Teaser Tuesday

So, the other weird thing about Mutants.... (see previous post) is that it's got epistolary sections in between chapters. For those not familiar with that word it's things like letters, diary entries, IM conversations instead of narrative prose. Mutant has everything from IM conversations to recipes to horoscopes to newspaper articles to excerpts from Hallie's school reports to emails in between each chapter. It's great fun that way. I think that's one of the things that Mutants currently has "going" for it in originality.

(BTW, one of my favorite books of all time that does this is Boy Next Door by Meg Cabot... and the whole book is written in that method, but other books do it and do it well. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society is another one. In YA books, I have a book called Sorcery and Cecilia in my TBR pile that is laid out in epistolary fashion, and my BFF loved that book.)

So, anyway, I figured I'd throw one of these in-between sections from Mutants here so you can see what I'm working on.

Lucas’s Notes (five months previously):

April 5

Couldn’t sleep last night, I kept waking up. I felt slightly fevery—though testing my temperature didn’t seem to bear out that hypothesis. After the third time, I got up and drew blood. It’s useful being ambidextrous. It makes it much easier to draw blood. I can’t imagine what it’s like for those that aren’t. My blood levels are normal. Everything seems to be normal. My temperature is 99.8 which is normal for us. I might try to increase my E-coli levels. Perhaps it’s something to do with puberty. The male body does go through changes of all kinds and reaches its sexual prime in one’s late teens.

Earlier today, I read an article about the copulation of Australian redback spiders. Male spiders will go without food or drink while in search of a female to mate with. Eventually, they’ll die of starvation or desiccation if they don’t find one. Of course, most females eat their partner after mating anyway, though. I’m speaking of these specific arachnids, of course. Though, sadly, the same seems to be true of my mother.

Teasing is what Tuesdays do best

Wow... this summer is killing my blogging, isn't it? (Don't answer that. It's rhetorical.)

Well, at least I'm making it here for a Tuesday Teaser I guess. I had a monster of a migraine yesterday and we were busy with friends and family most of last week, so I wasn't even on Twitter that much. It's been a slow week.

I'm still waiting to hear back on submissions. It's surprising it's taking this long--as it seems from Query Tracker's records that most of these agents get back much sooner typically. Still, it's summer and I've heard New York shuts down in August. I've got nine subs out right now. (four are fulls, five partials) A few of the agents would have me in a heartbeat, but I'm a little more conservative on the others because I don't know as much about them. I'm still working on the "que sera sera" method of dealing with the stress. Getting published traditionally is a long shot with the odds. If it doesn't happen--after all I've done--I'm good. My family and happiness are a lot higher priorities. When you believe in the guiding hand of a higher power, it's hard to keep slamming your head against what seems to be a brick wall. Maybe it's not this way with others, but I start wondering if it just wasn't meant to be. I don't know. After the kids start school, I might reevaluate.

Anyway... here is my Tuesday Teaser from a short story called "Hot Ride" about a girl who slips into a hired car and tries to convince the driver that she's the person who hired him to drive her. He thinks she's crazy.

Here it is:

“Which brings me back to… what can I call you?” He could tell she was hoping he’d forgotten his original question.

“Ummm….”

“I know you’re not Franklin Benedict. He’s in his seventies and has gout,” Denny said helpfully.

She frowned. “Well, why are you driving me around then?”

“Because you looked pathetic and I’m a soft sell for pathetic.”

He pulled over to the side of the road.

“Do you want me to get out?” she asked, looking around.

Turning in his seat, he said, “No, you still look pathetic and that’s currency with me. Just tell me your name and where you want to go.”

“I can pay you,” she said. “That’s not why I hid in your car. Whatever your normal price is, I can pay it.”

“Your name, sweetheart,” he said firmly.

“Uhh… Jane,” she tried.

He raised his eyebrows. “Your real first name or I will drop you off here.”

She groaned and said, “Sabrina, but I can explain.”

Sabrina? “Not Sabrina MacNeal?” he asked.

She winced.

Oh hell no. He should drop her off here. How had he not recognized her?

“This had better be some explanation,” Denny stated.

