abrock

EDIT: Formatting not very good, I cleaned it up as best I could, but its copy/pasted from a word doc. Sorry.


-2-
Pain

She stood alone in the twilight, outlined against the cityscape on the observation deck of Acrology 9, basking in the glow of a rare sunset. Seeing the sun was a rare enough occurrence in City 24 that Natasha never seemed to grow tired of it. Even diffused through the diamond-aluminum alloy panels, which comprised the shell of the biospheres that shielded them from the invisible horrors of the deadzone, it was a beautiful sight to her eyes. Textdox mentioned that before the Collapse the sun had actually been visible every day. Every day! Perhaps that was why people had taken it for granted… or maybe they hadn’t. Very few people complained about it anymore, and in fact many seemed to begrudge their sustainer of Terran life for keeping them trapped inside the biospheres. Of course, Natasha knew the truth: It was more the Unified Union government keeping them prisoner than any natural restrictions. With the technology available to humans after the Second Industrial Revolution they could have mass produced proper protections to allow people access to the deadzone at their whim, but they hadn’t, for the simple yet all important reason of control.

Why anyone would actually want to visit the deadzone was another story. There were tales of mutants, monsters, and bands of renegade humans, but Natasha knew most of them to be simply scare tactics to keep the populace from finding things out for themselves. The environment was deadly though, that was certainly no lie. The nuclear exchanges with China which led to the Collapse had done a bang-up job of eliminating most of the life on Earth outside of the biospheres. She had personally avoided the horror of the Collapse, having been born 7 years after, but the few textdox and old fashioned photoprints which had survived convinced her to be thankful she had not lived to see it in person.

‘Spirit,’ it was Runa’s voice in her netlink. ‘Where are you? I’m on my way back.’

Natasha smiled to herself and brought her thumb and pinky together to complete the bioelectric loop which activated the netlink send function, and, still absorbing every ray of UV shielded sunlight as if it were vintage wine, she replied softly.

‘I’m watching the sunset… join me if you like.’

She thought about the netlink for a brief minute and wondered why the concept had not caught on with the popular crowd sooner. A tiny bioelectric transceiver implanted inside the ear canal offered high quality and extremely secure 2-way communications, with the added bonus that it was comfortable and never needed to be removed unless it became faulty, which was a rare enough event in itself that Natasha had never witnessed it happen. The only downside was that only someone with your exact netlink encrypt could communicate with you, and the encrypt had to be programmed in before the netlink was surgically implanted. This discouraged its use as a versatile communications platform, but for small teams of 2 or 3 running Infiltration, Interchange or, heaven forbid, Evacuation missions, the netlink was a godsend.

‘I’ll do that,’ Runa’s voice echoed back after a moment. ‘Just give me a minute to put away the drinks and check the mail. The last Halcyon contact gave a tentative date for the next party, remember. I hope he decides soon; I hate long waits.’ A ghostly grin touched the corners of Natasha’s mouth as she pictured her friend’s face grumbling out that last part. Runa truly hated inactivity; the girl always had to be doing something. Natasha assumed it had something to do with a genetic condition which gave her more free energy than most people, but she also knew that Runa followed the mantra that inactivity led to complacency, complacency led to mistakes, and mistakes led to death. Normally, Natasha might have seen fit to argue the point, but she had seen enough death in the past 5 months to know that the diminutive blond had a point. In many ways, Runa was the rough realist, while Natasha was the… what was that word she had heard them use in school to describe those people who lived a carefree life and smoked a lot of… hippies, that was it. She giggled to herself. Such a silly word… hippies!

Hymn

It was good, kept me reading from begining to end. There a few minor technical errors to point out. but I'm lazy and would rather have someone else show them.

It certianly reminded me of a game called Dues Ex though.

Keep up the good work, I'll note on the technical error later if someone else doesnt =)

__________________
Live in your imagination.

abrock

I think the sequel to Deus Ex (never played it beyond the first leve, it was crap) had an event they also referred to as "The Collapse" but other than that I don't see any similarities... at least besides the usual conspiracy stuff. ECHELON is real, Deus Ex didn't make that up.

Hymn

It just the whole setting of the Archology and such, with the Deadzone. Just reminds me of Dues Ex. =)

But do you have any other samples for us? I would like to read more.

