Rising Storm (possible prologue for Cliffton book 2) - posted for <user site="livejournal.com" user=

[n3m3sis43]

I wrote this back in... January? Since it's wayyyyy out of order and possibly kind of "so what?" without context, I didn't share it at the time. But alien_writings requested a recent thing in Brendan voice, so here it is. Concrit and questions are cool, just be gentle because I'm really weird about sharing my things lately.



There’s a storm coming but I’m the only one who can feel it.

The sky above is clear, blacker than black and filled with stars except for the thin strip where the light from the border lamps washes it out. Nightbirds call out to each other, blissfully unaware. A cool breeze blows, sighing over the sand dunes and filling my nose with the sweet, almost sickening scent of flowers that only open in the dark.

Inside me, though, a wind’s whipping up. Kalen doesn’t notice any more than the birds do, and that only makes me madder. He’s my brother, my best friend as far back as I can remember. It’s always scared the shit out of him, the way the rage takes me. Used to be he could sense it creeping up, smell it on the air like ozone.

Not anymore.

Now it’s like I don’t even exist, like nobody does. The fact that he hasn’t noticed I’m here right now pretty much says it all. He’s only thirteen but he’s already being scouted--practically has been since birth. Kalen’s that good, so good that he skipped a grade and started Academy last fall when I did. He outranks me already, along with everyone else in Year One and half of Year Two. I train twice as hard as him for maybe half the results.

Part of that’s my own fault. I’m always letting my temper get the best of me, rushing into things half-assed just like I did tonight. If I’d been thinking clearly, I never would’ve picked this stupid tumblebrush as a place to hide. It’s prickly and its branches keep poking me through the pajama pants I didn’t have a chance to change out of. My legs itch like crazy and the dry branches rustle loud enough to blow my cover every time I move enough to scratch.

Kalen, though, he always keeps a level head. Which is why he should’ve caught me by now-- why he would’ve, if he weren’t so different these days. No one but me seems to see how he’s changed. He’s quit hanging out with me and the other guys and hides out all the time in his room, building his stupid robots. He’s always been into that junk, but now it’s all he does--except for whatever it is he’s up to when he sneaks out late at night.

Up until now, I was hoping he’d turn out to be meeting one of the girls from school to make out or something. Except girls throw themselves at his feet all the time and he pretty much ignores them, so I figured maybe it’d be one of the guys from school instead. I was okay with that, really. Some people might look at him funny if they found out, but he’s still my brother either way. Either way, I’d have gone home laughing and I wouldn’t have to worry anymore.

Too bad that’s not going to happen.

Kalen’s waiting for someone, all right, fidgeting and running a hand through his hair every so often. But the way he’s staring at the chainlink fence in front of him, I don’t think it’s anyone from this side of the border, let alone someone from school. The hairs on the back of my neck rise and I’m suddenly too warm despite the breeze. I don’t want to think about what business he’d have with someone from the Other Side, why he’d go against everything we’ve both been raised to believe in--

A figure, tall and freakishly thin, appears on the opposite side of the fence.

“You’re late,” Kalen says.

Dead silence.

“I brought you something.” Kalen pulls a small object from the pocket of his jeans and pokes it through a gap in the fence.

The figure steps forward with a noiseless grace that gives me the creeps. There’s a flash of movement as whoever it is takes whatever Kalen’s offered and pockets it. Half hidden by the pulled-up hood of a bulky black sweatshirt, the stranger’s face looks shadowed and gaunt. It’s hard to make out features, to even tell if it’s a guy or a girl. Not that it matters--male or female, this long-limbed... person obviously isn’t one of us.

My jaw clenches and so do my fists, tight enough to be painful.

“You got anything for me today?” Kalen holds out a cupped hand.

So quick that it’s barely more than a blur, the stranger’s own hand moves. Something about the size and shape of a waveless earpiece glints in the weak lamplight as it slides through the chain links and drops into my brother’s open palm.

My brother.

A pulse beats below my eye as I watch Kalen’s back. It’s what I do, what I’ve been doing since I was old enough to stand, not that he appreciates it. All my life I’ve been a lightning rod for Father’s fury, bearing the brunt of it so Kalen doesn’t have to. Weathering his rages so they won’t so much as ruffle my brother’s golden hair--and for what? So he can sneak out here and trade information with the enemy?

My vision goes funny, like I’m seeing everything through a rounded lens. Blood roars in my ears.

“What’s wrong?” Kalen asks. He sounds far away.

I open my mouth instinctively to answer, but he’s not looking at me. His attention is fixed on the stranger, who grips the links of the fence and peers through it with narrowed eyes--eyes that flash an unnatural yellow as they lock onto mine. My bowels turn to water.

We stare each other down for a long moment. All of a sudden, the stranger looks away, stumbling backward jerkily and sneezing twice into one sleeve. I blink. It’s a surprisingly human sound. The figure straightens up quickly. It--he?--looks directly at me.

“Storm’s coming,” he says. “Best be inside when it does.”

A chill races through me even though I’m burning up inside. He feels it, same as I do--the thunderheads gathering, the deadly current thrumming in my veins. Sweat breaks out on my forehead, my throat closes up--

“What?” Kalen glances up at the sky. “But it’s not even overcast.”