“Okay, it is but, first of all, I didn’t do it,” she said.

Tuesday, you tease me.

Here is a small excerpt from my short story "Push Me" which I just completed at 3 a.m. (I'm still struggling to sleep if I have a story idea. I wrote from 10-3 last night.) The story is about a woman at a government agency that specializes in empaths. She has a hard enough time with everyone being psychic. She can "wipe memories" but that's the extent of her abilities. She's sent to wipe a specific memory from someone and discovers that not only is he hiding how strong his abilities are, but he is a pusher (someone who can induce compliance with the power of suggestion.) I'm really tired or I might have come up with a better summary than that... maybe... possibly.

Here it is:

As she stared at the steel grey lake with its early morning fog, Brenna was thinking of the predominance of grey in her life. There was the small office she was currently in with its grey walls. The government facility itself--its stacked-block, grey, concrete building marred the landscape like only government facilities can. There was her pin-striped grey business suit. While she looked good in it, and it offset her copper hair and green eyes nicely, it was still grey. Grey. Grey. Grey. Even her car was the regulation non-descript grey. Drab, very drab, Brenna. Who would have ever guessed you’d grow up to have such a drab grey car and work for a secret government agency cloaked in the grey space on budgets and administration?

Then, there was him… and he wasn’t drab at all. His eyes were almost the same color as the lake right now, and that’s probably why she was thinking of him. Though it might be his white grey hair—prematurely grey despite his age of thirty-one. They said it was stress, but if she’d ever seen Harris Dumont stressed out then he hid it really well. He always seemed to appear when she was stressed out however. They’d started meeting regularly when she was on a quick walk to clear her mind. If her walks were at all predictable, she’d think he was purposefully doing it. As it was, he was either incredibly lucky—or he could read her mind. His file, of course, said it was the latter but, damn, how could he read it without being near her? He had to be the strongest telepath in the compound, and that should scare the crap out of her, but it never had.

Teasing the Tuesday

Okay, so here is my Teaser Tuesday post from my latest short story which required a brush-up on Texas Hold em rules. It's only been through one revision, so it's still rough.

Hold em

“Texas Hold em’? In a Baruvian law-holders outpost?” Moses asked again, leaning against his friends’ newly-parked hoverex.

“Yeah, they’ve probably never had someone from earth here—let alone someone from Texas,” Ajax said and shut the door behind him, setting the security system with his keypad.

Moses raised his eyebrows at that. Of all place to worry about your ride being stolen… he’d assumed a law-holder’s homestead would be safe. The nervous laugh from his friend set his senses tingling. Something was ‘off’ here. He’d got the feeling right from when he’d parked. A dozen eyes were watching him.

Ajax leaned in and whispered, “I forgot to tell you… and I know how you feel about this, but Martice keeps slaves. You’ll want to lock your ride so that they don’t hitch and get you killed.”

Moses swore beneath his breath even as he did so. “Ajax, what are you doing? You know how I feel about that.”

“You’re not in Texas anymore, Moses. Things are different here on Baru and you’re supposed to be making contacts for the company. Martice is the law here. If you want to import beef here, you have to work through Martice,” Ajax said. “You go in… play a few hands. Let. Him. Win. You don’t make eye contact with any of the slaves. We leave. It’s simple.”

Moses could feel their eyes watching him. What was he doing here? Baru was a hell-hole of a civilization even before you threw in their slaves. If he’d known what Baru was like, he’d have told the company they’d be better off letting the whole planet wither up and be deserted. The strange thing was that the landscape was much like his hometown in Texas. Unlike in Texas, it was ruled by a class that made the Wild West look like the Good Old Days. He’d heard a few of the land-owners had slaves, but one of the law-holders?

“He also has servants. You can make eye contact with them,” Ajax said.

“How can I tell the difference?” Moses asked irritably. Why had he let Ajax talk him into a nice, friendly poker game? There would be nothing nice or friendly about it. His shoulders already were feeling tight with strain. It was water polo with sharks.

“The servants will be armed.” He shot Moses a look. “Don’t forget that. You mess up and we’ve got a dozen guns pointed at our heads.”

