First off, I'm sorry for the formatting, I have no idea why it will not let me keep my indentations, centered and bold text or whatever. Secondly, if anyone wants the full copy of what I've written so far (11pages 5,059 words) PM me and I will send it/attach it to this post. Thank you.
Okay, so here's what I've changed in my previous posting of this. This is what I've changed from the exert I posted before:
Spoiler! :
For those who care. And here is the next addition. And don't worry, I'll be making up for the successive posts with a review tonight and hopefully another during the week.
The streets of Orion Five were eerily empty that night. Thane stopped at a set of traffic lights and peered out the window. Built thirty years ago, Orion One began the trend of human colonies in orbit of Earth. In the twenty years that followed, Orion 2 through to Seven was built to house the growing population.
Orion Five was the largest, with around 11 million people inhabiting it. Each of the Orion colonies was a huge disc, with an open centre, so they looked like a giant ‘O’. Each had their core in the centre, a nuclear powered station which served to not only power the colony but keep it in orbit.
The seven colonies orbited Earth just outside the circumference of the moon’s orbit, meaning that occasionally they would be eclipsed from Earth’s view and lose contact momentarily. These moments, known as blot outs, could be quite scary.
Traffic began to move again and Thane continued home. Billboards sat proudly over the highway as he neared his apartment, all claiming that with the new colony to be established on Mars, people should secure their positions as soon as possible.
He pulled up outside his apartment and got out of the car, pushing one finger to his forearm. A holographic display formed on top of his skin, projected by the chip underneath. It showed notes he had left there, missed calls and a calendar.
A reminded sprung forward in the heap of information gathered on Thane’s forearm, it read;
BLOT OUT – 28/3/2135; EXPECTED TIME: 58 MINUTES
“Damn,” said Thane as he went inside, “I wanted to watch football.” He walked through the lobby and into the elevator, stepping in, pressing a button and getting out all within five seconds. The one thing he loved about technology was the way it managed to speed everything up.
Thane went into his apartment and threw his bag onto the couch.
“Lights on,” he said casually as he entered and the lights faded onto to medium brightness, “Sally, get me drink.”
“Yes sir,” said the apartment’s artificial intelligence as a drink rose up out of the kitchen bench.
“Thanks.” Thane took the bourbon to his room and undress, putting on track pants and a singlet. He examined himself in the mirror at the end of his bed. Jack Thane was fit, his figure filled out his singlet. Dark brown hair swept across his forehead, framing hazel eyes that changed color in the light. A scar ran through his right eyebrow, cutting it in half.
Thane moved to his bed, throwing back the sheets and climbing in. He finished the bourbon and looked out the windows next to him at the skyline of Orion Five and saw Earth in the distance.
“Sally, close the windows,” he said as he lay down. The switchable glass in the windows became opaque and Thane was asleep in minutes.
But not everyone went straight to sleep that night.
On the occasions that another colony or the moon caused a blot out, double the amount of GCC soldiers were deployed into the streets of the affected colony. Crime peaked during this period. No one could call for help while the communication arrays from Earth were blocked and many people were in bed anyway with no television to watch.
This proved annoying for one man in particular. He stood in an alley two streets west of Thane’s apartment block, a hood concealing his face. He watched as three GCC soldiers strode past, their assault rifles held lazily in their hands.
The stranger walked out behind them, purposefully and with great strength in his stride. One soldier heard him coming and turned to see as something in the stranger’s hand caught the moonlight and flashed.
The blade came up quick, slashing the first soldier’s throat and leaving him dead but still standing. Another soldier came towards the assailant and he lashed out a kick, connecting with the man’s armor suit at the knee and breaking his leg backwards.
The third one made for his radio but the man through his knife, burying it into the soldier’s black visor. Blood oozed out of the bottom of the helmet as the soldier crashed to the ground and his killer walked away.
Soon after, and having to dodge another GCC party on the way, the murderer reached Thane’s apartment block and ducked inside, taking the stairs down to the basement. He found a power box and brought up a holographic display on his forearm. With a little tapping and persuasion, the man turned the AI in apartment 13 from ‘ON’ to ‘OFF’.
Thane rolled over in his sleep as Sally deactivated midway through cleaning the kitchen. Outside, the elevator hissed open and the man stepped out, opening the door to apartment 13 quietly and slipping inside.
Thane woke.
That noise. Shit.
As he realized someone was inside he turned to roll over and go for his pistol but a hand slammed his face back into the pillow. Another arm gripped his own hand and wrenched it behind his back, shooting pain into his shoulder.
“You bastard,” spat the assailant, “You honestly thought you could walk away from me and get away with it?”
