Ok, my first exercise had about all the success of the Titanic, so im going to have another shot with this exercise.

Pick-a-path-adventure:

How to play: The first poster will write a chunk of story (in first person perspective), and at the end of it they will put 2 or 3 choices as to where the plot can go from there. The next poster will then choose one of those, write their own chunk, and finish it with 2 or 3 choices again. The plot should be kept as humorous as possible, and the choices at the end of your chunk should be fairly out of leftfield. So to start it off: --------------------------------- You look at your watch, 5 minutes until lunch break is over. Sliding down more in the stained seat of the diner, your mind drifts back to when you first started work at the interstellar fuel station. You think about all the amazing races you met, and all their amazing tales. Yours was an important job, as you were part of the largest fuel and snack centre for nearly an entire solar system. It was all so amazing. Now, you were sick of the same rude aliens, sick of their stupid stories. Sick of this stupid refuelling station…. ‘YOUR BREAK FINISHED 10 MINUTES AGO!’ …but not as much as you hated Polask, your vulgar demanding boss. ‘There’s a cruiser out there that needs refuelling! GET IT DONE! As you brush the crumbs of the table, you make your way out the door too the waiting cruiser. Two aliens stand at the front of it with their backs turned. They are covered in dark black cloth, making it impossible to see through the hoods. As you are about to shout out to them, a thump comes from inside the ship…and what sounds like a woman’s voice… Do you: A) Shout ‘SHUT UP!’ back at the ship B) Tell the aliens their hunk of junk is making weird noises C) Try and find a way into the ship

Suspicious but casual you continue walking to the refilling terminal to start your routine. Both of the caped giants stay still. As soon as you reach the terminal another scream near the cruiser’s hatch followed by what unmistakably was a phaser’s shot. You get more tense but not scared. You saw many trouble makers here, but knew that no one would be stupid enough to star havoc inside the dock.

Multiple security systems and ion cannons were always targeted at each “guest” while their stay. Also a security officer on watch always have an eye on you, which pisses you off , as you fill like a prisoner inside a cell. But the feeling of being secure somehow always comforted you more that your dislike of this setup. Just to make sure you glance up to your left and up to check if the guard is in her booth.

Garklos, today’s officer, was always mean and intimidating with her unibrow and muscular upper body. You still could not forgive her for embarrassing you in the dinner another day when you ran into her in the hall with a tray full of food, daydreaming and fell as noisy as it gets, pushed back as if you ran into a wall. Apparently it was quite entertaining to the audience and some coworkers, since they still keep smiling at you when you pass them by in the hall.

She was not there. The booth was empty. All the monitors were off. Quite unusual. And then you notice that usually pointed at the ship and glowing with orange plasma dock’s canons we all pointing downwards and looked completely cold and un-operational.

Ok. Do not freak out. Maybe there is a power outage. But the dock’s lights were on. The refill terminal was on. Oh, S@#$t. the terminal was on, but there was no ship on the screen where the schematics were usually displayed and red pointers to fuel connectors usually blinked red. It was blank. Like there were no ship in the dock.

Screw this. Let security people figure this out. Self preservation instinct overwhelmed all the fears of beign a laughing stock of the station if this was some glitch in the system and you were found in a shower room hiding from these “raiders”. Only one though pulsated in your mind. Run.

As if reading your mind two black capes turned their hood to you. Before your could make a step back, in one gigantic leap of what would probably be about 60 yards one of the black cape landed on top of you. The hood fell back being pushed by air. A single cold blue eye was staring at you. Metallic shin form docks’ light reflected off cyborg’s head was almost two bright to keep looking at. All four of his limb manipulators with tree fingers welded your hands and legs to the deck and single shiny steels pike coming out of his shoulder retracted and stopped about a millimeter from your eye ball.

This is it. Even though your life did not flash in front of your eyes in a second, that second was filled with a feeling of life-worth of wasted opportunities and time spent on this station doing this moronic job, no personal or professional advancement, no adventures or memories worth remembering. Yes you wasted whatever little time you were given. Yet it felt so unfair, so needles – to interrupt it now. You can do better! You can fix it!

The second was gone. Fear was overwhelming blackened only by anger of being helpless.

Being unable to turn your head and using only your peripheral vision and sound you see/hear two people running out of the ship to your station. One of them knelled.

- Is it another security guard? He asked.
- No, it’s just a mechanic. Replied a woman’s voice.

That voice. Something vaguely familiar was about it. He heard it somewhere else.

- Get rid of him. Said the man

Cyborgs blue eye got brighter and the spike moved another half a millimeter closer to your eye ball.

- No, wait. Woman’s voice stopped him. – Look at him closer.

Metallic spike retracted back and the man’s hand took off your mechanic’s helmet.

- I’ll be damned! <Character Name>! What the hell are you doing here?

Finally you were able to mover your head. Although still overwhelmed by fear you looked at the man trough blocking dock’s lights shining right into your eyes, trying to make out his features.

His dark long hair was hanging in threads and looked dirty. Black round racer’s goggles hid his eyes but underlined his roman nose. Cleanly shaved chin seamed strangely misaligned by a diagonal scar that went up to his cheek bone.

- Blake? You asked uncertain.
- Damn! After all the surgical work! Good memory, man! How you’ve been?
- Good. Answer you shaking and getting up with his help.
- And I though you joined the Trooper’s Core right after school.
- I didn’t work out.
- I see. So you are a refilling attendant now? How long have you been here?

- Gentlemen. The woman interrupted looking angry. – Blake, we are robbing this place. Remember? Security timer is about to go off!

- Right, Right. Replied Blake, hiding his smile. – Let’s get it over with.

Still shaken and disoriented but even more shocked by the meeting with an old school pal, who you have not seen in more then a dozen years, and now robbing the place where you work. The Station! That probably has its own small army of guards and is located between two largest Trooper Core’s perimeters. Are they insane?

And the woman. Did she know you? Why did she stop Blake when he wanted to waist you? All this information overwhelmed you.

- You doing what? An uncontrolled blabber mouth impulse made you embarrassed by asking a stupid question.
- Don’t worry. You’ll leave through it. Just don’t do anything stupid. Read details in tomorrow papers.
- But..

Too late. The woman was already at the docks service hatch and Blake was running there too. Two hooded cyborgs were crawling on the wall cutting some wires.

Time flew. You have to do something. And do it fast and now…

Do you:
1) Call security station over you pocket radio.
2) Join Blake in his heist.
3) Hide in the corner until things calm down
4) Hijack Blake’s ship.

You just stand there, not sure what to do. Thousands of thoughts race through your mind. You finally decide to stay out of the way of trouble, or at least try to. You are about to hide out before things get hairy, but you suddenluy hear the woman scream again, followed by one more blast. In a sudden and unexpected burst of daring courage, you creep out from behind the storage bin you were crouched behind. You slowly make your way to a door on the ship, and carefully, so very carefully, turn the latch on the door as shouts and a few scattered blasts ring out in the terminal behind you. The door suddenly swings open with a slow metallic groan. You drop to the floor; no one came to investigate the noise, so you quietly enter the ship. The door lead to a small room with a door on the directly oppostite wall.
YOU CAN:
-decide this was a bad idea and leave
-enter the door to find the woman
-hide behind the door to ambush the thieves.