The stranger disappears, there one minute and gone the next.

My heart speeds up and a familiar gray haze comes over everything. I’m mad enough to kill but I don’t know why. The memory of how I got here, where “here” even is--they’re just… gone. I don’t recognize the person in front of me, facing the fence, but I know I want to beat the shit out of him.

The wind howls, loud enough to hear over the thudding in my ears. Sand swirls around me, blotting out what’s left of my vision. There’s an ache at the back of my throat, a dull sense that something’s not right. The storm’s supposed to be in me, not out there. I should do some deep breathing, maybe pray or try to calm down. Figure out what’s going on.

I don’t care. I close my eyes and let the storm roll in.

“Brendan.”

I blink, startled by Kalen’s voice. My fingers lose their grip on the glass of milk I’m holding. It shatters on the kitchen floor. I look down at the white puddle spreading over the smooth stone tile, the broken shards sparkling in the morning sun.

“Shit,” I mumble, bending to clean up the mess. My head’s fuzzy and my body doesn’t want to do what I tell it to do.

A gentle hand touches my arm. “Let me do it,” Kalen says.

Numbly, I nod. As I watch him pick up the pieces, moving with his usual grace, the weirdest feeling washes over me. My skin prickles with chill-bumps and my mouth goes dry. Something’s not right, but I can’t place what it is.

Kalen stops suddenly, looking up at me with blameless blue eyes. “You okay, bro?”

“Yeah, I guess so.” I scratch the back of my neck, trying to put my finger on what’s bothering me.

His forehead scrunches up. “You spaced out big-time, right before you dropped your glass.”

“Huh.” I rub my eyes. They’re swollen and heavy. “I just… you ever feel like you’re forgetting something really important?”

Comments

[n3m3sis43.livejournal.com]

What kind of spoilers do you want? That's what spoiler tags are for, right? Besides, I doubt anyone really gives a fuck if they get spoilers for my random shit. xD

Hahahahaa... your idea could be like, um, The Prince and the Pauper, where Brendan and Devin swap lives. I mean, except the whole premise of that story was that the two characters looked like each other. Devin's ma is so drunk she might not notice the difference but I feel like Brendan's parents might notice their son was suddenly, like, from the Republic. xD

I am really, really tired and laughed my ass off at this idea.

As far as I can tell so far, the Program kids aren't all geniuses. I'm not sure if there is a relationship between intelligence and potential because bb!Devin is supposed to be almost Mary Sue level good at the Manip stuff which is why he doesn't get cut from the Program (terminated, lol) when he rightfully should (because he's intractable).

[alien-writings.livejournal.com]

I'll take any flavor of spoiler because I am curious and not especially patient. ^_^

I'm glad my goofy idea could amuse your sleep-deprived brain. Uh, it could be possible with... cloaking technology? Like a high-tech glamour? Do any of the Manips have magical disguise powers? lol My brain is also sleep-deprived.

Now I'm trying to figure out how something like that could work, albeit in a cracky way because there's no way it wouldn't be cracky.

It also has nothing to do with Wes/Brendan, which is the whole reason I even asked to see something in Brendan's POV, lol.

I swear, I will come up with an idea for the pairing that makes a modicum of sense. Well, it might make a modicum of sense, since one of my fics was the squid!god one. ^_^

[n3m3sis43.livejournal.com]

Uh... did I never reply to this? Sorry about that!

The Manips do have cloaking abilities or tech of some kind. I think the scary no-faces thing is actually cloaking tech. Some of them can probably change their appearances in other interesting ways through their abilities, but I don't think all of them can.

Spoilers, hm... let's see. I don't know! What do you want to know? I'm so bad at this.


- Brendan still dies, as far as I know.

- The ick thing in Pretty Buttons is more of a mind-rape thing than, you know, the original ick. At least I think so, but I reserve the right to change my mind when I actually force myself to rewrite the rest of that chapter. It is really hard for me to separate Devin's perception of any given situation from what actually happened. There is shit he will tell me like it's a damn fact that turns out to be true. Sometimes he's flat-out lying and sometimes it's more that his grip on reality and/or communication skills are somewhat lacking. I love unreliable narrators, really I do.

- Kalen isn't in most of book 1 (and is missing from at least some of book 2) because he gets captured while they are trying to rescue Calla near the beginning (I forget if you knew this already or not).

- I thought until recently that Kalen was imprisoned by his own military, but nope. The Manips and/or the Government from the Republic side have him. Brendan was the last person who saw him before he was captured, and Manips can screw with memories and perceptions, so.

- Different Manips have different abilities. All of them can read thoughts and I believe all of them can modify people's memories as well. Most of them can affect things like room temperature. Some can screw with people's emotions and there are also some who can alter the way people perceive events in real time. Our favorite fail!Manip is supposed to have had really impressive abilities when he was in the Program, but the only things I know for sure that he can do are screw with the weather and overwrite people's memories. And apparently make people dead, although that's not a thing he's really into.

- The Manips have their own language. I'm not sure how much of their original personalities they retain when they're fully trained (I'm guessing not a lot) or whether they're capable of communicating like normal human beings as well. I've never seen any of them say anything out loud that wasn't in what I've been calling Manip-ese.


Anything else you want to know? lol