Michael Brachman's Blog: Tales of the Vuduri, page 30

Yes, Dear

Unless you have been reincarnated, I don't see how you or anyone can be qualified to be a "life coach" because we only get one life to live. Who's to say we lived it right until it's over? That doesn't mean people can't impart wisdom from their experiences but nobody can give you an exact guide.

There's lots of advice floating around regarding marriage. I've heard the phrases "Happy wife, happy life" and "You can be right or you can be happy" meaning the secret to a good marriage is keeping the Mrs. happy. Rei Bierak has only been married the one time, to the incomparable Rome, but he knew from growing up in a well-adjusted family that the homilies above were true. And since he is still recovering from a severe concussion, he had relinquished control of the search for the would-be assassin or assassins to Rome:

     Rei’s Ark had crash-landed on a ridge part way up the slope of the northern mountains over four years earlier. In the two years since Rei and Rome had been here last, the Ark II had continued to rust, some parts of it completely rusted out. The outer hull, what was left of it, was orange-colored with streaks of brown and black. This was due to the fact that the upper two-thirds of the gigantic, cylindrical spaceship was made out of pig iron and Deucado presented enough moisture and oxygen to cause portions of the roof to collapse. Some of the pieces were fairly large.
     The lower third of the Ark was made of martensite, a kind of stainless steel so it was in much better shape. While the upper portion of the Ark was softer and more malleable, the lower third had to be more rugged because when the Arks came in for a landing, they had no wheels or landing gear. They glided in then just belly-flopped their way down to the ground at a rather sizeable velocity. The martensite was not just a heat shield and a potential building material, it was also the world’s biggest landing strut. At least, that was the way it was planned. The way the Ark II actually arrived on Deucado was beyond anything the mission planners could have imagined.
     Rei and Rome held hands as they carefully made their way up the entrance ramp into the long-abandoned crew compartment. Once they reached the top of the ramp, Rei tried to pull his hand free but Rome would not let go.
     “I’m OK,” Rei said. “I can walk by myself.”
     “No,” Rome said forcefully. “I don’t want to take a chance of you slipping on one of the pieces that have fallen from the ceiling.”
     “But…” Rei protested.
     “You said I was in charge,” Rome said proudly. “This is a command decision. You hold my hand.”
     Rei smiled. “Yes, dear,” he said submissively.

This will be a recurring theme over the next days and weeks as they hunt down the would-be killers. But Rome is good-natured about it so I wouldn't worry for poor old Rei too much.
 

Agents, pt. 2

Yesterday, I described to you my tortuous path leading up to me deciding to get published by finding an agent. However there was one fact that I slipped in that you may not have noticed. Please note the year I started on this adventure: 2008. Remember that year? The stock market had crashed and everybody went into panic mode and truly our economy has ever recovered. Almost all of the agents started hanging up shingles signaling that they were no longer accepting new authors because publishers were only buying sure things which meant previously published authors.

I tried hiring a professional editor and paid her money to critique my books but the things she said were so harsh, I threw in the towel and realized my dream was never going to happen. I stopped sending in query letters and spent a long time rethinking my strategy. I knew about the Kindle and the more I read about it, the more I realized that I could self-publish and who needs an agent?

So I did. I compiled all three VIRUS 5 novels down into one super-long novel entitled Rome's Revolution and in November, 2011, the book went on sale on Amazon. I also learned how to self-publish for the B&N Nook, Kobo, iTunes and Smashwords. I sold 77 copies of Rome's Revolution within the first month. To date I have sold nearly 400 copies. All told, if you want to count the books I sell for free, the total is nearly 3600. I have actually received money for nearly 900 books. Not a lot but more than zero.

Even though the economy still sucks and agents and publication houses are still resisting taking on unknown writers, an entirely new market has appeared. HBO, Showtime, AMC, Amazon and Netflix among others are now producing original content which is fantastic. More channels are opening up every month, all of them hungry for quality programming. My books would make a phenomenal five year series. The first three would be Rome's Revolution, year four would be The Ark Lords and year five would be Rome's Evolution.

I wrote an email to a consolidator who sends content to Netflix for consideration and they told me nobody can get their foot in the door without an agent. So I am going to rewrite the first third of Rome's Revolution entirely and heavily edit the rest. And then guess what? I am going to hop aboard the agent-go-round again. Who knows? Maybe this time I will succeed. Probably not. But I have to try.

