Posted 10:49 AM by Tim
::Reader's Note
I know I bounce from story to story, but that's why this is called Storylines, instead of "A story" or something else. Yet again, another new story. This time, though, I've got the actual start of the story.

If you've heard of it before, it's based somewhat on the world presented in the Apocalypse RPG. The AOG ("Army of God") has no bearing or relation to the US "church" of the same name.
::End Note

It was getting dark earlier. I checked my watch. 7:36. Good. Still a few hours before the 10:00 curfew came into effect. They said that the curfew was supposed to protect us "kids" from the stuff that had been going on lately. I knew that wasn't the case. The curfew was meant to get us off the streets. To keep us from getting together in groups. To keep kids like us from attending the meetings of the AOG. But that's not where we were going.

We, is myself and Scott, a little 7th grader who I noticed had the gift while I was at a soccer match. He was using his telekinetic powers to help him move the ball around the field. I'm not sure if he really noticed he was doing it or not. I was taking him to "The Club" to see B.

The Club is located in this abandoned building on the waterfront. At least it looks abandoned. That's part of the trick. The entrance, and in fact, then entire front is nicely painted and cared for. A few standing illusions give the place an appearance of an abandoned, rotted out apartment building. We were nearly there.

"This isn't a very nice place," Scott said, moving over closer to me. He was right. The area wasn't nice. But it all helped with keeping the location of The Club secret. Kids, and even most adults stayed away. That meant less accidental discoveries. Most people were brought to The Club by a member, very few showed up unannounced. Everyone who went to the club met with the owner, B. There were strict rules to be followed. First, you had to have the sight, and second, B had to approve you. Having the sight was the easy part. It seemed that more and more people were finding they had it. Having the sight meant that you had a gift for psychic, or magic powers. Usually, this came with the ability to see things that others couldn't, or wouldn't see. Ghosts, invisible objects, or the ability to tell illusions from reality. The gift affected everyone differently.

Getting B's approval was harder. Nobody was sure what B's power was, but most of us thought that he could read minds. He could tell if you were lying or if you weren't. What everyone agreed on was that B had more power than anyone else at The Club. And that was saying a lot.

Scott and I turned a corner, and stopped in front of The Club. The illusion of the building was very convincing. A five story appartment building, with most of the windows boarded up or broken. The front door was painted in chipped and faded green paint, several boards were nailed into the doors. DO NOT ENTER was spray painted across them. The open space on the walls were layered with graffiti and gang markings. Even the uneven, cracked sidewalk was part of the illusion.

Sprawled across the front step was an old wino, a bottle shaped paper bag dangling from one hand. This was Gizz. Or at least, Gizz's current apparance. Gizz worked for The Club as a bodyguard. He had the ability to change his appearance. Depending on his mood he would look like a wino, or sometimes he would head down to the corner with Trish and play at being a hooker.

Trish, who wasn't at her corner today, had found the club by accident. She had worked as prostitute in the area for some time, and we had grown used to her being there. Apparently she had had the gift for some time but nobody had noticed. The night she walked into the club, had caused B to hire Gizz on as a sort of security measure against other intrusions. Gizz seemed grateful for the work, and he and Trish had become friends.

"Hey, Gizz," I said. Gizz turned drunkenly towards me and looked like he was trying to focus. He loved getting into his role. "Whatcha wan?" Gizz slurred. "I brought a friend to see ya," I said, indicating Scott with a nod of my head. I could tell Scott was getting nervous about me bringing him to see an old drunk. "Scott, don't be so nervous. Take a look at the building, a good hard look like I said to do. What do you see."

Scott was nervous, but he focused. He squinted a little. "This place," he started, "it's not old. It's different."

"Yep." said Gizzk, "This is The Club." Gizz's face and body started to melt like candle wax, then seemed to gel, and shift. Scott's eyes bulged. The wino shape shifted away and was replaced with a young man. Tall, well-built, dark skinned with a bald head. He looked like a ganger, and was even dressed in the right colours for one of the local gangs. "Gizz, you are such a showoff." I said to him, guiding Scott past him to the door of The Club.

---

The first floor of The Club was purposely kept messy and decrepit. This was to throw off anyone who managed to get past Gizz. The building was once an appartment building, and there were six rooms on the first floor. Room #6 had been given to Trish, when it was learnt that she was homeless. That door was closed now, which meant that she was probably at home. I'd have to remember to drop in and visit later. Scott was looking around, trying to focus. "That won't work here," I said. "Every bit of the mess here is authentic. We keep it this way to throw people off. We like to avoid surprises."

"Is that why you're bringing me in, instead of just telling me where to go?" Scott asked.

"Yeah. That's part of it."

