ADSactly Sci-Fi : Outer Earth Series 'The One Eyed Man (Part 5)'
Hello Steemians. For those just catching up now... Are you just like me, hopelessly addicted to Sci-Fi stories and the many wonderful series shows available on Netflix?
Have you ever seen shows like Firefly, The Expanse, Dark Matter, Killjoys, Star Trek Discovery and the rest?
Well, we've got more in common than ever! I've only briefly played around in this genre and by no means can I consider myself a master sci-fi creative writer but at this point I feel like I have a pretty firm grasp of the fundamentals required to create a real sci fi experience. An immersion into another world. With deep characters, comedy and action sequences I will take my readers to another world.
Without further delay, I bring you the fourth chapter in a new sci-fi short story I've been working on. I'm still working out final details in the storyline but still have time to add in new elements, situations and characters... Any ideas you have will be greatly appreciated in the comments section below!
If you are just now tuning in, I recommend stopping right here and reading parts one, two and three of the story before continuing on:
https://steemit.com/science/@adsactly/adsactly-sci-fi-outer-earth-series-the-one-eyed-man-part-1
https://steemit.com/fiction/@adsactly/adsactly-sci-fi-outer-earth-series-the-one-eyed-man-part-2
https://steemit.com/fiction/@adsactly/adsactly-sci-fi-outer-earth-series-the-one-eyed-man-part-3
https://steemit.com/science/@adsactly/adsactly-sci-fi-outer-earth-series-the-one-eyed-man-part-4
Now I give you 'The One Eyed Man (Part 5)'
Outer Earth Series – The One Eyed Man (Part 5)
Albright found himself standing in Mork’s little cyber cave. There had to be at least 50 holoprojectors in the room and it was information overload as he gazed at the various displays. Most of the information projected appeared to be data streams, various charts and real time statistics monitoring.
Playbacks of recent terrorist attack news segments and resource allocations for a handful of different colonies. It was too much.
‘Hey asshole. I was wondering when you’d be showing up…’ Mork just sat there like a king leaning back on a large brown leather sofa with his arms outstretched around a couple of very attractive sexbots sitting to either side of him.
Albright grinned and scratched his head for a moment. ‘Mork, you sneaky devil, what in god’s name have you been up to here? Plotting a system wide takeover eh?’
Mork waved his hand and flicked his fingers, the overwhelming number of projections went blank. He gazed intently at Albright. ‘You’re in deep shit now mate, you’ll be eating your balls and scrotum by dinner time from the looks of it’ Mork beamed in amusement.
Albright wasn’t surprised. Mork always seemed to be four or five steps ahead of the next guy. He was a genius, a savant, the only guy Albright knew that could even give him even the slightest fighting chance to survive what was in store for him.
‘I need your help Mork. If I don’t track down this dirtbag with the gear and deliver him to Syntec, well, I guess I’ll just off myself…’ Albright was visibly shaken. He knew Mork was quite a dickhead but hoped the guy would take pity on him and help him out, give him a clue, put him in a position where he had even the slightest fighting chance.
After all, he had saved Mork’s ass before several times, the most recent being when he offed a few of the local mafia goons that were giving him a hard time. Extortion was timeless racket, it never got old.
‘Alright man, I’ll help you out but this is it mate, from this point forward you don’t know me. And if this shit comes back to haunt me, I’ll rip your balls off myself and feed em’ to Rex.’
A look of relief came across Albright and the tension sort of melted off his body.
Albright didn’t know it yet but Mork had outdone himself this time.
After running a custom AI hunter algorithm cross-referencing the corpnet, darkweb and vpn syndicate networks for a few hours it hit the jackpot identifying the mac address of Derek’s neural implant.
Mork was able to push a trojan packet infiltrating the computer core of the device and enabling a surveillance function that allowed him to see what Derek saw.
After allowing another AI algo to examine the video footage and run it through various databases it was determined that Derek was holed up somewhere on another outer colony called Tremaine only a few lightyears away.
Proving the point that the universe wasn’t all bad and even the sun shines on a bucktooth spiky backed colony dog’s ass sometimes.
Albright was already quite certain of the fact that Mork must have hacked his own neural implant based on the fact that he knew what was going on before Albright had uttered a single word about the whole thing.
“So where do we start?” Albright stared intently at Mork. “Well, the universe is full of assholes and you know me well enough by now to know that I’m one of em. Give me half those credits little miss hot pants gave to you and I’ll tell you what you need to know.”
