Visa Riots #1
by tycho garen on Aug.20, 2008, under Trailing Edge
“Visa Riots” is a short story from the Trailing Edge project. This story happens several hundred years before the other stories in the project. This is part 1 of 6. Enjoy!
The London Dome was hotter than it should have been. Everything was covered in soot and Edwin Noam couldn’t see anything past his elbows.
“There’s a riot on!” Someone cried from behind him. “There’s, someone with a death grip on the obvious,” he thought. Despite the confusion and the danger, at least he had a sense of humor.
“Ed? Edwin? E?” Perr called out, cry punctuated by fierce coughing. Edwin almost missed her voice amongst all of the other rioters. He heard her voice go in and out of phase as she turned around looking for me.
Edwin squeezed his hand, or at least tried to. It was numb and he couldn’t see it very well. Perr should be right here, he thought as he called “Here. Perr,” where he thought she should have been.
She leaned back into Edwin so hard that it almost knocked the wind out of him. He could barley see the top of her head, though it was only a couple of feet away. Almost. He thought she squeezed his hand in response, but he couldn’t tell. There was too much going on. Under normal circumstances he would have reached out to grab her by the shoulders, but he feared that if their fingers slipped apart, they might be lost forever.
This was the problem with starting fires in these isolation Domes. “Why didn’t people think about these things,” he thought. Riots brought that out in people, he supposed.
They had been next in line, almost within the transport complex when it started. In fact had their timing been only slightly more apt, they might have been able to make it inside the complex. The complex would be safe, presumably, given the seal–even the administrative center that they had been trying to enter was isolated from the rest of the dome.
Not that the good fortune would have made this any less of a nightmare, but that way it would have been someone else’s nightmare.
1 Comment for this entry
6 Trackbacks / Pingbacks for this entry
-
Critical Futures: a next wave science fiction review
August 21st, 2008 on 7:20 am[...] happens several hundred years before the other stories in the project. This is part 2 of 6. Read part 1. [...]
-
Critical Futures: a next wave science fiction review
August 22nd, 2008 on 7:59 am[...] happens several hundred years before the other stories in the project. This is part 2 of 6. Read part 1 and part 2. [...]
-
Critical Futures: a next wave science fiction review
August 25th, 2008 on 7:03 am[...] happens several hundred years before the other stories in the project. This is part 4 of 6. Read part 1, part 2, and part 3. [...]
-
Critical Futures: a next wave science fiction review
August 27th, 2008 on 5:55 am[...] happens several hundred years before the other stories in the project. This is part 5 of 6 7. Read part 1, part 2, part 3, and part 4. [...]
-
Critical Futures: a next wave science fiction review
August 27th, 2008 on 12:43 pm[...] several hundred years before the other stories in the project. This is part 6 of 6 7 parts. Read part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, and part 5. [...]
-
Critical Futures: a next wave science fiction review
August 28th, 2008 on 7:10 am[...] years before the other stories in the project. This is the final installment, of 6 7 parts. Read part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, and part 5. [...]
August 20th, 2008 on 5:25 pm
Lets see, you’ve got a couple extra commas, an “Ediwn” instead of “Edwin”, Perr’s voice was almost lost “amongst all of the other riots” instead of amongst all of the other rioters, and I think that’s it.
Yep, still reading.