We moved over to the stairs, stepping around a broken chair and some other junk on the floor. "The main part is upstairs." I pointed up. "Four floors. No elevator." Some of the members didn't bother with the stairs, being able to fly, or levitate themselves up the stairs. I always had to walk. Always. At least it was good exercise.

On the fifth floor, you could hear the music of the club playing loudly. "Why can't you hear the music outside the building? Another trick?" asked Scott. "No, good sound baffles in the walls." Scott nodded. "We like to keep the magic stuff low so we're not so noticable. It's what keeps us safe from the AOG." A wave of fear crossed his face. "It's ok, they haven't bothered us yet. Its just a precaution."

I opened the door. All of the appartments on this floor had been converted into one large space. The room was furnished in a strange way. Some of the tables were wood, others metal, or glass. There were chairs, couches, stools and benches spread around the room. Along one side of the room was a bar. The bartender, Lawless, kept an eye on everyone and tried to resolve anything that came up. Most of the members were under 18, so there was no alcohol at the bar. Nobody seemed to mind.

The people turned to look at us when we entered, then returned to their business. I waited a moment for my eyes to adjust to the dimness inside The Club, and then guided Scott to a table. I pointed out a few of the regulars to Scott. Trent and Brent, over at one of the metal tables. They were twins, but had opposite powers. Brent could create fire or heat, and Trent could create Ice and cold. Ever since one of the wooden tables had burst into flames one evening, they had sat at a metal table. Trent was snapping his fingers and flicking ice cubes into a bucket on the floor. Almost all the ice for the club was made this way.

At another table sat Amy, Kim and Disa. They were all dressed in black and called themselves "the three sisters". They weren't sisters, but they were all magically gifted. At a table by himself was Shag. He was called that because of his long unruly hair. Shag tended to be a bit of a loner, and most people

Daniel and David were at a table in the corner playing chess. Neither of them used thier hands to play, instead pushing the pieces about with their minds. I intended to introduce them to Scott after he talked to B. Part of the goal of getting people together at The Club was to learn to refine one's abilities.

Several others were in attendance, sitting in groups talking or eating some of the pizza the kitchen provided. After a bit, Lawless came by. "Who's the new guy?" he asked. "Lawless, this is Scott." I pointed to each of them. "Scott, Lawless. He's the bartender, if there's anything you want to eat or drink here, you ask him."

"I don't have any money on me," started Scott. "You don't need any," explained Lawless, "B provides all the stuff here free of charge. We just ask people to not go overboard on the food."

"Who's B?"

"B's the guy I brought you to meet." I told Scott. He owns this place, and he approves all the new members. He's a great guy, and I don't know anyone who's been refused."

"I'll bring you guys a couple Cokes and a slice, ok? I'll let B know you're here too. I gotta get back to the bar." Lawless, moved off towards the bar, stopping to pick up the full bucket of ice from Trent.

"So, what do I have to do to be a member?" asked Scott.

"It's easy," I said, "Basically, you gotta not be AOG, and you gotta have the sight. You've got that already, and I don't think you're AOG."

"AOG? You mean Army of God, right?"

"Yeah, but we perfer to say AOG." Scott looked troubled. "What's the matter?" I asked him.

"It's.. well, it's my brother. He's in the Army of God - I mean, AOG. That's not gonna keep me out is it?"

"Ahh. I'm not sure. Be sure and tell that to B. If you don't he might think you're trying to hide it. I didn't sense anything from him when I met him. That's strange really."

"I don't think he has the, what did you call it?" "Sight." "Yeah, the sight. Just me."

Lawless came by and put 2 cokes and 2 slices of pizza on the table. I could never figure out how he could balance those trays. "Say Lawless," I said, "Scott here tells me his brother's in the AOG. Think that'll influence B's decision on membership?" Lawless looked hard at Scott. "Hard to say. It depends on if the taint has reached him yet. I don't see it, but B might."

"I didn't see it either. Not even in the brother," I paused. "I met him."

"He, he just joined." offered Scott. "Oh," said Lawless, "that's different. It probably hasn't really reached him yet. Make sure you let B know. I think he's ready to see you now."

I stood and brought Scott over to the a small room in the corner. This was B's office. His personal space at The Club.

---

::Reader's Note
Whew! That's a lot of writing there. This is one storyline that started at the beginning for me. Most of them don't for some reason. I tend to get the middles fine, but the start and end are a lot harder for me. I hope I've manged to set the tone so far. I'll have to see about building on it from here.
::End Note

Posted 1:30 PM by Tim
::Reader's Note
Let's get back to the main storyline. This continues from the post on 11/23/2001.
::End Note

The other pilot stirred. He was regaining consciousness slowly. Impressions of pain and discomfort were coming from him. Dirk looked at the communications panel. The damage seemed minor. He tried a few different frequencies, but received nothing but static. He ran a quick diagnostic. It indicated damage to the transmissions array, probably severe. "The comms are damaged," he said, as much to himself as to focus his thoughts, "the array was probably sheared off during the crash." He turned to look at the two pilots. He immediately regretted it. "Ahh. Musta hurt my neck too." The pain in his head was building slowly.

