This is something I've been working on for the last six weeks or so. Essentially, I write half a page a day on my phone, while having my coffee each morning or a drink the night before, then screenshoting and uploading to Instagram. It's more of a passion project than anything, with an eventual goal of compiling a novel-length piece sometime next year. Still undecided how I want to proceed with it, but I figure periodically editing them together into one long, continual flow can't hurt.
Kor is a man on a mission.
The city grew like a cancer. Steam and smoke and industrial exhaust spewed from it like a gasping, breathing thing as the urban sprawl continued to choke the life from its planet.
Kor moved down the streets, avoiding the yellow-green, miasmic pockets of heavy gas settling in the low parts. The uncomfortable and unfamiliar weight of the gas mask hung from his neck like a millstone, the plastine strap digging into his weathered neck with every jerk or jostle. He'd need it if he wanted to thrive here, the transport tech had told him as he left the miles-high docking structure at ground level. Doubtful, but still too cryo-drunk to argue, Kor took it.
But Kor could tell with one look that nothing thrived here. Not even this tumor of a town.
He threaded his way through the bottom of the canyon, eyeing the storefronts he passed.
City blocks rose from the streets around him like an awful vascular structure, thousands-upon-thousands packed into the buildings. Hundreds to a floor, hundreds of floors.
Thousands of blocks, all reaching to the thin atmosphere above.
Lifeblood of a planet-wide, all encompassing city. The flesh and bones of a broken civilization.
Weapons. Kor needed weapons.
Sedans and cargo trucks trundled by faster and safer than any biological organism would ever be able to maneuver, moved in an artificial ballet that could only be composed and orchestrated by an autonomous system. Their wake whipped and tore at the putrid clouds, diffused the toxic, caustic gas out further across the pedestrian path.
Up ahead, a group of youths stopped and turned Kor's way at the sound of his jump boots kicking a glass bottle across the quickcrete sidewalk. Music-noise blasted from a drone floating in the center of their little huddle. Eyes bugged behind gas masks or were sheeted over with silvered chrome, sized up the incoming stranger.
They took one look at Kor's broad shoulders, craggy features, and glaring eyes. Eyes of a killer.
They looked the other way.
Kor walked into the middle of their loose circle. Stopped.
The biggest one focused on Kor as he came to a stop. He stood at least a head taller than the old soldier, and was thin as a nanocarbon tube. But that didn't set him too far apart from the rest. Kor's home planet was high G, his people broad and solid, and being taller and thinner than him wasn't rare. Living here on the street-level, Kor couldn't imagine nutrition was stellar, either. Still, Kor's leadership and tactical experience pegged him as the leader.
"What you say, uncle?" The leader's voice was muffled and hollow behind the mask, his Republican Anglish strangely accented. Muffled, but young. Accented, and cautiously cocky. "Keep on steppin', eh."
"Didn't say anything. I'm new." Kor, his whole body loose and ready for action if combat became necessary, locked his gaze on the taller man. He was a living weapon, and had spent decades learning to listen and feel out the ebb and flow of the battlefield.
"Need some directions. Know where I can do some shopping?" He paused, knew the next part would be like chum in the water. His muscles tensed in anticipation. "I'll pay for the info."
All around Kor, cheap shoe soles scraped the quickcrete. On his flanks, at his back. The young street toughs tightened the circle.
The hair at the base of his close-cropped hair stood on end, like thousands of Menelauns at attention in the belly of an Agis class troop transport. His arms stayed loose at his side, his feet inched apart for a better stance.
"Pay, eh, uncle? Directions? Just net that shit, why don't you? Or you getting too old even for that?"
"Might be retired, but even I know I can't find the kind of store I need on the net." Kor raised a hand, pressed a blunted finger tip to his temple. "No hardware anyway."
"You is new then, uncle," said one on his left. "Or just stupid."
The leader made a quick gesture and, like a pack of predators smelling wounded prey, they moved to bring him down.
But Kor was ready.
He lunged forward, grabbed hold of the leader's heavy purple coat.
