Paranoia: Chapter 4

Chapter 4: Guarantees

The crime scene crew was already busy cleaning up the place. Ryan took a smoke break while he waited outside for Walter to clear up something with the cop that had been the first to respond to the scene. Seemed that even with a few years on the force, the guy still hadn’t seen anything this bad, he seemed pretty rattled, which meant he’d fucked up on procedure at every goddamn turn.

Taking a long drag on his cigarette, Ryan felt a brief invigoration course through him, but only long enough to get sucked away by the freezing cold weather. The rain had stopped, but the wind kept up, and he’d been sitting outside of the apartment for an uncomfortable amount of time. Ryan wanted to be back home, or at least in his office, so that he could go over this mess while in a somewhat warm environment.

Paranoia: Chapter 3

Chapter 3: All There Is

To see it, to know… we burn when that is inside of us.

Trying to open his eyes, oddly because it meant he would be blinded to what was before him.

We guess at our origin, you guess at yours, and I’m sure what made us will guess at its own. What would such pointless answers ever yield? Why ever ask such stupid questions?

He was watching it all begin, yet he already knew how this would end.

Paranoia: Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Rogues

“Yeah, I remember the girl,” Walt poured himself another cup of coffee and rubbed at his eyes. “That was thrown into the cold case files, right?”

“Yes,” was Ryan’s solemn reply. “You remember how long ago that was?”

“Shit…” Walt scratched his head trying to remember, likely he wasn’t even going through academy yet. For a moment, Ryan doubted that he’d even graduated from high school at that time. “Six or seven years ago at least. Remember it was all over the headlines. When I was still on the force I remember a couple of folks trying to dig it up saying they had leads or whatever. All turned out to be bullshit. No one knew what happened to her.”

Ryan didn’t say much, he just took a bite out of his Ruben.

Paranoia: Chapter 1

Chapter 1: Love is Not Enough

“Ducky…” a whisper that grew louder, eventually drowning out the noise of the horror he was forced to view. He felt his arms and legs bound, and as the vile display before him began to fade, the voice grew louder still, and he felt free, in control of his limbs. “Ducky, wake up!”

He snapped out of his sleep, the terrible dream that was gripping him, and realized who woke him up. A new level of revulsion took over now.

“Fucking hell, Ami, what are you doing here?” He slapped his hand on his head, and then tried to rub some form of wakefulness into his face.

“Mmmm… do you sleep naked?” She was sitting on the floor, her face perched on his bed, and she had an odd look as she glanced at him.

“What? No. Get out!”

Paranoia: Prologue

Prologue: Stockholm Syndrome

She sat nervously as the imps stood at the altar tinkering with the display. Years of religious brow beating still made her think of the Slate as being a very mystical object, worthy of respect and reverence. Her new mistress though, treated it like a toy, and half the time didn’t even bother looking over the imps as they did their work.

“Thingy turn on,” one of them shouted, and it ran away to inform everyone.

Below the altar, the holo-display began to fill the room with images from space. The light rose from the pool that rested at the feet of the altar, a display that took up most of the free space in the dimly lit room. She wanted to be impressed by how much such a device would cost, but remembered that half the parts for it were likely stolen.