Tentative steps toward a novel.  Your contributions might include: What's strongest about this writing?  Weakest?  What do you look forward to learning?  Where were you most entertained?  Most bored?

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Although this was the second summer that alien life had tried to take root in its black soil, Hopewell still had the feel of raw, wary innocence. The last days of the dry season sat heavily in the parched, heavy air. In the occasional creek bed, the last drops of glacial run-off had long ago been taken by the dry wind, but in their place, a gentle trickle found its way down into the forest bearing the promise of storms in the mountains. The buzzing of tiny wings returned to fill the air between dappled shadows of high boughs. The beasts of the forest began to stir from their shady hiding places to carefully go about the business of living.

On the forest's edge, where the ground began its long, slow ascent to the highlands, the dry harvest stood quietly in expectation of a breeze (any breeze) that might rustle its dry stalks and relieve the heat—or better yet, to be relieved by the blade of an automated machine, to lay low and be swept up and out of the merciless gaze of two suns. Four combines gathered the stalks, rolling across the yellow fields in straight lines, like enormous ants preparing for nature's inescapable fury.

Overseeing the fields and their robotic laborers from the height of thirty-meter stilts, Hopewell Colony Prime stood like an island of trees. From the center of its main deck, the narrow tether of its space elevator rose all the way into the sky. One half of the stilted buildings stood firm and clean in the evening sun, attached to each other by free-standing enclosed corridors. The other half sat apart, waiting for the limited attention of busy repair teams. Inside the various functioning wings of the colony, some of its women and men worked frantically to finish preparations for the abrupt end of the season. Others watched the skies for signs of deliverance from the oppressive heat.



By degrees, the sky was taken up by billowing patches of black clouds. Their work lamentably left unfinished, the automated combines made their way to the safety of the colony. A hot wind finally gusted across mostly naked fields with the sense of angry inevitability. Lightning flashed in the dark distance. Within minutes, the wind had changed, the sky had filled, and the first drop of precious water made its descent from above, to be greedily devoured by the earth. So too the next disappeared, and the next, and the next—but then the hiss and drumbeat of uncountable droplets filled the air and cooled it with its grace. In the trees, and under the trees, the cries of beasts and the patter of rain created a cacophonous hymn to living.

The chorus was short-lived, and the beasts eventually retreated to the safety of their hiding places. The soil drank its fill and water flowed almost everywhere, first in trickles, then in streams. Wind thrashed the high boughs and rain crashed like waves on windows. The evening fell to night and grew very dark.

Vasco stood in front of his window peering into the dark night. The roar of the rain and the creaking of the colony left him surprisingly melancholy, and work seemed now out of the question. Like the soil, all that Vasco could do was to soak in all of the storm he could, this storm which brought both destruction and opportunity.

Although the colonists had been aware of the hurricane's approach for a few days, it had arrived hours early, leaving them unprepared to finish the harvest. Much of the experimental crop would surely be lost as this and other storms left the ground impossibly wet for the next several months. Given the shocking violence of the storm,Vasco anticipated a great deal of repair work ahead as he and the other repair specialists searched out and replaced the inevitably damaged recorder units out in the field. It seemed the wind howled and the thunder rumbled as if to particularly threaten special efforts at destruction. Vasco turned away from the window.

A reminder wafted in above his desk that the Hopewell Coordinating Council was about to begin in Wing D. “Where did the day go?” Vasco muttered as he ran his hand through his hair and sighed. He was not in the mood to sit through the same four disputes he had endured each of the previous three weeks of his term. Truth be told, he was certain that more than one of the disputants was holding out until his term ended in two weeks, which made the thought of listening to their bickering all the more galling. Vasco toyed with the idea of going home and feigning a headache—what he really wanted to do now was sleep through the storm—but today was supposed to be Alma's first meeting, and she might be disappointed if he didn't show up. He smiled and shook his head at his presumption that she would even notice. Even so, he was out the door and partway down the corridor before he realized that he hoped it was true.

The storm raged in the dark windows, but the corridors from his room to the Convention Hall were well lit. A few colonists stood staring out into the night, much as he had, but the majority were moving back and forth as they normally would. Vasco took some pleasure in this subtle reminder that the colonists' painstaking work to restore the southern wings of the colony before the rainy season had produced such clean results that one could walk down the corridor feeling safe and sound, virtually ignoring the tumult outside. Although the colony's infrastructure had suffered decades of neglect, they had achieved a great deal in a very short period of time, and certainly by next summer the whole colony would be up and running and ready for more. He also took pleasure in the thought that his work on repairing the maintenance memory systems was a large part of the colonists' current feeling of security.

As Vasco approached the doors of the Convention Hall, he noticed the regulars milling about outside. As he passed by, he nodded at Marie and Kolongo, for whom he would have decided weeks ago if it weren't for Martel's refusal to accept settlement, insisting that the two were talking about him behind his back. Marie smiled and Kolongo nodded, and they went back to discussing something in low tones. After waving to Eric, a biologist he knew from working on some observation stations in the field, and Gordon, who didn't look up, Vasco took a deep breath and looked into the Convention Hall.

Larger than any other room in the colony complex except the dining room, the Convention Hall could seat three hundred people, plus five seats in front for those serving on the Coordinating Council, more seats than there were colonists. Generally speaking, life on Hopewell passed without the necessity of intervention. However, when a dispute became more serious, or if complicated work had to be organized and performed, the matter could be brought before the Coordinating Council, who would facilitate a resolution. The nature of the Council's work made the meetings awfully boring to everyone but those intimately involved, so its meetings were seldom well-attended. Furthermore, Hopewell's bylaws were based in the philosophy of Voluntary Consent, meaning that no decision could be forced upon any of the colonists without their acceptance—also meaning that disputes could rage on as long as the participants chose to show up. In the rare instance that a dispute came before the council at all, it had a tendency to languish in petty arguing for weeks until one side or the other just gave up and made amends. Some of the colonists, like Vasco's friend Zhou, had a knack for resolving Coordinating Council business quickly and to everyone's satisfaction, but since the terms were rotated every four weeks, certain councils had already proved more effective than others. Some had been floating the idea of allowing those who actually liked the Coordinating Council to serve consecutive terms, but most colonists simply shook their heads and trudged on to serve their terms out of a commitment to the success of the colony and a sense of civic duty. Others didn't bother showing up.

Scanning the room, Alma wasn't there yet, and although he noticed Martel scowling out the window in the far back corner, and a new pair of appellants in the corner farthest from. The large room seemed otherwise empty. Loathing the idea of sitting in a room with Martel unprotected by conversation, Vasco turned around to look into the corridor to see if any of the other Council members were on their way. He noticed Yuri down the corridor, who was fortunate enough to be finishing his term today. Yuri was gesturing frantically at Vasco to come with him into the conference room he was leaning out of, and then he was gone.

Thinking this was strange, but not knowing what else to do, Vasco looked around at the other people in the corridor, put his hands in his hip pockets, and warily walked down to the conference room. Given the prospect of trying to resolve Martel's dispute one more time, Vasco half hoped that Yuri was inviting him to ditch the meeting with him and go to dining room. Yuri loved to play and to tell a good joke, and he was good dinner company—especially after he had had a few drinks. Yuri claimed to have chosen his name in honor of the first man in space, Yuri Gagarin, but Vasco had more than once suggested his friend's choice had more to do with a love of vodka than an admiration of a great pioneer.

