X_X
Just posting to let you know that I'll have another piece of this for you tomorrow, and that I haven't quit it.
edited 30th Jan '10 6:04:37 AM by harmattane
Ce ne pas un post.
X_X
Edited.
Lux tipped his head, considering more than he had planned to several words ago. “I…agree with him. My kid brother’s stupid experiments with human flight—“
Annecy finished for him with her eyes closed. “Cost him more than he had in ceiling repairs.”
“Bruised him all over. I’d want him to see.”
Her eyes remained pensively shut, not responding. “Vox Langley...fifteen years old. Has gained notoriety for crying in public and not cutting his hair. A quotation comparing him to a shade in Iosethep’s nighttime streets is oft repeated…do you kick him out at night?”
"Lookie—this is my visit to you. Tell me about myself," he demanded.
“Twenty years old—“
“I know! I came here for things I don’t—business. How many M6 agents are among my household staff at this moment, and why don’t they like me?”
Annecy nodded. "I expected as much...always happy to bug them." She opened their deepest records with her mind. "None at the moment, as you appear to them to be going through a stable phase. And to be frank, you are every agent’s least favorite job.”
Lux did not catch the insult. “Good! Let’s keep it that way!”
Annecy raised her eyebrows. “I'm impressed with how you hid your research on us." She winked at him. "But they don’t only dislike you. They've kept an eye on your family for many generations before your own—"
"Oh, hell. Speaking of bugs, they're like fucking mosquitoes. Why?"
"Since their formation, in fact. With varying degrees of openness about it depending on the severity of the Langley archduke's current personality disorder. You know your family has an atypical psychological history—and very strange luck—that has impaired your ability to do your job more than once."
"Not according to me!"
"It is not personal," she emphasized. "If you want to consult with us on anything else, make it quick—it has been longer than you realize. Mr. London looks sleepy."
"Awwwwww..." Lux feigned endearment. "Only one more. I need him awake to unplug me."
"It's happened before," she giggled. She had relaxed since Lux had walked in. "He works all night in the dark, but bright light knocks him right out after midnight. We all had to make loud noises...remember, Alexi? How he wouldn't wake up until we degaussed his screen?"
Alexi looked like he had not wanted the reminder. "And yet he always leaves the basement lights on."
"He never admitted it happened. He's listening right now, but he won't say a word to you, Lux."
Lux conceded. "I'll give you an easy one, then, all right? I wanna know...what is going on in Mr. London’s very bar? Floor by floor? Just give me the scenery.”
"That may be the most modest question we've ever been asked—poetic."
"I don't look poetic, do I?"
“It has four floors, but the roof may be walked on. Technically—little Demetrius London is not allowed up there, but he is breaking his father’s rule. Mr. London, take note."
Annecy did something—the photographic image of the building's roof worked its way into Lux's head, more vivid and accurate than any place he had ever imagined. There were no stars in the sky, the lights of Iosethep, rainbow down below like a million variously ill fireflies, melting into grey blue in the air and blotting them out. This made the black outlines of the roof clear,and of the round little person sitting on its edge, alone.
"I urge you to send security to prevent an accident,” said Annecy, though she smiled. "Below is boring. The living quarters of Mr. London and his son. If you've seen his two-dimensional art, you've seen everything—he has surprisingly little drive to decorate his own place. Ginger is in her bedroom, reading a newspaper. Housekeeper, witch," Annecy clarified.
"The witch."
Annecy, again, drew the image in Lux's mind. Ginger looked around thirty, ten years younger than Aubrey. The view was too far removed from her to show whether the white stripe of hair over her eye was genuine or dyed that way, as women often wore them this decade.
Annecy confirmed, "The one."
One thing stood out to Lux about her room—the bottles. All of them of different sizes and obscuring tints, strung in clusters from everywhere one could hang a string. So many that Annecy knew what Lux meant when he asked, "What are those?"
"Mister London has one around his neck—did you see?"
"What's in them, and how much is she selling it for?"
