To Slay a Girl
“Why do you look so sad?” she asked one day.
This confused him. They had just made love, for the eight time that week. And it was only Thursday. He didn’t feel sad. He didn’t feel much at all right now except contentment with his lover. She was wrapped around him like soft sleepwear, smelling of sweat and playfulness and sassy.
“I’m not sad!” Was this a test, some sort of whimsical girl thing? Although, she wasn’t a girl really, any longer. At least on the outside. Inside, he knew she thought of herself as a girl. She could be 89 and a great-great-grandma, and he could envision her looking at the mirror and going “hey girly girl, look’n good!”
She turned over and looked at him, her amazing green eyes flecked with blue as curious and warm as ever. “Not now. But sometimes. Sometimes your eyes go somewhere. You’re not here but there. Where ever there is. Where do you go?”
Her empathy ran deep. Maybe it was the way she made love. She was always shy about it, at first, as if she would blink and find the kisses weren’t real. Then, as the kisses continued she would simply let go.
It was his favorite part, when she let go. Her mind would blank, all her worries, all her stress, everything neat and ordered in her life gone. Gone as long as he kept loving her. And she would say such naughty things.
Afterwords, it was as if her heart beat in time with the world. Moments where she understood things, felt things. That she was pulling on a thread should not surprise him. It was, essentially, his own fault. He brought her here. What did he expect?
But then, what should he tell her? It was too much. The wrong type of intensity. It was foul. It only intruded upon his thoughts because it was one of those things never forgotten. He didn’t want to tell her. She was too good. Too pure. Too in-tune. Gaia. It would be like poisoning the Earth. Her eyes would not be green any longer. They would die. He would murder her eyes.
“See, there, just now, you went away.”
“I don’t like to go there, it’s not a good place,” he finally admitted.
“Tell me. Why?”
“You’re not there,” he said simply. “You’re here. You’re here.“
She looked at him and then he saw it. She knew. Knew he didn’t want to say. Knew he didn’t want to leave. Knew it wasn’t important. Only talking about it would make it so.
So she never asked. She kissed him, and wasn’t shy. She took command of him, and chased the thoughts away, purged them as if they were never there.
She was never shy again, at the start of their lovemaking. She still let go. She still liked to whisper her naughty talk into his ears.
Yet, he missed it. That part of the woman that was the shy girl.
Empathy, he thought, sometimes had a terrible, terrible price.
Fleet Staff Meeting Gone Wrong
From STUFF BLOWING UP IN SPACE.
I’m on a roll.
Terrans, as the table assembled before him proved, were a decidedly mixed lot.
XO Lieutenant (Sr. Grd.) Ola (no last name) was a waif of a woman. Small, black haired, pixie-ish. Despite her girlish figure, Tilbrook knew she was an older woman, having joined fleet a decade out of college. She was worldly and cosmopolitan.
The doc was her opposite. Tall, pale-skinned, with flaming, unruly red hair, green eyes and a body she seemed uncomfortable with, as if she woke up one day and saw that she had a wonderful feminine figure.
Actually, considering Winnie’s youth, that may be exactly what happened.
Gunnery Sargent Charles Kim was something else entirely. It was as if someone took the biggest Korean, searched for the biggest Samoan, and bred them to produce a 127.3kg monstrosity of pure muscle. Which proved the old Fleet maxim—space is the great biological equalizer. His job was to blow things up, not bust heads.
Staff Sargent Sergei Koltsov, commanding his six person marine squad, at least looked decidedly normal—average in every way, except for his unarmed combat scores and his deadly effectiveness with just about anything remotely like a weapon. His family came from a long line of County Safety officers, and here he was in Fleet. Everyone called him Sarge, although Tilbrook thought of him as “Mr. Security.”
They had just watched the exchange of between him and the shish brat and now everyone looked contemplative, especially after Ola briefed them on the upcoming coming-of-age party for the shish’s older sister.
He didn’t want contemplative. He wanted options.
“Winnie, could you give me some insight on what possibly could be going on to cause Princess here to act completely irrational? I get that her position is political and she is young. That aside, even a mediocre politician should know better than to assume we’re a bunch of dorks. What’s her problem?”
Winnie actually chuckled. “Permission to speak candidly, sir?”
“Winnie, this is a brainstorm session. I need your brain, not your built-in military courtesies. In this room, I expect candor 24×7. That also means call me James.”
Tilbrook knew Winnie might need a more delicate touch when she blushed scarlet, but Hernández’s clock kept ticking down the minutes. The ship was fast. Time was short.
“Aye, um, yes, um, James. Anyway, it’s pretty obvious what the problem is.”
She paused, looking apprehensive. Tilbrook decided to not cut her off at the knees and give her some time to compose herself and spit it out.
“Anyway, the problem is you,” she said in a rush.
What?
“Me?”
“Yes.”
He sighed. He contacted the shish station by the book. Only when the Princess, for the most part, called him a liar did he depart from protocol. In fact, given the circumstances, Tilbrook was sure a less experienced…
“You’re a hottie, James,” Ola broken in.
“Excuse me?”
“A total hottie, to be exact,” said Winnie, blushing even redder.
“Indeed,” said Guns, “while I myself am a heterosexual, I have heard from the female crewmembers that your backside is very esthetically pleasing.”
“My backside.” Out of all the tracks he thought this conversation might go, this one was completely unexpected.
“That means you have a nice ass,” said Sergei.
“Thank you Sarge, I get that. While now I am inwardly cursing that I demanded informality, I would like to state the obvious that my butt was in no way pointed towards the Princess during the entire conversation. Thus, whatever powers said butt might have, they were not in play here.”
“James? Really? You had no idea you were a hottie?” Winnie was looking at him as if he was nuts.
Suddenly Ola nodded. “Ah, makes sense. Skipper here is from Lupa-12, they do things a bit more formally there. I bet you went to an all-boys school during puberty?”
“Look, while I’m sure you Earthers love making fun of the country boys with your 6.8 billion population, you all know I have an apartment in Paris right? And for a reason.”
“You have browner-than-brown hair that looks like if you grew it out it would curl, your eyes are a vivid, and I mean a vivid sky-blue, and you have the eyelashes any teen girl would envy, and I ought to know,” said Winnie. Now instead of looking completely embarrassed, she looked whimsical.
“Let’s not forget, Winnie, that when he works out in the gym shirtless, you seem to find yourself there,” Ola quipped.
“And I would like to point out, Ola, that you are there too.” Winnie quipped back, only looking slightly annoyed.
Tilbrook sighed, loudly, and looked at Sarge and Gunny for sympathy, or at the very least, to bail him out.
“I give the elected MOILTF no sympathy,” said Guns.
Sarge looked blank.
MOILTF? Male Officer I Would… He sighed again. “Fine. I see how you all are. I like to work out. So what? And my looks, I can assure you, are quite vanilla compared to most of the other men on Lupa-12.”
Ola immediately sat up straight. “Really?”
Winnie gave herself a little shake, as if her brain was in the gym. “Anyway, there a total and very disturbing attraction parity between human females and shish. Everything human females find attractive, shish find attractive. Only, the attraction is much more visceral for the shish because, as we all know, their sex-response is biologically tied to feeding.”
She seemed to enter her lecture mode and turned to him. “So, without knowing what political and family monkey business is going on—put yourself in her place. She’s sexually frustrated, that’s a given. Her sister is going to get laid for an entire week, basically have the best sex a shish could have—short of the symbiotic bonding process or the feeding/mating protocol—while she has to work. Indeed, tradition does not allow her to participate in the family orgy because of her position. Now a human male, aka The Hottie, shows up in the spiffy Fleet uniform with a fantastic tale of pirates in a system no pirates should be in, with a more impossible tale of a new jump point. She loses it. Her body is telling her to get you alone, seduce you, then bite you, and suck your blood if she likes you. Dismember and toss you into the pot if she doesn’t.”
“Oh, come on. She is a thinking person. She’s not some eating machine ruled by instinct,” Tilbrook protested.
Guns shook his head. “Rationality means something completely different to a shish. She’s young. She’s low-boob on the totem pole, and she could be hungry. And you’re a walk’n snack that conveniently can get her off before she fills her tummy with a warm happy meal.”
Tilbrook sighed yet again. “Fine. The age-old human-shish socialization problem. What are our options?”