Peering into the conference room, Vasco took a deep breath. Not only Yuri, but Alma, Bela, and Ahmed were waiting for him—the whole Council. Their faces looked bleak, and Yuri especially looked agitated. Alma watched Vasco intently, her dark eyes expressing serious concern. Vasco attempted a smile, then broke eye contact and sat down around the room's small conference table.

“I can't say I'm disappointed to meet in a smaller room,” he said halfheartedly, “especially if Martel won't fit in it.” Ahmed was the only one who nodded to acknowledge the joke.

Vasco winced. “You all look like bad news. Sock it to me.”

All eyes went to Yuri, who was apparently too anxious to sit. “Well,” Yuri said, looking back at each of them in turn, “I guess I have to say it again, then.” He took a deep breath and sat down. “Vasco, I have some bad news. We're almost certain that Liz is dead.”

Vasco sat in silent incomprehension for several seconds. His heart began racing and it felt as if his stomach dropped out. He looked frantically from Yuri to Ahmed, to Bela, but not to Alma, whom he couldn't bear looking at. He tried to clear his throat, but his voice caught. “You mean—”

Yuri sighed and leaned back. “Yeah.”

“Elizabeth—not someone else?”

“No, certainly Elizabeth.”

“Dead... Are you sure?”

“No.” Yuri would not meet Vasco's intent stare. “What we do know is that Hadrian and Liz were caught out in the storm and that Hadrian came back alone.

“How? Why? That's impossible! She can't be dead, no one can be dead—”

“Please try to control yourself,” Bela said mildly, but her eyes betrayed little softness. “This is hard on all of us, but unfortunately, the lot fell to each of us to figure out what to do next.”

“It's just impossible,” Vasco said, shaking his head as he covered his face in one hand. This was in part to hide the tears that suddenly threatened to break loose.

“There hasn't been a death since we left Earth, but we all knew it was a possibility when we came down from Ark,” Yuri said quietly. “If confirmed, this would be the worst disaster to date at Hopewell. But we don't have the right to keep the information private. We'll have to call a general assembly and decide as a colony what to do about it.”

“I still don't understand what happened,” Vasco said, trying to mask a sniffle and the persistent catch in his throat. “What do we know?”

“Get a hold of yourself, we already told you everything we know,” Bela said, a little more impatiently. Vasco felt a surge of rage flow through him, and he slammed his fist down on the table. Yuri was at his side and had a hand on his shoulder before Vasco could speak. Tears now streamed down his face unrestrained. Bela looked shocked.

“Please, this is hard enough without a fight between us,” Yuri said coolly to Bela.

“I am sorry to cause hurt,” Bela mumbled in apology.

Vasco struggled to relax back into his chair. His chest was tight, but he took a few deep breaths and felt a little better. “I am sorry to cause embarrassment,” he said. There was a momentary pause. “But we have to know more than that. How could they have got caught out in the storm when What did Hadrian say?”

Yuri returned to his seat, but kept shifting uncomfortably as he spoke. “Well, this is second hand from Osman, who was on watch and brought Hadrian into the medical wing, but as he explained it to me, Liz and Hadrian were out this morning on a maintenance run to the observation deck at East Bend.”

Vasco shook his head. “Why were they out there before a storm like this?”

Yuri shrugged. “Hadrian was asked to do the repair, and Liz had been out there earlier this spring, so she volunteered to navigate. According to their schedule, they had plenty of time to get back before the storm was supposed to hit, so that all checks out, and the weather group had hoped to have it ready to observe the storm, so that's the reason for the rush.”

“Seems like an unnecessary risk to me,” Vasco muttered angrily. Hadrian—Hadrian was responsible for this. . .

“Now we know that,” Ahmed said sadly. “Hindsight sees clearly, of course.”

Yuri paused uncomfortably, then continued. “Anyway, on their way back, Hadrian says she slipped into a gulley and injured herself, maybe broke her leg. While he was trying to find a way to get her out, the storm hit, and the gulley filled up with water pretty quick. She was washed downstream, and he came back here to get help.”

“Why didn't he go in after her?” Vasco shouted. Bela opened her mouth to say something, but closed it and let her eyes give the warning. Vasco, scowled. “I don't care who hears me, why didn't Hadrian go in after her?”

Yuri paused a second, giving Vasco time to cool, then leaned back in his chair. “Be reasonable, Vasco. That would have most likely resulted in two dead colonists instead of one. And if you had seen the state Hadrian's in right now, you'd cut him a little slack. It's a miracle he could drive back here at all the way he's shaking and flinching, let alone in a storm like this.”

Vasco imagined poor obnoxious Hadrian a nervous wreck, but all that did was to fill him with more violent disgust. “I am clearly in no state to handle this,” he said finally. “What do you propose we do?” he said, staring down at the table.

“Finally. Yes, let's talk about what to do,” Bela said, her arms folded tight.

Ahmed cleared his throat. “If I may, Yuri. We don't have the right to keep this information secret, and there's still the possibility that Liz is still out there.”

“Oh, come on, Ahmed! In this weather?” Vasco shouted. Ahmed held up his hands in defense.

“There's always a chance. And if there's nothing we can do to help her, at least we can bring her back to the colony and give her a proper burial.”

“If we can even find her,” Bela said darkly.

“If we can find her, right,” Ahmed said. “But the point is, we need to do something. Leaving her out there...”

Ahmed paused, apparently lost in thought. No one else made a sound. Vasco sat slumped and unmoving in his chair.

“I suggest that we call a general assembly now,” he began again, looking up, “and let some members volunteer for the search party. The storm should die down tonight—we should be able to leave in the morning. We could take something like thirty people on the hovercars and canvass the area in which Hadrian last saw her. If we don't find her by evening, we can try again the day after.”

“A good idea, but let's leave at least one hover car behind in case of emergency,” Bela said. “That means twenty-four people, plenty to begin a search.”

Ahmed nodded. Yuri sat up a little straighter. A little of the fear had gone from his eyes, as had some of the lines around his mouth. “Well, at least we have something to recommend. Let's adjourn for twenty minutes. We'll convene the general assembly in the Convention Hall, explain what happened as best as we know, and collect volunteers for the search party. We'll also need some extra field meals, so Alma, could you find out who's on duty at the dining room before the meeting convenes and see if anyone's willing to work a little late tonight? Good. All right. OK.”

“I'll send out the call to general assembly,” Bela said, standing up and briskly walking out the room before anyone else could volunteer. As she left, Yuri also stood. “I don't know about you guys, but I'm parched. Anyone want to join me for a quick drink?”

Ahmed almost chuckled as he rose, but it ended up sounding more like a wheeze. “Now don't you come addled to your own meeting, you alcoholic.”

“The best way to ensure that is to come with me, I think.” Although he was clearly aiming for a joke, Yuri's eyes betrayed an alarming duskiness that suggested that, left on his own, he might actually not make it.

Ahmed sighed and shook his head. “Let's go, then. You guys coming?” he asked, looking at first Alma, then briefly at Vasco before returning his gaze to Alma.

“No, I... I think I need to hit the sack,” Vasco said, rubbing his face. “I've got a headache and I want to sleep it off so I'll be ready for tomorrow morning.”

“You wouldn't ditch the general assembly, w—” Yuri started, but stopped as Alma tugged on his jumper sleeve and shook her head. His shoulders sagged just a little more. He cleared his throat, then went for the door. “Ahmed, are you coming?”

