Blah blah, sorry missed last week, and this is a day late, blah.
Trust me, not much was missed by me not checking in. Just busy days at work, and busier times at night, learning Español and finishing up The Martian Chronicles. I also finished writing the next chapter for To Slice The Sky. It seems like Act II has mostly been revisions and full on rewrites to accommodate a slumping mid-section that didn't really rise action, and sort of meandered about without much direction.It's been a pretty mixed bag of emotions doing rewrites for this draft of the novel. Here we are staring down at the last quarter of the year, and I'm 1 chapter away from closing up Act II. Granted, everything for the novel flows considerably better, and should just need a proofreading and slight tune-up around the newer additions to get everything uniform. So I'm sort of exasperated with myself for not being further along in the process, and that I've done such huge sweeping changes on things that weren't working. But on the bright side, I'm also realizing that since I began the outline back in Summer of 2011 that I've thankfully become a better writer during that period and can discern that what I had at first was crap, and now I'm able to craft much more coherent narratives. At least I think I can. You're more of a judge of that than I am.
I've also decided that for the omnibus version release of The Lilim Chronicles wave 1, I'm going to have to go back and do one last retouch on By Starlight as well as Urban Legends of the Future. For the release, not only will I be editing the two collections, but also making some needed changes to make the world more cohesive. They'll be getting new--unifying--covers, and I'll be rebranding myself as well.
I've been working on a writing assignment for my Spanish class, and my original topic was going to focus on Latino/a science fiction authors. I came across two major problems, 1) I needed articles in Spanish, and everything I found on the topic was in English. & 2) Every article was pretty much a repeat of, "Where are all the Latino/a science fiction authors?" A quick look at the name at the top of this website, or the name above the link you clicked to get here, probably has you wondering, "What the hell does that have to do with you, gringo?" Well, my father's European surname and Western naming conventions aside, I'm Mexican from my mother's side. I specifically made my character Decker Mexican-American because pretty much the only Latina character I've had to look up to in Science Fiction is Vasquez from Aliens, and while externally I'm a blue-eyed, lightly tanned, whiteboy I grew up with my mom's family in Los Angeles.
In my writing, I've wanted to express a lot of my frustration with being trapped between two worlds as a mixed race person in America, and try to write a lot about conflicting dichotomies, and while it's all well and good, I don't feel that my voice does anyone anywhere much justice coming from another white guy trying to tell everyone how to live. That, and my current pen name is clunky as hell, and being called, "Chris-py" my whole life is pretty old after thirty+ years. So after two paragraphs of justification, with the re-release of my wave one books, I'm going to be changing my pen name across the internet, borrowing my mother's maiden name. So, my book making moniker will be Christopher Fernandez going forth. Doesn't that just flow so much better? Say it out loud with an accent: Christopher Fernandez. ¡Muy picante!
Reconnecting to a culture that got lost in pre-civil rights era American white washing has been a thing in my adult life that I've tried to achieve, and along with learning Spanish like my aunts/uncles/mom never did, this is just one more link in that chain. Not like I'm planning on changing my actual name, but as far as pen names go, Bollweg just ain't sexy. Which is probably one of many reasons I've never heard it used during intimacy.
Even if the science has harshly shown everything about The Martian Chronicles to be a Space Opera fever dream from 1950, the biting satire on Cold War American life, and the destructive tendencies of well meaning Americans when faced with the consequences of our cultural lifestyle, is as fresh as it was 66 years ago. Yeah, sixty-six damn years, and we still haven't learned a damn thing, and are possibly on the verge of making all the same mistakes we've been warned about for over half a century. It's things like that that make me wonder if everything I wrote about representing the Latino-American science fiction writing population is a waste since clearly humanity has learned jack and shit from reading SciFi over the years.
But at least we have smart phones now.
Well, without further ado, here's chapter 16 from To Slice The Sky. Dog:
C:\>16_Fun_House
Music for airports filled in the dead air between scans. Transit
Security agents lounged behind readouts of carry-on luggage component
breakdowns. They were really more for window dressing; the computer did all the
work.
Trip was treated less
civil after the botched interview. His elevator ride to out-processing was
filled with uncertain dread of the destination being a kill room. When it came
to alienating city-state corporatocracies, he was two for three. Instead of a
concrete room with a floor drain, subbasement level 1 housed Gene Works’
executive tubeway tram. He was ushered into a snaking security line behind a
group of sharply dressed people. Between their train platform laid invasive
molecular scans for all.