__________________
Live in your imagination.

abrock

Sure, I have about 70 standard pages (250 words/page) written so far.

Here is another example, this is near the end of the first chapter. After the last line of this, the 2nd chapter (my first post) begins:

Natasha was many things… but she was not a coward. She took her hands off her head and crossed them across her chest, half expecting to die before she completed the move. She looked white hair straight in his cold blue eyes and told him, 'I choose death.'

Before the words were even out of her mouth she felt her world reverse direction as she was grabbed bodily from behind and thrown with crushing force onto the filthy concrete floor of the bar. She gasped as her breath left her, but had no time to organize her thoughts as 2 kicks came in simultaneously to her head and stomach. The blows were delivered with punishing, but not murderous, force, and her body erupted in a kaleidoscope of dancing agony. A cruel hand picked her up by her shoulder length auburn hair, forcing her upright even as her body screamed in torment. She had barely registered the upright stance when a fist came smashing into her stomach, doubling her over with renewed anguish. One more brutal punch smashed into her face, knocking her into the air and back onto the concrete on her back. She heard a voice whimpering softly and, realizing it was her own, hated herself for it, but her body was currently out of her conscious control. She couldn’t breath, couldn’t move, and as blood streamed back across her face over her eyes, she knew she the pain had probably only just begun. The rough hands seized her protesting limbs and shoved her back into the booth opposite white hair, and his voice interrupted her waves of pain as he sat across from her quietly with a sadistic expression on his face.

‘You might choose death, young Natasha, but a quick death would be an easy way out after all the trouble you’ve caused us.’ He glanced around the bar, scanning for trouble, but the few patrons who remained at such a late hour were wise enough to completely ignore the injustice unfolding at the corner booth. ‘I’ve convinced my superiors to forgo the usual chat we have with detainees, inasmuch as we already know anything you might be able to tell us.’ A ghostly smile crossed his features. ‘Assuming you would cooperate at all, which, given your last statement, now seems unlikely.’

Natasha summoned deeply from her reserves of courage and spit in his direction, noting detachedly that it was blood that came forth to land on the table. She was about to make a clichéd comment about the good guys always winning in the end, even though she distantly knew it wasn’t even true, but her thoughts were cut off as she noticed something in the eyes of white hair that she’d never seen before: Fear. He was absolutely terrified, and was looking… just behind her? She dared not turn around, even if she was physically capable of such action. Her body still protested loudly just from her continued upright posture, and she doubted her ability to do anything more than slump over unconscious. The blood loss must have been worse than she thought, because she was starting to get a bit light headed. She hoped fervently she wouldn’t pass out just yet, because this new development was too good to pass up, even if it made things worse for her situation.

‘W-w-what are you doing here?’ white hair demanded shakily. ‘I was told this was a Syntel op, and nobody informed me-” his voice cut off in an abrupt gurgle and Natasha dimly noted the hilt of the slender diamondblade protruding from white hair’s fleshy throat with satisfaction. Even if she was destined to die this night, at least this bastard had gone first. A strange bending of light to her left caught her attention, and as it inexplicably moved into the booth next to the punctured blackbird, she gasped loudly, realizing just what it must be.

But why would a Shadow kill Syntel agents? She assumed the answer would be forthcoming shortly, and she wasn’t sure she was going to like it.

The collection of bent light seemed to shimmer and detach, with a tendril moving up to the diamondblade and loudly removing it. Natasha noticed that the blade had cleanly struck through the throat and cleaved the spinal column apart before lodging in the hard ferro-plastic of the booth lining. Whoever had thrown the blade must have had tremendous muscular abilities for such a punishing kill. The bent light beams coalesced again and a mechanical, synthesized voice spoke.

‘We must go immediately.’

Natasha would have liked nothing better than to ‘go’ at this point, but she doubted herself able to travel. Plus, the fact that her face and streetcoat top were soaked with blood meant that travel in public would be difficult. She opened her mouth to explain but the voice silenced her fears away.

'The back way, it is not far. Come. Quickly.' And with that the Shadow slowly moved out of the booth. Natasha felt supportive hands helping her to her feet… strangely familiar hands, her mind told her distantly.

