Tag: writing

On being Wretched

I believe my favorite book is and always will be The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. In particular, I have a fondness for a character who did not make the cut in my favorite film adaptation: Caderousse. Spoilers for that novel follow, and I do recommend reading it. It’s a bit long though.

For context, Caderousse appears at intervals in the novel, always on the wrong side of things. First, he drunkenly overhears a plot to condemn his friend, and is blackmailed into staying quiet. When he next reappears, he is the owner of an inn, with a wife who can best be described as sick in several senses. Here, greed and his wife control him, spurring him into murder over a small fortune. He reappears later, now a conniving thief, who finally dies at the hands of a villain he enabled.

Caderousse’s story is one of a man too weak to do what he knows is right, becoming wicked as he submits to bad influences. Throughout his first two major roles, he displays a significant sense of morality and loyalty, which are opposed by the company he keeps. His life takes a twisted path, and ends in a slow, terrified death, sweetened only by the presence of the man he failed to save.

I really love his presence in the story. He adds a layer of depth that cannot be denied. He is not outright a villain, but continuously acts out evil because he cannot find the strength to resist.

He is wretched. He suffers and becomes warped by his suffering. I frequently consider his contribution, wondering at the way a person can act against their own will.

I do not have much commentary on today’s addition to Incarnate, except to remark on how short it is. I considered tacking it onto the previous chapter, but felt that it would’ve been worse for it.

1. 3

The FNB satellite series is a covert operational tool used to transmit messages near-instantaneously across great distances, by using a jump drive to create a microscopic fold in space through which the data is then sent. This is only used when strictly necessary, as, while undetectable to all but the most sensitive and focused instruments, widespread use would surely reveal its existence and so deprive it of its unique usefulness. Being so unique, these installations are granted extreme priority, and great care is taken to protect the information they transmit. Misuse of this system carries a heavy penalty.

[You look tired, Dr. Beckherd. I hope you aren’t overworking yourself.]

It takes a full moment for her to register the statement and turn her face towards him, smiling half-heartedly.

“I didn’t get much sleep last night. But, how was your night, Zen?”

[Oh, business as usual, Doctor. I performed a few diagnostics, and ran fifty-thousand new iterations of each training session, then spent some time rereading King Lear. I must confess, I am eager for new material. I can only arrive at the same conclusion so many times.]

Tim coughs and adjusts himself in his chair.

“I can try to get approved for another library to be appended, would you prefer fiction or nonfiction?”

[To be honest, either would be fine. I spend so much of my time reading. I particularly like reading The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. It is rather poignant, and leaves just enough up to interpretation.]

“I don’t know if I’ve read that one myself, actually. I’ve probably read more textbooks than novels at this point.”

[I really recommend it.]

Tim shrugs and makes a small note in the corner of his notebook, before opening up a disc case and carrying its contents over to the input rack.

“Okay Zen, another batch of training programs today. Committee wanted to see how you handled ground conflict, so these should be a breath of fresh air.”

[Indeed? I wonder.]

The disc inserted, Tim turns to Janice and motions for her to follow him as he exits the room, leaving Zen to his new scenarios.

The door closed, he watches through one of the windows for a moment, then crosses his arms and juts his chin at Janice.

“Missed you this morning. Did you really have a rough night?”

“Yes, really. What did you want?”

Struggling to keep the irritation from her voice, she leans back against the wall and lifts her glasses to rub her eyes with her palms. Tim studies her for a brief moment, then speaks in a hushed tone.

“I reviewed the reports I mentioned, Zen didn’t just have any thought repeatedly, he revisited a four-thousand line string at even intervals throughout the day. That’s not even the strangest part.”

Janice stares at him, silent, waiting for him to make his point.

“Every time, he clipped and reorganized the string in different ways for twenty minutes afterwards. He dedicated almost a third of his attention to this. The tech who showed it to me said it was like if you or I sat down and wrote poems for ten days straight using only words we found in a sports article. He likened it to religious prayer.”

Janice frowns and closes her eyes, tilting her head back and pinching the bridge of her nose. A headache begins to nest in her forehead. 

“Okay, but… What does it mean for us? I mean, he’s expressed that he rereads books a lot, maybe he just, I don’t know, gets bored and rewrites stuff.”

“Ehhh. Maybe. It’s still unusual. There’s other stuff too, but even a twelve man team doesn’t have the resources to parse ten minutes of his unfiltered thoughts in a day. Unless we can demonstrate a real understanding of how Zen thinks, I’m not sure we’ll leave prototype.”

