Hydrazen warehouse 38B. Almost midnight.
The cold, unyielding rain beat down hard on my shoulders like falling needles, the force of it peppering my glasses with spray. I felt the heavy, old-fashioned steel padlock hanging from the rear entrance of the warehouse in my hands, its surface bitterly cold even through the composite leather gloves. Such an aged design, pointlessly easy to pick and yet... I shifted my focus to the small orange numerals on my glasses’ heads-up-display indicating the time. Only a minute and a half left.
I cracked open a small vial over the arm of the lock, releasing a foul smelling green liquid over the steel surface. It hissed in protest as the arm wore away in a black and mangled mess. Using the acid was always unpredictable and conspicuous but the moment called for haste. The lock weakened but not destroyed, extra force was required to enter the warehouse. The ball of my foot connected firmly with the door, as far from the hinges as I could manage, my full bodyweight smashing the door inwards and snapping the half-melted padlock. I flew into the darkness inside, leaving the abused, hanging door behind me. The power was out, but no matter – my glasses’ night vision had kicked in immediately.
In the green haze I made out, directly in front of me, no more than a metre away, two figures, both armed and wearing ablative ceramic armour. Hyrdrazen Private Security – well trained, but easy to research. My display flashed information as the first lunged towards me, butt of his compact assault rifle raised at my head. My glasses’ internal sensors read the nanomachines implanted in his body, giving me his name and serial number; James Mathews, 0064. I knew Mathews would be here tonight, this morning’s illicit research had told me this much and more. The rifle butt came inches from my head as I dodged to the left, swinging my right elbow into his chest. The logs informed me Mathews had broken three ribs only a couple of days ago on a training exercise – they wouldn’t be healing anytime soon.
As he writhed on the ground I closed the distance to the next assailant, one Ross O’Neil (serial number 0137). I struck the centre of his helmet with my palm, cracking the reflective Perspex visor. His display and night vision would be haywire and the panic would quickly set in – the situation had to be controlled before the trigger finger got itchy. Spinning around with my back to the mystified combatant, I broke his grip from his rifle by placing my right arm over his and spinning my bodyweight through his wrists. I let myself spin round, rifle in hand, hurtling the stock into his head like a club. He collapsed to the floor, one eye tightly shut in grimace just visible through the cracked helmet.
Mathews came gradually to his senses, reaching for the rifle he had dropped after realising that his ribs were no longer doing the job of protecting his vital organs. My foot reached it first. I peered down at him through the night-vision haze to stare him in the face but saw only my own face in the reflection of his helmet. I gripped it and smashed his head into ground, leaving him there to enjoy the cold, concrete floor, a spider’s web of cracks across his previously spotless visor.
I felt bad to have had to injure non-quarry personnel and even worse to have had to waste time doing it. A better method of entry would have been preferable but the clock was not on my side tonight. The job had to be finished in time.
The warehouse had seen better days, but probably not since it was built over one hundred years ago, before the Plate had even begun construction. Everything was rotting or rotted, pipes rusted and paint peeling. Puddles formed where the damp and leaking had never been corrected. This place, understandably, was officially marked as unused and had stayed that way for many years. It didn’t take a genius to realise why this place was still owned by Hydrazen though – just one of many hundreds, possibly thousands of places where their less virtuous business goes down. Weapons smuggling, drug smuggling, corporate espionage; anything they need to keep under the public radar. I only wished keeping things under the public radar was a harder task.
Moving quickly through the bleak corridors lined with ugly copper industrial piping from an archaic age, I found the loading office. Light spilled into the blackness from beneath the worn, wooden door, filling my night-vision with a white streak. I removed the glasses as I approached the door, wanting my vision clear and natural for what was ahead. Quiet weeping filtered through. I wasn’t going to enjoy this.
