A Bit of Fiction
I've put this off for far too long. Here it is in it's splendor:
Cursed Earth: The World We Knew, Epilogue
Top Hat emerged from the rubble shaken, bruised, but otherwise unharmed. Something in her alien physiology coupled with the advanced design of the Transhumanists’ compound allowed her to survive the thermo-nuclear blast from that damned machine. Whatever that machine was, it did its job. Both of the assaulting armies lie in ruin amidst the shattered remains of the formerly serene countryside. She surveyed the devastation, looking for any survivors between the crumbling remains of the techno-cult’s former lair but found none. She shrugged and made her south, back into the desert wasteland from whence she came; stopping only once to reflect on the friends she had lost.
After a period of aimless wandering, Top Hat would stumble across a hidden cache of archaic tomes, brightly colored and illustrating how peoples like her were created. She was convinced that these relics were sacred texts handed down to her from On High. Taking a cue from the vivid hieroglyphics, Top Hat created a haven in the wasteland for peoples like her, a sanctuary for those possessing extraordinary abilities and powers. There, she trains anyone willing to make the journey in the control, application, and refinement of their gifts. The holy tapestries (to which they are referred to) are on display in the school and are treated with the same respect and awe in which modern day peoples observe the Bible. Even now wayfarers in the wasteland tell tales of passing the school at night hearing the prayers to the saint “Professor X.”
The burst of radiation from the explosion is what actually revived him, but it was the stench afterward that stuck in his splintered mind the most. The reek of burnt flesh and human effluence smoldered in his nostrils for what seemed like an eternity. Who knows how long he lay there staring at that putrid sun with his one remaining eye? Days, years, eons crawled by while his body, steeped in nourishing fallout, reconstituted itself. When his limbs were finally formed enough to allow movement, Laughing Jack arose like a glowing, cancerous phoenix amidst the wreckage and desolation that was once the base of operations for a group almost half as mad as himself. With a hearty chuckle, Jack hopped from body to body checking for any other living creature. Finding none, Jack lifted his head to the sky and howled with all the fervor and lunacy of a thousand occupants of the funny farm. He shrieked and cackled until his voice failed and all the sound he could muster was a sickening wheeze that parodied true laughter. Slinking off into the wasteland he once called home, Jack disappeared back into the unknown.
Little is known of what truly ever became of the creature that called itself Laughing Jack. Some say that he picked up where he left off before his involvement with the remnants of the outside world, scrounging for whatever food that could be found in the charred remains of the Earth. Others say he spent the remainder of his unnaturally long life tormenting the surviving members of the Enforcers, taking revenge whenever he could against the organization that was so quick to draft and dispose of him. Others still tell of a gangle-creature haunting the streets of D-Town, removing any would-be crime bosses and protecting the weak and wounded that would otherwise be at the mercy of the drooling lunatics that roam the back alleys and dead ends of the rotting city. A sad few recall the tragic story of a misshapen wanderer cursed with the gift of eternal life amidst a sea of death and decay, forced to watch everyone around him wither and die, even the only one who saw past his grotesque exterior fell victim to the ravages of time.
Damn that muscle-bound freak. If I ever find that stinkin’ rat again I’ll-
Something shifted to Blue-Eyes’s right. A spattering of rubble clattered to the ground as a metallic hand shifted from underneath a fallen wall. Before he could think his gun was already in his hand, hammer pulled back, ready to blast whatever else could have survived that blast.
“Assistance. Required.” That familiar lifeless metal voice creaked.
“How in damnation?”
“Who. Is. There?” The voice inquired.
Amidst the rubble and scorched ground the familiar silver skull of the villain answering to SM-2030 squirmed, caught between the blackened remains of the Transhumanist compound.
“You.”
“You. Human. Male. Answering. To. Blue. Eyes. Assist. Me. I. Can-
“Die.”
The echo of the shot rang throughout the recently carved crater. The familiar sting of cordite hit Blue-Eyes’s nostrils. SM-2030 was dead. He may, with the help of his battle frame, have survived that explosion, but no man, no matter how duded up, can survive a .45 round to the forehead at pointblank range. Especially if followed by five friends.
Blue-Eyes returned Sinner to her holster and surveyed the damage. The former military/laboratory complex was in shambles. Both its mechanized defenders and the combined armies of Vault 6 and the Enforcers lie scattered and broken. His friends were gone. No way in Hell anyone else could have survived that blast. It was only by the grace of God that he was standing after the elevator collapsed and fell back down its shaft. All Blue-Eyes knew was that he was lucky to be alive and was once again alone. With a heavy sigh, Blue-Eyes squared his shoulders and climbed his way back to the surface and made his way south to whatever life he may yet find in the wasteland.
