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n3m3sis43If you're reading Cliffton for the first time, here are the previous chapters so you can catch up:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7
"Wake up, Princess." I'm not entirely used to my robotic voice yet, but I do love the way it carries in a quiet room.
Devin's not nearly as impressed by my vocal talents as I am. All he does is groan slightly and pull the covers over his head. Clearly, he's going to be tougher to wake up than Wes was. Of course he is.
I look around the room, contemplating my next move. It's strangely spare, nothing like Wes's or my brothers' back home. Devin's got no posters on his walls, no desk covered with models, no cast-off clothes or dirty boots to trip over - nothing at all besides a bed and a lamp on a little table. It's unnatural and a little unnerving. A boy's room ought to be messy, a pit of clutter that never comes clean no matter how many times his ma hollers at him to tidy up.
If I still had a heart, it'd break at the thought of my ma and my tidy room where I'll never sleep again. Not that I sleep anymore anyway, and there's really no point in dwelling on the past when I've got a job to do.
My electronic body's got so many features that'll make the task at hand a breeze. Which one to use first? The possibilities are endless. Only yesterday, I realized I can make a disturbingly loud screeching noise if I turn on "Voice Amplification Mode" and whistle at the same time. Who knew this information would come in handy so soon?
"Not that one, Wes," Devin mumbles sleepily after the noise dies away. "Too fucking big."
Apparently, Devin's a heavy sleeper. Good thing I brought this air horn.
"I TOLD YOU THAT ROCKET LAUNCHER'S TOO FUCKING BIG FOR THIS ROOM!" Devin sits bolt upright, blinks, and rubs at his face with a confused expression.
I don't bother waiting for him to collect himself. As far as I can tell, that's going to take a few hours anyway. There's no time like the present, so I grab him by the arm and yank him out of bed. "Get dressed," I order. "NOW."
Devin just sways on his feet and blinks at me some more. "But... shower?"
"Nope." I shake my head. "No time."
"Need sleep..." He struggles weakly, trying to break my grasp.
"You've had plenty of sleep." I tell him. "Now it's time to get up. I've got an important errand for you."
"Where's Wes?" Devin narrows his eyes at me suspiciously.
"You'll see." I guide him swiftly over to the door of his closet. "Same place you're going as soon as you GET DRESSED."
"Too early," Devin whines.
I sigh. His ma obviously didn't raise him right. My ma wouldn't have put up with this sort of nonsense.
This is pointless. I let go of Devin's arm and stomp exasperatedly into the closet alone. If I want him out of here any time soon, I'm obviously going to have to do everything myself. Devin keeps his closet as compulsively neat as his room, but I'm not interested in admiring his organizational scheme right now. I grab the first shirt and pair of pants I see and emerge to find him curled up in bed again. He looks so peaceful, I almost hate to disturb him.
Oh, wait - no, I don't. Bringing the air horn was definitely a good idea.
If my metal face were capable of smiling, I'd grin like a fool at the memory of shoving Wes and Devin out the front door, Devin mumbling a pathetic "No SynthBrew?" as I slammed it behind them. Instead, I stretch out on the couch and appreciate a morning free of Wes's squeaky voice. It's wonderful, but I can't focus on it for long. There's business to attend to. I march down the hall to Kalen's room and knocks on the door.
"We've got to talk," I tell Kalen when he opens it.
"About what?" He's fully dressed and seems awake enough. So much the better.
"Why don't we talk about it over a nice hot meal?" I'm agreeable enough to know you always fill a man's belly if you want him to cooperate. That's why I had Wes cook up Kalen's favorite breakfast before he left. "We've got the whole upstairs to ourselves."
"What about Wes and Devin?" Kalen looks oddly hesitant, as if I've given him any reason not to trust me.
"Oh, they'll be gone a while." I laugh as I head for the kitchen. "I sent them out to find that ID-10T chip you needed."
"Um, CallaBot? I don't even know what an ID-10T chip is," Kalen protests as he follows me.
"Of course you don't, because it doesn't exist!" I snicker. "Too bad the Simple Twins don't know that." I should feel remorseful for sending them on a fool's errand, right? Except they are fools, so I'm really just helping them fulfill their destinies.
Kalen laughs out loud as he slides into a chair. "So, what'd you want to talk about?"
