Running Sal

I have a new short story (~1,500 words) that i would like to present to all on my friends list. I decided to write for this month's with just 12 hours to go, so if it seems a little rough, it's because this is draft 0, with the smallest bit of editing.

The genre is mixed genres - bringing in bits of action / adventure, sci-fi and western (it's supposed to be a sci-fi / western sort of setting - not sure how well that came across).



   "My name's Running Sal and I've never been caught!"
   The last words I'd spoken went round in my head as I dashed over the rooftops of Ivy City. I can run, and it is true that I've never been caught. It's not because I'm faster than everyone else. It's because I go in a straight line. Running, jumping, climbing, it's all the same to me; a way to get from one place to another.
   I work for an organization that makes sure the top echelons of this little asteroid colony don't get too cocky. We watch, we scold, we kill on occasion. I'm a messenger; I deliver things, letters, bugs, bombs, whatever. I'm small, agile, can get into tight spaces and get out faster than anyone else.
   The job today was simple, the financiers office was holding a meeting, and I was to plant a bug to record the whole thing. I'd arrived early, found a good spot in the ventilation, and gotten out fast. But something had gone wrong. The guards waited for me at my exit point.
   "My name's Running Sal," I said. "And I've never been caught!"
   I lunged between them, their hands grasping at the space I had just vacated. Off I tore, along the flat uneven rooftops, leap-frogging over railings and diving across alleys. I couldn't spare a glance behind me but I could hear the guards keeping pace. These guys were good, but no one can keep up with me.
   From my belt bag I pulled out a grappling winch the size of a small gun, but packed with a hundred meter coil of spider-twine attached to a compact grappling hook. The guards could eat my dust, no one could do the stunts I could using a grappling winch.
   Aim for the rail of the next building over, fire, and hang on. The hook connected perfectly, and the winch kicked in, whipping me across this rooftop, over the gap and onto the next roof. The wind flew through my hair and flapped against my light poly armour. I landed perfectly, yanked the hook out and reeled back in the twine, ready for another jump.
   Down this time, the next level was about 5 meters below this one. It was part of this building but separated by old railings, rust eating through cracks in the paint. The roof rose up again about 10 meters distant. I could make that jump.
   I leapt up onto the railing and fired my winch at the rail on the opposite side. But even as I leapt I knew I had made a bad move. The rail under my feet crumbled to rusted shards and even as the winch took my weight, I felt the twine go slack. In horror, I watched the opposite rail do the same. I crashed towards the lower section of roof, trying my best to tuck into a roll. Elbows and knees connected with the ground, jarring my bones all the way through to my spine. The singular pain paralysed me and as I lay there in agony, all I could think was, "I have to get up. Those guards will be here any second."
   But I couldn't get up, I couldn't move. The guards' racing footfalls grew louder, hard-soled shoes slapping on concrete. My heart beat out a counter rhythm and I started to shake. This was it. They would collar me and erase my life, put a new one in its place and I would become one of the reformed. That couldn't happen to me. I'm Running Sal. I don't get caught.
   Five burly figures came over the roof and slowed when they saw me.
   "It's our lucky day, men," the one in the lead said.
   I had to get up now. Straining against the pain in my bones, I pushed myself off the ground but I could barely stand. The world spun and the daylight vanished as blobs of darkness covered my eyes.
   The guards closed in, quickly surrounding me. Still unable to see well, I dodged away from the sounds they made, the scrape of shoes on sandy concrete and their loud breathing. It was no use. Strong hands latched onto my arms and legs, and try as I might to pull away, I was helpless against them. My sight came back just in time to see one of them come at me with a small sliver collar, about half an inch wide.
   "No!" I screamed.
   I wrenched my whole body around, kicking out with arms and legs and lashing my head from side to side. But they were used to holding struggling bodies and the collar was on me in an instant.
   In that second, everything stopped. My muscles went slack, my mouth dropped open, my eyes stared into space. But inside my head my mind screamed. This shouldn't be happening. It wasn't supposed to happen. I couldn't have been caught.
   But slowly even the thoughts went silent, until all that was left to me was a trickle of senses, none of which I could process properly. Going down in an elevator, being shoved into a van, waiting in a chair, four walls and a high ceiling surrounding me. My senses woke up a little more as they questioned me, and after that, nothing.

