Are you like me and 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 first 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!
Now I give you 'The One Eyed Man (Part 1)'
Outer Earth Series – The Man With One Eye (Part 1)
Dawn was approaching the streets were still dark, a flickering street lamp gave the street outside a slight hint of personality, it was an older model, commissioned long before the fancy levitating Maglamps that cover the streets and neighborhoods of the wealthier Triad communities.
Brrrring! Brrrring! This particular alarm drone was designed to shock and alert even its most comatose capable users into a quick wakeful state.
Oh my god. My head! That noise. That awful, terrible noise. A few more expletives ran through the man’s mind before he could muster the strength to deal with it.
Smack!
The drone was thrown off course, it’s motion sensor having been triggered would allow a sixty second pause of silence before continuing its mission unless the one eyed man could be verified as being in a wakeful state before the countdown made it to zero.
The one eyed man sat up and wiped his eyes. He tried to remember what day it was but gave up after a few seconds. Did it really even matter anyways?
The little room he stayed in wasn’t much to look at but it had running water albeit the murky kind that could really only be used after proper decontamination. Shelter was hard to come by and credits were even harder to come by on the outer colonies.
No time to waste the man rolled out of bed, threw on a dirty t-shirt and a ragged pair of jeans and lit a cigarette. The holoscreen triggered by the man’s activity activated itself and began firing off the statistics of last night’s aftermath.
Three terrorist attacks, fifty dead civilians and a hospital reduced to rubble. Pretty much just a normal evening’s events for the colony on Nokia 6.
Sure the riots were getting worse, terrorist attacks were common and general unrest was as bad as always but at least the one eyed man had a job a few credits to throw around and a spot to lay low when he needed it.
Really, what more could anyone ask for in an age where robots outnumbered humans ten to one and transdimensional multiglobal mega conglomerations dominated vast quadrants of space. Wasn’t this just the way things were meant to be?
After finishing his cigarette the one eyed man, took a dump and hopped into the shower the water rations were only good for about two minutes but it was enough to wash the previous day’s filth off his body and feel remotely normal at least for a few hours. Scars could be found all over his chest, back, midsection and legs.
Long gnarly ones that had clearly been made by handy blade work, smaller round ones appearing to be the work of laser projectile burns not to mention one larger one circling his shoulder where surgeons had appeared to have done a shoddy job at reattaching his arm.
It was cheap work, clearly not the work of the modern AI powered surgical units assigned to the fancy hospitals and flying medvehicles reserved solely for those that could afford the credits, which usually just meant the upper classes and the Triad elite.
Aside from the scars and the missing eye the one eyed man could be described as ruggedly handsome. He had think dark brown hair and an athletic build. He certainly had a reason for maintaining himself at peak performance with full six pack and a muscular frame.
Being a freelance mercenary and a hired gun was a dangerous line of work, simply put, he had to be ready for anything at all times. Bounty hunter, assassin, spy, whatever paid the bills. These were dark times and it rarely paid to discriminate when it came to a well-paying job.
But even for the one eyed man, times were bad. How did he find himself in such a terrible situation? Slumming it with only a couple thousand credits spread across a few encrypted quantum blockchain wallets. A string of bad luck, that’s how.
The last job went sour when his partner went AWOL after accidently shooting a massive hole in their bounty’s head with a high powered laser rifle. All he had to say for himself was ‘woops, sorry pal, thought the safety was on…’
If only the contract’s owner would have been more flexible and was willing to accept a corpse in lieu of living alternative. The one eyed man would have bought himself a comfy stasis pod on a transport ship heading to a central colony where he could land a real score, the type of score that would see him as captain in charge of his own little ship.
A raider, a freighter, a shuttle, all of these would be an upgrade to where he found himself now. Back against the wall, waiting and floating in the wind like a feather swept away, waiting for the next contract to come in so he could get back in the game.
To be continued…
Final Thoughts
This was a lot of fun to create. Although the world and the one eyed man has yet to be revealed in enough detail to really bring it to life, at this point it is my hope that you have some connection to him, his world, his universe and the circumstances he must face on a daily basis.
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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