The door caved in easily, the wooden mess flew a foot into the room and crashed to the floor with an almost deafening roar, scattering splinters about the interior. Doused in a hazy yellow light from a single naked bulb, the room lay bare save for a shabby metal desk covered in browning papers pushed up against a dirty window overlooking the derelict warehouse below. The wrecked old chair supposed to accompany it stood as a centre piece in the middle of the room, its disembowelled stuffing seeping out of the cracked leather. On it was tied a young boy, probably not even thirteen but it was hard to tell in the low light. His once dark blonde hair was now matted and dirtied with mud and dried blood. His nose was caked in the red stuff, his lips swollen out of proportion, his designer jacket, half hanging off his slumped body, was covered in rips and stains. Next to the chair, fists clenched, face in shock yet still scowling, stood a half-turned figure. Frank Muldoon. Head of Hydrazen’s ‘Exogenous Research Department’ or, more accurately, corporate espionage. My quarry.
=========================================================================
My penthouse suite overlooks the bustling financial district, 44 stories below. I like to think of it as a clever metaphor for my occupation, but I know there’s no such ideological motive behind my work – I do it for the money, just like everyone else. Most would call me a killer. I would call it freelance monopoly control. The city’s mega corporations hire me out when a competitor has a live asset that needs to be constrained – individuals who threaten the balance of the marketplace. Last night that happened to be Muldoon. He had simply gotten too proficient in his occupation and, as a result, Hydrazen was beginning to form an unpopular advantage over its competitors. Equilibrium had to be restored... at a price.
Ventures below the Plate are always more unpredictable and more interesting than the prolific, high-brow jobs in the topside financial and political districts, last night being no exception. The Plate began construction in 2051 as a response to the great overcrowding of the city. Now there are two cities, administratively united as a single entity, but with a social rift now manifested in the most grotesque physical form: the Plate sits hundreds of feet above the old city, supported by massive pillar structures on the outskirts. The old city sits as a squalid, decaying husk of its former self, forever plunged into the blue mist of halogen lamps, sunlight merely a story of older years. Its inhabitants are trapped in an archaic existence, abandoned by the Plate and left to live suspended in a time prior to the Plate. Bathed in the orange haze of sunlight filtering through years of pollution, life on the topside is almost incomparable. The society of the Plate, created by the mega corporations, has led to a world of innovation and choice; people are defined more by products than by occupation or personality. Everything is bought and sold. There is no state left to administer the people of the Plate; the corporations make all of the rules and all of the decisions.
Out of my broad window, the streets below swarm with bankers, economists, directors and executives. Electric cars hum quietly, crawling [i]en masse[/i] slowly along the smooth roads like beetles. Glowing neon signs, some as large as buildings, bombard the populace with constant temptations of various products from mascara to bioengineering enhancement. Up above, not many floors above the penthouse, the more popular form of travel fills the empty space between the numerous skyscrapers – solar-powered aerocars. Much faster than ground travel, aerocar technology has changed the shape of modern metropolis living... or at least that’s what the adverts tell me. Beneath the Plate though... such luxuries are almost mythological...
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Yeh so there we go. I wrote this up to accompany various conceptual pieces I was drawing/painting... or was it the other way around? I don't recall.
Yes not entirely original at all so, before you call me out, here's a list of inspirational pieces I consulted prior to the writing:
[i]Batman: Hush[/i]
[i]Final Fantasy VII[/i]
[i]A Brave New World[/i]
[i]Nineteen Eighty Four[/i]
[i]A Clockwork Orange[/i]
[i]Deus Ex: Human Revolution[/i]
[i]Bladerunner[/i]
The duality concept with the city I took from [i]Final Fantasy VII[/i]... but sadly after writing this I found that the new [i]Deus Ex[/i] game also has the same concept which is unfortunately contemporary for my piece. I do find it odd though that it has a plot device integral from [i]Squaresoft[/i]'s game... and that the game is being co-developed by Square Enix.
I'll take some passages which need improvement, quote them below, and offer my suggestions for fixing them beneath.
[QUOTE=ChestyMcGee;28007895]The cold, unyielding rain beat down hard on my shoulders like falling needles, the force of it peppering my glasses with spray. I felt the heavy, old-fashioned steel padlock hanging from the rear entrance of the warehouse in my hands, its surface bitterly cold even through the composite leather gloves. [/QUOTE]
Far too wordy. Cut down on the modifiers, never use two to describe one idea. Strike out some of these words and condense the sentence into one that flows with less resistance. Your first sentence should always receive careful scrutinization to ensure you're wording it as naturally as possible.
