Here are four stories for your enjoyment. If you are a publisher and you want to Here are four stories for your enjoyment. If you are a publisher and you want to Here are four stories for your enjoyment. If you are a publisher and you want to Here are four stories for your enjoyment. If you are a publisher and you want to

publish some of my stories that have the same concept as the following, feel free to publish some of my stories that have the same concept as the following, feel free to publish some of my stories that have the same concept as the following, feel free to publish some of my stories that have the same concept as the following, feel free to

contact me: contact me: contact me: contact me: sven.kloepping@freenet.desven.kloepping@freenet.desven.kloepping@freenet.desven.kloepping@freenet.de. I. I. I. I also plan to write a short novel or novella also plan to write a short novel or novella also plan to write a short novel or novella also plan to write a short novel or novella

using the MegaFusion idea, combining the existing stories to a compelling and using the MegaFusion idea, combining the existing stories to a compelling and using the MegaFusion idea, combining the existing stories to a compelling and using the MegaFusion idea, combining the existing stories to a compelling and

interesting highinteresting highinteresting highinteresting high----speed storyline. But now enjoy …speed storyline. But now enjoy …speed storyline. But now enjoy …speed storyline. But now enjoy …

UpUpUpUp

Yeah... the ‘planets’. Fun can begin. My optic gear-change blinks - too fast, it says,

and I shouldn’t fly the first gear up to three-hundred. No, I shouldn’t. But I can. It

makes a good world of difference. Especially, if you’re „up“. Good fix. Makes you

faster, and more clever. Three-hundred-fifty. The engine will explode! Okay, okay.

I’ve got enough senses to know when to stop. No need to panic. Second gear. Still a

loud roaring, but not so dangerous. Somewhere a sigh of relief. As if all the shuttles

surrounding me were sighing. Weakling.

makes you faster, and more clever

Not like speed, when you’re totally absent and get nothing. This stuff blows you

away, I tell you. When you’re ‘up’, you’ve won half the bet.

Red hovering illuminator. I hate these things, and even more the cops hangin’ around

the redlights. I usually keep flying, even if it’s red. But we’re in the V.I.P-department.

Redlight. Means authorization. From behind I get one of those hyper-cool identity-

cards. Only the richest of the rich receive them. It means I’ll have no problem with the

fuzz. I’m lucky. The cop hasn’t recognized the strange flash in my eyes. Fly on, he

says.

‘...and when you’re up, you’re gonna be so out and full of control...’ The ‘planets’. The

best band on Earth, I confess. The way they make people get their messages...

superb. Doesn’t sound like pseudo-sham. They really know what they’re talkin’ about,

believe me, man. Makes one fifty. Collection-bag. How much would this fatso give to

a poor taxi driver? A three-dollar-tip. Hey, thank u man, I’ll recommend you ;-))

The sucker heaves himself out. Drive on. Time’s money.

The engine roars. I see the fatso from the ‘planets’ turnin’ around - stark fear has

consumed him on the ride, I can’t believe it. He really thought I’d never seen him

before! He’s famous like a frigid whore, I tell u! He and his band, those shitty

‘planets’. However, it doesn’t matter. As long as my tip’s correct...

Let’s be off. First gear, three-hundred. Three-hundred-fifty. Stop this children’s game!

Four-hundred. You may annoy frightened passengers with that, but none of us taxi-

drivers. Let the master drive. Five-hundred. Six-hundred. Roaring gears. Yeah, gotta

be heaven! Second gear. Wow! That’s pretty cool...

blows you away

I tell u - this stuff explodes the heavy way. Redlight? Ignore it, man. The fix makes

you colourblind. And fuzz won’t do anything, when you’re alone, without a V.I.P. on

board. What a staple he was! A real pompous ass. But from those suckers’ pockets

you can draw the easy money.

Hold on. There’s a client. One of those idiots again. The smashers’ lead-singer.

Unbelievable. They swarm around like busy flies!

Adjusting the counter, opening the door. Where do u wanna to? What? Okay, okay - I

turn it off. No problem, man. It’s done. Cool, stay cool. So, where do you wanna fly?

‘rude box’? Okay, but it ain’t a-cheap...