"Breakfast first," I remind him, wandering into the kitchen to retrieve the cheesy hash brown casserole Wes insists is Kalen's breakfast of choice. It looks greasy enough to lubricate my robotic joints, but I hold my tongue. It's awfully disagreeable to comment on others' cooking.
Kalen tucks into his food, a contented smile spreading across his face. It's the first time in weeks I've seen him without a slack-jawed, half-dazed look about him. Wes may be supremely foolish, but apparently he knows his way around the kitchen.
"You never told me what happened after the explosion." Now's as good a time as any to ask, while he still looks happy. "Why didn't you meet me at the tree like we planned? I thought you were dead."
"I panicked." His smile fades like the sun before a summer storm, guilt etched into his handsome features. "I - my mind just went blank, and I started running. I didn't even know where I was going until I ended up here - didn't think at all, just headed for the first place I knew I'd be safe." He traces his finger over the lines of the wooden table top, his cheeks a dusky rose. "You were right all along, CallaBot. I'm not rebellion material, and this whole plan was a mistake. I'm so sorry."
Kalen's clearly ashamed of what he's done, so why do I only feel contempt for him now?
"By the time I went back for you," he continues, still intent on the patterns in the wood grain before him, "there were troops everywhere. There was no way I could make it to the hideout without backup. I thought maybe Wes and Devin would have contacts who could fight, being insurgents and all. They said they didn't know anyone like that, though, so I had no choice but to lay low here until I could build some robot reinforcements."
"Are you serious, Kalen? Wes and Devin couldn't fight their way out of a paper bag. How in the whispering willows could you have ever thought those two were insurgents?"
"I... they..." Kalen's blushing harder than ever now. Even he knows he's ridiculous. "I've known Devin since I was in ninth year, okay? He was very... passionate about the War being pointless and cruel. And he knows how to build bombs and things. I just... I don't know, I just kind of assumed. On this side of the fence, everyone who questions the War's an insurgent."
I suppose I can't entirely fault him for that. On my side of the fence, a woman who won't take one of the boring approved professions or perform wifely duties is practically an insurgent. Besides, from the dejected look on his face, Kalen's punished himself enough already. What's important now's that we all move forward.
"So, where do we go from here?" I ask him.
"Where can we go?" Kalen looks up at me, fear and confusion plain in his big blue eyes. "I mean, I get it - I screwed up. The bomb never should have exploded, and I never should have brought us here after. I'm pretty sure Devin's still mad at me for that, too, but we don't really have anywhere else to go, do we? We're fugitives now."
It's hard to identify what I'm feeling. There's probably a loose wire somewhere inside me, or else part of me didn't make it into my neural whatsis when I turned into a robot. All I've felt since then's mostly anger, and maybe that's all I can feel now. Except right now, I'm sorry for Kalen. He's so sad and lost, not one bit like the boy I first met back in the tree when summer began.
"I meant the question a little less literally." No matter how gently I try to speak, my voice always has that metallic edge. I can't even smile to soften the words. "What are we going to do now? We thought we had a chance to stop the War and we risked everything to try. Who's to say we shouldn't keep trying? We're marked as terrorists now anyway."
"You... you still think we can stop the War?" Kalen breathes.
I haven't the slightest clue, but what else are we supposed to do? We can hardly lead normal lives now.
"What matters most is what you think," I say. "They all think you're the leader, you know."
"The leader?" Kalen stares miserably at the table. "That's like calling Wes and Devin insurgents, isn't it? You don't understand, CallaBot. My whole life, I've molded myself into whatever people wanted me to be. I was good at it, too - an exemplary student, a shining example of the perfect young man. People worshiped me, and it was all a lie. And then - " His voice cracks. "And then the one time I tried to do something I believed in... well, you see how well that worked out."
"You have to try." I reach for Kalen's hand across the table and give it what I hope's a light squeeze. From the way he flinches, I'm guessing it's more forceful than I meant it to be. "Wes and Devin trust you, and right now we need them. We don't have anywhere else to go, and besides, they're not entirely useless. They've got technical skills, and they found you the parts to build a bomb. But they need a leader. They need you."
"What if I don't want to be a leader?" Kalen whines in a way that'd grate on my nerves if I had any. "I'm tired of pretending to be something I'm not."
