In the interim, I offer this. Nanowrimo is upon us. I will construct over the course of the next 30 days, a novel. The goal is to complete 50,000 words in thirty days. At least that is the goal of Nanowrimo. MY goal is to not only 'win' by reaching the word count, but have a viable rough draft copy of a novel in the process.
I've decided to use my blog as the vehicle for this book. I shall post every day (I hope). Each post will be a section or scene that appears in the book.
Be forewarned: The order of the the scenes and sections will NOT be the order they appear in the finished product. I believe strongly that non-linear writing produces better fiction.This blog will be a poster child for this philosophy.
So read on at your peril. Let the Nanowrimo begin!
Revolution
Harry slipped into the cube, shoes in hand and breath in lungs. To this point, no one had ever paid attention to him while unplugged, but the feeling they "saw" him skittered through his entire body. The last time he invaded someone's space like this he pissed himself. Unplugging meant everything - even the catheter.
A woman sat poised in her office chair, full banks of monitors made up the floor, walls and ceiling. The voyeuristic nature of what surrounded him jacked all his sensory neurons to levels he never knew when plugged in. Why they went to these lengths for realism amazed him. After all, the headpiece and ocular implants covered everything the eye could see.
Some doubt crept into his mind. Silver tingles of fear tangled themselves around his legs and taunted his gut even as he sat cautious and quite on the floor behind the woman. The screens gave him the setting. This woman worked in a lab that documented nourishment output to the four levels of lower right quadrant of the nation.
Harry knew she actually worked in Nourishment Systems but doubted she commanded such rank. The daily sensorivisuals rarely placed a person in their own environment. Boredom continued to be the major cause of reconditioning of workers - Harry's particular department, and he actually holds an office high up in the hierarchy.
Lighting in the room flickered. The woman's matted white hair flung around her head and whipped her lips with each panicked snap of her head side to side. She looked far too pale to take on a full rape. Flabby muscles hung like drooping ooze underneath her biceps. Her sunken eyes revealed the same dead look Harry now came to expect in his fellow citizens.
"Who's there", came a pathetic voice undoubtedly enhanced for the rapist entering her senorivisual. "I have a weapon and I know how to use it."
Harry could walk up to her, poke her in the nose and put her out of commission for months. In fact, the first time he witnessed the reality of his world, he'd done just that. Now he waited and watched.
On the screen/wall to the woman's right a darkened figure approached. Harry slipped quickly to his feet as the wall slid noiselessly toward the woman. Other room changes took effect. Sensory devices pushed out from walls, the floor, the ceiling. Each would bring home the rape in total realism to the woman in conjunction with the visuals she saw in her optic nerves.
"Bring it on Bitch," came the callous response, hard and harsh as metal grinding metal. Harry knew somewhere a man stood in his room seeing, hearing and feeling everything Harry witnessed in this room.
On the screen a man's hand darted for her right wrist. Out of the wall, a grey arm shot forth and wrapped the wrist tight while it jerked the arm up her back. Another grey arm whisked silent to the other wrist and slapped it over the right one.
A hoarse gurgle of pain shot out of the woman's mouth that sounded about as sexy as puke in a hollow waste tube. No worries for the man on the other end of this. All he would hear would be a tantalizing scream.
The passivity of those participating in the sensorivisuals roiled Harry's stomach. The 'Masters' as he labeled them, supplied all the physical reactions the participants need to enjoy the heightened ecstasy desired. Harry watched as the woman ground her teeth and moaned vicious, violent hoarse grunts.
The floor, ceiling and walls now boasted dozens of manipulating devices that licked at the old woman's body like grey, lifeless snakes animated for the sole purpose of torture. Clothes ripped and strewn about the room, the woman kicked an fought her attacker to little avail.
Harry watched, passive in his stance and stare. He adjusted his position as the scene played out before him and avoided the rape-machine in action. After twenty minutes the woman lay in a heap under her desk. The man laughed, derision and hatred curdled into one voice. Both would piece their clothes back together - or not - and walk home to their respective hives.
Nudity only struck citizen's eyes through their vision prosthetics. Touch remained one of the highest taboos on Earth. Ocular implants made certain citizens saw only what they needed to see. Harry slipped through the system's cracks. His only goal now?
Locate and recruit people who peek out to find what life really unveils for the eyes instead of what is programmed in. The same hollow look that haunted the old woman's eyes during her ecstasy now camped out in the resignation of another SV stimulant that did not work.
This one will be in reconditioning within the month. Harry's first recruit had been an accident. Walking down Main Artery dodging the hordes who would run him down without notice or care, he glanced left and locked eyes with a girl no older than 25. Her shriek had actually diverted one pedestrian that may have bowled her over otherwise.
The girl's number was 3047685439. Harry owned a number as well - 3864474865. Once he learned about his ancestors, he took on the name Harry. Harry named this first recruit Sue.
Sue turned out to be beyond skittish. She feared everything about her new found freedom. She feared the constables, the machines and the grid. Everything and everyone 'followed' her and made note of what she did and how she reacted to differing situations.
Harry decided caution demanded his attention and he obeyed. He covered all his tracks, even with Sue.
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