#sci fi dystopian

[apteryxdrake]

Chapbook: Run, Arlan

This chapbook was originally written for a con promotional event approx. 2014. I'll post a scene on this thread every day until it's done.

I primarily write urban fantasy/sci fi, with action and dystopian themes. My books are also queer friendly, though not the focus of the stories. But because the stories are quite violent, I should put a:

Content warning: violence and inferred gore

Run, Arlan * 1 *

Agent Arlan Edaan ran sideways and collected his Team Leader, pulling the older man to the ground as he fell. Arlan landed on his side as a car flew over them. It was so close, had he wanted to, he could have reached out and touched it. Mouth open wide, he stared at it as it rolled over them in slow motion.

The girl was a kinetic, obviously, he thought.

Time sped up again and the flying car hit concrete, shredding metal and glass over the road and plowing into the oncoming traffic with a terrible smash.

“They’re getting away,” his Team Leader yelled as he scrambled to his feet.

Arlan gathered his thoughts from their muddled shock and stood up as well.

“Quit blinking at me!” The Team Leader barked at the other two TFOs, who stood on the side-walk their eyes wide like animals caught in car headlights. “Get after them!”

He didn’t even say thank you, thought Arlan.

The man glanced sideways at him. “No need to thank a person for doing their job, son. Now come on!”

Their targets ran on up the narrow residential street. Two parents and the little girl. They wore layers of gray drab rags, and the adults had no shoes.

Arlan couldn’t understand why they refused to surrender. As he ran with his Team, he frowned at the family. If they surrendered to Agency custody the girl would live. She wouldn’t have much choice in her life but she’d be alive. Why would her parents not surrender to save her?

The family skittered up the side-walk and into a tall but crumbling apartment block. His Team went into the building after them and he followed.

“Weapons ready!” called the Team Leader.

Arlan shrugged the auto assault rifle off its clip and, bracing it against his shoulder, lifted the barrel to aim.

They burst through into an apartment and his three teammates started firing without warning. Arlan paused, unable yet to see his target and unwilling to shoot randomly into a room, but the gunfire stopped before he zeroed in.

The others shifted sideways out of his line of sight. There was a mess of bodies in front of him and he gasped, turning away from it. With his back to the horror, he stared at a rotting wall. Stuck to wallpaper at his eye level was a yellow sticky note. He blinked at it.

“Arlan, run,” it said.

A shot of fear blew through him and he ripped it off the wall, stuffing the sticky note into the front pocket of his bullet-proof vest. He hoped none of the others had seen it.

Turning around again, he tried not to see what they’d done. Bodies lay in front of him in a line of gore and horror. The walls were splattered with blood and, not a meter from his boots, were the remains of the little girl. A child, who in her attempt to escape the Agency pursuit had been able to throw a car at them with her mind. She would have been a very high-rated kinetic, if she’d lived.

Poor kid. Arlan swallowed.

His Team Leader, and the only telepath in the group, moved out of the room into another area of the apartment and Arlan’s thoughts flickered back to the note in his pocket.

Hawk left yellow stickies for people when he wanted them to escape the Agency. Maybe today was the day he should run. But then his new Task Force team would hunt him down just as they had the girl and her parents.

Everyone knew the laws. If you were Psi or Talent, you had to work for the Agency. If you refused, you were a Traitor and Aranan law stated Traitors were to be immediately executed.

But I don’t want to do this. He swallowed again, trying to suppress his grief and fear. I don’t want to kill people.

His stomach tightened and he turned around, striding out of the room and back down to the street entrance. The nausea rose up into his throat and he only just made it outside before the grief and disgust resurrected his breakfast.

When his body finally gave up its spasms, he was leaning over his knees and breathing in pained gulps of acrid air.

Someone patted him on the back. “You alright, kid?” said his Team Leader.

Arlan shook his head but couldn’t otherwise reply.

“It’s always bad the first time. You stay here, we’ll clear the building. Clean yourself up.”

The man talked like it was ordinary. Like killing a child and her family was just fine.

