Nanowrimo 2011 - Day 05

[LI/JAMES - SUPERNATURAL AID]

James woke up gasping for breath and aching all over. He couldnt move. Something was wrapped around him pinning his arms to his sides. He tried wriggling his legs. Yep. Everything was held close. He tried to take another breath and the air tasted just as bad.
The air tasted of something acrid, smoke of some sort. He could hear electrical connections shorting near his head but the constraints around him stopped him from turning to look. Damn, electrical cables. He could be electrocuted any second. The could smell the ozone. The smoke smelled and tasted like plastic … and something else. He closed his eyes. Yes. It smelled slightly sweet, and meaty. Like that time he was invited to a pig-roast with Vincent. The pig had been lowered into a firepit and the smell, and yes, also the sound, of skin burning and crackling off was just like the aroma he was experiencing. Why was someone roasting a pig? There wasnt enough light to see what was going on, even the electrical sparks didnt provide light. He wriggled again. Nothing broken just trapped with the smell of plastic and electrical and pigs burning.

Li clawed acceleration gel off her face, unable to breath, finally sucking in a huge lungful of acrid smoke from the burning console in front of her. There were other smells but her brain refused to correlate them to anything meaningful.

The emergency systems of the shuttle had kicked in before the end, detecting their imminent crash, and applying tried-and-true techniques to avoid damage of the human passengers. It was dark. Occasional flickers of flame inside the console illuminated the glassy surface but it wasnt enough to see by. Strobing electrical shorts from cables hanging from an overhead panel gave glimpses of the room.

Li fought back panic.

She took deep breaths and began peeling layer after layer of hardened acceleration gel from her body. Firstly freeing her neck and shoulders to be able to turn. She wished she hadnt. The source of the other smell. She turned away from the pilot seat and the state that Eric was in with a scream. She looked back as best she could to the acceleration couch that James had been on. The couch had been flipped backward and lay underneath debris from the collapsed ceiling. She could see copious amounts of acceleration gel between metal girders and loose cables so she guessed that James was safe inside, though probably not comfortable.

Training kicked in pushing emotion out of the way. She set to work on her own bonds, freeing her other arm, hips, legs until she was able to roll out of her ruined seat and take a tentative step toward Eric. She looked at him again, coupled with the smell of roasting meat, the sight flipped something inside of her and she gave in to the overwhelming urge to throw up.

[SHAWNA]

“Report!” the voice barked.

“Shawna Jenkins, sir.” the young recruit answered.

Shawna stood at attention, uniform crisp and well presented and stance perfect, pale morning sun not yet clearing the mist from the rest of the parade ground. Around her circled the drill instructor, a bear of a man with pristine flat-top hair, perfectly clean shaven and immaculate uniform. Every pin, badge, buckle and zipper were cleanly polished. His boots reflected the morning sun, polished to a shine no cadet could ever match, despite hours and hours of trying. He embodied a military discipline that was firm but fair, asking nothing of others that he himself wouldnt do, except that he had a lifetime of experience to create the effect and his job was to break and remake recruits into his image.

“Why are you here Cadet Jenkins?” he barked.

Shawna considered the question, trying desperately not to fall into sarcasm or existentialism. She plumbed the depths of her programming and experience stores. She had nothing. No answer would satisfy the man, she knew it, and the experience was noted by a subroutine as one to investigate at a later date, in more detail. This was why she was here. She wanted and needed the exposure, except in a controlled dose. She knew for a fact that she couldnt function in human society so opted for an approximation, signing up for the Marine Corps and embracing its strict disciplines in lieu of wider society’s chaos of human interaction. But even here she felt herself lacking.

“Well?” the man demanded, stopping his pacing and facing her.

Shawna maintained her pose. Eyes forward.

“Sir?” she asked.

“Well? Why are you here?” the drill instructor asked her.

She had no answer but the truth, “Sir, to learn, to grow, to become something new. To assimilate every experience and to absorb them, and learn from them. Sir.”

“Well, assimilate this…” he went on to address in detail her uniform, her terrible posture, her lack of manners when addressing officers. In the end Shawna felt like an utter failure. However, at no time she she break her posture, stiff at attention, she waited until the drill instructor finished with tearing down her moral character and recent actions.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Nulla facilisis nunc et elit porta rutrum. Nulla facilisi. Fusce lobortis dapibus semper. Sed luctus orci a dolor sagittis et fringilla nunc consequat. Ut felis felis, venenatis sed pulvinar non, tincidunt in risus. Morbi non tortor tortor. Quisque condimentum auctor lorem a pretium. Nam vehicula dolor id dolor sollicitudin dictum. Pellentesque ut viverra lacus. Praesent rutrum sapien magna. Integer vitae enim id ante bibendum volutpat. Ut lectus ante, ultricies eu semper eget, faucibus quis sem. Pellentesque tempor congue sapien eu tempor. In gravida lacinia venenatis.

Proin sit amet ipsum id mauris auctor lobortis non vel turpis. Phasellus nec dui nec enim tincidunt vestibulum et et sem. Proin tincidunt suscipit lacus, non fringilla lorem accumsan nec. Cras orci lectus, venenatis eget venenatis eget, eleifend non massa. Curabitur posuere adipiscing purus at suscipit. Duis aliquam sagittis urna, sed porta libero cursus non. Nam massa dolor, dapibus vitae elementum eu, pellentesque et augue. In ultrices dignissim magna, in imperdiet libero scelerisque sit amet. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Sed eu arcu lectus. Suspendisse suscipit hendrerit tortor, at pulvinar nulla pharetra vel.

Praesent nulla lectus, fringilla non dapibus vel, scelerisque sed ligula. Fusce eget metus elit. Nulla in purus vitae felis molestie molestie. Nam iaculis aliquet arcu. Etiam felis neque, venenatis ac scelerisque eu, commodo mattis metus. Fusce eu neque at nisi venenatis vestibulum. Aliquam erat volutpat. Praesent bibendum nunc interdum mi aliquam ut congue sapien vestibulum. Maecenas sit amet nibh lectus. Integer est arcu, blandit vel vestibulum commodo, vehicula in odio. Praesent dignissim nulla at ligula lobortis porta ullamcorper velit ullamcorper.

Maecenas suscipit imperdiet nibh eu aliquam. Nam vestibulum, purus ac volutpat ornare, lacus massa hendrerit arcu, sit amet accumsan ipsum diam ac quam. Aliquam venenatis malesuada diam, non feugiat sem auctor eget. Mauris congue consectetur ornare. Pellentesque sed diam mauris. Phasellus convallis, libero vel malesuada pulvinar, quam nibh pellentesque ligula, vitae suscipit mauris dui vel quam. Suspendisse potenti. Class aptent taciti sociosqu ad litora torquent per conubia nostra, per inceptos himenaeos. Pellentesque vitae risus in lorem condimentum viverra et id mauris. Pellentesque ac dui justo. Nullam cursus posuere auctor. Vivamus auctor arcu.