   I woke up on a soft bed, the covers kicked off during the hot night. I loved this bed. About the only thing I liked about this cruddy apartment. I got up, showered, taking care to clean underneath my silver choker, contemplated having breakfast. Too much bother and besides, half the food had already been eaten by the rats. I really needed to find a better place to live. First I had to find a job. Dressed quickly, grabbed keys and jacket from beside the door and headed for the employment office.
   The resident junkie lay sprawled across the floor outside my door. Why did she always crash out here? It sickened me to see her eyes sunken into her pale, almost alabaster skin. Today she was awake, damn. She'd start talking to me. I never responded, and she took offence at that, usually getting violent.
   "Sal," she said.
   My heart skipped a beat. That wasn't my name, but somehow it struck a chord. I kept my back to her as I locked the door and then walked away without looking at her.
   "We need you back, Sal," she said.
   I stopped. She sounded different, more coherent. I turned back.
   "I'm not Sal," I said. "You have the wrong person."
   "How long have you had that collar?" she asked.
   I brought a hand to my throat, feeling the warm metal. "All my life," I said.
   The choker had belonged to my grandmother who had died when I was a baby. She'd wanted me to have it and I never took it off.
   "Belonged to your grandmother? You never take it off?" she said.
   My hair stood on end. "What do you want?" I said.
   "You are living a lie, Sal. You got caught and they collared you."
   A single image flashed across my eyes. Five men grappling me on a rooftop. My heart beat faster.
   "I've never been caught," I said.
   It seemed like a strange thing to say, but at the same time the words were as much a part of me as the collar around my neck.
   "Would you come with me?" the junkie said. "I want to show you something."
   I hesitated. I had an appointment with the jobs officer that I didn't want to miss. But something strange was going on here and I wanted to know what it was. I finally looked at her, and realized that I had misjudged her. Her skin was pale, bit not sickly, and her eyes were lined in dark makeup, not sunken into her skull. I nodded and she led the way out of the building, onto the maglev train across town, into another building and up onto the roof.
   Broken railings surrounded an area where the level of the roof dropped about 5 meters.
   "Do you recognise this?" she said.
   It did seem vaguely familiar, the reddish yellow skydome all around, being able to see over the buildings, even the rusted railings around the perimeter twigged something within me. She handed me a device which looked something like a gun, but instead of a trigger, it had a button on top. I didn't recognise it, but curiosity urged me to press the button.
   Spider-twine shot from the barrel, coils of it trailing after a barbed hook. The hook landed with a thud in the concrete of the building opposite, and before I could think to let go, a winch kicked in and dragged me across the gap. A squeal trailed after me and I squeezed my eyes shut as I soared over the road. The sound of hover traffic and ground traffic zoomed passed me. And then I was safely on the other side, standing on the roof after a perfect landing.
   I had done this before. I remembered it, the thrill of being chased across the rooftops, the surge of excitement when I pulled way ahead of them. I pointed the winch back at the fateful building where I'd been caught and leapt across the road, this time in control and exhilarating in the speed.
   "Vena," I said. "I remember."
   She smiled. "Let's get that collar off."

   My name's Running Sal, and I've been caught once.

hello

my 16 (aka 20) week plan is going well. i'm finished everything i had set myself 'til friday to do. it's good to be ahead at the start. i guess i had no idea how fast or slow things would go, but the prologue was pretty much ok, anyway.

apparently it's 20.7 degrees in here, but even with 4 layers on i'm only luke-warm. today, while cleaning nymph's water i spilled a load of it on the counter, the cupboard, the floor, me. i should get overalls or something. but it was so cute - i put my hand into the tank to pick nymph out and he crawled up onto my finger all by himself. i think he trusts me - that's so great. not like yoshi who still flinches away if you go up to his tank too quickly. silly scardy.

i don't really have much news. lordkilljoy and me are probably going to see surrogates tonight. i'm kind of looking forward to seeing it.

i think i'm tired or something. my concentration waned at about 2 o' clock today and hasn't come back.

equinox missed

ok, wierd. i was all set to get a new Lj theme because my current one had stopped doing the tag cloud, but i just looked before writing this post and it's in a cloud again. very odd.

in other odd news, i missed the equinox by ages. i just realized it had gone past when apod posted a picture about it today. silly me.
so the nights are officially longer than the days now. roll on march. it's not that i don't like winter, its just that i love when the sunset stretches for hours and the sky is still holding onto the last dim glow of day at midnight.

my cold is getting worse. i'm thinking today will be a recovery day where i sit on the couch and play mini-games in fable2. chopping wood - very therapeutic. i started a new game last night (since to play my old game i need to log in as lordkilljoy on the xbox, go to downloads, re-download knothole island, log back in as me (riarua, if anyone's interested in friending me on xbox) and then i can play). i hadn't realized how the effects of stealing and killing had effected my first character - my new girl looks so fresh and innocent in comparison.

my 16 week plan is shaping up well. i have a good plan done out (only that i actually have 20 chapters, counting the pro- and epilogues. (i now have a chapter 1.5, as well as a chapter 11.5 - chapter 1 was 11,000 words. i think that's just a few too many for the first chapter.)

the little sick mood guy should have an option to have a smiley face on - i'm really not that miserable.

things of substance in a random nature

the health fair was on over the weekend. it was good. it was great to hang out with penelope_stone for the whole weekend.

i have a 16week plan. it involves spending one week on each of the 16 chapters in my book and getting the editing finished by january. (i am ignoring the fact that there are 17 chapters in my book - because i keep forgetting about ch. 11.5. a 16week plan rolls off the tongue easier than a 17 week plan. 17 is just too long to say; like 1, 1000. 2, 1000. 17, 1000 is way longer than 1 second. (i see i haven't lost my ability to ramble randomly on here, that's good. because i'm really not sure how many readers will have made it out of this little bracket unscarred.))

i developed a cold yesterday, somewhere between the train, the cinema and food. i felt it coming on during dinner and i thought it was just an affect of warm food and cold drink, but no. i now have a roll of tissue beside me (well, actually i have a glass of multivitamin in pineapple juice beside me, but the tissue was there a minute ago, before i got the multivitamin).

ooh - the cinema... i went to see dorian grey. every time someone said dorian's name all i could think of was dorian from the night angel trilogy. it was a bit wierd. but the film was good. definitely not a film that everyone would enjoy (a little too much sex), but it was creepy and stylish and i really enjoyed the second half.

hmmm, night angel trilogy: i finished beyond the shadows over the weekend. it was fantastic. the best of the books. all the characters' parts played out well and everything came together excellently. weeks still has an editing problem, but it's not quite as bad as in previous books. i think what i like about this book (and the other 2, but this one shows it off most) is the way kylar bounces around like a ninja from an anime. it's very stylish and fun - pure escapism.
the rest of my review is on my goodreads page

i think that's all i have to say.

back from lanzarote

ahh, warmth - how lovely you are when i don't have to expend any energy to keep myself warm. lying on a beach, or by the pool, or just walking around - all the time being heated by the warm air. bliss.
the photographs are many, the adventures great, and the sights awesome - too much for one poor journalist to put into words, so i will sum up.