Well, I didn't want to be a robot, and I didn't want to be forced to rely on two buffoons I barely know for shelter. And shining stars above, they didn't want to be involved in any of this. Besides, what about Brendan? I'm sure he didn't want to be banned for life from the military he always dreamed of joining.
"I don't think it's about what you want anymore, Kalen." This time, I make no attempt to soften the brittle edge in my voice. It's a good thing I'm not in my bug body anymore, because that one fired lasers when I narrowed my eyes.
It'd probably be bad if I accidentally killed Kalen, regardless of how much I might want to right now.
How many hours are we going to sit at this table before I finally snap and laser Kalen?
Our conversation's not going anywhere. I've tried to talk strategy, but I don't think Kalen's interested. He only stares at the table in front of him, barely saying a word. What's happened to all his passion? Where's the charming smile and the twinkle in his eye that convinced me to follow him into this whole ridiculous mess in the first place?
"Why don't we focus on the present for now," I say. Maybe the future's too much for Kalen to deal with at the moment. "If we're going to accomplish anything, we've got to learn to work as a team first. We've got to address our... personnel issues."
"What issues?" Kalen squints at me like I'm some sort of logic puzzle. "Everyone seems okay to me."
I slap my metal forehead with a loud clang. He can't be serious.
Our team's practically nothing but issues. We've got Brendan, who doesn't leave the basement except for meals. Wes, who's naive enough to trust his parents to spy on everyone except him. Devin, who doesn't trust anyone but overlooks the gaping Wes-shaped hole in his "fucking epic" security system.
It's almost a relief when the front door crashes open. "We're home, anyone miss us?" Wes hollers.
"Well, it certainly took you two long enough," I snort. "Let me guess - you got lost?"
"Didn't get fucking lost, okay?" Devin appears beside Wes, hair in disarray and a massive burlap sack in his hands. "Wes talked to all our Splinternet contacts. We looked fucking everywhere. Couldn't find a fucking thing about an ID-10T chip. Sure that thing even fucking exists?" He meets my eyes with a knowing smirk as he dumps the contents of the bag on the table.
"What's all this?" Kalen lets out a loud snicker, apparently oblivious to the fact the Simple Twins are onto my little ruse. He's already digging through his ill-gotten bounty, chuckling to himself as he does.
"Brought back one of everything," Devin explains. "Wouldn't want you to be without your fucking crucial robot parts. Funny, though - didn't even know you were working on any robots."
"I'm always - " Kalen barely manages to stifle a laugh. "I'm always working on robots."
"Fucking fabulous. Being an errand boy's only one of the many services I provide." Devin's actually grinning now. "Don't even have to worry about paying me back. You can just take care of all the cleaning for the next month."
Kalen furrows his brow, but he doesn't argue. Apparently, even he's got more sense than that.
"Hey! I almost forgot!" Wes squeaks, breaking the silence. "While we were out, Devin and I came up with a plan for an intelligence mission. Since Kalen's a terrorist, that makes us all terrorists now, right?"
"Yeah." Devin's eyes light up. "Wes found something on the Splinternet. Top-secret weapons demonstration of all the latest and fucking greatest technology. Stuff that can't be found anywhere yet. We could - we could, um - " He's so excited he's talking nearly as fast as Wes, tripping over his own words. "We could fucking infiltrate it. It'd be fucking epic!"
I've got serious doubts about trusting these two anywhere near a government event. Still, they're both showing far more initiative than our supposed leader, who's still engrossed in his new toys and clearly hasn't heard a word. Meanwhile, both Wes and Devin are watching Kalen, waiting for his approval. I'd dearly love to laser him just a little, but instead I kick him hard under the table.
"Ow!" Kalen yells, finally looking up. "What?"
"Never mind, Fearless Leader." I snort. "Wes and Devin want to plan an intelligence mission. Since you can't seem to pay attention, I'll help them with the details, and I'll go with them to make sure they stay out of trouble. Got any problems with that?"
"No problem," Kalen mutters, staring at the chips before him again. "Sounds like a plan."
It looks like we've got one more personnel issue to address - Kalen, the leader who can't be bothered to lead.
