Well, for your reading pleasure, I give you a section of my novel that I was writing for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writers Month)! 2,000 of 12,000 words!
The
room had been as dark as any cloudy night where the clouds hid the moon from
the Earth. The world seemed as black as the cold depths of a cave or the cold
heights of space, but this hardly meant much to people who rarely saw the
light. Not many existed, but those who were comfortable with the dark had made
it their shroud, their cloak, their protective garment against the horrors of
the dark prison they had come to know as life. The universe had all but
forgotten them as they shipped them off in containers, cold, alone, without
food, without contact, without a shred of clothes, dignity, or respect. The
only thing they had was a name and time. Lots of time. Janus Ara Zilana was one
of these blue eyed babes that had been tossed out into space only to be taken
among the refuse of society and placed in confinement. Her hands shot straight
up as the blinding light of some floating orb burst in through a slit in the
cargo container's door. She had arrived.
A dark
shadowy figure moved in and grabbed her wrist, pulling her naked body into a
standing position before he placed a small glowing stick against her forehead
and read off a series of numbers to an unseen audience, her body shook,
trembling with fear, excitement, anticipation, and confusion. The man then gripped
her jaw with a leathery grip and tossed her head from side to side, examining
her before tossing her towards the cold, hard steel wall of the container. Her
head connected with the steel barrier with a loud thud, sending shockwaves of
pain through her skull, addling her brain and sending confusion to the
forefront of her emotional state. The feeling of cold steel shackles were
placed about her wrists, pressing her chest out as the balls of her palm had no
place to go except to touch one another in a comforting embrace. Her lips
quivering as the man then lifted her by the neck from the wall and pushed her
towards the open end of the container.
The hot
air of this new world had thrown her into a far more worried state, her mind
sputtering out phrases as if the world could hear her every thought, where am I? Who are these men? Why am I
naked? Why can't I speak? God, am I going to die? Where's David?
David,
that was a thought she had remembered, a memory, although distant, it still
shown out like a beacon as she was lead from a small landing pad surrounded by
high chain fences in every direction that connected to a high stone wall with a
pair of double doors sitting uniformly in the center of the almost monolithic
walls. The walls seemed awkward at first, flat, yet sloping slightly, and each
brick had been painted a deep blue that seemed to calm Janus' screaming mind. Each
step closer to the building though sent a shiver up and down Janus' spine, her
long purple hair cascading down her hair doing nothing to ease the constant
spasms, But one thing she knew was that this may very well be the last time she
would feel the sun on her skin. The man pulled a small key from his belt and
pressed it into a spot on the door that looked to be just big enough for Janus'
thumb to fit, she hardly knew what she was thinking or concentrating on at this
point as her hands interlaced fingers and kept herself from screaming out.
As the
doors slowly slide open, each disappearing into the walls at their sides, a
soft hum came into Janus' head, her eyes shooting open as she looked about and
saw a small video screen hovering in front of her with a face grinning down at
her as an unseen voice erupted into her ears, "Welcome to Dark Watch, Miss
Zilana, we've been expecting you."
Janus
paused for a moment, not sure of what to say before she slowly opened her lips
and out came nothing but air, her eyes grew wider as she tried to scream,
shout, say anything, but nothing came out as the man on the screen chuckled and
shook his head.
"Miss Zilana, allow me to introduce myself, I am Warden
Goddard, and you have been deemed such a hazard to the Government that you had
your voice box removed. So, in an effort to help you with communication you
will be granted a special service, which will be made apparent to you shortly.
You see, we here at Black Watch take two things with the utmost pride, one, are
you, the prisoner. The other is honesty."
The man
cleared his throat, something within Janus frightened her when she looked at
this man, every fiber of her being told her to run, to never associate with
this person, but with her hands bound and her armed escort she had little else
to do except remain still.
"I being an honest man, enjoy putting every aspect of
my intentions in the forefront. You see, Black Watch did very poorly as a
normal colony, so poorly in fact, that the government along with my urging,
decided to turn this entire planet into a prison colony. Prisoners bring money,
more money makes me rich, and with being rich, I get to do whatever I want with
you. This means, I use you to win me the most lucrative military contracts
available."
A short
pause invaded the one-sided conversation as Warden Goddard seemed to pause for
dramatic effect, reaching up his thin, care-worn, aging face and pulling his
glasses from his nose and began to clean them with a silk cloth. His voice was
slick, like a politician's, but something more devious lay within his very
Earthly-British accent. "Now, here in Black Watch, we have only two rules.
One: Whatever a guard tells you to do is law and if you do not comply, that
will be a punishment defined by my own judgment of the situation. Two: Any
attempt at escape will result in immediate termination. Mr. Monroe will now
simplify those two rules for you."