Annecy giggled. "You sound like you don't know the rumor. Nothing to see—she shut his soul inside it."
"Hardly a token of affection," Lux joked, who did not believe in any such thing.
"He let her. That is one. I do remember one night where they did something." At this cue, Annecy showed Lux something she did not want Aubrey to know she was showing him.
Greyscale, soundless security footage of the very basement Lux lay in, but mostly dark. Illuminated by a small, curling web of something burning on the concrete floor, Ginger and Aubrey knelt across from each other in a pile of staticky talismans. Aubrey looked the same as always; her hair was untied, and smoked lenses covered her eyes. He stared into them—he did look different after all. Same immaculate clothes, but different posture and different face. The sight of him no longer threatened Lux. This was an unguarded, serene, unfamiliar Aubrey. Anyone could have done anything to him. Lux could have run up and offed him with something; the thought made him grin.
In one hand, Ginger held a tinted bottle.
She was showing him how to do something. They conversed soundlessly back and forth; she dropped something blurry and he picked it up and placed it back in her hand, smiling. So he could smile. When the lights went out, she had placed her palm on his face. He kissed it, and the light faded out; the cameras saw nothing more.
Lux asked blankly, concerning the imagery, "Why?"
"So you know that he's human."
"And she gives it back to him to wear—that's pointless! Dumb story."
"Completely pointless," Annecy agreed. "Spoken like someone who has never been in love." Her image of Ginger dissolved. "The bar level is as you left it. Your chair has returned to its place, though Mr. London kept his. An older woman is sitting alone in it, smoking."
Lux gagged. She only had a few hairs on her head and wore a patterned miniskirt.
Annecy went on, "And—ah, two in your staff's uniforms are attending to a dead man in the corner." She raised one eyebrow and left that detail alone. “Below ground level, the white noise is playing slightly higher than it was when you passed through.”
“Heh—“
“Additionally, well, it’s after two, if you’re familiar."
Lux shut his eyes tightly, as if that would help. “Do not—want to see!”
“Okay. Someone is passing through—several in the back. They look like they are heading downstairs, but I see no records of Mr. London having called anyone—blank spaces, Alexi; no links. Fill me in. Gaps are normal, Lux. We aren’t perfect yet.”
Lux shrugged. “Would he call his staff if I puked on him? Serves him right. Go on, go on. It's next.”
“In the downstairs storage...yes, they’re here. They’re not his staff.” She did not show Lux. For several seconds, she paused. Then—“Alexi!” she gasped, splitting the room. “M6. Many. Oh, shit—he must’ve threatened them. Three of them are already down—four, all with knives—“ Her voice wavered in pitch, struggling to wrap itself around her astonishment.
Slowly, a little bit more with each of Annecy’s words, Lux’s expression had dropped into a cringe. Her voice had segued so smoothly into crisis mode that he felt dissociated from what she reported, like it was all part of her description. “Three!” he burst out. That was a lot. Aubrey hadn’t been playing.
“Lux, you’re unharmed. Stay calm. I think he can hold them off—”
Alexi interjected, eyes also shut, "No data suggests that they're M6. I don't know who they are. Maintain surveillance; I’ll keep looking."
"Let me—think." A shift punctuated Annecy's voice, which clicked from a shout to a monotone in one step. She had shifted to calm intonations to cover her emotions, but her face betrayed what was beneath the flat tones. "I don’t know, either.” Fang also shook his head. “One is pointing a silenced pulser…she doesn’t need it. The six I saw have joined them. It's too many."
"He didn't sound the alarm—the overconfident—" Alexi hissed. "You know the password."
Annecy shook her head. "The bald one took her gun. He's dead. I…still see no link to what is going on. I'm sorry.” She shrank backward—and into Alexi's arms.
Alexi's head had dissipated and reshaped itself into an entire body. A featureless, genderless quick sketch of a human shape, but it had arms, the important thing. "Neither can I, sweetheart. You did well."