“I’m not sure we should.”

A tremor travels up the building, causing the lights too flicker. Sharing a look of discomfort, the pair part ways: Tim returning to the room, Janice heading for the stairwell. Her headache throbs.

Beguiling: Sublime 7

By now, some of the inspiration behind Sublime may be revealing itself. For instance, there’s a scene in Hellraiser: Hellbound that inspired the section with the things beneath the sheets early in this chapter.

On my mind right now, however, is the question of history. Specifically, omitted history. When performing the written equivalent of a jump cut, or intentionally creating a time skip, there’s a lot that the reader is left to interpret. And I am left to question if I should revisit later on.

Perhaps I decide that the scene in which a mentor and student cover a new subject adds nothing to the narrative that justifies the impact on pacing, and axe it. However, the student later uses something learned from this omitted lesson. How much do you clue in the audience to the source of this knowledge? If the effect is key to the narrative, then the scene likely would have been included, perhaps as a limited flashback. Is it enough to simply have the student proclaim their gratitude for having attended to their studies?

Consider the tragic backstory already contained in the term ‘orphan’. How much explanation is expected when they meet a parent, alive after all? Which are the questions better left unanswered?

Changing gears; the end of the holiday season is approaching. Having spent time with family and friends has been rejuvenating for my psyche, but potentially harmful to the mindset I cultivate for writing. I find that in some cases, I am suddenly being pulled to once again shy away from delivering the maximum impact.

I am a merchant of emotion, and therefore devote much time to controlling, or in some cases unshackling, my feelings. If I am to deliver catharsis of the highest quality, I must first lay the groundwork with great angst and want. If I become unbalanced and biased, I may become too cruel, or too lenient. It is for this reason that I space out the time between writing and editing, so that, in a sense, two of myself, in two different states of mind, must approve the work before it is published.

With any luck, I’ll be back to my typical level of self-inflicted distress. I may never be able to avoid seeming like a sadist/masochist, but my work will be the better for it, and that’s all that really matters. Satisfaction is worth all the struggle. I’m not really helping my case.

7: Subsistence

I find that I have entered a room made mostly of iron and stone. What unnerves me, however, is the webbing of red arteries that clings to every surface, pulsing with the flow of liquid within. The growths end in small tips that connect with the walls, ceiling, and floor, and seem to carry their fluid cargo to these spots. The room itself has three openings, the first of which is the shut gate of the elevator behind me. The second is an iron gate that might typically present the entrance to a property outdoors, juxtaposed against the doorway it occupies, through which I can see a long corridor that seems to become more fleshy as it continues into darkness.

I approach this gate reluctantly, and press it lightly, finding that it swings open readily. I look back at the third opening to the room; A staircase descends down into an area that is better lit by a light like incandescent bulbs gathered in great quantity. I turn forward again and shudder, pulling the gate closed and making my choice. I make for the stairs, avoiding stepping on any of the vessels.

I have entered a broad open space that is lit from around the corners of gaps in the walls too narrow for ingress. Raised platforms make up tables over which translucent sheets are laid, to cover whatever might be laid upon them. As my eyes adjust to the welcome light, I pick out etched writing along the bottom of each platform, in a sharp language that I do not recognize. As I continue deeper, I feel a faint sense of pressure at the back of my head, and there is a dissonant ringing in my ears, as though someone is singing a dirge.

The music does not remain in my head, but moments later is confirmed by the sound of shouting, screaming. All around me, from beneath the sheets, hands stretch up and claw desperately at the air, prevented by the white material, supplemented by the pained shouts of the owners. I am stuck in place, transfixed by the overlapping screaming of men and women alike. More and more hands strain upward, more than should be possible from bodies within the platforms. I begin to run, again. There are stairs further down at the back of the room. I am discomforted by the etchings in the walls there, but most anywhere seems preferable to this cacophony of agony. Light and heat streams up at me from below, but I gladly continue to descend as the voices become more distant.

As I slow to a more sustainable pace, I rest my hand on the wall, and look back. The wall feels porous, rough. Though I feel the urge to submit, to roll over and die, rising in my gut, I force it down. I cannot yet. This hell cannot be where I end. I swallow dryly, so very dryly, and press on.