‘Wait!’ she cried ‘My Astral!’ Turning, she swept up her beloved holocom quickly, ignoring the pain as she stuffed it in its proper place inside her streetcoat. She turned toward the back door but saw no sign of the Shadow. The door was open, so she assumed the path was clear, and staggered toward it. Her legs turned to be in better shape than she thought, and as long as she ignored the pain threatening to drop her back onto the deck, she found she could walk without collapsing. She stumbled through the entrance and found herself in a dimly lit storage room with another door at the far left end of the room. Trying to hold herself upright, she gasped for breath and unsteadily moved towards it. A small rodent squealed and darted out of her way under a keg of some type of intoxicating beverage as she reached the doorway. Her pain was exquisite now, and though she felt close to collapsing, she ordered her body on. The alley behind The Velvet Haze was damp, dirty, but most of all, it was dark. She didn’t even realize there were steps descending in front of her until she was already falling, and although she knew she wasn’t yet safe, she welcomed the black as an end to the pain. As the night pushed past her consciousness to overtake her thoughts, she hoped her mysterious benefactor would not leave her for a Syntel agent to discover. They would likely not be the least bit pleased at the results, and would likely assume she had a direct hand in the death of their man.

Darkness fell, and she embraced it.

Hymn

Good stuff. Now I want the whole thing

Keep up the good work, and get this puppy published when its done. Good luck.

abrock

I've been reading how hard it is to get published if you're a sf/f writer, and I hope I can get a chance to be published, because I know I could get a good following with the material I've been designing.

PigletLover

I agree with the other replies - it is an interesting read. It kept me reading when most of the posts in this section bore me within the first 10 lines!

My only critical remark would be to edit out the adverbs - especially where they're used in dialog attribution. They make the writing come off a little too "simple." I hope that makes sense. The best way I can demonstrate what I mean is via example.

Use of adverb:
1. "Stand back!" he said forcefully.
2. He bent over his dead wife and cried weepily.

Obviously, these are corny examples - but they are obviously weaker than they could be. Consider these instead:
1. "Stand back!" he said. (If we do our jobs correctly by showing instead of telling, we already know he made the comment forcefully!)
2. Tears stained his dusty cheeks as he cried over the corpse of his wife.

Other than that little bit of criticism, I enjoyed the story. I would like to read it from the beginning when you have it finished!

PL

abrock

Could you possibly point to a place in the above text where you found my adverb usage poor?

PigletLover

I'm happy to oblige you...

First instance: "white hair demanded shakily"
Another: "...and Natasha dimly noted the hilt of the slender diamondblade protruding from white hair’s fleshy throat with satisfaction"
Another: "and as it inexplicably moved into the booth next to the punctured blackbird, she gasped loudly, "

These three examples are fairly representative of what most people do when they begin writing. We (myself included, here) tend to pad our prose with adverbs because we're afraid the reader won't "see" the same picture we see. Adverbs can help in that aim, but the price is cumbersome, simplistic writing that is reminiscent of the Hardy Boys series.

In order to get a feel for what I'm getting at, edit out every adverb in your story and read it through. My guess is that it will read better, have better pace, and feel more professional. You may have to add to sentences or paragraphs to get your ideas across as clearly as you want, but try to do it without adverbs! Read my version of the three example sentences:
1. "...white hair demanded."
2. " and Natasha smiled with grim satisfaction when she saw the hilt od the slender diamondblade protruding from white hair's lacerated throat."
3. "and as it moved into the booth next to the punctured blackbird, she gasped...."

It isn't necessary to describe the way in which everything happens...leave it up to the reader to decide how Natasha gasped, loudly or softly. It really will make your writing more powerful and moving. That was one of the biggest complaints my editor had when I published a short story...get rid of the adverbs!

Hope this helps....PL

abrock

Ok, I'll do that and see how it goes. Thanks for the advice! I'll post another sample chapter later today when I get rid of my adverbs.

A question though: How are you sure the reader will be getting the proper picture of the scenes without detailed description?

PigletLover

That is the trick! Basically, you draw a picture with your words, but you have to know what details are needed. The best "help" I have ever received in this area came from a Stephen King book. It's titled On Writing. I would strongly suggest you read it.

