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Tek

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About Tek

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  1. Tek

    Eternity

    You've come a long way in terms of writing skill. I'm impressed! The problem with each story you write, however is length: They're all too damn short! I think it's time you started on something of a grander scale...you certainly have the skills...
  2. Tek

    Looking to expand...

    Yeah, I sent the mail to your other address. I'll send another mail to your real address shortly.
  3. Tek

    Looking to expand...

    Yeah, I'll send a mail to DSM. I've not heard too much about this new community story, but I'd like to be able to contribute to it. As for the Elfwood link, I've already been there, but again and again I can't get to it, due to some server-related wierdness on its part. I just gave up.
  4. Tek

    Looking to expand...

    Hey, I was wondering if y'all knew about another forum where you could post your stories. This forum is good, but it's only for Doom and related games. I'm looking to find a forum where I can post non-Doom related stories--a place for my ORIGINAL creations.
  5. Tek

    Deimos Subway: Part I

    I thought this was kind of funny: "If something's wrong, just use your radio helmet." Tee-hee.
  6. Tek

    Monster Info

    I bet in real life the AV would be a cunning, dreadful opponent much akin to the Predator. The Cyberdemon would be more like a walking tank. The Arch-Vile strikes me as a reclusive creature that, once agitated to action, will hunt you down and kill you unless you get to it first. Therein lies the true source of the AV's fear-inducing capability, along with its flame-tastic explosion attack. It's also one of the more elegant, cooler looking creatures, though the Cyberdemon looks really cool too. I admit, though, that the sound of the CD's hooves pounding on the floor is enough to make one wince, though only if he or she knows the destructive capability of the CD. Upon first encounter with the Arch-Vile, you know you're going to be in for a tough ride.
  7. Tek

    Strife intro

    You spelled Assault wrong.
  8. Tek

    The Chains are Broken: Part 1

    I really like the idea, but it's come too late for me to fix it. Maybe I'll put it in a "gold edition" update or something, and give you credit for it.
  9. Tek