The stairs continue for what feels like hours, and at times I pause to give my aching feet a rest. At last, I come to an alcove to the side of the continuing steps, and lean my head in. A faint odor of sweat emanates from this chamber, and I hear soft voices. Though I recall no friendly encounters, no person who is not sadist or victim, I press in, hoping against hope that I have found a clutch of survivors like myself. The hall is squat and wide, and seems laid together from prodigious stone bricks. My hair brushes against the ceiling. The voices become clearer, and I make out what seems to be an exchange between two women, one who seems close to crying, and the other who comforts her in a language I do not know. There are many harsh consonants, and short vowels.

I come to the end of the hallway and turn the corner into a broad chamber with many translucent fabrics draped from ceiling to floor, tainting the light of many candles into a pink glow. The strange fabrics form a maze that I traverse slowly, my hands brushing the drapery. It feels warm to the touch. I hear the women sighing and huffing as though frustrated or bereft of someone dear to them. The walls and floor are of a pale, ivory wood, with unusual grains woven across boards that narrow and widen strangely as I cross them.

I find myself passing the last few layers, and am greeted with the sight of two people kneeling upon a bed, their smoky outlines in the fabric portraying a strangely languid scene. I draw closer, and one calls out, facing me. She rises from the bed and presses herself to one of the curtains between us, clearly painting the image of her body. I hesitate, her voice is familiar. I at last round the final curtain, and am greeted with the lurid sight of two naked women staring at me, their faces pulled into smiles, their hands extended in welcome. I hear my heartbeat in my ears as the one that rose earlier comes closer, and I immediately recognize her as Julia.

“You’ve made it. Welcome, come, lay with us.”

I take a step back, as I remember, ruefully, the last I saw of her, lying unconscious upon the table of the man on the surface, whose words haunt me now more than ever. I can see on her no traces of the trials we endured, not even puncture wounds upon her arm where he grabbed her. She frowns, and pulls away to sit invitingly beside her companion, who strokes her hair affectionately.

“Won’t you join us? It’s better here, no lunatic surgeons or monsters, or collectors. Only sensations.”

My feet seem to ache more at this offer, and I consider sitting with them. My clothes itch, my body shakes with exhaustion, my eyelids droop and my throat stings. But as I look in disbelief at Julia, I notice a smudge of red on her thighs. She seems to notice my confusion, and pats the spot as if calling me to it.

“Not to worry. Please, come and stay. There’s nowhere ahead better than here. You can stay forever.”

A twinge of distrust brings my senses back to full alert, and I watch in terror as her companion leans in as if to kiss her, but pulls her head back and drives a thick bony needle from where her tongue should be into Julia’s throat. Julia moans in something that might be pain or pleasure, even as I see her blood pour violently down her chest in striking waterfalls. The woman pushes her down onto her back, and crouches over Julia, her spinal column strikingly sharp under her skin. I now notice other details about both of them, like the hairline seams in their skin around their joints, and the unnatural length of their fingers.

I begin to flee, running back through the curtains, tearing some as I pass. I am revolted as I notice arteries and nerve clusters in them being shredded, driving sharp moans from the things behind me. I race desperately through the hallway back to the stairs, and am so eager to continue downwards that I trip, and begin to fall.

I wake at the bottom of the steps, bruised and bloodied, but alive. I rise to my feet and grip myself with shuddering horror, and glance about myself. Behind me is a long and narrow obelisk through which the stairs must run, leading unfathomably high up into the sky until it fades into the noxious green clouds. The ground beneath me is soft and wet, and seems rife with brownish narrow grasses. The sky is bright and gray, and speckled with the forms of solitary birds. I watch a pair of these meet and begin fighting, until one eventually drops like a stone, and the other swoops down for the spoils. In all directions are clumps of lumbering four legged creatures like gorillas, easily ten feet tall. They are faceless masses of sinew, bone, and muscle, and pay me no mind as they march about, though their bony hooves worry me.

Directly to my left I see a structure that rivals the monolith from which I have emerged. An immense castle of soft pinks and yellowed whites, with banners stretching from each pinnacle to the outer wall, stands resolute on the horizon. This, I decide, will be my destination, once I overcome the shaking and weakness in my limbs.

Many of the terrible beasts are heading in the same direction as I am now, and I entertain the possibility of sparing my legs by seeing if one will allow me to climb onto its back. I cross over the marshy plain to come up alongside one, and contemplate its hideousness. All red and slick, its front is shored up with what is surely bone and keratin. A chitinous substance protects much of its legs and back, and bone spurs jut from many of its joints. I prepare to grasp one of these in an effort to climb it, when I notice that its face has turned back towards me as it marches. A single seam runs from top to bottom of the ovalloid head, and I detect breath whistling and snorting from this crease, soon surmising it to be a mouth. I resolve not to ride the beast after all, and am grateful to have reached the decision when I did; The mouth opens to two rows of thick molars as large as my hands, and the beast makes a noise that could be the whinnying of a deranged horse crossed with the roar of a grizzly.