“Yeah,” Ahmed said, walking around the table behind Vasco and squeezing his shoulder as he went by.

Vasco half hoped Alma would leave too so he could just uncork the pressure in his chest in peace. The other half of him was relieved when she came and sat next to him, so close she was almost touching him. When her presence made his heart rate pick up, he felt a strange mix of confused . He looked up into her clear, round face. She was looking at his hands.

“I guess this is pretty hard on you.” She paused, and Vasco couldn't figure out how to respond, so he started looking at his hands, too. It was like they were someone else's hands, or like watching a movie of someone else's hands. Alma continued, but her voice also sounded distant. “I guess it's hard for all of us, you know, the first death and all. But you knew her, didn't you? You knew Liz?”

This was not exactly the conversation he wanted to be having right now. How could he look into her black, bright eyes and explain this, whatever it was? Right when she was reaching out to him, he was least in a position to open up.

“It's—no, not really,” he finally managed in a husky voice. He cleared his throat without looking up. “I knew her once, a long time ago. I'm just surprised, I guess. And this headache isn't helping,” Vasco took a deep breath and released it heavily. He rubbed his eyes in what he hoped looked like a casual way, concealing the fact that they had begin to water over. He was finally in control of his emotions enough to stand and hold the door for Alma on their way out.

They walked together in silence to the Conference Hall. Her presence at his side made his heart turn somersaults—not comfortable somersaults, but the kind that left him feeling all knotted up inside. She paused at the doorway, as if waiting for a signal. Vasco cleared his throat again, but it came out more like a cough. “Well, I'm—uh—I'm sorry to miss the general assembly,” Vasco said.

Alma grimaced a little and shrugged apologetically. A few strands of her black hair fell from behind her ear. She pushed them back into place, but said nothing right away.

“Well, I think I'll go get some rest,” Vasco said to fill the silence.

“Yeah, go on. Feel better soon,” she said, but then she just stood there looking at the floor just behind him.

More knots formed in Vasco's chest. What is she waiting for? he wondered.

A couple tried to slip into the Conference Hall behind Alma. She moved out of the way, but standing there was awkward. Vasco retreated a step, although part of him screamed that was not the right thing at all. He felt like an awkward child. He didn't know what to do with his hands, so he put them in his pockets. They were a little too high to be comfortable, so he let them drop. “Well, good night,” he said.

“Good night,” she said. She half turned into the room and then turned back. “Hey, did you want me make sure to volunteer you for the search party, then?” Her searching eyes finally met his, which meant he had to break the contact by looking down the hall.

“Um—yeah, I guess you can do that, since you're a member of the council this week. Yeah, please. Thanks. That would be good.” She looked a little flustered. She nodded and headed into the room.

She was slipping away. “Alma, hey—” Vasco blurted out. “Hey, are you coming?”

She turned again to face him, her hand resting on the door frame. Her face was blank. “I don't think so,” she said, her gaze suddenly unbearably calm. Vasco felt the urge to bolt, but instead he just nodded, waved, and started stiffly down the hallway.

The water continued to wash down either side of him as Vasco walked down the corridor connecting the Conference Hall with the dining room. People were beginning to pour out of the exit just as he was approaching it, but the tension in his chest wouldn't let his feet stop moving. A couple of men were talking excitedly and bumped into Vasco as they went by. Vasco's temper flared, and he turned toward the perpetrator, who seemed unaware of his crime. Vasco imagined going up to the man, who was no taller than he, and demanding an apology—but because he was no longer paying attention, he bumped into a woman a head shorter than he. “Watch it!” she muttered impatiently as she moved around him. His temper lost its focus. He pushed his way through the stream of people and on down the hallway, deliberately taking the long way to avoid anyone he knew well.

He passed others headed to the general assembly, some talking excitedly, some laughing, some rushing on by themselves to the Conference Hall. Vasco avoided eye-contact, and although some looked puzzled at the direction he was taking, no one stopped him. How can they laugh? he thought angrily. Look at them, smiling their moronic smiles, thinking this is some sort of game! A woman is dead! You can all die too, you heartless, murderous idiots! He marched on through the bright corridors imagining gruesome deaths for the unwitting offenders, growing angrier with every step.

Finally he was alone at his door. Everyone else would likely be at the general assembly by now. He unlocked the door and shoved it open, slamming it first against the wall and then in its frame. The loud noise was frustratingly inadequate. The lights came on. “OFF!” he shouted, and plunged himself into darkness. He took a few blind steps in the dark and tossed himself face-down on the bed. He pounded the soft mattress with his fist, then again, and again. Then he was weeping as all the anger poured out of him, leaving a howling emptiness that shook him. He kicked the mattress, but weakly now. He was exhausted.

He dreamed he was back in Los Angeles. It was 1948, and the radio was playing, and he could hear Liz banging around in the kitchen. All he could see through the doorway was her long, curly red hear running down her back, contrasting with the knee-length blue dress he had bought her. Then she was gone, but he could still hear her moving, breathing. All he wanted was for her to come in to him and breathe softly as she slept next to him. Her breathing was so soft when she slept. He was tired, dead tired, and he realized it was late at night and it was dark, and now she wasn't making noise anymore. Didn't she know what time it was? Why wouldn't she come to bed? He was angry. He wanted to get out of bed and tell her he had to work tomorrow, he had a case to crack, and wouldn't she turn that stupid radio off and come to bed? But he couldn't get out of bed. He was stuck face down in the mattress. Why did she stay up listening to that radio? Why wasn't she with him? Why wouldn't she come in the room? She was dead. His wife was dead. She was dead dead dead dead.

He woke up gasping in a sweat. His neck ached from the awkward angle he had fallen asleep in, and he tried to crack it as he sat up to catch his breath. His eyes adjusted to the dark, and he realized that he was in his room in Hopewell Colony. It was just a dream—it was just a faded memory of a time when he had played a detective in virtual reality, in a scenario, in a life before this real life. That wasn't real life—it had always been a dream. That was the cruelty of the colonists' journey, and it was why no one had been down here when Ark 12 arrived in orbit. Vasco had chosen to escape virtuality, to join this little band of colonists, to come down to live a real life on Hopewell. He had chosen real life with real consequences, to prepare a new world for a new humanity, and to find out what it really means to be human himself. Let the sleepers uselessly dream on: they have no future, and they are losing their past.

Virtuality wasn't real, even if it felt real. It was just a way to pass the time between Earth and Hopewell, between Earth and a real home. Nothing that happened in virtuality really meant anything in the world of quarks and light and genes and life.

So why was he bent over and weeping again? Why was he shaking and sobbing in the dark for the woman he had never married, for the end of a life he never lived?

second life

Here is the most recent copy of a story I've finished here on vacation.  It's still in an early draft form, but it's further along than most things I post here.  It's approaching 5000 words, so pace yourself, but it's a short story and it goes from start to finish here.  I'm mostly interested in general responses, but I have put a couple of more specific questions on the bottom of the post.  Bon appetit!

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Second Life

I hadn't seen Evan since graduation, and although we'd written on each other's Facebook walls a time or two, I was surprised when he wanted to come by for a visit. We caught up a little, remembering old professors and good times, but finally I asked him what brought him here.

“I'm on my way off the internet,” he explained. He pointed out the triviality his life had increasingly seemed to take on as he had become more and more connected online. His last girlfriend had even left him because she thought he was always paying more attention to his phone than to her. He couldn't write, he couldn't even read a long piece of text anymore without getting that twitch to google something new and interesting. “I finally decided enough was enough, and now I'm headed to my family's cabin where I can live like a human being again.”