Agents, pt. 1

I wrote my first short story of any note in high school, back in 1969. My story was just for Pen & Ink, Haverford High School's monthly "literary" magazine. The 300-word piece was a dopey sort-of science fiction (natch) story that was really just a set up of a joke. This was the first time I was ever "published" and I use that word loosely because they were so starved for content that they rarely rejected anybody's work.

In college, I wrote a bunch of short stories and eventually got brave enough that I sent some into science fiction magazines with the hope of not only getting published, but getting paid to write. No such luck. I got quite a few rejection notices, very nearly all of them form letters, usually just pink slips with the same message. My final story, "Mars, Get Ready" was also rejected but this was accompanied by a personal note from an editor who told me that while this particular story was not suitable, I should keep at it. This was in 1973, the same year I wrote the first full draft of VIRUS 5.

Then life kicked in and I kind of stopped writing until 2001 when my second wife left me. That was when I got the idea for a game show called "The One That Got Away" and I said to myself, I can write a book. Why not? It took me about a year and by 2002, I had the first draft of what came to be known as Future Past.

I was well aware that Future Past wasn't good enough to get published but it showed me that I had the stamina to write a 330-page novel so I rolled up my sleeves and got to work on the full-length novel VIRUS 5. The manuscript also took me about a year to write and polish but no sooner had I finished that book when I got the idea for the second and third parts. By 2008, I had three (what I thought at the time to be) well-written novels forming a trilogy. Surely that would be considered desirable to prove you weren't a one-hit wonder. I knew the days of directly submitting manuscripts to publishers was long gone and the only way to get your foot in the door was through an agent. So I bought a book called The Writers Market 2008 and dutifully noted the section regarding agents.

In September of 2008, I hopped aboard what I now call the "agent-go-round" which is a never ending cycle of sending in query letters, the first three chapters and waiting. The more polite agents got back to you and told you that what you had wasn't their cup of tea or not suitable in some other way. Others never got back to you at all. The road was paved with unending disappointment.

Tomorrow, a sad footnote to the journey described above but why there may now be hope again.

The cloak (dis)appears

Yesterday, Rome and Rei had conjectured that Rei's would-be killer most likely was one of the remaining Darwin members running loose on Deucado. They knew that the Darwin members were sent to Deucado in the specially fortified gray sarcophagi in the front of the Ark II. Rome asked Rei how many there were, so they could gauge what they were up against and... Well, I'll let Rei tell you:

     “I didn’t pay enough attention,” Rei said. “I think we need to go back and actually count.” Rei turned to MINIMCOM. “How many of the Darwin people did you and Junior cart off to Virga on Helome?”
     “84 the first trip. 20 the second,” MINIMCOM answered. “104 total.”
     “There,” Rei said. “So all we need to do is figure out how many we started with, subtract out 104 and what’s left is how many we’re looking for.”
     Rome smiled. “I do not think your ability to think has been much impaired. However, you forgot one person.”
     “Who?” Rei asked.
     “Captain Keller. No matter what the theoretical number, you must add one since he was one of the original 84 sent to Virga on Helome.”
     Rei sighed. “Yeah,” he said. “I don’t know if this helps or not but I know that some of the sarcophagi were damaged. I remember seeing them in the cave behind The Cathedral.”
     “Were they white or gray?” Rome asked.
     Rei put his hand up to his head and rubbed his forehead. “I don’t remember,” he said. “Dammit.”
     “It’s OK, Rei, we will check it out,” Rome said. She turned to MINIMCOM. “Would you mind taking us to Rei’s Ark and then to The Cathedral?” she asked. “We need to do our survey.”
     “Your safety and well being is my first and only concern at the moment,” answered the livetar. “I am at your service until this matter has been resolved.”
     “Then let us begin,” Rome said, rising.
     Together, the group left the house. What they did not see was that after they were gone, the front door opened, apparently all by itself, and then closed again.

Uh-oh. A door opening and closing by itself and a missing invisibility cloak. Those two things can't be a coincidence. But who are they are and how are they related? We will have to find this out as we go along.