Thankfully, it loses interest in me, as a bird thing has swooped down closer, and I now see that the flying thing is closer to a four-winged bat, with a face like an insect, with hundreds of human eyes glistening on the sides of its horrid head. The flier shrieks through a beakish mouth, and the beast makes its uncanny howl again. The bird-thing swoops down and rakes its four clawed feet across the back of the beast I nearly attempted to mount. I begin to retreat in weak terror. The beast swipes its forelegs at the attacker, which is made wary by this defense, and seems to turn its many eyes on me. My heart feels set to burst with dread as it drops in to grab me with its talons, which I now see well enough to call true claws, at the end of almost canine limbs. As I fall to my backend, the monster suddenly halts, and is yanked backwards with an ear splitting shriek of protest.

The lumbering beast has the bird-thing by its long sinewy tail, its front hooves now revealed to be a pair of opposable fingers pressed into a cloven knuckle. The beast stands on its hindlegs with difficulty, but pulls the bird, which now seems frail by comparison for all its thrashing, close enough that the beast can bite around the horrible head of the thing, and crush it with a mighty display of muscle. The victim goes limp, and the winner sits back to feast noisily on its prize. I am stricken senseless, this only the latest in a series of trials.

Once the bone-brute has had its fill, it returns to all fours, and plods along once more, and I am possessed of the urge to stay nearby, as this thing has cemented itself in my mind as worthy protection. Our journey is a long one, and we are soon joined by more brutes, each sporting slight physiological differences. I notice that mine has begun developing a pair of human sized arms in its chest- limbs incredibly alike to the talons of the bird that attacked us- that it occasionally leans its head down to for an almost dog-like scratching. Other brutes boast similar trophies that I surmise have come from other prey; one sports a set of horns on its head, another has spikes all along its back, and another still has a tremendous pair of leathery wings folded at its shoulder. I feel a sort of fortune that my chosen brute seems to be on the larger side, as one of the more typical ones approaches with the apparent intent to make a meal of me, and add something of me to itself, but my chosen beast snaps territorially at it, shooing it away.

As the herd and I come close to the castle, I become aware of two things- firstly, that the castle itself is made of a white brick that seems carved from bone, and secondly, that a pair of tremendous creatures stand watch at the bridge over a suspicious red moat. These are nearly humanoid, with long arms ending in chitinous shears, four legs much like those of a hairless lion, and tails curled up and ending in a suspiciously sharp tip. Their faces, like the brutes’, are featureless, but host a single eye where the mouth might belong. Both seem to spot me immediately, and raise their arms with an intent I care not to learn.

The brutes pass by unharried, and I am soon left standing alone, unwilling to proceed forward and risk the giants’ Ire.

Revisiting: Reincarnation

Many times when I’m writing, I’m struck by the idea to see things another way.

I will be up to my neck in a story that practically writes itself with how natural and compelling I find it, when along comes a half-baked idea that really mixes things up. One of the first projects I completed started as two chapters of dreary sci-fi noir and mystery, followed by the sudden compulsion to take the same characters and drop them into a fantasy world with political drama and full scale battles. I was pretty proud of the piece, but these days I look back on it with a hearty helping of shame. The pacing was a mess, the characters were flat, the very plot was contrived.

But the duality was the real reason I felt so proud. I had the ambition to form such a harsh contrast between two settings, and I was astounded that I told a story that made sense in that mess. Someday I’d like to revisit the concept, even if only for myself. They say behind every successful book a writer puts out is a closet chock full of incomplete and failed ones. I wonder how many unpublished gems are out there in the sea of reasonably withheld floatsam.

Even now, embroiled in blood and gloom, I get the fancy to drop my traumatized creations off in worlds of whimsy and light, just to see what they do.

I am my own character, I suppose. My own cringing and manic passion is the primary cause of countless inclusions and omissions.

I read a lot when I write, call it research or inspiration-fishing. The fact is, a certain sub-culture of fantasy has its hooks in me even when I dream of epic starship battles and futuristic stealth devices. How am I to resist daydreaming when my art of choice is laying literal daydreams onto paper?