Dirk sat beside the two pilots. The man was looking dazed, but at least he was awake. "We have to figure out what to do now," said Dirk. The others agreed.

::Reader's Note
Hmm... I had less to add to this than I thought.
::End Note

Posted 1:15 PM by Tim
::Reader's Note
We drift further away from the first storyline, and into a completely different place again.
::End Note

Daniel rested under the water, a globe of air around him. He knew they were still out there. He couldn't risk probing with his mind, or they'd detect him. One or two of them he could handle, but there were three of them this time, and they all seemed to be well trained. Daniel was the best in his school, just under the master, so he usually didn't have to worry much about competition. But this wasn't a competition, this was just spite. These three were probably from the school's chief rivals. They were probably here to size up - and take out - the main competition.

He couldn't sit underwater for too much longer without needing to get more air from the surface. That would certainly attract attention. Attention he didn't want right now. "Wait." he thought. "If I do one thing, I'll get their attention, but if I do many things, maybe I can distract them?" Daniel focused his will and shot off into the water, using his power to shove the water out of the way of the sphere of air. He surfaced briefly, and saw two shapes zooming towards him. Normally, moving underwater would be slower than through the air, but Daniel's tunneling method cut down drastically on the opposing force of the water. Probing quickly with his mind he could feel that the third presence was shooting through the water ahead of him.

Daniel dove deep into the water and accelerated as quickly as he could. He created a second and third spherejust behind him and shot them off in different directions with his mind. The three spheres travelled in different directions, he was hoping that they wouldn't be able to probe the spheres too quickly. A third and forth were created, and he veered back towards the shore, firing the others in opposite directions again. Daniel let the false spheres travel a distance before leaving them to dissolve in the water as a cloud of bubbles. He could feel the two in the air moving about erratically trying to find which one held him. He took a deep breath and then allowed his own sphere to bubble away. This, he hoped, would make them think that his bubble was a fake as well. It seemed to work. The two in the air were not looking his way.

He shot out of the water with an incredible burst of speed, into the air he flew. Focusing his will as a shield, he flew into the treetops, smashing through branches and leaves for a distance. He angled himself up, and flew as quickly as he could. He could see the three shapes behind him, but knew that he could outrun them all.

::Reader's Note
As I think I've said, there's a lot of stories in my head. Focusing on one of them and just writing that isn't easy for me. I tend to get bored of an idea if I focus on it for too long, which is probably why I have so many hobbies. I'll focus on one of them for a bit, then drop to something else - putting that on hold for now. The same thing seems to go with my storylines, I'll think about one for a while, then something else, and eventually, I've got several.

As a bit of an explanation, here's some of the storylines in my head.

#1 Dirk, and the whole "scorched earth" thing. It's the Alliance vs. the Greez vs. the Sand People. Lots of stuff on this story in my head, but not all of it is well defined as to when it happens in relation to each other. It may be a series of stories.

#2 The thing above. Psychic powers abound in a battle between schools. Kinda like Kung Fu fights, but without needing to know about martial arts to really pull it off.

#3 ANGEL stories. A bad boy robot gone bad. A lot of little storylines on this, which I've tried to write little pieces on before.

#4 Cyberpunk stuff, like yesterday. Mostly short scenes with no plot or outline.

#5 Fantasy stuff, especially concerning my Dark Elf army, or Wayne's Empire troops. If I ever manage to write something about this it'll probably be a miracle.

So, there's a lot of battling for my attention up there. Add in the thoughts for a possible comic, and you can see why I'm writing in snippets.
::End Note

Posted 3:47 PM by Tim
::Reader's Note
This probably isn't related to the "main" storyline, and is pretty unrefined.
::End Note

The rain fell hard on the empty streets. Most people stayed out of the rain when it came, the chemicals in the water were very irritating on the skin. But, not everyone. Some people didn't have any place better to go, others used the empty streets as a cover for one deed or another. Jack was one of the latter. In a wide brimmed hat, trenchcoat and boots, the rain really didn't bother him.

He was waiting at the corner for his contact to meet him. All he needed to do was deliver the package and collect the money. The neighbourhood was rather seedy, and this usually would mean that there'd be a lot more hustlers and low lifes about. Just more people to watch, really. The rain drove most of those off somewhere, so Jack wouldn't need to worry so much about getting double crossed. He'd had that happen before, and had learned to be more careful.

