Sci Fi & Fantasy / Discovery
He struggles not to lose his footing.
The man stretches out a hand, grabs hold of a long steel bar sticking out of the wreckage and hauls himself up onto steadier ground. The bar was once buried deep within thick concrete walls, reinforcing them, holding them up.
Now it is just a convenient handhold for a stubborn old man. He should have let someone else do this. Someone younger. Someone fitter. He should be sat in the back of one of their air-conditioned trailers, watching via the suit’s head-mounted camera.
“Are you okay, Professor Steadman?” a voice crackles, heavy with the static of interference.
“Yes, I’m okay, Ralph” he replies.
“Your heart-rate is over one-hundred-and-twenty beats per minute, Professor. Are you sure you’re okay to continue?”
Damn sensors.
“There’s no need to nag, Ralph,” Professor Steadman snaps and then regrets it.
“Sorry, Professor,” Ralph says.
“It’s okay, Ralph. Tell you what—I’ll wait here a minute, catch my breath, okay?”
“Okay, Professor.”
“How’s my exposure time?”
There is a pause while Ralph checks. ”Jenny thinks you’re good for another two hours or so,” he says. “But then you should be heading back in.”
“Okay, thanks Ralph.”
The suit is heavy, cumbersome. It has multiple layers of cotton, specially treated plastics and even a lead-lining, all woven together.
He and his team have fitted the suit with air filters, a temperature control unit, a complex suite of sensors and computer systems to control them all. There’s even a small set of anti-gravity field effectors that compensate for some of the weight.
Professor Steadman considers increasing the support provided by the effectors. It would make the going easier for him, but they would drain the suit’s batteries even faster and he still has a long way to go.
No matter how clever they made the suit at power management, battery-life would always be limited.
Though not as limited as his life would become outside of the suit. Professor Steadman looks at the glove holding the rebar. The bright yellow material is coated in the fine, grey dust.
He looks around. Huge broken lumps of concrete, with more of the twisted rebar’s sticking from them are the devastated remains of buildings. Here and there doors and broken pipes poke out of the rubble at strange angles.
Everything around him is a uniform grey, covered in the lethal dust.
“Ralph, you there?” Professor Steadman asks.
“Yes, Professor.”
“Could you display the map for me?”
“Sure, no problem.”
Bright green lines paint the inside of the small glass window that is Professor Steadman’s view of the world.
The lines draw a map of the air force base. Or rather, they show the base before it was levelled by a seismic bomb.
Professor Steadman turns to the East, towards the gash in the desert where the base’s nuclear power station used to be. One of its cooling towers is still standing, the only recognisable landmark for miles. Steam is still drifting from it.
The map displayed in front of him rotates, matching his movements.
“Ralph, please zoom in on my current location and overlay the drone fly-past readings.”
Coloured bands appear on the map, indicating the intensity of the radiation. He can also now see his own GPS signal, marked with a small green dot.
The object he is seeking is a bright red dot. It is time for him to get moving again.
#
It must be right here. He checks the map—the green and red dots are on top of each other.
Professor Steadman reaches down to his side and un-clips a small terminal from the suit’s thick belt. The terminal is about six inches long with a glass display panel and six large buttons designed for use with the suit’s thick gloves.
He presses some of the buttons and messages flash up on the display. A few adjustments and the display changes to show arrows with numbers next to them. The first gives the direction and distance to the object, the second its depth.
The image on the display is pulsing rhythmically as it sends out signals that the object then echoes back.
“Is the detector working properly?”
“Yes,” Professor Steadman replies. ”We’re in good shape.”
“So you’re there?” Ralph asks.
“Nearly. According to the detector it’s about three meters to my West.”
Professor Steadman looks over at the rubble where the arrow is pointing. ”There’s a bit of a problem, though.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s also five meters down, according to this.”
“Oh.”
Professor Steadman presses some of the buttons on the terminal. ”I’ll walk around, take some more readings; see if I can’t triangulate its exact position. If you send one of the drones it can dig down.”
There is a short pause.
“Professor?” Ralph says.
“Yes?”
“Jenny and I have been looking at the numbers.”
He didn’t like the sound of that. ”And?”
“The radiation where you are is quite high.”
“So?”
“Your exposure time is getting to be a problem. We think you should come back.”
“Your advice is noted, Ralph. Please send the drone.”
“But Professor, it’s getting dangerous.”
“This whole mission is dangerous, Ralph. We’re so close now. Just send the drone.”
There is no reply.
“Look, Ralph,” Professor Steadman continues. ”The sooner we find what we’re looking for, the sooner we can all get out of here.”
There is another short silence and then Ralph says, “It’s on its way, Professor.”
#
The drone takes no more than ten minutes to arrive. It is a compact model—small, but powerful.
