Apocalypse Slept Through
NRPG: I'm starting to like the Doom/James thing, Dave, if you ever fancy a
joint post get in touch. I'm not entirely sure how Doom would react to what
goes on in this post, so he doesn't get many lines, sorry...
Meanwhile, the new guy introduced here IS a player character, so no killing
him or anything.
RPG:
The journey to the space station was a silent one, James had tried to cheer
up the atmosphere with some cheerful banter, even risked provoking a sing
along, but shut up quickly when Doom growled at him.
Then they reached the station, a huge hulk of metal, slowly drifting through
space. The most prominant feature was a gigantic satellite dish, twice the
size of the station's living area. It was pointed out towards the stars,
listening.
"Holly," James said switching the computer on, "Could you get the space
station to let us in?"
"Right away," Holly said, there was a beeping sound, then James felt a funny
tingly feeling.
He looked around, to discover he and Doom standing in a pair of glass
cubicles. There was a hissing sound and the doors swung open.
James gasped, half expecting Doom to let out some rant about the gods, but
even Doom seemed strangely subdued.
"Wow!" James gasped, "Matter transportation!"
He looked around, the walls seemed sort of ash covered, as if they'd been a
fight going on here a long time ago.
Doom wandered off, and James left him to it, the guy was too dumb to fuck up
really badly.
The corridors were all eerily quiet, no thrumming power generators, no
dripping pipes, it was as if somebody had taken that was James's brain and
turned the volume right down.
Eventually James stepped into a huge room full of computers, and human
skeletons. Well, they looked like human skeletons, they seemed more heavily
built than James thought normal, and had an extra set of arms...
James tapped a button on a keyboard cautiously. It had a symbol on it that
look like and upside down back to front G next to an inside out K and an
upside down Y. There was a humming sound, and a noise filled the room, "BOOM
SQUEEK BOOM BOOM BOOM SQUEEK QUACK GROWL BOOM SQUEEK!" It made Doom seem
like he was whispering and came from every side of the room. Then a wall
came away at the back of the chamber, revealing a glass cubical not unlike a
stasis chamber.
Doom charged into the room, shouting "MISSED THE APOCALYPSE!? WHEN WILL THE
FOOLS LEARN? THIS IS THE APOCALYPSE!"
The door to the stasis chamber swung open, and a strange creature stood
inside it, glancing around, confused.
"BEHOLD THE SIX LEGGED DEMON!" Doom boomed.
"Squeek boom boom quack squeek?" the strange figure said, confused.
James looked the figure over, it had some sort of trunk where his nose
should be, two sets of arms, a pinkish skin pigment not too different from
his own, a trunk and...
James's mouuth hung open as he saw what was between the figure's legs, he'd
never felt so inferior in his entire life.
"Squeek squeek quack boom growl!" the figure said covering it up, "Squeek
quack BLUARGH nose is bigger than most, but I'm pretty sensitive about it so
I'd appreciate it if you'd stop staring!"
"That's your nose?" James asked, "Then what's that coming out of your..." he
trailed off, feeling even more inferior.
"Ahh! You can understand me at last. Nfgud must have got the translation
program working at last!" the figure smiled.
"Who are you?" James asked.
"Efof Yuwan'ker," the alien said.
"Sorry! I didn't know it was such a personal question!"
"What? That's just my name," Efof said, "You are?"
"James Johnson," James Johnson said.
Efof looked aghast, "There's no need to resort to language like that!" he
said.
"What happened here?" James asked.
Efof explained, he'd just accepted a job on the obervatory, looking for
alien life. He had no idea why he'd accepted it, it was widely considered
the most unpleasant job possible since leaving Ffion was just plain stupid,
and Ffion was so nice any aliens would probably just mess it up.
Anyway, one day he was just sitting at a screen looking a random list of
naughts and ones, when suddenly the power went and the station started
shouting all these alarmy things. Efof dived into a stasis chamber and the
rest is history.
James frowned, "So you don't know what happened?"
"No, where is everyone?"
"AT THE LAST COUNT THE TOTAL LIVING POPULATION OF FFION WAS DISCOVERED TO
BE, 1." a voice said.
"Who's that Nfgud?" Efof asked.
"One Efof Yuwank'ker." the station's computer.
"I'm the last of my race alive?" Efof gasped.
"I kept you in stasis until somebody came who could rescue you."
Efof gasped, and sat down, a broken, um, thing.
"What was it that killed everyone?" James asked.
"I have the black box recording here," the computer said.
There was a crackling sound and a sheet of paper like plastic scrolled out
of the wall.
It read...
/@'?<>\¬
"Could you give me a copy in English?" James asked.
There was another print out.
BLACK BOX RECORDING, DATE 67.908.452
SCIENTIST A: Enjoy your destiny!
SCIENTIST B: Oh my god! What is that!
CAPTAIN: Will you move that cup of zzzulwig* from the black box recorder?
SCIENTIST B: Sure, hold on...
SCIENTIST C: Oh my god! It's, it's... (A sound of zzzulwig being spilled on
a black box recorder)
*A drink a bit like coffee, but more like treacle.
James cursed, "So we don't know anything about what happened here, great,"
he said slumping onto the table nd knocking a switch, suddenly the main view
screen came on, and an image appeared.
It was just a black screen, with the occasional white spots on it. The spots
seemed to be flashing in and out of existence. James stared at it,
confused, "Nfgud, what's this?"
"One of the cameras. Your seeing the space outside the station around the
same time as the black box recording."
"Why do the stars keep vanishing?" James asked.
"They don't, they're being blocked out by something..."
"LOCUSTS OF THE STARS!" Doom bellowed, on first ground again.
"An invasion fleet?"
Efof looked up, "What's an 'invasion flea'?" he asked.
"A group of space ships intent on attacking your planet," James said.
"Attack?"
James sighed, "Hurt you!"
"Why would anyone want to do that?" Efof asked.
"Don't you know about wars and stuff?" James asked.
"What and stuff?" Efof asked.
James groaned, this guy was about to get culture shock in a BIG way...
_________________________________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.
Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at http://profiles.msn.com.