Jack took a cigarette out of his jacket and lit it. The dim light of the streetlamps made the rain sparkle as it bounced off the shiny metal surface of his hands. He had lost both of them to a rival crime boss' lackey during a double cross. The replacements worked just as well as the old hands - better in some ways. The lights of a vehicle approached. Jack worried that this might be a police vehicle, wondering who would be out in the rain, and more importantly, why. He thought about moving further into the shadows, but that would only draw attention to himself. He decided to just stay where he was and see what happened. After all, it wasn't illegal to stand around in the rain.

The car pulled up next to Jack. A long sleek-looking black limo. The rain spattered against the paint, without leaving a mark. Acid-tolerant paint. An expensive job, or someone who really liked to drive in the rain. It was probably armoured too. One of the back windows rolled down, a short rain guard sliding out to keep the rain from splashing in. "Wet night, isn't it?" asked a voice from inside. The voice was deep and gruff. Not the kind of voice you'd expect from someone with the money to buy a nice car like this. "Yeah." said Jack taking a drag from the cigarette, "There's less hassle on a Sunday." This was the code line he was told to give. "But a Monday starts the week." said the man, his code response.

"You got the package?" the man in the car asked.

"You got the money?" answered Jack. The window slid down a little further, a brown envelope slid out. Jack reached out with one hand and put it in his coat. He then took out a small black box and passed it through the window. A hand reached out to grab the box. Jack flicked the lit cigarette through the window where he thought the man's eyes would be. The man yelped and the hand jumped back. Jack stuffed the box back into his jacket and pressed a button on remote detonator. A tiny explosive in the butt of the cigarette went off, filling the back of the limo with flames and smoke. Jack was already running.

Turning the corner, he heard the screech of tires behind him. The street flared with light from the headlights of the limo. Jack was running hard now, splashing through potholes and puddles in the street. He knew that he couldn't out run the limo, and he didn't think he could get to his bolt hole before they managed to catch up. He'd have to confront the people in the limo directly. It would be something to see, but fortunately, the rain was keeping spectators away.

Someone in the limo fired a few shots at him. Jack quickly rounded a corner and pressed himself against the wall of a building. He pulled a short SMG from his jacket and swapped the clip with another from one of the pockets. "Damn." he thought, "I really liked this gun too." The limo pulled into sight, sliding around the corner after him. Jack braced himself against the wall and squeezed the trigger. A high velocity sabot round launched out of the gun, pounding into the armoured windshield of the limo - it buckled, cracking at the impact point. The weapon's recoil would have broken the wrists of a non-augmented person, but Jack's wrists were steel and titanium.

Jack fired another round at the windshield, aiming for the driver. The high speed rounds were already taking their toll on the workings of the SMG. He knew that the high velocity rounds would heat the barrel to the melting point in no time, and that the rounds themselves would soon destroy the trigger mechanism with the force of the recoil. The second round shattered the windshield, and the third took out the driver, blowing a hole clean through his chest. Somehow, the limo driver managed to turn the car towards him, hoping to smash Jack against the wall. Jack took a short step towards the vehicle and leapt into the air.

Landing a foot on the hood of the car he continued to run, shooting down and ahead of him, the bullets pounding fist-sized holes into the armoured roof. He continued to run off the back off the limo as it crashed into the wall. He turned quickly, ready to fire another shot at the survivors. The rain sizzled on the barrel of the gun, which was glowing red hot. The gun wouldn't be able to withstand another shot.

Jack tossed the SMG and pulled out a small pistol. After a moment, when nobody emerged from the vehicle, Jack turned and fled, just as people in the building started to come out to see what had happened. He would head back to the safe house, and then see what the little box had that was so important.

::Reader's Note
Umm. As I said, this is off the top really. This isn't a developed storyline, but is kind of along the lines of Cyberpunk... I guess. I was going to put the bit above into "cliffhanger" mode several times while writing it, but figured that it'd be nice to get a full scene done. Just to see where it would lead.

BTW, I thought that I was the first person to think of high-velocity sabot ammunition for handguns, but apparently, I got it from some game I played before. FYI, sabot ammunition is armor-piercing, especially at short range, and a pistol variety would easily have enough recoil to break your arms. Good thing for Jack his are all metal.
::End Note

Posted 10:07 AM by Tim
::Reader's Note
This may or may not be related to the ongoing storyline, but it sort-of introduces ANGEL. For the Buffy/Angel fans in the audience, no, this is not our favourite vampire. In fact, the ANGEL character was developed in my mind before ANGEL ever made it to TV.
::End Note

A quick left hook came rushing at ANGEL's face. He caught the arm quickly with his right hand and flicked his wrist sharply. SNAP - one of the bones in the attacker's arm broke. "Ahh!" yelled the man. "Do not attack me again or I will be forced to hurt you further." ANGEL stated simply. The man tried a quick right jab, but ANGEL caught the hand with his own. Squeezing tightly, the attacker's hand made a sickening series of pop and cracking sounds. The attacker screamed again.

