Hello, and welcome to Junk City, a place I like to think of as a "halfway house for ideas," namely MY ideas. All of them are © Richard A. Nelson, 1998. None of the ones presented here are completely developed, but if you are an artist interested in collaborating on one or more of these projects, I'd love the excuse to build my world more...
The story of Vincent Sheppard who, with his android co-pilot Sister K, were on the spacecraft Huck Finn during the first manned test of "The Slingshot Maneuver" to attain light speed. The maneuver involved using the gravitational pull of Jupiter to triple the strength of the ship's engines, allowing for the jump to light speed. The test worked twice before; once with robot pilots, and again with monkeys, and no one foresaw any problems with the manned test flight. Then again, no one knew that Sheppard was a temporal anomoly - he had travelled back in time with The Agents of The White Lord to stop a maniacle mage bent on changing the course of World War II...and the world.
The Huck Finn reached light speed, but that, combined with the out-of-time nature of Sheppard's existence, created a space-time rift, catapulting Sheppard and Sister K into a previously unknown star system ruled by the Huriskazzi, an octopoidal, bellicose alien race who captured them in hopes of finding the key to their intergalactic travel. Unable to do so, they confiscated the ship and placed the pilots on a labor colony on a distant moon where gas mining was being done with slave labor. There he met a group of rebels, exiles, and theives with whom he would plan an escape. They are:
After the escape, Sheppard sat at the helm of the stolen Defender class fast attack ship, looking on those who looked to him for guidance. He looked at the small, chrome-plated R&M robot CX29, who had recently been reprogramed to follow his orders by Zhar. In the chrome he saw his reflection. Where his eye had been the day before, there was now a patch. One more reason to hate the Huriskazzi. He looked like a pirate with his beard and flowing red hair. Then it dawned on him...he knew the others would follow his lead. They would be pirates...Intergalactic Pirates.
Aristotle Geopocles had a good life in Athens. His wife was the daughter of an Orion Corporation executive, and he had a secure job as a researcher for Orion Corp. He knew the corporation was corrupt, but it provided him with a good life. After all, Orion Corp. was more powerful than the Greek government itself. He had heard stories of Orion Corps' utilitarian tactics to fight and destroy dissenters, but it was easier to believe those were wives' tales and rumors. That all changed when, during an Orion Corps. raid against the dissident group known as The Prometheus Union led to the innocent deaths of his wife and daughter...innocents caught in the crossfire.
Aristotle began looking deeper into The Orion Corps' financial history and realized that it was in fact subverting the government and seizing control of Greece for it's own diabolical purposes. This, and the death of his wife and child, led him to join The Prometheus Union. He became a valuable source of information for The Union, but when he was discovered by Orion Corp's secret police, he found himself runing for his life.
While on the run, he began having strange dreams of the ancient gods of Hellas. Following the premonitions of his dreams, he came across a number of artifacts which gave him great powers...and a will to lead the Greek people and the Prometheus Union, out from under the beurocratic rule of The Orion Corporation. The items he found were:
The humerous tale of six young men trying to use their superhuman powers and skills to better humanity, earn fame and fortune, and of course "to get chicks." Starring:
This book, obviously, is a mockery of all the "teen" books out there now. I just want to have some fun with it and tell a good story reminiscent of the good 'ol days of comics.
Alex St. Pierre was in the Catholic seminary studying to become a priest. Like Job, his faith was put to the ultimate test. He discovered, while only weeks away from his graduation, that the Archbishop of East Bay City in New Jersey and headmaster of the seminary, was a child molester. The discovery came brutally to Alex when, on a late night walk, he saw an altar boy run crying from the Archbishop's quarters. A man of God, Alex followed up on this, discovering that his fears were founded, unfortunately, in fact. He confided this to his boyhood priest, Alberto Falini. Father Alberto showed no surprise, but warned Alex to keep quiet. He had seen this kind of thing before, and when the facts were reviewed, it was never the Archbishop whose life was ruined. It was always the accusers who suffered. Alas, Alex could not do nothing about this. He confronted the Archbishop , who called him a liar and a heathen. He threatened to have Alex excommunicated.
