Dominion - A Writing Sample

Reports had been circulating along the news networks of a terrorist act that was about to be committed, how a large-scale tower in the city center had been threatened, and that if this building collapsed, it would take a good chunk of the downtown core with it. The stories indicated a young man that looked to be in his mid-to-late-twenties with icy eyes, a slim but toned build and three feathers twined into his hair. Police had been called in, investigators had trawled for clues, and special operations teams had crawled across the metropolitan core for signs of explosives. They didn't find anything, but the rumors persisted.

Then on a sunny afternoon, when the partially cloudy sky was tinged orange beneath the strange sun, the top forty-seven stories of the Kyusk & Svalonavich building, a five-hundred seventy story building, crumpled inward from a series of plasma blasts before tumbling in slow-motion for the series of raised highways and thoroughfares below. The terrorist attack was on the five o'clock news, local time, and the pasty-white face of the terrorist responsible for the atrocious act was plastered to every holo-screen from Demerald Street to York Avenue.

His name? Drenard A Romyal, a low-time criminal that had been making news headlines for the past eight months on this planet, Vivasdre. This was just another in a long series of terrorist acts, each and every one linked to him; he openly admitted to it, as well, using the ensuing hatred to plan as fuel for his next attacks, all of them culminating to the newly destroyed Kyusk & Svalonavich building, a shipping, import and export company that was a parent corporation for thousands, if not millions, of other subsidiaries and company's. Previous attacks had been against various pieces of infrastructure: subway and skyway stations, highways and freeways, banks, credit offices. He'd even hit several government offices. There was a hefty reward for his capture, much larger than the bounty for his head, which was steadily gaining along with the reward.

He was almost a celebrity. Several media shows and outlets were dedicated to hunting him, tracking him, talking to eye-witness reports of encounters with him. He was described as jovial, brooding, cold, calm, quiet, funny, an interesting figure altogether. He was talked about in print, on holo-graphics across the city, by people in shops. He was despised by many, loved by few, and none on this wretched, corporate-controlled world even had a clue as to who he really was or what his goals were or even as to why he was here.

The truth, however, was far more interesting than the brutal attacks this creature committed.

Drenard A. Romyal was a Vadasian, a species unheard of to the other multitudes of species abounding on this planet and other nearby inhabited star systems. It was not just that Drenard was Vadasian, it was what he was doing as a Vadasian that would be so intriguing. His species had long ago declared a holy war against all other species, and being the xenophobic race they were, wished all other races dead. Their war was oft-times postponed, jarring to a halt. They mitigated with other races, cut deals, made trade. In essence, they played the peace game, but beneath that, behind the velvet red curtains, they played their shadow war against other peoples and species and races, undercutting them at every turn. And that was why Drenard was here, on this planet that was in a galaxy in an alternate dimension, uncharted to all except the Vadasian. Upsetting the natural balance. The truth is that Drenard is a covert operations agent, and he was sent to the world of Vivasdre to destabilize the economy through a series of terrorist attacks, and he was succeeding phenomenally.

He sat hackneyed, starring across the bay at the tumbling tower, the plumes of black smoke and was riveted to the spot. He could hear the explosion, the crumpling tower crashing downward, the splintering glass, the shower of debris and detritus. And inwardly, he thought he could hear the cries of despair and pain of the newly dying. After a few moments of watching, he made a crude human hand gesture at the newly crumbled city center, a learned trait, before standing up and walking away, the wind coming in off the water with the smell of salt and tears and pollution.

He walked with a newfound bounce in his step and a grin on his face. Oh, what tomorrow would bring.

 

***

 

Tomorrow wasn't what Drenard thought it would be. When he awoke at four in the morning, his groggy mind at first thought it was way too early to be moving from his previous comatose state. He was also slightly angered, cursing vividly at the noise outside the low-rent dumpster of a buildings' window. It was as his mind began to engage that everything clicked. The ear-splitting shriek that so penetrated these walls wasn't an ordinary sound so found in this part of town. It was that of a cruiser, and not just one cruiser. No, he could heard the distinct wail of dozens of cruisers...all of them police or otherwise. The law would only come with such bravado and force if they felt they would need it.

His heart began to pound. Someone had ratted him out, but who? Who would have been able to see him enter the building? How was it that he had been found out? Cornered, he knew he had only a singular option, run. Fighting would only draw attention to himself, it would also have the double effect of slowing him down and costing him the time he needed to get away.

Letting out a new string of curses, he began pulling on street clothes, making sure to pick up the various weapons he had laying about the room and stuffing them into a Jorgani stone pendant about his neck. He also activated his armor, and with such, smashed the window (which would usually take a vehicle with a mass of a ton moving at fifty kilometers and hour to do) and jumped through. He landed on the alley floor seven stories below amid a sudden outburst of silenced awe and screeching fear. His left arm swung towards the now screaming woman with her child, morphing and elongating until it formed the barrel of a cannon. The end glowed yellow-green with ferocious speed before erupting in a single charged ball of energy that crossed the distant in less time it took to blink. The woman's head turned to a charred heap, smoking oddly as the child that had been hiding under its parents' arm began to shriek all its own at the sudden destruction of the mother it no longer had.

Drenard didn't spare another thought to the carnage he had let loose, and instead began to run, a quick sprinters jog that he could keep up for more than half the day. He'd need to get out of the area, highjack a vehicle and get farther away from the scene. Either that or he might have to call in for extraction. That wouldn't sit well, and he would likely be reprimanded for improper procedure and a replacement sent here to take over where he left off. Either way, Drenard felt things were going downhill, and fast. He swore again. What a way to start his day.