The Tall Task

Yesterday, it was decided that Aason would go to Earth along with his grandparents for his own protection. This leaves Rei, Rome and MINIMCOM free to track down their would-be killers. But where do they start? All I can tell you is there ain't no such thing as a coincidence. And the story started out with an invisibility cloak and Hanry Ta Jihn's handgun going missing. I feel certain they will make a reappearance at some point in the story. But first, we need a plan:

     After a prolonged and tearful goodbye, Aason and his grandparents left in Junior for Earth. As soon as they were gone, Rei, Rome and MINIMCOM reconvened around Binoda’s dining table to make their plans.
     “Rome, MINIMCOM,” Rei said. “I know we have a tall task in front of us. But I need you both to understand my super-hearing is kind of busted right now. Plus I had a pretty hard knock to the head. I don’t know if you can tell or not but I’m still pretty fuzzy.”
     “You had a severe concussion,” Rome said. “You don’t need to excuse it.”
     “That’s not what I’m getting at,” Rei said. “What I’m trying to say is I might not be able to think clearly enough or act fast enough to get us out of this mess cleanly.”
     Rei leaned forward to take Rome’s hand. “Sweetheart, you have to be the one in charge. If I say something that doesn’t sit right, you have to overrule me.”
     Rome nodded slowly. “I understand. But I’m not worried. Let us get to the business at hand. As my father pointed out, these persons unknown could be anywhere on the planet. On top of that, we don’t know how many of them there are and we don’t know who they are. Where do we start?”
     Rei stood up carefully and left the room only to return with a piece of paper and several of Aason’s crayons. He picked up the blue crayon and drew a long rectangle. He took a red crayon and stroked lines across the rectangle in a dense pattern.
     “Say this is the Ark,” he said, circling the rectangle. “We know that the Darwin people were shipped out here to Deucado in the special gray sarcophagi.”
     Rei grabbed a black crayon and blocked off the front of the crudely drawn ship. “Rome, do you remember the cages in the front?”
     Rome nodded.
     “I think the first thing we do is go back to the Ark and calculate how many of them there could be.”
     “You were there when they started pulling them out, wouldn’t you know?” his wife asked.

Yes he was. But something as massive as the retrieval of 500 or so sarcophagi from the Ark would have been beyond Rei's ability to memorize.

Where do we go?

Yesterday, after Rome and Rei had returned from space with Rei's surgically repaired back, the couple announced to Rome's parents that it was no longer safe anywhere on the planet and they had to leave. They need Aason as far away as possible for his own good. Rome and Rei had picked out a destination. Unfortunately, and unknown to them, the destination wasn't far enough.

     “Where would you have us go?” Fridone asked skeptically. “You do not know where they are. Nowhere on this planet could be safe.”
     “You are right, Beo,” Rome interjected. “Not on this planet. Junior has agreed to take you to Earth.”
     “Earth?” Binoda exclaimed. “We were banished from there, just as you were. We are not allowed.”
     Rome stood up. “Junior will take you to Commander Ursay. He will hide you on his farm until it is safe to return. Junior has all of his father’s stealth ability. He will get you there unseen.”
     “Cowering like children out on a farm,” Fridone scoffed. Then he realized Aason really was a child. “I understand,” he said reluctantly.
     “Mommy, Daddy,” Aason said, jumping up. “I don’t want to go.” He ran over and grabbed his mother, wrapping his arms around Rome’s legs.
     Rome stooped down and cupped her son’s chin. Tears were starting to overflow her eyes and run down her cheeks.
     “We have to do this, my baby. It’s not safe here. We can’t allow anything to happen to you. Grandmea and Grandbeo will take good care of you. Daddy and I will come and get you as soon as it is safe to come home.”
     Aason hugged his mother around her neck. “Mommy, I’ll miss you so much.”
     “And I will miss you, my love. But I would die if anything happened to you. Daddy and I can’t take that chance.”
     Aason pulled back. He was crying too but he made a brave face. “I understand, Mommy. Whoever those bad men are, I hope you catch them and kill them back.”
     “No,” Rome said. “We don’t kill anybody. But we will stop them. Then we can all be together again.”
     Rome looked up at her mother. Binoda nodded.
     “Come, Fridone,” she said. “We must pack some clothing. This might be a while.”

At least I can get Aason out of there for a portion of the book and get going with the fast-paced action and adventure. Rome and Rei have a lot of ground to cover and having Aason around would slow them down significantly.