Albright sighed. What was the saying? There’s no such thing as a free lunch…
“Mork, you greedy little bugger. What ever happened to doing your mate a solid just for the flerkin sake of it?”
Mork grinned. “You know the greatest thing about being best friends?”
“No, what?”
“They don’t exist and if you think we’re friends you’re a bigger cunt than I ever thought you were, now do you want the intel or not, jackass?”
Albright figured he had about twice as many credits as he’d need to pull this job off but if he gave Mork half of them he’d probably be on the short end when everything was said and done.
“Dammit Mork, my life is on the line here, my back is against the wall and my balls are in a vice grip. I’ve got a better chance of impregnating a Zahari princess than getting out of this bullocks alive. I’ll give you a third of my stack and not a credit more, now do we have a deal or not?”
Mork paused for a second mulling over Albright’s offer. He could tell him to flerk off and leave him hanging in the wind or do him a solid and relieve those heavy bags that were sitting on his blockchain wallets.
Well, for old times’ sake, why not just play nice and give the old bugger a fighting chance at getting out of this clusterflerk of a situation.
“Ok, jackass, you’ve got yourself a deal.” Mork pinched his fingers together and made a few hand motions towards the sensors. Albright’s neural implant projected new pending transactions onto his iris notifying him of his updated blockchain wallet balances.
Funny to think that Mork had access to his accounts all along and that all this negotiating was almost pointless, Mork could have fleeced him at any moment and there wasn’t a damn thing Albright could do about it. I guess he wasn’t really that bad, the little twerp seemed to have some sort of honor amongst thieves, maybe he had a bit of a soft spot for Albright after all.
“I’d say good luck to you but your pretty much a dead man walking by the way I figure it. I’ve got shit to do and you’re clock’s running out of ticks mate, better get a move on it. I’ll have the droids show you out.”
Albright’s neural implant notified him of an incoming data packet transmission. From a quick index search there were photographs, video surveillance and a list of GPS coordinates scattered about a colony called Tremaine.
“Alright. See you when I see you asshole.”
Mork had already tuned out and was already deeply engaged in solving some sort of logarithmic equation. One of the security droids grabbed Albright by the arm and escorted him out the building.
Final Thoughts
The main character has navigated himself one step closer to completing his mission. This was my first attempt at some witty and lengthy dialogue in the story.
I hope I've got readers to relate to the characters so far. I've got more work to do in that regard and that will be made obvious in the next chapter. I've really enjoyed writing this story and it seems that the further I progress the easier it becomes. Writing is like anything else I suppose, the more we practice the better it becomes and the easier it is for us to express ourselves.
I'd very much like to know your thoughts this story so far and what about it you may have liked or didn't like. Thanks so much for reading!
Authored by: Zentalk
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Thank you!
As a writer and reader of narrative texts, I must say that one of the most difficult things to do when it comes to narrating is precisely a dialogue. You've done very well. The language used, the tone, the silences are in tune with the moment. They don't feel forced or implausible. The descriptions are relevant and credible. A story that becomes more interesting every day. Thank you for sharing, @zentalk.
Thank you Nancy. I found this chapter to be quite challenging and really stretched my boundaries in terms of expanding into a fictional character based scenario. Like you said, the hard part is making the conversation seem natural. I'll have to admit that the line is quite blurred between method acting and writing. I actually need to put myself into the shoes of the character to make it feel real. Who knows, maybe in another universe or a different dimension these things have actually happened?
I think you solve Albright's encounter with Mork quite well, which was predicted to be very tense and difficult. The dialogue is well developed, with a procaz language typical of these vulgar and rude characters, violent and sharp. Although I'm not familiar with the sophisticated world of technology, I sense that you present it with verisimilitude. Finally, the story progresses in an interesting way. Watch out for its continuation, which now has the challenge with Derek. Thank you, @zentalk.
Absolutely, I tried to really build the tension before the meetup. Beyond that the conversation itself was intended to build up even more tension until it got to a final tipping point and eased off. The technological aspects are sort of based on things I know about future tech from writing about it in articles but even more of it is just coming from my wildest imagination of what things could be like. That's what I've found most enjoyable about writing this story. The sandbox is very expansive. The mind is the best builder of all and thats why books can be so much more enjoyable than movies because the production budgets of our imagination are essentially unlimited, we are capable of so much creativity!
Hi, @adsactly!
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