu: "You scared me! You scared me twice!"
Beck: "Plea - achoo! I - choo! Donn' - achuo! Achoo!" He quickly pulls his
handkerchief out and snorts. "Please, I surrender! Don't shoot!"
[The briefing room, covered in fallout from the ventilation. Beck writhes
under scrutinizing looks of Gaza and Kiri. Tobu is reading the NIA soldier's
pocket manual. He snickers occasionaly.]
Gaza: "Where is Yuki?"
"I don't know! She almost killed me yesterday!"
Kiri: "Who is Name?"
"What?"
Kiri: "The tall, unhandsome man with stupid name. Who is he?"
"I don't know! He captured our tank!"
Kiri: "Nonsense. Your men were armed. He couldn't have won them. That was a
setup. Who is he?" She leans closer and looks at Beck really hard.
"I don't know nothing! Anything! I want my lawyer." Kiri and Gaza look at
him in amazement.
Beck: "A phone call?" Kiri an Gaza both lean forward and scowl. Kiri shows
rather long fangs while doing so.
Beck: "Toilet?"
[Dark corridor. Yuki leads Name to a dead end. Amulet on Name's neck starts
to glow lightly, but neither notices it. Part of the wall slides back,
revealing the fasttank standing in the hangar room.]
Yuki: "There we are. Come on, I have to change your bandages." She steps
through, followed by a perplexed Name. As he crosses the threshold, amulet
stops glowing. Suddenly Name collapses on the floor unconscious.
Yuki: "Name? Name!" She shakes him lightly. "Maybe the wound was more serious
than I thought." Name snores, then turns his head. "Or maybe he's just tired."
Yuki yawns. "So am I. Poor Name, I better take him to his room." She picks him
up in her arms gently and goes to the door leading to the personal quarters.