A.D. 2025
Central Middle East
A loud mechanical roar tore through the navy blue skies, the steel beast cutting its wing through the clouds. Its shadow being casted onto the vast desert, just like a vulture searching for its food. The rear gate opens up, giving off a slight screech as it does so. A pair of boots steps up to the edge, and pauses. The man looks down, and then up at the parachute lock, making sure the lock was connected to his parachute pack properly. He then turns back and gives a thumbs up before stepping off the edge, plunging down towards the earth. The lock disconnects itself from the pack as the man does so, opening up the parachute. Eleven other soon followed the suit, jumping off from the military plane.
The soldiers soon landed safetly on the warm desert, and they pulled the parachute off, while staying low. They were all dressed in desert camoflauge uniform, each of them having the standard battle order of a commando. The leader checked his GPS, and then looks up at the mountains in front of them.
TokuAsia Productions Presents...
A Gan Meng Yeow production...
GUNSLINGER: A.D. 2065
EPISODE ZERO.5
"This is just like searching for a needle in the sea..." he mumbled. "Everyone ready to go?"
His men nod, and they set off for their mission; to rescue their prince, who was captured by terrorists. According to intelligence, the terrorists were hiding in the mountains. Initially, the whole division of armed forces was planned to be deployed into the area. But after intensive argument and closing down on the location of the terrorist, only two sections of commandoes were sent in. These twelve commandoes are now on their own, to find a small village in an area of 30 square kilometers. There wouldn't be any issue if it was a jungle or flat land. This was a mountainous area for goodness sake. Countless caves, hidden and open ones. A terrorist leader was rumored to be hiding in one of those countless caves. Unless a hunter seeker really exists in this world, capturing the terrorist leader would be an impossible task.
"Captain," one of the men called. "We are now located at the edge of the 30 square kilometers area."
"I know," the captain replied as he walked. "Get to the foot of that mountain first," he said. "We'll re-organize the plan there."
The foot of the nearest mountain near to them was three kilometers away. That was nothing though, to commandoes. Just as he turns back, a whistling sound tore through the air.
"INCOMING!!" someone yelled, and all of them scattered, diving to the ground at the same time. One of the soldiers ate some sand as he did that, and he spat the sand out, cursing. The rocket misses all of them, hitting into the ground around 200 meters behind them. The explosion sent more sand onto the commandoes.
"FUCK!" another section leader cursed. Before they could re-organize, another rocket came whistling past their ears, hitting onto the ground near behind them.
"Spread out! Leap and bound towards the direction of fire!" the captain ordered. Both sections ran, and dived into the thick sand, firing at the invisible enemy at the same time.
"Where the fuck are those bastards!?" someone cursed.
"MORTAR!!" another yelled. A soldier carrying a 105mm mortar dashed forward. His assistant loaded the projectile quickly, and the firer took aim, at the mountain where he supposed the attack was from. He squeezed the trigger, sending the rocket blasting into the mountain. Another was fired almost immediately.
"Bearing 210! Elevation 400!" a soldier with binoculars reported. Both mortars aimed at the coordinates given and blasted off. The other soldiers fired their rifles aimlessly, in that same general direction. After three rounds of bombardment, the attack stopped. The leader looks towards his observer who was still surveying.
"They're gone," the observer reported.
"Casualties," the leader asked.
"One man down," came the reply. The leader stood up slowly and walked towards the back of the section. A soldier was lying on the ground, with a bloodied head. He was near to the point where the second rocket had landed. The soldier was dead.
"Gale," said a captain who walked up to the leader. "He is my section's SAW gunner."
Gale looked towards him, and then squatted down beside the dead soldier. He reached into the soldier's shirt and pulls out the dogtags. He pulls one dogtag off the soldier and hands it to the other section leader. This wasn't planned, not before they even stepped into the mountains.
"Let's carry on," Gale said.