Somebody tried to kill me

Now that MINIMCOM has repaired Rei's spine and outfitted him with a miniature self-sustaining PPT tunnel for protection, it is time to revisit why so much rigmarole in the first place. After all, Rei had nearly been blown to bits. Rome, Rei and MINIMCOM returned to the planet to discuss the situation with Rome's parents who were watching Aason:

     “All this is well and good,” he said, “but everyone here is forgetting one thing.”
     “What is that?” Fridone asked.
     “Somebody tried to kill me. In fact, that bomb was set to kill all of us. If Rome and Aason hadn’t been delayed at the library, they might be dead too.”
     “Who would try and kill any of you?” Binoda asked, horrified. “You have done nothing but good ever since you arrived at this planet.”
     “We discussed this very fact and we can only come up with one explanation,” Rome said.
     Rei nodded. “It had to be one of the Darwin people. When we rounded them up and sent them off to Helome, there’s no way we got them all. There has to be a couple of them left, running around crazy.”
     “Even so, why would they want to kill you?” Binoda asked with a furrowed brow.
     “You don’t know these people like I do,” Rei said. “They were none too happy when we shipped them off-world. It doesn’t have to be a very complex reason. I don’t think we need look beyond simple revenge.”
     “If that is all it is,” Fridone said, “then they will find out eventually they did not kill you. What is to prevent them from trying again?”
     “Nothing,” Rei said. “Our only hope is to figure out who it was and track them down. That’s the only way to stop them before they try again.”
     “They could be anywhere on this planet,” Fridone said with increasing frustration. “We must be ever vigilant.”
     “There is no we, Beo,” Rome said. Rome touched her finger to her temple. With a whoosh and pop, both MINIMCOM’s all-black livetar and Junior’s smaller one appeared in the room. Junior’s livetar had darkened significantly and was much larger as compared to when he was originally ‘born’. The current version stood well over a meter and half tall and his skin was now a deep slate gray. Every day, he looked more and more like his father.
     “Hello, Auntie Rome,” Junior said. “Onclare Rei. I’m glad you’re out of the hospital. Dad filled me in on what he did.”
     “Thanks, Junior,” Rei said. He turned carefully back to face his in-laws. “Rome and I talked about it. We don’t want you or Aason around until we’ve caught the assassins.”

I've mentioned many times that while I really like Aason, he gets in the way of superior action and adventure. It is easier to ship him off to another planet for a while so Rome and Rei can get to work fleshing out the novel. Unfortunately, in this case, they shipped him off to the wrong planet as you will see later in the book.

Emancipation

Over the last couple of days, I have presented you with some technology that isn't all that far-fetched. It will certainly occur within our children's lifetime. But what nobody considered was the human spirit behind it. I say human on purpose. Even though MINIMCOM is a livetar, an ambulatory computer shell, the spirit behind it is very real and very autonomous. Everyone from our generation would think of computers as things, the same as a car or an airplane. But MINIMCOM is much, much more than that. He just doesn't happen to be biologically based.

This becomes abundantly clear in the early parts of Rome's Evolution when Dr. Montrell assumes that MINIMCOM can be commanded to do anything the humans want, regardless of MINIMCOM's desires:

     “I get it,” Rei said, pulling his arm away from MINIMCOM’s grasp. “I’ll be careful.” He looked down at his chest or at least the region of where his chest should have been. “But, like this is really weird. I understand why I need it but how am I supposed to walk around with no chest? It’ll scare Aason. It’ll scare everybody.”
     MINIMCOM held his hand out and a long brown shirt appeared, somewhat reminiscent of Rei’s normal attire. “Put this on,” the livetar said, shaking the garment.
     Rome helped Rei put on the shirt. Once all the buttons were fastened, it completely covered up Rei’s invisible chest. “Hmm,” Rei grunted. “Weird but that’ll work.”
     “Yes,” MINIMCOM said. “It is coated on the inside with an electrostatic material. It acts as an inflating agent. I have tailored the fabric so that your torso will appear normal to the outside world until you no longer need the vest.”
     “So how long do I have to wear it?” Rei asked, running his hands down his chest carefully. Knowing what was under there was really bizarre.
     “You will need to wear it about a month,” MINIMCOM said. “You may take it off to shower and to sleep. But that is all. After a month, your spine should be completely and totally healed and you will no longer require this protection.”
     Rei looked over at Rome and raised one eyebrow. “Are you going to be able to handle this?” he asked.
     Rome winked at him. “We’ll be fine,” she said, laughing. “It will remind us every day of what a wonderful friend our MINIMCOM has been.”
     “This is beyond friendship,” Russell said. “This is an incredible advancement in medicine. You must share this with the world at large. Think of the good you can do.”
     MINIMCOM’s eye slits narrowed a bit. “I do not know if I am ready to reveal this just yet. I have only recently shared my secret of the continuous PPT drive with the next generation of fastships. I have been heavily involved in their training. It is very time-consuming.”
     “There’s no comparison,” Russell said insistently. “This is far too important to keep to yourself. Rei, can’t you make him share it? He’s your ship.”
     “No,” Rei said. “He’s not my ship. MINIMCOM was emancipated a long time ago. He is his own entity. He’s not a thing. He’s family. He chooses when and where he goes and what he does. You’ll just have to trust him to do what is right and in his own time.”
     “Thank you, Rei,” MINIMCOM said. “Dr. Montrell, as Rei said, you will just have to trust me to do what is right. All I can promise you is that I will get around to it eventually.”
     “An emancipated ship,” Russell muttered to himself.
     “And loving father,” Rome threw in. “He has a child of his own.”
     Russell lowered his eyes to the ground. “I guess there are just some things I’ll never get used to.”