“There’s another social dynamic in play here, that may give you the answer,” Winnie said, nodding to Guns. “Everyone likes to focus on how shish are hyper-sexual beings. That is a mistake. Shish are, for the most part, biologically superior to all other species in the galaxy. They consider themselves at the top of the food chain, and biologically speaking, they are. The only advantage humans have over them is our culture is superior, and I don’t mean that in a racist way. We are more productive, we produce superior art and technology, and our system of governance, such as it is, provides humans with a cultural flexibility nobody can match.”
Suddenly James got it.
“Ah. Being differential and polite wasn’t enough. I was sending her a very specific signal by assuming I was in charge of the situation.”
“Exactly,” said Winnie. “So now your options are, and keep in mind I’m not a shish expert, merely a well-read layman, is to assume a submissive position, or metaphorically pop her in the jaw and assume control. She’s totally going to bite you for sure on the former, the latter is difficult because she is stronger, not to mention most likely telekinetic, and all that aside, she is way smarter than you.”
Crap.
In Which I SQUEE
Writing a short story, as opposed to a novel, is difficult for me. But I vowed to work on that craft, and I’m very pleased that one of my shorts won third place in Michelle Davidson Argyle’s short story contest. Any genre except erotica was welcome, and I picked science fiction.
“The Woman” is a story based on the characters in my novel Armageddon’s Princess. Only, I reversed the roles, the story is about Arune, an AI, not about Lexus (although she does play an important part in the story).
Arune is a great character to write. He’s sensitive. He’s based on human DNA, but he is not human, he thinks very, very fast. But he is a person, and an interesting one at that. I was happy to finally be able to do him justice.
I love exploring gender relationships in my writing. My female friends often accuse me of being an incurable romantic. Of that I am proudly guilty.
Women and Power
The nebulous and hardly ever footnoted they say the firearm is the great equalizer amongst the sexes. Which is true, but only insofar as a moment of time. A wink in existence. Seconds, actually, and what a wonderful equalizer, albeit brief, it is. Nothing says, “No, I don’t want to be raped tonight,” like multiple 124 grain 9mm jacketed hollow-points traveling 1030 feet per second.
A woman, measured from simpler times and simpler places, always had the power of life, but rarely ever death. No, death, in these simpler times, was the purview of men. Men are stronger, yes, but men held the other key, the most important key, the key unlike any other.
Knowledge.
Knowledge is power, and the Twenty-First Century Woman is a creature of knowledge. At her fingertips is a vast and endless stream of information, most of it biased, but all of it readily accessible. The cynical woman would say that to make sense of it all, one should close off the avenues of distraction.
The optimistic woman, surprisingly, comes to a vastly different conclusion. More, she says. I want more. Always more.
That is true power. The powerful woman is not simply the woman who stops her rapist by filling his thoracic triangle with expanding bullets.
No, the powerful woman fights against the cynical forces that tell her that’s not possible, trying to push her back in time and victimizing her by proxy. It’s not the tool. It was never the tools. It’s about the power.
The Heart of a Warrior Never Lies
The heart of a warrior never lies. It is a thing of purity, a deadly beauty more real than a thousand, thousand truths. The warrior, in her singular moment of honesty, is both everything and nothing. She is everything because she has broken down an entire conflict to a singular twinkling of violence.
She is nothing because she simply becomes an agent of choice. There is no right. There is no wrong. There is only choice, and her heart chooses for her. In the space between rational thought and instinct, between the familiar and the new, between skill and tenacity, lies the event horizon of truth.
This warrior hears her heart. The beating is more than life-blood; it is the affirmation of the gestalt of life. She listens to her heart not because she has to, but because it is all she can do. All that she is.
At this moment, this warrior is the most deadly. At this moment, nothing can match her.
At this moment, she is a goddess. All the other moments are nothing. She knows this to be true, because the heart of a warrior, a true warrior, never lies.
Death of a Princess
Chapter 24, cont.
***
I look so elegant, in my formal dress. I finally look like a lady. Posed. Beautiful. Commanding. I am the Princess, after all. I even look regal. That’s what a princess does, isn’t it? Look regal at important social functions. My duty. It’s all I have left.
But I have been undone. My Love’s death is a knife wound right into my heart, and I can almost see the metaphorical life-blood slow leak out of me, leaving a shell. I am the shell that first returned home from the war, alone, without Mitchell, dark and empty.
This is such a lovely day for a funeral. The spring Floridian day is clear and warm, a small breeze blowing this way and that with hints of pine and flowers on the air.
We are in a meadow surrounded by a pine forest, in the middle of a newly constructed cobblestone parade ground. Hundreds of people, almost all of them military, more than I bothered counting, are crammed on the ground, in a circle around what looks disturbingly like a pyre. There she lies in her uniform, looking peaceful and tranquil, the black and blue Federation flag covering the lower part of her body. A smaller circle of unique cobblestone surrounds her dais, and they glow with silver light.
I can hear someone speaking about her, but the words, like my current perception of reality, are fuzzy. Some type of Military-religious mumbo-jumbo. I keep staring at her. There is something, there is, something is wrong.
Suddenly, I realize the person talking has stopped, and I’m standing right next to her. How did I get here? I can’t remember, and now everyone is staring at me.
She is serenely beautiful, and I stare at her, trying to figure out what is wrong. It’s not her uniform or her makeup, or her hairstyle. She is missing something.
Ah.
I draw my saber. It glistens in the afternoon sunlight.
Someone behind me gasps. I place my sword on her, the hilt underneath folded hands, the curve of the tip pointed towards her boots.
There, my Love. I’ve never used it, but it’s a good sword, and very, very, sharp, and beautiful. Like you. A warrior should not be without a good weapon in the afterlife. Go and battle evil in whatever lies beyond, my Love.
I kiss her cold lips and walk back to my place, feeling much better.
I am the Goddess of War, after all. Arming my subjects to serve me in the afterlife is my purview.
If I listen closely, I can hear the Princess crying. I ignore her. The Goddess of War has awoken. And she has no use for tears.
As the body on the pyre burns, the Princess screams, and is no more. Yet, strangely, as I look around, no one notices this is a funeral for two.
Easter Come of Age
My oldest on Sunday went out into the damp yard and hid Easter eggs for the youngest. Thing One is only nine, and I remember doing the same for younger cousins as if it was yesterday, but at twelve.
There I was, at 7:00 AM, with more eggs—both real and plastic—I had ever seen in one spot. The job seemed easy enough. Hide the eggs: be clever for the older kids, easy for the young ones.
And it was easy, if a bit lonely. By 7:30 I was done. By 8:30 the hordes of small children arrived. The boys in their little suits with ties, the girls in their little yellow and white dresses with white tights and hair pinned up. It was awfully cute and adorable. Toddlers and children running to and fro like overdressed waves on a green beach, shrieking like seagulls.
At some point, I looked over to my cousin, one of those second or third cousins I saw on occasion. She was watching the laughing and running masses just as I was. We were the same age. She wasn’t the prettiest girl, at least I used to think, but there she was in a Sunday dress wearing makeup and showing the beginnings of a feminine figure.
Something in my brain clicked right then and the feeling was as intense as it was new. It wasn’t a specific feeling towards my suddenly pretty cousin, but something odd and weird. I looked at the children, babies, and toddlers before me and wanted a child of my own. Then, my cousin caught me looking at her and she grinned. It was a mischievous grin, a pixie grin. Her eyes were also smiling, a brown-eyed question of possibilities and an invitational dare.
That’s why every Easter Sunday, I think of breeding.
New Post in Adventures in Writing
Like a stripper needing rent money at the end of the month, you can find me every Wednesday at Adventures in Writing.
Today, I talk about elements of style, horror, and science fiction.
New Post in Adventures in Writing: The YA Girl
Every Wednesday you can find me over at my second favorite blog, ever. Today, I point people over to Moonrat with what I want to see in a YA heroine. You haven’t done interweb if you haven’t done Editorial Ass Whooping!
Sooner or later, grief will get us all
Chapter 24
Barney did what any modern man would do when sitting next to a hysterical female on a suborbital flight to Orlando. He gave me Bloody Marys until I shut up.
So now I’m grief stricken, feeling guilty for fucking Pride—and drunk—when I meet Cazandra at the airport.
“Oh, Lexus, you’re drunk.” Her eyes hold pity rather than condemnation.
I almost tell her, about what I just did. But I can’t.