497 words, Copyright © Sven Kloepping (fictionality@web.de). The German version

of this story won the 2nd prize at the Poetensitz literary awards in Heidelberg,

Germany

SpaceSpaceSpaceSpace----RacingRacingRacingRacing

for all the overviewed

City's absolutely high again, I just can't overlook it -- thousands of floors

stretching their rooms above my head. Oh, man, I can't believe it.

Floating through the air's no wonder, as I paid 50,000 bucks for this suckin'

glider, a real pile of money for such a little underground bastard as me, but I

don't care 'bout money -- 'cause it takes me up to the stars. If it was somehow

possible to look into a mirror, my face would shine like a shooting star, I'm

sure. But there's no time for romanticism, 'cause right now I'm jumping, I'm

burning to the first flash! Yeah, feels good. Sounds like a virtual tornado that

bites in my ass and takes me high. This thing supports me in letting my

dreams flourish -- besides, I feel nothing at all with a head full of dope...

no wasting!

I'm speeding against every second that follows me, so there's not very much

time for long-during starting stories. I just wanna be up and away, you know --

now and forever. To be never returned.

Tonight's the night, man.

50 floors over normal-nill (after the first flash)

That's fine. Everything works as it should. But what am I blabbing about? Just

kick that all! I know, this could be a little faster. I should accelerate this fuckin'

vehicle some more. That would mean enormous earth-pressure, but if you

wanna get high you gotta stand those pains. Either be a mad man or a dead

man, as my brother whispered to me before those cops erased him (you know,

I was the only one of our gang who could save himself from their laserguns).

Plus, I'm killing a pill every thirty seconds to bear that all.

But I'm just wastin' my time.

Hey, move on, you bitchy vehicle, speed up! Dumb machine of a plumber's

bastard! You're the only one who could rave-me-over-the-stars! Don't you get

that? By now you should prove you're fuckin' price-worthy, OK?

I'm steering with just two of my fingers, heading for the second flash, and my

hand slips a few inches downwards, but everything's under control...

This is damned good stuff, I tell you. Better than any fix from the suckin'

dealers' dope. This was a real push, man -- 200 floors upwards, hell! I'm sure

the others won't follow me this way...

But I'm not high enough to see the city from above. I can't even look upon its

shady rows of sky-scratching flat-roofs rising 5,000 yards over normal-nill...

There are windows watchin' me, full of light, but I don't have an overview. As if

those damned mirror fronts got nothin' better to do than to stand in my way!

Just look, under the underground's damned ceiling of asphalt, where people

are getting more and more fed up with dozens of rat burgers a day, as if

they're not brained enough for a better life in the overground, you know --

that's why I wanna leave this shit behind. Today I'm free like a hologram, and

who cares 'bout an escaping hologram?

I tell you: Life in that subterranean underground-maze was like a pain that

spits in your eyes every day, as soon as you open them for the first time. Much

too small, everything's too small down there. As I was old enough to work I

had to sell those lottery-chips. I dumped them on any idiot who believed in the

possibility that one day he'd be the lucky king (they all know that gambling

chucks their money deep into a black hole of depression, where the only

escape is to consume more of those fuckin' pills every day to destroy the

damned memories... 'cause if there's no remembrance -- there wasn't any bad

luck.

Got now why I'm flyin' away from that? I just don't wanna hang around with

those mentally handicapped, innocently trusting underground idiots! I'll find my

way by flyin' high over the ground to the universe to merge with the stars and

shuttles and weightless stations. That's my way. Up there I gotta discover a

new kind of work that'll fulfill my abused soul like a burning sun. Won't be easy

but I rush for it! One day I'll move to the universe's outer zones -- to the

planets of high society, and if that means to serve them, they can kiss my ass

first!

That's it. And I'm taking the best way to realize my visions. Travelin' to the

outer zones, where stars are glittering and no filthy oxygen filter gonna pollute

the air that I breathe... Where gals still undress themselves before sex, 'cause

they got no wounds. Suckin' wounds! You get them everywhere in those sub-

zero floors where I left my roots and shit! My back's itchin' again...

3rd flash

Wowowooohhh! What a surprise, and no chance to see it coming as it comes

over your mind within one-and-a-half nanoseconds! I just didn't realize my

hand moving t'wards the keyboard to key in the executional order "glider lift

yourself 300 floors upwards"! But hell -- it's been worth that surprise, for

gravitation's still amazing and my pulse flickers in my arterial ecstasy. Then I

feel it (the pulse) crashing down till it reaches 180 degrees, damn -- gotta kill,

kill a pill somehow. That'll quiet my pain a little bit.

believe in the fix!

I'm flyin', I'm flyin'! Not only literally but also spiritually -- for my feet are so

weightless it's like they are hovering over my head, and by now I can see the

mega-city covering this whole darned planet with its millions of buildings...

Every waving ocean, every crumbling mountain is covered by its life-absorbing

steelish vanity.

In school we learned that about 300 years ago this city started to merge and

conquer the Earth like a gigantic bulldozer that destroys everything... Now I

see where mankind's visions have led us: god, I hate the past!

My glider lets me look on billions of little window-holes keepin' this maze

together. Behind their jack o' lanterns you'll discover nothin' but normality.

Normality represented by plumbers, programmers, small-brained managing

assistants, students, all that shit... Every single one of those stuck-up assholes

used to be just a little particle in this much-too-hungry Moloch that manipulates

its citizens through 9-to-5 jobs, the media, legal drugs (yes man, I'm talking

'bout "pills"), and whatever else.

My back seems to have sprouted wings as I'm swirling up through the air like a

flying robotic guard that follows you everywhere in the sub-zero floors --

follows you everywhere, but not to the toilet (anyway, I'm not sure if those

horny machines can look through shut doors, maybe they can, and maybe

they can even get a thrill while staring at naked, crapping human flesh).

fourth flash

And it smashes me right away into space -- I'm rising, just growing bigger and

bigger. High-velocity.

As I suddenly hold on I discover that the view's wonderful and great. I suppose

I'm bein' sucked into the big black hole called space (it's called this 'cause it

extends itself dynamically in every direction like a great black time-cloud with

little lamps of starlight holding the whole event together).

I just can't believe it -- I'm so near to the 1,000th floor! Just need to hold out

my arms to touch its surface -- just one diagonal jump and I'm over it, right into

the pure weightlessness of space!

Just as I'm heading for that last big jump, to enter the 5th flash, which will take

me higher into the eternal depths of blackness -- shit! -- a damned border-light

appears right before my visor. And my heart stops beatin' for a nanosecond or

so. This fuckin' fairy tale's come true at last, I can't believe it! Can't believe my

own grandma's words! They've told me about a little monkey from a vast,

transparent force field of enormous dimensions that covers the whole planet,

holding all the roofs under it in captivity like an invisible cheese dome with four

veins that you can't cross without a valid VIP identity card....

Unluckily, I don't have a card. Not even a fake one.

I feel like a suckin' ant.

Then I remember grandma saying it's called ban wall and means definite

control over every human being that's creeping on Earth like an insect. Oh

man, I never believed in that! And now I'm facing this damned thing keeping

me imprisoned as if it wants to spit right into my face! I'd really like to...

Alert: ban wall scanners reporting human discovery to the police station!

Sh...!

It got me!

But I don't care any more, it's not important, no, nothing's important -- I don't

give a shit.

Man-oh-man! It's really bad when you see you're just a lousy insect waitin' for

death, 'cause creeping into any direction is useless, when you don't have a

chance to escape. In this very moment my whole life's crushing down -- and

the glider does the same. It falls about thirty floors until I recognize I have to

reactivate the jet propulsion to stabilize my position. I really don't want to

stabilize anything right now, for my life's worth nothing but a shit since I

discovered I'm a prisoner -- we're all prisoners, banned onto a poisoned

planet.

Now, they're coming, and how they're coming! Lettin' their blue lights smash

right into my face...

Damn cops don't have to surround me. I have no chance to get away, don't

you get that? First, my speed's much too slow for the 5th jump to be executed

right now, and even if I could do it -- nothing would happen at all! I'd just crash

right into the damned force field that I can just about see, and that thing will

force my glider to explode and split my worthless body into some replaceable

molecules.

I don't get that. The Fuzz will never learn anything. They're swarming around

my rear, considering themselves the most powerful guys on this fuckin' planet

with their hyper-armored gliders; and in a few moments they're gonna tell me

that I'm not permitted to cross Earth's border, for everything's forbidden to us

little underground bastards, and I'll agree to every one of their humiliating

abuses, for I don't wanna get arrested at all, that's the last shit I wanna have

today.

As they're hoverin' their bitchy little asses I quietly say goodbye by erecting my

spiritual middle finger, just hoping that ban wall won't scan this...

What to do now?

I gotta race down again, to the others, through the city's glancing mirror

glasses, following those cowards that won't even consider in their wildest

dreams to break through this Earth-frontier into space, where timelessness

holds just more dangers and uncertainties for them.

No, they'd stay here on this planet -- in their little, dirty cocoon.

But sometimes you've gotta have a race.

(no race, no fun)

1827 words, Copyright © by Sven Kloepping (fictionality@web.de). The

German version of this story was on the shortlist for the German Kurd-Laßwitz

award.

Speedway to HellSpeedway to HellSpeedway to HellSpeedway to Hell

Follow them!

Okay, careful now. Over there, not too fast -- attennnntion, man, be

careful! These guys gotta think they're safe, you know. If they see our

damned movements on the screen, it's over. You got that? Easy, man,

easy... But what's... Shit! What's...

I'm staring at the face hanging in the glider like a bloody punching-ball

and... Shit! Which sonofabitch erased my friend?

Slow down, slow down -- there's no use in senseless anger.

I gotta grab the accelerator... Somehow. Grabbing faster, faster than I

can and I touch it, and the glider slows down, and my pulse slows

down... like everything that's around me.

At the same time I'm looking at the screen, but can't see the others.

Damn! Where did they hide their sucking asses? Makes me mad. I

break, break the hunt.

Shortly after: standing on the sideway, feeling no motion in the glider,

no motion in myself -- just hate in the background.

They're gone. With all the money, all those pills. Damned shit!

For sure they've hidden their sucking asses in the underground, where I

don't have any rights to catch them and blow out their useless...

Damned bullshit. I won't be decorated now... not for that. They'd rather

erase me, oh my g...!

Just imagine: a cop erased by his own employers.

How I hate these guys! Them business people are playin' with us as if

we were little holograms that they move around with their virtual hands

and -- god! We're men of blood and flesh, aren't we? A never-ending

human resource to be used either as useful victims or as fighting

slaves, bringing honor and glory to them.

If they really were big brothers, as they're proclaiming every day on the

TV shows... skyscratchers would gain social feelings, I tell you!

Keep cool -- but not quiet.

Slow down, slow down... Ease up.

First I gotta kill a pill. Makes me see things more relaxed, you know.

After that I'm able to demagnetize the doors' force field to get out of the

glider without any air-flash. If I hadn't taken the pill I'd have vomited

right onto the corpse of my friend...

Pete, old buddy! I'll gonna miss you -- and your killer jokes and... oh,

shit, I'll miss you so much!

Gotta pull the corpse out of the glider without any timelag, with a lot of

care... it's not covered with any shielding suit to protect against the

chemical acids outside.

With eyes closed, I'm dragging my friend over the highway, to the

railings, right over the river.

I'll have to throw him over.

It's the only place where nobody will find him, not even those ass-faced,

dope-implanted cannibals from the subway stations -- they hang over

the railings like shrieking monkeys who fear the river, 'cause its

chemical floods are deadly even to them, and none would ever dare to

enter that hellish river but a corpse.

I'm sliding back to the vehicle, slamming the door mentally with tears in

my mind -- steering away, somewhere into... I don't know where.

But then I look into my pillcase -- not believing what I see there, or what

I don't see.

Shit!

Nothing left, not even a single pill! Lots of problems, and no pills.

Deadly. Gotta drive to the shop. The suckin' keeper will look at me like

he should kick my butt to the moon. I don't know what these guys do

other than wait for, and stare at, strangers all day and judge things that

don't matter at all. I'm not here on duty, I'll tell him --- my friend died and

by now he's nibbling the acids, got that?

And if this know-nothin' bastard wants to reply...

I don't have to think about this right now.

Keeping shops and secrets...

The next shop's 354 meters from here, somewhere to the left, and the

autopilot's gotta find it. Why can't we just tell the suckin' machines to

follow the outlaws and destroy all their cars in self-defense...? They'd

do the job much better than any dead cop.

Who's really guilty? The bosses, I guess. For more than 8,000 years

now.

I could kick their pig faces right in! Why didn't they tell me the details

before I signed the contract? And why didn't they make it clear that

everything was gonna crash down here -- that criminals would get out

of control not only in the underground but also here, in the overground!

Bastards. I wouldn't have signed their tricky forms if I had known the

real circumstances! But now... I gotta see where I stand.

I'm just driving, hovering over the speedway. With shivering fingers

knockin' on the metallic steering wheel. Sounds puzzling, somehow. I

can't remember where I caught the illness, but sometimes I get those

odd visions; could be the drugs, but what kind of drugs, as I never

touched anything like tech? Maybe someone mixed a dose of that stuff

into my party-drinks last night -- it's possible, as there were too many of

them. I'd rather party right now than mourn for an erased colleague...

Border lights are just the beginning.

I'm crossing another useless corner, just to arrive at the suckin' shop.

I'm nearly sighing with relief, smelling the pills already in my neural

brainzones. The building shines like a shooting star inside the dark, as

if it would claim to be something different in this corner of the megacity

that stretches its techno-covered arms over all the oceans. Like

Himalayas across the whole damned planet. Anyway.

Gotta enter the shop. Gotta have a pill. Just a package.

Entering the shop.

The kids over there are looking as if they'd plan something, but I

wouldn't care; someone else has to. I'm no longer a cop right now -- still

in uniform, but stopped being a cop for today... Reasons? My best

colleague's on his highway to heaven, that should be reason enough to

kick that all.

I'm more tumbling than walking to the keeper, because my body's a

little bit absent, you know. It can't coordinate my brain's orders.

Somehow I manage to look right into the keeper's face.

A package of the light ones, man -- yep, you heard right: the lights

ones, not the heavy stuff. Their name already indicates that -- besides,

you don't need to stare at me like a monkey stares at his mother.

Forget this. Forget your "C U later, cop-sucker!" Stick it into your

fathersucking ass! I'm leaving the cops, leaving 'em tomorrow. We'll see

who's cursing at whom when we meet again, wanker!

Out again, I'm recognizing that the kids have pinched something out of

the shop -- having waited 'til I passed the doors, stealing themselves

right behind me out of the building and grinning right now, from the

other edge of the dark plaza surrounding the shop's blazing neonlights.

But I don't care 'bout those guys. I'll never care again 'bout those things;

someone else will have to...

Looking forward to a happy weekend.

Weekend? Forget that!

They're gonna cancel even this last isle of independence! That'd leave

millions of criminals on the streets of this Earthwide city-maze...

I don't wanna be part of that stuff, I tell you. Tomorrow I'll leave, leave

the fuzz -- they'll have to solve their problems alone. If they creep into

their own shit again, I sure won't be the cleaner!

I wanna live in a better place -- maybe I really will take one of those

hyper-powered space shuttles escaping every day to the new world

they're promoting everywhere on the streets. Even in my personal

media chips they're crying: "Come on, cop! Come on! You're gonna

come and have a lot of fun!"

Yeah, I'm gonna leave this planet! Leave behind all the trouble I never

really cared about...

If I could only grab those dealers first: I'd blow them away like rats; they

won't know which direction to slither out of the mud... Anyway.

First I gotta start the glider, fly around the next corner, discover

criminals everywhere -- why not take them all on, smash their useless

bodies down towards something they belong to? They're worth less

than a trash can...

Back on the speedway. Flying slower.

There's the PD. Gotta stop and enter the office. Gotta say "Morning" to

everyone.

Small talk.

Yes, everything's fine -- the dealers were blown away in self-defense --

shit happens -- yeah, I'm all right...

You're absolutely right 'bout that -- not a fairy tale at all. But who cares?

They grow up like weeds and nobody really cares about their deaths.