Annecy wrapped her arms around her lover's flickering ones, losing a fight against one tear that got an inch down her cheek when she turned her facial features off. "Lux—" They disappeared, to the same effect as the change in her voice. Her voice still came from her head. “You’re in danger, Lux. I am activating an alarm. Mr. London’s security will be called downstairs to protect you. Look at me—as long as you can still see us, you're alive.”
“I’ll be fine,” said Lux. All eyes converged on him and the fear that was not on his face. In fact, tension he had had before had visibly left him.
“Your clothes do look like they can withstand knives, but they only cover—“
“You flatter me with your concern, lovely, but I will be fine,” he repeated. “They’re wrong—there is one last use for pen and paper. Looks like the guard got my note. You'll notice that the alarms have been disabled mechanically.” By the looks on their faces, Alexi had discovered it first, then Annecy, and then Fang froze in the air as if he floated in icy water. Lux ignored them and shouted at the ceiling—“Gentlemen, can you hear me?”
A fifth voice came from everywhere as Aubrey’s had. “We see you, Your Grace.”
“Shut up and dismember the body, Yamagata! Leave it in too many pieces to preserve, or Spike will do it for you!”
Yamagata’s voice choked and faded, but a colder, ten times deeper one intoned, clearly though from a distance, “Oui, Monsieur.”
“Thank you…” Hot breaths through Lux’s gleefully interlocked fingers, between bared teeth. “My gods, they don’t know how impatient I was…thank you…” Lux looked back down at the Fates. “Now to business.”
Now, if you would, please tell me whether I managed an emotional response at all. If not, please let me know how I might fix that. I have heard I'm not good at that.
edited 27th May '10 1:17:08 AM by harmattane
Ce ne pas un post.
Zzzzzzzzzz
If turning me upside down and shaking the mental small change out of my pockets counts as "an emotional response" then, yes, I'd say you did...
...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.
Planescape Hijack
^ Very that. I think part of what made this installment so effective is that, so far, the story was fairly low-key. The shift in tension worked.
"Since their formation, in fact. With varying degrees of openness about it depending on the severity of the Langley archduke's current personality disorder. You know your family has an atypical psychological history that has impaired your ability to do your job more than once."
"Not according to me!"
This made me chuckle. Lux's blind spots are fun.
Productivity is for people without internet connections. -Count Dorku
X_X
Okay, I read over it again and now apologize for all of the sleep deprivation-induced grammatical/continuity/delivery/general word use failure and assure you that I see them and can catch them all when I revise. But I'm glad it didn't fall totally flat. It really needed to not do that.
edited 31st Jan '10 5:25:29 PM by harmattane
Ce ne pas un post.
X_X
[insert mark of editing here]
Again, comments on effectiveness would be very helpful.
Revenge, indeed, came. Lux had taken a gamble killing the nameless bugger in line, but he had watched the intended effect play out over Aubrey’s shoulder in reticent amazement: his asassins being let in, no stealth required. The one life for three sounded to Lux like a cheap exchange, not to be left untried with Aubrey’s strange morals easing the dangers of failure.
Fang broke his self-imposed silence. His voice sounded as scratchy as Lux’s and several years younger. “What about Demetrius?” His petrified body spun slowly in the air and had become semitransparent; he had forgotten about it.
Lux shrugged. “What about him? From my own experience, not having my father made no difference. Most of the time I didn’t remember there had been a Lux I!”
Fang became even fainter, his eyes contracting at the sight of a painful piece of data somewhere far off.
Only one line could be discerned on Alexi’s head, and it curled with disgust. “You are not a typical case. Fang says you offed him yourself.”
“Shows how bearable it is.” Lux looked between them, truly confused at how they were looking at him.
“If M6 has sent you to delete us, we can transport you out,” said Alexi. The sound of Annecy’s breathing had calmed, but he kept an arm over her chest protectively. “We’ve done it once, and we are no longer comfortable with your presence—”
“Kill you? What kind of imbecile would do that?” Lux forced a laugh that sounded like the silliness of the idea was too great to fit in his throat. “I’ve got three human computers in front of me.” Lux spread his arms to gesture to all of them. “I’m handing them to someone who would get rid of them—what a fucking waste! I am stealing you.” He was unaware that his smile warned of something worse than deletion before he explained it. The Fates did not have to ask what he meant; they already knew enough to be choked by it. To Lux, however, they were just giving him their rapt attention. He pointed at the ceiling. “Look outside!”
There were no windows, so he made one, shaping a gun with his thumb and forefinger and shooting at the faraway ceiling with a tiny blast of will. The flare left a wobbling trail of sparks, fired from a hand shaking with excitement, but there was plenty of space for it to hit. It did, and the jagged edges of the hole that resulted grew a flurry of axes. The Fates had another reason to be alarmed—to break the laws of the world he was used to occupying should have been a tougher mental leap. Lux had known, and that being used to taking such leaps daily, as if he were jumping rope, gave him a way to intimidate his captives.
Where the ceiling shattered, snow blotted out the node-filled sky, bit by bit, in tiny squares.
“You say you’ve made the world’s data an extension of your brains—there’s your problem. It makes everything a lead for M6. Straight to you, and now to me. If you’re going to be working for me now, something has to be done. From what I know about your discipline, you could smash through this—“ He pointed harder. “—block in a couple of minutes. From the outside! My guys’ barrier lets no nodes in or out until someone who needs you on the other side enters the password. Which is stored only in here.” He tapped his own forehead. “Don’t even try. You have no tools. Shapeshifting won’t even work—“ That streamed images from outside. The forms the Fates were in were locked in place. Annecy could not get her face back. Lux put down his now ordinary hand. “If you throw me out, you won’t stop it! Go on. Do it fancy-like—we, the all-knowing Fates, reject you!” He laughed at himself into the damaged ceiling. “But you’d best welcome me, because I’m the only thing you guys are going to be seeing in a long time.”
A bodiless voice intruded, like Aubrey’s had out in space. “You said we were playing a trick on M6. You said this would only protect these guys!”
Lux looked up. “Didn’t you hear me, Hans? We are protecting them. Bit titchy without control of your interface? My three blue employees will return it to you when the wall is up. Don’t test them.”
Baron Hans Lyon’s voice cracked, his shock too much for it to contain. “That place streams outside content. Their bodies do. Fucking void." Correct—as the barrier spread outside, the detail on the walls began to fade, axis blinking out fast. The color of the walls blanched. "They’ll have nothing. This is like dropping them into a bottomless pit, sensory deprivation. This is worse than death. How will you handle them when they go insane? You’re insane!”
“Do I have to wear a nametag before everyone knows not to trust me? After two thousand years of Langley scum? I love it!”
“Don’t…do this. I will not be responsible for—“
“Gentlemen, please shut him up.”
“I…I…I wanted to be your friend
“Thank you.”
edited 8th Apr '10 1:29:16 AM by harmattane
Ce ne pas un post.
X_X
You can probably see that my updates are becoming further apart, for which there are several reasons.
Should it be continued? Also, if it was continued, do you think it would survive as a thread? I think I may need help with the second—how do the other writing threads do it?
Ce ne pas un post.
vigilantly taxonomish
I say yes, it should be continued, if only because I've been enjoying it very much. Sorry for not commenting, but I didn't feel I had any worthwhile commentary to offer.
Welcome To TV Tropes | How To Write An Example | Text-Formatting Rules | List Of Shows That Need Summary | TV Tropes Forum | Know The Staff
Zzzzzzzzzz
If you still want to go on with it, please do. If you've come to a stopping point, for whatever reason, then stop.
...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.
X_X
I absolutely want to continue it, and after thinking for a bit, I realize that if I stopped because of what others might think, it would be symptomatic of my needing to stop for greater morality reasons. If I can call myself a writer, I have the will to keep going on it for it, not for you. Not that you aren't of importaance.
