[Jacob Samples]

Synopsis: 2 Guards in a 12 level mining and research center on Mars encounter death, fear, unusual experiments, and the unexplainable.

"You heard about what they found Derek?" asked Gerry, Derek's only friend in the whole mine site.

They were at level 7, sector C in the locker room, changing into their uniforms.

"Ya. Sounds good I suppose. At least this whole mining operation wasn't a complete failure." Derek replied.

He tightened the thick nylon armor band on his arm, and checked the rest of his uniform, making sure it was all secure. He grabbed his issued pistol from the locker cabinet, and fastened it into its holster on his waist. It was powerful for a pistol, but they had never had to use them, and probably wouldn't have too.

"You wanna stop by the shooting range on our way to Level 12?" asked Gerry.

"Aww shit. We're on Level 12 today? Why don't they just send us to the center of the damn planet for god's sake." Derek grabbed his visored helmet, and held it under his arm as he waited for Gerry to finish gearing up. "But ya, I suppose I could whip your ass at practice, again."

They both laughed and left the locker room, as they made their way to Sector 7A, the armory, and waited in front of a door as it registered their presence.

"Damn sensors take so god damn long in this place. They need to be fixed or something, maybe go back to the old days when we had to open the doors ourselves." Gerry complained.

They chuckled as the door slid open, releasing a hissing sound. Stepping through, Gerry nodded to a pretty woman behind a desk, his latest attraction.

They made small talk as they walked through the large hallways of Sector 7A, until they reached a huge room. They walked up to a caged part on a wall, and knocked on it loudly. A geeky looking man behind the cage jumped in startlement, and flipped them off.

"Hey bud, settle down. Give us some practice rounds." said Derek to the guy.

He acknowledged their request, and they took the rounds. Turning to their left, they saw 4 open holes in a wall, leading to a long corridor filled with chips and holes in the walls from the guards shooting practice.

Derek took a place in lane 2, and gave lane 1 to Gerry.

"Alright Gerry, ready to get your ass handed to you? First one to shoot all 7 targets wins. The loser has to buy the drinks tonight, agreed?"

"Ya Derek, agreed. Lets do this."

Gerry punched a little button on the wall there that had 7 marked above it, and so did Derek. A loud squeek resounded as the first target showed itself, right up close. Both men pulled their pistols from the holsters, loaded a clip of practice rounds, and turned off their safetys.

Derek immediately shot the aluminum figure of a fantastical alien straight on the bullseye, but it took Gerry 2 shots to make the target go down. Derek's next target came first, and he shot that down as quick as the first. They shot the targets as they popped up, and Derek finished his seventh target when Gerry was only on his fifth.

A loud buzz sounded as Derek's last target went down, signaling it was over.

"Well Gerry. Looks like I win again. I only fired 8 times for seven targets, while you shot 12 times for 5 targets." The men laughed, and Gerry caved in, saying he would buy the drinks that night after their shift on Level 12.

They left Sector 7A, and found the elevator. They stepped in, and were joined by a skittish looking scientist. He was bald, and wearing a long white jacket with pens and a little notebook in the chest pocket. The men talked and laughed as the slow elevator took them down, but as they went deeper, the scientist looked increasingly scared, like he was approaching certain death.

"Hey man, you alright?" asked Gerry.

He put his hand on the man's shoulder comfortingly as he asked, but the man jumped forward out of his reach, and almost slammed his face into the metal elevator door.

"I...I'm fine. Please... don't touch me." the scientist said, sweat dripping down his face in a torrent.

Gerry's eyes went wide and he apologized, and they went back to talking. After a few long, boring minutes the elevator came to a screeching hault at Level 12, and all three men exited the elevator.

The scientist practically ran from them, and turned a corner down a skinny hallway. Derek and Gerry passed the hallway the scientist had gone down, and saw no one there, but there seemed to be no door until the very end. They ignored it, and continued through the sectors of the 12th level of the mining and research center, until they reached a large door.