Metropolis
National Parliament Hall
The seats in the hall were fully occupied, numbering up to 65 ministers, senior and junior. The metropolis chairman walked into the hall with his secretary. He was a young chairman, only 35 years old. He walked towards his seat, and sat down as his secretary laid his files down. All the ministers looked at him with mixed feelings, waiting for the chairman to announce his news. The chairman drank a bit of water, before looking up at his ministers with his deep blue eyes.
"The terrorists demanded 200 million," he said.
"They have not noticed the commandoes, haven't they? Mr. Fhilips?" an older minister asked. Gjilbert nods. The ministers felt relieved. No way are they going to pay the terrorist that kind of money.
"The metropolis has always been known for not giving in to any threats," Gjilbert said. "I am confident that our prince will return safely." Gjilbert looks around, no one said anything. "I have another big announcement to make today," he said, and picked another file up, and passed it to his secretary. The lady takes the file and walks over to the ministers, giving out sheets of paper.
"This is...!?" some ministers exclaimed on reading the contents. "Mr. Fhilips..."
"We have succeeded in researching on the Bioborg technology!" Gjilbert announced proudly. Everyone started clapping and shaking each other's hands in happiness and celebration. But Gjilbert's words made their happiness short-lived. "The only problem we have now, is where to find 'suitable hosts' for the Bioborg army."
"Don't we have the funds and technology to build them?" one minister asked.
"We do have those resources, but I believed we can save a lot of money if my plan could be agreed on," Gjilbert said with a solemn look on his face. "I know this may sound cruel. What I have in mind, is to use the bodies of dead people..."
"That is against human morals!" someone shouted immediately. Following that, everyone started talking, discussing, disagreeing to Gjilbert's idea.
"It is disrespectful to a dead person to upgrade his body into a Bioborg. No family would agree to this," said an elderly minister.
"They would not disagree of it if they were not told of it," Gjilbert said. Everyone went silent and looked at him. "I'm not saying we will use the bodies of dead civilians. I believe using the dead soldiers' bodies would be more appropriate. Since in the battlefield, bodies can get lost. All we can do is to tell the family members that their beloved are lost in war."
"I disagree," said a minister almost immediately. The other ministers soon followed the suit, disagreeing to this cruel and immoral idea.
"Gjilbert," the most senior minister amongst them said. "The twelve commandoes in the Middle East now...they were in your plans am I right?" he asked, looking at Gjilbert straight in the eye. Gjilbert closed his eyes, looks down and sighed.
Central Middle East
A head peeked out from a layer of rocks, and was immediately forced back by a burst on the rock. The commandoes were under fire, once again. This time, they were fighting in the mountains, and the enemy was at the opposite mountain.
"INCOMING!!" someone yelled. All dived to the ground, or behind obstacles to hide from the incoming rocket. The rocket sizzles past them, hitting into the mountain walls behind them.
"ARGH!" someone cried out. Gale looked behind him and saw a soldier laying on the ground, bleeding heavily from his neck.
"MEDIC!!" Gale yelled at their medic. The medic however, was too busy fighting for his life to hear Gale calling him. "MEDIC!!!" Gale yelled once more. The medic looked back this time. "MEN DOWN!!!" Gale yelled. The medic put his rifle down immediately, and ran towards the fallen soldier. Gale peeks out from his shelter and fired a few shots, one round hitting the enemy.
"MORTAR!!" someone shouted, and the sound of a rocket piercing through the air was immediately heard. The rocket rams onto the opposite mountain with a huge bang. Another soldier yelled in pain amidst the intense battle.
"There are too many of them!" someone shouted. Another soldier went down...
Sunset
The remaining eight soldiers sat around in a cave. They had managed to retreat from the battle, losing another three men from it. Amongst this eight survivors, two were heavily injured. Gale sat by the entrance of the cave, looking out into the darkening skies, wondering. Despite being an army captain, he was a soldier. And a soldier could do nothing but follow orders from the superior. Gale looks down at the photograph he was holding in his hand. In the photograph was himself, with a pretty lady.