    The Chains are Broken: Part 1

    I had a hunch that that would attract some flak, but I wanted to put it in because I needed to have some kind of reason for the marines' being there. If I didn't, Gina would be a bit of a fish out of water. I admit, however, that I really could have done better on that part. And about it not being true to the backstory, that wasn't the objective in the first place. I'm simply trying to give some sort of creative take on the events which happened on Phobos; not just a detailed retelling of the story in the manual.
  10. Howdy again, this is part 1 of "The Chains are Broken." Before you read this, please note that it is rather long, and you should read the introduction I posted, if you haven't already. This is only part 1, so you can guess how long the completed story will be: Probably the size of a small novel. I probably won't end up finishing it, but it's a good time-waster for those slow weekdays. Anyway, here's part 1: The Chains are Broken: Chapter 1 I hatefully watched Professor Harkin as he walked off, staring daggers at his back. When I turned around to go to the cafeteria and vent my anger, I was suddenly face-to-face with a woman wearing military fatigues. She was pretty, with enchanting green eyes and brown hair that peeked out from under a camouflaged cap. She looked me straight in the eye. “You two must not be the best of friends,” she said, wearing a knowing grin on her face. “I met the guy at the main base a few weeks ago. He came up to me in the bar, drunk off his ass, and said some stuff to me that should have gotten him arrested. He’s one hell of a cocky bastard.” “I know it,” I replied, looking back at him. “And I have to work with him, if you can imagine that.” “You poor baby,” she said as she brushed a stray wisp of silken hair out of her eyes. “Name’s Gina. PFC Gina King.” With a wink and a grin, she held out her hand to me and I shook it well, heartened by the fact that there was someone out there who shared my hate for Professor Harkin. “I’m not on duty right now; you want to get a drink or something?” If I wasn’t mistaken right then and there, Gina had asked me out, and I was more than willing to oblige her. It’d been quite a while since I’d been in the company of females—whenever I tried to go out on a date, Harkin had always dumped a pile of work on me—almost as if he planned it. All the more reason to hate his guts. We left the hangar and started towards the bar, stopping at the giant plexiglass window I had looked out of before. Gina looked at the surface of Phobos with a childlike curiosity, as if she’d never seen it before. “I was on duty at camp Pendleton back on Earth when I had to come up here,” she said, her eyes scanning the horizon. “This place is so weird; it’s nothing like Earth.” “Well, you get used to it,” I replied, bringing Gina back to the here-and-now. “If you spend enough time cooped up in here, it doesn’t seem so strange. Just boring.” She looked at me and let out an embarrassed chuckle. We continued down the hallway. The bar was once again depopulated; even more so than the previous night. Only five other people sat at the tables, all of them watching the Gate opening ceremony on the video monitors. They were all off-duty marines, probably from Gina’s squad. Gina and I took seats at the bar and Charlie walked up, absently cleaning a glass as he smiled at me and my newfound companion. He expressed his disbelief at me having a drinking buddy for once and offered me a Bud to celebrate, but I turned him down and ordered a Dr. Pepper as usual. Gina, however, ordered a Margarita, and Charlie was quick to deliver. When we got our drinks, we turned our attention to the video monitors and watched various scientists give speeches and other pleasantries to the crowd of research staff and UAC employees. Then Professor Harkin stood up. “Oh, here’s your slavemaster now,” Gina said, taking a sip of her Margarita. I simply looked on as Harkin took the podium and delivered his speech. For the most part he simply talked about himself and how great he was, and the crowd ate up his every word—he was a good speaker. Then he said something that really cemented my complete and total hatred for him: “I’m glad I got to work with such a wonderful staff of brilliant scientists and researchers. Without them, I would not have been able to finish the project. Not even my bufoon of an assistant, Daniel Ferguson, could keep the project from being completed on time, and in the highest quality possible. Can you believe that he couldn’t even be bothered to attend the opening ceremony?” The entire crowd let out a roar of laughter at this. I simply sat there watching the monitor, helpless to keep him from humiliating me in front of hundreds of people. Gina gave me a sympathetic pat on the shoulder. “That bastard’s going to burn in hell.” She finished off her Margarita. I took the last few sips of Dr. Pepper and threw the bottle in the wastebin. Harkin wrapped up his speech with a bad joke about physics or something and stepped off the platform as the hangar was cleared of observers and final preparations for the gate opening were made. Scientists began rushing about the hangar, checking computer monitors and running diagnostics, making sure that every little thing in the planning was running correctly. The hangar seemed like a beehive, with staff busily milling about, cocking a probing eye to anything and everything. I saw Colonel Gaynes still in the hangar with his attendants; he probably wanted to see the spectacle close up. An island of sloth in a sea of busywork, he stood with his hands