So yes, but I have midterms right now, so it might be slow. Maybe I'll illustrate another character, if nothing else. Lux needs to be drawn before it's too late.
Ce ne pas un post.
X_X
Here's something I almost never get to say here: just as promised.
◊
Really a lovely looking person—pity about the upbringing.
edited 6th Feb '10 3:17:34 AM by harmattane
Ce ne pas un post.
Oh, wow. He looks totally different from how I imagined him.
Harmy, have I mentioned that your character designs are just awesome? Seriously, you have a unique signature style that I'm totally going to use for one of the boxes next time I do a style meme.
vigilantly taxonomish
I agree, awesome. I love his expression.
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X_X
Bold/Italic Text.
“Thank you…if Lyonnais could see you now…” Lux smiled at the Baron’s alias, approaching the petrified Fates with wide, desperate eyes. Something had sounded problematic on Hans’ side. Lux could not feel it, but he had heard it. “I don’t know what he’s talking about—you’re on M6’s bad side, too. Just like me; don’t we know that? You’ll be keeping their humiliating attention off of my family!” He paused to breathe heavily and press his clasped hands toward Alexi, making his lip tremble as convincingly as he could muster. “We have no allies, no mothers, no staff that will stay with us for over a week! My ancestors all had shit titles like ‘The Slimy’. My brother is a worm. My father accepted the shame—he had to go! We should be archdukes, not on probation! We are cursed. I need you.”
None of the Fates responded, unable to refuse but refusing to accept.
The walls became flatter around them with the connections being broken. Axes disappeared; the details on the walls simplified into basic masks. “If I’m being as hard on you as he says…fight me back! We’ve got time! It’ll be a while until one of my dunces figures out how to disconnect me, and I’m bored.”
“We cannot, Lux.” Alexi’s voice flattened into the concealing monotone, hinting at what lay underneath.
“What kind of lame demigods are you? Yes, you can!” Lux snapped, plunging his finger into Alexi’s sketchy chest. “I didn’t know I was offending! It’s only customary.”
“Look down, Lux—don’t move that hand.”
Lux moved only his eyes downward, unknowing that Alexi would notice him complying, and made it obvious by screaming and leaping backwards. His hand had been up to its wrist in Alexi, having passed straight through.
“Just because we are living pictures does not mean I could physically harm you any more than a picture of Alexi—if I could, you would be in no way to ask. Becoming this was an oath of nonviolence—is it clear to you why Hans is upset?”
Lux’s fingers wove into his hair, fighting lightheadedness. “No riddles, please.”
“Annecy is doing what we can do what we can do with the time we have—“ She had been slumped in Alexi’s arms for several minutes, crying silenced. “—logging the problems in our makeup that allowed you to get away with this so that it may never happen again. We are the first. We are imperfect. Do not try this on any who come after us.”
Annecy lifted her head. “It is done, as much as I could. Time.”
“Is there time to kick Lux into the dendrites? I don’t want him to be the last thing we see.”
“No.” Fang. All looked up. He floated in the same position as before, long enough now to be assumed stuck. His petrification contrasted with the flattening ceiling above his feet. Only his voice moved, blurry but unhidden beneath the angry monotone. He sounded peaceful. “Ginger is downstairs."
Alexi’s non-features brightened. “She wishes to express her disapproval of what you did to her lover, Lux. I do want to see this.”
Lux spat the words out like the drink that was not in his mouth when he heard it. “Oh, no; she's going to be creepy at me,” he laughed.
Annecy stood on her own. “This is going to fascinate you.” She had lifted the veil from her voice, and it jumped from toneless into devilish in a second. “We cannot touch your body, but what does? Besides the chair and your clothes?”
“Sticky electric head-thing—“
“Lux, have you ever been struck by lightning?”
“What the fuck. Oh. Oh—three times. Maybe two and a half.”
“Then you will find the symptoms familiar.”