The next day, Alex was arrested on drug possession charges and was eventually sentenced to six years in a federal penitentiary where he fought for his life daily. Slowly, his faith began to leave him and he would write in his journal, "God, if you are truly loving and benign, how can you forsake so many of your children? Why must evil always be triumphant in this world? Why cannot the Grace of God shine in this life as well as the afterlife? You spared the life of Job's child when he showed faith in you, yet you punish many who do your bidding..." Finally, he was released from prison. He managed to maintain enough faith in God to thank him for this, but that faith would not last.
He planned to renew his life and while the seminary was out, as was any hope of the priestly life, he had a job thanks to Father Alberto. He was the church's janitor. He finished his duties at three in the morning and began his short walk home, to a one room apartment above a Chinese restaurant in downtown East Bay City. There, the last of his faith was drained from him when he witnessed three men savagely attacking and raping a young woman. He prayed for the strength to stop this madness without violence, but the anger was too much for him. All he could see in the back of his mind was the powerful Archbishop and the powerless altar boy. It was fitting. He attacked the men, savagely and brutally.
One pulled a pistol out, but even the cold steel of a bullet was nothing compared to his rage. He attacked like a hungry dog, sparing no one. When all was done, he bid the lady to be on her way and he took the pistol from the unconscious man's hand. He was tempted to kill them all, but he could not. What he could do was use the gun and a mask with a cross, the symbol of god prominently displayed, to fight back for those who could not fight for themselves. He would be the High Priest, the protector of the innocent until such time as God would stop the strong from preying on the weak. He would use this alias to attack the Archbishop himself, and any of the more fortunate who preyed upon the less fortunate.
This is a humorous and semi-intellectual romp through the wilderness of the mind. Harold is an eleven year old boy who has the most powerful imagination in the world. His teacher, an analytical old fool who emphasizes "The Three R's of Education" to the point of idiocy, has suspended Harold for daydreaming in class. Harold is afraid to go home and face his parents, so he walks through the forest near the school for the rest of the day.
There he encounters a dwarf, as if straight from a high fantasy novel. The dwarf introduces himself as Glumm, Harold's guide into the Lost Realm of Impossibly Infinite Possibilites where he must overcome talking flowers, a troll under a bridge, an army of ants at a picnic, and eventually They Wyrm King himself in order to save the fate of Imagination, a tiny sprite-like girl who is trapped under a goblet in The Wyrm King's lair.
Wyatt is Don Carlos DiLatri's right hand man. He's a fixer. When the Don has a problem, Wyatt fixes it. He is, in many ways, the heart of organized crime in Jerusalem, Nevada, a huge complex of crime-syndicate owned casino's. He's also sleeping with the Don's young wife, Mary DiLitri.
Milo is a fence. he knows about Wyatt's affair with the Don's wife, but he isn't saying anything. He knows a lot of things about the city. What he doesn't know is how to deal with what happens next...One fine evening of liquor and gambling is just like another for Milo. So he thought. On this particular night, as he's getting into his Cadillac, he hears a strange noise from a nearby alley. He stumbles over to see what's going on, only to see the most incredible thing...a bona-fide angel, with fully extended wings and a fiery sword is stumbling through the alley, crashing into dupsters as if in pain...as if he's dying. The Angel approaches Milo and says:
"The day of reckoning is at hand. Armageddon will follow shortly. I have failed in my mission to protect the child, and I ask your help, for the sake of heaven and all things good and pure. You must succeed where I have failed..."
With these words, the angel collapses and fades to dust. Milo is shocked, dazed, and confused. What can I do, he wonders? He realizes that he must fight the demons who are quickly approaching Jerusalem. He is terrified. All the more so when he realizes that the leader of the demons, Satan himself, has taken the form of the mortal man, Don Carlos DiLitri.
Through blackmail, Milo forces Wyatt to help him stop the coming of Armageddon.