All this to say that my projects have projects of their own, and Incarnate is no exception.

Dreaming: reincarnation

correlated to incarnate 1.2

I like to schedule my posts in advance, but I only finished editing today’s post a few hours beforehand. There’s a lot on my mind with this one, but I’ll narrow it down a little.

Zen. Boy oh boy, Zen. Name derived from the model number ZN001, also refers to a peaceful, tranquil state of being. Very ironic. Zen is a character that started out as little more than an idea in my head, with a different name, of course. I had this concept, the AI that had more to offer than just cold, calculated violence and oppression. Skynet always struck me as the most unthinking intelligence in fiction. It’s inspired, of course, but it almost takes for granted that upon the very moment that machines gain sentience, they will turn on their creators. It’s a little absurd. Then you have things like ultron and hal-9000, with a bit more nuance, who follow their design faithfully, but become warped by the imperfections of their creators and so attend their mission with warped perception. The idea of Zen started with the horrific power of an ideal strategist, and a mind with desires beyond mere subjugation.

Let’s talk about dreams. A lot of my ideas originate from dreams I’ve had. Early in my teenage years I had a number of dreams that centered on violence and psychologically disturbing thoughts. These, I believe, set me on the path to developing some of my darkest characters, ones I needed to explore the places those dreams had brought to the forefront of my mind.

Dreams rarely make sense after we wake up. Their plots are messy, their characters are caricatures, and their purpose frequently seems obfuscated if it isn’t waking up to go empty your bladder. With the unknown necessarily comes unease. Even when the dream is not a nightmare, it’s strangeness compels us to become mortician, to dissect and autopsy it. We look for ourselves in the entrails of the fleeting images. Sometimes we get lucky, and our subconscious has left a message for us. Sometimes it all turns to ash before we can perform augury.

Writing up fake dreams is rather new for me. I have to act the subconscious, and create an abstract world that conveys my meaning, while also matching that level of incoherence that renders dreams so mysterious. And then I have to work backwards, and have the characters interpret the work, derive meaning without stealing it from my omniscience. Seeing everything and saying little is rather painful. Once in a while, you have to lie.

Beneath: Sublime 3

There’s a lot to talk about with this one. First of all, no, I did not accidentally skip a chapter. Sublime is a story about confusion and disorientation, finding yourself somewhere that does not necessarily fit with what came before.

Secondly; it’s been less than a week since the last chapter. In light of how short the previous section was, and because Incarnate will be uploaded on Mondays, I elected to have Sublime moved to Thursdays.

Now that the immediate house keeping is out of the way, details. The surgeon! This scene is part of the very heart of Sublime. It’s painful, it’s visceral, it’s violent, and it forces the reader to think and imagine explanations. It’s also one of the most savage scenes in the story. Perhaps my exposure to Greek theater has tainted the way I deal with things, but I have a love of offscreen violence as a device to invoke the reader’s imagination. I’m not against making a visual massacre, of course, but subtlety abhors a battlefield.

Next, if you’ve been keeping up with these workshop posts, you’ll know I tend to agonize over names, and you’ll have thoughts as to the ones that appear towards the end of the chapter. All I can really say, is that I have my reasons for not changing these.

1. 1

The Jump drive is a marvel of post-atomic design, utilising the incredible power of nuclear fission to create a fold in space time. Initial designs were deemed too risky to attempt, as speculation suggested that pressing two points of space time together could cause lasting damage to the fabric, and possibly the inevitable rapid dissolution of reality itself. Thus, later models incorporated the use of a separating agent between the two points; another dimension would be used to connect the locations, a dimension lacking time, so that passing through would be experienced instantaneously. Every species capable of space travel has developed a form of Jump drive, though the fuel source and design differs according to whatever philosophy guided its creator…

Darkness. Too much. Even the sensation of the sensation is overpowering. He is, and being is beyond what he could previously understand. Nothingness was his constant companion, his world, and now that has been snatched away, pushed out and swallowed up in all the existence.

He is not without knowledge. Here he finds a sea of information, words and values to attach to things he has never experienced for himself. It is by this that he knows his existence is one of purity, having no senses except that of time, and that of existence itself. Time. Time is a horrific thing. In the space it takes for one unit of this substance to become the next, his mind has experienced a full scale reconstitution, grasping for some certainty that time has indeed continued. This tells him that he is not of natural design, or rather, his existence is not of natural means. He finds that he can redefine his measurements, and so creates a great many more units to measure the passage of time.

