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Random Prose from Through the Storm (WIP)
Or, the place I put my random short writing ideas because I can never seem to write a coherent, chronologically sensible long storyline. Context-free and actual creativity-free. Have fun trying to decipher what the hell all of these mean, because I certainly don't know.Anton assumed the damned bomb was going to be heavy, but not this heavy, Jesus Christ. Really, the folks back at the hideout couldn't have found a better backpack?
His thoughts quickly wandered away from just how much back pain he was going to suffer for the next, and last (hopefully), few minutes of his life, given it would all end soon, and refocused on the gleaming, blue-tinted, obnoxiously modernist skyscraper that dominated the skyline near the sidewalk he had just turned onto. The city bustled with energy, its cosmopolitan identity and love of the avant-garde practically oozing into the air, the latest electric cars, smart glasses and latsets visible on screens, that, Anton had to give it to them, were at least aesthetically pleasing; the state corps here knew their advertising. Buildings painted in dull blue, gray and white contrasted with the rainbow of bikes that streamed past him.
Arcadia. An 836 square kilometer vanity project, built realistically because the Altberg cabinet decided they were just going to create a floating, artificial island in the middle of the North Sea for the hell of it, then name it after the very non-urban, non-modernist Greek utopia. You couldn't make Anton hate a single place more if you tried, and his father once dragged him towards the southern Pyrenees in the midst of a rainstorm for a "light jog". His mother-
His mother was dead. This country killed his mother, this Godforsaken country of lying, bastard scoundrels who his father had told him the whole, terrible truth about, who took his future from him in the blink of an eye- now, he would take theirs. He'd said goodbye to everyone at the Fort (he should've made a move on Kathy, damnit), made final arrangements for his possessions and embraced his father one last time- all Anton had now was a phone with headset, his clothes, a pricey water thermos, his mother's woven handkerchief and the quite dangerous device hidden in this visibly cheap hiking bag. His target now lay in front of him- Federal Parliament, sloping upwards from the public forest park that surrounded it and towards the sky in four office pillars, with accessory wings jutting out from its center. From space, it would resemble a classic Polarean compass rose/northstar.
The wind picked up, and summer winds swept his early-graying hair out towards the North Sea to the west. Beautiful, at least without all the Polarea in the shot. Turning up the volume on an orchestral piece by some Scot, Anton resolved to enjoy his life one more time, wasting a few minutes just looking out towards the ocean as laughing citygoers passed by in trendy shirts and high spirits. A 60-something man in Arcadian Geometric fashion, accompanied by a band of friends, started an impromptu dance contest to his left, speakers delivering the ever-eternal Kokoro Magic A-to-Z, still as popular after four decades. The boy he used to be might've felt something, seeing them, but Anton knew better now.
"See them, Anton? They're the bad guys. They hurt you, and they took Mama from me and you, so we'll hurt them too. Does that sound good to you?"
The guards were too easy to pass by, and the old man Pata had already "taken care of", in deliberately vague terms, the surveillance networks in the area, leaving Anton with one last job to do.
His father was so proud of him, he said so before Anton left. His mother would be so proud of him, Anton thought as he clutched his last reminder of her existence.
Anton slowly tapped an unremarkable icon on his phone, sitting down on a worn-looking park bench, somewhat out of breath, mother's handkerchief in hand and taking a sip of water- damn, it just spilled. Really? Anticlimactic.
Maybe he wasn't ready to die, he thought.
Anton Finn Chapa, the city of Arcadia, and two million people disappeared in a flash of thermonuclear hellfire.
[spoiler=Return]
Nikolai Yuryevich Demin was not a restless man; he had learned through the years from his father and from the trials of life that patience and focus was one of the most important virtues. Nevertheless, Nikolai, the man famed in and around Star City for his nerves of steel, could not help but let the slightest sign of excited energy bubble through his calm exterior. Any rumination on this was quickly stopped by the crackle of his suit radio.
"Nikolai Yuryevich, I assume we shouldn't worry ourselves over your slightly elevated heart rate?"
"If you want to drag me out of this restraint-filled capsule for the second time for my fifth medical examination today over a little excitement, I suppose I am... unable to stop you, Lyudmila Ivanovna."
"Very well. Angara-5P safety checks are complete, launch pad has go. You just might go to space today, Kolya." A less familiar controller jutted in-
"Volzhsk, Plesetsk administrative says go. We're just waiting for word from Korolyov... and... Korolyov says go. Begin final launch countdown- 10 minutes." With that, Nikolai had little to do but wait and think, placed in a slightly uncomfortable seating arrangement, for the next five minutes. Occasionally, he fiddled with a useless knob someone had apparently designed into the seat, but otherwise, those five minutes might as well have felt like five hours.
"Volzhsk, T-5 minutes, capsule controls active."
Despite the implication that he might have actually had to pilot or otherwise control his ascent, the Orel spacecraft he sat in, the first true manned spacecraft manufactured since 2026, was quite automated; his job, apart from frequent radio callouts, would mostly be staying alive and conscious.