It lands close to him. Professor Steadman detaches a module from his terminal and slides it into a slot on the side of the drone. He steps back a few paces.
The drone does nothing for a moment, then lights flash and its anti-gravity field-effectors lift it from the unstable ground. It hovers into position.
Manipulator arms extend from the Drone’s body. It reaches down and grasps a rebar.
Using its fields, the drone neutralises the rebar’s weight and lifts it up and away in a single clean jerk, as if the huge iron bar and the lump of concrete it is attached to were made of polystyrene. The drone slips sideways about five metres and dumps the rubble, which crashes onto down with the full effects of gravity. Clouds of the radioactive dust are thrown up.
#
“Can you see it?”
Professor Steadman leans over and looks down into the deep hole the drone has excavated. It has taken a little over an hour for it to dig down—longer than he had hoped. He is far past his maximum safe exposure time, but right now he doesn’t care.
It is growing dark. The desert sun sets quickly and he has been forced to turn the suit’s torches on. A small red warning light is blinking in the corner of his vision—when the batteries run out he’ll be left breathing unfiltered air and that really will be the end of him.
So where is it? The bright white light from the torches throw hard shadows. Details are difficult to make out.
“No… I… Wait, there it is!”
The object is about the size of a watermelon. Its surface is smooth but for a series of ridges. A long tail extends from the back. Bundles of severed wires are poking from the tail, but it otherwise appears intact.
“You can see it?” Ralph asks.
A small smile crosses Professor Steadman’s lips. ”Yes,” he says. ”Wait a minute.”
Professor Steadman switches his suit’s speakers on and turns to the drone.
“Drone,” he says, pointing at the object. ”Extract that.”
He is surprised by the sound of his own voice—it is distorted, metallic through the speakers. He wonders if the drone will have trouble recognising him, but after a moment it responds. The drone lifts off and glides over and down into the hole.
Professor Steadman is distracted by a beeping noise. Less than one percent battery life left. Damn. He turns off the suit’s temperature control unit; that should buy him a few more minutes, though things will also become very uncomfortable.
“Professor, what did you just—”
Professor Steadman shuts off the communicator, cutting Ralph off.
The drone uses its manipulator arms to gently lift the small object and carry it up to him. Professor Steadman takes it. He examines it more closely, looking for any small dents, cracks, anything that might indicate a loss of integrity. He wipes the objects surface with his gloves—it is white under the dust. He can see it is scuffed in places, but it looks serviceable.
The beeping has become a constant tone now, intense, screeching. Professor Steadman smiles again.
“Drone?”
The drone turns towards him.
“Take this back to the trailer,” he says and hands the object back to the drone.
As the suit’s power finally gives out, Professor Steadman watches the drone go, safely carrying his life’s work back to the trailer where it, at least, will survive.
The filters stop working. He takes his first breath of the outside air. It is hot, with an acid tang; he can feel the thick dust coating his tongue, going down his throat. Then he tastes copper and his mouth is full of wetness.
The radiation is so intense that the soft tissues of his mouth, nose and throat are disintegrating.
Professor Steadman drowns in his own bodily fluids before the radiation has a chance to kill him.
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Loose his footing should be lose.
I would say you have an interesting piece and this small beginning has my attention and curiousity as to what this guy is looking for. My problem here is that I feel the man should be introduced in this chapter. Like name him in the beginning. Also, even though I am interested in what he is looking for I can’t really get into this because it feels like just a narrative. This guy is, what on a deserted planet? Earth before it’s demise? Whatever it is you haven’t written any emotion like how he feels as he mounts the wreckage and looks out at the world beyond him. Is he in awe? Disgusted with what has happened? A little bit scared? what is he thinking as he is looking for this object? More indepth feelings help a reader get “into” the story. Good luck!
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Firstly, may I say I am no great Sci-Fi fan, yet I found this very enjoyable to read, so well done!
However, it seems very ‘choppy’, rather than flowing. I feel this is at least partially caused by very little description. ‘A figure mounts the wreckage.’ What does this wreckage look like? You say it is a ‘hole in the earth that was once a power station’, but would it be possible to expand on this? The same applies to the protective suit and the drone.
You also refer to ‘the terminal’ a lot, which does begin to get a little repetitive. Perhaps you could change a couple of uses of ‘the terminal’ to something else?
In answer to your questions:
Yes it is clear what happens, although the mention of the man’s companions confused me a little, as I was unaware of there being others until then.
At the end of the piece, I was left wanting to know more about the object he finds, and more about the man himself.
And does it make me want to read on? YES!!
All very clear and interesting. Yes, I want to continue reading. But the pace is a little slow. Why tell us about beeps that don’t interest the man, because, hearing that, they don’t interest me either.
