Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Preview Text

I'm hard at work on the latest incarnation of Game-Changers (yes, that's still the name. if you have a better one, just message me) but Emi informs me that she resents people that sit on their material and don't share anything. So, as not to lose one of maybe five (hopeful) readers, I post a preview. Keep in mind this is first draft. The prologue is a direct adaptation of the comic script with future chapters being planned around the new format. Enjoy!

GAME CHANGERS: PROLOGUE
Blue Monday
Written by Clayton Phillips

When the saucer touched down, silent as a sparrow, Casey Jones was watering the window plants, minding her own suburban business. This is important to remember. Casey was not the first to notice the impossibly shiny disk; rather she was altered by the screams of her panicked neighbors. When she did gaze upon the saucers, starkly out of place with their setting, Casey did not scream, did not panic. In fact, she barely reacted at all. Instead she gazed at the markings on the ship, blazing like fire. Try as she might, she could not look away. There was something so familiar about those symbols, but she could not know their meaning. These were the glyphs of the Martian Mage Beasts, scourge of the subterranean confederacy. These signs had not been seen on Earth, let alone New Jersey, for over nine thousand years. Yet still Casey stared, entranced. Soon, her gaze would be broken by the sonic boom and a red blur, ending her life as it was forever.
---
As the stony hide of the Martian Mage-Beast crumbled under his knuckles, Jay sighed a breath of relief. He had reconsidered his course of action briefly, mid-punch, thinking it foolhardy. Just because nothing on THIS world seemed capable of harming him did not necessarily mean that nothing from beyond was harmless. Jay's flesh and bone had faced many perils over the last three years, but none of them had been Martian. Flying Saucers seemed like nothing on the run over and nothing upon initial encounter, but there was always that little nagging voice of caution.
Four-point-nine seconds later, all seven of the Mage-Beasts dispatched, the voice had been disproved utterly. Only as the invaders lay, shell shocked, upon the finely trimmed (though somewhat scorched) lawns of the suburb, did Jay expand his consciousness, allowing him to properly assess the situation. He did so sitting atop the dented saucer, half way submerged in Seneca Avenue. Jay felt panic, confusion, fear, anger; the usual for humans directly after an event. No one was in pain or cardiac arrest or, for that matter, trapped underground or pinned by rubble. Jay did not feel the subtle calm of Casey Jones, still perched at the windowsill. In the midst of everything, it was a small ripple amongst tidal waves.
“I win,” said Jay, to no one in particular, through his satisfied smile. It was a pleasant, orange, autumn afternoon again and Jay had helped. By Jay's own reckoning, it had been a successful mission. No one was harmed, Jay got a nice work out, and Dalbir... well, Dalbir would take it as Dalbir always took it when Jay ran off for a quick encounter and didn't run it by him first.
---
Dalbir was not taking it well. When the beeping device had beeped, he had been indisposed, entertaining investors. His company, Pure Wall Incorporated, sold one product and one product alone: Dalbir Purewal. Dalbir Purewal was an adventurer, an inventor, a science god from the deepest darkness of poverty, overcoming insurmountable odds to usher in a new age for America and the World. Dalbir Purewal could not be seen obsessing over the beeping device. Not in front of top investors. But the device beeped and Dalbir continued to take it badly, knowing full well that Jay had run faster than the speed of sound and that there was only one reason why Jay ever did that. It was trouble and, worse, he had to sit there and take it. A carefully calculated charm misdirected the casual observer, but deep down, Dalbir was dying.
Thankfully, five minutes later, the Extra Terrestrial Early Warning System went off, giving Dalbir the excuse he needed to drop the charade and look heroic instead of merely neurotic. With purpose, Dalbir lead the investors into his office, a mess of half finished nano-chain inventions, and to his desk, where he had been modifying one of his Action Gauntlets earlier that morning. The office gave off the impression of a man too busy for the zen that the interior decorators had obviously hoped to achieve. Instead, here was a man on his own path, bridging man to his future in a dis-unified fury of circuit boards and uranium. Dalbir picked a transceiver out of the depths of the gauntlet. He pressed the red button and waited until the receiver in his ear crackled to life. Preparing himself for the aggravation that was about to overcome him, Dalbir spoke into the small microphone, still connected to the gauntlet’s inner-workings.
“Jay? Why are my sensors picking you up in New Jersey?” he asked, trying to only sound half as annoyed as he was.
“Nothing,” replied Jay’s voice, crackling over the com-link. ”Just some minor issues… with the Martians.”
“The Martians?” exclaimed the flustered Dalbir. “This is intolerable!” And then, one he had lowered his voice so the investors could not hear, “you know I get top billing on all extraterrestrial threats.”
“Well I only agreed to that because no one really believed in aliens. Once I sensed them entering the atmosphere, I knew differently.” It all seemed quite straightforward to Jay. And then, almost pleading, “Come on. People could have been hurt. And I bet your satellites didn’t even pick up the ship until just now. I’ve been here all of seven minutes.” Jay was right on that point and Dalbir hated him for it.
“Fine,” said Dalbir, “Can I help it if it’s more efficient to track you than threats? Why do you think I keep you in my employ? But don’t forget that you work for me.” Jay was getting bored of this exchange faster than Dalbir was calming down.
“Well if you’d like to come down here and pose for your little cameras…” Jay cut out.
“What?” asked Dalbir after a moment.
“Dalby? You might want to get down here. The situation has altered. I’m sure your sensors will pick it up on the way.”
“Beautiful,” smiled Dalbir. Standing three inches taller, Dalbir rolled up his shirt sleeve and attached the Action Gauntlet he had been talking through onto his arm and turned to his audience. “Well, gentlemen. It seems that I’m needed at my other job. If you talk to Judy, she’ll reschedule. Terribly sorry, but you know how it is. Humanity doesn’t save itself when faced with terrors from beyond our world. Have a nice day.”

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When things pick up and I get some buffer, I'll start building an actual site to house this project. Or maybe a dedicated blog. We'll see.