December 27, 2009

Under Earthless Skies



This was orginally a 1000-worder I wrote for the weekly competitions I enter. The idea of the story was to examine what happens when you try to defeat something (in this case a automated prison security regime) that is getting stronger and stronger all the time.

I'm going to try and turn Under Earthless Skies into a novella in early January and submit to the Distant Worlds anthology. If I don't manage that in time, there are plenty of other places accepting large sci-fi stories.
The guards here were the machines of your nightmares and could, would kill for fun. We lost a few prisoners every week. You didn't confront this particular regime head on. You went above the arms that could generate 2000 kilos of lift and slam, above those steel and carbon fibre shoulders, behind the ears that could hear a whisper at fifty yards - and you attacked the strongest link in the chain: the brain. That was where Edward came in.

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