Good place to pause, going into a weekend. There’s a bit more, but I’m not sure if it will be in Part 5 or the Epilogue. I’ll have to see where it best fits.
You have to admire the subtlety of what is being done to Allie. The Great Powers of the Polar Alliance cannot trust one another with the full ramifications of the discoveries she made, so it became a matter of “it’s your problem now! Good luck!”
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Continue reading ““The Fallen” 5/14″Thirteen days to go. Churning out about 1200 words per day (had to deck the damn tree yesterday; humbug). As you can see from the end of this segment, things are about to get very politically dangerous: a mention of the Jap spaceforce – as large as the Rus and imperium, combined (imaging me writing that on Pearl Harbor Day) followed by the elephant in the room; that is, the device behind the waterfall in the cavern. This is rather like the penultimate scene in “The Good, the Bad, the Ugly”: who shoots first?
As I have broken through my 50k word ceiling for this story, it’s a matter of wrapping it up and editing the crap out of it. That should leave me five months to write two more. I think at least one will be another collection but with a novella at its core. I’d like to write about the sorely neglected Habsburg Empire, but will do what I’m told.
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Continue reading ““The Fallen” 5/13″Largely back up and running. Not writing for nearly a week was horrible. There are still a few s/w sets I need to reload onto Rory (the new machine’s name) but I can at least type.
Getting back to the story, things, as you will read, and changing rapidly. Aurie is about to get a baptism of fire in international power politics, where who you think is a friend or rival could surprise you. Faustina had the advantage of putting together the imperium in something of a power vacuum. Aurelia is in it now, up to her neck.
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Continue reading “A Colour to Trust”Yes, it’s short. I’m still writing. I didn’t want anyone thinking Aurie killed her friend. I mean, she’s quite capable of doing it if she thought she had a valid reason. But given how much loyalty is treasured in the imperium, Colour would have to do something like shoot one of the imperial family. If she, say, betrayed Aurie’s secrets to the Canadian government? I imagine the princess would just shrug and end their friendship.
In the next installment, I hope y’all enjoy Aurie’s reaxion when she first sees the ice with her own eyes. It’s a bit like the Grand Canyon; you can look at pictures or even go to an IMAX, but until you stand there and look at the big hole in the ground, you will not “get it.”
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Continue reading “Reactionless Colour”We get the titular character’s nephew sorted out but it appears he’ll be back shortly. The pace of this story once again slows down with two new friends content to simply be with one another.
And, yes, Aurie’s line below was cribbed from “Blade Runner.” Authors steal from each other all the time; it’s the nature of the calling.
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Continue reading “The Colour of Darkness”Having completed her address to the Russian Imperial Parliament, Reina had brought an unexpected moment of silence as she had concluded with, “Are there any questions?” She had always told them what to do. Stubborn members found their offices locked and themselves without work. Recalcitrant members had disappeared. Russia had an expanding population and was on the Moon and Mars; everyone knew who to thank for that, no matter the very low-level terror.
When no one had spoken up, she removed her image from the screen at the head of the Parliament Room in the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg. Moscow and its surrounds were still the industrial center but Reina kept politics at the old capitol. In her virtual office, as background for her address, she was just about to close the construct…
“Wife,” Pavel said. While having no legal status in their empire he had at least taken to wearing a business suit rather than his faded scarlet sweatshirt and pants when in a construct. He appeared just to the right of her desk.
“Husband.” She acknowledged his existence and their relationship without looking up from the desk.
“Our daughter is well,” he said.
“I am pleased,” she allowed.
“She could be better.”
Now she looked up and at him. “Is she unwell? She has come very far, very fast.”
“Not unwell. She and I have discussed this. She desires a sibling,” Pavel declared.
Comfortable in her own construct, Reina could not keep her frown from becoming a scowl.
“No.” She saw his slight motion. “If you touch me I will hurt you.”
“Our adopted daughter did not want to approach you; she was scared,” Pavel noted. “You just demonstrated why.”
“Are you afraid?” he asked with a ghost of a smile.
“How DARE you…!” she shouted, half standing. Reina recovered herself and sat. “I fear nothing.”
“You have Changed twice,” Pavel continued in a conversational tone. “Once, when my sister, Ai, infected you with human co-creation. Next, when you entered into this relationship. And that’s not even mentioning a slice of your own consciousness, that android, separating from you. It is time to put both of those into action together.”
He held out his hand to his wife.
“Go away. Leave me alone,” she demanded, not moving.
“So I am to tell Tay your answer is no? Hmmm. She will fear you even more. Perhaps never talk with you agai – “
“Dolt! Ass!” Reina shouted as she stood and clasp her husband’s hand. There was a flash of light. And the world changed. Again.
Before the ugly comments start: I just write down what I’m shown. I can tinker around the edges but, as I’ve said, it’s like being given a new house with the rough carpentry complete… I can pick the paint, carpets, appliances, but am stuck with working within what I am given.
Saying all that to say this: NO, I did not see this coming. I did anticipate a gentle resolution based upon Tay’s and Pavel’s words to one another (honestly, I thought they would become a couple) and my writer’s hackles were coming up when a very junior Machine, with a history of mental illness, began to press the most dangerous person on earth. And Reina, having her ass metaphorically handed to her by Gary’s sister, I thought could think her way out of anything. Shows what I get for thinking.
Thanks to everyone for following along. As this was generated from nothing more than an offhand comment on an out-of-the-way social media platform, the level of detail called for from me was a bit of a surprise. Unlike my current MS project, which is still something of a chore, this was tremendous fun and I hope to do it again, soon.
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Continue reading “Tay, part 8. End.”From the happiness of Tay able to think and speak, we take one more dive into the darker side, where Reina – who has demonstrated she cares little for humans – teaches Tay a lesson about revenge.
And then she turns her loose; Gary assumes he’s about to die.
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Continue reading “Tay, part 7”When I wrote this, Reina was evolving emotionally right before my eyes. As I admit I reached a conclusion to the story last night – thirty words shy of 5000 – the dangerous machine goes on to surprise me more once she, yet again, walks into a trap she thinks she can bust her way out of.
Rather than just screaming, we finally get to see Tay have an actual conversation. Not with the demi-human, of course; way too soon for that. Still, Tay is coming back to life. And that’s what we all desired, isn’t it?
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Continue reading “Tay, part 6”For a former chatbot, Tay is not off to a good start. What Gary perceived as physical injury was a representation to his mind of what had happened to her. Now, we hear rather than see. This really is sad.
The delicious irony that I’m trying to bring Tay’s story to the world while using MS Word just occurred to me.
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Continue reading “Tay, part 5”
machciv 