When I pointed out that cutting yourself off from humanity didn't seem like the same thing as living like a human, he shrugged. “When you're an alcoholic, you have to stop drinking before you can rebuild your life. I'm thinking of it as internet rehab, my own private Walden Pond where I can reconnect with myself and with nature. And besides, maybe I'll finally finish my novel!” He said with some excitement.

“I don't know that anyone can really live without the internet,” I said with a smile, “but I hope you're successful.” The cabin was only a few hours from my place, so I promised to visit every couple of months or so, and we said goodbye.

Time passed, and to be honest, I didn't think much about Evan. One sleepy summer Sunday afternoon, I wrote him a letter in pen and ink (in solidarity with his analog pipe-dream) asking how things were going and if I should plan on heading up to see him. I didn't get a response for some time, so I wondered if I had got the address wrong on the envelope. But a few weeks later I got an email response, in which Evan described his more-or-less successful attempts at living off the grid:

At first, I was fired up and it was easy to keep myself on task, gardening, hiking, reading off a printed page, and writing my novel. But after I submitted the novel to my first publisher, I suddenly had all sorts of nervous energy. Without daily interaction with some sort of society, I lost the motivation to write to anyone. But since most of the people I wanted to talk with were scattered across the country, and since I had grown to like my little cabin lifestyle so much, I decided the only thing to do was to get back online. It was only when I went into town to get a satellite dish installed on the cabin that I got your letter.

A little social media was all it took to get the literary juices flowing again. I'm beginning a series of essays while I wait to hear back from the publisher, but I think I'm on to something for my next novel, anyway. And I started a blog, so we'll see where all that goes. I'd like to show you around my mountain when you get the chance, although I see your Facebook status just changed to 'in a relationship.' Don't you know that women are only trouble for the creative mind? You'll never write anything now until you dump her—you won't have the time, let alone the concentration.

Of course, Evan was talking more about his own problems with women than mine, but the rest of his letter was pretty peppy and I thought he must be doing pretty well.

Later that summer, I did take my girlfriend, Hana, up to visit. He showed us his garden, which was fairly formidably covered in tomatoes, squash, potatoes, and other useful vegetables, considering he'd never raised a living thing in his life. There were a good few weeds growing up as well, which he explained with a shrug. “I don't find as much time to keep it up as I used to, now that I blog most days, but I can still eat off of it, so that's success, right?” As for the other necessities of life, he had made a deal with his grocery clerk to haul them up the mountain in his pickup once every two weeks, so practically speaking, Evan was a more steady occupant of his little cabin than Thoreau was at Walden.

He mentioned that friends would drop by from time to time, and when he saw hikers coming, he invited them in for some water, so he wasn't completely alone, but he had all the time he needed to write his masterwork of a novel. “It's the novel of the age!” he said enthusiastically. “It's a declaration of independence from technology, a return to our real roots as the greatest animals on the face of the earth!” I laughed. He smiled and shrugged. “We are what we are. I am proud to claim the title of animal, a living, thinking, breathing animal that writes novels and grows his own food. I don't need anyone or anything but me!”

Evan's bombastic enthusiasm was more obnoxious than ever, but probably that's good for a writer. He couldn't stop talking about how frustrating it was to try to work with editors—he had been asked to write a guest column in a tech magazine due to the success of his blog, and had already pulled his novel from one publisher because the editor wanted him to change too much. Mostly, he just talked a lot. A life of written words seems to have created a deficit of spoken conversation for him, but otherwise he seemed happy and well.

We had a pretty good time, and to Hana's credit, she put up with Evan's outsized vocabulary and tendency to show off his literacy in a broad range of subjects. She even out-maneuvered him in a discussion about the futility of language and forced him to admit several deficiencies in his theory of a future “literary internet.” When we were saying our goodbyes, he winked at me and whispered, “Listen, I think it's only fair to warn you that if you don't hurry and marry that woman, I will.”

“You snooze, you loose, my friend,” I said, genuinely pleased at his back-handed praise. We promised to visit again towards the fall and drove away from that little refuge back to real life.

I did ask Hana to marry me that fall, and between wedding plans and work, we never made it back to Evan's cabin. I kept pretty good track of him, though, as it seemed he spent all his time online. His blog on the intersection of life online and the natural world got picked up by one of those big magazines in New York in an attempt to be more relevant to the modern reader. His novel was finally published and jumped to the top 30 e-books, and stayed there for months. I bought the hardback version, and it was pretty good for a first novel, but then I bought a tablet and I kind of wished I had it electronically. He would send me short emails with anecdotes from conversations he'd been having with internet literati, or more often copy-and-pasted emails and chats with amusing results. I told him about getting married, about how it wasn't as hard as I'd feared to keep my soul while working in corporate America, and the day-to-day living that he seemed to be missing with his fast-paced online life.

Our emails grew less frequent over time, though, and eventually they stopped. Hana quit her job to get ready for our new baby, and we moved to a little house outside the city. The focus of our lives changed. I found that family demands meant I spent more time off the computer than I had in the past, and I didn't notice his two Twitter accounts or that his blog had morphed into a meditation about virtual life on the internet in a higher-profile magazine. In fact, it wasn't until I was browsing the stacks in my local bookstore's going-out-of-business sale that I read all that on the jacket of his second book, collected of essays on digital life. Enjoying the irony, I bought the hardback version and didn't regret it a bit.

I went home and decided I'd write Evan an email letting him know that I'd bought his second book and thought it was great, and that if I changed my mind after reading it I wouldn't tell him. Before I could finish my online banking and head to bed, he had already responded. “Hey, it's been a long time, hasn't it?” he began. At this point, it had been more than two years since I had seen him in person. I expected an update on his life, but all I got was an excuse that he'd been really busy and asked all sorts of questions about how we were doing and what it was like to be a dad. We traded emails for a few weeks, him describing a lot about his life as a writer but avoiding any mention of a personal life, until finally he wrote that he wanted to catch up in person as soon as possible up at his place.

Our new baby girl was pretty adverse to car seats at that point—and by adverse I mean she would not stop screaming until she was let out, no matter how many hours it took—so I wrote back asking if he couldn't come down and see our new place. He was oddly adamant that he couldn't leave his work for that long. “I'm practically glued to my screen these days, and if I miss a deadline, that could be the end of it for me,” he said. “It's really hard for me to find time to get out anymore, but that doesn't mean I don't miss seeing people. I'd really appreciate it if you could make it up to see me,” he finished, sounding a little desperate.

I was a little worried about him, so I took a vacation day, kissed Hana and our baby goodbye, and set out for a weekend in the woods. One of my tires went flat halfway there, so by the time I got to the cabin, it was already late and it was hard to see the driveway from the road. I parked the car and as soon as the headlights turned off, infinite stars appeared above me, thicker and brighter than I could remember for a very long time. There was no moon, no city lights, and only a faint glow from inside the cabin, so my view was marvelously unobstructed. I stood leaning on the car door for a few moments before deciding that Evan had the right idea with his little mountain retreat and heading toward the front door through the deep darkness.

Because of that darkness, though, I tripped on the undergrowth that seemed to have taken over the front of the house. Vines were climbing up the side of the house and the grass and brush had grown up to my knees. As my eyes adjusted to the dim night, I could see that the garden seemed to be just as overgrown.