“This day isn’t about me, Caz. Don’t make it about me. I’ll get through it. But it isn’t about me. It’s about her. This is her day. She deserves a nice day. She does. She does. She doesn’t deserve me!”
Grief as I never have felt it slams into me like a fist. I scream, a primal scream of pure loss and pain, and the room goes dim as the floor rushes up to meet…
Low-Hanging Fruit
The alien peered through her Schmidt & Bender 3-12×50 Police Marksman LP Riflescope at the meat below.
Her favorite human killing rifle was a Bushmaster Predator in 5.56/.223. She liked the barrel length, and the 1:8 twist was perfect for her Hornady 75 grain 5.56 TAP rounds. The rifle and optic were, in her mind, perfect. Each magazine held 30 rounds (although she only filled hers to 29), and her vast experience with firearms centered on having as much ammunition as she could carry.
The rifle had other advantages, mainly the optic was a superb light gather and the reticule was an outstanding visual interface to her internal sight augmentation program. The rifle did not have any fancy bells and whistles. She had a simple sling on it, and that was all. Low-recoil, lightweight and very accurate, the 20” barrel was fluted and bled heat at a surprisingly good rate.
Heat, of course, was bad.
The meat below was noisy. The local cops called them meth maggots; the populace called them tweakers. She chose to think of them as low-hanging fruit.
She did not know how many would be here, but now there were five. It was a big operation, and they had supplies to camp here for a week or two as they did their cooking. Meth cookers were inadvertently tweakers themselves. They were about the only people stupid enough to expose themselves to the chemicals to make it.
Home labs had been dangerous as of late, the alien mused. The state prosecutor made it his mission to rid the state of the things, and the Sheriff was more than willing to comply with the push. Unfortunately, federal lands were a great place to cook something up, and the Olympic National Forest was very large indeed.
The rangers were sparse and kept to the hiking trails to keep close to the hikers. Not many people suspected, she thought, that a cooking operation would be on the wet side of the mountains. Putting a meth lab where it rained constantly was very stupid. Gutsy, but stupid.
Their isolation would not help them today, oh no. She found them by scouting, something she did at least once a week, and fining their tracks. She was new to the area, but she already thought of the temperate rainforest as “hers”. She would not suffer evil men in one of the planet’s most beautiful places.
From her perch, they were just over 142 yards away, a figure she derived at with her internal range finder that calculated distances based on the size of objects relative to the hash marks in her scope’s reticule. There was no wind, but there was considerable cover if she lost the surprise advantage. This is why she chose the semi-automatic rifle as her sniping platform. Fast as she was with a bolt-action rifle, this situation called for even more speed.
She sighted carefully. Twilight was here.
Sight. Breathe. Squeeze. Kill. Recover and aim.
Breathe. Squeeze. Kill. Recover and aim.
Breathe Squeeze. Kill. Recover and aim.
One of her victims was finally running. She shot him in the leg, careful to aim below the knee. The bullet blew a huge chunk off his lower left leg off, and he went down screaming.
The very last man was firing blindly in her general direction with a Mini-14. If he knew where she was, that would be bad. It was mostly accurate, assuming one aimed it properly.
She carefully aimed for his head.
Squeeze.
His head exploded.
BOOM headshot, Baby! The alien giggled.
***
Cody was simply talking to Justin about their favorite topic: alternative music. Then Justin’s back exploded outwards the same time he heard the rolling echo of a gunshot; the large crater in his back obscenely disproportionate to the small hole in his chest. Before what was happening registered, most of the crew all around him died, including his brother.
He ran. Miguel was firing blindly off in the woods; maybe he could use him to cover his escape.
That’s when Cody’s leg blew apart.
He screamed and screamed, and then Miguel’s head exploded.
That caught his attention. He pulled his SIG from his waistband.
BOOM! PAIN!
Suddenly his hand was gone.
Cody resumed screaming. He felt sharp pains and it made him dizzy. Eventually it dawned on him, he noticed he was still alive.
Suddenly a pair of boots came into view. He looked up, resigned to his fate.
A woman?
She put down her rifle.
Off came the boots and socks.
She took off her clothes.
Quickly, she was naked.
Beautiful, he could not help thinking through the pain—even though he knew he was bleeding to death.
She stood there looking at him, holding something small in each hand.
Cody began to pant with fear.
“What is the name of your main buyer?” she asked in a strange accent.
“W-w-Warren.” Suddenly Cody could see fangs in her mouth. He began to cry.
“Please… please… don’t kill me.”
“Shhhhhh,” she said, “no begging now. Keep some dignity, eh?”
“What… what are you?” he stammered.
Suddenly, the thing flexed her wrists, twisted her hands. Two long dirks she was hiding under her arms appeared as if magic.
“I am silf, and I will be your personal chef for the evening.”
As the silf walked towards him, Cody began to scream once more.
Ding Novel is Done
I finished my work in progress in the wee hours of the morning, The Wælcyries Murders.
What a fun novel!
The novel, according to conventional wisdom, should not be—it’s a sequel to a book I haven’t sold yet, which, according to some, isn’t a good idea.
Like much of the advice written on the Interwebs, a person has to be very careful not only consider the source, but also the context.
One reason it’s not a good idea is that your first book may never sell. Your agent or editor may also suggest changes to the first novel that render the second one invalid. Thus you’ve wasted your time.
Or have you?
I learned so much writing this novel. It took me six months to write. What did I learn in six months?
- I learned that there are tricks and techniques to writing your first novel so the second novel in the series gels and flows with the first
- I leaned about advanced characterization beyond a self-contained novel
- I learned how to write a sequel
- I learned new things about world-building and continuity
- I learned that even well respected writers and industry can over-generalize
Out of all of these points, the most valuable to me is the characterization I learned. What’s my main character’s motive, beyond solving the mystery? How does she grow? Where do the other characters fit?
This is my fourth novel I have written; with the caveat the first novel was a pure writing exercise with no basis in publishing reality. So, it’s more novel number three. I will repeat this to myself until it is true. Heh.
The first book in the series could never sell.
I can guarantee that if I do sell a book, and my publisher asks for a sequel, the process of producing that creative work will be much better. I learn by thinking about things and doing in an iterative process.
Next post I talk about the wok itself and the other things I learned.
Imaginary Conversations with My Main Character
New post over at the other shared blog:
Adventures in Writing: Imaginary Conversations with My Main Character.
Don’t Mess with Aunt Lucinda
It’s been almost a year since I wrote this, and it still cracks me up. This is from an excerpt from my unfinished YA Novel, The Baby Dancers.
Chapter Two
***
Zeke knew there was trouble when they came down the trail and Aunt Lucinda was standing there with her hands on her hips, smiling a smirk Zeke had never seen.
They set down their jars, and Aunt Lucinda bowed to Master Ji. “Josh, Zeke, how are you today?” she said to them, giving them a little bow also.
“I am well, Aunt Lucinda,” said Josh.
“I have been enjoying this day,” said Zeke. “How are you?”
“Good.” Again, with the smirk.
Master Ji turned to Zeke. “Today’s sparring lesson…” Zeke noted the use of the word ‘lesson,’ “…will be taught by your Aunt. Zeke, you are to engage her in hand-to-hand combat. The first to yield loses.”
“What? But, but… she’s pregnant!” Zeke said. Had the adults gone crazy again?
“That is of no consequence,” Master Ji said matter-of-factly.
“I can’t hit her, what if I harmed the baby?” Zeke could not believe what was happening. It had to be a joke.
“You would hit her if she is trying to kill you. Regardless, this is an important lesson Zeke, one that your aunt approached me to implement. I do not agree with her methodology, but I do agree with her message. Prepare yourself.”
Zeke took off his sword while looking at Josh, whose eyes were as big as saucers. Zeke decided right there to use blocks. He knew that Lucinda was a marginal fighter when it came to martial arts. She was good with her sword, but her real purpose at the monastery was academic teaching—and keeping Uncle Hubert happy, it seemed. In any event, he would simply wear her out.
Then Master Ji blindfolded him.
Uh-oh, thought Zeke.
“Begin,” Master Ji said simply.
Zeke’s mind whirled, thoughts seemingly coming to him like bolts of lightning striking the trees in the valley in a storm. He heard footsteps and twisted, stepping to one side. He heard and felt a fist traveling past his head.