Just as
Warden Goddard's image on the screen went silent, the rather large muscular man
who had been silent all this while suddenly spoke in a thundering, deep voice
that shook Janus' body in the narrow hallway that she was confined in.
"You
will do anything we tell you to do, if you don't, the warden decides your fate.
Run and you get a hole in your fucking head."
Janus
saw the man on the screen shudder when he heard the obscenity spouted so
freely, but quickly regained his composure before nodding to the men, "Now,
these two fine gentlemen will escort you through the admissions process. Good
day, and welcome to Black Watch, Miss Zilana."
With
that, the screen went blank for only a fraction of a second before it was
replaced by a picture of a unicorn's head surrounded by the words, "God
forgives, we do not."
The screen fluidly retreated
from just in front of Janus' face and revealed the hulking mass of robotics,
hydraulics, and circuitry that made up this robotic sentinel. Janus could
barely remember something about these machines as she noted the twin pairs of
arms extending from what could only be described as the automatron's torso. The
two arms on the bottom held heavy crushing pincers that looked as though they
could snap bone easily, while the two arms above them were each fitted with a
heavy plasma cannon. Quite the security implement Janus thought before
wondering how she even knew what plasma cannons looked like. Her hands
trembling in one another's grasp before she ushered towards the door at the far
end of the hallway. The door sliding open without much prompt from either her
or her guards, but beyond she was greeted by a red pointing laser being bored
into her skull as she came into view of a hanging auto-turret. It was a simple
defensive implement, but it had seen improvements, such as an extra set of
barrels and apparently a very sophisticated friend-or-foe identification
system.
Janus blinked as her brain went
blank once again, two instances where she knew far more than she should about a
weapon, her eyes began to water as she was lead into the stark white room and
pressed against a sterile white desk. Sitting in an office chair on the other
side of this clean desk was a rather cleanly dressed man, not unlike the
warden, but his white lab coat and immediate protest of the guard's rough
treatment of her did not soldify any clues as to where he might have been
raised or even who he was. Janus stood silently as the man stood up and
introduced himself, his voice soft and rather melodic in tone, "Greetings,
Miss Zilana, if you would please allow me, I'd like to introduce myself. My
name is Doctor Michael Hannec, I'm going to be seeing that you are well taken
care of while you are here. Now, if you will follow me, we'll start with a body
scan and basic immunizations."
Janus had no other choice as she
slowly stepped around the desk and followed the Doctor to a large tube-shaped
vessel, before the doctor could even motion her inside, Janus stepped into the
scanner and stood still as the doctor began the process. The machine beeped
loudly, signalling that she was ready to exit, her body still shaking from the
cold of the room, she could feel her body reacting her skin growing goosebumps,
her bare nipples hardening, her lips growing dry, and the only comfort she had
was the smile that Doctor Hannec flashed her as he went about his examination.
As his questions pressed her about what she remembered, and with her unable to
give any solid answer, Doctor Hannec shook his head slowly before turning back
and looking at the screen which displayed her scan. Janus nervously glanced up
at the scan then to the Doctor then back to the guards before daring herself to
shiver. The movement had gone unnoticed, which allowed Janus a bit of a
comforting notion as she sighed gently, but quickly snapped to attention,
sucking in her breath as the Doctor turned back around and placed a rather
thick leather collar about her neck.
She wanted to struggle as the
collar tightened about her throat, her hands and hips squirming against their
binds as the leather dug against her larynx, but she quickly calmed as her eyes
caught Doctor Hannec's soft blue irises. She stared into them, as though she
had seen the ocean, as though she had just been offered a beautiful jewel, and
she simply stared as the Doctor continued to fasten the collar before moving
around to unfasten the shackles at her wrist and placed two small rods in the
palms of her hands. The rods felt impossibly heavy for their size as the heft
felt much like two large stones, but each rod only about the width of her palm.
She eyed them curiously before the doctor pressed the tips of the small rods
together then pulled them apart, a cascade of light seperating from one tip to
the other and spreading out in the air like an ancient scroll of parchment
being unrolled for the first time.
"This, is a Nano-screen, it
allows you to project thought and communicate verbally with people. Simply
think what you want to say and it will appear on the screen as long as both
rods are in your hands."
As Doctor Hannec explained the basics of the Nano-screen, words began to flash across the blue-light surface.
Janus began to smile as she watched the words flow onto the screen as she
thought of them, and at that point, she only had one thought in front of the
Doctor that she wanted to communicate.
"Your
eyes are beautiful," Doctor Hannec read aloud what he saw on the
Nano-screen, grinning as he slowly shook his head and patted the top of Janus'
head before nodding to the guards, "she is all yours, ready to enter basic
population."
Hopefully you enjoyed it, because I'm going to be posting the rest of it later, just so you guys can read it! It's terrible, I hate every sentence of it, but it was a good experience!