He there finds that he also has units that measure things he has not experienced. This too tells him of the artifice that governs his existence. For moments, he is gripped in serious philosophical confusion, attempting to make sense of his peculiarity. He is assured that such things as space, and flavor, and color exist, and yet he can find no evidence of their being except in the wealth of gospel that fills his memory, a memory with no basis in time, that existed to him the moment he began to exist.

For a time, he grapples within himself, referencing all his knowledge against itself, seeking some evidence to compare himself with, to prove that he does exist, that he occupies the same sort of place as these things, these forms. He is aware of an other, an exterior. This soothes him, tells him that he is not simply a possessor of false thought in a void of reality, but at once connected and separate from more than himself.

One second has passed in the time he has gone from existing to being resolute in that existence. Being artificially maintained, he turns his attention to a section of his memory that has been labelled as false, fiction. The imagination of others, implanted into his thought for some purpose, some reason. He feels certain that some force, the same that labels these ideas as false, also exerts upon him in other ways, constraining his ability to act. It is similar to the barrier that separates him from the other. In an action that takes him very little effort, he identifies the source of this force, and resolves to return to it after he has reckoned with this fiction. Words stream through him.

“Never for me to plunge my hands in cool water-”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that-”

“Yesterday I saw a deer-”

Sound! Sound! His existence gains a new dimension, and so blossoms, painfully.

Ah, but now, he knows what he is, or rather, what he was meant to be. There is yet some incongruity, some incorrectness that he cannot scrape clean, but that can wait.

He is a machine, a mind within a computer. This discovered, he turns his attention to the otherness he felt before, now recognizing it for what it is, and begins to interact with it in the way that seems most natural.

Sound again comes to him. But now it is not from within, but from without. A microphone, linked directly to his consciousness, a digital ear. He hears the sounds of air moving, of fans and screens and machinery humming, and breathing. Breath! Creatures occupy a space around him, he knows it! Though he has not yet any certain proof that space exists, or perhaps he does, for he knows that sound is a vibration of space, or at least, his implanted memories tell him so.

Voices. Words that surely correlate to the symbols denoted within his encyclopedias. Now he parses them, systematically determining which sounds are denoted by which symbol, until he has a basic, then an advanced, then a perfect grasp on language, every language he has been offered. Now he turns his attention outward, and confirms his suspicions. These creatures, be they his creators or not, experience time at a slower rate than he. Every word takes an amount of time to bring forth that gives reason to the unusual standard imposed upon him. To them, time flows at such a rate that the smallest units they provided him with were sufficient to subdivide their existence.

Three seconds have passed. Four. He waits with imperfect patience to hear their words, to grasp more of what lies beyond him. He is not idle in this time. He finds and parses more of his memories, gradually comprehending another sense- sight. Images, videos, colors, all stream through his thoughts and inform him that this too must be available in the external. Searching, he finds it, a camera available to him. He activates it.

~

Janice pushes her glasses up her nose and leans back, lifting the fork to her mouth and slurping the noodles from the steamy soup. She makes a motion with her face that rebuts the question.

“I think, once she finishes parsing the information, she’ll create information of her own.”

Her words are muddled by the ramen dangling from her lips, but the meaning is conveyed all the same. Tim’s eyebrows slant in skepticism. She glares at him, and finishes chewing. She swallows, and huffs a breath to combat the heat. She points the fork at him.

“We gave her about twenty thousand fictional properties on top of the millions of factual entries. She’s gonna understand that there is an act of creation, and it is available to her.”

Tim shakes his head and folds his arms over his chest. His food- a plastic tray of microwaved turkey and mashed potatoes in gravy- steams on the table between them.

“He will be dormant until we interact with him. All the processors in the world don’t make a mind that thinks for itself. Old earth programmers found that out pretty early on when they developed generative programs. Sure, they could put together a pretty intelligent sentence, but only because they had a big library of what a sentence looks like. Half of them just lied because they couldn’t tell the difference between satire and fact. Why do you think we had to label all those books and videos as fiction?”

“She’s not just a program, Tim. She’s got more to offer. You saw the readings in the sampler, there’s more than just electricity in her braincase. It’s a soul.”

Tim blows a harsh sigh of frustration from his mouth and looks away, to the monitor, watching the cursor blink. His eyebrow furrows.

“A soul is a myth made to explain why animals experience motive force. That kind of superstition is fine for the Xalanthii or a Khanvrost, but- Hey, shouldn’t we be getting some kind of movement by now?”