in his pockets, watching the scientists go to and fro. “There’s the Colonel,” Gina said, pointing at the video monitor in his direction. “He’s the highest-ranking soldier on the entire moon.” “Why did they send your squad up here?” I asked. Gina shrugged. “I really don’t know for sure, but I’ve been told that UAC thinks the gate has the ability to transport stuff to and from this moon, and they don’t want to risk some alien coming through and destroying the nice little operation they’ve got here. I think it’s a dumb idea, but orders are orders. They assigned us here with full combat armament, so they must really suspect something.” I nodded inattentively, still watching the screen. The scientists were all off the platform now, standing at various computer workstations and observation posts. Harkin stood in the middle of it all, his eyes fixed on the gate. He took a decidedly dramatic pose, his hands on his hips and his legs ceremoniously spread, as if he were some kind of superhero. The countdown to opening began at ten, and steadily went on. The entire bar was silent and every pair of eyes was fixed on the monitor as the droning countdown continued, then reached zero. The gate was activated. The hum of machinery could be heard throughout the complex, and the gate seemed to glow an eerie emerald light that came from the base. Azure beams of electricity suddenly arced from the sides of the gate, and the scientists all donned shaded safety goggles. The arcs of electricity seemed to merge into one massive ball that spread through the entire area of the gate. Then there was a flash, and the gate was open, a huge, ovular azure wall in the middle of the apparatus. The gate seemed to ripple and undulate, casting a strange bright-blue light on the cheering scientists. Bottles of whine and champagne were popped, and celebration filled the hangar with whoops and cheers. The superiority of human intellect was once again proved with the opening of the gate. Then something unplanned occurred. A being actually walked through the gate. The celebration stopped as the research staff all took in the unexpected visitor. It was huge and muscular, with hard, pink flesh. Sweat glistened on its muscle-bound chest, and it stood on two goatlike legs, which curved back at the knee and ended in cloven hooves. Its head was the most striking feature: It looked like a goat’s head, with horns and a snout that had a beard at the chin. Its eyes were blazing red, as if the fires of hell raged within the crimson orbs. Several small holes in the creature’s wrists oozed a glowing green liquid that looked as if it was radioactive. It hissed and bubbled as it dripped on the floor, creating sizzling pock-marks. It looked like it was confused and hunched down, its deep-set eyes scanning the hangar. The creature let out a strange roar that sounded like a bull mixed with a gorilla. The scientists were all scared, and let out one big, collective yelp. Colonel Gaynes stepped back a few steps. The creature screamed viciously and jumped off the platform. It landed with a ‘clank,’ its cloven hooves making large holes in the metal floor. Suddenly, a group of marines burst through the door and knelt down in front of the creature, assault rifles shouldered and aimed. The monster growled low, its fists starting to glow more brightly. The marines yelled at the creature to stand down, even though it probably didn’t understand human language and was only getting angry and confused. Then, the creature wound up and threw a glob of the green ooze at the marines. Three marines and a scientist got it on them, and the ooze burned through their uniforms like acid. They all fell to the floor, screaming horribly. The remaining marines fired their rifles, concentrating their fire on its head and chest. Amazingly, some of the bullets glanced off the monster’s thick hide, and two of the marines had to reload their rifles. The monster didn’t counterattack, but instead withered under the concentrated fire pulverising its considerable bulk. Then, as if the will to live had suddenly left its body, the creature let out a harsh death-knell and collapsed in a bloody mess. It bled a red liquid that looked like blood, but hissed as it flowed from the corpse. Four marines jumped up from their kneeling positions and ran to the crumpled mess, firing a few shots into the body to make sure it was dead. Several doctors came to the marines and scientist that had been wounded by the creature’s acidic glob, but they were pronounced dead after their pulses were taken. Once the situation was back under control, I realized that Gina, me, and everyone else in the bar had watched it all in a deathly silence. None of us had said a word throughout the entire spectacle, and none of us had moved an inch. Charlie had even stopped cleaning his glass. He simply stood there, a dumbstruck expression on his face. Gina watched it all in grim fascination, here eyes focused only on the creature that had walked through the gate. I decided to break the silence. “Gina,” I said, tapping her on the shoulder. “Gina, we should go see what we can do in the hangar. Gina…” Though she still watched the video monitor, she gave me a reluctant nod. She pried her eyes away from the screen, got up and followed me out the door. ***** Hope you liked it, and if you did, you can expect the second part in a week or so, depending on whether or not I die, or kidnapped, abducted by aliens, hit by a car, stricken with a horrible disease, or incapacitated in other ways. If any of these things happens to me, please call the appropriate authorites. So there.
  11. Tek