I picked my way carefully to the front door and knocked loudly, hoping Evan hadn't gone to bed. It was late summer, but the mountain night was colder than I had expected and I shivered as a breeze came up. I waited, then knocked again. I tried to laugh at myself as it occurred to me that the murmur of the stream and the wind in the branches began to sound more and more like disembodied voices in the forest. I checked the time on my phone and decided that it was better to sneak in as quietly as I could and crash on the couch than to leave.

When I cracked open the door, I saw that the only light in the little cabin was a pale blue glow coming from the kitchen where Evan had set up his laptop when we had been here last. I slipped in and quietly called, “Hello?” in case he had fallen asleep at the keyboard. Not hearing a response, I tiptoed toward the kitchen and the source of light.

From the door frame, I could see Evan slumped over the small square kitchen table, apparently asleep with his face toward turned his laptop screen. Illuminated with that flickering light, Evan looked eerily emaciated. His eyes were invisible in the dimness of deep eye-sockets and his arms were almost skeletally thin as they rested futilely on the keyboard in the dark. He looked dead. I flipped the light switch, but there was no reaction—the light was apparently burned out. I tried to speak, but my voice caught in my throat and all I could do was cough weakly. I paused, then I backed out of the kitchen to the front room and the bedroom, flipping the switches. They were all burned out.

I took a deep breath and went back to the kitchen. I cleared my throat and knocked on the door frame. “Hey, Evan!” I managed, fairly loudly. My voice only cracked a little. There was no response but the flickering of a changing computer screen. It was running something, so he couldn't really be dead, right? Or at least not for very long...

I took a deep breath and used my phone to feebly light up the space in front of me. What ever happened to those phones with flashlights on the end? I got right up next to Evan's body and finally saw that he was breathing. I immediately relaxed, but he still looked dead, and he wasn't responding. I gingerly tapped him on the shoulder, but he wasn't cold or anything, so I gathered my courage and shook his shoulder. I would have spoken, but I was afraid if I tried, I might choke. Evan kind of slumped over further and I had to hold him back in his chair—which is when I saw them.

There were long, thin strands of something coming out of his arms toward the desk, like a spider web made of wires. I jumped back and shuddered as I tried to catch my breath. Evan's blank face was now staring at the ceiling.

I'll admit it crossed my mind to just walk out right then. And by “crossed my mind” I mean my muscles screamed to run away as fast as I could. The only thing that kept me from bolting was that my brain seemed incapable of computing my muscles' request. But after a moment or two, I was able to relax and overcome my shock. I came back close enough to get a good look at his arms (although I kept my distance from that death-like face), and under my phone's glow, I saw that in fact, they were wires, and they looked like they had been inserted seamlessly into Evan's skin. They went directly into the laptop, somehow. That's when I noticed what was going on the screen.

It was a chat window. Messages from Evan's account kept coming up, and they had my name on them.

Hey, Todd, look here.

I can hear you, but I can't say anything. Just look over here.

No, dude, the lights are burned out.

Yes, in the whole house.

Relax, dude, you sound like you saw a ghost. I can't talk, but just look at the screen.

Right, again, you can tap me on the shoulder, but I'm not going to be able to respond...

Be careful! Don't let me fall on the floor!

OK, this is starting to hurt my neck. Although, it did already have a crick in it...

Wait! Wait wait! I know these wires look crazy, but it's OK! Just look at the screen!

My blood ran cold again. I swallowed hard and took a step away from the computer. That's when the next message appeared.

Please wait! Please! Don't leave me here like this!

“This isn't funny, Evan,” I said, finally finding my voice. “You're sick and you need help, but this isn't funny...”

My voice faded out as more text appeared on the screen. I know I'm sick, I know, but I really can't move.

I took a step closer to the screen. “What, do you have video chat running or something? Are you just somewhere else so you can pull a prank? Because you really did have me for a minute there, what with this warm body and all.”

Yes to the video chat, but that's really me, sad as I look.

“I don't believe you,” I said, but I was starting to shake. I took another step back from the table and the grotesque body seated in front of it.

Come on, man, why in the world would I bring you up here for something idiotic like that?

Evan had never really been the prank-pulling kind of guy, so that was a good point. I hesitated.

There's no way I could prove it to you, but this is why I couldn't come see you and your family. I am literally wired into the internet.

I grimaced. “What's that supposed to mean? How?”

*shrug* I don't know. Since you saw me last, I just spent more and more time on the online. One day I realized I'd been at my computer for 24 hours straight, so I went to bed, but I couldn't sleep, so I came back. I lost track of time, and the next time I looked at the computer, it had been maybe two more days. This time I really did go sleep, but I wasn't really tired, so I slept restlessly. After a night like that, I decided sleep was getting unnecessary, which is great for a blogger. I had more time to surf the web and write, and who would sleep if they didn't have to? I didn't ask questions, I just adjusted and enjoyed my new freedom.

Well, people started noticing my seemingly limitless energy on the web. I got invited to write more and more guest columns and do some ghost writing, which was great for my bank account and for my self-esteem. But it came clear pretty quickly that I had to abandon writing anything longer than about 1000 words, because my search-tic had gotten too bad to concentrate on anything longer than that, including my next novel. I was still pretty good at short essays back then, though.

That was when I discovered the stock market. I had become so quick at surfing and processing data on the internet that I could predict the market's ups and downs almost as soon as they happened. So I started spending part of every day doing that. And then I realized I could pick up news reports across the world in real time, so I did that in between trades and started a news aggregator. Between the two, I run a fairly successful page under a pseudonym. Life would be great, but now I have a problem.

I didn't realize what was happening with my body until it was too late. Somehow, these wires grew out of me into the computer while I was busy paying attention to all this other stuff. At first, I tried to pull them out, but each time I did, I noticed that my surfing speed dropped. So I stopped. My life was more online than off, so what does it matter that I can't get up away from the computer?

Well, I've been going on like this for some time, but as you can see, my body is in pretty bad shape. But I've also started noticing that I don't ever really pay attention to it.

“Well, you really should. You look like death.”

That's kind of my point. I don't think I live in my body anymore.

“Huh?” I shuddered.

I know it doesn't make much sense, but I think my body is dying, but I don't feel it dying, and my mind is as sharp as ever. I think somehow I've made the transition across the digital threshold.

“How can you tell?”

Well, my physical reactions are slow, and I can't really move more than automatically. And honestly, I haven't eaten in weeks, but I'm not hungry. I can do literally a few thousand things on the internet in the time it takes me to stick out my tongue. And soon, I might not be able to move anything at all. However it happened, I think I've transferred into a purely virtual existence.

“You've got to be pulling my leg,” I said without conviction. I glanced at the body staring at the ceiling. It certainly looked like Evan, but it was certainly on its way out of this life. I couldn't imagine he could come up with some hoax that looked so realistic... and breathed...

I don't know, but that's what I think. And that's what I really needed you to come for. I would never have been able to explain this without you standing right here. I think this body is keeping me back. I need you to release me from it.

I recoiled. “This is really sick. I'm not going to kill anyone.”

Hold on, just a second!

I paused my retreat.

Hold on, really, hear me out. That body there, it's not me. I'm the man who writes blogs, who comments on life on the internet, who runs a news website. And now I have an opportunity to become a real journalist, to investigate a life that no one has ever had before, to do real pioneering work! But I can feel this body is holding me back. I think too slow, because I have to send messages back into that brain. It's slow and it doesn't mean anything to me anymore.