(Next chapter is here)
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Re: scene 3
Date: 2013-03-25 06:41 pm (UTC)Originally, this chapter came before the previous one. I needed to have removed all that explaining. How did I not see that? Thank you. Although I'm still not sure whether this one or the previous one should come first. The weapons expo thing is plot relevant. Ish. In that it is their first attempt at a mission.
I'm going to add a Kalen POV right after the bomb. I'm not sure about Wes. I wonder what I can add for him. Hm. Any ideas what you'd like to see from his POV early on?
Do you think I need to split up these chapters more so they're not so long? Ideally, how long do you want them to be?
Re: scene 3
Date: 2013-03-25 07:19 pm (UTC)There's kind of standard thing about 250 words on a page give or take (there will be more if there are a lot of short dialogue obviously).
Taking that into consideration I think a lot of your chapters could be split into two parts. Some even more based on the scenes. Right now they still feel choppy to me because of the way they show something then surge ahead in time, show something else, surge ahead in time to show something else. It feels like stop and go, stop and go. At least to me.
Having chapter breaks works better for me in showing a time jump. From reading I think one time jump per chapter is pretty typical. And it's usually not a huge time jump. More like a few hours, maybe a day if nothing interesting happens but the topic hasn't changed.
The fanfic I'm writing right now jumps ahead quite a lot because I just want to show the interesting things that happen to the characters over a 5 year span without detailing every little thing. It's still crappy and I'll need to segue the sections better to make it work. It's a short story technique because you have a limited amount of space to show everything.
I was also thinking that maybe time should be condensed. Instead of these days and weeks between scenes it would work better if they just flow one to the next as if only moments have passed. It's a hard balance to figure out because you don't want things to be too tedious either. I think splitting up the chapters when there are big time jumps is a good idea.
The word counts and page numbers and all that are an individual thing. I'm sure there are people out there that love long involved chapters. Just as there are some that like quick little chapters.
For Wes' POV... I have no clue really. I'd probably add a scene from his POV during chapter 2 (or whenever you have Devin's POV in the rewrite). I'd chop it up and show some of it from Wes' POV. But that's just me. I'm still having problems figuring out which scenes I should make from Colby's POV in my novel since they're all written from Zoe's and work great as they are. It's a pain in the ass to add POVs after the main bulk of the writing is done. Doing new scenes for him is easy (mostly) but when I need to rewrite a scene...ugh, someone shoot me, please.
Re: scene 3
Date: 2013-03-25 09:40 pm (UTC)As always, you've made me think. Chapters 10 and 13 are getting split anyway, I think, both because they're long as shit and moving the Zack stuff around is going to necessitate it, I think. Also when/if you read chapter 10, you will smack me for trying to cram the amount of stuff into it that I did. At least I'm pretty sure you will. I want to smack me for it.
Anyway, before I run and get ready. It's hard with Wes POVs because he is very, very focused on Devin. The further we get into the book, the more true this becomes. There are two problems with having Wes POVs as a result. One, I don't need more stuff about Devin. I have lots and lots of stuff about Devin because he's weird and does crazy things and also he is eventually somewhat plot-relevant. Two, well. Wes has more POVs later in the book.
But... if I do a Wes POV like riiiiiight when Kalen shows up at their door the first time after the bomb (because I decided that's where he goes "to get help" once he realizes Calla is seriously hurt, then I can do this progression:
Chapter 1 -- Brendan - Life riiiight before the bomb and riiiight after. So the scene with his female friend, where he's training and runs into her and she's been picked for a team and why haven't I? (His grades.) A confrontation with Kalen after he comes home from building the bomb. The recruiting office scene. And I want the kid scenes with him and Kalen in this chapter, so I can either put them at the beginning of the chapter or use them as flashbacks when Brendan gets all ragey, because that's a thing now.
No matter what I do, I can't figure out a way to do this without a little time-skippage and jumpiness at the beginning. If you have a better idea, let me know.
Chapter 2 -- Calla - Some bits from the original chapter 1, her meeting Kalen and some added stuff about her life and why she wants to get away from it. I'm not sure how to make it not have time-jumps unless I claim she and Kalen don't know each other as long, but then why does she trust him on the bomb thing? Hm. Anyway, I want this chapter to go from her meeting Kalen through the library.
