3

This is an ekphrasm inspired by Luis Royo’s ‘Black Scorpion & the Raiders of the Doom’, so if you want to check out the image that started this feel free. Also, Warren Ellis’s ‘Transmetropolitan’ graphic novel series influenced my style of writing a great deal.

Hatume

I hate this shit-hole, rust bucket of a station. I hated it when the stench of recycled air first wriggled deep into my pores and singed my delicate nasal cavities, and I still hate it now three hours later. No wonder the last Chief up and nose-dived into the delicious black vacuum of space, leaving me with this crap office and a pile of paperwork the size of my new desk.

I wish I had a window. There’s still some of that blood cloud left drifting around, clinging to the gentle waves of the station’s gravity as the rumours have it. But they stuck me in the goddamn bowels of this dive with a barely functioning light to merrily illuminate the shitty grey floor and blue walls of my new universe. Come to think of it, there aren’t any field guarded windows in this place. Depressive designing. I despise designers who chose to play it sensible when they could have had the rip-roaring fun of a potential blowout into space every hour. At least we’d have all had something to look at that way.

Damn I need a smoke. The dryer isn’t done yet and soggy smokes disagree with me. My lungs and throat don’t mind the biological tar but my lips go purple if it leaks. Best leave it to finish. It’ll give the rodent more time to recover anyway. Need to buy in more of those. This one’s on its’ last legs. It’s deaf, dumb, blind and happy, but it’s not bleeding off as well as it used to.

I love that they got modded though. Changed their nerve-endings, y’see? Now they can’t feel pain so you can jab them with a needle as blunt as your dick and they’ll just keep on chittering and licking your fingers when you bother to feed them.

The stupid little fuzz-ball stumbles into its wheel for the third time in the last five minutes, rapidly blinking over empty eye-sockets that bore down into the dried-out and shrivelled remains of its eyes. Its’ eyes glowed in the dark and it rarely blinked, and with this office effectively only lit by the computer screen, that offended me. So out they came and off it happily squeaked and I rolled up a fresh one from the stuff that came out with the needle.

The dryer starts smoking and I knock off the switch, scraping the crusted flakes off of the plate with my shiny new ID card and into my palm, fumbling around in my thigh pocket for a bit of paper. Ten seconds later I’m feeling a bit brighter.

The initial high kicks in almost immediately and I lean back in my chair, savouring the fact that I have time for this before heading down to terra-firma with my new band of boys. First job is down to the gang-ruled remains that used to be New York and instigating some degree of order. Well, my kind of order, but definitely the kind of violence that’ll give the civilians who haven’t gotten out yet an opportunity to scavenge or to bolt. US is crying out for a new policing force to tackle all this post-war shit that’s come up, and ‘new’ is exactly what I’ll be teaching.

Actually, I think I’ll change out of this uniform into my usual on-planet attire to truly make an impression. And I’ll take my biggest gun to really win the crowd over. Crazy they may call me, but they sure as hell shut up and follow orders when I put on my serious face and favourite suit. And the boots. The lads always seem to gulp when their eyes hit on my boots. Or maybe it’s the hilt of my old-style truncheon protruding lustrously from its’ leather sheath that’s getting to them.

The door chimes, entirely interrupting my train of thought. My first duty as Security Commander has turned up early it seems, and I pull my ponytail a little tighter in preparation for it. Might as well play with being professional for a few minutes, or until I get bored.

Toxins nip into and about my bloodstream. I give them a few seconds to really get going and then shout out a nondescript sound so whoever wants me can get in and get out before the initial high wears off and I have to get to the shuttle.

“Commander Hatume?” He’s tall, pale, dark haired and with bright babyish eyes. The maroon uniform is obviously tailored to fit every muscled curve and anything that could possible shine has been polished to a fault. I can see my face a thousand times over with every distortion imaginable. My lip curls faced with this pigeon-chested officer who is, thankfully, my subordinate.

“Mistress.” I tap off the browned end of my cigarette onto the corner of my desk, watching the task intently. He holds his breath as he turns the word over his head, finally cottoning on that it’s quite a firm suggestion. A private game of mine, one that I’ve been playing for years. It’s fun to fuck with everyone’s’ head on the first day and give them a happy teaser of what they’ve been lumped with until one of us dies or gets shipped out.

“Excuse me?”

I put the cigarette back in my mouth and clamp it between a canine and a premolar, fixing him with a stare. “It’s Mistress or Sir, whichever you want. What did you want?”

He obviously chooses to ignore that. I’ll make sure to remind him later. “Just to deliver orders for your mission. My apologies that they’ve come so late but they were understandably difficult to finalise.” A long, painful pause. “Sir.” I smirk.

Taking a last long drag as he shuffles forwards and dumps the dark blue data-pad on my desk, I tip my head absently to see it. ‘Authorised Access Only’ is flashing in large yellow letters on the black screen. I lean forward in my metal chair to pick it up. It’s bolted to the metal floor. The one before my desk is affixed too. Less stuff to throw around if someone gets into a tantrum. Someone obviously read my record before I got here. Or maybe it was always like this.

I dump the smouldering remains of my cigarette on the floor and stamp a boot on it before slipping both feet neatly under my chair. “Thanks. Now get out, I’ve got work to do.”

He gives a salute he clearly doesn’t think is appropriate and a barked ‘yes sir’ before turning on his heel and striding out of my office. I watch the closed door for a second, wondering if there’s anyway I can get out of the paperwork and reports that he’s going to be sending me in the near future. I’ll figure out something later. Right now, I need a change of clothes and some ready-made smokes.

Standing, I tuck the data-pad under my arm and take my truncheon out of my desk drawer, giving it a twirl as I leave the office myself. I must stop keeping my smokes under it when I’m on-planet. They always get squashed and leak and stain the material. I’ve got a squad-car this time though, so I’ll probably chuck them into the dash. It had better not take too long out of the car for this little fire-fight or the itch of a craving is going to send me batshit, and I don’t play nice whilst unhinged. Might be why they gave me this job in fact. Now wouldn’t that be a fucking riot?

Any and all feedback would be much appreciated. Thanks for reading