The Mist Rider (Abridged)

By Jesse D Lopez

After a coronal mass ejection has destroyed all technology on the planet Vernon, the colonizers from earth were forced to rebuild society from the ground up using the natural resources of ground water to power steam engines.

In the wake of the steam powered revolution came the militarization of water and tyrannical control of the people’s rights, it is in this cauldron that one man would dare create something that would challenge the lexicon of the entire establishment, he calls it the Mist Engine.

***

It is a humble life that Akeena enjoys as the assistant to the great scientist Paul Pantone, but the twenty-one-year-old veteran of the last water conflict finds the challenge of learning about a device that can save the world fascinating.

“You need anything before I call it a day Mr. Pantone?”, Akeena asks.

“Don’t you ever get bored around here, even I need a break once-in-a-while?”, Paul Pantone says impressed.

“I’m not trying to change the world at my house, this is where the world will change.”, Akeena says while studying the mist engine.

“If you want to really change the world, you can take the mist engine to my friend in the desert, Nicholai Reinhart, he said he can help me mass produce this for others to have, I already put one in this motorized bicycle, it can suck water from the atmosphere and heat it into mist which powers the bike.”, Paul says.

Akeena stands next to the bike and studies it with excited eyes.

“What are you waiting for?”, Paul says, “I built it for you.”

Then Akeena mounts the bike and Paul starts the engine from the button on the handlebar, “I made it easy with one button start and stop from here.”

“Go ahead and take it for a spin around the block!”, Paul says enthusiastically, “just don’t forget the mist engine.”

Paul loads the mist engine into the cargo case attached to the back of the motorized bike, “just in case you do a little joy riding.”

“I’m not-“, Akeena is cut off.

“You should do some joy riding, otherwise, what’s the point?”

Akeena pulls a helmet and goggles from the handlebars, then she nods to Paul, and takes off with the sound of the four-stroke engine buzzing with the sound of the plasma reactor.

Akeena enjoys her newfound freedom as she tours the city and greets some people she knows from the water corps, then she returns back to Paul Pantone’s house and finds him dead surrounded by local law enforcement wearing masks.

Akeena slowly rides the mist cycle past the scene, where the men surrounding Paul’s body suddenly are directed to Akeena by a man in plain clothes, “there she is, I saw him give her something!”, he yells, prompting Akeena to take off on the mist cycle at full speed.

Akeena is chased out of the city by the secret police who attempt to run her off the road, it is because of the nearly inexhaustible power supply of the mist cycle that she narrowly escapes her pursuers when they literally run out of steam.

***

Akeena bears the harsh desert as she makes a long ride through the night to escape the long reach of the technocratic empire she was born in, having grown up there, she knows the horror stories of what happens to people who get caught leaving without proper authorization, that’s why she found it easy to ride all night until she seen the light in the desert exactly where Paul said it would be.

Upon reaching Nicholai’s sprawling desert estate with livestock and freshwater ponds the likes of which are rarely seen in the cities, here Akeena is welcomed as a guest by Nicholai’s staff of young and old revolutionaries.

“How is an engine going to change the world? Will it break the chains of bondage that the scientists impose on us with the technocracy?”, a forty-something volunteer asks while stroking his beard in contemplation.

“Yes!”, Akeena says with sincerity.

“How? What are you going to pull with it, our hopes, and dreams?”, Nicholai quips.

“This Geet engine, or plasma reactor works by sucking in water from the atmosphere and turning it into electricity, Paul told me he could configure it to give people free water from the air, that’s how we set the people free, isn’t that what you all were hoping and dreaming for all along, a way to break free from the water tyrants of the cities?”, Akeena boldly states.

Akeena’s last statement silences the room and leave the men and women of the blue green revolution in contemplation of a world free from the tyranny of the cities or nature itself, true freedom, the silence is broken by a young woman with dark skin like Akeena.

“If this Mist engine does what she says it does, and it sets the world free, then I will die for this thing, and give my life to any cause that gives this to the people.”, Fortiska says.

“If she’s in, I’m In, I’m with her!”, a handsome man the same age as Fortiska rises and holds her hand.

The group pins their hopes on Paul Pantone’s Geet engine, or the ‘Mist’ engine as it has been designated by the Blue Green revolution, Akeena knows, if the dream of freedom can become reality, then she will have to become a leader amongst these people, she will have to continuously prove her worth as a leader, and she will have to make positively consequential decisions that matter to them as well.

In the Coming days Nicholai teaches the Revolution how to build a Geet engine of their own proficiently enough to teach others how to build for themselves as they prepare to set the world free from the tyrannical grip of the technocratic society.

***

In the metal halls of a repurposed starship, people stand at the edges of the halls and bow in the presence of the half-man half machine Mojo, a man made immortal by the technology that brought human beings to this planet, few immortals dwell on the earth, having mostly self-extracted from this world through suicide, or dying the ‘old fashioned’ way, betrayals and plots as each immortal was seen as rightful heirs to the kingdom of humanity.

Mojo moves his two-hundred-year-old body on six steam powered wheels, with four steam powered arms to work for his two permanently useless arms as he hedonistically harasses every man and woman that he fancies while his security force of genetically altered humans follows closely behind with Lyssa snickering at the spectacle that Mojo makes of himself and his ‘victims’.

In Mojos office that overlooks Akeena’s home colony of Eternuspes, Eternal Hope in an ancient language of science.

“I want the mist rider dead, and I want the mist cycle recovered, that’s our ticket to global conquest in someone else’s hands.”, Mojo says while feeding Lyssa grapes from his metal claws as he also feeds himself.

The half human half machine genderless being known as Number Eleven watches in emotionless contemplation, while the others, including Blair the sonic weapons hybrid man, and Blaze the pyrokinetic woman look on in disgust, while Lyssa shows no emotion as she accepts grapes into her moth from Mojo’s filthy claws, then she emotionlessly utters, “Yes sir.” In a monotone voice.

“I know I can count on my best girl, it’s the rest of my projects that I need to fine tune, just make sure the rest of them don’t fail me, now go on.”

***

Days later, Akeena, Nicholai, and the other recruits from the Blue Green Revolution are gathered in front of Nicholai’s estate, where he rips the sky apart with the violently loud sounds of continuous fire from the new plasma rifle powered by the battery cells collected from the relics of the old-world space colonists.

“I never would have thought of using it as a weapon.”, Akeena says with worried fascination observing explosions from the effects of rapid heat applied by the energy of the plasma rifle on the terrain.

From Above, a steam powered dirigible aircraft hovers well above the sight of Akeena and her revolutionaries, where the airmen and women observe and report the effects of the plasma rifle to Mojo with video transmitted over airwaves.

***

Back at Mojo’s lair high above the city, his four arms are busy with a communication device in three hands with the fourth hand feeding himself grapes.

“If you know where they are, then you know where to attack, go get them girl!”, Mojo says in a condescending voice before abruptly tuning out.

Blair and Blaze are listening in on Lyssa’s communication device and they mock her with Blair taking the lead with his extra loud voice using his sonic weapons, then Lyssa snaps and smashes Blair’s head into the corner of a wall several times until the silent and strong Number Eleven pulls her off of Blair and restrains her for Blaze’s self-imposed punishment of punches and kicks which she takes in silence.

During this, Blair regains his consciousness, and he follows Blaze by punching Lyssa in the face with her head silently turning with his punch, only to see that her rapid healing ability renders her beating useless, then Blair uses his sonic weapons on her and nearly shatters every bone in her body, making her scream in agony.

Blaze looms over Lyssa’s twisted body as Lyssa recovers from the pain of the ultra-sonic weapons, “You’re supposed to keep us in line, what a joke, look at you-“, Blaze says before Lyssa recovers and pounces to her feet and gets in Blazes face.

Number eleven stands in between both of them until a gunshot decapitates the humanoid, leaving his body frozen in its current position, while Lyssa racks a spent shell from her high caliber battle rifle, then she aims fit at Blaze, whose eyes change with a red glow.

“Let’s save it for the mission!”, Blair says.

“that would be Optimal.”, Number Eleven says in a monotone voice from his decapitated head.

Lyssa starts to turn away, then Blair grabs her shoulder and turns her around to face him.

“You break him, you fix him!”, he says in a rage.

***

Later at Nicholai’s massive estate, motorized bike, small electric cars, and electric aircraft tour the grounds as the revolution tests their new plasma reactor powered vehicles mounted with rapid fire plasma weapons using artifacts from the space colonist ships..

While in the air flying a small jet, Fortiska sees military units approaching by land and air.

“It’s them, they’re approaching from the north.”, Fortiska says into a microphone

“I’ll tell Akeena and the others.”, Nicholai says back over the radio.

***

Somewhere out in the desert surrounding Nicholai’s vast estate, Akeena overlooks the prospective battlefield, noting the terrain in her mind and considering all tactical advantages.

“I hope we will get the world you promised.”, Lyssa says, loading her high-power anti-armor rifle.

“I can’t be worse than what we have now.”, Akeena says.

On the radio built into Akeena’s wrist worn device, Nicholai’s voice cuts through the silence in the air, “They’re here, we’re all in position.”

“Roger, tell them to stick to the plan.”, Akeena says into her wrist device.

In the middle of the desert on the doorstep of Nicholai’s sprawling estate crawling with the volunteer army supporting the Blue Green Revolution.

The combined forces of Mojo close in with their steam powered army from three different sides, all armed with rifles and rockets from the land and air vehicles and walker tanks.

The battle begins with plasma batteries shooting down a large dirigible bomber craft capable of wiping out Nicholai’s entire estate along with every member of the Revolution.

After downing their flagship aircraft, the combined steam forces of Mojo and his allies move in and open fire at everything in sight with their ammunition failing at long range, while the plasma rifles from the Revolution continue to fire and hit their ultra-long-range targets.

The Leaders of Mojo’s forces see their tactical advantage of surprise being taken away, then they desperately order their forces to charge Nicholai’s estate from two different directions.

The Blue Green Revolution assaults the incoming forces with plasma batteries reducing their numbers, while they close in and start causing damage to Nicholai’s estate.

High up on a cliff overlooking the battlefield, Akeena observes the terrain as it develops over the course of the battle, “Lyssa, move your squad in and lure them to the dead zone.”

“Roger, moving to phase two!”, Lyssa says over the radio.

Suddenly a squad of small jet aircraft buzzes over Akeena and descends into the fray of enemy forces approaching from the valleys in the west.

Lyssa’s wing of air fighters decimates ground forces of slow-moving walker tanks and scores of enemy troops, until they are intercepted by one of Mojo’s creations, Blaze, flying a gas turbine fighter, she keeps up and shoots down three of Lyssa’s flying cadets, leaving Lyssa to face off against her in a dog fight leading to Blaze’s jet crashing and burning on her own troops.

Back at the Estate Blair uses his ultrasonic weapons to crack people’s skulls and liquefy their brains, in this way, Blair kills dozens of Blue Green Revolutionaries, until holes are shot in his genetically altered body by Nicholai using a modified plasma rifle.

Inside the manor, A large metal canister breaks through the ceiling and drops to the floor, fluids drain from the large person sized canister, then a door opens, and Mojo’s half human half-machine cyborg with a Number Eleven burned into the forehead emerges from the canister and spots revolutionaries all around him who responded to the commotion of his entrance. Number Eleven is shot with a plasma rifle which doesn’t penetrate his armor, then Eleven goes on a killing spree ripping out throats, breaking necks, and stomping brains out of heads in a merciless unstoppable onslaught.

In the back of the manor, Nicholai uses his background as a combat medic to help the wounded and direct the medical staff, then two revolutionaries come running out of the house and firing back into halls.

“What’s the situation?”, Nicholai says with authority.

“Some kind of monster is coming, our plasma rifles aren’t hurting him.”, one of them says, while the other one panics, “We have to get out of here!”

Number Eleven bursts through a window and takes on fire from many directions including Nicholai’s who misses with his modified plasma rifle.

Number Eleven goes on a rampage killing his attackers, some of whom are wounded fighters, until he is shot down by an anti-armor rifle that leaves flaming holes in his cyborg body, when everyone looks to the shooter they see Akeena on a mist cycle.

“Looks like I got here just in time!”, Akeena says.

“Are we winning?”, Nicholai asks semiserious.

“Looks good so far, the long range of the plasma rifles are making up the difference in our numbers.

***

In the end, Akeena, and Nicholai’s plan to lure the enemies into indefensible ‘dead’ zones worked and the remaining forces withdrew from the battlefield after taking heavy losses.

News of the battle made the rounds throughout the world with video provided by the Blue Green Revolutionaries, who became folk heroes after spreading the news of Paul Pantone’s plasma generator he called the Geet engine, commonly known as the Mist engine, Paul Pantones invention saved many lives and revolutionized life in the baron world of Verdant.

Nicholai is credited with enlightening the people to creating their own mist engines, and Akeena is remembered in legends as the Mist Rider.