Re: LAST. THING. STANDING. [S!1][ROUND ONE: TELEVISION LAND]
03-19-2012, 05:44 AM
Originally posted on MSPA by Agent1022.
Barry Barnes lurched like a drunken man through the halls of the Pyreness, spewing blood from the stump of an arm.
Rydym wrthi’n cael anawsterau technegol. Rydym yn ymddiheuro am yr anghyfleustra.
No, no. Start at the arm.
∂∑®ƒ´´´´´…
<font color="#655575">“You are not even supposed to be alive.” The Copyright Colonel wore a uniform of complex greys, splashed with sickly red-brown. “Your channel was struck from the official record, for selling materials infringing on the Galaxy Guardians name.” The Colonel stared down at the huddled figure, forced to kneel by two burly cadets. “Operating clandestinely, might I add. And even more so once we shut down your broadcasting. Did you think we wouldn’t notice your one-man studio on the fringes of 3AM television?” Cruelty© was the only emotion available for those of the copyright legion, and it showed through now in the Colonel’s smirk. “The static took care of that before we got to you. Saved us the paperwork, and now there’s only you.”
“You’re awful, awful bastards. All of you.” Barry shivered in his torn, bloodied suit under their ice-cold grip. “I was made to sell. You had no right to tell me what toAAAGGHKKK”
Sticky blood dripped from the Colonel’s knife as he cut through the tendons of Barnes’ right wrist, neatly separating articular disk from condyle; and the salesman screamed and screamed and screamed.
“We had no right?” The Colonel retracted the knife, playing its point just above the skin of Barry’s forearm, trailing a line of blood. “We are intellectual property, Barnes. We are memetic,” the Colonel raised his voice to a shout as he plunged the blade into the gap between radius and ulna, “LAW!”
Ashen-faced pain, white hot fresh dull sharp blade pulsating lifeblood Barry cursed “fuck fuck fucking son of a shitfaced motherfucker fuck FUUCK-”
”We copyrighted expletives too, did you know?” The Colonel punctated Barry’s screams with twists of the knife, until jagged bone ends shone like blades through the bloodied skin. “And for the record, the only ‘sons’ that we are - ” Neatly, the knifepoint inscribed a set of scales in the salesman’s flesh, and incised its shape from the muscle, “- are of enforcement.”
For a second the Colonel left the knife quivering in Barnes’ flesh, before delivering a decisive strike into the elbow joint. “Out of screams?” He forced it out, spattering the world with red brown black white black white grey - “Wondering, ‘Why this? Why me?’ Let me tell you, Barry Barnes, Level Two Infringer for Buying and Reselling with Intent to Violate Copyrighted Material - it is because you represent-” Barry could swear he could taste his humerus snap “-all-” the Colonel wedged blade behind scapula... “-that we-” ...and pushed...“-detest!”
Unbelievable blade on blade lever tear free screech inhuman inhumane “...” Words. Words couldn’t come. Thoughts flooded overwhelmed pain pain “...-!”
The Colonel’s cold face, lowered to meet his, seen through fog, tears, blurring, shimmering, waves of hazes of paintred painted red hemoglobin candy metal red - “In life, I was an intellectual property rights prosecutor. I was high-ranked with Command before I knew Command existed. And they knew I had...other interests. They know everything.”
He pulled the knife from its bloody sheathe. “Ready to die, Barry Barnes?”
“No!”
“Oh come now, Mister Barnes. You have nothing to live for. No goods, no money, no channel, no home.”
Through the mire and haze came a single thought - fragmentary at first, but gathering speed like a snowball down a hill, taking the wheel, forcing pain to a back seat...
“But I-” a twitch formed in the salesman’s eye - “but I do, Colonel.”
“I-I’m looking for a man. A-a man with money. Lots of it. But he didn’t have to pay a c-cent. Not fucking one. NOT A FUCKING ONEehehehehehe-” His good hand swept in a narrow arc, breaking his captors’ grips.
“I...I want to know. Have you seen. Have you seen him? Have you seen a man in a robe, traveler, really worn out, kind of young, doesn’t look rich at all but oh boy is he rich. The whole idea that he isn’t - ha! That’s rich. Get it? HAVE YOU SEEN HIM?!" The knife went spinning as the cadets went reeling into their commander, stopped, caught neatly-
"HAVE YOU SEEN- I’m sorry. I’m just out for ...ehehehe... revenge. Yes. He took everything of mine. He ruined me! He backrupted me to the end of the earth and back and I want to grab him and shake him until every dollar he’s t-taken from me falls out.” Without flourish, the Colonel pulled his pistol from its holster.
“And then, I want to crack his skull open to see if he’s got money in there too...”