Derek placed his thumb on a little green glowing pad beside it, and it read his finger print, and greeted him by name as the door opened. They both entered the door, and picked up the cards with their names on it from a large wall-hung organizer.

"You'd think with all this high tech shit, that they wouldn't be resorting to these old fashioned ways of clocking in." Gerry punched his card into the large machine, and it put the time down on it. Derek mimicked him, and they placed their cards in different slots on the other side of the machine.

As they walked down the hallway, Derek noticed that Gerry had left his helmet at the shooting range.

"Ah damn dude, Sarge is gonna chew your ass for forgetting your helmet."

"Eh, no he's not, he's on vacation, haha. It doesn't matter anyway, I'll probably go get it on break or something." replied Gerry.

Derek nodded his head in agreement, and placed his own visored helmet onto his head. The sensors turned the inner computer on, and through the visor screen, Derek saw it was reading the climate, oxygen level, and targeting heat sources. They passed by a desk, and said curt hellos to the old woman behind it, reading something on the holographic computer screen humming in front of her.

They stopped at a door, and they heard pressure guages releasing, and then the door hummed and opened. As they went through it, puffs of cold steam released, chilling their bodies slightly and killing any bacteria they might have had on them.

The scenery went immediately from clean, metal walls, to red walls of Martian rock. The ground was covered in red powder, and it collected onto a thin film on their black boots. They talked slightly, and coughed every one in a while, clouds of red dust floating in the air in front of them.

They reached the huge, 20x15 foot mechanical double-doors leading to the actual mine, and stopped. They took their positions on either side of the door, and talked light-heartidly, not expecting any disturbances except for the occasional miner coming off of, or going onto break. 10 hours of standing there. They got a half hour break at hour five, but it seemed like forever until then.

After an hour or so of complete boredom, the huge doors roared to life as somone on the other side hit the ignition. They began to open, but stopped suddenly. Both men stepped quickly to the 6 inch opening, and looked through. Nothing was there. A loud yelp sounded through the mine shaft through the door, and a black figure sped past the small opening.

A mans face appeared in the opening, blood dripping from his eyes, and gurgling from his mouth. "He....lp.....me....." he said through spurts of blood from his mouth.

"Holy fuck...." said Derek, almost mortified from the scene.

"Help me....pleasssssse...." he repeated. "Their coming....I don't want to die..."

[Lubesh]

a coupl of points in your punctuation. comma then and isnt right and also it is 'They're' or 'they are', not, 'their' coming. Commas between words are missing eg....green glowing pad was one instance.

I am looking forward to more....

[JirQUEST]

a lot of set-up to get to the really interesting bit at the end. i reckon that, since u already have 3 parts written, u could insert these little details into the story later on. get rid of those dialogue attributions. merely superfluous. do it when u think the subject speaking it is unclear.

also, more description perhaps? it's easy to read, but i would love more setting (read: environment; smells sounds etc) just to get an idea of the place since this is pretty futuristic.

[Sith Lord Jim]

My advice is this dont take out anything. Although it can seem a bit slow to start it obviously is setting up the characters and getting your audience to like and know them. Except maybe have him notice he forgot the helmet later. I gather that will come into play at some point but having it there it kind of disrupts the flow. I liked it. Seems very Doom3 like. I look foward to the next section.
Yours truly Jimmy

[Storiesmaniac]

Hmm it is rather like doom3 but still enjoyable, keep it up, and im with not taking anything out because, as jimmy said it will create a better character for the audience.

[Jacob Samples]

i've actually never even played Doom3... so i wouldn't really know what that it is similar. i thought it was gonna be sort of unique...damn. oh well, thanks for the comments, i'mg onan turn this story in to my creative writing teacher so that he can help me improve it alot, then i'll probably repost it when it's done, and i'll do the same for part 2, and then i'll work on part 3 more. thanks again guys.

Jake

[sensitive1]

Good dialogue. Really helped to develop the characters.