I don’t think you need so much about the cumbersome suit (makes movement difficult, has to turn his whole body, clumsy pushing of buttons) We get the picture the first time. Think of other things to create mood, like intense heat coming through the thick soles of his boot, or whatever.
-Good second sentence. I want to keep reading. However I feel that the first sentence is a little to vague. First sentences are those things that hook a reader. When I read it I almost skipped those five words because I had no idea what they meant. Although, yes, the second and third sentences clarify, I feel that maybe the second can somehow become the first. Know what I mean?
-It makes sense what happens. I think. I have a bright and colorful picture in my head.
-You say “At first he sees it” and “then he sees it”. I think that this is repetetive.
-After having read the whole thing, I am left confused. What is it that the robot extracted? I am left wanting to read more, because I want to find out what it is.
Interesting start that does indeed grab my attention. ”Man mounts wreckage.” This is good. Wake of a disaster.
So far, it reads a bit stiff, and by stiff, i mean almost robotic. if this was your intent, then kudos. Examples: The man stops, the man turns, the man kneels- these are fine but…it reads rigid.
“He watches the drone’s manipulator arms extend.”—why not simply, “the drone’s manipulator arms extend?” the writing is fine and the description is sound, but at times like this i feel like i’m being forced to look at things through the narrator’s eyes. it’s a sensation i don’t entirely enjoy.
“The man leans over a little and looks down into the hole the done has made.”—This is getting closer to where it should be. Instead of rigid stop and start action, this line moves better, incorporating a better synthesis of what’s actually happening. But how about “leans slightly” or doing away with the leaning all together? ”the man looks” might be just as effective, and it would hasten the action.
“hard shadows”- i liked this description.
Ok…it does in fact make me curious to see what’s next. and, yes, it is quite clear what is happening. My major criticism is the forced point of view. I’m trapped in “the man’s” head and it makes me claustrophobic. Perhaps try to pull out more, let things unfold on their own, instead of “the man sees, the man thinks, the man does this, the man does that”. sure, the story is moving forward, but as a reader, i feel like i’m not invited to look around on my own.
it’s certainly got potential. good luck with it. thanks for sharing.
- It is clear.
- questions What was the object and why is it so important?
- read on- Yes. Parts to complain about: just a bit more description where he’s working on getting the thing out.
Nice writing. More detail.
I liked this story. Flowed smoothly. Although the drone bit kind of confused me on where you’d go with it. The # also confused me, seemed like for idea breaks they’d be further apart. But what do I know, i liked it.
It was a bit confusing at first. Specifically when I was trying to figure out what the terminal was. But, once you began the meat of the story it became clearer. The story was discriptive and I was certainly interested in what it was they were searching for and why? I would be interested in reading more…
Good story, but so-so delivery. The story is not as strong as it could be. I am left wondering not only what he found, but what his name is. It’s clear, but I would need more to want to continue reading.
It is not very compelling. Spend more time describing the scene and the actions and less explaining the character’s motivations. Show, don’t tell.
I applaud the attempt at brevity in the first sentence, but it’s vague. What does the figure look like? What kind of wreckage?
You don’t have to describe every motion he makes in detail, unless it is relevant. Ex: Do we need to know that he has to turn his entire upper body to see clearly? Or could you say something like “he struggled against his bulky suit to turn”?
Lots of exposition. Ex: “The air is choked with radioactive dust.” Consider something that shows rather than tells. Like, “The geiger counter in his suit clicked in his ear like a rabid cricket.” It gives the reader a sound to experience, rather than just being told there was radioactive dust. Again, show, don’t tell.
Sentence structure is repetitive. Try some compound sentences to break up the tone.
“These signals do not interest the man.” This is passive voice, and exposition to boot. Sentences like this are weak. Try having the character do something to express his disinterest. Maybe something simple as having him tell the terminal to “Shut up.” Active is better than passive in most cases.
“this way and that” is cliche. Consider revising.
“He ignores his comrade’s communications, pleading for his return.” Since this scene is mostly just the man (whoever he is), this would be a good opportunity for some dialogue. Have his companion say something over the communicator, etc. Show how he ignores it, etc. Break up the exposition.
A good start, but it needs polishing.
This idea is great. I really like the way you keep the reader in suspense while the character moves through to his goal. You even keep that goal in suspense.
The events were clearly set in place. There were no questions on where the guy was in relation to the setting, etc.
I found myself wanting to know more. Questions like “What was that object? Who was that man? What happened that there was so much radioactive material around?”
Another question is, “What significance does this object have for the storyline?
The last was hinted at but the reason the plant went up is more the detail that was needed in my mind.
Overall I really liked this and would love to read more of it.
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