Zeke at that point knew he was going to lose, and take lumps. His aunt may be a marginal warrior, but she had training from the best. His brain went into overdrive. Was this a lesson on yielding to the inevitable? Should he give up now? Should he…
A sharp blow landed on his calf and he collapsed instantly, hitting the ground. He rolled.
Don’t think, act, thought Zeke.
Zeke sprung to his feet and crouched. “I am not surprised you swept me with your foot, Aunt Lucinda. I believe your ever-growing breasts have dampened your ability to hit me with your arms. Surely your swing close to your body has been hampered.”
Zeke heard a sharp intake of breath and shot his hand out now that he had a direction. Indeed, his hand connected with a breast in question. He quickly but gently squeezed it and said, “Honk honk!”
He swiftly withdrew his arm but a fist connected with his wrist. He sidestepped again, but a blow landed on his side, sending him tumbling. He twisted but not fast enough, and slammed into the ground on the same wrist. He grunted in pain.
That’s when a foot connected with his butt. He rolled but it was no use, more blows rained down on him. He tried to get up, failed, shoved back into the dirt with a mighty kick. Blindfolding him evened out their fighting abilities but he could not hit her. He could not overcome that disadvantage no matter how hard he tried.
Zeke tried to summon anger, but he found it difficult to be angry, and he did not know why. Instead, in the rain of blows and pain, he felt calm. His thoughts felt strangely dejected from the hurt he was now enduring. He was thankful she was not raining blows down on his head; otherwise, she would severely injure him.
Then he figured it out.
He took off the blindfold.
The first to yield loses. Master Ji had said. He said nothing about a blindfold. Zeke had worn it for no reason.
As he removed the cloth, a foot was traveling to his crotch. He turned to one side and grabbed it, using her momentum to throw her off balance not by pushing, which she would expect, but by pulling. Her other foot popped off the ground and she landed right on top of him, and though she was surprised, she grabbed his injured wrist and squeezed. Zeke yelped. He instantly relaxed. If she broke his wrist, his summer would be a waste.
Now Aunt Lucinda was lying on top of him, and they were nose to nose.
“I yield, Auntie Lucinda.”
She frowned, but then smiled. She made no move to get up, but she did let go of his wrist.
“Aunt Lucinda?”
“Yes?”
“I feel your baby will be the best thing that ever happened to us.”
Lucinda’s face crumpled and she started to cry.
“Oh Zeke, you always know what to say.” Then she kissed him, and just as suddenly, got up and ran off.
Zeke thought about getting up but the ground was comfortable, much more comfortable than the previous pummeling.
Master Ji came into his view on the right hand side, looking down at his face. “And what lesson did we learn today, Ezekiel?” asked Master Ji, his tone light and full of mirth.
“In battle, there are no rules. There is only the objective.”
Joshua came into view on his left side.
“What about you, Joshua? What did you learn?”
“Don’t anger a pregnant woman,” said Josh, bringing the entire week into focus.
Wednesday Over at Adventures in Writing
Every Wednesday you can find me over at Adventures in Writing.
Today I talk about women, books and voice.
Girly Stuff
I like to believe, as a male writer, I write a good female protagonist. In my Investigator Lexus Toulouse sci-fi murder mysteries, Lexus is a three-dimensional character that seems to resonate with my female readers in a way that I don’t quite understand.
Actually, I take that back. Part of the reason I can write a three-dimensional female character is because I have done research pertaining to women in lawn enforcement, and I’ve met female police officers while on duty while doing this research.
Research is vital. It is not enough to look into the heart of a female character and try to bring that to the page. The setting and plot details need a basis in reality. Lee Lofland writes to this in his latest, “Female Police Officers: Are They Really Wimpy, Or Do You Just Write Them That Way?” This article really resonates with me, because Lee often gives great tips around certain themes, themes that appear in his blog over and over again. Essentially, what he tells his blogs readers is to write life as it is, rather than life as you think it is.
Sound familiar? It should. Rachelle said the same thing:
“I get the feeling many people are so saturated with media (books, TV, movies) that they are writing not from life but from their perception of life as shown in media. They’re writing stories I’ve seen and heard a hundred times before.”
Rachelle Gardner, Literary Agent: Fiction Writing: Craft and Story
Back to Lexus (because, this post is all about me, me, me, me), Lexus is a flawed individual. You can make a compelling argument that she is mired in psychosis. She certainly suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, and obsessive-compulsive behavior. She has an addiction-prone personality.
These are flaws.
Lexus is also an emotional creature. She has a deep sympathy for people with problems and a strong intolerance for injustice. She takes injustice personally. She approaches problems with logic, but does not have tight reigns on her empathy. She feels. She feels a lot. As a woman, she has feminine emotions.
This is not a flaw. That is part of her strength. Too often, I read characters where the author went out of her way to make sure I, as a reader, understood the character was not flawed because she had boobs and lacked a penis. Yet the character is still a cliché; essentially she is an immature girl compensating for being female.
There is strength in femininity, just as there is strength in masculinity. I can write the strong female main character because I play on my strengths: observation and research. Sometimes I write the obvious in a way that is appealing to women simply because I’m an outsider and am providing a fresh, outsider voice.
Or something like that. I don’t fully understand it. I’m certainly not blazing new territory. My running theory: women are powerful creatures. As technology progresses and makes physical strength not even worthy of a secondary characteristic, the era of the woman may be upon us.
Undercover Assignment Gone Bad, in the Year 21
This is just too delicious to not share.
In the future, undercover work is rare because crime is so low. Most crimes are solved by private parties, but sometimes the stakeholders hire an official Investigator. As we saw in the previous post, Princess Lexus, an official Investigator with powers granted to her by the Federation Constitution, isn’t suited to undercover work, but does have an advantage on this assignment because, through a series of very unfortunate events from the prior story, she has the body of a seventeen-year-old girl.
Here, we find out that just when the Princess thinks things can’t get any worse, they do. Now would be a good time to place bets on how long she can go without shooting someone.
***
“Well, if I get in, I think we underestimated the amount of money dripping from Rosehill. I think I need a car,” I tell Scott and Gina over dinner.
“I think we need to see your first evaluations before agreeing to that,” says Gina.
“Do you even know how to drive?” asks Scott.
“You two need to fuck off and die,” I glare. “I’ve had a bad day.”
Gina gives me what I’m internally labeling the Patented Evil Gina Grin. Since Bambi & Associates are actually paying her to help with my cover story by pretending to be my guardian, I feel she could cut me some slack.
But no. “How bad could it be?” she snickers.
“Well, for one, I was grilled by stuck-up snots, and then grilled by nerdy snots, followed by a grilling by super-smart perverted snots. I think I deserve a car.”
I continue my gypsy glare, with implied thoughts of old-world curses. “And ice-cream.”
Gina laughs and gets up to get me my richly deserved desert.
Scott points to the kitchen clock. “Priss is going active soon, so don’t forget cover.”
Mmmmmmm, oh yeah, Priss. Suddenly my evening is looking up.
Ding-Beep, Ding-Beep.
We all look at each other, and because I’m wearing contacts, I simply sub-vocalize to my pod, which accesses the newly installed house computer, and I flip to the outside driveway camera.
In a bright red little convertible Toyota, is Beth, hair in a ponytail, big grin on her face.
“Well isn’t she blonde,” says Gina.
“Boooooooobies,” says Scott.
“Hey! She’s nice. You both are to be on your best, stoic, bloodless CEO behavior. Do not embarrass me in front of my new classmates. Keep your questions to a minimum. Scott, don’t leer, and Gina, stop smirking.”
“Oh my God,” says Gina. “You are such a teen daughter.”
“Wow, you’re a natural,” Scott says, nodding.
“Again: Fuck off and die.”
I hate this assignment. Hate, hate, hate.
***
“Beth! How nice of you to drop by,” I say at the door, motioning her inside.
Against my will, my eyes flick to her impressive cleavage, and then drop to what she is holding out at me. Flowers.
Oh, shit. Expensive orchids. I feel grateful, guilty, afraid and happy, all at the same time.
“Oh! Those are so pretty!” I tell her with a bright smile.
“They are for you. Congratulations, if you want in, we would love to have you in the squad.” Her smile is genuine, warm and friendly.
My instincts are to pop her on the jaw, key the door, and run out the back screaming.
Instead, I grab the flowers, throw my arms around her in a hug, and squeal like a girl while jumping up and down.
She giggles and hugs me back.
Scott and Gina are there, looking, amazing enough, like parents.