Get used to it. MINIMCOM is not a machine. He is a member of the family. And while he may do what you ask sometimes, no, many times, it is because he chooses to do so not because he is commanded to do so. Think about that the next time you get into your car and put on your left turn blinker.

The Invisible Vest

Yesterday, MINIMCOM unveiled a vest to protect Rei's spine while it heals. It consists of two plates, one in the front and one in the back. Together, they form a continuous, miniature PPT tunnel such that anything that comes in contact with Rei's torso or back would punch through the other side, essentially going around Rei's spine rather than bend it.

My brother Bruce made an animatic version of the book trailer for Rome's Evolution and tried to capture this. However, we had decided to abandon the idea of a book trailer altogether so all I have are his sketches on what would have been in the trailer. Here you can see MINIMCOM's livetar with a cape, finally. Basically, this is just Rei lifting his shirt, showing you that you can see right though him and then him lowering his shirt again:






The mechanics of how the shirt doesn't just get sucked into the portable wormhole will be covered tomorrow.

Double-edged Vest

Yesterday, "Dr.MINIMCOM" completed the restoration of Rei's back and turned on the artificial gravity. After a little bit of conditioning, Rei was able to walk unassisted in one full g so that meant, in his mind, he was able to return to Deucado so they could begin the search for his would-be killer. But the livetar was not quite ready to discharge his patient:

     MINIMCOM said, “Your recovery is far from complete. Your spine is still very delicate.” The livetar turned away then turned back with a contraption built of two black plates held together by leather-like thongs. The front plate was sculpted in the form of a human chest. The back plate was smoother. About 18 inches from the top were four straps attached to the frame on both sides.
     What is that?” Rome asked, coming over to see.
     “This is a portable, miniature self-sustaining PPT tunnel,” MINIMCOM said.
     “What’s it for?” Rei asked.
     “Allow me to attach it and I will explain,” MINIMCOM replied. The livetar lifted the two plates up and lowered the assembly over Rei’s head. Once the upper thongs were resting on Rei’s shoulders, MINIMCOM cinched the lower straps along the sides until they were snug around Rei's waist. After checking the fit, MINIMCOM waved his hands over the front and suddenly, Rei’s chest, in fact his entire torso, disappeared. It looked like his head, arms and legs were completely separated from each other.
     “What the hell?” Rei exclaimed as he tried to wrap his head around what he was seeing or in this case, not seeing. “Why do I need this thing?” he asked.
     “Your spine is solid and clearly you can stand the strain of being vertical. However, the mixture of bones and constructors do not have as much reinforcement against lateral sheer. This vest will prevent anything from coming in contact with your spine until you are fully healed.”
     To demonstrate, MINIMCOM pushed one of his hands through the region where Rei’s stomach would have been. The arm emerged from behind Rei’s back as if he were not there.
     Rei reached around to poke his own hand in the tunnel but MINIMCOM grabbed his arm and pulled it away.
     “You must be very careful with this,” MINIMCOM cautioned. “As you know, the edges of a PPT tunnel are sharper than any blade in the universe. Nothing must come in contact with those edges.” MINIMCOM squeezed Rei’s wrist. “For example, if something were to be inserted within the tunnel and you turned suddenly, whatever it was would be severed immediately. And that includes limbs.”
     MINIMCOM shook Rei’s arm to emphasize his point.

The sentence in bold is very important. I used it to set up the mid-novel climax. But you'll have to wait a bit until we get there. This PPT vest is the precursor to Aason's PPT "armor" that he donned on Hades when seeking out the colonists from the Ark IV in The Milk Run but that's a story for another day.

Here is a picture of Bruno Catalano's "In Search of Missing Pieces" which is a statue is in France: