Aurora Comics Project

[Redfield5]

  mirkoloio said:

OOOOOOOH!!! ADD JAMISON STAMOS. PLEASE. PLEASE DO IT

 

Who?

[hivefleetchicken]

  Redfield5 said:

I've got a story in the works. It's a revolution story, with characters such as Jim, Zubari, Elena, Val, and many others.

 

a rev round with him Calhoun that doesn't involve Sakaei killing literally everyone?

Whatever you say, dude.

[UnknownMurder]

I hope this isn't too much... Can Alex Graves have a part in a story, anyone?

[Rechkalov]

I should perhaps like to stress that, if there happen to be stories that are plain violent, I do not intend to draw them.

To elaborate; yes, violence can have place in a story, as it has in good deal of stories and life as such, but in my opinion, it shouldn't be the point and shouldn't be there just for the sake of it. Let's not go Sin City or Tarantino on this one.

If you get somebody else to draw them, by all means, they will have their place in the (hopefully) collection, but I do not wish to participate in such a creation.

Similarly, let's try to avoid contemporary politics and our views of them.

 

  UnknownMurder said:

I hope this isn't too much... Can Alex Graves have a part in a story, anyone?

I imagine he can have a cameo, if you can provide description other than the picture in your signature.

Otherwise, I would hate to force a character into the front of a story that is not tailored for him, much less alter the story for the sake of displaying a character.

No offense intended.

[rrrrrr]

I'll write something. It might be humorous. I don't know. I'll try and shove as many people requesting character cameos in as I can. Wish me luck.

[josh1133]

It is late, but I have heard my name. The name not spoken in a while!

One has requested a story about Stein! Or it was a honest mistake, but if a Stein story...or stories is wanted. I be happy to provide.

Edit: You forgot me Rec, you should know Stein is me ;^;

You hurt me baby.

[Rechkalov]

Got sidetracked a bit

no regrets

 

  Reveal hidden contents

[Rusty Shackleford]

2/10 not enough pixellated nudity

but no srsly it's super gud

[Redfield5]

I just lost twenty pages of material...

I will try to re-write, but it's going to be tough.

[Gollee]

I can identify 2/5 of those characters.

[Rechkalov]

  Gollee said:

I can identify 2/5 of those characters.

 

Left to right: Tina Kaekel; Samantha Mason; Lockie Green; Daniela Baranova; Phoebe Essel

[Rechkalov]

  Redfield5 said:

I just lost twenty pages of material...

 

WHY

WHY 20 PAGES

15 comics pages are TOP limit

See, it's for your own good!

[Gollee]

Okay, 1/5. I thought one was Janet. but I got Sam. And not from the mouse either.

[Redfield5]

  Rechkalov said:

  Redfield5 said:

I just lost twenty pages of material...

 

WHY

WHY 20 PAGES

15 comics pages are TOP limit

See, it's for your own good!

 

I like to work with it. I have taken many sequences and broken them down, expanding upon many different aspects of any specific highlights within a passage. It wouldn't be hard to whittle it down significantly.

[Rechkalov]

  Redfield5 said:

I like to work with it. I have taken many sequences and broken them down, expanding upon many different aspects of any specific highlights within a passage. It wouldn't be hard to whittle it down significantly.

 

That's very reasonable. Sure! Do things your way, as they please you.

I just wanted to stress that there is a limit, since few entries so far have respected it.

As long as you're aware that there might be compromises should the limit be exceeded and are ready and willing to deal with them, it's all good!

[Rechkalov]

Big, wholehearted thanks to rrrrrr for his entry

and to UnknownMurder for the best 'icing on the cake' material!

Good stuff!

[rrrrrr]

.

Edited November 10, 2017 by Guest

[Rusty Shackleford]

  Gollee said:

Okay, 1/5. I thought one was Janet. but I got Sam. And not from the mouse either.

 

Janet wasn't a spess lesbian though! She was totally straight.

[UnknownMurder]

  rrrrrr said:

  Reveal hidden contents

The word ‘sterile’ perfectly encapsulated the room he was in – sterile. Infertile. Recycled air, no doubt flowing with fecal matter, inhaled and exhaled by bags of plasma held together by skin and pushed forward by muscles. Part of him was glad he left all that behind.

Airlock opened with a soft psssht far louder than he expected it to be. Breaking down, maybe, or just really cheap – either way, he stopped thinking about the airlock and more about the crime scene in front of him. It was like someone had gone and smeared strawberry jam all over the walls, rolling around in it, covering their hands with it and rubbing it on the windows.

Oh, and there were entrails. This definitely wasn’t jam. The preservatives that kept his hundred year old brain chugging along slowed his comprehension of the situation somewhat. Man, cut in half from waist. Large intestine spilling out onto off-grey floors purchased at lowest possible cost from a neo-Stalinist colony somewhere in the outer rim.

Murder, probably. The robot crouched down with a slight whir. There was an interesting expression of agony on the victim’s face, like he had seen it coming and his screams had died during birth. Every single part of him wondered if he could’ve gotten help if the walls weren’t soundproofed – his radio headset was gone.

Fitzgerald.

Another interesting thing about him was the very large welt on his neck, like a bee had

FITZGERALD. Martian accent. Chinese influenced, maybe? Lots of Chinese on Mars.

It looked up – there were other people here, apparently. Two of them, to be exact. Nameless gas mask clad reptilian, seven feet tall and uncomfortably hunched over in the drier-than-Moghes maintenance tunnel. The person yelling its name was the Head of Security. Optics whirred to get a better read on his face.

Yes. Alex Graves. He couldn’t exactly tell how old he was, early thirties. Maybe? Maybe not. Either way, this was the chief. Or someone who had stolen his face.

“Yes, chief?”

“What the hell are you doing here?” asked Graves, shooting a glance at the corpse then at the lizard currently making his way to the door. “You, stay here.” The alien grunted, moving back towards the window.

“You.” He looked at the robot. “What the hell are you even doing here?”

“Investigating. It’s my job. This stuff really turns your stomach, doesn’t it? Thank Christ I was born with-“ Cut off.

“This isn’t your job. We haven’t even had an autopsy done, for fuck’s sake – wait until forensics gets here.” Big station. Might take a while for them to get here.

Graves whipped off his sunglass, shooting off a salad of Chinese-Russian-English words that essentially meant ‘this is fucked’. Sol Common. Interesting language.

“So, chief,”

“Please never call me that.”

“Alright. Give me the story on this guy.”

Graves looked at him like he was crazy, facial analyzing programming in the robot’s optics far too slow to pick it up. Then, a face of silent resentment mixed with acceptance.

“A janitor found him like this.”

Fitzgerald butted in. “Looks fresh to me. The sicko that did this must still be close.” He focused his eyes on the reptile standing behind the commander. “Maybe he’s in this room.” Canned laughter. A .wav file, to be exact. No one found it as funny as him, apparently, so it cut off mid-laugh.

Silence. Nine seconds of it, followed by Graves heading directly for the door. “I’ll be in my office.” The detective followed after him, passing an intensely pissed off looking Tajaran forensics tech whose name he did not know or care to know.

“Can I get the name of the guy who found him? I’d like to conduct an interview.”

“Jamison Stamos, have fun.”

Jamison Stamos. He tried with some level of intensity to remember if he’d ever met the man before but couldn’t say. He messaged him via PDA – U SLEEP?

He was, in fact, not sleep. Drinking at the bar, apparently.

He wondered if these hallways were designed to make him want to kill himself. Maybe it came with being as unnaturally old as he was – maybe there was some kind of conspiracy against him to make him try and kill himself. Who could know, really, aside from himself?

Stamos was hunched over the bar, getting served drinks by a dapper young black man. Music that could be labeled akin to audible feces played from the jukebox, punctuated by video game noises coming from the corner they shunted all the arcade machines off to.

The barkeep. Tyrone Deshawn or Shaunison or something. He couldn’t remember. He tapped the table next to Stamos, who seemed to be slowly killing himself. The purple jumpsuit clad laborer didn’t stir.

“Stamos.”

“I hear ya.” Stamos grunted, not bothering to look up at him. Tyrone something-or-other merely watched them, wiping down a glass. Maybe Stamos had psychic powers?

Well, he wasn’t going to just ask him. He sat, facing away from him.

“So I heard you found the body.”

“Yep.

“Who’s to say you didn’t kill him?” he asked, discreetly turning a recorder on.

“You know what, bot? You’re right. I ripped him in half with my bare hands. Christ, you’re a special kind of stupid. Ask me a real question or get lost.”

“Alright, have it your way you mighty kids meal looking motherfucker.”

=

Jasdeep wasn’t entirely sure what he was looking at. A dead body, definitely, but what confused him was the circumstances – cut in half, right at the waist. They figured out the cause of death, at the very least.

Rook Jameson. An assistant of suspiciously high age. Nothing incriminating on the body. No PDA messages received or sent for the past day. Strangely enough, no headset.

Murder. The station shook slightly, creaking – he was wondering where his other half was. The xeno that had been posted here earlier told him she left before running off to go beat the shit out of someone in the holodeck.

He sighed. He pressed the button on the side of his headset, turning it on – “I’m gonna need a body bag and a stretcher to departures emergency storage. Preferably fast.”

Someone short with hair that dragged along the filthy floor showed up, panting with obvious exhaustion. Without saying a single word she left, tears brimming in her eyes at the mere sight of the body. Jasdeep was glad he had thick skin. He had worked in this business for way too long.

Christ. He’d have to try and figure out the motive of whoever did this. Or what ever did this. He dragged the stretcher plus the two halves of Jameson along, to the morgue. He flipped the lights on and put the upper half of Jameson on the operating table before awkwardly placing the lower half on – he reached for the recorder.

Like hell he needed to perform an actual autopsy.

“Looks to me like he was cut in half by a very large sword. Maybe a malfunctioning door could’ve done this, but I didn’t see anything on any of the doors.. that, and he was in the middle of the room.”

He scratched his ass, glancing down at Jameson. Two thousand and ninety nine accident free days, NanoTrasen said.. they’d have to update the website to say zero.

“His headset’s gone, too. My bet is that he was knocked unconscious and woke up just in time to have.. this happen.”

The door whirred open behind him and shut just as soon as it had opened.

Jasdeep kept speaking into the recorder. “Someone just entered the room.”

He turned around to see who had entered and he found no words to describe what he was seeing.

The thunk of a thick plastic recorder dropping to the floor. Kicking, the shuffling of feet – then, a click. Someone had turned it off.

Fitzgerald mulled over it. Murder, no doubt. The corpse’s mouth was agape, screaming ‘find my murderer!’ That much he was sure he would do – could he do it? Maybe, maybe not. He figured he’d find out in time.

Commander and not-Chief graves entered in behind him, staring down at the corpse along with him before turning to look up at the cyborg.

“Looks like you got here before me,” he said, almost seeming at a loss for words. Both forensics technicians, gone missing. Christ. This just got better and better.

He moved his arm with a pop to place the recorder onto a table before turning to look at the body.

Jasdeep Singh. Indian. Thick mustache. Interestingly enough, there wasn’t much of an expression on him – his skin had turned pale. Sucked of blood, maybe? He played around with the notion that a vampire (or a human being modified to be very close to one) was on the ship before throwing it away. That was stupid.

“He was a good man,” said Fitzgerald, eulogizing a man he hadn’t known. “Looks like this case just got a whole lot harder, chief. Both forensics technicians gone in the same day.”

Quietly, a four legged cyborg painted dark red stood in the corner, fighting the urge to bark. A dog’s brain, ‘Buddy’ (actually designated NT Bloodhound #2637-B, formerly Beisel Army Synth, callsign ‘Jackson’ before being sold off to NanoTrasen due to upkeep costs) had been posted here.

Graves didn’t say a word. His expression was blank – the face of a man who realized they were onboard a space station with a serial killer. Night shift. He wondered why he had asked to work now, for twelve hours, with so few people. Maybe it was the quiet. He sighed.

“Any witnesses?” asked Fitzgerald, breaking the silence.

“None. That recorder’s all we have. That, and the body.”

“He was murdered, no doubt about it. Probably by the same guy who got Jameson. Probably by the same guy who got the other technician.”

“I’m going back to my office.” Graves left, leaving the detective alone with the victim.

Fitzgerald walked out, into the sterile hallway. Grey tiled floors stretched on as far as he could see, cutting off at the escape arm and then the civilian sector. He figured he’d talk to some medical personnel – ask if they knew anything. Into the medical bay lobby, as sterile as the hallway. Sitting at the desk was someone whose age he couldn’t entirely figure out. Blonde hair. Short? Was it the chair? He had no idea.

“Who are you?”

High pitched annoying voice that made him want to kill himself. Essel. Phoebe Essel.

“Ah, Ersel.” He said, saying her name wrong on purpose. “Fuck any reptiles lately? Haha I know you did. I’m gonna cut to the chase and ask if you heard anything. We’ve got a serial killer on the loose and”

“I didn’t hear anything. Please exit my vision now that I have told you everything I know, because I literally cannot stand to speak to you.”

Fitzgerald moonwalked out of the room, secretly hoping his skills would impress her. They did not because in the middle of his slick dance, she flipped him off.

To the bar, then.

Tyrone Something-or-other was wiping the same glass he had been wiping hours ago, strangely enough. Or maybe it was different? Either way, Jamison was gone. He took a seat, not saying anything. An uncomfortable silence followed, broken by Fitzgerald asking for a beer.

Cracking it open, he started to talk. Maybe a little bit more than he should, really. “We’ve got a real sick motherfucker on the loose,” he said, downing the beer in around nine seconds because he lacked the human anatomy that would constrain him from doing so. “And it ain’t me. Y’know, Tryeese.. I think you might be the only guy I can trust right about now.”

“That so?”

“Yep.. we’ve got a killer on the loose and not a lady killer like me. A real one. The kind that cuts people up. Heck, I’m glad you’ve got a gun – I’m sure Jasdeep, God bless his soul, would’ve liked to have one.”

Tyrone’s eyes seemed to light up at the mention that he had a gun.

“Huh.. think you’re close to catching this guy?”

“Another beer – yeah, I think I am. We’ve only got about twelve people aboard this time of the night so I guess it’s just a matter of elimination. Really, I think it’s just a matter of time at this point. More beer, please.”

Tyrone gave him another beer. Then another. Still talking about his childhood on Tejano IV and how fantastic it was/awful it was, Tyrone interrupted him.

“Hold on, man. I gotta go do something in the back,”

“Go ahead! I’ll be here. Waiting for you.” Tyrone walked into the bar’s backroom, shutting the airlock behind him – after a few seconds of waiting, Fitzgerald turned around. The killer. Maybe it was that reptile? The red one he saw earlier. Zubari. Unathi were strong. Big. No doubt in his mind he could have done but would he have done it? Essel. Too small but maybe she had a gun? But he’d have heard that, wouldn’t he?

Something on the radio. Essel, maybe. Cut off. Headseat’s probably broken. His or hers.

Graves, no. Too many background checks on higher ups, they’d have noticed. Tyrone, no. He’s just a kid. Maybe it was Jamison? Could be. Janitors aren’t scrutinized too much and he seemed bad enough. But maybe he’d have killed him by now?

Then he realized Graves was standing right in front of him. He took a seat next to him. “Barkeep’s gone?”

“Yep.”

“You drinking on the job?”

“I can’t get drunk, I do this as an excuse to talk to the barkeep.”

“Huh.”

Fitzgerald had hardly noticed Graves had changed his clothes – normally he wore the nice blue dress uniform they gave commanders but right now he was wearing a white dress shirt and black sacks. A lot like Tyrone.

He looked at Graves. Smiling.

“Tyrone’s not coming back, is he?”

“You never really talked to Tyrone this shift,” said Graves, his face splitting down the middle, unfurling like a flower in full bloom. A mouth. A very large mouth. And then he grew more. And he grew bigger.

Bigger. Filling the room, really, Fitzgerald noticed as he started to back away. More mouths. Talking. To him.

“You know, I was saving you for last. Figured I might have some fun with the robot.”

“Yeah,” said Fitzgerald, slowly reaching for the .38 revolver he never left home with. “What kind of fun?”