"Your girl?" came a rough voice from behind him. It was his section's mortar gunner. He looked much older then Gale, with a shaved head. The name on his tag reads 'Bob'. A smile came over Gale's face as he nods.
"My fiancee..." Gale replied, but a confused expression took over him almost immediately. He looks up at the sky and sighed. Bob holds Gale's shoulder and sighed. Then he pats Gale's shoulder.
"You'll get to see her, you will," Bob consoled.
"Gale," someone called from the end of the cave. Gale stood up and walked towards the discussion group. Just as Gale was about to settle down, Bob shouted.
"We're in trouble," Bob looked back with a worried expression. Gale and the rest rushed towards the entrance and looked out. At the foot of the mountain gathered a huge number of terrorists. There were two technicals waiting at the foot of the mountain, while the rest made their way up. Gale looked at Bob. "We're on high ground."
Gale looks back at the enemies, and said, "We're leaving this place."
He looks up at Bob who nods with a agreement smile. Bob hurried into the cave. Gale followed soon after. Everyone had picked their weapons up already.
"We're leaving this place," Gale said. "There is a huge number of them down there. We'll move and fight at the same time, providing fire cover for those moving, Hoo-ah?"
"Hoo-ah," came a tired reply. The eight commandoes charged out from the cave and prone down at the edge, and started firing at the terrorists. The terrorists were shocked by the attack, but returned fire quickly. However, having advantage at higher ground allowed the commandoes to kill many of the terrorists within a few rounds of firing. More terrorists charged up as their comrades returned fire at the commandoes.
"Move now!" Gale ordered, and they started moving one by one down the mountain. "How many left?" Gale shouted to Bob who was beside him.
"Two more, sir!" Bob shouted.
Metropolis
The rain was pouring heavily, thunder and lightning roaring and flashing across the dark skies. People outside were hurrying around, trying to find shelter, while some ignored the downpour and walked as if it was a fine weather. A young lady carrying an umbrella ran towards a door, opened it and entered the house quickly. She puts the umbrella down by the doorway and throws her keys onto a wardrobe as she walked towards the kitchen. On the wardrobe laid a silver colored photo frame, with a picture of a happy couple. On the glass cover of the frame was two words scribbled on with multicolored marker. GALE X RAIN.
"Give them one of it!" Gale replied and loaded his M203. He took aim and fired the projectile at the enemy. The grenade dropped in the middle of an advancing group of terrorists, blasting them off the mountain! "MOVE MOVE MOVE!" Gale ordered and then threw his last grenade at the terrorists. The commandoes started moving down, stopping and firing at the same time. Gale heard a thud behind him suddenly. Bob was shot in the leg!
Gale ran towards Bob and looked at the terrorists at the same time. The terrorists launched a RPG at them at this moment! Gale threw himself down and pushed Bob to safety, and then fall to the ground himself.
"SIR!!" his men yelled in shock. Gale looks up and his eyes widened in shock as he sees the rocket fly towards him.
"CAPT!!" Bob shouted, but was helpless to do anything.
Memories of Gale and his fiancee flooded his mind as the rocket rams into him...
Screen blacks out.
The photo frame crashed onto the ground, the glass cover smashed into pieces and scatters around on the floor.
"Oh..." the young lady moaned as she realised the object she had knocked into accidentally.
Mechanical breathing sounds were heard, as many people hurried around. There were about ten men altogether, all dressed in white, and wearing a mask. Surgeons? Not really. Scientists? Kind of. The apparatus around in the room were too high end to be hospital equipments. In the middle of the room, laid a body, on a metal platform. Wires and tubes were attached all over it. Much of the body looked artificial, while the head remained closed to original.
Defense Quarters of the Metropolis
Three shadows were seen in the dim corridor, one of which was a figure of a lady, grabbing and punching away at a man.
"HOW CAN YOU SAY THAT!? HOW CAN YOU SAY THAT HE CANNOT BE FOUND!?" cried a lady's voice as she wailed in agony, her cries echoing down the dim corridor.
