Being a hired goon sucks (WIP)

Bursar

I've been thinking about writing something for a while, and I finally sat and put some words together. I'm going for something in an action/comedy in which one of the lowly guards in an evil supergenius's secret lair gets more power and responsibility than he bargained for then decides to go for that "taking over the world" thing he's been hearing so much about. I'm worried that it may come out sounding a bit too much like No One Lives Forever or the Destroyer series. I'm trying to introduce the main character's immediate collegues, but I'm afraid it ends up a dry read (and "Baron Spite" is a stupid name, but that can change). Comments and crits are welcomed.

Edit: changed the thread title. If I'm going to continue this, it's going to be labeled with the orange traffic cones.

---

When the alarm sounds, everybody is expected to get to their assigned positions and await further orders. Unfortunately, there's very little to do there when your assigned position is far from any point of entrance and in the middle of an almost-featureless tunnel of dull concrete. Faced with such bland surroundings, the mind tends to seek ways to entertain itself. Some guards play cards, while others produce colored chalks and create works of art on the bare gray walls. My group just likes to talk.

“Good 'ol Hallway Subsection 36-E,” Randall sighed, taking his usual spot against the wall and slouching down behind an outcropping.

“Looks like we've been seeing more equipment passing through since the last time we were here,” I pointed out, pointing to the numerous thick tire tracks that led all the way down the corridor until it curved out of sight in both directions. “I hope we're near completing whatever the hell's going on down there. I would really like to see the outside by the end of the month. This artificial light's driving me nuts.”

Wilson, the leader of our three-man squad, knelt down to study the tracks a little closer. “Must be carrying some heavy stuff to track dirt all the way down here. Usually the little carts we've been using don't leave a mark.” He looked back sown the hall and frowned. “Speaking of which, Steve, go back and park ours a little better. If anything does need to come through here it'd be nice not to have to walk back.”

I turned to where he was looking, and sure enough the cart we'd ridden up on was parked askew from the wall, intersecting one of the sets of tracks. Anything sturdier than a garbage can rolling down the hallway could potentially smash our ride into bits, leaving us with no choice but to hike all the way from Hallway Subsection 36-E to General Quarters, a several-kilometer long trip. I shoved the flimsy vehicle up against the wall and headed to the others. When I came back, Wilson was already taking bets on what caused the alarm this time.

“What do you think it is now?” Wilson asked, pulling a battered notepad and a stub of pencil from one of his jumpsuit pockets. “I'm thinking. . . United Nations task force.”

“Ninjas,” said Randall. He twisted his cap around so the bill wouldn't get in his way, then sighted his assault rifle down the hallway.

“You always say ninjas,” I muttered. “Ninjas don't exist. Get it through your damn head.”

“Besides which, the plural of 'ninja' is 'ninja,'” said Wilson, who enjoyed pointing out that sort of thing.

“Have you ever seen a ninja? In real life?” I asked. Wilson and Randall shook their heads. “There you go.”

“Absence of evidence, bucko,” countered Randall, “Is not evidence of absence. It's not like the UN's ever been here either.”

“It's more likely than a bunch of ninjas!”

“Ninja. Shut up, both of you,” ordered Wilson. “Steve, you want to guess?”

I thought for a moment. “It's nothing.”

Randall turned back to me and raised an eyebrow. “Nothing? C'mon.”

“I'm serious. It's nothing. In fact, it's always been nothing.”

Now Wilson looked at me suspiciously. “Really? Every time? Last time you said it would be the Chinese.”

“Every time.”

The alarm, set to repeat at five-minute intervals, started up from the wall speaker: “Alert. Alert. Unauthorized perimeter activity. Potential foreign entry. Take standard defensive positions. . .”

“. . . This is not a drill,” we chorused, and the message echoed away down the hall. It, or the all-clear, would return in another five minutes. In the meantime there was nothing to do but chat, or else the mind-numbing emptiness of the Hellway (as we called it) would put you to sleep.

“'Not a drill,'” repeated Randall.

“Think about it. Let's say that for once they didn't say it wasn't a drill. Everybody would then assume that it was a drill, and either we'd slack off and clown around - ”

“Much like we're doing now,” commented Wilson.

