Bubblegum Crisis 2040
'White Death'
Chapter 1: Restful night, Morning Hell
Priss was startled awake by a noise. In her part of town, it wasn't unusual. The numbers on her alarm clock were glowing a 5:30. She pulled the covers to one side and sat awake. Her guitar was set up against the wall of her trailer; she walked over to it, picked it up and returned to her bed. A few chords later, the guitar was laying on the bed. Priss proceeded to the fridge and removed a small slice of pizza. It was cold, rank and probably stale. But to Priss, it was no matter.
She staggered over to a chest of drawers and removed a large, loose, button up shirt. She slipped it on and proceeded to get dressed. Not more than 5 minutes later, she was ready. She revisited the fridge, and removed a cool can of beer. After proceeding outside into the crisp morning air, she opened the can and took a long sip like she was inhaling the smoke from a cigarette.
A short beeping began stabbing at the bubble of calm surrounding Priss. The mobile phone on the bedside draws was beeping in synchronization with the small flashing red light atop of the device. Priss picked up the phone, flipped open the receiver and pressed the 'answer call' button. "Yeah, Priss here," she spoke casually into the receiver. A concerned voice answered: "Priss, Its Sylia here. GENOM seems to have released a boomer. It isn't rogue, but it seems to have been designed to be hostile. Nene and Linna are on their way."
"Got it." Answered Priss.
The air was whipping past Priss as she rode her motorcycle towards the Silky Doll shop. When she arrived, she removed her helmet and entered the shop. When she reached everyone, she instantly noticed Nene and Linna looking sleep deprived, but Sylia had grim determination painted over her facial features. Clearly Nene and Linna had just arrived also. Nene had just asked if there had been any casualties yet. "No, This is a weird boomer. It hasn't attacked nor done anything really. Yet." Claimed Sylia.
"Well what are we waiting for? Let's kill it!" Yelled Priss. "Before it DOES do anything!"
"Priss, I'm sorry, but we don't know anything about it yet. Were all going down just to do some reconnaissance. You're not invincible." Hissed Sylia. "Lets go."
Chapter 2: Floating Menace
The van doors closed shut and the engine roared into life. Priss, Nene, Linna, Sylia and Macky all sat silently. Almost as if uncertain of this boomer's power. What was to come. "The AD Police has beat us there." Sylia proclaimed to the group. The rest of the journey was shrouded in complete silence. When the van arrived, they pulled up at a safe distance, just out of notice of the AD policemen setting up a basic blockade around the boomer.
The Knight Sabers all got out of the van. Before Priss laid her eyes on the boomer, thoughts of anger were running through her head. Why couldn't Sylia let us take our hard suits and just kill the damn thing! Why! Is she scared of us being hurt? Does she think we aren't capable? What does she know that we don't!
Just outside the main city hospital, the boomer sat. This boomer didn't have many features. It simply hovered about a meter above the roadway. It just seemed to be a huge while balloon. Moving up and down slowly, occasionally letting out a strange, un-earth like roar. The police sat about 80 meters away from the palpitating mass of the boomer. Conferring amongst them selves, they decided to send someone in for a closer look. A stout middle aged cop was sliding rounds into the magazine of a large revolver. Not unlike the one Leon carries, noted Sylia. However, Leon didn't seem to be in the crowd of cops.
The man made careful movements towards the boomer. Occasionally the boomer jittered and roared. The policeman was not more than 25 meters away from it, when it started to roll through the air towards him. The cop became stricken with panic, the roars become louder as it bounced menacingly towards him. He started to retreat from the boomer, never taking his eyes off it as he stepped backwards, his gun quivering in his 2 handed grip. Losing his balance he crashed down on his back and he dropped his pistol as a compromise in order to move faster. The boomer came within 5 meters of him. It stopped its advance. The cop burst with panic and screamed as he tried to crawl backwards furiously. The Boomer roared and made a final aggressive pounce on the man. His blood-curdling screams of horror became muffled as the palpitating mass smothered the man. His face pressed against the white membrane, alongside a hand desperately clawing against the outer layer of the white inner layer of the beast. After a few seconds, it detached itself from the lifeless, suffocated body of the man.
Chapter 3: Tears in Rain
Nene stood with her head bowed, along with a small portion of the AD Police staff, by an open grave. They all watched a coffin being slowly lowered into the depth of the ground. She was finding it hard to fight back the tears rolling down her already damp face. The black umbrella she was sharing with a colleague was barely adequate to hamper the heavy down pour of rain.