“Geesh,” Trip said
after what felt like an hour, “woulda thought a fully automated system would be
more like, you know, efficient.”
The guard behind him
rolled her eyes and sighed. “Security is paramount to safety,” fell out her
mouth.
“Automation is the
enemy of waste,” Supplied the forward guard.
“To think, all of this
could have been mine,” Trip grumbled.
“Are you rethinking
your decision?” The rear guard put a firm hand on Trip’s shoulder.
Trip shrugged her off,
“Get bent.”
“That wasn’t
necessary,” Front guard said.
“We have feelings,”
Rear guard added.
Trip’s blood boiled
inside his skull. “Feelings? You want to talk about fragging feelings?” He
balled his fists into tight knobs, “What about my feelings? You kidnap me after
I was held hostage, then hold me hostage again. I have no reassurance that
you’re not just leading me nowhere to kill me out of your jurisdiction.”
The guards cleared
their throats and adjusted their tight clothing.
Trip glowered at his
captors, “Can’t even be bothered to send me back to the 818?”
“Please calm yourself,
Mr. Dawson.”
“I’ve been about as
calm as someone can be in this moment. And now I have to stand in a fragging
line waiting to have a public full-on invasive scan and shot on a bullet train
to being dumped into The Wastes at best.”
The rear guard pulled
a black square from her jacket pocket that sprouted arms, “Please calm
yourself, Mr. Dawson. This is your last warning.” She couldn’t look more bored.
“I’ll fraggin’ calm
myself when I get an assurance I’m not going to end up dead at the end of all
of this.”
“Clamp him.”
“Clamp h—?”
***
Six filthy bodies
collapsed around a manhole cover in the middle of a burbclave street. Children
ran in the dusk back to the safety of their homes, away from the monsters
they’d always knew lived in the sewers.
Fixer got up from his
puddle of bilge water, “I don’t know if you guys have given the situation as
much thought as I have, but I can’t help but think we’re completely fragged right now.”
“I doubt that was lost
on anyone, Fix,” Sweeps rubbed gunk onto the pavement.
“Oh, not lost on
anyone? Here’s some fraggin’ food for thought then. How about Worthington? She
seems pretty fraggin’ lost to—“ Fixer was cut off with Manner’s sword pressed
to his Adam’s apple. His eyes twitched down the length until he stared her
square in the eyes.
Concerned faces
crowded doors and windows, gawking at the skagstained clones wielding medieval
weaponry. Decker helped Breaker to his feet, moving on to Brawl17. He fired up
a police scanner app for skags ‘n’ laughs only to hear dispatch calling out
multiple reports of armed individuals matching the description of known
fugitives.
“We gotta move,
dudes.”
“What, the neighbors
might talk if they see you with clones?” Sweeps snapped, getting himself up.
“No, but the pocs
might.” With Decker’s words the sounds of helicopters in flight met their ears.
“C’mon, go-go-go.”
They ran off down the
street, exposed in the wide open. Ajar doors slammed and windows shifted to a hard
opaque as they passed.
// Spoke14 Triples precinct 515, consider
suspects to be armed and extremely dangerous. Deadly force authorized. //
“Ok, we’re dead as far
as pocs are concerned,” Decker huffed and puffed, keeping pace with the group.
“What,” Brawl17
bounded in long strides, “you want to take your chances back with the fish
people again?”
“Frag,” heavy
breathing, “that,” Breaker spit out. Helicopter blades droned like cicadas in
the darkening sky.
Manner, in the lead,
pointed to a park containing a massive enclosed jungle gym.
“You saw the lady,
folks. Hard left.” Decker directed everyone with waves of his arms. Boots
clomped on the pavement from all directions.
Decker slipped up into
a tube slide. Gripping the sides with all his strength he wished for some
Wallcrawler trait. The sounds of the rest sliding into hiding spots amongst the
apparatus squeaked and echoed. Decker’s body flooded with hormones, flipping
through emotions like he was channel surfing. As he was between fear and choking
on his own stench, the percussive cadence of peace officer jack boots pulled
him back to reality. Decker flipped to x-ray vision and wondered why a bunch of
Gene Works funded peace officers weren’t doing the same. It would help if
they’re en masse and hunting for dangerous criminals that may be hiding.