“ - or everybody would be hyper-alert and attentive because they would be convinced that they're being tested, and would fall apart if something did happen. Look. If the first time there isn't a drill there's an announcement that it isn't a drill, every time after that has to be labeled 'not a drill' because otherwise you'd know it's not not a drill. Wait,” I shut my eyes and ran the last sentence through my mind again. “Not not a drill. Yeah.”

Wilson nodded. “Makes sense. Want to go double and claim the last three times were nothing, too?”

“Sure. I mean, taking into account the number of times per month that thing goes off, we're either drilling all the time or this is the worst secret base ever built.”

“Interesting.” Wilson made a note in his book, then put it back in his pocket.

Wilson's walkie-talkie squawked. “Squad 36-E, this is Dashell on standard patrol, approaching from 36-F. Copy.”

“We copy,” Wilson replied. “You heard the man, straighten up.”

We heard Dashell's group coming before we saw them. The little electric carts that served as the guards' means of transportation were straining their engines to support the weight of the patrol group, and the tires screeched as they rounded the corner. Randell stood up and we all saluted as the carts pulled to a stop nearby.

Dashell was a hulking brute of a man who had served in the Soviet military until the breakup. From what I'd heard, he'd bounced around in several private mercenary groups before taking a position with our current employer, with whom he'd risen to Sub-Commandant where he was apparently happy. It meant he could give orders to almost anyone in the field, but avoided being placed in a control room and dictating his commands through microphones. He liked to see his underlings sweat as he yelled at them.

“Good day, gentlemen!” Dashell boomed as he swung off his cart. His driver and gunner remained in the vehicle, but nodded to us in greeting. Nobody from the other cart said a word, even going so far as to pretend to ignore me when I waved. Uptight pricks, the lot of 'em. “Everything is clear here?”

“Not a thing, sir” Wilson answered. Since he was designated the squad leader, we let him do the talking.

“As it should be.” Dashell paced around our little area. “I don't usually tour the interior guard stations. What a dreadfully dull space!”

“We make due, sir.”

“Indeed! I'm sure you think great thoughts when faced with this emptiness. The mind tries to make up for the stimulation is is not receiving through the senses. It reminds me of Siberia, but nowhere near as cold.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Bleak! That is the word I'm thinking of. Very bleak.”

“Bleak indeed, sir.”

“Do you know, most of the other guard squads along the halls do things to amuse themselves instead of paying attention to their surroundings? At 28-B there is a hopscotch path three hundred feet long. It took Simmons ten minutes to go up and back, and he was certainly surprised to see me waiting for him at the end! Would you believe he claimed he was training his men for balance and endurance?”

“I don't doubt it, sir,” Wilson replied, in the tones on one who dreaded a one-sided conversation for the rest of the foreseeable future. I risked sneaking a grin at Randall behind Dashell's back. Wilson looked amused, but was determined not to let it show.

“He will certainly have good endurance after he is done skipping up and down it for the next ten hours,” Dashell said. “Anyway, it seems that everything is in order here. Good job, troops!” he added as he strode back to his cart.

“Thank you, sir.”

Surprisingly, Randall spoke up. “Question, Sub-Commandant?”

Dashell sat back in his seat, causing the tiny vehicle to rock on its wheels. “Yes?”

“What were we guarding against last time?”

Dashell narrowed his eyes. “Why do you ask such a thing? It is enough to know that you are guarding.”

“Just wondering what kinds of enemies we're making, sir. It pays to know these things.”

“Indeed it does. Very well. Last time was not an actual threat. The Mirage Organization's space station broke up in orbit and a large piece of debris appeared as an incoming missile on our radar. Once we realized that, I took the opportunity to hold a drill.”

“And the time before that?”

“Volcanic activity briefly caused the temperature readings in our deepest chambers to spike, causing us to believe that perhaps we were under attack.”

“And three times ago?”

“That,” replied Dashell in clipped words, “Is not your concern. You are guards for Baron Spite, and that is all you need to remember as long as you continue to do your duties.”

“Yessir.”

“Indeed.” Dashell glared briefly at the three of us. “And turn your hat around. We go!” he shouted at his driver, and the tiny cart slowly inched past as it built up speed. The gunner of the second cart waved as he passed. Maybe I was hasty in thinking him a prick.

Wilson wiped his brow when Dashell's group turned the corner on the way to 36-D. “Well, whatever it was, Steve, looks like you lost your bet.”