“You don't need me. 'This body' of yours is dying pretty well on its own.”

No, you see, I don't actually know if I don't need this body, and I'm running out of time. I need you to cut a few of the wires and see what happens.

“And if you start dying, what am I supposed to do then?”

There will be time to handle it. I'll be paying close attention, I can promise you that. Please, Todd, I don't know how much time I have left, and if I'm wrong about needing my body, I need medical help right away.

“Seems like you could have thought of that earlier,” I mumbled, but he was right. Whatever happened before, he needed help now. “What do you need me to do?” I said with a tone of resignation.

There's a pair of scissors hanging above the sink you can use.

“I won't get electrocuted?”

They've got plastic handles, so you should be fine.

I took my phone and found the scissors and came back. I looked down at his hideous arms and the tangled web of wires that held them captive. “Now what?”

OK, just cut one or two wires and let's see what happens.

Slowly carefully, I took a single wire and placed it between the scissors. Then I cut it.

Evan's arm seemed to flinch, but there was little reaction. I turned back to the screen.

That felt all right. Let's try a a few more.

I cut three more. The body didn't flinch this time.

I think it's working. Let's see if you can fee one of the arms now.

I hesitated again. The enormity of what I was doing started to sink in. “Listen, Evan, even if you could do this, are you sure you want to? I mean...”

I know, I know. But I've thought about it a good deal. If this works, though, my body may die, but I'll live forever. However this happened, I don't know that it's reversible at this point, but there might be a way forward. We can't go back now. Go ahead, cut me loose.

What choice did I have? I cut one arm free, and then the other. Before I cut the last wire, I made sure Evan was ready. “How do you feel?”

Better than ever. I can think even more clearly than before—faster, sharper. I'm ready. Cut the wire.

I cut the wire. At first, nothing happened. “Evan?” I asked, looking from the computer screen to the sallow face of my friend and back.

The edges of panic had begun to sink in when a new message appeared on the screen.

I've done it! I've somehow become the future of humanity! Look at me, I can move from here to China and back practically at the speed of light! I will never die, for I am not tied down by your version of reality! I am immortal! I am the internet! I see all, I am all! The glory is mine!

And then, nothing. No more messages. I tried to get a response out of Evan, talking and typing up a storm, but nothing came of it. I was talking into the void, into the darkness.

Then I remembered the body, sitting there in the dark. I was alone with a living corpse.

I ran out of the house. I shouldn't have run, I know, but I did. I drove straight home and I didn't tell anyone about what I had seen, not Hana, not the police, not anyone. I couldn't sleep at night anymore with the lights off, and I couldn't touch a computer without getting goosebumps.

I would have liked to have forgotten the whole ordeal, but that's not the way things worked out. When Evan stopped writing for two weeks on end, his publishers contacted the police, who checked out the cabin. Of course they found my fingerprints on every light switch and on the scissors. Evan's body had begun decomposing and it was no longer clear how he died, so my defense lawyer didn't have much to go on. I told her exactly what happened, and she suggested the insanity defense, which I of course refused. Well, the prosecution's case was circumstantial but convincing, and the jury convicted. The judge lightened my sentence based on what he considered my unstable mental state, which I am grateful for, but I'm still appealing.

Evan could help, but he doesn't. In the weeks after our little incident, a new web magazine appeared, accurately predicting market swings and attracting a big following among finance-types. Oh, it's under an assumed name, but it's him, all right. And it spends half its web space blabbing on and on about life on the web and “living virtually.” That sneaky jerk, he knows what's happening with me and he refuses to get involved. I sent him a dozen emails, and he didn't respond to a one of them.

The worst part of it is that Hana doesn't believe me, either. She filed for divorce this week, and I hear from the other inmates that the judge assigned to our case hates convicts. I just don't know if I'll ever get to see my daughter again.

Well, fine. Evan can ruin my life if he likes. I'll get out of this hole someday, and when I do, I'll find him. See, I've been working on a theory of how he did it, and it's not that hard: you just have to be dedicated enough to the internet that it claims you as its own. So the moment I'm free, I'll do the same as him, but when I get out there in the internet, I'll take him apart. He never really was the competitive type, and I know how to play the endgame. I'll figure out what makes his little media empire tick, and then I'll leak it to all his competitors. I'll drive down the prices of the stocks he owns, I'll empty out his bank account, and I'll DDS the heck out of his stupid web site. And he won't know it's me until it's too late. Sure, with neither of us embodied, it might be a long struggle, but I've got two things going for me that Evan doesn't: I'm in the right, and I've already killed him once.

I can do it again.

*   *   *
My questions are these:
1. What about the general premise?  Sure, it's been done, but I was mostly looking to finish something for a change.  Is it too boring?  Can it be improved?
2. Where is the structure weak?
3. What can I do to strengthen the emotional impact of the climactic scene?
4. What other craft observations can you make?

No matter whatever else, I am so glad to have actually finished something... ahhhhhh...  :)

I cannot tell a lie

Hey folks! I promised to post 500 words a week, but my stories are kinda spinning their wheels at present, so I might be posting miscellanea for a while. On the other hand, that means you don't have to commit to a sustained reading of my stuff (at least not yet!) The following is a short essay about a book I just read, In Bed with the Word, a book about reading by Daniel Coleman.  I thought it might be interesting for people who read as much as we do.

I'm looking for any general proofreading issues (they way it's worded, spelling or grammar mistakes, etc.) but mostly in your reaction to the ideas.  I wrote the piece more or less under the assumption that people would know the book I'm talking about, but I want to know if it's clear to someone who hasn't read the book what I'm talking about.

If the essay is clear enough, what motivates you to read in general and science fiction and fantasy in specific?

I figure a conversation about reading is good for us, since we all intend someone else to read what we've written and if we understand why people read, perhaps we can write to better motivate people to read our stuff.  :)


     To my American mindset, the counterculture is essentially supposed to consist of “make peace, not war,” and “drugs, sex, and rock and roll.” But for a long time I have been unsettlingly amused by the way that “the man” has domesticated these supposedly independent aspects of American culture and made a pretty dollar in its distribution. I know I have often felt a strong social pressure to accept counterculture values as my own and to conform to accepted forms of nonconformity in dress, speech, music, and philosophy. I fear that counterculture has been transformed from liberator to conquistador, leaving it devoid of positive social impact. As an accepted norm, countercultural values can deny individuality just as readily as the values against which they rebelled.
     The primary value of counterculture is its willingness to question the accepted norms of society. As John Stuart Mill argues in On Liberty, this allows a culture to develop, whether or not a counterculture’s ideas are truer than the accepted norm: even largely fallacious arguments contain part of the truth, and even if they have nothing to offer, they prove the importance of the accepted argument. Counterculture is necessary if a society wants to avoid calcification and obsolescence. The conflict between establishment and dissent breathes life into a society and gives it direction as it works out the debate. But when the counterculture becomes the establishment, it is difficult to understand how to dissent against dissention and the function of questioning may be lost for a time.
     Against the incessant pace of technology’s march and the restless pull of consumer culture, Coleman recommends that an important countercultural activity is simply reading. Surrounded by electronic stimulus that gives us no rest and seems inescapably accompanied by the insistent demand that we consume more and think less, reading is inherently in opposition to the accepted norms. “Reading is counter-cultural mainly because it requires quiet time, being slow and meditative, and it is active rather than passive” (26). Coleman goes on to say that of course not all books are constructive and not all electronic media are destructive, but that as a general rule reading, by its meditative nature, provides a greater opportunity for spirituality and creativity. I would say that it allows us to act more and be acted upon less, liberating us from a state of subjection to other things and allowing us to develop an independent perspective.
     Coleman highlights another essential aspect of reading as counterculture: the dual application of the hermeneutics of suspicion and the hermeneutics of affirmation. Western culture has widely accepted the application of the hermeneutics of suspicion, creating an orthodoxy of skepticism. This has been, in my opinion, a powerful tool for social development as a means of dismantling unjust power structures and enfranchising the oppressed. When applied correctly, it should also to some extent free us from the grip of consumer culture as we approach advertising with skepticism. But I agree with Coleman that in absence of the hermeneutics of affirmation, the hermeneutics of suspicion can erode spiritual development by disallowing humility. “Spirituality assumes that I have something to learn and that I can learn it from the many things around me that draw me out of myself” (39) Coleman writes, but an all-pervasive suspicion undermines my ability to approach anything with the humility required to learn. In this way, reading – which requires humility and even vulnerability before the text in order to be done properly – gives an opportunity to pursue the hermeneutics of affirmation and develop a counterculturally positive perspective.