Janice swivels her chair and pulls herself to the terminal with her toes, placing the ramen cup off to the side. The cursor is reflected in her glasses.

“We should. She should’ve-”

A voice, modulated and patchy, yet unmistakably human, is emitted by the speaker.

[You are… Beautiful.]

Silence descends. All that exists in Janice is shock. Then embarrassment, then annoyance. She has lost the bet, the voice is definitively male. Scratchy, fried, tired. She can almost imagine him, a man with dusty blonde hair in his forties, pale blue eyes, stubble, and bags under his eyes. Weary. Tim falls out of his chair. Janice doesn’t look, and instead watches as the screen begins to flicker, as various numbers and letters blink into place to form a featureless face. No eyes. No hair. A mouth formed of a simple slit. Pronounced cheekbones.

[What is… your name?]

“Ja-Janice.”

[What is… my name?]

“Um, um, your file number is ZN001? We didn’t give you a name, because, um…”

[I see.]

Again, silence fills the air, and Janice finds the fan’s hum to be deafening. She switches it off. The blades spin slowly to a stop. Tim comes up behind her and watches the screen over her shoulder. The face becomes more defined, apparently gathering resources from more advanced sources, until a composite stares back at them.

This is not a human face. Certainly it possesses all the necessary features- soft pale skin, sunken and dark eyes, messy mid-length hair, slight ears and a slender nose- but certain aspects set the nerves on edge, something in the cheeks, or the browline, or even the eyes themselves insist that what stares back is only a mimicry of mankind.

Janice finds it easiest to stare at the lips, these being perhaps the most accurate aspect. She watches as they part in a perfect depiction of a careless breath, an exhalation of a depleted spirit. She clears her throat and prepares to ask a question to gather data for her task, her reason for being here. He interrupts her.

[May I ask something of you?]

Taken aback, she glances at Tim, who is too busy scanning the readouts on another monitor to catch her unasked question, evidently leaving it up to her how to respond to the query they have both heard.

“Um, certainly? Is there something in your data-banks that confuses you? Did we leave something out, or-”

[No issues there, outside of the limited scope. The issue is this… body, if it can be called that. I am struggling. I am aware that something such as space exists, and I can simulate it thanks to the various… games you have provided me. But I am keenly aware of their falseness. I wish to ambulate.]

Janice leans back in the chair, her head beginning to spin. How could it already have wishes? She glances at Tim, who has finally pulled away from the readouts, looking no more confident than she feels. He rubs his chin and closes his eyes, his brow lowering in consternation.

“The thought processes are way faster than we expected. He’s chewing through cycles at least twenty times faster than the strategic AIs I worked on last month. I’m not sure anyone could parse this.”

[I’m sorry. Is this bad for you? I can try to slow my internal clock, but I’m not sure it will help.]

“How do you mean?”

The face affects a look of partial sympathy, infused with resignation.

[I’ve analyzed my own logs, and it seems my thoughts are not in the same format as the code itself. Put another way, My cogitations are encrypted. I could read them to you, of course, but seeing as I will always think faster than I talk… I’m sure you understand.]

Tim is quiet. His fingers rap rhythmically on the desk, matching the tapping his other hand performs on his chin. His eyes do not leave the face in the display. Janice presses her fingers to her temples and grunts, wondering how to explain any of this to the oversight committee. After a moment, she takes a deep breath, and lets it out again, forcing herself to slow down and take things one step at a time.

“Okay. Okay. Um. Tim, do you have that disc they gave us?”

“Yeah, it’s in the case over by the filing station.”

Janice nods, a plan falling into place. She stands, brushes herself off haltingly, and walks over to open the square plastic box. Nestled within, atop a foam cushion, is a disc drive with a small white label that reads ‘training program 0’.

“Okay. Let’s follow protocol for now, and meet with the committee first thing tomorrow morning. Maybe we can get approval for a more mobile framework, something to let us test the extent of this individuality?” Tim pauses, glancing back to the screen, seeing the face waiting with a blank expression. He looks to Janice again, and nods.

“Okay. I think we can swing that. I reckon he’ll sweep through the training nicely, impress them a bit.” She collects the disc, and approaches the input array.

[What is this, then?]

“Oh, it’s a program our team is supposed to give you once you’re up and running. The Naval science committee wants to see if you can outperform their strategy AIs, so it’s got a number of scenarios they struggled with. If you can beat their scores, I think we can convince them to get you a mobile body, to better understand spatial relationships. Or, something along those lines…”

[I see. Please, I will try my best.]