“Beth, this is Scott and Gina, my guardians.”
“Please to meet you both. Ms. Gina, is this a five acre lot? Your place is awesome.”
“Indeed it is. Did I just hear you offer a position on your squad to Nancy?”
“Yes, you did. We are happy to have her! It’s like way cool!”
“Oh, Honey, that’s wonderful! That’s just what you wanted,” says Gina, giving me a hug.
Awwwww… Okay. This isn’t so bad.
“Can I offer you something to drink, Beth?” asks Scott, playing the part.
“Um, no, actually, I’m on a deadline and I might need to borrow your daughter, if she agrees.”
Oh, this can’t be good.
“What up?” I ask.
“This will all be explained in the school manual and mail I will send you, but Alpha Squad has screwed up. They are unable to furnish a girl for FSMB, so the position fell to Beta, that’s us. Since I’m already in FSMB, if we can furnish another body, we’ll get enough points to go from Beta to Alpha and the academic year hasn’t even officially started yet. It will be a major upset and a big win for us. There are perks involved on being the top dog.”
“FSMB?” I ask. I am confused.
“Oh, sorry—Flying Squirrel Morale Boosters. The football cheerleading squad.”
Oh, hell no.
“Ah,” says Scott before I can open my mouth, “Nancy was just talking over dinner how she always wanted to be a cheerleader.”
Right there, a little part of my brain just died. Scott! Oh. My. Fucking. God.
“I don’t know,” says Gina, “pre-voc is already going to be a big enough transition.” She looks at me. “I don’t want you to get overloaded right out of the gate, Pumpkin.”
Go, Gina!
“Ms. Gina, we’re so academically based, we’re like the worst cheerleading squad in the PNW. We only practice for an hour on Wednesdays, and the only other commitment from that is the actual game on Fridays. And this is only during football season.”
“Oh, well, then, that sounds fine.” She turns to me. “Congratulations, Honey!”
No. No. No. No!
“Nancy, are you okay?” Beth is looking at me with concern.
“Oh, sorry. This is all very sudden, it’s like I’m in a dream and if I blink my eyes, I will wake up!”
Yeah, like a fucking nightmare.
Beth is tugging on my sleeve. “Let’s go, Pumpkin, tomorrow all the team cheerleaders have to wear their uniforms on campus, so we need to have yours fitted and cut now!”
As Beth is dragging me out the door and Scott takes the flowers to put in water, a circular thought fills my head and consumes me like my prior snorf and sex addiction:
I suck.
Undercover at High School, in the Year 21
A future cop’s worst assignment: go undercover. Back to school. High School.
Chapter 28
Prospective students should check-in at the central office, says the words in my contact lenses HUD.
Ugh. Contact lenses. I don’t like them, but then again, I gave up my NI watch so it is time to face the music. My NI watch directly interfaced with my optic nerves, so I did not need to wear contact lenses like a normal person.
But still, the last time I wore contact lenses, I almost died. A perp fried them in an EMP blast and took advantage of my vertigo by trying to gut me with a knife.
I put aside my discomfort. A little sparkling trail appears before me and I follow it. The school is not crowded, as start times are staggered.
Rosehill is a very modern school—there is nothing institutional about it. Graduates come out ready for advanced learning in specialized fields or ready for direct integration into the workforce. As a pre-vocational school, students learn advanced self-teaching and group-teaching techniques. As a premier pre-voc, the rich send their kids here to finish turning them into productive members of society. It is one of the best schools on the West Coast.
And there is the distinct possibility someone in here, a student or a facility member, is a murderer.
***
“You must be Nancy,” says a warm, older gentleman, who reminds me of Papa. He even has a vaguely Asian look.
“I am,” I stick out my hand and smile. “Please to meet you Mr.…”
He has a firm handshake but he doesn’t crush my fingers. “Berkshire. Please, just call me Berk, or Mr. Berk. I am the Chief Principal of Rosehill Analytics and Learning.”
“Very pleased to meet you, Sir.”
He motions me to sit in a chair.
“I must say your home school qualifications were pretty extraordinary, I can see why your guardians would want you to spend a year or two at Rosehill. Shame we didn’t get to you earlier.”
“Actually, they discouraged me from applying.”
He looks surprised. “Uh, they did?”
“Yes. They felt because of my isolation for my prior learning, that a home school co-op with gradual increased social interaction would be more conductive to learning.”
Damn that sounded swanky. Memo to self: dial it down a notch.
“I guess you persuaded them.”
I sigh like a good teenage girl. “Kinda. I’m actually paying for the tuition and expenses myself. Out of my inheritance. They told me up front, success or failure, either way, would be a good lesson for becoming an Adult.”
He smiles. “Well! Your guardians are old school hard-core. I like it. In a way, Mr. Scott and Ms. Gina are correct—this social and learning style is a dramatic departure. Now that you’re here, are you having second thoughts?”
“Oh, no. I am so excited to learn with other people, make new friends and just experience something new, I could just pee myself!”
Well, at least that much is true.
He laughs. Then he looks very serious.
Uh-oh.
“Nancy, do you mind if I ask you a personal question?”
“Only if you don’t mind if I tell you to stuff it if I don’t like it.”
He chuckles. “Oh, you’re feisty!” He looks at me. “You were lonely, weren’t you? I don’t know your whole story, but I can guess home schooled in the ass-end of the Northern Territories was lonely.”
I frown and look down. “Yes, yes I was.”
He nods. “I like you, Nancy. You remind me of my son when he was your age before he got all serious. So let me give you a bit of advice.”
He leans back in his hair. “Rosehill attracts learners and leaders. And the leaders can spot people who have ulterior motives a mile away. You can’t just want to get in here to make friends and have a teen life amongst the wealthy and well-connected. You have to want to learn. You have to want it bad. And if you don’t want it bad enough, then you’ll not get on a squad. As long as your desire to learn and facilitate peer learning is stronger than your desire to be a social butterfly, you’ll get in. But if it’s not, your day is going to suck and perhaps your guardians were right.”
I nod.
Shit.
***
This is my third and last interview for today. I’m fairly certain I’ve blown the prior two, and this is my last shot.
I’m fairly certain because I’ve bugged the rooms, and can hear their discussion.
Squad number one didn’t like me at all. They didn’t like my tattoo, didn’t like that I was home schooled and didn’t like that my guardians were a CEO and an Investigator.
Squad number two was a bit better. However, they didn’t like me because I wasn’t a math whiz. They completely pooh-poohed my areas of expertise, and this hurt because I’m over three times their age and have taken more advanced courses then all three of them put together.
Plus, I used my math to kill the enemy, you little snots. Not good with math, my tattooed ass.
Bah.
Failure here means we have to wave more credits around and I have to form my own squad of student partners. Forming my own squad would suck. I would have to go out and find new students. Not only would time be short for that, I don’t want to integrate myself with new students. I want to find why a murder victim had a current Rosehill squad ring. This is why I’m applying as a transfer.
My instincts tell me I need to stick to the ICDA persona. But man, does it rub some people the wrong way.
I look around the room of rich, beautiful teens and try to hide my nervousness. This six-person squad is down a member. The prior student, a girl, left when her family moved to Argentina. So at least I have that going for me.
I’m dressed in a black and gold silk skirt and matching blouse, with stockings and black boots with heels. At least with my sense of fashion and sculpted, teen looks I fit right in. I’m sitting on a comfortable chair in a study room.
The squad leader is a girl from India, and she is something else. She is tall, almost six feet, and curvy. She looks like she can squish me. Her name is Nikhita, and her mocha skin with her dark brown eyes make for an enticing look. She fills the room with her presence.
The second girl—and I believe she is the Squad Second—is so California Blonde Blue-Eyed Bimbo she actually scares me. It has to be an act. She is also tall and beautiful with breasts I would seriously consider, if they were on me, of having them surgically reduced. Her name is Beth. She looks perfect, minus the boob part.
Then we have the boys.
The first boy introduced himself as Jay. Jay is also tall and looks like a football player, complete with the no neck, blonde guy thing. He has an easy smile and his blue-gray eyes are bright and inquisitive, so I suspect he is far, far, from the quintessential jock. Jay is an alpha boy. Looking at him makes me feel funny.
I bet he is fucking Beth. They would make the beautiful couple, complete with beautiful children.