As soon as the last
dooming thought passed his mind, a second squad marched right on past their
location.
There’s no way we’re that well-hidden. Decker craned his neck
around to catch the piss-poor job everyone but Manner and Brawl17 did at
hiding. Squad three had a much livelier rush to their step as they passed the
park. Boot steps dopplered away towards the sound of the choppers. Decker
shimmied up the rest of the slide and poked his head out.
“Pst. Twins,” Decker stage whispered.
“What?” They responded
normally.
“Sweeps?”
“Yeah?”
“I think the coast
is—“
“Hey, park’s closed pal,”
Came from the most ‘Gee, gosh, golly,’ voice Decker had ever heard. He ducked
his head like a frightened turtle. “I can see you in there.” He silently
screamed. “Come on, guys, it’s just a community service fine. Please get out
here before it becomes resisting arrest and I have to shoot you.”
“Alright, you win,
we’re coming out,” Decker let go and rode the slide on his own muckslick. He
rose to his feet, raising his hands in defeat. “I’ve got my hands up like a
good minority, officer.”
Innocent eyes glazed
over with confusion twinkling with a twinge of pity, “What are you talking
about?”
Decker didn’t get the
chance to answer, interrupted by a barbaric yawp. A flurry of colorful balls
burst from the earth. Brawl17 dropped from the plastic cloud atop the
unsuspecting beat cop. He beat a swift jab into the poor sap’s jaw, rolling
those sweet doe eyes into different directions for a dazed moment.
“Don’t make me hurt
you more than I already have.”
“Ow, mister. That’s
assaulting a peace keeper.” Two sharp raps to his face responded. Both eyes
were darkened and stupid, nose leaking blood as it swelled with a clean break.
The poc sniffed back blood and automatic tears and put his own hands up.
“Okay, ow, fine, you
win. They don’t pay me enough to get hurt out here.” His tears moved to weeping
and gagging on backflowed blood.
“Dude, let him go.”
Nausea waves rolled through Decker’s anxious gut, “This is just fragging sad.”
“Yes, please, let me
go. I’m just a glorified security guard, really.” He drooled red and viscous,
spitting dribbling all over Brawl17’s knees, “Nothing happens out in The
Triples. Honest man, nothing.”
“Wait,” Decker finally
put his own hands down. “Then why is the death squad here?”
“I don’t know man.
Something about that clone rebellion thing, terrorists or something. I fraggin’
swear man, I don’t know nothin’ ‘bout nothing.”
“Terrorist response
doesn’t seem very thorough,” Brawl17 shook the frightened poc by the shirt. “I
think your buddies are ditching you.”
Decker got down in the
poor prick’s face, “Yeah, but one call and they’re on us again.”
“I wouldn’t do that to
you guys. Come on,” The peace officer’s breath came in jerking gasps followed
by fresh tears. Decker rolled his eyes. “C’mon man, I just took this gig
because it paid enough and you get pension. You think I want to be shot at, or
beat up? I got a girlfriend, man. Well, she’s really more like a roommate now.
She moved into the second bedroom when she got that promotion. We were renting
it out, but she said it’s to better explore our boundaries. What the frag does
that even mean?”
Manner dropped onto
the monkey bars from the tree she climbed up in and joined the group. She shook
her head at the pathetic thing and motioned Brawl to eighty-six crushing the
poor sap under his weight. He sniveled and sniffed as she helped him to his
feet and dusted him off. He made a sound between a cry of despair and laugh of
relief. He thanked Manner, drying his swollen and stung light eyes. She placed
a hand on his shoulder then spun him into a sleeper hold until he stopped
struggling against her arms. Decker had never heard a shushing sound made
without a tongue before, and he never wanted to again.
Brawl17 and Decker
wore different interpretations of the same expression when his body ragdolled
to the wrecked manicure lawn below. Manner rolled him out of his utility belt,
fishing through its compartments for detention lines. She zipped them around
his ankles and wrists moments before he regained extremity movement.
Decker sighed with his
whole body as Manner motioned for him to don the belt. “You know he has
intracranial damage from blood deprivation, right?” Decker took the guy’s
vitals in his HUD and work belt in his hands. “I mean, Metro City has universal
health care, but still, he’s even more brain damaged than when we found him.”