Arlan waited until he could hear the sounds of his Leader trumping back upstairs, and pulled the yellow sticky out of his pocket.

“Arlan, run.”

Surely this was meant for him? How many people called Arlan would find themselves in that abandoned apartment before the paper glue lost its stickiness? Not many. They said that Hawk’s stickies were always put in the most impossible places with the best timing. If this really was a sticky from Hawk, it could mean Arlan might actually escape the Agency and not be killed.

The Team Leader’s voice barked orders from inside. If Arlan chose to run, now was the best time. He had two choices. Stay in the Agency and kill more innocent people because they chose not to be conscripted, or run and have a chance at freedom, even if it was short-lived.

He stuffed the sticky in his pocket, dropped the auto assault rifle from his vest-clip, and started running.

[zaraz7-art]

[atomic-chronoscaph]

Rollerball concept art by Bob Peak (1975)

[technicallyclassyperfection]

Paul Gulacy

[scipunk]

Love, Death & Robots - S1E1 - Sonnie's Edge (2019)

[lauferisms]

Monica's Weird, My First Novella!

Do you like Dark Science Fantasy, unconventional protagonists, and the storytelling of games like Half-Life?

Well, I just published my first novella! If you can spare a few dollars, I'd be happy to read your thoughts!

It's about a dystopia, a fairy, and Monica, the emotionless girl tying them all together.

[texaschainsawmascara]

Bai Ling as Æon Flux

[rotten-whispers]

Do YOU like queer protagonists in books? Dystopian horror? Silly sci-fi novels?

Or supporting your local queer indie author?

THEN consider delving into Tales from a Mall, a wacky sci-fi novel where ferrets have mechanical attachments, snails have legs, and there is something sinister going on in the 22nd century Fresh Malls. Perhaps something to do with the rats. Lots and lots of rats...

Only $10!

https://www.amazon.com/Tales-Mall-future-become-ridiculous/dp/B0BK6PVMX3/ref=sr_1_1

Or consider exploring the dark world of Boxes, a sci-fi horror novel following the journey of nonbinary Baxley through the Complex. Monsters roam the halls, stairs descend endlessly into the earth, and a sweet madness has overcome the denizens, turning them into something else entirely. See trigger warnings if necessary!

Only $16!

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0B8BPW3P5/ref=dbs_a_def_awm_bibl_vppi_i0GJhNzA3ZTZmM2I2NGY5ZDVmNWQ1NSwzNzdhNmM0ZGIwMTBiMTg2Y2FmNTZiNDIxZDI4YjA0MWQxMWM0NGY5&ts=1660371335

Not into novels? Try one of my silly sticker designs on Redbubble!!

https://www.redbubble.com/people/molespignoses/shop

Please check out a copy or reblog this post to support my work :)

[lemandro-vive-qui]

Akira (アキラ)

[Katsuhiro Otomo - 1988]

[mysharona1987]

[closetdystopia]

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I'm starin' down the lens, and it's like lookin' into an abyss that's swallowed the guy I used to be. These wires, they're not just connected to my body; they're tethered to whatever's left of my soul. It's a mental labyrinth, and every thought's a dead-end, every emotion's a flickerin' light about to go out. I keep pullin' on these threads, hopin' to find some fragment of me that's still real, still human. But the more I pull, the more they unravel, 'til there's nothin' left to hold onto. The last flicker of emotion, the last shred of hope— it's all gone. I'm just a shell in a world that's moved on, a ghost in the machine with no place to haunt.

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>> PJT36v7

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[joe-spookyy]

early apple computers and other tech junk in a back room of an abandoned asylum i visited while urban exploring, april 2024

[zaraz7-art]

WWW

The search engine robot is responsible for crawling web pages. The program automatically reads data from all sites and registers them in a form that is understandable for the search engine itself, so that the system will subsequently display the most suitable results for the user.

[atomic-chronoscaph]

Zardoz (1974)

[technicallyclassyperfection]

Annibale Siconolfi @annibale_sic Teleport Services _ Prototype Test

[scipunk]

Love, Death & Robots - S1E1 - Sonnie's Edge (2019)