A puzzle, though Lux. He had told them no riddles. “Maid’s going to…electrocute me? Let her try; I said I’ve survived it.”
“How cute, trying to see what he can't.” Annecy giggled somewhere behind the fleshy blank of her face. She looked at him like a kitten again, a very naughty kitten. “She sends a message: you told Mister London you came to us looking for something beyond the natural, so she has it for you. You don’t want to survive.”
Alexi: “You have a pretty face Lux, but for trapping us with the loathsomeness beneath, she tells us that it will enclose you, too.”
Fang, even, was excited enough to speak again. “Lux, you’re being cursed.”
“There. There, I stop believing you. What are you really telling me? I’m all puzzled out.”
The two Fates with eyes closed their eyes, Annecy last. “We are using the last glimpse outside we have to watch you...just in time. I’ve never heard someone scream so loudly."
Alexi: “And the convulsions, on cue.”
“Did we hear something crack? You’re not going to be walking on that leg for a while.”
Lux took a step backwards, uncomfortable whether it was true or not. They did not know when to stop a joke. “Are you trying to scare me? Did I make it clear that I did not believe your stupid story? She's not even down here, is she? Enough—“ He begged the ceiling, which was now being shaded out by white, reducing to wireframe a square at a time. “Gentlemen, get me away from these creeps.”
Annecy: “We want you to stay long enough to know we’re telling the truth. It helps that the electrode strip has melted into the skin of your forehead.”
“Nope…” Lux flinched.
“Your retainers have come to the conclusion that they must tear it off with the strip. By the way, your brain’s physical state is going to cause some interference in your perception of this place…right about now.”
They smiled as they watched Lux fall several steps back, the outline of the palace swimming around him. His remaining confidence was erased that fast. "Gentlemen, kill her!"
"They're not touching her."
Alexi: “Heh; he’s wetting himself.”
Lux blushed lividly. “This is not how you treat a guest!”
Annecy: “Ah—those electrode burns will leave a mark even after the spell takes effect.”
Lux’s hands jumped to his forehead, though he felt nothing but pressure. He was on his knees before he realized it. "I can't breathe."
“I almost feel sorry for you. You’re burning through the immersive drug at such a rate that you will feel pain, when they disconnect you, if and when you wake up.”
Lux saw in black and white. Beneath him, the floor had disappeared, leaving him to kneel on the blank white barrier of the Baron’s wall, an expanse of nothing. His fading sight provided the black, closing in. “What if I don’t?” The Fates—maybe they looked the same, maybe they faded. No one fit into his closing tunnel vision. "Really can't breathe—"
"Then you'll have to
He never heard it, unconscious before he hit the ground, severed from the immersive’s influence mentally and physically. He did not feel the electrodes torn away with his skin as he fell off the chair or his head hitting the storeroom floor facedown, spraying a pair of feet in high heeled shoes with blood on impact.
The red gloved hands of his subordinates swarmed to the spot.
edited 17th Apr '10 5:18:48 AM by harmattane
Ce ne pas un post.
Zzzzzzzzzz
It feels somehow like it's back on track. The Fates were presented as so powerful/incomprehensible, that it was feeling dissonant that he should be able to take them over that easily. Not bad, just uncomfortably 'something's not right here', like sitting in a restaurant listening to mariachi music and eating sushi — odd in an off-balancing way..
...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.
X_X
The toughest part is that Ginger must remain where she is, doing the same thing, even when I edit this (after which the second half of the chapter may become otherwise unrecognizable). Right now she comes off to me as a confusing deus ex machina, but the whole rest of the story kind of needs her to exist. Maybe that indicates that this was all a bad idea.
I wish I could ask for help, but that would involve giving away a huge spoiler. Maybe anyone who doesn't care about spoilers can PM me.
Ce ne pas un post.
X_X
Finished editing! :D:D:D:D
Last update of the chapter. I promise it gets easier to follow.