“Can we come out now?”
Breaker called from inside a plastic tubeway.
“Yeah, you can come
play with the body,” Brawl17 said.
A groan sounded from
further down the tubeway, “More bodies?” It was Fixer.
Manner unfastened the
poc’s top armor, lifting it over his head and onto herself. Life came back to
his eyes while she got her arms hooked under his. He thrashed and made
unintelligible sounds through a broken nose. She peeled off a mermaid kicking
boot and peeled off the sock to make into a gag. As she jammed the corporate
government issued wool sock into the guy’s maw, a jogger with a yippy little
dog rounded the corner, took one look, and rounded right back around. Manner
shot Brawl17 a look screaming, ‘Ya gonna help me here, or what?’ He grabbed the
guy by the wrists, who shouted muffled helps all the way into the ball pit.
They swung with a one-two-three into
the remaining plastic balls, the peace officer struggling himself further
beneath the pile.
“Shame we don’t have
something else for his mouth,” Sweeps said, rattling across a bridge suspended
over the ballpit.
“Eh, cowards are
snitches.” Brawl17 added, “He’d talk no matter what we put in his mouth.”
// Unit double four sixer
calling seven-two-seven. We got a report of some hobos beating you up in the
park again. Is that true, over? // Came from the two-way radio speaker on
the belt.
“Well, I guess that’s
our cue,” Decker said.
Sweeps said, “Which
way do we leave?”
“We need someplace to hide,”
Fixer suggested.
Breaker said,
“Preferably with a shower,” he mugged a disgusted face.
Manner held her empty
tummy, grimacing.
Decker, reconnected to
the net, pulled a route to the gated neighborhood’s exits and pedestrian paths.
Sharing directions with Brawl and Breaker, he said, “Follow me.”
***
Lights flashed among the canal locks, helipads, and low orbit
rail launches in an out of focus image from a return from a black nothing.
“Are you sure you want
to take the clamp off?”
“If you’re going to be
as much help carrying him this time, yeah.”
“You’re the one who’s
going for the efficiency award this quarter, not me.”
Tingles lit through
Trip’s limbs as consciousness blossomed through his body. Soreness and cold
filled in after numbness fled. Trip’s eyes focused on an empty subway car. He
was slumped over in a barely cushioned seat, all the other passengers filtering
from the open air platform.
“C’mon, man.” One of
his captors got him standing, “The train’s only got another minute before the
return schedule.”
“Where are we?” Trip
said, rubbing his eyes.
“Still Metro City,”
The other guard supplied.
“So I’m still alive
for now?” Trip deadpanned.
“Aren’t we all?”
Trip rubbed the back
of his neck and allowed himself to be led from the compartment.
They gained clearance
to a hanger with a collapsible roof and loaded into an office along the side
walls. The guards stretched and yawned, helping themselves to cups of coffee in
a bid to ward off fatigue and autumn chills coming off Lake Michigan.
“Ugh, I hate these
long days,” The gal guard kicked her flats off, stretching her nylon covered
toes.
“C’mon Bobi, you get
to see so much of the city this way.”
“Its transit stations
maybe. I don’t know Avi, just never pictured myself running escort missions
when I signed up for HQ security.” Bobi checked her chipped nails. The burgundy
matched the color on her toes.
“I could just leave
and let you guys get home,” Trip thumbed over his shoulder.
“Wish we could, pal,”
Avi laid a heavy paw on Trip’s knee, patting like it was smoothing bad news.
“But Roplaxive and Gene Works came to a decision. They’re working out
negotiation terms regarding the Biotek project. Your extradition was a request
Ms. Jaber-Ansari was all too happy to oblige.”
Trip dry swallowed.
“You should have been
nicer during your job interview,” Bobi cracked joints as she stretched.
“Manners don’t cost anything.”
“I didn’t think I was
that rude.”
“And apparently your
partner in crime fell in with a clone terrorist cell. Got spotted somewhere in
Spoke12 ‘bout an hour ago. Couldn’t guess what Roplaxive has in store for you
two, but under Metro City law?” Avi sucked air through his teeth.
