Isolation

LegacyUser

Yo whassup? I got very tired of going through the planning stages of my book, working title Isolation, and decided to try and write the first chapter tonight.

I need someone to tell me if I actually can write or not, so here's an excerpt. Please read if you can and tell me what you think.

*******

The fresh scent of threshed wheat, the intoxicating stench of sweat and alcohol, and the sterile, metallic smell of the bridge. The gentle whoosh of the cool breeze, the cacophony of blaring music and loud chatter, and the all-pervasive hum of the datalink. The never-ending golden sea of undulating stalks, the neon, flashing scrum of fluorescent tops and tan skin, and the majestic wheel of intergalactic portals forever revolving in the vacuum of space.

This is what Law felt as he hazily drifted between three minds. His three lives, each playing out in their own way. So intricately linked and reliant on each other, and yet so very different and independent. He could hear the lilting nocturnes of the living overlaying the pounding electronica of the machine and swirl the harsh, angry colours of a sprawling city with the soft, pleasing tones of the yawning sky. It was glorious.

“What are you doing right now?” came a voice.

Law looked over Benjamin’s shoulder and saw Chris spinning in his office chair. “Well, besides sitting here having a whole lot of fun waiting for the next shipment to come through, I’m currently having a rather engaging conversation with a lovely lady at the bar of the Orchid Lounge.” Ben turned around to face him from his desk, “Oh, and bringing in quite a nice harvest for myself as well.”

“Nice, let me know how that goes. The lovely lady, that is,” said Chris.

Ben chuckled, “Oh you’ll hear all about it tomorrow, I guarantee.” He turned back to his monitor and checked the download progress. 91%. He was going to have a good time with this one tonight. Law let a small grin creep across his faces at the thought.

“What’s that cheeky little smirk all about, then?” the lovely lady asked as she lowered her cocktail to the counter, “Think you’ve snagged me already, eh?”

Law gave her a sly wink. “Indeed I do, but actually I was smirking in another life just there.”
“Shame on you!” she joked and tossed back her red hair, “What, is one beautiful girl not enough for you?”

Law laughed, “More than enough, I assure you.” He took a quick sip from his glass of lager, “I was merely happy about a job well done.”

“Hm, charming and hard-working. I must say, you really are quite impressive Mr...”

“Law. Jacob Law.”

“And you’ve even got the James Bond thing going for you, very nice. Anja Silverman."

“Pleased to meet you, Ms. Silverman,” Jacob said as he gently lifted her hand and kissed it, amusing her no end.

Gregory steered the noisy harvester away from the tall electric fencing, the sharp divide between his tamed land and the wild undergrowth beyond. He took a long look through the cold wires into the darkness of the alien forest, but could still see not a trace of Far’s famed wildlife. He sighed and returned his attention to the hypnotic grinding of the wheat in front of him.

“When is the next shipment, anyway?” Ben called across to Chris, while eyeing maintenance reports.

“Errrr… We’ve got a fresh fruit import from Lisenthe scheduled in just under a minute actually,” Chris said and then turned around with an expression of mock seriousness, “You feel up to the challenge?”

Ben masked his smile, “Let’s do it.” He didn’t care how much Chris mocked him for it, but even after almost two years and probably thousands of shipments, Ben still got a kick out of manually lining up the gates himself. It was probably the second best part of the job, after the opportunity for his illegal downloading.

He opened up the wheel control panel on his monitor with a word uttered inside his head. He directly controlled the wheel motors using only his thoughts, thanks to the wireless communication chip he had implanted at the base of his skull. He watched through the main observation window as the huge wheel slowly began to silently turn. The Lisenthe gate was marked with a green Li. He quickly located it among the dozens of other symbols and rotated it into position directly opposite the Corsica gate, home gate.

He quickly checked with automatic control to make sure he had the right gate. It was unlikely he had made a mistake but if he did accidentally jettison the cargo into the vacuum of space, it would probably cost him his job right off the bat. That’s why manual control was officially frowned upon by the Gate Authority. The Western Jay had had less than a dozen such incidences in its three-hundred year service.

“Lisenthe station, all gates ready, you are good to go,” Ben radioed in.

He watched as the gate blast doors opened up for both Lisenthe and Corsica. He could barely see the hangar air rushing out into space. Then came the long cargo container, gently pushed out of Lisenthe and into the Corsican system. This is what he loved, just the idea that this red box slowly drifting towards the next gate was just a second ago, probably halfway across the universe. He marvelled at how all man had accomplished in the last 500 years, all the planets colonised, all the aliens contacted, and all the great wars fought, it all boiled down to this, the technology that made it all possible.

And, just as suddenly as it had appeared, the container was gone, sliding into place in a hangar at the Corsican gatestation.

Ben closed the blast doors and powered down the wheel motors. Both planets were again safe from terrorist attacks. Wireless signals could still flow freely, though, as evidenced by Ben’s uplink with Jacob and Greg. “Thank you Lisenthe, all cargo received a-ok, over.”
Chris let out a sigh of mock relief, “Wow, Jeez man, I thought for sure that was our last act together.”

A klaxon sounded off in the bridge. Harsh lights flickered up, replacing the low ambient lighting. Ben jumped and instantly felt a surge of adrenaline pumping into his veins. This had never happened before. He turned around to his monitor and searched for the cause for alarm.

Chris found it first. “We’ve got a dangerous virus infiltration on the central core!”

“What, nothing to do with Lisenthe?”

“No, this could have come from anywhere.”

Ben opened the central core status page. Chris was right. Processing showed a powerful virus was taking over the system at an alarming rate. It already had full control over the AI supervisor.

“Oh ****. ****,” Chris said.

“What!?”

“This isn’t just some freelance hacker’s idea of a joke. This looks professional.”

“You mean a terrorist attack!?” Ben exclaimed.

“… Yeah.”

“****!”

Greg cut power to the engines and lay slumped against the leather seat of the harvester. Ben was going to need Law’s undivided attention to overcome this crisis.

“I’m sorry, could you excuse me for a moment? I have to use the bathroom.”

Whatever witty reply Anja came out with was lost on Jacob as he glided to the restroom with glazed eyes and sat down on the dirty toilet seat.

“How did a virus get through the firewall?” Ben wondered aloud he frantically tried to expunge the intruder from the Western Jay’s system.

Chris seemed just as preoccupied, “Uh, I dunno. Whoever made this baby obviously knows their way around a network. Probably found a backdoor or something.”

Ben froze. He sat staring at the glowing monitor for a few seconds before he realised he wasn’t breathing. With an unsteady intake of breath he examined his download progress. It had reached 100% just a minute ago.

“Oh no. ****,” came Chris’ voice to snap Ben out of it.

“What now?” He managed to speak without his voice cracking.

“The virus has full control of the Jay’s gate to Corsica!”

“What, so we can’t close it?”

“No, but I’ve already warned every other gate to shut down their station.”

“So what can it do with one gate?”

There was a pause as the full gravity of the situation dawned on Chris. “It can move either of the gate termini to any place in the universe… Like the centre of a star, or a black hole.”

“It’s gonna blow the Jay into oblivion!?”

“No… Corsica.”

It was like a nightmare. After three hundred years of peace in the Corsican system, a major disaster like this was about to happen on his watch. Worse, Ben knew that if he didn’t stop the virus, and those billion people on Corsica get sucked into nothingness or roasted to a cinder… Their blood would be on his hands.

********

If you thought it was ****, please say so and explain why. If you thought it was awesome, awesome!