monday - rain! amazing. there is nothing quite like rain in a hot country, unexpected, light, exciting. spent the day getting acclimatized to the heat, the area and the cool water of the pool and the sea. walked about 5km in the middle of the day. did not get burned, surprisingly. i wonder if the clouds helped with that.
tuesday - hung out by the pool for most of the day - wandered to the beach for a swim. badly mixed long island ice teas caused the loss of the guide book - booo! painted my toe-nails for the second time in my life - 5 different colours used :)
wednesday - spent recovering, hung out by the pool, went to the sea. went to arricife, it is very spanish and not very tourist friendly (this may have happened on thursday - we had sushi while here, yummy). didn't get up to much.
thursday - walked along the beach (it's really nice to walk along - a bit rocky, a bit sandy, quiet, little waves). didn't really get up to much.
friday - sunbathed on the beach - rented a parasol and attempted to fall asleep in its shade. not tired enough for sleeping, so played beach tennis instead. me and lordkilljoy are the worst people at beach tennis i have ever seen. it was a struggle to get 6 hits without one of us dropping the ball.
saturday - rent-a-car day. the best day of the holiday. cesar manrique is a genius - architect artist who does these amazing things with lava structures. visited about 6 or 7 (ok, 11) different places (flea market, manrique's house, restaurante lagodar, lunch stop, haria, mirador del rio, cueava del verde, white-sand-beach south of orzola, yaiza, playa blanca, random sunset beach) and caught the sunset over the atlantic. it was so amazing - the island is so small you can see nearly all of it in one day.
sunday - the only really sunny day of our holiday, spent the day packing and getting bits and pieces and messing in the pool. then had to go home :(

and that was it, really. came home and have been wearing three layers. i was wrapped up in a blanket for the whole day yesterday. heading down to cork tomorrow - the health fair is on. that should be fun.

off to the seaside (2500km away)

passport arrived yesterday, booked a holiday today, flying off on sunday (tomorrow would have worked well in that sentence, but that is just a little too rushed for me - 2 days is a good amount of time to get ready). and where are we off to? Lanzarote - Los Pocillos, near Puerto del Carmen to be exact.
right at the moment (apart from trying to update my Lj) i'm making a packing list and reading the guide book i got (i just can't help it - when you went around the world on a guide book (or well, 3 of them) you kinda get hooked on their helpful facts and must-see lists of places) and planning what we can fit in during our week, giving enough time to hang out on the beach too. and it's so small that we could rent a car and see everything away from the resort in a day.
i wonder would lordkilljoy join me in renting bikes and come for a cycle along the coast. and we could bring a lovely picnic and juices and it would amazing. even if lordkilljoy isn't up for it, i might rent a bike myself one of the days and head out to Uga (near the volcano). and visit their salmon smokery (aka, place where smoked salmon is made).

um, so i think that's all my news.

games and other topics

i finished the light campaign of sacred 2 last night. the last battle was stupidly hard - i drank about 250 heal potions, got in no spells or combos. basically, i was hitting the heal button every half a second and died whenever i tried to do anything else but hit the thing with my swords. bosses shouldn't be that overpowered. unless you are meant to be at 50th level or something before you go to kill it. i was at 40 and even with all my heals, i still died about 15 times. i'd died a total of 14 times during the whole rest of the game. so, to me, that seems like pretty bad game design.
but anyway - i did enjoy playing the game. my dark campaign character is on 7th level, and i'm considering ignoring side quests with her and just doing the main quest. might get the dedicated achievement too (completing main quest with exploring less than 20% of the map).

when i was younger, hide and seek was my favourite game. i was never any good at tag, because i'm not fast, but with hide and seek, it was all about finding a good spot and keeping quiet. a lot of the people i played with didn't understand this and peeked out or laughed or whatever. but not me. i was good at hiding. the reason i'm posting this is because i'm playing splinter cell at the moment and i absolutely love sneaky games. the thief series is one of my favourites and it's all about hanging out in the shadows, not moving and waiting for the right moment to run to the next hidey-spot or to take out the patrolling guard. i just find that the most fun ever.
the other day i was thinking about advanced rules for hide and seek. where there are two people who are "it." one is the normal "it" who tries to find everyone, but the other is kinda special. this person hides and everyone else has to try and find them. so the winner is the person who finds the "hider" without being caught. i think it would be great fun.

my new passport arrived today. yeay, me and lordkilljoy can go off on a holiday now.