Trip wanted to explode
with joy at the news Decker was in the city. He held his external façade, “Why
does everyone want to make these robot clones? That’s really all they are,
right? Like what’s the big deal?”
White noise from
low-orbit take offs, helicopter blades, and jet propulsion droned over the
awkward silence.
“Guys, all I know is
I’ve been hounded by two of the biggest companies in the world to work on this
project, and every time this skag gets brought up, someone hits me with
something.” Trip’s ears burned hot. He white-knuckle gripped the seat beneath
him, rocking back and forth. “You know I haven’t been patched up since I got
hit by a car back in the OC? And I’m still wearing this ridiculous fraggin’
jacket.”
Bobi leaned forward,
slipping her shoes back on, “Yeah, I was meaning to say something about that
thing.”
Avi eyed him, “Yeah,
what is that? It looks like human alligator skin or something”
"Two-Three-H for
twenty fifteen, all crew please report to the staging area for face to face
briefing." came a female affected synthetic voice through the environment
speakers, "Proceed to southwest dome hangar 18-MD. AR HUD directions are online."
"Hangar 18, huh
Gene Works?" Trip tsked, "I would have expected something less
obvious."
“Frag, that’s us.”
Bobi rose from her seat. She pulled zip ties from her jacket and Avi held Trip still.
They bound his legs to the chair and left the hangar.
Trip watched their
exit then looked at his options. He couldn’t get a finger under the leg
restraints to help him break free. He resorted to scooting and hopping his way
to the communication terminal across the room.
“GWI’s gotta be more
secure than a public terminal,” Trip said as he punched at the tactile
keyboard. A small display projected an archaic GUI so far from anything Trip
had ever seen. Haptic feedback was useless with his hands bound. Half
squatting, poking a singular finger above a holographic keyboard, Trip found
the Enter key.
SESSION TIME OUT… Would you like to log back in? _
Trip poked the Y followed by Enter to
confirm a few more times.
PLEASE
RE-ENTER CREDENTIALS. Username: cmoreno@mta.int
Password: _______________
Trip swore to himself and sat back down,
trying to think of any password that they could possibly be using at a hanger
control center in the heart of Metro City. In his frustration he smacked Enter
with an, “Oh frag,” and it advanced to the next screen.
“Oh, what was easy.”
Trip hunted and pecked his way to a menu
that would allow outside peer to peer communication. He entered in Decker’s
@dress and activated SEND.
***
Decker’s
cochlea filled with a generic ringtone. His past few months of generic
ringtones hadn’t brought any good news. He was drying out his hair in the motel
bathroom he rented with Daniel Stern’s borrowed ID and credit card. Daniel
Stern didn’t have two city-states worth of peace officers looking for him, but
he sure as skag was paying for minibar tequila.
The clones splayed themselves across the
suite’s furniture, draped in excessive hotel towels. The ringtone repeated in
Decker’s ear canals, daring him to risk the caller.
“Who is this?”
“Sacred fraggin’ skag, am I glad you picked
up.”
Trip’s voice sent Decker’s heart soaring. “Dude,
you have no idea how much easier this makes everything.” Decker wriggled into
the undersized ‘I <3 MC’ shirt from the gift shop. “Skag has gone down since
we last saw each other.”
“Yeah dude, I know. RoPhar is calling for
both our heads. I’m trapped in some transit station off the Great Lake. They’re
shipping me back to The OC at ten-fifteen from what it sounds like.”
“Okay, well, that narrows it down and gives
us a time limit.”
“It’s a big one. Not O’Hare, from what I
remember last time I was there. This looks all GWI style private property.
There’s a Hangar 18-MD here, if that helps.”
“It gives me something to go—“
“—Shush, I hear someone.” Dead air and
distant echoes rung through Decker’s head as he assigned sniffers to backtrace
the call. They smacked into encryption walls that actively denied origin
access. Decker swore to himself subvocally, causing Trip to shush him again.
Sounds like rubber and metal scraping against the floor and awkward steps were
followed by raised voices and violent movement. It all muddled together in the
open comm channel before it cut out to silence.
A room full of confused and exhausted
clones stared at the Decker expectantly, looking more like they wanted to give
up than get up.
“Alright team,” Decker clapped his hands
together for attention he already had. “We’ve got a lot of work to do and not
enough time to do it.” Unwilling faces stared back at him, “It’s plan time.”
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