“What the hell have you gotten us into?” Moses hissed under his breath. They were nearly at the front door to the palatial mansion that resembled some of the old plantations back in the southern states. Tall white pillars flanked the door. If they hadn’t been made of polished titanium, it would have been an exact match.

“They won’t want to start an international incident… just don’t give them a reason to accuse you of breaking a law,” Ajax said.

“We’re leaving this place… this outpost after this,” Moses said.

“You’re going to find this type of thing wherever we go, Mose. You just gotta lighten up on your mama’s boy ethics.”

“Yeah, Ajax… and end up like you? No thanks.”

Ajax laughed, taking it as a compliment as Moses had known he would. “You have to admit that I can find us a good game in every outpost.”

“You’ve played here?”

Ajax smirked just as he pushed the doorbell. “Yep. The guy cheats like a husband in a Haradoon.”

Moses muttered under his breath, “This was your dumbest idea ever.”

“Probably… just don’t get us killed.”

The gun on the hip of the man that opened the door proclaimed him to be an employee… but, right away, Moses saw a few girls moving in the background—silent as wraiths. They had bracelets on their arms that would shock them if they left the homestead. Slaves. Great. He was going to kill Ajax himself if they made it out of here alive.

Martice Tesla met them just in front of a secluded room where they could see a poker table in the background. It wasn’t just what Moses knew about him that made Martice look oily. The guy might have been the same age as them—early thirties—but he had the look of a man who snorted dark. His eyes were weasel shrewd and his smile had all the win of a used-ride salesman. Dark hair was greased back and his goatee had been pulled tightly at the bottom into two golden clips with diamonds across them. He had an illegal sharpshot with its shield-piercing bullets—settled on his hip—visible. Wealthy. Degenerate. Corrupt. They really, really shouldn’t have come here.

Ajax gave him a reassuring smile after noticing the sharpshot.

This was going to be the quickest game of poker that he’d ever played. There would be no laughing casual hands going into the short hours of the Baruvian moon. Moses extended a hand to shake Martice’s with a tight smile. “Evening, Mr. Tesla. Moses Taylor—from Earth.”

Martice laughed—a greasy, winded sound. “Eve’nin. Call me Martice—and I don’t shake hands.” He gestured at his side. “Got shot by someone with a third arm that way once.”

Moses didn’t need to send another look Ajax’s way to give his opinion on this. He and Ajax had known each other long enough. His hand dropped to his side and he tried to loosen up. It was just a simple game of poker. Play. Smile. Get out. Play. Smile. Get out.

There were two other men in the poker room. Martice introduced them as “Johnny and Mick. Couple of my guys to make things even.”

Even Ajax stiffened at this. They’d be playing against “his guys” with a man known for cheating? Whatever he lost Moses would demand in repayment from Ajax. And they would lose big here tonight. There was no doubt about that. Moses could kiss the four thousand gamas he’d brought goodbye. There was no way he could file an expense report listing that much in gambling loss without everyone at home laughing at him for months. He’d walked into a panther pit with a pointy stick to defend himself with.

They sat around the table and a girl walked in and sat at the head of the table. She had long black hair and eyes as green as emeralds—eyes that wouldn’t meet his. She didn’t speak, but her attire—filmy gauze that barely could be called clothing and the golden bracelet on her upper arm spoke volumes. A slave. Possibly first generation, but Baru was going onto its third generation of slaves. Most slaves were sterile—by choice as a child born into slavery would never get out unless freed by an owner with a conscience. He hadn’t met anyone with a conscience on Baru yet.

When she leaned down to grab a pack of cards, he saw the thin lines of healing wounds on her back through the sheer material. Martice beat her. Great.

Ajax glanced at her, smothered a grin at her lush curves, and shot a warning look his way. His eyes were saying, “Don’t look at the girl. Just play the game and let’s get out of here.” There was also a hint of apology for this serious lapse in already poor judgment. Great. They were so screwed.

Teaser Tueser... err... Tuesday, I mean.

Well, yesterday's post was relatively crabtastic. I've been working on short stories rather than a single WIP. My short story collection keeps growing and growing and I'm not sure what I'll do with it. I'm getting lots of practice working in third person, though... so that's good.