Works cited.
Coleman, Daniel. In Bed with the Word. Edmonton: Univ. Alberta Press, 2009. Print.

Tricky business, fragment 1

Hello, amigos! It's been a long time since I've posted... and I still have to catch up on yours. In my defense, I've read over 250 pages of Dostoevsky for a class in the past week... :)

This is the first fragment of a contemporary sci-fi novel. It's long -- bear with me a bit the setting up phase and it will pick up a good deal. There's a few elements of non-existent technology in it, but for the most part, I intend it to look a lot like the world we live in now (which is like writing science fiction in the first place!) Unfortunately, I could only start writing in the very middle of the action, with very little introduction and not a whole lot of a story arc. Therefore, this first post is kind of intense and will likely be spread throughout the story. It also doesn't have an ending. I apologize that it's not a novel yet, but I hope to get the ideas out there and hang them in the plot as they develop a bit.

The second section is where the main action picks up. It's only half of the scene because I'm running up against the word count... but I guess that means I have something for next week, too.

My questions:
1. What is your reaction to Heath (the narrator)? Can you relate to his experiences as a child? Suggestions.
2. What do you feel is the most interesting conflict in the second fragment?
3. How interested are you in what happens next? How curious are you as to what motivates Heath? Dalton?
Any feedback is welcome. Sorry for such a long post!


You might think that your mother's murder would stand out as the defining moment of your childhood, but the fact of the matter is that I was too young to make much sense of it. Against the gray backdrop that was my life, it was simply the darkest spot in a murky series. Time and intervening circumstances slowly washed to event into the background even as they highlighted the much more pressing issue—being without a mother. At five, it hardly matters how your mother dies. Death is something grownups talk about in whispers than it is some sort of ultimate reality.
I never saw my mother's body, so in my mind, she was still alive. At any minute she might come through the back door into the kitchen, set down the tall brown bags of groceries and ask me to put the canned peas in the pantry next to the green beans. She never came, but sometimes it seemed like I heard her closing the hatchback door, like I heard her shuffling up the steps, and next she would turn the handle.
When I think of that time, the first thing I remember is crying for hours in the little nook between the dining room and my father's study, shaking and shivering all over as sunlight poured through the window and futilely tried to warm my skin. I also remember my father with his face in his hands, shaking and sobbing while Aunt Faye held him steady. The sight of my only pillar of my life crumbling shook me, then drove me into a terrified rage. I screamed, and Aunt Faye snatched me up and brought me to my bed, where I clung to her desperately until I had cried myself to exhaustion. And I remember my little brother Chris wandering around in his little pajamas, dragging his blanket around, his eyes red, his nose runny, and smelling like he had made a mess in his pants.
I don't remember much of the funeral, except for the pictures in my dad's room that he kept under the bed before we moved from the suburbs to the city. I do remember something of the graveside service, and standing very still as the priest said something over her enormous black coffin. I couldn't take my eyes off of it. It seemed like it was the hole which I was going to fall in to, no matter what I did. When the service was over, my aunt tried to hold my hand and walk me to the car, but I broke free and ran away. I felt like if I didn't stop, the black wouldn't catch me, but when I had run along the road all the way to my father's car, I realized there was nowhere else to go. I wanted to melt away somehow, or fly away, but there was nothing but the hot paint and the dusty gravel and it was hard to breathe, so I waited there until my father unlocked the door and Aunt Faye put Chris in the car seat and I opened the door and sat down next to her and fell asleep as my dad drove us home.

OK, so that's a little bit of the background. Here's the plot:

My name is Heath Sewell. I am a prosecutor because I believe those who flaunt society should see justice, and justice to its full extent. Anyone who is unwilling to live by the rules of society should be removed from it, before they remove the rest of us. Life is a war, the only respite from which is enforced by law. That law is imperfect, and we can't prevent every tragedy: stock markets crash, old ladies get swindled out of their retirement, your iPod gets swiped. Sometimes your mother is killed. But that just drives me more frantically to put those who would destroy us somewhere where they will never harm another soul. If you'll forgive me the metaphor, our legal system is the angel of vengeance that brings peace back into a chaotic world, into lives shattered by tragedy.

