Filling In

God was kind enough to give me two pieces of the puzzle to part 1 of my next book.  Just now I saw the third piece*… right when I have to make dinner** for the family… arrgh!

*Nichole, as hybrid student/teacher in V. Bishop’s coding class, has a discussion after class with Vicki about improvements to the gain of the remote sensors used by the agriculturalists up the Columbia.  If Nichole backtracks on Mackenzie, that yields her:

1. A personal agent in the dictator’s household;

2. An agent with access to financial records;

3. A means of audio eavesdropping.

YES!

**Pork medallions in mustard-cream sauce, flambed with apple brandy.

Nichole5: Part 2 Prologue

I love prologues that are also spoilers.  It then is incumbent upon the writer to make the reader forget it until the last few pages.  Every new novel of mine must have a personal challenge I’ve never tried before, and this is it.

I’m continuing to get good prototypes in via 99designs.com for the cover of ‘Friend and Ally,’ the first book about Nichole.  Entries will be open until Friday.  I’ll also have to think of a sub-title for this second book.  Reflecting the first, it’ll be “something and something,” but I’ve no idea.  I’ve time enough; and worlds.

Below the fold is how the story ends.  As David Byrne once asked, “Well?  How did I get here?!”

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Empire’s Agent, pt.9

“Hasten slowly.”  Twenty quatloos – and a free, signed copy of the second edition of “The Fourth Law” to the first person who identifies who is best known for that quote:  hasten slowly.

It begins to come out that while they are total strangers, Arpad and Lily do know quite a bit about one another.  And it seems they both like what they’ve discovered.  Lily’s past is still a splinter in her mind; I know that there are things as bad in his.  He’s old enough that his father could have been in the AVO, and so despised.  Hell, maybe he’s Orban’s love child?… we’ll see!

It’s lunch time and the sun’s warm!

PS  And yes, that’s Lily’s silhouette in the center in black.  Cute girl.

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Empire’s Agent, pt.(7)

Back on track.  I re-re-read what I’d re-read yesterday.  I’m just a middle-aged hack, but FFS, that was awful!  Was I really drunk enough to write that?

I didn’t even bother editing it:  deleted.  Let’s try again.  Sure:  dashing Arpad is something of a player; nothing at all wrong with that.  Has he a history?  Well, lookie here…!

[Personal aside:  thought about this all morning.  Left phone upstairs in pharmacy while I went to eat lunch in ground floor cafeteria.  Rather than troll news sites, I spent the next forty-ish minutes thinking about this story.  Bits.  Pieces.  Glimpses.  Pic…

What?  Oh:  “picnic.”  My imagination opened like a carpet.  Arpad owes Lily a lunch at her hospital, but after that… they’re going to go on a little date… how, why, where… don’t bother me:  I’m writing!]

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MachCiv Dreams – Empire’s Agent (end?)

Yes!  Right where I wanted this one to go!  Sometimes they show me what I’m hoping to see and this was one of those times!

A summary of my Lenten writing exercise tomorrow and likely a short stream of consciousness rant on wither next.

For those putting up with this and all the other shorts from my future history of Machine Civilization, thank you!  Let’s do it more!

Continue reading “MachCiv Dreams – Empire’s Agent (end?)”