Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ Crimson ❯ Burned ( Prologue )
[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]
By: Esperati Nero 
The moor
Miscellaneous: Original Stories Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Supernatural / Sci-fi / Action | Type: Other | Uploaded On: 10.24.2006 | Updated On: 10.24.2006 | Pages: 1 | Words: 1.6K | Visits: 117 | Status: Completed
The moor
Miscellaneous: Original Stories Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Supernatural / Sci-fi / Action | Type: Other | Uploaded On: 10.24.2006 | Updated On: 10.24.2006 | Pages: 1 | Words: 1.6K | Visits: 117 | Status: Completed
The world cries for change.
Its inhabitants wail against it.
Imagine how loud this planet is with a massive bawling contest like this.
Surprising enough, it's nice and quiet here, just me, my sketchbook, a log and the vast gray moor. There might be the occasional passing groundhog or prarie dog, or a sparrow or hawk. The butterflies are silent, but I say hello to them all the same. They make up for the missing flowers in a desolate grassland. I had to personally haul the log here to get a place to sit. There isn't a stone or a tree, not even a shrub within view on this ocean of grass. The sky is perpetually gray... that's alright, I don't mind it. In fact, I like it overcast. The air is always cool and crisp here. There's a little dirt path through this golden prarie, and it leads down into a valley a mile away where there's a little lake, a half-thousand-year-old oak tree and a house that looked just as old. My little cottage is all broken down... I'll have to get to fixing it up soon if I plan on becoming a permanent resident.
I live in the city... you know, those big places made of metal and concrete layered on top of each other? I have to go underground, get on an elevator, walk through about twenty metal corridors, climb up a wall, cross one of the six hundred sky bridges in that place and take another elevator to the second tier of the city before I'm even near the living district. Most people have to do something similar that takes up anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour. Then they have to push past random crowds and try to make it to their houses in time for dinner. I have special priveliges.
You see, I don't live on the second tier of this concrete-metallic complex. I don't live on any of the tiers. In fact, I am proud to say that my residency is located below the floor tier in the sub-zero echelon. In other words, human traffic is reduced by 99%. It's just about deserted in the secret service. One of the reasons is since almost nobody even knows the sub-zero echelon exists, although a few more people believe in a secret service. It's just a gigantic metal box that stretches out beneath the entire city. We have our plants and machines to generate oxygen. We have ancient computers all over the place, courtesy of the Co-director of political terminals who collects them. Our entire level is just a massive building with offices and gyms and living places... and other things I really shouldn't be talking about. I like this place, it's nice and quiet. If you've noticed, I like quiet places to think things over.
The Secret Service, or SS as we call ourselves, is this big, underground system of... well... freaks. All of us down here are either real freaks or freaks of nature, or both. Okay, so I should use the technical term and call us 'gifted'. That's an extra syllable, I don't want to bother with it. We're here to pull the strings on the government and make sure that human policies don't get out of hand enough to blow this place up. We're not the only SS complex. Sub-zero is only the Central branch's sector 7, of the States. There's Ebony, the south-east branch's sector 15 run by purely african americans. They've got some really good flora restoration mapouts. Our HQ is about 90 miles away, called Vitality. Underneath London, in the British Isles, there's a very powerful SS headquarter called Virtue. Then there's more of them scattered all over the place. Sometimes I wonder why we can't just freaking take over the world with this much man power. Then again... there's only about 40 to 100 people in each sector... so maybe that won't work. Just a random note, a japanese sector near Mt. Fuji is called Reika... I think thats like sub-zero. Is that a coincidence?
Recently, I've been assigned a tier 2 residency along with four of my co-workers. Our job was getting harder and harder, as the apocalypse grows closer. In fact, Geb made a very nice line graph of our monthly successes percentages and the amount of condensed 'chaotic' energy they can monitor with that contraption Geb calls the caolmeter. We just call it the cowmeter, but he insists it being the kay-ALL-me-tor. I wonder what cows were... I think I read that they were some sort of quadrapedial horned herbivore. Must've gone extinct a few centuries ago. Maybe they're like goats? Deer? Not quite sure.
Back to that bit about the house. It's got 2 bedrooms, one living room, two bathrooms, a kitchen and a basement. In other words, it's pretty darn small. The basement isn't even finished. Then again, it does serve the purpose as a residency. Sleep, eat and hygenical tasks are probably all that will happen in that place. Hopefully, nothing else will happen there, especially not between a civilian and one of us. You get the drift. And if you don't get it, that's good. You don't need to know. The fact that the house was small was one reason that I elected to take a temporary alternate task. Oh great, more explainations...
There are five general positions you can have in the SS. There's the Techs, like Gerbil, I mean Geb. They sort out info and do all the rocket science stuff. There's the Meds, doctors and all that. Quills do all the paper work and archiving, and they're walking dictionaries. They also work out negotiations. Darts undertake all the wierd tasks from detonation and assassination to cryptology and espionage. I'm a Dart, we're the versatile unit of the sub-zero, so we're good substitutes for any of the others. Then there's the Bosses who supervise everything. Most Bosses are usually either adept in one of the four other positions or a former Dart who improved a lot in a single field and that field alone.
