Forums → Art, Music, and Writing → The Cold - Snippet

What's the deal with those strange shapes? Did you copy this off somewhere?

MS Word strikes again.

Word and AG don't like each other much :P

Go to the Word doc, c/p it into either Note Pad or Word Pad, then c/p that, and post here. Should get rid of those nasty symbols.

I really liked the story it intrigued me but try to get rid of the symbols please.

Updated version.

THE COLD

The city rose on the horizon like an enormous spiky beetle. Black and cold, it seemed to emanate an aura of sadness and decay. A lone figure struggled across the barren wasteland that surrounded it. He didnât see the Reaper form behind him. He didnât see the creatureâs blue, staring eyes study him as it rose up behind him. Nor did he see the silent blades cut through the air. But as Tarragon Phiro
crashed to the ground, a single thought washed through his brain. A flash lit up the grey wasteland as Tarragon Phiro died. The Reaper watched and then, as quickly as it had come, was gone.

***

The messenger whose designation number was Blu94310 woke up at precisely 1.5dc. For a few seconds, he lay there listening to the pulse and whine of distant hovercycles pumping down the gleaming half-pipe of Nightjar road. Then Blu, as he liked to call himself, leaped out of his hammock, grabbed a knife and a couple of memory chips and tossed them into a battered rucksack. He then slipped a black bag off a hook on a wall, magnetised it to a plate on his belt, and, with a whoop, jumped out of the open side in the cramped space. The blackness swallowed him up completely.

***

A scratching, a tearing and the girl dropped through. The massive heating plates for the citadel stretched out in front of her. Any moment now⦠An alarm blasted through her eardrums and she started to run. The service door was a few hundred metres away and she only had a two minute window. Seven seconds later, she arrived at the door. 12 cm thick. Solid biosteel. 8-digit code. Obviously some paranoid janitor was a little too worried about someone getting in or out of his precious heating plates. She reached out and her fingers seemed to spider over the lock, searching for patterns and connections.
The paranoid janitor was very surprised when his biosteel door opened. A thin figure stepped through the gap. He barely had time to say âWhat?â before the girl darted past him, unlocked another door and slipped through.

***
The cold air whipped around Bluâs body as he swooped towards the lower depths. Not that he was going there, of course. There were things down there that made gleeps and howlers look like kittens and bunnies.
He was falling down a long tunnel into the rock. Surrounding it were hundreds of tiny flats built under the skyscrapers and the visible city. But nine tenths of the city was underground. Ropes encrusted with filth and blackened with the fumes that the rich pumped into âstorageâ (i.e. the houses of the undercity) stretched across the tunnel. Bluâs arm shot out and grabbed one, using his downward momentum to swing on to another. This particular trail of ropes led down a side tunnel. A pair of green eyes stared out. A long, barbed tongue flicked. Muddy brown skin tensed. Sharp claws glistened.

***

A bolt of screaming light scorched past the girl as she ran down the corridor. The effects of the serum were wearing off now, and with it went the memories that made up her time in the cold, dark world. Before that there had been somewhere else ⦠hadnât there? Guards appeared from transmat cubicles behind her and began firing. She ducked and rolled into an open air duct. She crawled forward into the tunnel, grateful for the relative safety it provided, going towards the faint breeze that wafted through the maze of ducts. She glanced at the watch on her arm, though she hardly needed to. The drugs they had given her allowed her to know the time innately, wherever she was. In any case, she only had fifteen seconds left before the citadel was completely shut down. She reached the grid she was searching and unscrewed the bolts with her too-long fingers. She couldnât remember why they were too long now. Everything was slipping awayâ¦


***

The gleep launched itself from a crack in the tunnel, claws flailing. It grabbed onto the rope gripped by Blu and slashed at him. Four bands of red appeared on Bluâs arm. He cried out in pain and kicked the creature backwards. Gleeps werenât normally beauty queens, but this specimen was uglier than normal. Lamplike green eyes with no pupils or irises stared out of a warty brown face. An emaciated body covered in skin a lighter shade of colour to the face ended in a long tail with a bony spike at the end. Two spindly, clawed, arms reached out towards him and two stumpy legs gripped the rope.
It leapt again, and in one fluid motion Blu flipped off the rope and with his other hand tore open the black bagâs Velcro strap. He fumbled with the straps and pulled a DNA gun. It was abut fifteen centimetres long and shaped like a square with two of the sides replaced with a curve. The gleep flew past, narrowly missing Bluâs head. It bounced off another rope and came at him again. Blu brought his arm up and shot three times. Tiny darts hit the creature in the head and the chest. It squealed in agony and fell to the tunnel floor, wriggling, and then fell still. The boy stared at the corpse, and then continued swinging down the tunnel.

***
In the offices of Marcus Phiro, stillness and tranquillity reigned supreme. Far above the magnastrips and hydrolanes of the upper city, he could see almost to the edge of the Radiation Wastes that surrounded the metropolis. The office was lit by shimmercrystals, pale gemstones that gave off a white light, and filled with technological curiosities and experiments. Into this realm of peace came a dark shape. As it emerged from an elevator, Marcus could see the old metal plates that covered half the shapeâs body, and hear the tortured wheezing sound of it breathing.
âAh. Tunis.â snapped Marcus. âYou are very nearly late.â The shape rose, revealing itself to be a man. Tunis Venturi was a cyborg. Gears replaced muscles and wires and strands of fibre optic cable replaced nerves in a strange union of man and machine.
âWhat news of Tarragon?â Marcus continued.
âHIS BODY WAS RECOVEREDâ said the cyborg, in a voice that was all barbed wire and rusty gears. âTHERE WAS NO SIGN OF THE OBJECT.â
âAny theories, V4?â Marcus seemed to be addressing the walls.
âHe could have used the residual transmat energy to transport the Nullifier inside the city.â replied a metallic voice.
âTrace all occurrences of temporal transmat radiation within the city.â After a few seconds, the voice replied.
âThree occurrences found: reactor beds inside this Citadel; faint radiation on the body of Tarragon Phiro; and a high level pulse being emitted by an unknown object five hundred and four kilometrics below the surface of the ground.â

***

Blu swung up from the last rope, landing in a featureless pseudo-concrete tunnel, larger than the filthy sewer drains heâd been swinging through. He walked to a small metal door recessed in the side of the tunnel, and pushed it open. Inside was a large chamber, already half full with messengers from around the city. He ran down the side of the room, glancing at the designation numbers on the messengersâ arms. Ver49802. Saf75065. Rou77554. All identical, with the exception of eye and hair colour, and in some cases, scars. The same bone structure, the same six digit hands. After all, it was far too much trouble for the Biologists to add too much more than basic differences to their genes. He found his place, just as the room was completely filled with the silent boys. There was a hum, and the transmat cubicle filled with the angular shapes of an overseer.
They were small, basic clockwork androids, with organic eyes that could swivel 360°. They clattered over on their spindly limbs, extending syringes and other implements. They approached the messengers, checking each one, and asking the same, pre-recorded questions over and over. One,came to him.
âSTATUSâ, it intoned.
âInjury 4 multiplied right arm top gradient 126â, Blu replied.
The android extended a syringe plunging it into the injured area. Grey foam swirled around the slashes, and then it dissolved, leaving unblemished skin. In his head, Blu smiled. He loved watching the nanobots at work.

***

The girl dropped out of the shaft, and landed in a disused hangar, with antique, rusting airspeeders lying in metallic cradles. These hadnât worked since the Tech Freeze, and were often sold for the wildly valuable real metal in them. These were obviously part of a collection⦠10 seconds, she thought, and raced along the mildew covered floor, reaching the exit, which led out onto a balcony. The door slammed shut behind her, but she could still faintly hear the alarm. Her fingers clasping the thin biometal guard rail, and gazed out upon the vast city.