“Indeed.”

“Cram it.”

Razersblade

I found it.... intruiging. Based on what I've read so far I would read the whole thing once it was complete. It flowed real nicely through my mind. Meaning I didn't "see" the words, I just saw the story.

Of course someone else will probably see more faults/improvements that could be made.

Skull Man

I agree, nice flow, I found myself chuckling a couple of times, and the characters seem to be good templates for further development.

Brink

I'm afraid I'm willing to forgive any mistakes in the story because it was that good.

If you don't write more I will punch you.

Bursar

While I appreciate having my ego stroked as much as the next guy (probably moreso), I'd like to see if you folks are picking up any mechanical things that a simple spellcheck wouldn't get. I know I used "point" twice in a single sentence, and that's the kind of awkward phrasing thing I'm looking for. Anyway, Brink's threats of physical violence notwithstanding, I bring you more. Those wacky French revolutionaries and their metric time. I post this at May 25.387 800 UT on the dot. :wink:

Part 2: Conflict! (Dun dun duuun)

Edit: Damnit, I can either use code and keep my paragraphs while looking like crap with an awful font, or manually insert line breaks for every new line when I post. Grr. Expect some weird things like opening quotes being on their own lines, but I didn't write it like that.

---

An hour later (I counted eleven more alarm repetitions) the clear signal came through the speakers and we piled back into our cart for the trek back to General Quarters. Randall leapt into the rear and mounted his rifle onto the swiveling frame that turned the vehicle from an almost-useless transport into an almost-useless light attack buggy. Wilson slid into the passenger seat and put his feet up on the dashboard. That left me with the grand task of driving back through the featureless gray tunnel.

“I hate these things,” I said, pressing the starter button and turning the cart around.

“You said that on the way up,” Randall said.

“I still hate them.”

“Better than walking,” Wilson commented, sliding down into a more comfortable position and tugging his hat down over his eyes. “Wake me when we get there.”

I couldn't argue with that, so I grunted and put myself into the autopilot that comes naturally when driving down long stretches of highway. My hands and feet worked to keep the cart from rubbing against the walls, while my thoughts wandered to stave off the boredom. Randall was bouncing up and down in the back, making little noises as he pretended to mow down thousands of sword-wielding assassins.

After playing checkers against myself in my head for a while (I always lost, but I suspected I was cheating) I turned to the day's events. Why would Dashell be going through the tunnels? He hadn't done “The Vicious Cycle,” which is what we called a full inspection loop of the Hellway system, since he'd been promoted and could order some other saps to do his boring work. There must have been something he'd wanted to see. With his carts loaded down with that heavy weapons entourage, it must have taken a good half hour to go from Central to 36-E.

I wondered when the alarm had started. I'd been in the mess hall at the time, so it was while I was on dinner break. . . What time was it now? This place was like a damn casino, with no clocks in sight and lighting that didn't indicate what the outside world was doing. It didn't help that Baron Spite had us using metric time – his new order would run on "logic, not antiquated bidodecal methods” he claimed – so I'd have to do some converting. Let's see: my meal break was at 7500 decidays (6 p.m., I'd memorized that long ago) through 7900, and we'd been at our posts for an hour, plus travel time. An hour's about .04 of a day. . . So it must be sometime between 8100 and 8500. Around 8 o'clock.

Wait a second. I knew that the alarms were five minutes apart, but were they real minutes or funky-ass decimal minutes? Damn it, I had no idea. Screw this, I'd just ask somebody when the alarm stopped when we got back. Edward's a counter in Control, he'd know.

Even so, I thought that Dashell hadn't been in the tunnels long enough to have gotten to us if he'd left when the alarm started. That meant that he'd been in the tunnels before the alarm started. If it was an inspection, he'd have waited until it went off before he left to avoid tipping anyone off. So if it wasn't a drill, then he'd known where to go before he alerted security, and still took the time to stop to chat with us and torture Simmons. What the hell had he been doing?

“Steve!” Randall kicked me in the shoulder. I yelped and jumped, causing the cart to swerve and barely avoided wiping Wilson's knees against the wall. I pulled to a stop and cut the electric motor. Wilson didn't stir.

“What?!”