Little is known of whatever happened to Blue-Eyes. Rumors persist of a gun for hire that is willing to do almost any job if the pay is right and Rad-away meds are part of the deal. Residents of No Hope still tell the tale of how a Godsend Gunman freed them from the tyranny of a Gas Marauder and his band of outlaws, and how he inspired the citizens to stand up in the face of adversity, changing their inclinations by so great a degree that the sparse, desert town renamed itself to Last Hope shortly after his bullet-ridden visit. As sudden and mysteriously as he came so too did he disappear back into the wasteland from whence he came. Only the coarse, hot winds of Cursed Earth truly know what happened to the gunman called Blue-Eyes.
Sadly, not all of the members of that fateful party have miraculous tales of survival. One of the downsides of being a martyr is that you have to die. However, it is not how they died that matters, but how they lived. Such is true of the life of Dwight Reynolds. Through his brave, almost fool hardy actions, many innocent lives were spared. The few townsfolk that call Gas Pit their home now live in peace and tranquility thanks to Dwight’s actions. However, one citizen sits restlessly by his shattered window, hoping to see the distant headlights of the man who was once the closest thing to a father he had ever known. That day never comes.
Day after day he becomes more anxious, longing to seek out the fate of his idol. Eventually he can no longer contain his fretful mind and ventures out into the wasteland with both the knowledge and the hardware handed down to him by Dwight. Rolling along the remains of fallen cities in the skeleton of an Abrams Tank, the solitary wanderer known only as “The Kid” forever searches for his long lost mentor. Riding along with him is the honor and valor bestowed upon by his childhood hero, as well as a familiar looking sawed-down Remington rifle.
No one really knows what happens in a black hole. It is possible that some alien form of existence lies on the other side of that crushing infinity. Can the same be said for those unfortunate few caught in the atom splitting radius of ground zero from a 20 megaton bomb? The only ones that know for sure are incapable of letting us know one way or the other. So goes the aftermath of Big Al. The man who became a living weapon brought life to the survivors of Cursed Earth by destroying the biggest threat to their existence, the twisted, self-mutilating techno-cult calling themselves the Transhumanists. By trying to become the perfect human, they lost touch with that while makes a person human in the first place. Thanks to Al’s suicidal conviction, the Transhumanists are no more and the peoples of Cursed Earth survive another day, but how long before a new threat arises that jeopardizes the small sliver of life that still clings to the rotting carcass of our once lush and beautiful planet?
Find out in the next installment of the Cursed Earth trilogy, “Life After Earth.”
Choke on it,
EDM
One word: Russians.
Cursed Earth: The World We Knew, Epilogue
Top Hat emerged from the rubble shaken, bruised, but otherwise unharmed. Something in her alien physiology coupled with the advanced design of the Transhumanists’ compound allowed her to survive the thermo-nuclear blast from that damned machine. Whatever that machine was, it did its job. Both of the assaulting armies lie in ruin amidst the shattered remains of the formerly serene countryside. She surveyed the devastation, looking for any survivors between the crumbling remains of the techno-cult’s former lair but found none. She shrugged and made her south, back into the desert wasteland from whence she came; stopping only once to reflect on the friends she had lost.
After a period of aimless wandering, Top Hat would stumble across a hidden cache of archaic tomes, brightly colored and illustrating how peoples like her were created. She was convinced that these relics were sacred texts handed down to her from On High. Taking a cue from the vivid hieroglyphics, Top Hat created a haven in the wasteland for peoples like her, a sanctuary for those possessing extraordinary abilities and powers. There, she trains anyone willing to make the journey in the control, application, and refinement of their gifts. The holy tapestries (to which they are referred to) are on display in the school and are treated with the same respect and awe in which modern day peoples observe the Bible. Even now wayfarers in the wasteland tell tales of passing the school at night hearing the prayers to the saint “Professor X.”
The burst of radiation from the explosion is what actually revived him, but it was the stench afterward that stuck in his splintered mind the most. The reek of burnt flesh and human effluence smoldered in his nostrils for what seemed like an eternity. Who knows how long he lay there staring at that putrid sun with his one remaining eye? Days, years, eons crawled by while his body, steeped in nourishing fallout, reconstituted itself. When his limbs were finally formed enough to allow movement, Laughing Jack arose like a glowing, cancerous phoenix amidst the wreckage and desolation that was once the base of operations for a group almost half as mad as himself. With a hearty chuckle, Jack hopped from body to body checking for any other living creature. Finding none, Jack lifted his head to the sky and howled with all the fervor and lunacy of a thousand occupants of the funny farm. He shrieked and cackled until his voice failed and all the sound he could muster was a sickening wheeze that parodied true laughter. Slinking off into the wasteland he once called home, Jack disappeared back into the unknown.
