GEHENNA chapter I

So, here is another part; let’s call it ch.1 for this blog purposes.

This story is an experiment, I have already given an introduction to it in the prologue; I want to find out of I can manage to put some kind of a story together and improve my writing skills. Because of the dystopian cyberpunkish (or just political fiction?) nature of it, it is also an exercise in writing action; I’ve never done any action, I don’t know how to write it.

Admittedly, it’s a draft but when I read through it I realized it is not very good in terms of writing style.  But it’s all about practice, isn’t it?

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GEHENNA

I

draft

They armed themselves in complete silence.

Lena put a finger to her mouth. A cloud of dust fell from the ceiling, then another; she prepared her gun in case someone fell through the rotted roof, which would not be at all surprising. The footsteps also came from the other side of the house. There were five or six of them nearby, she approximated. She pointed Lottie to the emergency door.

The drizze outside stopped. It should be dusk, but Lena has not seen an evening in years. The sky in Gehenna was always burning. It was red, with the flames dancing beneath from the pit. Lena remembered the blue sky and a milky web of clouds spread across in the spring; she remembered rainbows after the rain and stars shining at night – but not here, never.

They were too slow. She almost knocked Lottie over, pushing her to hurry down the emergency staircase. If they were to make the full descent, it would be twelve floors with their backs turned towards the enemy. She wasted a few shots at the door, hoping it could buy them some time, then hurried after the girl.

Halfway down, she pushed Lottie back inside the building.

“What are you doing?!” the girls shouted. “They couldn’t get us through the stairs, now they will reach us here!”

They will reach us anyway, can’t you hear them run after us? “Shut your pretty mouth. They didn’t surround us, they didn’t attack us, so they must have a sniper. We managed to escape in time and I won’t make us an easy target. This is going to be a game, and we are outnumbered one to three. ”

“So we need a plan,” Lottie declared, with naive seriousnes.

“We need to stay alive, that’s a good enough plan.” Like most other floors in the building, the sixth floor was a ruin of naked, crumbling walls. It were the raids that left them in that state, not time. She crouched behind the first pile of bricks to their left and pointed at the other end of the room. Lottie obidiently tiptoed there and crouched as well, behind a half-fallen wall. They waited.

“Why are they after us?” Loretta whispered.

“Shhhh. I don’t know. Hide back there, you’ll be my backup.” The noises came to a still, then the footsteps continued above them, but Lena was sure someone was below them as well. She heard Lottie cock her gun just then. She’s gonna get me killed one day, she spat and crawled towards a hole in the floor where the bathroom must have been.

She did not dare put her head through, but the floor seemed clear from what she could see. Some wires hung accross from her; she moved over there and grabbed them, knowing what she was about to do could end as a disaster. She indicated for Lottie to stay and swung down.

Afraid that the floor could collapse if she pulled the wires, she let go off them immediately, landing clumsily and with a curse hissed through her teeth. Then she cursed again. Someone awaited outside; the movement was careful, but she could still hear the old rusted staircase creacking. She approached in silence. The hinges on the door were lose.

Whoever was on the other side must have heard her when she fell, if he had any wit. Lena moved back to gather momentum and run, kicking high in the door.

She heard a grunt, and the door pinned the man on the other side to the barrier. With the automatic ready she blew his head off as soon as he managed to free himself. The body collapsed towards her, so she kicked it down the staircase. He was an idiot for not protecting his head.

When the first shots came, Lena retreated. She leaned against the gray wall and wiped the blood off her face, panting.

She was aware killing that one was pure luck. All these years and she was still a shit fighter, but if she wanted to protect Lottie, she had to keep their attention focused.

She jumped outside and swung one-hand onto the lower staircase; her shoulder cracked and she hit her head. They were still shooting and hurrying towards her, two, no, three, she did not have time to look. She had to get to the ground floor and wait there.

Everyone wore black: the police, the services, the secret service, the spies, everyone Lena could think of. All of them had bulletproof vest and wore bulletproof foam, but that protection was a matter of distance and skills. She had neither of these. Her only chance was to turn the chase turn into an acrobatic show on her part, and they had a sniper, there was no doubting that. She was a small target, which worked to her advantage, and in her tight, supple leathers she could be relatively quick. A crouch, a jump, a crawl, she could do that. Or can I?

At the same time, she knew something was not right. If they wanted her dead, nothing stopped them from blowing up the building, or having an open fire. But that did not happen. She activated the earplug. “Does anyone copy?”

“Riley does. What’s up?”

“What the fuck is this,” she whispered. “I need help.”

“At your service, princess. Someone will be with you in a few minutes, but we don’t have the nicest situation here either.”

“I don’t care! I wasn’t prepared for this,” she hissed.

“Welcome to reality. Over.”

Over, over and over. “Turn over“, rung in her hear. She cursed him in her mind. The last thing she needed were memories; the last thing she ever needed.

Sometimes she hated Riley. When she through about it, she hated him most of the time. She hated him when they worked, she loathed him back when they used to fuck. No one fucked half as well as he did. She remember the first time he took her; it was technically a rape, but he raped her so well she hated him even more. “Fuck,” she swore, then swore some more, and run back towards the staircase.

It was a bad decision. Lena hid behind a chipped, marble pillar right as the two fully armed servicemen broke in.

“Come out Freya, we know you are here. This needen’t get any bloodier, I don’t feel like killing you today. If you drop all your weapons, we will do the same.”