    Monster Info

    But Arch-Viles are fast, and have that bone chilling laughter...and when did a Cyberdemon ever smash through a wall?
  12. Tek

    Monster Info

    Damn you all and your fantasy explanations. Damn you to hell. Anyway, here's my own semi-fanciful explanation of the Arch-Vile: Arch Vile Arch-Viles were once angels, warriors of God born only to protect and keep the peace in Heaven and on Earth. A small cadre of angels allied with Lucifer, the angel who fell from grace and became the lord of the Underworld. These angels, during their descent from Heaven to Hell, lost their Angel's wings and godly powers, the only thing they kept from the whole ordeal being their undying hatred for God and his creations for banishing them to the dread-realm to which they were now bound forever. It took them several millenia to regain their lost powers, and even then they had perverted beyond recognition by the hellish energies that brewed in the Underworld. By this time, they had taken on the appearance of skeletons, with pallid, almost transluscent flesh and a thin structure of bone showing through it. Their powers, once used for healing, were now geared toward death and destruction. With a simple clap of their hands, they were able to conjure up huge explosions and fireballs, able to sear through flesh and armor alike. However, they kept some semblance of Angelic power throughout their obscene evolution: The ability to raise the dead. They now use this ability to resurrect fallen Demons in Lucifer's army of Devils. They are among the most frightful creatures in Lucifer's army, with their grotesque appearance and a ghoulish chuckle that never fails to bring chills to the most courageous soldier's spine. They are also among the most destructive, able to fell entire skyscrapers with their balls of hellfire. They are high-ranking on the "food chain" of the demons, and are used as field commanders and enforcers, simply blowing to bits any demon that gets out of line.
  13. Tek

    Monster Info

    The operative sentence in my post:
  14. Tek

    The Chains are Broken (Intro)