“Where the hell did you take us, man? This is nowhere near GQ!”

I looked around. Sure enough, the walls were no longer smooth but had become rough and rocky. Before us a large blast door yawned wide open, giving us a view of an immense warehouse. A forklift, bearing some unplaceable complex chunk of machinery, cruised past. I'd unknowingly followed the tire tracks all the way to their endpoint: the base's vast storage facilities. We were far beyond the turnoff that took us back to our living areas. If Randall hadn't broken my reverie I probably would have driven right in until we plowed into the back of the cargo hauler that left the tracks.

“We are going to be incredibly late to night shift,” Randall moaned. “I don't even think we have clearance to be down this far.”

I pressed the starter to turn us around, but the motor only gave a slight whimper. I frowned and jammed my thumb into the button, and the headlight flickered and died. We were, for all intents, stranded.

“Shit,” Randall said. This seemed to sum up both our feelings pretty well, so I left it at that.

Orikaeshigitae

On a cursory glance, there's quite a few run-on sentences.

The checker bit is good without the 'suspected i was cheating' bit. It's kinda cliche and puts me in mind of Geri's Game.

Hm.

More critiquage later.

LiveWire

Orikaeshigitae wrote:

On a cursory glance, there's quite a few run-on sentences.

The checker bit is good without the 'suspected i was cheating' bit. It's kinda cliche and puts me in mind of Geri's Game.

Hm.

More critiquage later.

I liked the 'suspected I was cheating' bit. But maybe I'm just unaware of the cliche.

The_Tube_Is_Civilization

The "suspected I was cheating " bit was great, while most of us like the idea of a story about a henchman, I'm glad someone finally got around to writing one, a good one at that.

The_Tube_Is_Civilizaton2

It's been a little over a year.....have you done anything else with it?

cunning linguist

Minor point...

“We make due, sir.” -> “We make do, sir.”

...otherwise I enjoyed the shooting-the-breeze style...looking forward to some shooting-the-goodies style

chitowncowboy

If this was made into a book, I'd read it. You write like a mix of Heinlein and Heller. Good stuff.

lolz@"funky ass decimal minutes"

RK

Quite liked it.

You seemed to "catch" the feeling of what it is to be a guard for these men.

TheFallenLord

Too bad Bursar hasn't followed up yet. I also really enjoyed this piece, and would definatly like to read more. *pounds on table* More!

ALifeCalledKarma

Anyone else find it interesting that a year old piece is getting more crits than the new stuff we're putting up? What does that say about us?

Orikaeshigitae

it says that Tube necroposts.

HarryFour

I really like the dialogue. It's sharp, and pretty funny. You do have a few run on sentences. Also try not to 'double up' your words..A good example of is an excerpt from your 1st post:

“Looks like we've been seeing more equipment passing through since the last time we were here,” I pointed out, pointing to the numerous thick tire tracks that led all the way down the corridor until it curved out of sight in both directions.

Could replace the first 'pointed' with something like: "I noted, pointing to..." just a suggestion, although i've been up for 36hours so it could be me. That sentence also seems a little long, but I dunno how you'd want to shorten it.

Also, the Randall character reminded me of Kevin Smith's Randall. Not necessarily a bad thing (he is a great character afterall), but again, could just be my lack of sleep talking. Plus, I'm new to PA so, you really want to trust the insight of a 'noob'? Overall though, very nice. Okay, I'm done, later.

The_Tube_Is_Civilizaton2

It was worth bringing this back from the dark depths of obscurity...however I am curious why the creater of the story has not responded yet.....hmmmm

I think it is a great story and needs a part 3

Bursar

Wow, I thought this would have been excised from the forums a long time ago.

To be honest, I haven't done much with this. I tried to use the idea as a basis for NaNoWriMo back in November (failed miserably), and then I eventually came to the conclusion that I was unconsciously parroting a theme that The Venture Brothers was doing quite well with. Unfortunately, I'm too much a fan of that show to continue this story without constantly double-checking to make sure I'm not unknowingly stealing from it.

And then I got a job involving a lot of writing, so I didn't really feel like going on when I came home from work. I know; excuses, excuses.

HarryFour

It does have a Venture Bros. feel to it but I think it's different enough to stand on it's own...it'd depend on where you'd go with it....if you ever go somewhere with it, lol.