So, here is a portion of one of my short stories I've recently finished, but still needs a revision... sometime. I wrote it on the premise of "What if you met someone every day... and they assumed you were talking in code... and you assumed they were crazy?"

The title is her code for her secret project based on the phonetic alphabet code (Alpha, Foxtrot, Whiskey, etc.) Ken assumes she is trying to sell him information on her prototype. Laptop guy has been hired to find out if she is. Jenny is just there eating yogurt and doing Sudoku.

Romeo and Juliet in Tango

They sat in the same spots in the park every day for three months now. She came down to eat her yogurt and do a page of Sudoku, and he came down at the same time to work on his laptop. Maybe he was a writer or something.

This morning her horoscope had suggested she take the leap that would not be denied… whatever that crap meant, but that wasn’t what had her thinking of talking to him. It was this stupid birthday. She’d be thirty in two weeks and it was time to stop acting like she was sixty. She could talk to him… it would just be talking.

The older Asian man—the one who was blind sat beside her… as he did every day. Wow. They were really all creatures of habit.

“How are you, Jenny Talmage?” he asked. He always used her full name as if anything less just wasn’t her name.

“I’m fine, Ken,” she said, staring at the other man—working on his laptop. Normally, she made eye contact when she spoke with someone, but Ken never looked at her—they just always sat side-by-side and talked. Besides, today… she was going to force laptop guy to make eye contact with her just by sheer will.

Who was she kidding? Maybe he hadn’t even noticed her in three months? Why would he? He looked all rough and steamy… and she looked so normal. Brown hair. Brown eyes. Her mouth had always seemed to be too full, but no one else had ever said anything. Still—nothing added up to equality with laptop guy. Plus, she was queen of the nerds. The building behind her that she worked in basically stamped her as untouchable to a guy like laptop guy. Out of her league… way out of her league.

“Jenny Talmage, how often does the hummingbird flap its wings in an hour?”

Ken asked weird things like this all the time. It was mostly science and animal questions, and sometimes she tried to get ahead of him by asking her own odd questions. It seemed impolite to not venture a guess—so she always did. She’d studied hummingbirds strangely enough for her project, but it was because they could fly backward… if you could make a thing fly backwards… well… that was a beautiful thing.

“Five hundred sixty-one thousand times,” she guessed. It was a reasonable guess.

“Really?” he asked.

Jenny shrugged even though he couldn’t see her. The laptop guy looked up at her bemused… even though he couldn’t have possibly heard her. He was on a bench forty feet away. Weird. Then, he was looking back at his laptop as if the moment had never occurred. Maybe it hadn’t.

“They beat their wings more frequently during courtship,” Jenny said.

“What does that mean?” Ken asked. He tipped his head slightly as if her comment was more ridiculous than normal. Yesterday, they’d discussed whirlpools. This really wasn’t that far from the norm. Maybe he was just old-fashioned and felt even the word “courtship” was dirty.

“That their courtships are more exhausting than humans,” Jenny said, setting her yogurt to the side and opening up her Sudoku book to a new puzzle. With Ken feeling chattery… there would be no way she’d get an actual puzzle done, so she just started making notes in her code to transcribe later in her lab’s computer. She really ought to know how often they beat their wings—it’d be useful information possibly.

“Hotel uniform,” she scribbled into one of the boxes to remind her to look up an “Hu” word when she got back up there. That would be enough to jog her memory. It’d be interesting if she’d guessed close. “561,000,” she wrote in the next box, murmuring it under her breath as she did.

There! Again! She’d seen it in her periphery. The laptop guy raised his head topped with “cinnamon toast” colored hair and his blue eyes focused on her for a second in surprise. Jenny looked behind her. No one there—it was just she and Ken—same as every day for the last three months when he’d been here and she’d been wanting to talk to him. When she looked back, he was back to that laptop. Maybe she’d imagined it. Weird.

“You’re sure? Five hundred and sixty-one thousand times?” Ken asked the oddest follow-up questions. He had a sense of humor so he had to know she was kidding with these guesses, right?

“I would never venture a guess at something as important as wing speed if I wasn’t sure,” she said.