    Oh dear...I'm not sure I can live up to that kind of praise, but I do try, as you all can see. Thanks a lot for the kind words!
  15. Hey hey, this is my first story in a long time, and is really more like an introduction than a story, and one hell of a long introduction at that. I hope to finish the next part (the part with all the action) in the coming weeks. Enjoy the read. The Chains are Broken Professor Harkin looked up from his microscope and adjusted his ponts-nez, stiffly jotting down notes in a leather binder he always carried with him. I never liked him at all. He just seemed a bit condescending when he spoke with me. He also came from a wealthy family, so he felt he was entitled to the respect and admiration of his collegues. He was handsome, though; I’ll give him credit for that. He had piercing amber eyes that looked like they could bore into your soul, and rip out all your secrets. All the women enjoyed his presence and greeted him in the hallways. Like he was some kind of demi-god. I was deeply, hopelessly jealous of him. Harkin put his pen in his breast pocket and once again put his eye to the microscope. I didn’t know what he was looking at, and I wasn’t too interested either. I simply sat at my desk, typing up a report that Harkin had assigned me as busywork. I had to work when Professor Harkin was around; he had eyes in the back of his head and would catch you in the act of being idle no matter where he was looking. He treated all his underlings like students. I stopped briefly to take a sip of coffee—I hadn’t had anything to drink since the previous evening, and didn’t have enough time to have a decent breakfast or lunch. I’d been rushed the entire day. Harkin looked up from the microscope to find me drinking my coffee. For a few brief moments, he stared at me with his amber eyes, a scowl marring his features. Then he looked back into the microscope. “Keep working, Daniel, we have tomorrow’s deadline to meet.” He said this without giving me the luxury of eye-contact. He kept his eye glued to the microscope. At least this time he remembered my name. Daniel. Daniel Ferguson. That bastard was always mentioning his damned deadlines. Deadline this. Deadline that. I was his assistant, for god’s sake. What did he want me to do? I did, however, admit to myself at that point that the assignment the Union Aerospace Corporation had given us was very important indeed. Opening the Phobos gate was not something to be taken lightly, and three entire science divisions of the UAC’s six had been assigned to the martian moon to open it. The execs at the meetings had told us that opening the gate would be a huge step forward for mankind. They told us that we could reverse-engineer them and use them back on Earth, that the human race would be united and a utopian society would at last be formed. Of course, they were company executives, and even the stupidest of us knew that they were trumping up the effects at least a little. The Phobos gate had been found when the UAC had established its first colonies on the small moon in 2079. The gate was obviously made by someone (or something) intelligent, and a UAC research base was established around it for observation and experimentation. Subsequently a gate was found on Deimos, the other martian moon, and yet another was found on Mars itself. Research bases were established around each gate. I was asssigned to the Phobos gate research base under Professor Harkin, unfortunately. I finished off the last of my coffee and walked over to Harkin, who didn’t acknowledge my presence whether or not he knew I was there. In a vain attempt at a friendly conversation, I looked over his shoulder and asked, “What are you looking at?” Harkin let out an exasperated sigh at having his work interrupted. “These are samples taken from the base of the Phobos gate.” He spoke to me like I was a child. “The material seems to be some sort of half-machine, half-organism. It’s very strange.” He took his ponts-nez from over his eyes and wiped them with a small rag from his glasses-case. After making sure that his glasses were as clean as he could make them (which was very clean), he perched them back on the bridge of his nose and resumed his work. I was suddenly not in the room anymore. I cleared my throat in hopes of regaining his attention, which I almost never was able to hold for more than a few minutes at a time. “Stop pestering me and get back to work, Ferguson,” he seemed to spit my name out. “I’ll expect the report on my desk by tomorrow morning.” I could barely keep from biting his head off. “Sir, my report is already finished and I’ll have it sent to your office immediately. And if you don’t mind, I’d like to knock off for the day, if you don’t need me for now.” “Fine, whatever,” He replied with a dismissive gesture with his hand. “Just be ready to help the science teams with opening the gate tomorrow. You’re late, you’re fired.” I nodded my comprehension even though he wasn’t looking at me, then I stepped out into the hallway and headed towards the mess hall, passing by other science labs and test chambers. Few of them were populated; the entire development team was getting plenty of rest for the next day’s opening of the gate. I passed by one of the few plexi-glass windows in the entire complex. The red landscape of Phobos stretched out in the distance, the flat plains only disrupted by the occasional rock outcropping or basin. In the sky I could see Mars in all its crimson glory, hanging in space like a giant basketball. I checked my watch. It was almost half past nine in the evening when I arrived at the mess hall and sat down at the bar. Only a few scattered groups of people were in the mess hall; mostly off-duty security guards and workers from the landing docks. “What’ll ya have, Dan?” Asked the bartender as he walked up to me, wiping a glass. He was a portly, middle-aged man who had a bushy beard, a generally cheerful disposition, and a tattoo on his left arm that read “Suzan,” though I’ll never know who Suzan was. His name was Charlie, and he seemed to be perpetually wiping glasses, at least whenever I was around. “Just a Dr. Pepper, Charlie,” I replied, taking out a dollar and two quarters and shoving them over the bar. I frowned at the amount of money I had to cough up for one Dr. Pepper. Sodas were getting more and more expensive every year, it seemed. “It’s always ‘just a Dr. Pepper, Charlie.’ You need to broaden your horizons. How ‘bout a Bud instead?” Charlie held the glass he’d been wiping under the Budweiser tap and filled it with beer. He offered it to me with a childish grin. Then it was my turn to grin. “But you keep on forgetting, Charlie, that after you offer me a beer, the answer’s always ‘no.’ Just give me the Dr. Pepper, thanks.” Charlie’s grin disappeared and he slid the glass over to a security guard who sat down a few seats away from me. Then he reached under the bar and took out a Dr. Pepper, which he opened for me. I drank gratefully, still thirsty even after the coffee I’d finished off a while ago. Charlie took notice. “Parched, I see. Hardly working?” Charlie chuckled at his own joke, but I frowned when he brought up my work. “You know, Charlie, that Harkin guy I work for is a right bastard.” Charlie nodded at this. “He’s always ordering the drinks that I almost never have enough ingredients for, and he’s always bragging to the girls who come by here about his ‘exploits in the field of scientific advancement.’ Well, to hell with him, I say.” “Damn straight,” I replied, taking a few sips of Dr. Pepper before setting it down. “I don’t even think his job’s that important anyway. He just talks a bunch of B.S.” “Well now, don’t be so sure about that.” Charlie replied. “I’ve heard from some of the scientists who come around for a drink every once in a while that this gate you’re opening could lead to another dimension—real sci-fi type shit like that. I heard from some guy in R&D that some weapons designs could be based off the technology from the gate. I hear ‘em talk about bio-tech, nuclear fusion, all kinds of crazy things.” “You sure know a lot for a bartender,” I said, feigning suspicion. Charlie simply chuckled.“I’m just telling you what I heard.” “Well, you sure hear plenty, don’t you?” I replied, finishing off the last few drops of Dr. Pepper. I peered mournfully into the bottle for a few seconds, then threw it into the trashcan. “How’s about a refill?” I asked, smiling amicably. But Charlie was never one to give out freebies, and waved off my request. “Cough up another one fifty, then we’ll talk.” He picked up another glass and set to wiping, a devious smirk on his face. I retired to my room, an austere nine-by-nine-by-nine cube with a bed, some metal shelves, and a wardrobe. A picture of my former home on Earth hung on the wall, a continuous reminder of what I had left behind in the name of science. Well, not science, exactly. More like UAC. I would have been fired if I hadn’t agreed to coming to Phobos. The UAC basically blackmailed me into leaving Earth. That’s why I was anxious for the next day to come. The opening of the gate would make me non-essential in the facility, and I would be sent home. I undressed and flopped on my bed, but sleep was a long time coming, and when it did, it was dreamless and short. Almost as soon as I fell asleep, it seemed, my alarm clock started chirping, and it was time to get to the gate platform. After a modest breakfast of tasteless, plain corporate cafeteria food, I made my way to the gate platform to report for duty. The hangar that the platform was in was huge, about three stories high and a football field long. Computers and desks were set up all around the centerpiece of the platform, the gate itself. The gate was huge--two stories tall, and its base was thirty feet around. The whole thing was colored a dark, organic green, and had the texture of flesh to it. It was composed of the base and a giant, ring-like structure that a tank could drive through and still have about two feet of clearance from the sides. Strange carvings adorned the sides and base of the gate, and none of the interpreters could decipher them. I took stock of the crowd in attendance. Besides the usual scientists and researchers, all of the big rollers were there: Professor Harkin; Dr. Ensley, a quantum physicist; Dr. Friedman, a biologist; Professor Abukhar, a consultant; and some nameless UAC employees wearing the suits and nametags of UAC vice presidents and higher-ups. One man, however, stood out from the crowd: He was tall, maybe six-and-a-half feet, and he wore the uniform and medals of a general or someone like that. He stood apart from the crowd in straight, military fashion, and was attended to by a man wearing military fatigues. I tapped one of the scientists on the shoulder. “Who’s that guy in the uniform?” I asked, pointing. “What, you didn’t get the memo?” The scientist replied, pushing his glasses back over the bridge of his nose. “That’s Colonel Gaynes; he’s been assigned with a squad of marines to look after us while we open the gate. I don’t see why; I don’t think some little green man is going to come through and start shooting.” He grinned at this. “But regardless, they’ve stationed troops at the main base, and twenty will be stationed here.” I nodded my thanks and walked over to Professor Harkin, who was chatting it up with one of his female “collegues.” He just kept talking when I came; he didn’t even acknowledge my presence—as usual. I had to clear my throat to gain his attention. “Ah, Daniel,” He said with a touch of venom in his voice. “You’re late—again. You are in your early twenties and still you must learn to be punctual.” As he said this, his eyes continually drifted to the lady he had been talking with. She seemed to take some measure of enjoyment in hearing him berate me. She grinned viciously. “ I say, Daniel, punctuality is the key to success, and if you can’t be bothered to get here on time—which you obviously cannot-- you will end up out of a job. Feel free to quote me on that if eventually you do become—“ “With all due respect, sir, I was here on time, and I’m reporting for assignment.” I had cut him off—an unprecedented move when dealing with a person such as this. He seemed to take chagrin at this and a scowl played across his face. “You are dismissed for today, Daniel, but I want you to write a two-page report on the importance of punctuality. I’ll expect it on my desk tomorrow morning.” He looked me straight in the eye for once. “Or you’re fired.” “Yes, sir,” was all I could say, and Professor Harkin, that son of a bitch, walked off with his admirer. ***** I hope you enjoyed this, meager though it was, and you can expect the follow-up in a few days to a week.
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