In it, he discusses several ways in which you can describe a scene, a character, or an action without going into too much detail. Just the basic description, if done properly, will draw the reader into your fantasy and cause them to fill in the missing parts for themselves, so to speak. I have had limited success with doing this, as do most people. My more successful pieces (those that have been published), I've realized are the ones in which I am most spartan with details, yet I go the extra mile with my descriptive work.

I hope that makes sense. I realize it's sort of nebulous - it's hard to explain. This is one of the main areas in writing where the mechanics of the craft are not enough...the art takes over. Some people are better at it than others. You still have to learn the technique to do it, though!

PL

abrock

Piglet here is another "chase" sequence I wrote today, which takes place later on (actually earlier in time though) in the book. Does it seem to flow better? I had to throw in a few details about the mag trains and the subway system, but I think I managed to break it into the pace well. Some people complained earlier about throwing in too much detail and not letting my initial ambush scene move fast enough. If this is better, let me know so I can fix the first one the same way!

------------------------------

Runa Mulholland bustled her way through the late afternoon transit crowd with impatience, her unbuttoned trench coat fluttering in the wave of her movement. Late again. She grumped. Mackay, always the punctuality crank, was going to kill her. Her eyes scanned the crowd from behind dark glasses, appraising the passersby warily. There was no particular reason to suspect danger today, but caution in the little blond came as automatically as breathing. Reaching into her pocket for a 5 daera coin as she stepped up to the automated ticketing machine, she carefully checked her peripheral vision for suspicious behavior. Nothing.

Why do I feel so odd about this? She asked herself for the tenth time as she deposited the coin, grabbing the resulting ticket the machine ejected as she turned toward the flow of humanity moving toward the boarding area.

The City 24 tube system was a renovated version of the 20th century Moscow subway, forged deep into the underground rock by Russian engineers to serve as both a transit system and a shelter in times of war. It had required a lot of extensive work to serve as the mass transit system for a city the size of 24, but from what Runa knew of the other subways in the Unified Union she decided that this was one of the better ones. As the cascade of mortality spilled onto the station platform from the upper level, she carefully maneuvered herself towards the edge of the crowd, scanning faces the whole way. Still nothing.

The next mag arrived silently, as such trains always did, with a whoosh of displaced air to announce its presence. Runa watched with disinterest as the passengers poured from the train onto the arrival platform on the opposite side of the tracks, even as people on her side poured onboard, and silently wished for all the world that Natasha was within netlink range. She needed a comforting voice at the moment more than anything else, something familiar to calm her rising sense of paranoia, but Natasha was halfway across the city on the surface, almost 400 feet above her head. Gritting her teeth, she used size to her advantage and slipped her petite frame between 2 businessmen, darting her way onto the nearest car.

The gauss train, usually referred to as a ‘mag’, had been popularized in the 40s with the advent of better commercial implementations of military gauss technology, and was fast, safe, and quiet. Capable of transporting over a thousand people per train while using very little electricity, mags also made for very efficient transport, and so the Union adopted them as the primary mode of public transportation in every city in the early 50s. Now it was used daily by millions, with trains arriving and departing every few minutes, and that fact alone made it a prime target for surveillance. Concealed cameras, voice recorders, and all manner of covert security measures were employed to monitor the unsuspecting commuters.

Runa sank back into a seat at the furthest corner near the front and crossed her arms, pretending to nap. Behind her sleepy façade, however, her mind was racing, as she was now convinced something was terribly wrong, and she was in mortal danger. She didn’t know what it was, and that just made it all the worse. Scanning the crowd in her immediate vicinity, she looked for something, anything, that might give her reason to abort the run and withdraw from the area. There were 2 businessmen immediately in front of her, chatting about stock profits or some other such nonsense, and just behind them she saw a mother holding her baby as she tried to read a magazine with her free hand. Runa coughed once, and, almost lazily, brought a hand up to her mouth to suppress a yawn, shifting her position in her seat so she could more easily inspect the rest of the car.