The gun fired twice as Barry tore it from the Colonel’s hands - or to be precise incised fingers apart, dropping them to the floor like so much bloody meatsticks-
“He’s f-fucking made of money, this g-guy.” A swift flick of the wrist, and the Colonel slumped, flailing at his throat before going limp and stiff as only the dead can manage.
“Living is fucking wonder-wonderful, C-Colonel.”</font>
®³¤¼üüµ©ø¶’
Barry Barnes lurched like a drunken man through the halls of the Pyreness, spewing blood from the stump of an arm. In the other hand he carried, twirled the late Colonel’s pistol, pointing it at shattered, burnt, bloodied, broken corpses and laughing. Hysterically.
“What was that?”
“Some crazy, probably. Place’s full of them.” Freefall was carrying the lightly snoring Tschichold with the absolute minimum of physical contact possible, i.e. about two fingers from dropping him entirely. Which, as the artist gave a slight groan, she did. “See? Five minutes.”
<font color="#814444">As Tschic swam his way back to a marginally more or less sensible world that at least contained a semblance of cause and effect, he became aware of the fact that the wildly shaking aspect of the world was not, in fact, a byproduct of psychoactive paints, but instead the result of being wildly shaken by the crazy lady that had punched him out earlier. This brought things into perspective rather quickly.
“Moneybags here says you have info. Cough up!” Through the haze of purple swirls he could see the lady’s face, and it wasn’t contorted in a visage one might have called ‘comforting’ or ‘calm’. ‘Frustrated’ would probably have fit better. ‘Halfway to demented’, better still. Still, it could have been the paint.
If only.
“You look like shit.”
“...that swearing injunction...” Freefall ground her teeth as she held the painter at arm’s length, careful to avoid the growing puddle of paint on the floor. “As diplomatic as I should be, and trying to make sure we all escape and survive, you are sure not making this easier!” Her eyes flicked downwards briefly before returning hastily to Tschichold’s face. “Especially the fact that...you...you know...naked...” Letting loose a scream of rage, she delivered a vicious kick into Tschic’s offending nether regions before dropping him. “You have no bloody idea...”
Unending pain. Unending paAaAaAin, he drew out in his head. Tschic’s insides were on fire, which was a change from feeling like his outsides were, which he did on occasion. There was also the time he was actually set on fire by a group of demon-hunter enthusiasts who didn’t quite grasp the fact that he wasn’t, in fact, a demon.
This, on the other hand, was beyond imaginable. Among those polled on the intensity of testicular pain, comments included ‘it hurts like hell’ and ‘ballhurt is to pain as the sun is to light and warmth’. The fact that Tschic’s essential bits were, in actuality, completely inside his body helped, but on the other hand Freefall was a fantastically strong kicker. He flailed around for a bit, eyes shut.
It was at least marginally better than the pain of having to look at the decor.
Trouble. Change’s notes fluttered wildly, and began sliding out of the stack formation.
“There’s going to be trouble all right, if Chuckles doesn’t...” She paused, as did everyone else.
“aahhahahahaha...ahahahahAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!” The sound of laughter, first faint, yet grew louder - punctuated with the sound of footsteps treading through blood. Growing closer. Louder, echoing from every direction...
Aaron. We know that voice.
“...Barry?”
“Who?! Where the hell is it coming from?!”
“Right behind you,” Barry Barnes said.
Then Freefall whirled around and cracked open Barry’s skull.</font>
³¤¼³³¤€¤¼
To díktyó mas échei proso̱riná apogeió̱thi̱ke ston aéra gia mia genikí̱ érev̱na. Elpízoume na eínai píso̱ sýntoma kai radioti̱leoptikó̱n ekpompó̱n, kai na zi̱tí̱sei apó tous theatés mas na féroun mazí mas!
Perhaps a closer examination of events is in order.
ó²çµ«´¬«
Sneaking up on me, then? We’ll see about that - let’s see how mister Barry the Creeper likes a side order of knuckle sandwich! Oh. he has a gun. A firing gun. What kind of person shoots the hero in the back? We’ll see about th...wait. Heavy. Fist. Moving...
The body that had until recently been Barry Barnes twitched, the only movement in the frozen tableau that locked the battlers in that neverending moment. <font color="#FFFFFF">In the corner of the screen shone an icon: | | - and its label: PAUSE. In the darkened room, lit only by the bloody image on the viewer, the Broadcaster pushed his hair from his eyes and placed his untouched mug of coffee (“You Don’t Have To Be Omnipotent To Work Here, But It Helps!”) on the desk in front of him. He smiled. He just smiled.
Freefall prised the bullet from the small of her back, flattened by its impact with such a high-density surface. She looked at it for a moment. She looked back at Barry.