The next boy, Quinn, is as tall as Jay and dressed impeccably sharp. His brown hair is styled perfectly, and his eyes are green, like mine, although I suspect he is wearing tint. He is also painfully handsome, and while doesn’t have a quick smile as the rest, looks alert. He is the observant sort, and must work out. He seems to have muscles on top of muscles.
The last young man is Lee. Lee is tall and lanky, and gifted with that magical boy long-eyelashes thing, with mousy brown hair and big, big brown eyes. He has a swimmer’s body, and is ruggedly handsome.
Lee also makes me feel funny. The primordial part of my brain wants to nibble on him. He has a warm smile and he is very engaging. Lee is a man’s man, I’m certain.
My gay-dar doesn’t go off, so I’m betting Lee is making some girl very happy right now.
They have just finished with pleasantries, like where I’m from and why Rosehill and blah blah blah. Now begins the grilling.
“How is your day going so far?” asks Beth.
“Well enough, I think. This is a really good school and I hope my nervousness isn’t giving me bad marks in the interviews.”
“You’re doing fine,” says Nikhita. “At least with us, so far. The squads don’t share feedback.”
She has a Bangalore accent. She’s a big city girl. Portland must have been quite the culture shock.
“Ah, is this a competition thing for when you get a superior candidate?”
Nikhita nods. “Yes. I can’t go into it, but certainly, that happens.”
“Cool.” I smile. “I would like nothing better than to have people fighting for me, but I think I’ll force myself to be humble and stuff.”
Lee laughs aloud but quickly tries to look serious.
“So,” says Jay, “you’re wearing a S&W Slim-line 16. Pink.” He says the word ‘pink’ like it is a dirty word. Ha. “What type of training have you had with it?”
“I hold an Instructors Level Four Cert through S&W Training. I am quite accurate with it and can train others in their entire pistol line, which includes basic marksmanship and advanced self-defense.”
“Whoa,” says Beth.
Jay looks impressed. “Could I see your cert?”
“Certainly.” I get out my pod and send him the cert, provided by Bambi. I never qualified through S&W, but if I did, I would probably obtain their highest certificate.
This is going well. Anytime a conversation turns to guns, I have an advantage.
“How would you describe your interest in history?” asks Quinn.
“I’ve given serious consideration to becoming a historian, much to my guardians’ dismay. My emphasis is pre-war and war history, and have tested well in other eras.
“What would you consider is your weak area?” asks Beth.
“For this squad? I have this fear I don’t meet the height requirement.”
Lee again laughs but the others look non-pulsed.
Okay, maybe this is not going so well.
“Academically,” says Beth.
“I’ve haven’t put a big focus on math. Not because I don’t like it, but simply because there are so many hours of the day.”
“Don’t you think your home schooling in the Northern Territories gives you a disadvantage when it comes to peer-based learning?” asks Nikhita.
Oh boy.
“Yes, certainly. Some people are just born to relate to other people, though—I feel in my heart that I’m suited to peer-based learning. A learning squad is everything I have ever dreamed of, and I really want to give as well as receive. I feel I have so much bottled inside, sometimes I could just burst!”
The room is silent.
“Or, maybe, I just like to talk.”
This time I get a smile from Beth.
“Let’s go back to your history assertions,” asks Quinn. “What type of impact did the Collapse have on the formation of the Federation?”
“Which collapse? There were three.”
“There were?” asks Beth.
“Yes. The first collapse was the degradation of civilization via economic Armageddon caused by incompetent centralization, coupled with the spread of a nasty influenza that seemed perversely to prey on healthy adults, and then mutated to attacking children and old people. While this is what is commonly referred to as “the Collapse” with a capital ‘C’, the sneaky fact is those events were predicted and the people who picked up the pieces were well prepared to do so.”
I look around the room. “The second collapse happened soon after the first, so soon that many historians gloss over or miss the significance. Those people now in power were replaced, often violently, in a coups d’état of those who not only predicted the prior collapse, but also the first group would come to power. Those revolutionaries were the forerunners to the Federation, and unfortunately, the beginning of the Union.
“But neither of those events had the most impact of the third collapse.”
Quinn frowns. Oh well.
“The Cyber War was the true collapse. Nobody predicted it, nobody prepared for it, and it destroyed the prior, pre-Federation and pre-Union civilization by erasing everything and destroying networked computers. Afterwards, chaos, true chaos, reigned. Civilization for a short time was a bad blend of steam-punk coupled with feudalism. Only the war with the Union was more malignant, more evil. The only reason the Federation came back on top was we reverted to anarcho-capitalism, and even that was due more to who was the better shot. Free of centralization, the Fed economy prospered with unstoppable growth, which was a good thing, otherwise we humans would be extinct and the child-raping Union would be sitting here having a grand old time with their total lack of free will.”
The room is silent. Again.
I suddenly realize I have totally overstated my undercover persona. The looks I get back are blank and guarded. Crap. Crap. Crap, crap, crap!
Oh man, I suck. Why did they have to ask me about history? That and Investigations always gets me going. Only sex is more fun. I have two fucking masters in history, for fuck sake.
They ask me a few more basic questions, I hand them my card, and leave.
Fuck.
***
Scott picks me up and I motion to him that I’m busy listening.
The card I gave them, while traditional, is also a clever listening device. The paper isn’t paper at all, but a wonderful bug. It’s not nano technology, but nanos certainly manufactured it. It’s a vastly superior form of miniaturization, a technique only known to Investigators and perhaps the Military.
My pod sorts the conversation and pipes a running transcription to my contacts, along with putting the audio in my ear. I rewind it to the point I left the room.
***
Nikhita: Well, at least she wasn’t boring. Let’s go around the room. Lee.
Lee: She’s a Princess groupie! That tattoo, it’s awesome. I so want to talk to her about the Princess.
Beth: Oh my God, Princess groupies. Is there anything more pathetic?
Jay: I can’t believe we found someone who can out groupie the groupie.
Nikhita: Please, let Lee finish.
Lee: She’s very passionate about history and I don’t give a damn if she’s a hick from way-way-way-way up north.
Beth: How many ways is that?
Jay: A lot.
Lee: Quiet. Anyway, I approve. Plus, I want to do her.
Beth: Lee!
Lee: Hey, let’s be honest. She’s unreal. Did you see the muscles ripple under her blouse when she stretched? She’s like hard-soft. Or soft-hard. She’s like a gypsy from a skinsim, all curvy mysterious. And her accent is like melted chocolate butter over a warm pastry.
Beth: Lee! You can’t talk that way with your girlfriend in the room!
Nikhita: Just for that commentary, Lee, I will not be kissing you this evening. Jay?
Jay: Oh hell yes. Fuck, I can finally talk to someone about guns. You guys suck with that and our shooting scores are the worst in the school. Maybe she can teach you wankers something and I can stop banging my head tried to get blood from a bunch of rocks. I’m also impressed with her very broad academic background, her certs, and her passion for when she talks about things that interest her. Plus, I want to do her.
Beth: Jason Manuel! I am sitting right here, you Neanderthal! No kissing for you either!
Nikhita: <sighs>
Nikhita: Beth?
Beth: Well, she certainly is plucky. I like the fact that she is assertive but is mature enough not to get into any squad leadership pissing matches. Unlike you boob-centric penises, I am not terribly impressed with her academics. However, when she talks about subjects she knows, Jay’s right. She gets animated. I think she has a big capacity to teach history, and we need that, especially since Meg moved away and broke Quinn’s heart. Plus, uh, I want to do her.
Jay: Fuck yeah! Can I watch?
Beth: Not a chance in hell, turd-brain. I’m mad at you—remember?
Jay: Oh, so I can’t lust after gypsy girl but you can?
Beth: That’s because I use romance and you just wave your penis around thinking that’s foreplay.
Jay: You know it.
Nikhita: <sighs>
Nikhita: Quinn? You sounded like you had the most reservations.
Quinn: Are you kidding me? She’s fucking brilliant. If we could get out half of what she knows about history, we’re golden.
Lee: Whoa. I thought Quinn was impressed with nothing.
Quinn: Plus, I want to do her. Her lecture actually gave me a boner.
Beth: Oh. Em. Gee.
Quinn: Want to see it?
All: No!
Quinn: Anyway, Nikhita, she’s a fit. She’s quirky and her record clearly indicates she is a dedicated, unconventional learner. My only beef is I had to think seriously about unpleasant topics, because my mind kept going back to wanting to nibble on her tattoos.
Lee: Heh.
Jay: Heh.
Beth: Boys!
Jay: You said you wanted to do her!
Beth: Yes, but I plan to give her flowers, take her to dinner, get her drunk, and then do her.
Nikhita: <sighs>
Nikhita: Okay then. I have reservations along Beth’s thinking. I think her isolation has skewed her motives for applying. To me it seemed she was more interested in the school and the people rather than the true benefits from peer-based instruction. But I can’t deny she knows what she is talking about. We’re down a squad mate, she doesn’t smell and she’s a tad sarcastic, which will make her fit in just fine with you spoiled-brat malcontents.
Lee: And?
Nikhita: And what?
Jay: And?
Nikhita: <sighs>
Beth: And?
Nikhita: Fine. I want to do her.
Quinn: God, I love this squad. Thank you, Jesus.
***
We’re across the river, heading to Gina’s. I nod to Scott, indicating I’m done with my surveillance.
“Well?” Scott asks.
“Let’s see: Lee is going out with Nikhita. Beth is dating Jay. Quinn is single and pinning away after Meg, the squad mate who moved, but I think they all might be swappers. Hard to say.”
Scott reaches over and smacks me on the back of the head.
“Ow!”
“Can you give me a professional rundown of your day? Set the teen girl aside before I puke.” He shudders.
I squirt him the recording and transcript. He puts the car on auto and listens.
“Nancy, I think you are in trouble. You can’t fuck a Child.”
“Major Scott! I am not a pervert! Of course I can’t! That’s just teen banter. Tacking sex on the end of everything makes them feel empowered.”
“Yeah, they want to empower up your pookie.”
“Leave my pookie out of this!”
“Poor Priss. She’s going to be walking funny as you channel their flirting into sex-bot relief.”
“You suck.”
“Ha!”
Dinner Excitement in the Year 21
Dinner in the Toulouse poly marriage can be exciting.
Everyone at dinner thinks Papa moving in is a great idea.
Mainly because, sometimes, I am a medical mess.
Except Katie. To her, this is beyond a good idea. She looks so happy she is about to burst.
“What?” It is easy to think that Katie is a dumb blonde, rather than one of the smartest scientists ever to walk the Earth, the bio-equivalent of Albert Einstein.
Minus the crazy part. Right now, she looks like a bubblehead with a goofy grin.
“My twenty-five-ish year old evil plan is coming to a close!” She actually claps her hands.
I sigh.
“What?” asks Cazandra, looking confused.
“Babies! Milo would make a great grandfather. It’s what he wants, really, really bad,” says Kate, although it is blazingly obvious who wants the babies.
“I need to relearn how to just be a normal woman first,” I say.
“Oh! Oh! She didn’t say no!”
I roll my eyes, but then I look at everyone. “Yes. I would like to have a baby someday. Not anytime soon.” I give Kate a big grin. “Just warn me before you stick an egg up there.”
She startles as if I poked her with a shock baton. Oh my God!
“Sharon Kaitlin Toulouse! You were not planning on putting an egg in me for fertilization without me knowing about it, were you?”
“Yeeeeee…no. No, of course not.”
I reach across the table, grab her wrist and twist.
“Ow! Ow! Let go!”
“If I suddenly find myself pregnant without planning, I swear to God I will chop your hand off at this wrist and feed it to the beagle!”
“Okay! I’ll be good!”
“Swear!”
“I swear,” she says with hesitation in her voice.
I twist and pull. Her place setting crashes to the ground as she comes partially out of her seat. Everyone is looking at me with wide eyes.
“Ow! I swear I won’t impregnate you without you knowing about it first. I promise!”
I yank her all the way onto the table. Dishes and food go everywhere. I pin her hand to the table with one hand and with the other, I grab my steak knife and make a cut on her palm.
“Ahhhh!”
I stand on my chair and put a knee on her arm, and I let go. I then cut my own palm, and hiss in pain.
I grab her bloody hand and with my bloody hand, then remove my knee. I squeeze her hand tight until she cries out again.
I let go.
“There. Your promise is a blood oath. We are now blood sisters by honor and deed. The vow is set.”
Kaitlin is lying on the table, smeared with food, drink and blood soaking her clothing, and crying.
I turn to Caz.
“So, what’s for dessert?” I ask, dripping blood on the floor.
“Aaaaand that’s why you don’t fuck with the LT,” says Vash.
Conflict in the Year 21: Tokyo
Oh man, the absurd situations I foster on my poor main character.
As a ex-NI soldier and pilot, I was naked on base many a time. There were times where if I had anything touching my skin I would just lose it. It’s a common side effect of neural implants. My sensitivity to touch is higher than a normal person is, and sometimes that’s a disadvantage.
Today, nudity isn’t common, but it isn’t rare either.
So it was with some nervousness Kaoru is escorting me to the front of the hotel lobby where I can summon Thor, because I’m wearing nothing but a pair of spaghetti-strap fuck-me heels. Each step is a sparkly slither of the naked sexy.
And people are staring. Conversations stops, mouths hang open, women pause, men drink me with their eyes. Oh, this was a mistake. I feel self-conscious and stupid that I, of all people, feel self-conscious.
Kaoru is following behind me carrying a locked case containing my purse, PDA, and needler. She is smirking at the reactions to her handiwork.
Thor is suddenly at my side. Never have I been so grateful to see him. “I can take that, Miss Kaoru-san,” he says. She hands the case over, bows at me, and when I return her bow, she grins and leaves.
The lobby is still silent. Thor puts his hand on my arm.
“Look, Lieutenant, I want to be up front this was not my idea. I told them no. I might as well have been speaking to a rock.”
“What?” This doesn’t sound good. No, not good at all!
“Come.”
I plant my heels and almost fall over. “Thor, I am naked, wearing only scandalous heels and an absurd amount of credits in diamonds. Spit it out!”
“There is a crowd of people outside waiting to escort you to the Palace.”
No! Damn it!
I feel faint, on the verge of hyperventilating. I don’t do well with crowds. “Crowd? Can I slip out the back? Can we VTOL over? How many people are we talking about here?”
I detect a wisp of a smile from the normally stoic Thor.
“All of them, I think.”
Crap.
Murder in the Year 21
We emerge from the closet and I notice my PDA on the floor, where I dropped it, is blinking red.
Blinking is bad. I stop and motion for Caz to wait. She looks at the blinking light and frowns.
—Bambi, what up, boss?
—Have you ever been kissed by a wælcyrie?
—What? No! Of course not. Command gave direct, written orders to all NI soldiers to stay away from wælcyries. They separated us, not even the same base. What the hell, you blink me for that?
—Are you sure? Are you 100% sure?
—Yes, I am alive, aren’t I? What’s this about?
—Scott and I are in Portland. This case is—bad. We need you to primary an autopsy with Ivan in about two hours. We’re sending the body up there.
—Ugh. Look, I’ve actually done an autopsy under direction, but it’s really not my…
—Lexus, this is murder. Someone murdered a wælcyrie. And Ivan has been kissed by one. You have to help him. He won’t be able to do it and the client insists we do not subcontract any of this case. Scott and I need to wrap up here.
—Ivan? How did he live through that?
—You can ask him. He isn’t talking to us. Meet him in his lab in two.
—Okay.
—Gotta go.
—Love you.
—Love you, too.
Several things run through my head at once. Who would murder a wælcyrie? Why our east of Seattle agency and not a Portland one? How did Ivan survive the neurological changes of a wælcyrie kiss with his implants?
“Lexus, are you okay? Is there something wrong at work? You look funny…”
I look at Caz and think what I was avoiding thinking about: Bambi.
Bambi’s response to my regen brain damage was to give me more work.
Don’t care what those fucking charts say, Lexus. I believe in you. You’re an Investigator until I say different, she told me.
“Lexus?”
Bambi believes in me with all her heart. What if I let her down?
Don’t fool yourself Lexus, considering what you did last night, what if you let her down again?
“Lexus!”
Why am I looking at the ceiling? Ah cra…
Ideas and the Creative Process of the Hack Writer
Kiersten asks in a recent blog post:
If you write, where do your ideas come from? Do you start with a scene? A character? A premise? Or do you have some ridiculous trigger that demands you spin a story out of it?
That is a good question. A novel thrusts itself into my poor overloaded mind based on two things: a character, and a theme.