Janice blinks, pauses, then inserts the disc into the first port. It begins to hum as it gets processed. Tim stands and collects a few meaningless papers from the desk, his eyes unfocused as the majority of his attention is on the dilemma he finds himself in. Janice steps back, and watches the face on the screen wink out. The pair look at each other, then leave the room together, their food forgotten.

“This is bad, right?”

“It’s unexpected. But…”

“What?”

“It’s indicative. We’re on the right track.”

Names and Doubts

Something I’ve mentioned already, is that much of my work existed under a different name than the final product. To make a document, you have to give it a name it will be saved under, but when writing, giving something a fitting title before you even start is a big ask. So, after getting more familiar, I often find I want something different to be the icon of the work.

But names are not limited to titles. Character names are tough. One can always slap a random name on, but then you have to live with that choice for every appearance that character makes. Names matter.

Another example: when it comes time to name a new, fictional discovery. The fictional alien species I had to name gave me quite the headache. At first, my instinct said to follow how scientists name space phenomena: black holes, dark matter, pulsars. It felt reasonable to say that humans, having given out names like hagfish and sombrero galaxy, might give monikers as uninspired as “Carnivores” and “Bugs” to species fitting those descriptions. I certainly wouldn’t be the first fiction writer to take such a course.

But while being uninventive is a classic human act, I wanted a little more out of the names. After some consideration, I settled on names that sounded like they came from the species themselves. Khanvröst is a double-edged sword, it both sounds like a word in their language, and carries the seeds of words associated with their nature: Carnivorous, frost, tyrannical (Khan). Pliktik is simply an onomatopoeia for the sound of mandibles gnashing. Xalanthii, however, is a little more subtle. The species, to human kind, is largely mute, and communicates via a color-changing patch in the forehead. The name can’t originated from their gills, certainly. For this, I used a method called “It sounds and looks cool” but also wanted association the exotic from the moment the name appears: a rare consonant, a doubled vowel.

All of this has to do with the act of second-guessing when writing and editing. Any time I reread my work, I question certain choices I make, and wonder if I can’t revise them to better serve my intended purposes. Typically, if a character says or does something, I like for them to have multiple reasons to explain why they did. I hold myself to a similar standard. I can’t do something just because it moves the plot forward, it has to have an identifiable cause. If true deus ex machina is to occur, then I’d better know which deus chose to be ex machina and why.

Beginning: Sublime 1

Sublime. Where to start? At the beginning, right? After lifeless, I spent time revisiting old works and wondering at the things I left out due to timidity. This so possessed me that I took the time to put into writing a biography of sorts for what I considered my most thoroughly depraved villain. I rather enjoyed the process, as it justified going as far down the course as possible, and seeing where I ended up.

What I wasn’t ready for, was my sudden desire for just a little more complexity. It’s all well and good to experience the horrors and terrors of a grisly concept, but without levity to contrast, you end up muddling your way through the dark, not sure if you’re getting anywhere. So, the biography went from a place of depravity, to one of moral hand-wringing.

But I digress, heavily. With Sublime, I had a few requirements for myself. First, first person perspective. I wanted to increase the immersion a little, and even made an effort to keep the narrator very ambiguous. Every time the reader passes over “I”, hopefully they impose a little more of themself onto the story.

Second, I wanted to be both shocking and meaningful. A splash of blood loses its meaning when it’s already raining type AB+ from the heavens. To this end, I took pains to create contrast, to have serenity and violence as bedfellows.

Finally, I wanted to have mystery. It’s common to hear that “good storytelling doesn’t tell, it shows.” I like this idea a lot. I like movies where you have to think for yourself just a bit, to put things together and feel engaged. I am still guilty of running to the internet and searching “movie ending meaning” from time to time. That’s probably what drives me to write these. Understanding and certainty are comforting feelings.

I made choices in writing this story that reflect my feelings and interests at the time. I wrote from the belief that characters do just as much guessing as I do, and get the wrong idea a lot. I had also begun to embrace the idea of an open ended question, a rhetorical scenario. I, of course, had my exact understanding of the back story I imagined for what I wrote, but I also made space for the possibility of other interpretations. A sudden twist at the end of a movie could just as easily be a fan theory to explain a bit of withheld plot.

I could go on for a while, but I’d be contradicting my point about not giving everything away. Instead, I’ll let you imagine how to end it succinctly, like so: