Keep trying to find a good way to start this sci fi book. I've written like three different "chapter one"s (one in screenplay format), but I'm unhappy with the results (le gr.) Usually, I have it start with the main guy waking in the hospital, but another version had the main guy as a kid get in a terrible bike accident. This one's more intense.
Still a ROUGH DRAFT so forgive the crappiness that such a ness entails (ah, my writing is genius this morning.)
“Getting a little too chilly out there?” He asked, intently watching the blinking red dot on his screen that was the woman. Even inside the base, the man was bundled in every scrap of clothing he could fit layered over each other and sat directly atop a heater. His coffee, too slowly consumed, had frozen both in his cup and on his chin. As he spoke, tiny clouds escaped from between his lips.
The man turned his radio down quickly, smiling, as the woman responded with a loud string of profanities, some creative but most simply ugly words.
“Am I almost there?” The woman asked, huffing asthmatically between words. The chattering of her teeth echoed from his speakers.
“Maybe a quarter mile,” he replied, provoking another round of invectives. “You get to be the hero, at least.”
The other people working in the base typed loudly as they collected data, and spoke in technical jargon that was far beyond the understanding of the man. His job was simple, though, perhaps, the most ridden with disquietude of all. In his mind, the man could see the tiny dot fade from the screen, the steady beat of her heartbeat become a single, prolonged screech.
“If this even works,” she said.
“Of course it will,” he spoke matter-of-factly, as though he could understand any part of their undertaking beyond the simple reality that it was an attempt at a cure. She had explained the science a thousand times but it seemed that his brain was incapable of holding more than one scientific theory at a time. “I have it on good authority that SRX-6-1 has a 99% likelihood of success. How do you like them apples?”
She simultaneously laughed and coughed. “It’s 29%, you idiot.”
“Could be worse.”
“Could be a lot better.” She inhaled sharply. “Jesus, it’s cold.”
“You keep cursing like that, you’ll end up somewhere that’s never cold,” he joked. A few desks away, two men began arguing with one another frantically, one tapping the screen repeatedly. The man tried to ignore them, even as they began to raise their voices before one man raced across the room to the CO.
“Can you decrease the sensitivity of your mic?” The woman asked, “I swear to God, I can hear the whole choir singing.”
The man quickly switched over to a headset, plugging it into his computer in such a hurry that he nearly broke the plug. When he glanced over at the CO, he noticed an expression on the man’s face that he had never seen before, something that suggested a mix of sheer panic and hopeless resignation. “Always ruining my fun. I was trying to get in some weights while you blabbed on. Now when will I get in my workout?”
“Don’t you dare start exercising! That skin and bones look is very appealing on you. Warms me up ten degrees just thinking of your nonexistent tush.”
“Thanks…”
The CO had moved to the front of the room, before the giant but, sadly, broken large screen. It had frozen on an image with the morning’s weather report, predicting the now current temperatures in the low negative seventies and eighties. Everyone looked up from their work to see what he would say, except for the man, who continued speaking with the woman.
“Okay, stop. You’re right on top of it.”
“Excellent. Can I drop the SRX-6-1 and get the hell back now? I can’t feel my brain.”
“Of course not,” he replied.
“-should be here in less than a minute,” the CO explained, with a very serious expression on his face.
“-that would imply that there was something in that thick skull of yours besides piss and vinegar,” he finished. A 2x2 inch warning message flashed red in the upper left corner of his screen, with a timer counting down forebodingly.
“-nothing we can do. I’m sorry,” the CO looked down. People all around the man and his mic and the blinking red dot began speaking loudly, some crying or shouting, a few urgently typing or placing phone calls. The woman at the desk beside the man seemed to fall into hysterics, pulling herself beneath her desk as though there was an earthquake, and sliding the chair in to hide that she was there. A few people ran for the exit without preparing any gear to fight against the cold, and snow began wafting through the room with a violent wind. The CO simply sat in his chair in the center of the room and rested his head in his hands.
“Is that Lesher?” the woman asked, the sound of her rubbing her face with her hands also coming across the radio waves. “Will you ask him if I can drop this already? I really have to pee, you know, and I can’t very well do it out here. Should’ve put on a diaper.”
“I tell myself the same thing every morning,” the man replied, though his voice didn’t hold any of the amusement he had intended.
“Everything okay?” She asked, noting the change.
The counter slid down to thirty seconds. A few desks down, a man was sobbing and telling someone that he loved them. “I’ll-I….I’ll always, always be with you,” he said. The snow was scattering over everything and those who maintained enough sense covered their computers to finish their essential conversations.
“Think I have carpal tunnel,” the man explained to the woman, stretching his right hand so that it cracked loudly for her to hear. “You think I’m eligible for disability.”
“I’ve always thought that,” she joked, before groaning. “How much longer?”
He bit his lip and brought his hands to his eyes, closing them tightly. “Fifteen seconds,” he whispered.
She was silent for a moment. Five seconds, to be exact. “Well, aren’t we precise today?”
There was no time. He opened his eyes and watched the counter, the numbers decreasing so quickly. “I have to tell you something,” he said, serious but trying not to sound too panicked.
“Oh?” She replied, cheerful. Wonderfully cheerful.
“I love you.”
“You wha-?”
The timer read 0:00.01 and then, nothing.
© Amanda Martin 2009
Edited 12 July 2009 :)
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