They wanted to negotiate, she realised. “Bullshit,” she muttered none the less, and readied her guns. One was a small automatic and took ages to reload, the other was a useless laser, but they were light and easy to use, that was all she cared about. Apart from that, she had sharp adamant claws on one glove and a parlyzer that could deliver up to 100mA current on the other.

“Freya, the game was short and disappointing, and it is over. They say you are dangerous.” Both chuckled. “We have the girl. I’m gonna count to five and if you’re out by then, no harm will come to her. One… Two…”

That made Lena angry.

“Three…”

She put the guns back in the holsters and stepped out with her hands in the air.

“Four.”

“You said you’d drop your weapons.”

“But you didn’t,” they both held the rifles to their faces, ready. One wore a helm, but she rocognised the other one with the goggles. She encountered him before, big, bulky man with short, graying hair and a scar on his forehead. In truth, all the men from the services looked almost identical; she recognised his voice.

Lena approached them with her hands still up. The man she did not know stepped back. “I don’t believe you, gentleman, that you have the girl.”

“But you should. Bring the girl, over.”

Riley, anyone, I need you. “I want to talk. Leave us,” she said to the other one.

The men looked at each other. “Do as she says. I can handle it.”

She pulled the gun as soon as they were alone.

“I wouldn’t try that,” the man said with the riffle ready.

Lena clenched her teeth and dropped the gun. “I want to know what is this all about,” she demanded. “I am one of your most wanted, yet nobody fears me and let’s me live, having a raid every now and again, trying to smoke me out like a rat…”

“One more word and I’ll leave you crippled,” he released a series right under her feet, so close she had to jump away. “I carry out orders, not ask questions. Unarm yourself, I will give you the handcuffs and rope you the nearest wall, everybody will be happy”

Lena dropped the laser gun and stepped closer.

“Hands and knives too, and be quick about it.”

She threw away the knives, and then the cavalcade of gunshots opened outside.

It disorientated him for a split second, but it was enough for her to attack. As she jumped the riffle fired, but she spun around just in time, reaching to slash his cheek open. She followed with a punch in the stomach and a kick between the legs. He was skilled and he was a brute, but his gear was heavy and slowing him down. It was her lucky day, she decided. She knocked him over with a couple of kicks, but he caught her legs and pulled her down, turning her over, before serving her a punch in the face, then another.

Lena spat blood in his face and tried to writhe away. She was a woman and felt no need to fight with honour. She managed to scratch a handful of dust from the ground and rub it in his face. Then, she dug her fingers through the fresh cuts on his face and pulled. It was enough to make him scream and let go. With pieces of flesh hanging through her fingers, it was her chance to escape.

She only managed to run a few meters before he caught her.

As she fell, her head hit the floor so hard she moaned and before she knew she was being dragged along by the legs, leaving a trail of blood.

The man stopped and grabber her neck, and fighing proved futile. Pushed against the wall he bashed her head against it, then punched her in the stomach so hard she choked on her own bile. “Sweet dreams, bitch.” He bashed her had again.

The world outside was still burning, but her vision grew darker and with one more punch she admitted defeat. Riley always said that she gave up too easily.

When she opened her eyes, all her senses were blunt. She did not feel anything and the world was a blur.

“Fuck you,” she moaned at the silhouette leaning over her.

“Freya, it is me.”

She did not know what was happening and she felt sick. She closed her eyes. For that, she received a slap on the face.

“Stay with me!”

That woke her up. She recognised the cold, indifferent voice. She recognized the high cheekbones and the crooked smile. It would be a face of a sculpture, if not for the ugliest, badly healed scar down its left side; and the other one on the temple, and the ones she knew were at the back of his head. But Lena found scars attractive. “I hate your guts.” Riley held a pack of Lucky Strikes opened towards her, she took one and he lit it for her. “Thanks,” she snorted. “Some industries never fail.”

They were still on the ground floor, she realised. Her legs hurt, her arm too, and her skull was full of needles. As she moved her head, she felt the dried blood crumbling from the back of her neck. There were other sounds too, of a fight above them. “What’s happening?” She wanted to rub her face, but her left arm hurt too much to lift it.

“Nothing you need to know. I will take you somewhere safe.”

He was wrong; she needed to know. Loretta was still somewhere there and she would not trust Riley to save her. “Give me a jab,” she requested.

“I cannot. Your arm has been shot and you are bleeding like a pig,” he conutered calmly.

“But I am still your superior. Give me the goddamn injection.”

He had dark blue eyes and he starred into hers; he did that a lot. “Which one?”

“I only need to stay alive.”

By the time the gun was pressed to her wrist, he still has not blinked. “You have good fifteen minutes, maximum half an hour before you pass out. Pray I will be there when you do.” His eyes were so big and cold they could be two pieces of azurite. They were also anything but kind; if she would not know him, she would think they were full of hate.

“Why did you not inject yourself when I contacted you?” He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her up. “We waited for some smugglers before we could get here. Priorities, you know.”

“I don’t know. I forgot.” She had to hold onto him not to sit down again, her body was numb from the jab. The body of the serviceman lay across the room in a pool of his own blood. “Give me a drink.”

He took a sip first and pulled a mask over his mouth, before passing the flask to her. “I’ve got spare goggles,” he clasp them around her head for her but she had to adjust to parameters herself. The adrenaline was spreading in her veins. “Don’t get hurt. I still enjoy you.”