"Calm down miss...we will try our..." the gentleman said as he tries to calm the lady down.
"How's the condition?" a man asked.
"Breathing is at the correct level to work the mechanical heart," replied a female voice. "Body fluids flowing correctly. The heavy damage caused us heavy work, but well. This is the best we can do."
"Didn't expect this to be so successful. Percentage of difference between this and the original is less then five percent."
"IT HAS BEEN MORE THEN A YEAR!!!!" the lady screamed angrily.
"Rain..." the lady behind Rain said as she held her friend. Then she looked at the man. "This is not a reasonable explanation. You sent troops to a mission and for one year they did not return! And to think that the government is not doing anything about this! Can't you spare a thought for the family members of the other soldiers!?"
"Miss, this is classified information, we cannot..."
"DAMN YOUR CLASSIFIED INFORMATION!! I ONLY WANT TO KNOW WHERE MY HUSBAND IS!!!!" Rain cried.
"Entering code to fully start up Unit One," someone said and pressed some buttons on the control panel. The body laying on the platform, which was originally as still as a stone jerked up suddenly. The eyes slowly opened, and then blinked a lot of times as it wasn't used to the brightness. After a while, the eyes got used to it, and the body slowly sat up. A scientist stepped forward and looked at him.
"Welcome to this world," the scientist said in a friendly tone. The words
G U N S L I N G E R U N I T O N E
C O D E N A M E : G A L E
S Y S T E M S F U L L Y A C T I V A T E D
appeared across Unit One's eyes.
Sounds of the typing on a keyboard
2 0 6 5
53 years after the 'Age of Evolution', many things, especially science and medicine improved tremendously. People now drive cars that does not have wheels; space travel was common in this era. Most of humanity enjoyed the benefits of the high tech age. Except for the Metropolis that fell horribly. The Metropolis was once the center of trade and had one of the world's best harbour. But things changed as many poor countries opened up their market to allow foreign trade into their lands. The Metropolis, with no natural resources to trade for, failed miserably in their economy. Investors and traders left for bigger countries which provided cheaper production services and more variety of trade, leaving the Metropolis with nothing except their people. The rich migrated to other countries, while the poor were stuck, causing the Metropolis to become a huge squatter settlement.
Life became from bad to worse, as the government soon splits into two sanctions. The 'Right Wingers', who were persistent in restoring the Metropolis by themselves, and the 'Left Wingers' who preferred merging with neighboring countries. Despite having fierce disputes over the two choices, nobody in the government proposed any idea to first improve the lives of their own people...as time passes without proper result in the debate, ministers from both sides started disappearing one by one...
A grey briefcase falls heavily onto the dusty floor, and a middle-aged man falls on his bottom beside the briefcase.
"No...please...I beg you...I can give you any amount of money you want...!" he pleaded in horror, only to have a thick silver muzzle pushed into his head. "No..." his eyes were covered by a piece of black cloth.
A pair of boots steps up beside the briefcase, squats down and opens it.
"Money is all you can think about?" asked a young but strong voice. "How can you expect me to let you live when your greed will cause more pain and torture among our people...?"
The man trembled in fear as he heard the young man take out a piece of paper from the briefcase.
"You want to sell our country..." the young man muttered in disappointment, and then puts the piece of paper back into the briefcase before closing it. He lifts the briefcase by the handle, stands up and turns away. The other young man who was pointing his pistol at him turns away too. The man scrambled backwards, got to his feet quickly and ran off in the opposite direction. A bang went off after he ran some distance. The man collapsed to the ground, his face facing down, with a gunshot hole on head. Blood squirted out from the hole drilled and the gunner smirked to himself.
"Is he good enough?" the one carrying a briefcase smirked.
"Too fat, I could guess his running direction too easily," came the reply from above. "To use this arctic rifle on him is an insult to me," the gunner sneered.
"Lets get back, and we can call it a day."