Nick Roland, the head of the ADP, began to read. "Today we honor a fine brave man. This man gave his life in the order of protecting the lives of the innocent. He was a great credit to the ADP and we shall all miss him dearly." Kirkland then proceeded to the edge of the grave and dropped a solitary white rose onto the oak wood of the casket. Many more staff came forward to the edge and graced the coffin with more white roses. Nene threw herself into a violent sob as she buried her face into the shoulder of her colleague. Her colleague cradled the back of her head with one hand and patted her back sympathetically with the other. "It's alright Nene…"
The knight sabers and the ADP had lost track of the boomer, after it killed the policeman and rolled off at a great speed to an unknown destination 3 nights ago. Sylia had worked hard to try and track and relocate the boomer. But it was to no prevail. She would have to wait until the beast surfaced again. Sylia sat in her bedroom, staring out at the nighttime view that loomed outside her window. After all she had seen of the boomer, she could make no sense of it. What was the purpose of the boomer? What frightened Sylia more, is that the boomer seemed organic, not mechanical, It didn't show any purpose of creation. Most boomers are made for recreation, labor and military needs. Could GENOM be creating boomers for the sole purpose of killing and frightening or some other goal to GENOM's own ends? Why? Why? Why? Sylia repeatedly asked herself. Two short beeps broke Sylia's deep thought. It was her watch calling out the hour of 11:00pm. The comfort and restfulness of sleep attracted Sylia; she took off her dressing gown and fell gracefully into bed.
** ** ** ** **
"No! Help Sylia! …I can't move…I think my battery is dead!" Screamed Linna!
"Eject your battery! Do it NOW LINNA!" Demanded Sylia. After a moments panic, after staring trance-like at the menacing white boomer, rolling and palpitating towards her, Linna snapped out of her trance of fear and exploded the battery out of her suit. She then furiously snapped herself out of her Hardsuit and began to make an energetic dash towards safety. Forcing her body into a sprint, instinctively driven to get away from the boomer, the wild flailing of her limbs of her limbs caused the softsuit to become snagged of the lead guard of the open Hardsuit. She came crashing down onto the icy cold tarmac of the roadway. The boomer was rolling and bouncing fast towards Linna's shocked body.
"Get UP LINNA!" Screamed Sylia, her eyes filling with determination. Linna didn't react in time; the boomer rolled over her body, smothering her.
"Sylia…" Linna's cry became muffled as the boomer rolled over her face.
Sylia shot up in her bed, her nude body pouring with sweat, her eyes filling with tears, resulting from the nightmare she had just experienced. Her bedside clock read 11:15pm. At 11:40 she was on her third glass of vodka.
Chapter 4: Dance of the Dead
Rave music pumped, pounded through the cheap walls of the shady nightclub, situated a block from K's Garage. Technicolor lights danced out on to the street, reflecting off the light dew gracing the tarmac along the long stretch of highway. A cloudy wisp of smoke poured out from under the door and window frame, filling the night air with a dank cigarette smell. The nightclub was a pool of life in this somewhat macabre area of Tokyo.
The door of the nightclub flapped open, accompanied by shouts of enjoyment. Several people, around 30, danced out onto the street, clutching their drinks. Arms waving, drinks spilling and feet stamping began to pour out into the chill of the night, young adults bathing themselves in the fluorescent light coming from the inside. Two young twenty-three year olds, Tetsuo and Ryu separated themselves form the rest of the crowd by about 10 or so meters, simply conversing and sipping at their drinks. Tetsuo made a lighthearted comment about an attractive girl dancing in the crowd. Ryu stared for a while at the girl, never taking his eyes off her as he polished off his drink. Tetsuo did the same. The girl noticed their gazes, so she broke off from the crowd, smiling flirtatiously as she walked towards them.
"Hi!" she said, "My name is Akiria, what's yours?"
"I'm Tetsuo, this is Ryu…" He broke off as he noticed Akiria's somewhat trance-like gaze.
"What did I say?" Questioned Tetsuo.
Akiria's gaze didn't break off, she continued to stare behind him. Ryu began to turn around, as did Tetsuo. Even the whole crowd began to stare down the long stretch of highway. Someone turned off the rave music and the whole area fell silent.
The un-earth like roar sounded from down the road, as the massive white palpitating mass fluttered and bounced its way toward the crowd. They returned a confused gaze. Instinctively sensing danger and panic, the crowd began to shuffle off in the opposite direction, all muttering comments in fear-filled voices.
The boomer had sped up and was getting quite near, fear and anxiety rising to a peak in the crowd. Tetsuo darted off towards a side alley, Ryu following suit. Upon reaching the side alley, discovering it was a dead end, Tetsuo fled off, merging into the evacuating crowd. Ryu was behind the crowd, slightly immobilized. The boomer was pressing itself against him, forcing him up against a wall, squishing him into the cold, hard bricks. The crowd stopped and turned around, watching the scene in outright horror. Ryu was panicking, his head just above the boomer. His heavy breathing tore the blanket of silence into shreds. He tried to turn his body to the side and frantically attempted to claw his way out of the boomers hold. The boomer bounced on the sidewalk and dragged Ryu's screaming, thrashing body to the pavement. A faint protrusion of Ryu's face pressed against the side, then drew away as the crowd watched him die under the white ball.
Ryu's body lay sprawled on the on the highway, his eyes gleaming a cold, soul less stare. Watching this scene with abject horror, atop the roof of K's Garage, stood Macky Stingray. After snapping out of a trance of fear, he drew his cell phone from his jacket pocket and scrolled down the list of names and numbers stored within it, he selected Sylia's from the list. After 5 rings, she answered.
"Oh, hi Macky. What is it?
"Its back." He replied.
To be continued. By someone else. Please, go ahead and write more. This story is yours now. Just send me what you've written at garrick_charter@hotmail.com so I can see how the story is going to progress…Have fun! ;)