Most of us were hand selected by the bosses when we were still in junior high. Some of us were selected in high school and very few people are taken from primary education. I didn't get picked until I was in 10th grade, so I was a pretty late bloomer. One of the reasons Geb got his nickname of Gerbil was because he was a fifth-grader when he was chosen. He was a midget that looked very much like a Gerbil. I always wondered why he never came back to school. We all thought he was bumped up, like... six grade levels or something, for being so ridiculously smart. When we get picked, we get a choice to either enter basic training and determine what position we will take, or take a pill that'll wipe out the short memory data bank and destroy all recollection of anything that happened that day, as well as any cramming we did the night before... like that history test which I never took.
Average training ranges from one year, if you're a miracle prodigy, to four years, if you're a slow person. It took me a year and a half... so I can say I'm 66% prodigial. They chose me to be a Dart, which after giving me all the graces of ceaseless physical testing and mental harrassment, blessed me with the ability to sleep two hours a day and not collapse from exhaustion. That also stinted my alreay late development, unfortunately, and made me the pancake-flat 17-year-old that I am today. Whoot with a double-zero and sarcasm syrup... eh, nevermind. It's an inside joke. Eh... where was I before I started explaining jobs and everything? Hmm...
Right, the temporary job change! I've been sent to keep this cottage in the middle of nowhere as an emergency restoration and restock center. And if more than two Darts or three and more of the other positions come in injured, I make sure I leave them with an able Med and supplies before I sub in. It's a really wierd system, I don't get it either, but the bosses say it's okay, so it's okay. But there's been a little problem about this plan.
You know how I said that my cottage needs some fixing up? A traitor seems to have leaked the SS to government officials and someone bombed the house. It's going to need a lot of fixing up... A stealth chopper should be here to pick me right around... now. Oh good, I see it. I think they see me. No! Damnit, I'm down HERE! do I look like an old oak tree? A ha, Now they see me. Took them a while. Just a small note about the stealth chopper. It's a popular transportation unit for rescue teams. The sub-zero models are all wh- 00T-'insert prototype number'. This one's a wh- 00T-4. It looks like wh00t-4. That's where the 'whoot' with double-zeros came from.
Good-bye, little burnt house and old oak tree. Good-bye to the grassland and the valley, and the butterflies. I hope I can come back one day and just enjoy all this without having to be on duty 24/7/365.25. As for now, we need to figure out what bunch of son of bitches crashed in on the supply storage. Into the chopper... Oh great, ol' Axe-head is here. I am definitely in sooo much trouble.
Its inhabitants wail against it.
Imagine how loud this planet is with a massive bawling contest like this.
Surprising enough, it's nice and quiet here, just me, my sketchbook, a log and the vast gray moor. There might be the occasional passing groundhog or prarie dog, or a sparrow or hawk. The butterflies are silent, but I say hello to them all the same. They make up for the missing flowers in a desolate grassland. I had to personally haul the log here to get a place to sit. There isn't a stone or a tree, not even a shrub within view on this ocean of grass. The sky is perpetually gray... that's alright, I don't mind it. In fact, I like it overcast. The air is always cool and crisp here. There's a little dirt path through this golden prarie, and it leads down into a valley a mile away where there's a little lake, a half-thousand-year-old oak tree and a house that looked just as old. My little cottage is all broken down... I'll have to get to fixing it up soon if I plan on becoming a permanent resident.
I live in the city... you know, those big places made of metal and concrete layered on top of each other? I have to go underground, get on an elevator, walk through about twenty metal corridors, climb up a wall, cross one of the six hundred sky bridges in that place and take another elevator to the second tier of the city before I'm even near the living district. Most people have to do something similar that takes up anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour. Then they have to push past random crowds and try to make it to their houses in time for dinner. I have special priveliges.
You see, I don't live on the second tier of this concrete-metallic complex. I don't live on any of the tiers. In fact, I am proud to say that my residency is located below the floor tier in the sub-zero echelon. In other words, human traffic is reduced by 99%. It's just about deserted in the secret service. One of the reasons is since almost nobody even knows the sub-zero echelon exists, although a few more people believe in a secret service. It's just a gigantic metal box that stretches out beneath the entire city. We have our plants and machines to generate oxygen. We have ancient computers all over the place, courtesy of the Co-director of political terminals who collects them. Our entire level is just a massive building with offices and gyms and living places... and other things I really shouldn't be talking about. I like this place, it's nice and quiet. If you've noticed, I like quiet places to think things over.