Sigh. Wordpad...

THE COLD

The city rose on the horizon like an enormous spiky beetle. Black and cold, it seemed to emanate an aura of sadness and decay. A lone figure struggled across the barren wasteland that surrounded it. He didnât see the Reaper form behind him. He didnât see the creatureâs blue, staring eyes study him as it rose up behind him. Nor did he see the silent blades cut through the air. But as Tarragon Phiro
crashed to the ground, a single thought washed through his brain. A flash lit up the grey wasteland as Tarragon Phiro died. The Reaper watched and then, as quickly as it had come, was gone.

***

The messenger whose designation number was Blu94310 woke up at precisely 1.5dc. For a few seconds, he lay there listening to the pulse and whine of distant hovercycles pumping down the gleaming half-pipe of Nightjar road. Then Blu, as he liked to call himself, leaped out of his hammock, grabbed a knife and a couple of memory chips and tossed them into a battered rucksack. He then slipped a black bag off a hook on a wall, magnetised it to a plate on his belt, and, with a whoop, jumped out of the open side in the cramped space. The blackness swallowed him up completely.

***

A scratching, a tearing and the girl dropped through. The massive heating plates for the citadel stretched out in front of her. Any moment now⦠An alarm blasted through her eardrums and she started to run. The service door was a few hundred metres away and she only had a two minute window. Seven seconds later, she arrived at the door. 12 cm thick. Solid biosteel. 8-digit code. Obviously some paranoid janitor was a little too worried about someone getting in or out of his precious heating plates. She reached out and her fingers seemed to spider over the lock, searching for patterns and connections.
The paranoid janitor was very surprised when his biosteel door opened. A thin figure stepped through the gap. He barely had time to say âWhat?â before the girl darted past him, unlocked another door and slipped through.

***

The cold air whipped around Bluâs body as he swooped towards the lower depths. Not that he was going there, of course. There were things down there that made gleeps and howlers look like kittens and bunnies.
He was falling down a long tunnel into the rock. Surrounding it were hundreds of tiny flats built under the skyscrapers and the visible city. But nine tenths of the city was underground. Ropes encrusted with filth and blackened with the fumes that the rich pumped into âstorageâ (i.e. the houses of the undercity) stretched across the tunnel. Bluâs arm shot out and grabbed one, using his downward momentum to swing on to another. This particular trail of ropes led down a side tunnel. A pair of green eyes stared out. A long, barbed tongue flicked. Muddy brown skin tensed. Sharp claws glistened.

***

A bolt of screaming light scorched past the girl as she ran down the corridor. The effects of the serum were wearing off now, and with it went the memories that made up her time in the cold, dark world. Before that there had been somewhere else ⦠hadnât there? Guards appeared from transmat cubicles behind her and began firing. She ducked and rolled into an open air duct. She crawled forward into the tunnel, grateful for the relative safety it provided, going towards the faint breeze that wafted through the maze of ducts. She glanced at the watch on her arm, though she hardly needed to. The drugs they had given her allowed her to know the time innately, wherever she was. In any case, she only had fifteen seconds left before the citadel was completely shut down. She reached the grid she was searching and unscrewed the bolts with her too-long fingers. She couldnât remember why they were too long now. Everything was slipping awayâ¦

***

The gleep launched itself from a crack in the tunnel, claws flailing. It grabbed onto the rope gripped by Blu and slashed at him. Four bands of red appeared on Bluâs arm. He cried out in pain and kicked the creature backwards. Gleeps werenât normally beauty queens, but this specimen was uglier than normal. Lamplike green eyes with no pupils or irises stared out of a warty brown face. An emaciated body covered in skin a lighter shade of colour to the face ended in a long tail with a bony spike at the end. Two spindly, clawed, arms reached out towards him and two stumpy legs gripped the rope.
It leapt again, and in one fluid motion Blu flipped off the rope and with his other hand tore open the black bagâs Velcro strap. He fumbled with the straps and pulled a DNA gun. It was abut fifteen centimetres long and shaped like a square with two of the sides replaced with a curve. The gleep flew past, narrowly missing Bluâs head. It bounced off another rope and came at him again. Blu brought his arm up and shot three times. Tiny darts hit the creature in the head and the chest. It squealed in agony and fell to the tunnel floor, wriggling, and then fell still. The boy stared at the corpse, and then continued swinging down the tunnel.