The young ganger couldn't hope to out-grapple Kor, and knew it. He leaned all his weight back, tried to pull himself from Kor's grasp. Behind Kor, a general yell went up, and the crowd pulled at his flight jacket, tried to yank him to the ground. Their prey had suddenly grown fangs, though, and they began to panic.
Kor was ready. He pivoted his weight and used himself as a counterbalance to spin the leader around, tearing himself free of the crowd as he reversed their positions. With his back now to the neon lights and glaring brightness of the storefront, Kor rushed forward and slammed the man along with him.
The leader tried to pry Kor's grip loose, but the old soldier's wrists were like alloy plates, thick and unyielding. His body shuddered as Kor turned him into a battering ram, knocked aside his buddies and ploughed them off to either side.
Clear of the crowd, Kor kept rushing. Out to the edge of the road, and its transital symphony still in full display. When he was a meter away from the curb, and the steep drop off into the road, he tightened his grip on the kid's jacket and kicked out his legs. Kor pushed forward again as the kid stumbled and teetered backwards with his head towards traffic.
Kor caught the kid, held him in stasis on the edge, less than a meter from traffic. "Said I needed directions. How hard was that to understand? Show me what I want, and you're not a waste."
"Holy shit! He's going to fine Driver!" The group was reforming at Kor's back, shouting and arguing back and forth like a flock of avians as they tried to decide what to do. Did they rush him, try to distract him, do the worst thing possible: call block-sec?
He shook the kid. Kor didn't want to drop him, but he would if the mission so necessitated. After all, this was war. And war required shock and awe when a force first arrived in the theater.
Kor shook the kid. "Tell your pals to back off, and tell me what I want to know, or I'll let you go, kid. Don't think I won't."
No response. The kids simply looked back, eyes blank behind gas mask lenses. Even with Kor holding him inches from traffic and with the vehicles roaring by, the kid didn't believe Kor would follow through. Or didn't care.
And if the kid didn't fear him, who would?
This planet, like every other planet, ran on violence at its core. Some planets, The violence was explicit, with warbands enforcing their rules using gun and blade and technology. On others, the government undergirded contracts and laws with implicit threats of violence if citizenry didn't tow the line.
Kor needed to show that he was more terrifying than whatever might promise pain. He needed to prove himself more of a threat.
He let the kid fall out into traffic.
And the crowd behind him began to laugh.
The vehicles swerved, veered, or just outright ground to an instant halt as the kid tumbled backwards, purple coat open, limbs flailing.
He landed on his ass right in the middle of the nearest lame, and an immediate tone began to emanate from a hidden speaker embeded somewhere in the quickcrete, or maybe an unseen drone. The tone continued for a half second, no more, stopped, repeated.
Kor narrowed his eyes, felt a mild ping of foolishness. This wasn't what he'd expected.
The young street tough was already scrambling as his friends began to shout between bouts of laughter. "Laren! Let's go! Come on!" They pushed around Kor, jostled the much older soldier as they reached out into the street. He remained where he was, now curious.
And still that tone continued. It stopped nearly the exact moment Laren jumped free of the street, with it's cessation immediately followed by traffic resuming at near full speed.
"Laren Qivan," said a disembodied, digital reproduction of a woman voice in crisp Republican Anglish, "you have been fined three hundred scrip for willful disruption of legal commerce. A debit will be made to your public account, and this notice placed on public feeds."
Kor turned. The previous throng of kids were scattered, running down the street. They disappeared through a door and into the solid block of a building beside Kor.
"Shit." Hands stuffed in flight jacket, the retired soldier strode down that way, cursing himself that he'd just harassed some kids and still wasn't any closer to finding what he needed. Better to just leave them alone, see if he couldn't find a contact on his own. Bars, a coffin hotel. He'd check there.
"Hey!" a muffled voice called as he passed by the building entrance. "Hey uncle! You said you'd pay, right?"
Kor turned as the voice spoke. Recognized the gas mask muffled voice. Laren Qivan.
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