“Oh, fuck."</font>
Barry Barnes lurched like a drunken man through the halls of the Pyreness, spewing blood from the stump of an arm.
Rydym wrthi’n cael anawsterau technegol. Rydym yn ymddiheuro am yr anghyfleustra.
No, no. Start at the arm.
∂∑®ƒ´´´´´…
<font color="#655575">“You are not even supposed to be alive.” The Copyright Colonel wore a uniform of complex greys, splashed with sickly red-brown. “Your channel was struck from the official record, for selling materials infringing on the Galaxy Guardians name.” The Colonel stared down at the huddled figure, forced to kneel by two burly cadets. “Operating clandestinely, might I add. And even more so once we shut down your broadcasting. Did you think we wouldn’t notice your one-man studio on the fringes of 3AM television?” Cruelty© was the only emotion available for those of the copyright legion, and it showed through now in the Colonel’s smirk. “The static took care of that before we got to you. Saved us the paperwork, and now there’s only you.”
“You’re awful, awful bastards. All of you.” Barry shivered in his torn, bloodied suit under their ice-cold grip. “I was made to sell. You had no right to tell me what toAAAGGHKKK”
Sticky blood dripped from the Colonel’s knife as he cut through the tendons of Barnes’ right wrist, neatly separating articular disk from condyle; and the salesman screamed and screamed and screamed.
“We had no right?” The Colonel retracted the knife, playing its point just above the skin of Barry’s forearm, trailing a line of blood. “We are intellectual property, Barnes. We are memetic,” the Colonel raised his voice to a shout as he plunged the blade into the gap between radius and ulna, “LAW!”
Ashen-faced pain, white hot fresh dull sharp blade pulsating lifeblood Barry cursed “fuck fuck fucking son of a shitfaced motherfucker fuck FUUCK-”
”We copyrighted expletives too, did you know?” The Colonel punctated Barry’s screams with twists of the knife, until jagged bone ends shone like blades through the bloodied skin. “And for the record, the only ‘sons’ that we are - ” Neatly, the knifepoint inscribed a set of scales in the salesman’s flesh, and incised its shape from the muscle, “- are of enforcement.”
For a second the Colonel left the knife quivering in Barnes’ flesh, before delivering a decisive strike into the elbow joint. “Out of screams?” He forced it out, spattering the world with red brown black white black white grey - “Wondering, ‘Why this? Why me?’ Let me tell you, Barry Barnes, Level Two Infringer for Buying and Reselling with Intent to Violate Copyrighted Material - it is because you represent-” Barry could swear he could taste his humerus snap “-all-” the Colonel wedged blade behind scapula... “-that we-” ...and pushed...“-detest!”
Unbelievable blade on blade lever tear free screech inhuman inhumane “...” Words. Words couldn’t come. Thoughts flooded overwhelmed pain pain “...-!”
The Colonel’s cold face, lowered to meet his, seen through fog, tears, blurring, shimmering, waves of hazes of paintred painted red hemoglobin candy metal red - “In life, I was an intellectual property rights prosecutor. I was high-ranked with Command before I knew Command existed. And they knew I had...other interests. They know everything.”
He pulled the knife from its bloody sheathe. “Ready to die, Barry Barnes?”
“No!”
“Oh come now, Mister Barnes. You have nothing to live for. No goods, no money, no channel, no home.”
Through the mire and haze came a single thought - fragmentary at first, but gathering speed like a snowball down a hill, taking the wheel, forcing pain to a back seat...
“But I-” a twitch formed in the salesman’s eye - “but I do, Colonel.”
“I-I’m looking for a man. A-a man with money. Lots of it. But he didn’t have to pay a c-cent. Not fucking one. NOT A FUCKING ONEehehehehehe-” His good hand swept in a narrow arc, breaking his captors’ grips.
“I...I want to know. Have you seen. Have you seen him? Have you seen a man in a robe, traveler, really worn out, kind of young, doesn’t look rich at all but oh boy is he rich. The whole idea that he isn’t - ha! That’s rich. Get it? HAVE YOU SEEN HIM?!" The knife went spinning as the cadets went reeling into their commander, stopped, caught neatly-
"HAVE YOU SEEN- I’m sorry. I’m just out for ...ehehehe... revenge. Yes. He took everything of mine. He ruined me! He backrupted me to the end of the earth and back and I want to grab him and shake him until every dollar he’s t-taken from me falls out.” Without flourish, the Colonel pulled his pistol from its holster.
“And then, I want to crack his skull open to see if he’s got money in there too...”
The gun fired twice as Barry tore it from the Colonel’s hands - or to be precise incised fingers apart, dropping them to the floor like so much bloody meatsticks-
“He’s f-fucking made of money, this g-guy.” A swift flick of the wrist, and the Colonel slumped, flailing at his throat before going limp and stiff as only the dead can manage.