She automatically discounted teenagers and children; neither government police group used them for their purposes. Though, she admitted to herself, that could change. There were any number of regular looking drone types sitting on the far side of the car, any one of which could be a Syntel or Interpol operative in disguise. She scanned their faces, hoping to catch one of them looking her way, as their eyes always gave them away, but had no such luck. Most of the drone types were female, she noticed, which was expected, what with current demographics. Her eyes traced a line from one to the next, looking for a nervous glance, suspicious look, or other telltale. She carefully inspected a lanky brunette in a dark brown drone outfit who was chatting amiably with a teenage redhead, about her own size, but cuter, she decided. Neither one seemed out of the ordinary, so she ignored them and continued her scan. Behind them was a tall woman with extremely long, blond hair, attired in the outfit of a sphere mechanic. She was studiously writing something on a clipboard, using an old fashioned ink pen and paper.

Probably involved with plate supply or something. Runa mused idly to herself; sphere mechanics rarely used the tube unless it had to do with plate procurement. She moved on to the next traveler, a middle aged woman in a gray business suit with slick black hair and wire frame glasses…

Three minutes later she had to admit the entire exercise had been completely worthless. No one had looked her way or even twitched the entire time. Perhaps, she conceded. I’m just jumping at shadows.

Instantly she regretted her choice of words as she felt the momentum of the train slow as the giant deceleration magnets began their work to drop it neatly into South Exit 12. Jumping at Shadows… she shivered.

The train stopped with typical mag silence, and as people began to file out she tensed, watching for signs of a noose closing around her neck. Nobody moved against her, or even paid her any attention, and as the last few people shuffled past she finally allowed herself to relax a bit. Natasha was right, She smiled darkly to herself. This paranoia’ll be the death of me yet.

She felt an object land in her lap and looked down to see a clipboard lying face down. She jerked up, looking for the owner, but the doors to the arrival side were just closing, and for the next few seconds, nobody would be moving in or out of the train. An icy hand gripped her heart as she flipped the pad over and brought it up to read the shorthand which flowed smoothly across the bottom of the maintenance form.

Birds circling 13, diving for 12. Abort.

She didn’t waste a single moment. Leaping to her feet, she darted through the opening departure side door nearest her, surprising the people waiting to board as she carved her way through the human sea. That sphere mechanic was a Guardian! Her mind notified her distantly, but it was too late for analysis. That would come later, assuming there was a later. Here and now, her mind was focused on escape, but even as she scampered through the crowd amid the curses of commuters, she knew it was going to be dicey. Two blackbirds were rounding the last corner on their way down to the boarding level, and they spied her an instant after she spotted them.

But an instant was more than enough. Summoning every ounce of energy in her small body she screamed a single word as loudly as she could.

‘BOMB!!!’

The effects of her alarm were instant and violent, and had Natasha been there she would certainly not have approved. But she’s not here, Runa reminded herself. I am.

The crowded mass of commuters rose as one person and thundered toward the staircases, putting Runa in the clear to make her run for freedom, and as the blackbirds on the stairs were swept away by the raging tide of humanity, run she did. Dashing down the side of the station platform she sprinted with all her strength for the opposite tube tunnel, where mags came in to pick up passengers. As she neared the end of the platform she saw the train she had just exited begin moving again, and she leaped into the gap between it and the tunnel wall, landing hard in the curved depression which ran down the middle of the line. With a curse she slapped at her glasses, activating the light amp, and threw herself down the tunnel, not even stopping to glance at her chrono. She knew her window of opportunity was limited, and within the next 90 seconds the next mag was going to come blasting down the line. She fervently hoped to be out of the tube tunnel when that happened.

She gasped for breath and pumped her legs wildly in a punishing race against destruction, a race she was not at all confident of winning. As she rounded a long corner she felt the air pressure change, signaling the impending passage of a mag, and there was still no sign of a maintenance door. I’m not gonna make it! was all her mind had time to cry out, before it was too late for further thought. Throwing herself to the ground she rolled into the shallow depression in the center of the tunnel, hoping it might be enough.

PigletLover

This part of the story read much better! There were still a few problem areas with over description, but I really enjoyed it. Keep up the good work. You'll be able to hit all the problem areas on your 1st revision.

Take care,

PL

Tommy Hall

Do you need help editing your story?Just let me know.

__________________
Tommy Hall
Smartperson38128@yahoo.com