“Oh, you know,” said the expanding pile of putrid flesh. A hundred mouths silently mouthed the word ‘run’. “Fun.”

He fired. And then again. And then again. And – quite quickly, without warning, a tongue (or some kind of limb? He wasn’t thinking much about it) darted out and pulled it out of his hands. “Okay. Sure, let’s do that. What do you want?”

“You’ve got some organic components, don’t you?”

“A brain.”

“Just as good as the rest. I can still use you.”

Use. He didn’t like the way the defeaning choir of a dozen different voices, some he knew, saying the word use.

“No, thanks. Let’s talk. What’s your name? I’m Moses. But I guess you already know about that. And my childhood.” Fitzgerald felt slight shame about telling the monster in front of him about his childhood. Slowly, he backed out of the room, the shambling abomination inching closer. Christ, it was so big.

It didn’t say anything.

No one said anything. This was it, really. It’d crack open his head and eat his brain, he guessed. Metallic barking.

A dog. Barking.

It was Buddy. The bloodhound he sort-of saw earlier. Didn’t pay him much mind. Looked like the thing that wasn’t Graves didn’t pay him much mind, either. Not then, but right now he did – the dozens of unblinking eyes turned away from him and to the other cyborg.

He ran. The hallway was alive, no longer sterile.Beating like a heart. Pulsating. Slick with something and coated in flesh, like he was going down the throat of some great beast.

Graves had been hard at work while he was waiting for the barkeeper that wasn’t actually the barkeeper. The bridge. He had to get to the bridge. Then he’d call a shuttle and fly out of here, home.

When he came to what was once the bridge, the doors were open – forced open by whatever was coating the walls. Far off down the hallway he heard the howling of a great beast and the whimpering of a dog, tinny and metallic. There goes Buddy, he thought, trying his best not to think about what he was wading through as he fought to get to the communications console.

Coated in flesh, Fitzgerald tore at it, glancing out to the window. Space. Maybe it liked the view – maybe it was stretching itself too thin. He didn’t care to think too hard on it. Eventually, he reached the console.

The login screen.

He tried to login.

ACCESS DENIED.

“Oh fuck me,” he said, hearing a great wet shape drop from the ceiling behind him as he kept smashing the login button. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. He’d have cried if he could, but he had left all of that behind.

He turned around and he found no words to describe what he was seeing.

 

I'm posting this here for all your viewing pleasures - OP really liked it, maybe you'll like it, too.

 

Love it. Is it going to become a comic?

[Rechkalov]

  UnknownMurder said:

Love it. Is it going to become a comic?

 

Eventually.

Jedi must be patient.

[Evergreen Gardens]

I haven't been on in a while; busy with work and school... But I'm really liking this comic project; thinking of adding to it sometime.

That being said...

 

  Rechkalov said:

Got sidetracked a bit

no regrets

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Samantha Mason looks like she's upset about the top 1 percent having more wealth than the bottom half of Tau Cetians combined.

[Rusty Shackleford]

  Evergreen Gardens said:

Samantha Mason looks like she's upset about the top 1 percent having more wealth than the bottom half of Tau Cetians combined.

 

Samantha Mason is the one in the beret with the mouse. The angry one is Phoebe Essel.

[Rechkalov]

Hello!

I would like to apologize to everybody involved/anxiously waiting for fruits of their labor.

An unexpected chance to estabilish myself new dwellings came up, and these last two weeks or so (I've no notion of time anymore) I've found little time to tend to Aurora, being preoccupied with moving my crap from one place to another and then arranging it in such a manner as to make some space where I could bloody sleep.

Both tasks being accomplished now, I'm about to resume the slow creative processes right after posting this apologetic note here.

Thank you all for your contributions, understanding and much-tested patience

[Evergreen Gardens]

  Rusty Shackleford said:

  Evergreen Gardens said:

Samantha Mason looks like she's upset about the top 1 percent having more wealth than the bottom half of Tau Cetians combined.

 

Samantha Mason is the one in the beret with the mouse. The angry one is Phoebe Essel.

 

I know exactly which one she is. I was saying that they drew her like a girl version of another notable Brooklynite

 

[Rechkalov]