ANGEL grabbed the man's cell phone from the hip holster as he sunk to his knees in pain. Dialing the emergency number he told the operator "I need an ambulance at 54th and Main. There's been an accident." One of the others in the group managed the courage to pull a pistol and pointed it at ANGEL's head. As he started to pull the trigger, ANGEL deflected the barrel so that the bullet missed. Grabbing the gun from the man, he told the operator, "Make that several accidents."

::Reader's Note
Short, eh? There's not as much dialogue here amongst the action, and I wanted to leave it as a bit of a cliffhanger. Well, you can figure out the details.
:: End Note

Posted 4:13 PM by Tim
Dirk lifted his head slowly. It hurt. A small pool of blood was on the console. He reached a hand up to discover a cut over his right eye. "Ow." he said out loud to himself. He remembered that the Greez craft had been hit by snipers in the dunes. Sand-people.

The sand-people were a rugged group of individuals who somehow managed to eke out an existence on the desert. Well, less of a group and more of collection of exiles, despots, slave traders and thieves. Some groups were friendly to visitors, and even managed trade with the Alliance, but most were simply gangs of wanderers, traveling across the sands.

Dirk looked about the cabin of the fighter. The pilot and co-pilot were both slumped over the controls. Dirk thumbed his headset down to level 4, but there was no activity there. Thinking that they might slip lower when unconsicous, he thumbed down to level 5. There wasn't anything there either. He began to unstrap the seat harness when the ship lurched a bit. He hadn't realized how much of an angle it had been on when he had woken. The fighter lurched and thudded heavily. It was now nearly level to the ground. Dirk waited a moment, then undid the straps.

Both the pilot and co-pilot were alive - a testament to the sturdyness of the Greez craft, but they were both out. The sand-people would be headed towards the crash site soon. The ship would be very valuable salvage. Dirk unstrapped both pilots and laid them onto the deck of the fighter. The pilot had a number of scratches on his face and burns on his hands. Dirk could remember the pilot console exploding at some point during the crash. It was surprising he was still alive. The co-pilot was in slightly better condition, she was only heavily bruised. Dirk felt something drip onto his hands. "Right. That cut." and began to fumble about looking for the medikit.

"Ghhh..." one of the pilots murmured. Dirk thumbed the headset up to level 4. A few random snippets of thought here and there, nothing coherent. Flashes of the crash, mixed with other memories and sensations. He tried to focus on the scene as it was now, to try to comfort them, to let them know that things weren't that bad. "Where is that medikit?" he mumbled to himself. An image of a storage compartment above the co-pilot seat appeared in his mind. He moved and pulled out the kit.

Turning, he saw that the co-pilot was awake and holding her head in her hands. He thumbed the headset to level 3, to make communication easier on her. Sitting beside her, he opened the medikit and pulled out a bandage and pressed it to his head. She began to check the pilot for injuries. There was little more than occasional confused images from him.

Flurried thoughts came to him from her. What happened? Who did this? Are you responsible? Are you hurt? He tried to focus to respond to her quick investigation. The effort was making his head hurt, and he moved down to level 4 for a moment. Immediately she turned his head and switched the headset back to level 3. He pushed her away, but was immediately overcome with a sense of fear from her. Dirk thumbed up to level 2. Nothing but the two pilots. It dawned on him what the trouble was. "There's nobody else out there, is there?" He thumbed the headset down to level 3, being careful to let the co-pilot know what he was doing. "I'm the only other piece of the Loop for you right now, aren't I?" She nodded. He knew that she really didn't understand what he was saying, only the impressions of his thoughts.

He stood uneasily, his forehead flashing with pain. "I'm going to check the status of our communications systems."

::Reader's Note
Again, this seems like a good breaking point. Time to flash into the other part of the story, focus on another character, or just arbitrarily jump time forward a bit. Maybe the end of a chapter or something. Too bad I don't quite know what the next bit is. I've got another bit further along, but not the next bit.
::End Note

Posted 2:06 PM by Tim
::Reader's Note
I'm this has nothing to do with anything.
::End Note

"It really doesn't matter," he said.

"What doesn't?" I asked.

"Anything, really." His head started to move slowly to the left, the rest of his body stayed in more or less the same position, as if the two parts didn't really care to be next to each other any longer. I found this disconcerting, but not troubling. I'm not sure why, though.

"So. You're saying that nothing matter?" I asked again.

"Yep." His head had begun a clockwise roll, which made his smile seem very odd.

"I'm not sure that I follow."

"Well," he said, reaching a hand out, apparently to steady his body, which had started to lean. "It's like like this." It was getting hard to watch all of him at once, his head had floated out of view of the rest of his body, and I'm sure I was starting to look foolish, looking back and forth between the two bits of him. I wanted to sit down, but I figured that his head might continue to move off. I thought about sitting next to his body and waiting there, but I didn't want to get in the way - in case the head realized how far it had drifted.

"Are you listening?" asked the head. I had to admit that I hadn't been. "Sorry, I was watching your hands," I said. Which was true. I couldn't figure out where they had gotten too. One of them had walked over to the other, and it seemed like the two of them had decided to go and leave for a drink. "Oh well, that's alright then," he said.

"As I was saying, there really isn't anything that really matters. After all..." the head trailed off. It floated over beside my shoulder. "And what are we looking at now?" it asked me. "Um. Well, you really. Bits of you anyhow." It seemed that without the hand to help the arm out, the arm had decided to give up on holding up the body altogether. It had slumped over to one side and hadn't moved since. "Ahh. That's different then, isn't it." he said. Then he disappeared.

::Reader's Note
Umm. Yeah. And now for something completely different.
::End Note

Purple sunshine, on my face
No distinction to my race.
The grey clouds of overhead
Trouble me not in my bed.

The morning moon,
The evening sun,
The whispered rain.

The relentless storm of thought
Invade the mind, create rot.
Sadness, hatred, anger, pain
Wash o'er me as heavy rain.

The night of day,
The shining dark,
The twinkling void.

Yet the sun do show again
An endness to happy rain.
And now go with sunlight gleam
Of sleep, and of nothing dream.

::Reader's Note
Gwah. Been a while since I did poetry. Maybe I'll toss a little more up here now and then.
:End Note

Posted 11:19 PM by Tim
::Reader's Note
This is related to the first storyline.
::End Note

Dirk turned towards a section of wall. Conduits and cables covered it. He reached in an pulled something. The dim light wasn't helping John see what he was doing. John didn't even really know where he was anyway, all the access hallways looked largely the same. Dirk was doing something else. "No sudden movements, ok?" John wasn't exactly sure what that meant, then saw that the wall was moving, the cables shifting somehow, to make space. A door was opening, a hidden passage.

Beyond the door was darkness. Then two glowing red eyes appeared. They were shaped like two angry slits, a distinctive shape given only to enforcer droids. "Identify yourself!" came the harsh electric voice of the droid. John knew that enforcer droids were hunter/killer droids and relentless ones at that. Heavily armed and armored, they were sent after criminals, or to track down an elusive prey. Neither John or Dirk had anything capable of even slowing down an enforcer. "Relax, Rex, it's me, and a friend." said Dirk calmly. The eyes receeded into the darkness.

Dirk moved into the room and lights began coming on as he moved. "Hurry and get in here, the door'll close in a moment." John followed him in. The lights came on in a slow sequence, obviously to keep from hurting the eyes of someone moving from the near darkness of the access corridor. Panels lit up around the room, readouts and displays very similar to those of main engineering.

"Um. Nice setup you got here." said John. He wondered how Dirk had managed to secure so much space and material in the short time he had been onboard. He could see "Rex" the enforcer droid standing guard at the doorway again. At least it looked like where the doorway was. It seemed like like the door was as hard to see on this side as on the other.

"It works for me." said Dirk. "It's not as big as I'd like, but then again, there isn't a lot of spare room on this class of cruiser."

John said nothing. Dirk looked up from his console. "Oh, right. You haven't seen the Brass Falcon yet, have you?" he pushed a few buttons on the panel and the spotlights came on. The Brass Falcon came into view.

The Brass Falcon looked more like a cross between very small cargo freighter and an Alliance fighter ship. It was larger and fatter than any of the fighter craft used by the Alliance, but appeared to be more heavily armed and armoured than even their heavy bombers. "It's one of only three in it's class in existance. A joint design between several colleagues and I."

"What's it got on it?" asked John, visibly impressed.

"Heh. Glad you asked." Dirk paced the craft, pointing out the major features. "The main propulsion unit is vector thrust, like the Alliance fighters use, but we've added a chopped Greez anti-grav platform to allow us to hover if we need to. Boost thrusters give us vertical take-off if we need it. There's room for 7, counting the pilot, more if nobody brings any gear. The armor is almost as thick as a light crusier, so it'll defelect most small arms and fighter-craft weaponery." Dirk smiled, "of course, it won't shake off the bigger weaponery of the crusiers. That's why we installed this." Dirk opened a panel in the hull of the ship and entered an access code, a squarish device slid out of the side of the ship. John moved over to examine it.

"That's not what I think it is? Is it?"

"Yes it is, " replied Dirk, "phase-transition particle wave shield generators."

"Shit. There's no way that you can power that, you'd need to be running a reactor in there just to get the priliminary wave form going."

"We are." said Dirk, matter-of-fact-ly.

"What! Impossible, this thing isn't big enough to house a reactor core!" John paused. "Unless you're running it without shielding, in which case, you'll get about a three minute joy-ride before the rads become toxic."

Dirk smiled again. "No need to worry about that, John. It's a plasma reactor."

"Plasma reactor! Fuck! Those things were banned!" exclaimed John. He took a few steps back from the craft.

"Yeah, I know, banned during the Accords..." started Dirk

"...and with good reason! Those things are way too unstable for use!"

Dirk put his hand up to try to get John calmed down. "They were banned because of the possibility of abuse. A faulty reactor core could cause some serious damage, yes, but the reactions are clean and stable."

"No way. Those things are dangerous and unstable. They banned them because of that."

"Listen to me. The reactor on-board the Falcon has been running for over a year, without a problem."

"What! That thing's running! Right now?" John stumbled into one of the panels. Rex turned to see what the commotion was about.

"Yes, it is. Now calm down, you're making Rex nervous."

::Reader's Note
That's all for now, I'm not sure if I'd break here or not in an actual story. I think I would though.
::End Note

Posted 10:24 AM by Tim
::Reader's Note
And now we jump you to a totally different storyline.
::End Note

Scene: Dark Warehouse-type room, there are 7 people inside, all in a military uniform of some kind. Picture a setup like Aliens or Starship Troopers.

"Lieutenant! What are you doing?" screeched Jimmy, fear and paranoia evident on his face and in his words.

"I'm stripping down this pulse rifle so that it'll work when I need it to." Jimmy had been getting more and more frantic since the mission began. Lieutenant Hicks was beginning to worry that he might snap.

"What good will that do us? We need to get out of here." He was begining to irritate her. "One more pulse rifle won't do squat against them. We're outnumbered you know. There's what? A thousand of them to just us seven? And Ken isn't doing so good..."

She cut him off, "...and we need all the weapons we can get if we're going to hold out until the rescue ship shows up. Why don't you check the supplies over there for something useful."

"Useful!" He was shouting now, "What on earth could possibly be useful?"

She stood quickly and looked him straight in the face, her glare cold and hard. "That's why I want you to go look."

::Reader's Note
That was just a short scene that played out in my head. I thought that I'd write it.

Now for something else.
::End Note

The archway filled with a blinding light, which pulsed and swirled. Scott began walking towards it. "Stop right there Scott! I can't let you do this!"

Scott stopped and turned. Dave was in the doorway, pointing a pistol at him. "Do what?" Scott asked cooly.

"Time travel. I know all about it. It's wrong. It's unnatural. I won't let you do it."

"I don't think you have a choice in the matter."

"What do you mean?" Dave advanced further into the room. The light from the archway playing across his face.

"I mean, Dave, that it's inevitable. It's already happened."

"No it hasn't, it won't happen until you step into that portal." Scott gave him a condescending smile. He'd always hated when he did that.

"No Dave. That's not true. See, I'm not the Scott of this time. I'm Scott from the future. I'm not going to the future, I'm returning there."

Dave stopped. "No. That's not true. You're trying to trick me! Move away from the machine! Now!" Dave's fingers tightened on the pistol. He didn't want to shoot his friend, but he would if he had to.

"Really, Dave. I'm from the future. I've already time traveled. It will happen again. It must happen again. There is nothing you can do to change that."

"No, that's not true, not if I kill you now. Not if I stop you!"

"Tell me Dave, have you ever heard of 'Reverse Temporal Engineering'? When I return to my time, I'll simply head back in time and set things up so that I have the advantage here." Dave's face twisted between confusion, anger and fear.

"That'll only work if you really are from the future, Scott. I don't think you are!" Dave pulled the trigger, shooting Scott in the chest. Scott's body fell limp to the floor.

Dave walked over to the power control for the archway. "I wouldn't do that - Dave." Scott was standing up, brushing himself off. "H-how? How did you do that?" stammered Dave, dropping the pistol.

"Reverse Temporal Engineering, Dave. Like I said, when I return to the future, I'll come back to the past again and arrange things in my favour. It was hard giving you blanks, but it was definately worth the effort." Dave sunk to the floor, head in his hands. "Don't take it so hard, Dave. You never had a chance."

Scott turned and walked into the archway, swollowed up by the light inside.

::Reader's Note
Gwah. Writing mood today, ya? As you can see, I'm heavily dialogue driven for these little scenes. I've got to work on expression, pacing and descriptive language... all that will come in time though, eh?

Last bit, something related to yesterday's storyline.
::End Note

PROLOGUE (well, sort of)

Man has always strived for dominance over each other. This has driven him to fight, to make war and to develop more and more sophisticated weapons. Man soon found a way to develop weapons so powerful that none would survive their use. Sense and reason prevailed and these weapons were discarded and destroyed.

In the uneasy peace that followed, countries warily avoided wars as each side was heavily stockpiled and it was clear that there would be no winner, still, the drive for dominion lived on.

History has erased the reasons for the Cataclysm, and anyone who knows the events leading up to the great destruction are not telling. Perhaps to save the world from seeing another. The aftermath of the Cataclysm is destruction. Great cities are gone, countries burned and blasted into oblivion. A death toll in the billions. So great was the destruction that vast areas of once fertile land are now nothing more than desert.

Still, humanity lives on somehow. Survivors live amongst the sands of the deserts, and on the new coastlines formed when the polar ice caps melted. Yet still, the drive for dominance continues.

::Reader's Note
That's all for today!
::End Note

Posted 4:09 PM by Tim
"It was a dark and stormy night..."

Well, this is the first post for Storylines. I'm jumping in here to see how deep the water is. This is basically just a blog to let me try to write something every day (or every few days, whatever this devolves into). The basic idea is to just write something, anything, and see what comes up. I tend to think of a lot of plotlines in my head, and build on them over time. The trouble is that I rarely get anything onto paper (or in files), and this means that either it gets lost (I forget) or just never goes anywhere.

I'm not claiming to be a good writer. I know that I can write though. I know that I've got a bit of talent here that should maybe be used. I can't guarantee what I'll write here, and I can't guarantee what you'll see on it. All I can guarantee is that I'm going to try to put something here. I don't mind comments, so send them here.

Let's get started with the first post then.


::Reader's Note
Until I think of something better, I'll probably put little notes to the reader in these kind of blocks. I'm not sure what I'll say in here, but they're bound to be pretty commonplace.

The first note is a bit of a warning: If you don't understand what's going on, don't worry, I'm jumping you in to the middle of a story here.
::End Note

"Say John, ever hear of something called 'Galactus'?" asked Dirk.

"Gala-what?"

"Galactus. Ever hear of it?"

"No," said John, "can't say that I have."

"It's supposed to be some kind of orbital station."

"Shit. Really?" said John, visibly surprised. "I thought all those were lost to the 'clysm"

"That's what everyone thought. I heard about it while on the DelGado. The Greez apparently get some kind of signal from it though."

"You're joking, right? There's no way the Greez have space travel. That would put them years ahead of us."

"Not space travel - nothing like that. Nobody has that, now. The launch windows are too small. Too much debis in the upper atomosphere or something." Dirk waved his hands absently at the sky. "Galactus is some kind of station or satellite from pre-clysm."

"Damn. That's crazy. Some sort of automated system, or manned?"

"Still manned apparently, but..."

"Can't be manned," interrupted John, "the operator would have run out of supplies by now."

Dirk hated to be interrupted, and John was the kind of person who just didn't notice if he did interrupt. "Listen!" said Dirk. "The Greez think it's manned. Some of their people get communications from it now and then. The Zero in DelGado has apparently been trying to incorporate it into the Loop for some time now. They even buit a big-ass dish on the top of the ship to get better signal reception."

"Really?" John seemed shocked. "I thought that the interference was too much for radio signals to get through."

"Yeah, but they're using some kind of low power microwave transmission. The Greez use something similar for connecting the Loop between ships. I figure they must have stumbled across it by accident."

John shook his head. "That's crazy, man. Crazy."

::Reader's Note
I suppose that I should explain some of the terms used, eh? It seems like gibberish in some places. Let's start with the order term's were presented.

'clysm - this refers to the cataclysm. Some event in the past destroyed the world governments and ruined the ecosystem. There's lots of bad stuff from this. The USA (where the story is based) is broken down into factions. The larger factions being the Greez and the Alliance.

the DelGado - a Greez ship.

Greez - a group of humans who are considered enemies by the Alliance. They use large, hovering city ships to travel around.

pre-clysm - any time before the cataclysm.

Zero - a Greez leader. Commander of a city ship and central hub in the Loop.

the Loop - basically a hive mind. The Greez use neural implants to connect each member of a ship to each other. This makes communication on-ship fast and efficient. Communication in the Loop is broken into levels with 0 being the highest level (and often restricted to Zeros). Each ship consists of a sub-Loop of all ship members, and the entire Greez society is connected into what is called the complete Loop.

Now that you have that info, you might wanna try reading it again, it'll make more sense.
::End Note