Raebus Raiftel

“Rain, rain, go away,
Come again another day”

Even down here, the thunderous percussion of raindrops on steel echoed. There was no escape from the elements, no matter what fortresses man made he would always have the rain and the wind and the snow to contend with.

The planet was Enkidu, which served as the core world for the rather desolate Gilgamesh system. Gilgamesh had been a system renowned by hunters, the animals of the barren moons and worlds providing excellent prey.

Upon arrival, the terraformers had found a world with a fairly temperate climate and inviting atmosphere. Upon completion of the atmos regulators, huge machines that regulated weather patterns, the planet had quickly descended into what could only be described as a never-ending rainstorm rarely breached by the occasional gleam of sunlight.

Miranda didn’t particularly mind the rain, it reminded her of lazy springs back home when rain would rattle on the roof and she would drift into sleep to the percussive symphony.

Now the rain steadied her nerves as she heard the low hum of a distant generator slowly fade out of existence. The explosives had worked their magic with the backup generator. Despite all the money, she was being paid these guys were amateurs, a crappy security team who existed on minimum wage and made no real attempt at competency.

The fact they had hooked up their alarm and monitoring system to a back up generator only that was easily accessed and quite shambolic, Miranda suspected she could have punched the thing to death but had decided on explosives just to be sure, was proof enough of incompetence.

Then again, she was not being paid for her skills; she was being paid for her qualms (or her lack of qualms to be realistic).

Altruism was an expensive mindset in the galaxy and these people didn’t have the wherewithal to even realise the danger they were putting themselves in.

She had done a little bit of research on the group. Basically, it was just a small think tank of old Deus Crona scientist determined to do good for the universe. That was all well and good so long as they had kept it secret. Unfortunately, like naïve children they had boasted of their success and their new break through on the galactic news channels.

The moment the good doctor had opened his mouth to promote his research he had become a dead man, Miranda was just carrying the bullet for him.

The group had only employed three guards all of them imbeciles. She perched over the first now a golf ball sized bullet hole having sealed his fate as he emptied his bladder in the toilets.

She grabbed his rapidly cooling hand and scanned his thumbprint into a device. It suddenly whirred into life displaying the stiff’s vital statistics and cheerily noting that for the death of this grunt 5000 would be transferred to her digital account.

Most bounty collectors would have accepted the fee and then deleted the info Miranda made a habit of reading up on her victim if she could. She quickly scanned the information. The stiffs name was Tom Bracken. Tom was in his mid forties, had a wife and two children, was blood type AB negative, had been born on Enkidu and was working this job for minimum wage.

All that information and she still didn’t care an iota about him. She challenged herself like this all the time, seeing if one poor schumck she iced would distress her. It never happened.

The second guard was named Alison Stewart, a postgraduate pathologist who was working here to keep the breadline going. She was 23 years old, had a criminal record for attending anti-corporate events and had died from severe trauma to the neck caused by a swift kick in the Hip Son Data mould. Her death had netted Miranda another 5000, with 10000 already Alison could have paid off her student debts and got a proper job if their positions had been replaced.

The head of this inept trio was called Gregory Sands, who was a widower nearing pension age. He had no grandchildren, no real family and had been in military service from the age of fourteen to not more than seven months ago. Cause of death was a dozen or so gunshot wounds to the chest at extreme close range. The codger’s death had secured another five grand and the use of the pulse rifle the old mad had clutched but failed to use.

Now in the cold fluorescent lights of the facilities main corridor it was quite easy to see Miranda in all her glory. She was dressed from foot to throat in a skin tight and uncomfortable looking combat suit. Around her stomach, thighs and chest were pieces of grey dissension armour that at the very least stopped the combat suit accentuating Miranda’s breasts in the way it accentuated every other curve she had. The only pieces of clothing was a heavy looking reddish brown jacket that drooped to her feet and a pair of polished military looking boots.

Before she entered the main lab, where the scientists were still at work unaware of their protector’s death, she pulled her hair back away from her face and into a tight ponytail. The pointed tips of her elven ears giving sharp relief to the rest of her face that carried an inhuman sharpness of detail.

She grabbed the access card off Gregory’s chest and used it to swipe through into the main lab. Even doing this the scientists paid no attention to her instead, they invested all their focus on a human specimen. A bullet fired from the pulse rifle finally caught their attention. The half dozen scientists all stared at Miranda as she casually walked over to a terminal and inserted a rip disc into the drive. It was a military device, which essentially raped the computer for information and stored anything good on itself.

The process took less than a second.

“What is this?” asked one of the scientists.

“It’s industrial espionage” said another one of the scientist whom Miranda recognised as the mouthy Dr. Peterson off the television.

“No it’s a robbery,” said Miranda as she tucked the disc into a trouser pocket.

“You are just a mercenary then? You have to listen to me. To you this may be another payday but trust me when I say that if you do this you will harm the quality of life of billions of people,” said Peterson.

“I have no compassion for the people I see in everyday life, what makes you think my heart would ache for a billion faceless ciphers,” said Miranda.

“THIS TECHNOLOGY… is not some mere trinket for the rich to squander. This is an enzyme that can heal any damaged tissue in record time, and it can be produced for practically no money. In time even for free.”