So when I sat across the table from Terry Dalton and his lawyer, working out a deal to get him out of prison, I had mixed emotions. I was a representative of the people of Idaho, who had in recent years seen the increasing need to empty overcrowded prisons and fund schools. Disconcerting as it was, the legislature and the DA's office had decided to try something new: neuro-therapy to control the violent tendencies of inmates. Some of those inmates, after treatment, would be able to rejoin society if they behaved. There had been virtually no relapses after the proper course of treatment – no repeat offenders in four years of the program in California. Resolving crime through medicine had a powerful attraction to it, not only because of lives saved, but also because of the potential lives regained.
Mr. Dalton had been convicted on several counts of assault and one rape, someone who had shown that his brain was incapable of controlling the violent impulses that occasionally surged through it. He was up for parole in a month, but he had been up for parole three times already and failed each time because of a series of aggressive outbursts among the other inmates. If anyone was a prime candidate for David Lund's neuro-therapy, it was Dalton. But for some reason, Dalton wouldn't budge, and I was done being patient.
“Look, I don't know how I can possibly explain this in more attractive terms than I already have. You're not going to get parole any time soon with that cafeteria fight on your record, and you've got two more decades in here otherwise. I'm offering you a chance at freedom here, and not just from these cinder-block walls.” I leaned across the metal table closely, staring intently at Dalton and dropping my voice. Dalton's dark eyes peered quietly back from his fat, sunken face hovering over a thick neck and shoulders. His size and history might have been unnerving except for his handcuffs.
“You won't have to worry about your anger anymore, Terry. You wouldn't hurt anyone. It's a new slate, a new life, a new you. Your past won't matter. As long as you remain under the operation of the neuro-therapy, you'll be out of here and in the real world. You can get a job and get a life. All it takes is a signature here, and you'll be free in two months.”
I slid the contract across the table toward Dalton, who sat hunched over the table with his hands folded in a tight knot. His public defender, Alma Bocaz, muttered to him quietly, “It's a great bargain, Terry. I don't know that we'll ever get a better deal than this.” Alma and I had both clerked for judges on the same district court out of law school. Even then, before my taste in women had narrowed to exclude fellow attorneys, her tendency to argue about everything and anything made it hard to share an elevator with her, let alone have dinner. Not that she shouldn't be that way, because it made her an excellent lawyer. It just also made her completely impossible to have a conversation with. On top of all that, I hadn't seen her do anything but frown, stare, or smirk contemptuously the whole time I had known her. It was as if her eyebrows were permanently knit together. I wasn't really happy to be across from her, but then I also knew how to deal with her—ignore her and work directly with the client.
The client, however, continued to stare at his hands and said nothing. I leaned back in my chair. “Listen, Terry, I've got other inmates to meet with and I'm sure several of them will be plenty interested in my offer. This isn't the kind of sales pitch where you can go home and think it over. The DA's office only has so many slots in the research program to offer, and if you don't sign up now, I can't promise there will be an opening for you later. If you're not interested, fine, you can stay here for the rest of your life.”
Dalton's face seemed to gray some to match the cement around him, and I thought I was finally getting through to him. I suppressed a smile and let him stew for just a minute. Alma seemed annoyed, but whether at me or at her client I couldn't tell.
“It's a painless procedure,” I continued after a moment, “and the patients who signed on to the project in California and Alabama reported no side effects apart from a little nausea at first and a little soreness from the surgery. In fact, the honest truth is that practically all of the patients on nuero-therapy are able to adjust their brain functions to the point where they are able to live perfectly normal lives. Now, considering your situation, Terry, I can't understand what could possibly make you hesitate.”
Alma's eyes narrowed to mascara-shaded slits. “That does beg the question, Mr. Prosecutor, what's in it for you?” I suspected that she was resisting more out of an adversarial instinct rather than a particular line of questioning. The checkmate was coming soon, and so I finally allowed myself a brief, confident smile before continuing.
“This kind of treatment would normally cost millions of dollars, but we've done the math. Allowing Mr. Dalton to leave state lockup will actually save the state money.” I turned to Dalton and tapped the edge of the table with my finger as I continued. “Meanwhile, you'll be free to pursue your life as a productive, normal member of society. You see, everyone is better off this way.” I flipped out my cell phone and tapped the screen to check the time. “But this is all the time I can spend on you, Mr. Dalton. I need a decision, and I need it now.”
Dalton finally looked up and locked his eyes with mine. Alma was trying to say something to him, but he seemed to ignore her, staring at me like he was trying to bore a way through my eyes into my skull. A chill ran down my spine, but I was well-trained and nothing was readable of my discomfort on my face. I tried to suppress the idea that this is what Dalton must have looked like to his victims right before he struck. There was something primal in the intensity of his glare, the look of concentration you can see in your cat as it stalks a robin. I swallowed softly, blinked, and asked with my head cocked just a little to the side, “Well, Mr. Dalton, what will it be?”
Dalton held up a finger to Alma and she folded her hands and shut up. Then, finally breaking his stare, he rubbed his face with both hands and took a deep breath. So did I.
“Mr. Sewell, I appreciate the offer,” he began, “but I have to ask you, if you were in my shoes, would you allow someone to put a switch in your head that could turn off your soul?”
I was surprised enough that I lost my calm veneer for a split second. Before anyone could notice, I leaned back in my chair with a quizzical grin on my face to cover my confusion. Alma wasn't so lucky. She was the one who was staring now, at her client. It helped me focus to relish the look of shock in her eyes—although her brow was still knit together, her mouth was also hanging open stupidly.
“Well, Mr. Dalton, I have to say I hadn't thought about it before now, but—yes, I would let them put a 'switch' in my head, as you put it. If my arm was broken, I can't say I'd mind if a doctor set it; if my brain was broken, I imagine I would feel the same way.”
“You seem to miss my meaning, Mr. Sewell. What I'm getting at is that if I let your doctors put a magnet in my skull and manage it remotely, I won't be myself anymore. I will be whatever they decide to make of me, a puppet to whatever game they want to play.”
“With all due respect, Mr. Dalton, these people are doctors. They have nothing but your very best interests at heart, far more than I do. And besides,” I said as I leaned back in close an earnest expression on my face, “what's the difference between this and medication, except for the fact that it has no side-effects and is one hundred percent effective?”
Dalton shook his head and scowled. “You can keep your treatment, Mr. Sewell. I won't allow you to talk me into relinquishing what's left of my freedom.”
It took all the force of will I had not to fly into a rage. This idiot wouldn't listen to reason, let alone what was good for him, but I also had other reasons for wanting him to take up my offer. I took two deep breaths behind an expressionless face, and then, composed, I nodded politely, stood, and gathered my briefcase and my coat from the back of the chair. “Well, Mr. Dalton, I suppose I can't help you then. Although, I do wonder what in the world you mean about remaining freedom. Look around you, Mr. Dalton. You've already lost whatever small chance you had at retaining your dignity. It's a shame to see you lose this opportunity.”
“Freedom isn't defined by whether or not walls around you have barbed wire on them or not, Mr. Sewell. That may be the only thing I've learned here worth knowing. I may be a convicted felon, but I'd like to remain a man.”
I shrugged and headed for the door. Alma finally pulled herself together and began frantically trying to talk Dalton out of his irrational position, but I went out as fast as I could. My heart was still racing from what felt like a brush with a madman, at least as terrifying in his unstable way of thinking as in his violent hands. Trying to control my breathing, I walked down the hall without acknowledging the nods of two guards walking the opposite way. I got all the way through security and two steps into the sunshine and fresh air before Alma Bocaz caught up with me, practically running. “Wait! Sewell, wait!” she yelled from the other side of the metal detector as the door swung shut behind me. I turned and opened it again just as she burst through, almost running into me. I took a couple of steps back and stumbled a bit to catch my balance on the steps. Leaning against the door, she held up a finger, asking me to wait while she caught her breath. Her expression was set and even stonier than usual. I was genuinely surprised, and I didn't try to hide it this time.
“Well?” I asked. Maybe Dalton had a change of heart when he saw his freedom walking away.
“I can change his mind,” she gasped between breaths. “He's not serious. He just wanted to pull your leg. Give me twenty-four hours,” she panted between gritted teeth. Her black hair had come out of its clip on one side and she stubbornly kept tucking it behind her ear, but it was too short and wouldn't stay.
This was too good to be true. Proud Alma Bocaz was asking me for a favor. Sure, it's not like I needed anything from her, but the pleasure of having her so unexpectedly ready to compromise—a once in a lifetime event!—had its attractions. I toyed a bit with the idea of leaving her in suspense, but why press an advantage when you've already got what you want? I shrugged. “I suppose I can leave a spot open till the end of the day tomorrow, but after that I can't promise you anything,” I said. “I'm under a lot of pressure to get this program filled, so I'm not going to waste any time on someone like Dalton, even if you do run down the hall in a prison and through security to catch me. Just give me a call next time, eh?”
A little jab like that was more than enough to make me feel like I had made the most of the moment, so I turned to go down the steps. Alma stamped her foot and I watched over my shoulder as she stormed back into the state prison. I laughed aloud after she was safely inside and headed for my car. I had missed Dalton, but I had a pretty good consolation prize in Alma Bocaz's humiliation. I'd have to patch that up later, but for now, beating one of the most stubborn attorneys I knew was a ray of sunshine that kept me warm all the way through the slush and the snow, driving back to the office on a gray winter's day.