“Alcohol poisoning,” they explained tersely as two of them carried Lux out of the bar, one with his feet and one with his head. It was only to get him out—the carnage downstairs would be found later, but when the archduke was safe at home, behind just enough panes of glass. They were going to look for something else; the black clad, faceless guards among those in the Langley red and silver suggested something beyond an accident. Alcohol did not deliver three round burns through the forehead, either. They bled, open wide, like three eye sockets with their contents ripped out.
Once out, they edged their cargo into the alley beside the bar to assess the damage. Most kept their distance, looking around unsurely once they knew they were alone. Lux and his employees had a secret—almost no one who worked for him stayed for over seven days. Here was a legion of newbies who had not known what they were in for, shocked into silence by tonight’s mission, as damning as Aubrey London’s reputation as a killer of M6 agents had already been. A mass retiring was coming tomorrow.
“Uh…guys?” The ninja with Lux’s feet leaned over him—both of those who carried the archduke were in black. “Do you see him breathing?”
His partner lay Lux down more gently than he deserved and put her hand on his chest. For a second, his feet hung above his head as the other hesitated. “A heartbeat. Nothing else…” In those clothes, she couldn’t imagine how he had breathed in them before; especially that corset…thing. She ripped it off and a square of the tunic it was caught on with it. She felt for his breath again. “Still.”
The man pulled his translucent, gauzy black mask from his eyes. They shifted, moving across the street and back down. “Would this be a good place to just, er, leave him?” Maybe. Lux was unrecognizable already. Blood flowed over eyes that were so much smaller than his glasses, and his midsection’s shapeless flesh touched the pavement.
“No.”
“Millie...be honest; we’ve all wanted to do it once. Maybe another street over—“
“No!” Millie punched him just beneath the ribs.
Then what? They all realized what at the same time and lurched back from Lux as one.
“Not me!”
“Notme!”
“Not me.”
“Hell no!”
“I’m getting a call got to go bye.”
“Yamagata.” Millie dragged the man she had punched to his knees, who had been the only one not to speak, having the breath knocked out of him by Millie herself. No one protested—he had served Lux for two years, one of the few to stick around, and the waves of newbies grew doubts about those types, who were usually as remorseless as Lux or fearful. Yamagata, the latter type, nodded reluctantly, as if he were about to resuscitate a skunk, and tasted Lux’s lipstick. Between breaths, someone snickered; it had come off on Yamagata’s own mouth.
“It’s been a minute can we leave him now?” he gasped.
Millie responded by knocking his head back down with her fist.
It would have been a funny time to leave, as he only needed one more breath. The irregularity blinked out as suddenly as it had struck, Lux’s eyes flickering open as recycled air entered his lungs—the first and only one not to miss his lungs in Yamagata’s hurry. When Yamagata finished exhaling and their eyes met, he used the air on something unmistakably Lux: “You’re doing it wrong!”
With one palm, he shoved Yamagata backward into the rest of his guards, then recoiled against the alley wall, bent double into a tiny, shivering ball.
“Ow, ow, ow…my stomach, you bloody dumbass!” Lux had dedicated his entire life to never looking this vulnerable. Tears that had pooled in the corners of his eyes under the immersive spilled, mixing with the blood from his forehead mixing with his smudged lipstick mixing with his hair, which had fallen over his face from the weight of the rain. They could see where they had scraped his bare arms on the pavement, having laid him down too roughly. Asphalt particles speckled the abrasions, the least of the damage. One of his knees twisted the wrong way, having been sprained against the immersive’s chair by his convulsions, but he pulled it in against his grossly inflated stomach anyway. He would be spending the entire night in the doctor’s wing—whichever doctor lost the coin toss. No one came closer, not knowing what they were looking at. In their defense, Lux bit when he was in pain—poor doctor; he was in a lot. “You stupid, stupid fuckers—I told you—" He curled tighter with a cramp, whimpering. "I told you to kill that woman! You let her do this to me!"