I would suggest taking "The cold rain rain fell on my shoulders like needles, the force of it peppering my glasses with spray," and mulling that around a little until you can find a happy way of presenting it.
Your description of the padlock is, again, far too wordy. You describe it as old fashioned, as heavy, and as steel. Pick the one which sends the appropriate image and let the reader's mind fill in the rest. Imagination is a powerful tool, your job as the writer isn't to describe every little nuance of a situation, but rather to give us just enough information to point our imaginations in the right direction.
[quote]Such an aged design, pointlessly easy to pick and yet... I shifted my focus to the small orange numerals on my glasses’ heads-up-display indicating the time. Only a minute and a half left. [/quote]
I [i]hate[/i] ellipsis. My very strong advice would be for you to hate them too. There exists no clumsier way to build intrigue and suspense than those damnable dots. Find the words to convey your idea, don't fall back on those friggen things!
[quote]Using the acid was always unpredictable and conspicuous but the moment called for haste.[/quote]
Cut the bit about it being unpredictable, perhaps instead saying that using the acid isn't recommended on account of its conspicuousness.
"Using the acid is unpredictable" raises too many conflicting images. Does he mean that he doesn't know when he will have to use the acid? Are the effects of the acid itself unpredictable? Is how much is needed is what he's unsure of? Clarify.
[quote]The lock weakened but not destroyed, extra force was required to enter the warehouse.[/quote]
Super clumsy writing here. This sentence is choppy, vague, and grammatically unsound. "The lock was weakened, but not destroyed. The ball of my foot[...]"
[quote]In the green haze I made out, directly in front of me, no more than a metre away, two figures, both armed and wearing ablative ceramic armour.[/quote]
Poorly presented information.
"directly in front of me", "no more than a meter away"
That bit bugs me a lot. Move it or remove it, but don't leave it there.
[quote]My glasses’ internal sensors read the nanomachines implanted in his body, giving me his name and serial number; James Mathews, 0064. I knew Mathews would be here tonight, this morning’s illicit research had told me this much and more.[/quote]
Don't cut from the action to tell us this! Either before or after is fine, but right in the middle of having a rifle swung at your head is not the appropriate time to tell us about the man who's swinging it.
[quote]The warehouse had seen better days, but probably not since it was built over one hundred years ago, before the Plate had even begun construction.[/quote]
This sentence stands out in a poor way. I had to backtrack over it to catch its meaning.
Perhaps something like:
"The century-old warehouse had seen better days,"
or, even better,
"The warehouse hadn't fared well in the hundred years since it was built."
I can't put my finger on exactly what's wrong with this sentence, but it doesn't look or feel right as it is.
[quote]Everything was rotting or rotted, pipes rusted and paint peeling.[/quote]
Way too brief. Give a little bit more description to the warehouse, as this isn't enough for my imagination to roll with. How big is it? What's stored there? What, exactly, is rotting?
[quote]This place, understandably, was officially marked as unused and had stayed that way for many years. [/quote]
[...]and had [b]been[/b] that way for many years[...]
[quote]Its inhabitants are trapped in an archaic existence, abandoned by the Plate and left to live suspended in a time prior to the Plate. [/quote]
Getting a bit redundant with "the Plate."
On top of the more specific suggestions I've already made, I would recommend moving the second bit of your story, describing the environment and the main character, elsewhere. If this is part of a longer work, then having a more action-packed lead-in is just fine, but with a short story, particularly one as short as this, it might not be a bad idea to have the world described up front, or more cleverly, interspersed throughout the story. This will better enable the reader to imagine the events unfolding.
Overall, I really enjoyed it! It was a fun, engaging, and unique story, and you did a good job of setting the atmosphere. The main thing you need to work on is your descriptive writing. Sometimes you're too descriptive, and others you're not quite descriptive enough. Find your happy medium!
And don't worry about citing all your influences, man. Every writer has his influences, it's his job to make those ideas and inspirations unique, and I think you did so quite well.
Keep it up, man.
It's well written. I don't think I need to offer any real advice or nitpick, but for one thing; the Plate was all well and good in the first part, when it could have been done in any way, but later on when you started describing the two cities and talking about pillars and stuff, I expected you to launch into a description of a bar in Sector 7. =P
Taking influence is coo', but you're doing some heavy leaning there.
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