This is the heart of my creative process. I need both a main character with a distinctive voice, and I need a unifying idea. When the two meet, it’s magic. My brain will refuse to let go of the two, and, at some point, they merge and I will have the resulting plot and setting. I am now compelled to write the story.
But where do these characters and themes come from?
Mainly, I observe. I am not a shy man, but I am a quiet fixture. Why does that smartly dressed woman at the airport waiting for the same flight as me have a perpetual frown? Why are the neighbors across the street so reclusive? Is the wife sick? If so, will she ever get better? The Sheriff Deputy in the coffee shop–if she were in trouble, big trouble, would she have the will and fortitude, beyond her training, to survive? If she did have this internal strength, but was in the wrong place at the wrong time, would anybody come to help?
Observation can give me characters, and it can give me themes.
For example, why does our society have a culture of blame-the-victim, bordering on the tolerance for the criminal? Where did this corruption come from, and where will it lead? Why do some cultures today feed off each other, becoming stronger, while others clash, causing conflict? Is a society that devalues the lives of children for the sake of control and equality doomed to failure? If so, how will it fail?
Sometimes, I will be thinking these questions and suddenly they will merge into a story. Like this proto-outline:
The Sheriff Deputy in the coffee shop is in trouble. She is a strong person but in the wrong place at the wrong time. She is a righteous woman, but righteousness is not going to save her now (this is the character, maybe the main character, or an important minor one).
Career criminals, released by our society to prey upon the weak once more without mercy, decided they were going to kill a copy one day. Our society tolerates evil men such as this. It has happened before (in the real world), and it will happen again (sadly, this is also a reality). Where did this corruption come from, and where will it lead? (this is a theme).
The righteous and the evil go at it in the coffee shop parking lot. Outgunned and outmaneuvered, the death of the female deputy is a forgone conclusion. How would she get out of this?
She gets help. A woman caught in the crossfire draws her sidearm and joins the gun battle (this is the glimmering of a plot and also a very strong character).
Why did this woman have gun? Well, she has the typical ex-husband who has threatened to kill her. She decided she wasn’t going to use a paper shield and actually defend herself (this is related to the theme, but also further characterization).
Only, she isn’t defending herself. She is defending someone sworn to defend her! She is shot. Several times. Nevertheless, everyone lives, except the evil men.
And this heroic action caused the next American Civil War (this is now the plot).
That’s my writing process. For me, only when I have a firm character, or characters, and a unified idea to generate conflict as a theme, can I get a plot that works for me. At this point, I have a novel. All that is left is my outlining process (which I do in my head) and typing.
You may think a gun battle in a coffee shop parking lot and the next American Civil War is a gigantic, random leap–but it’s not. The theme, as you recall, is “Where did this corruption (tolerance for evil) come from, and where will it lead?” With these characters and this theme, the plot burst out of me like the alien from the chest of poor Kane on the Nostromo.
This is my creative process, how I obtain ideas and turn them into novels. And it works very well for me.
Revisions, Hack Writer Style
In this post, I showed a draft Chapter 1 of a book project, a science fiction murder mystery.
Occasionally, I will revise on-the-fly either to conform to the outline I have running in my head, or because, even if I am clicking along, there is something about the writing that bugs me (and ‘bugs me’ is a technical term).
I kept going back the this chapter, because the writing bugged me. Then I figured it out: the main character, as written, may have garnered sympathy but not a whole lot of empathy. If taken out of context as the opening chapter of a book 2, Lexus is just a junkie looking for an excuse to get high.
There’s the age-old problem. How do you get a reader to emphasize with the main character?
I am not sure of the answer for this novel, yet. I am a naturally empathetic person, I will think about why somebody does something by putting myself in her place. I guess that is what I attempted here. I am not exactly enamored by the first sentence, but it is a grabber of sorts.
The revision:
Chapter 1
My PTSD therapist told me, before he died and broke my heart, that, despite my aggressive desire for justice and a physiological and pathological need for constant sex, I was a caring, nurturing woman.
Then he died and for some reason, I could not cry at his funeral, and I never forgave myself for that.
Until now, because I have been thinking of him, and crying. It is a cloudy night on top of Mt. Si, where my Investigator office is, and I am at the precipice of a sheer drop, a good spot to view the forested towns below.
I miss him terribly. He did not deserve to die from an Uplink flashback, when his neural receptors caused his brain to link to itself. He died before he could Uplink with a real person, which would have prevented his nervous system from a cascading failure. It is a horrible way to die.
It should have been me.
I wish he was here, and I could talk to him. Four Husbands and two Wives, yet I feel alone, a deep sense of sadness, and I am paralyzed with dark, circular thoughts.
It is, of course, my fault. Everyone is the same but I have changed, drastically. I came out of the regen tank to fix my war-wounds for once and all, as a little teen sexpot. Not even a younger version of myself, I look like a little sister, if I had a little sister. Shorter. Lithe and svelte instead of curvy and athletic.
I am a pixie. All I need is wings.
I contemplate jumping off my mountaintop, falling unto the rocks below. Splat. No wings here. Just another broken vet offing herself, a grim post-war statistic: a little chit-mark in the right column instead of the left.
Suicide, while classic, would be dishonorable. I do not fear death but my honor is all I have left. I don’t have my body. I don’t have my wisdom. I don’t have my spouses. I gave my virtue to the Empress. All I have left is my damn honor, my warped sense of personal justice tied up with my duties as an Investigator.
I take a deep breath, and now feel the cold rain on my face as I look down at the rain-soaked forest landscape and realize I am feeling sorry for myself.
Well I have a cure for that. If my spouses won’t tend to my needs, I will seek intimacy elsewhere. I sub-vocalize to my Investigator PDA.
—Arune?
A pause. I sigh. Pause is bad. Arune is my old warship. The only reason he would not respond instantly is if he was out of range.
—Sorry Lexus, I’m on the moon with Tiff and Britt. Back in three days.
—Okay. I love you; call me when you get back.
Arune and Britt, two of my current lovers, while Tiff is a potential lover. Just like that, my list of lovers for the evening snipped short.
I am in desperation territory because the rocks at the bottom of Mt. Si are now calling to me.
—Empress, my love?
A pause. Oh no, please no.
—Lexus, my darling, my Concubine, my Princess. I have taken a trip to the moon. Be back soon.
The moon. What the fuck? Why would the military, and the Empress, go to the moon? Logically, it makes sense, the part about being together. Britt is a Military Police Lieutenant, Arune is a warship, and Tiff is his pilot. So yeah, the four have met before and I am sure they will meet again. But the moon? All that’s on the moon is some launchers and dusty old nano-factories that nobody wants to turn on, and some privately funded research bases.
I mentally shrug. I made the conscious decision to disengage myself from the Military. I don’t need to know, so nobody tells me what is going on. And when it comes down to it, I don’t want to know.
Now I am in trouble. My fellow Investigators, of course, would always tend to me, if I asked. Scott and I have never made love, but the unspoken opportunity is there. But Scott is in Portland on a sudden assignment.
Ivan is downstairs sleeping. He is exhausted from completing four insurance dictated autopsies. He didn’t even leave his office, crashing on the couch. Ivan is not a young man. To wake him up with my need to be touched and kissed would be very selfish.
And that leaves my boss, Bambi. My relationship with her is complicated. On one hand, she is like the daughter I never had, and my best friend in the entire world. On the other, I find her attractive.
Bambi is not into women. I could seduce her, but that would make me the Shit of the Century. I refuse to burn my friendship and my career to satisfy my lustful desires.
Look at me—I am all grown up. A giggle escapes from my lips.
I am at the end of my rope.
Well, when the going gets tough, the tough go on a snorf binge. Snorf will let me turn the insidious compulsion that owns me into a manageable burn.
As long as I don’t die from an overdose.
Rachelle Gardner, Literary Agent: Fiction Writing: Craft and Story
Writer folks, check out this post:
Rachelle Gardner, Literary Agent: Fiction Writing: Craft and Story
She says:
I get the feeling many people are so saturated with media (books, TV, movies) that they are writing not from life but from their perception of life as shown in media. They’re writing stories I’ve seen and heard a hundred times before.
I love this post. I love it very much.
Rachelle is talking about stories with a heart.
Stories that speak to your soul.
Stories that bypass the surface and talk about things the way they are.
Stories that are honest.
That is exactly what I read.
And that’s exactly what I want to write, and I do write.
What an inspirational post!