What'd you say?

Yep, Pete will get here soon. I think he wanted to take a shower first.

1459 words, Copyright ©by Sven Kloepping (fictionality@web.de). This story

was first published in Planet Magazine.

Death JunkiesDeath JunkiesDeath JunkiesDeath Junkies

They love their own death. Or this kick, that comes with it. Flash in their brain. Inner

experience.

Keith sits back and dreams his life again. It rushes across his face like a train.

Nothing of it’s constant, nothing’s gonna be returning. It’s the only one-time life thrill

of the past. Each time another one.

Also Vicky has nothing to lose. She’s his girl-friend and not frightened of temporary

death. Nothing can get lost, or so she thinks. She’s not feared. Nevertheless, she

stares in the hypno-gate & lets herself becoming bravehearted. Seconds, seconds,

seconds are ticking and passing in her virtual brain. Then she falls asleep. Or: sleep

falls over her. Like a dog. (Huskie was a good guy, yes he was). She watches her life

from a good distance, like a movie. But there’s nothing new to happen. No other

experience, just Huskie and her boring life again. No reason to get the ‘close’ kick.

Moments after she realizes it, her consciousness interrupts the voyage, shuts down

the surrounding robotic streams and comes back. Vicky turns around half-way, goes

back on the virtual street, awakens and complains immediately.

She and some others are the ‘death-junkies’. Nothing could stop them, even not their

own death. It’s the only experience they wish to share. That’s the most powerful stuff:

when you realize your death, but they’ll wake you up - you know it, ‘cause they wake

you up every single time, just a moment after you passed the heavenly gates at the

end of the long, near and distant tunnel. When you wake up again, you’ll be having a

happy day. If not... who cares?

It’s like a drug. A drug for kiddies. After a while they can’t cope with their life and they

just wanna be killed once more. It’s like a drug for them & who else than a snob can

afford more than hundredthousand dollars just for five seconds of it?

Their life is their daily death. They work for it, they even spend their pocket-money.

Nothing’s holy to them, because life is just another shadow of reality. They all know it,

and they wanna show it to the whole world. They’re immortal, or so they think.

Death junkies are not dangerous. If they would be dangerous, someone had to forbid

their hobby.

„Yeah... it’s sooo randy!“ Keith cries in trance. His train’s still driving. In every

window he looks into another face staring out to him. Faces from a summary

of people he met in his life - but he doesn’t talk to them. He waits.

Vicky waits. When does he stop that trip? She mumbles impatiently & can’t sit

still on her holografic chair. It’s a long time for her. Dammit, what a flash! Her

twelve-year-old brain starts to think. At least he’s going to live four days after

this trip without any coming back. But she will return: the next day, she plans,

to repeat her trip. Today’s flash wasn’t very satisfying, you know. Tomorrow

she’ll try it again. She’ll die another death.

In the beginning it’s like every other drug. You take it, consume it several times

at your local dealer who shoots you beyond like a little particle, molecule or

something else... right over the border of your life. You feel good, that time.

But only for a little while, thereafter you realize: something’s gonna change in

your life. Not everything, but something’s gonna be not the same as it was

before. You’ll see the world with different eyes and miss your sense for reality.

It wasn’t that clear to you before - but now, after you rolled up your

consciousness, you miss something. The flash has brought it to the light:

there’s no way back. You have to come again, fly again, experience again,

again - death has taken part of you. It’s like hard injecting stuff. Just one flash

that cuts away your whole life from you. But it makes you so ‘close’, and you

need that stuff, you need it...

Open up.

Keith returns. He shakes his head - not believing he’s still alive - and is looking

like he’s too fragile for his own wakeness. Then he stands up, with wavering

steps. He’s wearing black leather. Vicky’s attracted from it. She takes him by

the hand, feels weak warmth slowly streaming through her gloves, and leaves

the house together with her lover. The night outside is grey like every night. No

difference, no other experience. Nevertheless, today has happened

something. Keith puts his arm around her neck and says a word that she

doesn’t realize. She’s just glad he’s still alive - that’s the most important thing

right now. The most important thing.

How many times can it be like that?

795 words, © by Sven Kloepping (fictionality@web.de).