Chapter 3 -- Devin - probably cutting some of the cuteness, adding in a scene of him and Kalen building the bomb, followed by the festival thingy and his ominous thoughts.
Chapter 4 -- Kalen - starts with him at the fence calling the people over (minus the expository speechifying which will mostly get explained in the library scene). Shows him accidentally setting off the bomb (sneezing or otherwise -- not sure yet). Him and Calla getting away and her getting hurt, up to the point where he decides to go for help.
Chapter 5 -- Wes - starts with Kalen showing up there, looking for help. Wes will be all "omg, you're famous" and stupid excited. At some point in the chapter he will have an "oh shit" moment where it hits him that this is real. Somewhere in between he and Kalen and Devin will... do things? I think Kalen just went to them because he couldn't go home and didn't know where else to go. I'm not sure exactly how they're supposed to help him help Calla. They probably aren't. So this might be the time to show that, um, they're not really insurgents.
Chapter 6 -- Calla - will involve her robotification and I am still trying to figure that out. Some sort of fight between Kalen and Brendan. Probably still robots.
All POVs introduced. Everything flows more or less linearly from there, will see if I can cut down on the time skippiness within chapters. Ideas? Thoughts?
Crap, I'm late. Back in a few.
Re: scene 3
Date: 2013-03-25 10:35 pm (UTC)Not sure how to get Calla meeting Kalen in there other than more flashbacks. But then it becomes a thing so you either avoid constant flashbacks or you really sell it and have every chapter have a flashback. At least the first 5 scenes as each POV is introduced. Then sporadically throughout the rest of the book whenever something happens in their life that could be mirrored from a childhood or augmented with some event from their past.
It's one way to go.
After you get through the initial 5 POVs try not to go too long before bringing Wes and Kalen back in. Like you could bounce between the other three for 7 or so chapters but then stick a Kalen chapter in just to remind readers there are other POVs, you know. It doesn't all have to be equal.
The book I'm reading now started with three POVs: Kira, Marcus and Samm. Actually I think there was just one scene from Samm's POV (the 1st chapter). Then it goes back and forth between Kira and Samm but the number of chapters each one gets is completely random (sometime they get 1 chapter before switching, sometimes 5).
Samm eventually ends up with Kira on a cross country journey but so far his POV hasn't shown up again. Which is fine but it bugs the crap out of me that it was introduced at all if it's just going to be 1 chapter. Be consistent is what I'm trying to say (I guess).
Re: scene 3
Date: 2013-03-25 10:47 pm (UTC)It goes with his rage issues and I should have realized it sooner because he is the only one who gives me visuals. I mean, obviously this means they will have to be short and choppy because a person having a stress/PTSD flashback isn't going to go through some long cinematic -- it's going to be some scattered images or like thinking you're in a scene for a few seconds or so. So hm. But it actually makes something much later in the book work much better.
Maybe I will just save the kid!voice dialogue for his actual backstory chapter later in the book and just have him see some images (Kalen's bloody nose) and/or hear a few snatches of words.
Kalen and Wes both get POVs again right around when Devin gets his plot-relevant job. Which was going to be chapters 14 and 15 but will now be... a few chapters later? Kalen only has a few POVs in the book as it stands, but that may change. Wes has the fewest after him but is getting at least one more added besides the new one at the beginning.
Re: scene 3
Date: 2013-03-26 03:21 am (UTC)Re: scene 3
Date: 2013-03-25 11:07 pm (UTC)Re: scene 3
Date: 2013-03-26 03:31 am (UTC)Rewriting so there isn't that first chapter where they talk about the library (which was a huge cliffhanger thing that demanded attention) means the library trip is insignificant. You don't need to show it at all.
Doing a flashback later of how Kalen and Calla met would help explain how Calla got messed up in the whole thing. which could work since after she becomes a robot she has mostly disdain for Kalen so people will be wondering why she helped him at all. Then flashback to when they met and how different he was. That helps because the reader never really gets invested in sweet, cocky Kalen but shows exactly how much he's changed since the bombing.
I still think separating the chapters by scenes then mixing them up might help the flow and timeline more. Some of the scenes are pretty long or can be combined with other scenes from their original chapters. They could make short chapters in the beginning where things are happening quickly to a lot of people. As times goes on they could get longer.