The Long War - Part 2

Here is the next part of the story I started last week with "Dawn Attack"
Note: there is a graphic bit of violence at the end.

Dawn Attack

     At first I thought the glitches were my mind playing tricks on me.  They were always little things.  Maybe one morning I would wake up in the bunker knowing I needed to clean my rifle but finding it clean when I checked.  I would just think I really had cleaned it the night before and forgotten.  That sort of thing could be easily chalked up to lack of sleep or stress.  I did not think much of things like that until I met Flanagan. 

Photograph

This is a slightly expanded version of something I wrote for a creative challenge on io9. 

Horace looked at the faded photograph from his childhood.  Two boys flanked an android.  The three were bound by friendship and standing together against the world.  But Jasper was dead now.   He had died back in the AI War, victim of the drone bomb attack on San Diego.  Only Horace and TED433L were still around.  And now Horace was dying.

Animal Spirit

     Gretchen had inherited the hunting cabin after her father’s death.  Her friends often asked her why she kept the place.  She only used the place a few times a year and refused to rent it out.  Gretchen would just smile and say it was her bond with her dead father.  Which was true in a way.  Her father had introduced her to the animal spirit.  The spirit was in the cabin.  Sometimes it would call for her but otherwise it did not want to be disturbed.  

In the Land of the Others

He had been walking for days across the wastelands of Ichor. He paused on the crest of a ridge and surveyed the scene in front of him. His destination was still over the horizon. The land before him was dark and crisscrossed with several streams of lava. He looked for a path that would keep him clear of the towering spires of the Others. Angry clouds filled the sky and obscured the sun, his only method of navigation.

The Master had told him to follow the sun. In the mornings his shadow pointed the way to go. In the afternoons he walked towards the setting sun. At night he found hiding places to sleep in. The Master had tried to explain star formations to him once but he did not understand. Besides, it was dangerous to travel in the open at night. That was when the Others came out.

He did not know what was in the package the Master had told him to deliver. It did not matter. He did what the Master told him to do.

There was about an hour of daylight left. He considered his choices. He could find a spot now to spend the night. There were almost certainly caves in the side of the ridge he was on. Or he could keep going and be that much closer to his destination. But it would be harder to find suitable hide spots down on the plain. He kept going. He could not abide the idea of wasting daylight.

An hour later he was following the edge of a lava stream as the sun set. He had found no good spots to spend the night and was getting desperate. He could see the light of fires in the spires. The Others would be roaming soon. The lights of a spire were ahead of him in the distance. He decided to keep going that way until he found a place to rest. He plodded forward, fear overcoming his weariness.

He heard noise behind him and spun around. There were four Others behind him. They drew swords and moved to circle him. He shifted his walking staff and assumed a fighting pose. He charged before any of them could get behind him. He struck one with a solid blow to the head and saw him crumple to the ground. But the odds were against him and he was quickly hacked to death.

The three survivors stood around their fallen opponent. One of them spoke. "What's an orc doing so far in human lands?"

"I don't know. Let's get Herric's body and get back to the spire."

The Ganesha Campaign

This is part of a larger space opera story I've been working on for a while. 

     Jezzie went over to the shelf and examined the holoprint.  It showed Liam and two other people in Alliance Army uniforms.  One of them was a young pretty woman.  The other was Logan.  From Liam’s apparent age the print was about twenty years old.  But Logan only looked a few years younger than the man she had met earlier that day.

Leyla’s Tale (Part Six)

     I had been considering a move to the United States for some time.  After World War II many Hidden Ones moved there.  The devastation of the war in Europe made it easier to fabricate identities with no paperwork.  Just about every large concentration of European immigrants in the U.S. had a few Hidden Ones in it.

     My recent encounter with Hans Glickenhoff convinced me of the need to abandon my current identity and move on.  I had a score to settle with him but Hans held all the high cards at the moment.  I would have to wait until I had the advantage to confront him.  So it seemed the right time to make the move to the New World.  

A Hunter’s Tale

I tried to write this as a standalone story about the Hunters so it’s technically not part of Leyla’s Tale.  If you’ve read the first part of Leyla’s Tale, you’ll realize what this scene is.  If not, I recommend reading part one right after reading this.

This was Gustav’s first Hunt.  He had helped on other Hunts as a driver but this was his first time as an actual Hunter.  He was nervous and excited.  The creatures were dangerous, especially when cornered in their lair. 

Leyla's Tale (Part Five)

     The next day I was escorted to a courtroom.  Two men in dark suits and a severely dressed woman with a tight bun of gray hair sat on a raised platform at one end of the room.  I was directed to a chair placed squarely in front of and facing the judges.  Armed guards flanked the door.  The witness chair was flanked by a pair of desks.  At the desk to my left sat two men.  One was a nervous looking man who looked to be in his fifties.  He was obviously the defendant.  Next to him sat a younger man with several folders on the desk in front of him.  I wondered how much effort the advocate was putting into the defense.  On my right was the prosecutor.

     I had never met Hans Glickenhoff before but I recognized him from his photographs.  He was about the same age as Baker but looked ten years younger.  He must have been feeding on many of my kind over the years to be aging that slowly.  He gave me a predatory look as I sat in the witness chair.  I felt like I was being sized up like a side of beef.  He rose and spoke in a booming voice that filled the courtroom.

The Institution Part Two

Sorry for the long break in writing.  The real world was very demanding.  Here's the continuation of my last story.  There is a fair amount of violence so you've been warned.

The Institution

Here's something I wrote yesterday based on a writing challenge.  I hope you like it.  It's a bit violent but not too graphic.  (I'm still working on the conclusion of Leyla's adventure in East Germany.)

The New World

I'm still working on Leyla's current adventure and will post the rest of the story when it's finished.  In the meantime here's something I wrote yesterday about another young girl in extraordinary circumstances.

Leyla's Tale (Part Four)

     Baker arrived promptly at noon for our rendezvous.  He wore plain brown clothes and carried a small case.  He handed me the case.  It was full of Deutsche Mark banknotes.  I took him to an empty building near the Elbe River.  The area had still not recovered from the North Sea flood back in February and was sparsely occupied. 

     “We’ll leave tonight,” I told him.  “Try to get some rest.  It will be a busy night.”

     I went to a bank and deposited the money in one of my accounts.  Baker had paid the full amount up front.  I would have been surprised if he had not but sometimes clients try to shortchange me.  He had fulfilled his end of the deal.  Now I had to uphold my end.

Leyla's Tale (Part Three)

     I stayed in Europe for several years after the war.  Many Hunters had been Nazis or Nazi sympathizers in their own countries.  They had to cover their tracks or change identities.  We Hidden Ones were not the only ones after them.  My quest took me back and form across the Iron Curtain.  I did some cross border smuggling too.  The black market paid well and I liked the challenge.  I tried to keep a low profile but it was only a matter of time before someone noticed.

Update and Musings

The real world has been taking up a lot of time recently but I'm still writing when I have the time.  The next part of Leyla's Tale is done and will be posted Thursday (to be in line with io9's Thursday Tales). 

I've also realized that even though I call it Leyla's Tale, I haven't actually used the character's name in the story.  Leyla was the name her parents gave her when she was born.  It's the name she uses with other Hidden Ones.  But in public she's used several names and different people call her different names.  At some point I need to write a background story.  In my head I know when and where she was born as well as other details like how much the Hidden Ones age compared to humans. 

Anyway, Leyla will be back Thursday in the first part of a story set in 1960s Germany.  She gets caught up in some Cold War intrigue (more John le Carré than James Bond).