“Sally, activate safety protocol…”
“Sally’s sleeping Jack. No one can hear you.” The voice was menacing, but familiar.
“Get the hell off me Steven,” said Thane, struggling as Carter drove knee into the small of his back and pulled his other hand up behind his back. He slapped some wrist binds on Thane and got down low, whispered in his ear.
“You’re gonna die Jack,” he said, his breath burning Thane’s eyes, “Everyone on this station’s gonna die and you’ll get the blame. How does it feel?” Thane couldn’t say anything, shock had hit him.
“You always were chicken shit,” said Carter, yanking Thane out of bed on over his shoulder in a fireman carry and heading for the door. In moments they were outside Thane’s apartment as Carter’s car drove to meet them, controlled automatically.
Carter threw Thane in the back of the car and winked as he slammed the door down. Thane’s breath began to get tight; his pulse began to climb and most of all he began to get scared.
I’m going to die.
Christians see purgatory as a place where God is not, where those who do not deserve to be in heaven serve the time accumulated from there sins on Earth. Jack Thane found this to be not true. He found that purgatory begins the moment you know you are about die, and lasts until your final breath.
As Carter dropped Thane into the cryo-bed he laughed.
“This will look good. I’m setting the detonation for half an hour’s time you see, right in the middle of the blot out. That way, no one will respond to all the alarms that will go of in warning of the explosion.
“But here’s the good bit,” he said as he secured Thane in with straps usually used for cryogenically freezing mental patients, “I’m going to lock you in here now, but have you begin to freeze just after the detonation begins.”
“You asshole,” said Thane, testing his bindings. They wouldn’t budge.
“Precisely. It will look like in the face of certain death; you took the easy way out. Rather than being conscious when you died, you froze yourself to avoid pain. You’ll look like a coward, what you are.”
He moved away from the cryo-bed, punching in some commands on his arm.
“Oh, how silly of me. See, I forgot that you’ve locked the archives to our work haven’t you?” he brandished a laser cutter, used to slice diamonds, “And from what I know about GCC’s systems, I need your arm to access it.”
“Shit,” said Thane, “No way, don’t do this!” he screamed now, fear pulsed in his head and he began to hyperventilate. The cutter powered up, looking like a glowing knife and Carter moved it to Thane’s arm, just above the elbow. He could feel the heat radiated off of it.
“Sorry Jack, I enjoyed working with you.” He pushed the cutter into Thane’s arm and pain exploded within his body. Unable to moved, Thane thrashed and screamed as the cutter came out the other side and his arm fell to the floor. The arm had been cauterized by the cutter and didn’t bleed.
As Carter picked up Thane’s arm, warnings flashed on the forearm, obviously noticing that it had been separated from the body. Thane gritted his teeth and fought the urge to pass out as Carter hit a command on the arm that belonged to someone else and the cryo-bed began to close.
“Bye,” said Jack, turning and leaving as the bed fully enclosed Thane. The cold hit immediately, and Thane’s body began to shiver. In minutes his arm was numb and he could barely think. Then, liquid began to seep into the bottom of the chamber.
The liquid was a perfluorocarbon, an oxygen rich liquid that allowed for humans to breathe while totally submerged. As the cold liquid began to approach Thane’s face everything became slow. He could hear nothing; feel nothing, his body and mind were numb. The liquid hit his chin and Thane knew he would never wake.
“Damn,” he said, and inhaled. Pain surged into his lungs and everything went black. Jack Thane was as good as dead.
Steven Carter on the other hand ran from the GCC labs, getting into his car and gunning it down the highway towards Orion Five’s spaceport. He had to get out well before the explosion, only God knew what would happen then.
Half an hour later, just as a small shuttle rocketed towards Earth, an amazing thing happened on the dark side of Orion Five, facing away from the planet. An explosion tore out of the side of the disc, beautiful greens and purples swirled amongst a sea of raging blacks and reds and debris and fire roared through space.
Then, in the place of color, came nothing. A total absence of light and matter formed next to the space station; a wormhole. Slowly, but with the roar of tearing metal and the scream of Orion Five’s core trying to hold its position, the space colony was dragged inside the gargantuan rift in space.
As the edge of the outer disc crested the event horizon, the station was totally absorbed into the void and then light flooded back into the spot where Orion Five had been. The empty space rippled a moment and then nothing.
Not a sound, not even a piece of glass or metal, nothing. Orion Five was gone, and so was Jack Thane.
For now.
Firstly, proofread this. There are numerous spelling and grammar errors that I didn't have time to point out. If you just read over this once or twice more, you should be able to find them. One is where you say "through" instead of "throw". Secondly, try to avoid mixing their first and last names so much. Stick with one-- it's making it harder to keep a hold on already-distant character. Pick a name.
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