The Secret Service, or SS as we call ourselves, is this big, underground system of... well... freaks. All of us down here are either real freaks or freaks of nature, or both. Okay, so I should use the technical term and call us 'gifted'. That's an extra syllable, I don't want to bother with it. We're here to pull the strings on the government and make sure that human policies don't get out of hand enough to blow this place up. We're not the only SS complex. Sub-zero is only the Central branch's sector 7, of the States. There's Ebony, the south-east branch's sector 15 run by purely african americans. They've got some really good flora restoration mapouts. Our HQ is about 90 miles away, called Vitality. Underneath London, in the British Isles, there's a very powerful SS headquarter called Virtue. Then there's more of them scattered all over the place. Sometimes I wonder why we can't just freaking take over the world with this much man power. Then again... there's only about 40 to 100 people in each sector... so maybe that won't work. Just a random note, a japanese sector near Mt. Fuji is called Reika... I think thats like sub-zero. Is that a coincidence?
Recently, I've been assigned a tier 2 residency along with four of my co-workers. Our job was getting harder and harder, as the apocalypse grows closer. In fact, Geb made a very nice line graph of our monthly successes percentages and the amount of condensed 'chaotic' energy they can monitor with that contraption Geb calls the caolmeter. We just call it the cowmeter, but he insists it being the kay-ALL-me-tor. I wonder what cows were... I think I read that they were some sort of quadrapedial horned herbivore. Must've gone extinct a few centuries ago. Maybe they're like goats? Deer? Not quite sure.
Back to that bit about the house. It's got 2 bedrooms, one living room, two bathrooms, a kitchen and a basement. In other words, it's pretty darn small. The basement isn't even finished. Then again, it does serve the purpose as a residency. Sleep, eat and hygenical tasks are probably all that will happen in that place. Hopefully, nothing else will happen there, especially not between a civilian and one of us. You get the drift. And if you don't get it, that's good. You don't need to know. The fact that the house was small was one reason that I elected to take a temporary alternate task. Oh great, more explainations...
There are five general positions you can have in the SS. There's the Techs, like Gerbil, I mean Geb. They sort out info and do all the rocket science stuff. There's the Meds, doctors and all that. Quills do all the paper work and archiving, and they're walking dictionaries. They also work out negotiations. Darts undertake all the wierd tasks from detonation and assassination to cryptology and espionage. I'm a Dart, we're the versatile unit of the sub-zero, so we're good substitutes for any of the others. Then there's the Bosses who supervise everything. Most Bosses are usually either adept in one of the four other positions or a former Dart who improved a lot in a single field and that field alone.
Most of us were hand selected by the bosses when we were still in junior high. Some of us were selected in high school and very few people are taken from primary education. I didn't get picked until I was in 10th grade, so I was a pretty late bloomer. One of the reasons Geb got his nickname of Gerbil was because he was a fifth-grader when he was chosen. He was a midget that looked very much like a Gerbil. I always wondered why he never came back to school. We all thought he was bumped up, like... six grade levels or something, for being so ridiculously smart. When we get picked, we get a choice to either enter basic training and determine what position we will take, or take a pill that'll wipe out the short memory data bank and destroy all recollection of anything that happened that day, as well as any cramming we did the night before... like that history test which I never took.
Average training ranges from one year, if you're a miracle prodigy, to four years, if you're a slow person. It took me a year and a half... so I can say I'm 66% prodigial. They chose me to be a Dart, which after giving me all the graces of ceaseless physical testing and mental harrassment, blessed me with the ability to sleep two hours a day and not collapse from exhaustion. That also stinted my alreay late development, unfortunately, and made me the pancake-flat 17-year-old that I am today. Whoot with a double-zero and sarcasm syrup... eh, nevermind. It's an inside joke. Eh... where was I before I started explaining jobs and everything? Hmm...
Right, the temporary job change! I've been sent to keep this cottage in the middle of nowhere as an emergency restoration and restock center. And if more than two Darts or three and more of the other positions come in injured, I make sure I leave them with an able Med and supplies before I sub in. It's a really wierd system, I don't get it either, but the bosses say it's okay, so it's okay. But there's been a little problem about this plan.
You know how I said that my cottage needs some fixing up? A traitor seems to have leaked the SS to government officials and someone bombed the house. It's going to need a lot of fixing up... A stealth chopper should be here to pick me right around... now. Oh good, I see it. I think they see me. No! Damnit, I'm down HERE! do I look like an old oak tree? A ha, Now they see me. Took them a while. Just a small note about the stealth chopper. It's a popular transportation unit for rescue teams. The sub-zero models are all wh- 00T-'insert prototype number'. This one's a wh- 00T-4. It looks like wh00t-4. That's where the 'whoot' with double-zeros came from.
Good-bye, little burnt house and old oak tree. Good-bye to the grassland and the valley, and the butterflies. I hope I can come back one day and just enjoy all this without having to be on duty 24/7/365.25. As for now, we need to figure out what bunch of son of bitches crashed in on the supply storage. Into the chopper... Oh great, ol' Axe-head is here. I am definitely in sooo much trouble.