“Cut out the middlemen?” said Miranda

Peterson just nodded his hopes of reaching through to the bounty hunter rising.

“The universe is made up of middlemen. Billions upon billions of them. And if I’m going to help a faceless majority, it will be the faceless majority that has a good expense account” said Miranda.

Peterson was stunned for a second but quickly had regrouped and was about to debate some more when the loud blasts of a fired pulse rifle filled the lab.

Miranda kept the trigger held down as the pulse rifle spat bullets into the huddled group of scientists the sheer number and ferocity of the bullets cutting at least two of them in half.

She stopped when the ammo cartridge dropped from the gun and started the grizzly task of collecting fingerprints for kill evidence.

It took her a good few minutes to log everybody but when she was done, she felt a warm glow as the figure of 750000 flashed up as a combined bounty. That would be doubled as soon as she handed over the disc.

Sometimes life just worked out for the better. Sometimes life was just beautiful.

Chris Miller

I read your story yesterday before leaving work, and this morning I could still remember it. That it stayed with me, means it was good.

The triumph of evil over good, while probably accurate, leaves me a little dissatisfied.

Enkidu served as the core world for the desolate Gilgamesh system, a system renowned for hunters, the animals of its barren moons and worlds providing unique prey.

Strike inside []. It is redundant and unwieldy.

Again. I am not going to go thru all of it spewing my opinion about what is unnecessary and weakening. I will say that in general, your tendency to over hedge, though you may argue is stylistic, makes your porse drone a little. It slows your pace, makes you vague and less crisp. In my opinion. Delete all the throat clearing. Just say it.

Okay, I'll stop. Sorry.

I also found your bent for working in the past and present perfect kind of killed the action. Things like "would have been" instead of "was" or "have been" instead of "were". Try to find a less passive voice.

I hope you don't mind these criticisms and suggestions. Like I said, it was a (not) nice story that stayed with me overnight. Thanks for it.

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the fairwriting blogs

Barcelona Review story: http://www.barcelonareview.com/64/e_cm.html

Kimberly Bird

Hi Raebus. I agree with Chris about some of the passive voice. That one though, is hard to overcome. It takes a lot of practise to make your sentences more tighter and to the point. I found that Flash Fiction helps a lot in this area. Other than that, I would suggest you conect some of those sentences to make more compact paragraphs.

I really enjoyed this story. You do have a natural flow of words and a great imagination, which to me makes a good story teller. It has left its mark on me.

Best of luck, Raebus.

Kimberly

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There are two types of wisdom in this world; one is seeking and loud, the other is silent and true. (Chief Dan George)

gohn67

hey Raebus,
Pretty Cool story you wrote here. I like it when evil prevails.

The Price of Honesty: Feedback Would Be A Kindness - Is this the title to your story?

A few things that I think could make this story tighter. Right now I feel like there are somethings that you put in that are irrelevant to the story and also somethings that you kind of went to fast describing.

[quote[The group had only employed three guards all of them imbeciles. She perched over the first now a golf ball sized bullet hole having sealed his fate as he emptied his bladder in the toilets. [/quote]
It's strange to me that you go into detail about the other two guards but not the first one. I like that you don't tell the background of the guard. For me that doesn't matter, to the story, the background info. What you should expand on is how she kills this guard. Right now it's one sentence. Expand be more detailed. Action is good.

[quote]
The second guard was named Alison Stewart, a postgraduate pathologist who was working here to keep the breadline going. She was 23 years old, had a criminal record for attending anti-corporate events and had died from severe trauma to the neck caused by a swift kick in the Hip Son Data mould. Her death had netted Miranda another 5000, with 10000 already Alison could have paid off her student debts and got a proper job if their positions had been replaced.
I really don't feel that the background info is necessary. Expand on her death.

Same here about the expositon background info. Also I don't like the distant POV of saying, "cause of death.." I rather see her actaully killing him.

The end scene after that I enjoyed reading, it's more detailed and the dialogue is good.

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The Frowning Dog Blog

Danny77

Interesting story. Im always a fan of good prevailing over evil, but sometimes change is good

Also, the second time you used the word percussive to describe the rain, might want to change it. I dunno but it was too close to the first time you said it to use it again.

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The Salad Bar Game

Fishbar

Chris beat me to the punch. We're both fans of tight prose.

You've got a little bit of a limp in your wording. To demonstrate, look at this paragraph you've written:


If you'll forgive me for being so forward, I will rewrite it slightly:

She pulled her hair into a tight ponytail. The scientists were still at work in the main lab; unaware of their protectors death. Her pointed elven ears and sharp, inhuman face were cast in relief by the harsh fluorescent lighting.


I tried to cut away some of the fat that plagues your writing.


One more thing I might point out is the, by now cliche'd, piece of advice that you should show rather than tell.

Why are the security guards idiots? Don't just tell me, make me believe what jackasses they are. Is one of them watching pornography on the monitors and one of them stuffing his face with hot dogs and pretzles while the third sleeps?

Right now I have no image of them. Why were they stupid enough that I should not care that miranda just ended their lives?

You're smart, you'll figure it out.

-fishbar