“Living is fucking wonder-wonderful, C-Colonel.”</font>
®³¤¼üüµ©ø¶’
Barry Barnes lurched like a drunken man through the halls of the Pyreness, spewing blood from the stump of an arm. In the other hand he carried, twirled the late Colonel’s pistol, pointing it at shattered, burnt, bloodied, broken corpses and laughing. Hysterically.
“What was that?”
“Some crazy, probably. Place’s full of them.” Freefall was carrying the lightly snoring Tschichold with the absolute minimum of physical contact possible, i.e. about two fingers from dropping him entirely. Which, as the artist gave a slight groan, she did. “See? Five minutes.”
<font color="#814444">As Tschic swam his way back to a marginally more or less sensible world that at least contained a semblance of cause and effect, he became aware of the fact that the wildly shaking aspect of the world was not, in fact, a byproduct of psychoactive paints, but instead the result of being wildly shaken by the crazy lady that had punched him out earlier. This brought things into perspective rather quickly.
“Moneybags here says you have info. Cough up!” Through the haze of purple swirls he could see the lady’s face, and it wasn’t contorted in a visage one might have called ‘comforting’ or ‘calm’. ‘Frustrated’ would probably have fit better. ‘Halfway to demented’, better still. Still, it could have been the paint.
If only.
“You look like shit.”
“...that swearing injunction...” Freefall ground her teeth as she held the painter at arm’s length, careful to avoid the growing puddle of paint on the floor. “As diplomatic as I should be, and trying to make sure we all escape and survive, you are sure not making this easier!” Her eyes flicked downwards briefly before returning hastily to Tschichold’s face. “Especially the fact that...you...you know...naked...” Letting loose a scream of rage, she delivered a vicious kick into Tschic’s offending nether regions before dropping him. “You have no bloody idea...”
Unending pain. Unending paAaAaAin, he drew out in his head. Tschic’s insides were on fire, which was a change from feeling like his outsides were, which he did on occasion. There was also the time he was actually set on fire by a group of demon-hunter enthusiasts who didn’t quite grasp the fact that he wasn’t, in fact, a demon.
This, on the other hand, was beyond imaginable. Among those polled on the intensity of testicular pain, comments included ‘it hurts like hell’ and ‘ballhurt is to pain as the sun is to light and warmth’. The fact that Tschic’s essential bits were, in actuality, completely inside his body helped, but on the other hand Freefall was a fantastically strong kicker. He flailed around for a bit, eyes shut.
It was at least marginally better than the pain of having to look at the decor.
Trouble. Change’s notes fluttered wildly, and began sliding out of the stack formation.
“There’s going to be trouble all right, if Chuckles doesn’t...” She paused, as did everyone else.
“aahhahahahaha...ahahahahAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!” The sound of laughter, first faint, yet grew louder - punctuated with the sound of footsteps treading through blood. Growing closer. Louder, echoing from every direction...
Aaron. We know that voice.
“...Barry?”
“Who?! Where the hell is it coming from?!”
“Right behind you,” Barry Barnes said.
Then Freefall whirled around and cracked open Barry’s skull.</font>
³¤¼³³¤€¤¼
To díktyó mas échei proso̱riná apogeió̱thi̱ke ston aéra gia mia genikí̱ érev̱na. Elpízoume na eínai píso̱ sýntoma kai radioti̱leoptikó̱n ekpompó̱n, kai na zi̱tí̱sei apó tous theatés mas na féroun mazí mas!
Perhaps a closer examination of events is in order.
ó²çµ«´¬«
Sneaking up on me, then? We’ll see about that - let’s see how mister Barry the Creeper likes a side order of knuckle sandwich! Oh. he has a gun. A firing gun. What kind of person shoots the hero in the back? We’ll see about th...wait. Heavy. Fist. Moving...
The body that had until recently been Barry Barnes twitched, the only movement in the frozen tableau that locked the battlers in that neverending moment. <font color="#FFFFFF">In the corner of the screen shone an icon: | | - and its label: PAUSE. In the darkened room, lit only by the bloody image on the viewer, the Broadcaster pushed his hair from his eyes and placed his untouched mug of coffee (“You Don’t Have To Be Omnipotent To Work Here, But It Helps!”) on the desk in front of him. He smiled. He just smiled.
Freefall prised the bullet from the small of her back, flattened by its impact with such a high-density surface. She looked at it for a moment. She looked back at Barry.
“Oh, fuck."</font>
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So very British / But then again | People are machines Machines are people | Oh hai there | There's no time
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Superhero 1920s noir | Multigenre Half-Life | Changing the future | Command line interface
Tu ventire felix? | Clockwork for eternity | Explosions in spacetime