Wednesday 24 August 2011

Mykanea (a snippet from the full story)

With his eyes fixed on the body, the ‘to do’ list rolled off his tongue as if he gave this speech frequently yet this was his first murder case. Deaths, accidents or attacks were generally due to technical disagreements or experiment malfunctions, but easily resolved. As he stared at Dr Karn’s body there was something that stiffened his muscles as the pit of his bowels became an explosion of emotions he never even knew existed. The city had become, within a few hours, unsafe. A claustrophobic panic swept over him as he followed Micha out of Karn's office and watched as she shuttled herself to the conference room.


He stopped briefly and stared at his reflection on the shuttle doors. Uncertainty, fear, panic mixed with just a twinge of excitement. Really? Excitement? He couldn't think of a more inappropriate feeling at this point. Curiously the more he thought about it the more excitement bubbled up from within. He shook his head and stepped into the egg shaped shuttle, slid the glass screen shut and buckled himself in. Tapping in coordinates with his pinkey on the keypad to his left, in a matter of seconds Chynn was propelled downwards, sideways and in loops through the long glass tunnels that connected the towers. In a final push upwards he arrived at the top conference room. Tower 13, south quarter. He hated the shuttles. They made his brain compress and stretch at the same time.
Just Awful.

He walked across the conference room. Trying to regain physical stability Chynn leant up against the thick bioluminescent window and stared out onto Mykanea. He hadn’t seen the city from this high up in several years now.
The tall lean towers stood across from one another in a perfect oval guarding grow fields at the base of the city which could no longer be seen. The coral reef completely covered them in a glow of red and emerald green continuing to spread halfway up the eastern towers. The multitude of habitation pods and offices hung off the towers like glass grapes on a vine all intimately connected by the shuttle tunnels that wound themselves round the towers, each glowing intensely through the thick dark water. Life forms beyond the city were unknown; the only recurring creatures that floated around the towers were hoards of Nomura jellyfish whose electric colours mimicked the light emanating from the city.
Chynn hovered thoughtfully by the glass edge going over the accomplishments of his people. The survival of a race transformed from a once violent, insatiable diseased world and then condensed it into an insuperable, exquisite crystal utopia.

3 comments:

  1. How is no one commenting on this. This writing is qualiyt.

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  2. Cheers man, much appreciated!

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  3. This is seriously excellent. Nice curve ball of the coral reef and then Chynn 'hovering' just made my preconceptions of what this was going to be fall on its arse. Nicely done, I don't encounter originality like this often. One thing though,please don't take offence, bit the first thought after reading it (I mean after how slick yet emotive the piece was) was, er . . . super-advanced seamonkeys? Then I noticed the last few lines were telling me something a lot more profound than sea monkeys =D. Excellent work. Is there more?

    Billie.

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