Little is known of what truly ever became of the creature that called itself Laughing Jack. Some say that he picked up where he left off before his involvement with the remnants of the outside world, scrounging for whatever food that could be found in the charred remains of the Earth. Others say he spent the remainder of his unnaturally long life tormenting the surviving members of the Enforcers, taking revenge whenever he could against the organization that was so quick to draft and dispose of him. Others still tell of a gangle-creature haunting the streets of D-Town, removing any would-be crime bosses and protecting the weak and wounded that would otherwise be at the mercy of the drooling lunatics that roam the back alleys and dead ends of the rotting city. A sad few recall the tragic story of a misshapen wanderer cursed with the gift of eternal life amidst a sea of death and decay, forced to watch everyone around him wither and die, even the only one who saw past his grotesque exterior fell victim to the ravages of time.
Damn that muscle-bound freak. If I ever find that stinkin’ rat again I’ll-
Something shifted to Blue-Eyes’s right. A spattering of rubble clattered to the ground as a metallic hand shifted from underneath a fallen wall. Before he could think his gun was already in his hand, hammer pulled back, ready to blast whatever else could have survived that blast.
“Assistance. Required.” That familiar lifeless metal voice creaked.
“How in damnation?”
“Who. Is. There?” The voice inquired.
Amidst the rubble and scorched ground the familiar silver skull of the villain answering to SM-2030 squirmed, caught between the blackened remains of the Transhumanist compound.
“You.”
“You. Human. Male. Answering. To. Blue. Eyes. Assist. Me. I. Can-
“Die.”
The echo of the shot rang throughout the recently carved crater. The familiar sting of cordite hit Blue-Eyes’s nostrils. SM-2030 was dead. He may, with the help of his battle frame, have survived that explosion, but no man, no matter how duded up, can survive a .45 round to the forehead at pointblank range. Especially if followed by five friends.
Blue-Eyes returned Sinner to her holster and surveyed the damage. The former military/laboratory complex was in shambles. Both its mechanized defenders and the combined armies of Vault 6 and the Enforcers lie scattered and broken. His friends were gone. No way in Hell anyone else could have survived that blast. It was only by the grace of God that he was standing after the elevator collapsed and fell back down its shaft. All Blue-Eyes knew was that he was lucky to be alive and was once again alone. With a heavy sigh, Blue-Eyes squared his shoulders and climbed his way back to the surface and made his way south to whatever life he may yet find in the wasteland.
Little is known of whatever happened to Blue-Eyes. Rumors persist of a gun for hire that is willing to do almost any job if the pay is right and Rad-away meds are part of the deal. Residents of No Hope still tell the tale of how a Godsend Gunman freed them from the tyranny of a Gas Marauder and his band of outlaws, and how he inspired the citizens to stand up in the face of adversity, changing their inclinations by so great a degree that the sparse, desert town renamed itself to Last Hope shortly after his bullet-ridden visit. As sudden and mysteriously as he came so too did he disappear back into the wasteland from whence he came. Only the coarse, hot winds of Cursed Earth truly know what happened to the gunman called Blue-Eyes.
Sadly, not all of the members of that fateful party have miraculous tales of survival. One of the downsides of being a martyr is that you have to die. However, it is not how they died that matters, but how they lived. Such is true of the life of Dwight Reynolds. Through his brave, almost fool hardy actions, many innocent lives were spared. The few townsfolk that call Gas Pit their home now live in peace and tranquility thanks to Dwight’s actions. However, one citizen sits restlessly by his shattered window, hoping to see the distant headlights of the man who was once the closest thing to a father he had ever known. That day never comes.
Day after day he becomes more anxious, longing to seek out the fate of his idol. Eventually he can no longer contain his fretful mind and ventures out into the wasteland with both the knowledge and the hardware handed down to him by Dwight. Rolling along the remains of fallen cities in the skeleton of an Abrams Tank, the solitary wanderer known only as “The Kid” forever searches for his long lost mentor. Riding along with him is the honor and valor bestowed upon by his childhood hero, as well as a familiar looking sawed-down Remington rifle.
No one really knows what happens in a black hole. It is possible that some alien form of existence lies on the other side of that crushing infinity. Can the same be said for those unfortunate few caught in the atom splitting radius of ground zero from a 20 megaton bomb? The only ones that know for sure are incapable of letting us know one way or the other. So goes the aftermath of Big Al. The man who became a living weapon brought life to the survivors of Cursed Earth by destroying the biggest threat to their existence, the twisted, self-mutilating techno-cult calling themselves the Transhumanists. By trying to become the perfect human, they lost touch with that while makes a person human in the first place. Thanks to Al’s suicidal conviction, the Transhumanists are no more and the peoples of Cursed Earth survive another day, but how long before a new threat arises that jeopardizes the small sliver of life that still clings to the rotting carcass of our once lush and beautiful planet?
Find out in the next installment of the Cursed Earth trilogy, “Life After Earth.”
Choke on it,
EDM
One word: Russians.