***

In the offices of Marcus Phiro, stillness and tranquillity reigned supreme. Far above the magnastrips and hydrolanes of the upper city, he could see almost to the edge of the Radiation Wastes that surrounded the metropolis. The office was lit by shimmercrystals, pale gemstones that gave off a white light, and filled with technological curiosities and experiments. Into this realm of peace came a dark shape. As it emerged from an elevator, Marcus could see the old metal plates that covered half the shapeâs body, and hear the tortured wheezing sound of it breathing.
âAh. Tunis.â snapped Marcus. âYou are very nearly late.â The shape rose, revealing itself to be a man. Tunis Venturi was a cyborg. Gears replaced muscles and wires and strands of fibre optic cable replaced nerves in a strange union of man and machine.
âWhat news of Tarragon?â Marcus continued.
âHIS BODY WAS RECOVEREDâ said the cyborg, in a voice that was all barbed wire and rusty gears. âTHERE WAS NO SIGN OF THE OBJECT.â
âAny theories, V4?â Marcus seemed to be addressing the walls.
âHe could have used the residual transmat energy to transport the Nullifier inside the city.â replied a metallic voice.
âTrace all occurrences of temporal transmat radiation within the city.â After a few seconds, the voice replied.
âThree occurrences found: reactor beds inside this Citadel; faint radiation on the body of Tarragon Phiro; and a high level pulse being emitted by an unknown object five hundred and four kilometrics below the surface of the ground.â

***

Blu swung up from the last rope, landing in a featureless pseudo-concrete tunnel, larger than the filthy sewer drains heâd been swinging through. He walked to a small metal door recessed in the side of the tunnel, and pushed it open. Inside was a large chamber, already half full with messengers from around the city. He ran down the side of the room, glancing at the designation numbers on the messengersâ arms. Ver49802. Saf75065. Rou77554. All identical, with the exception of eye and hair colour, and in some cases, scars. The same bone structure, the same six digit hands. After all, it was far too much trouble for the Biologists to add too much more than basic differences to their genes. He found his place, just as the room was completely filled with the silent boys. There was a hum, and the transmat cubicle filled with the angular shapes of an overseer.
They were small, basic clockwork androids, with organic eyes that could swivel 360°. They clattered over on their spindly limbs, extending syringes and other implements. They approached the messengers, checking each one, and asking the same, pre-recorded questions over and over. One came to him.
âSTATUSâ, it intoned.
âInjury 4 multiplied right arm top gradient 126â, Blu replied.
The android extended a syringe plunging it into the injured area. Grey foam swirled around the slashes, and then it dissolved, leaving unblemished skin. In his head, Blu smiled. He loved watching the nanobots at work.

***

The girl dropped out of the shaft, and landed in a disused hangar, with antique, rusting airspeeders lying in metallic cradles. These hadnât worked since the Tech Freeze, and were often sold for the wildly valuable real metal in them. These were obviously part of a collection⦠10 seconds, she thought, and raced along the mildew covered floor, reaching the exit, which led out onto a balcony. The door slammed shut behind her, but she could still faintly hear the alarm. Her fingers clasping the thin biometal guard rail, and gazed out upon the vast city.

See...what you really have to do is change all of the apostrophes ( ' ) to the one on Notepad or Word pad.

This is because Word uses a diagonal apostrophe and AG doesn't recognise it as AG uses a straight one.

Annoying I know.

Best thing to do is use a find function to change it over. Note that you can copy the straight one and then paste that into word.