"No—no." Yamagata held out his hands desperately between him and Lux, as if he was hoping they would block another hit. "At the risk..." he gasped. "...of being fired...she didn't do anything! The immersive malfunctioned and electrocuted you...maybe it was our earpieces..."
"Her! She came in and fucked with it! Didn't you see her?"
"Yes...! She-she didn't. I saw her come in. Millie made me watch her—I saw her walk into a corner and not do anything! She watched us."
"But she—" Unless he had hallucinated the Fates, she had done something. If she had not touched the immersive, she had done something. Lux remembered her face on the edge of his dreams. She had first looked like Aubrey and then like him, spiky hair falling between her kitten shades and her eyes, impishly fantasizing about what she had done to him but not saying a word. He had thought Yamagata was her. Could have been. He did not know what she was, but Ginger had lodged herself firmly in his long-term memory like someone who had always been there. Before the Fates, before Aubrey. "I’m going to be sick. I’m going to barf, and it’s going to get all over someone—“
He did, and it did. Yamagata, who hadn’t known it was physically possible for vomit to travel that far.
It wasn’t—their bewildered faces matched as Yamagata gaped at the shining violet slime on Lux’s hands and Lux gaped at the softly luminescent purple slick over Yamagata’s clothes. Whatever it was, it had no place inside a human.
You don’t want to survive.
Between violent hiccups, he said “Take…me…home.”
Go on or edit what's already there?
edited 17th Apr '10 5:53:04 AM by harmattane
Ce ne pas un post.
Zzzzzzzzzz
Edit! Please, edit it! The bones and roughed-in ideas are wonderful, I want to see the polished thing. Please?
...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.
X_X
Not that I wouldn't have gone back and done it later, but okay. I don't know how to edit any more than I know how to write, though, so if you notice any bad habits or things I missed as it changes, do not hesitate to point them out.
Ce ne pas un post.
God, Harmy. Everything is right with this. You're like, one of the most amazing authors ever. It's so interesting and surreal that it makes me feel sick with anticipation to read.
X_X
Unfortunately, that is not true. There are a lot of things wrong with this, and a lot of things will remain wrong with it even after I do edit it. It's okay to look for some of them and point them out to me so that I might do something about them.
I don't have the necessary genius to accept an association of myself with the greatest authors ever, either. Don't devalue their work by putting them on the same level as a fairly unlearned student who might not be terrible, but has bad habits and cannot wrap their head around what they must to be great. I'm not writing beyond my years—behind my years, even, is a good possibility due to teaching myself wrong and internalizing what I was taught incorrectly. That's no Tolkien or Gibson, and at my age, my reaching the kind of mastery you speak of isn't much of a possibility anymore if I'm not showing a little of it already.
If I want to get published, it's clear that it would be very tough, as it would be for any average student, and not accepting that I won't go down in history would only make success even more remote.
If what you mean is I'm doing a good job at entertaining you, though, thanks.
edited 21st Feb '10 5:17:14 PM by harmattane
Ce ne pas un post.
Zzzzzzzzzz
All the important stuff is right though. The characters are complex but consistent, fascinating and well-fleshed out. The setting feels like it is a whole world, not just a painted backdrop. The work as a whole is rough and needs to be smoothed and polished, but the bones are right and the muscles are where they need to be to make it work. No amount of polishing and editing will fix poor foundations. You've got a good foundation to do the cosmetic work on.
...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.
X_X
Okay, maybe I reacted a bit too strongly, but to be honest, being told that everything is all right with my work does make me a little uncomfortable, which is all I should have said. Thanks, though.
I'll start editing as soon as I can and let you know when I get each post revised.
Ce ne pas un post.
Not axe crazy I swear
The first post is edited a bit, but I know it needed more than I knew to give it. If anyone sees something that is still unclear or wrong, please tell me. No need to be too technical; just indicating where you got confused is enough.
edited 28th Feb '10 6:11:37 AM by AFGNCAAP
Some writing.
No installment, but I do have a Troper Works page
for this now.
Feel free to add tropes/delete stupid things.
Some writing.