From the dustbin: Magda’s rescue
The “Authors’ Handbook of Oft-Misquoted Chestnuts” commanded me to kill my darling. I didn’t want to do it. But I did. I killed it. Dead.
Let me explain.
In Two Moons, the first book in the Echoes of Past Lives series, we learn in passing that main character Jay Shipman has an enviable record of success playing an online game, Defenders of Two Moons. When I was writing the series prequel (available free at re-johnston.com/#free) it seemed natural to include the details of Magda’s rescue. The scene was fun to write but, alas, Echoes of Past Lives is not a LitRPG series and the prequel has no business suggesting it is. I took scissors (OK, ctrl-X) and cut the scene, thus killing my darling.
But wait. The Echoes of Past Lives series is all about reincarnation! So here, just for you, freshly reincarnated from the dustbin:
After many minutes of concentrated effort on his homework, Jay turned to his singular vice: Defenders of the Two Moons. An MMORPG, massively multi-player online role-playing game, Defenders involved warriors based on Duorth’s twin moons endlessly repelling alien invaders. Players could rack up points on a cosmic leaderboard and earn the adoration of hotties they saved from fates worse than death. Jay was rapidly climbing on the leaderboard and now, among all the players in his nation of Ariana, was ranked 428. Uncool compared to Earth games? Maybe, but this was Duorth and this was Jay’s game.
Things on the moons were heating up and Jay thought this afternoon might present a particularly crucial battle. Supermodel Magda had gone missing. Based on the game’s long history of aliens being responsible for every last mishap, might Magda’s disappearance have been an alien abduction?
Yesterday, playing to his own strength, Jay analyzed the aliens as if they were vectors of a communicable disease. Ha! He backtracked their recent virus-like spread to a newly constructed stronghold on one of the moons, Lao Tzu. Jay was certain, at least he was pretty hopeful, this fortress was hapless Magda’s prison. Overnight he conceived a bold plan for a rescue mission from Aristotle, the other moon. Hottie-snatching aliens were going down!
Jay had been holding back a double-barreled hyper-strike cannon, a rare find he’d won in a particularly nasty scrape a few weeks ago. Only two shots, but no other weapon in the game was more powerful. Now was the moment to mount it on his interceptor. Along with a couple of laser obliterators. And a cloaking shield. Plus, just in case he got lucky, he paid five rubies to the Defenders store for an insulated cup of rose-infused tea and stored it in the cup holder of his copilot’s seat.
Jay, “Doctor J” to his squadron mates, launched from Aristotle into the void. He was quickly joined by his wing man, “StanMan,” better-known outside of computers as his best friend, Stan Craft. With full throttles they headed toward Lao Tzu. As they neared the moon, the stronghold’s location was pinpointed by the concentration of alien spacecraft darting like bees around their hive.
The boys flew directly into the swarm, both of them using laser obliterators with grim success. Doctor J’s cloaking shield was powerful enough to obscure their interceptors while StanMan made good use of an old-school magnetic misdirector. Every alien craft looked boringly like the rest, until a large, sleek marauder launched from the epicenter of the evil swarm: the stronghold on the surface of Lao Tzu. Unbelievably fast, the marauder climbed to engage the boys. Their laser obliterators may as well have been flashlights. The magnetic misdirector was misdirecting nothing.
“Stnmn, I need a clear shot.”
“Dr j, stand back.” Stan peeled off to the right at full speed while Jay feathered back his throttle. The tactic worked. The marauder turned to pursue Stan. Jay took careful aim and fired his hyper-strike cannon at its side. Even hyper-strike cannonballs are not instantaneous, and the marauder’s pilot got a kill shot off at Stan’s interceptor before his own craft was reduced to white-hot space junk. “Bye dr j – give Magda…”
Jay didn’t have time to ponder his friend’s fate. He pressed on, battling down toward the sparkling fortress that screamed “Magda’s prison.” He ruthlessly used his laser obliterators to neutralize the aliens’ ground defenses, then came to a hover in front the fortress. Jay had one shot left in the hyper-strike cannon and he had to make it count. He aimed, readjusted his aim, then gave it a final tweak. With a click on the trigger he launched the final hyper-strike cannonball. BOOM! The screen flashed with vivid red! orange! yellow! that finally faded away, revealing that much of the front wall of the fortress had been reduced to moondust. Jay gently nudged his interceptor through the maw.
And there was Magda! The sequins of her revealing, crimson evening gown glistened under the spotlights trained upon her. Doctor J eased the interceptor to the floor and climbed out. He swaggered over and fired his side arm to release the golden handcuffs holding Magda to a chrome pole. He gallantly bowed and Magda put her arms around him, giving him a kiss that filled the full width of his screen. Jay saw his standing on the leaderboard jump from 428 to 389.
He led Magda to the interceptor and helped her into the copilot’s seat. As he climbed into the pilot’s seat, she squealed, “Oh, tea! And it’s rose-infused!” Magda dramatically took a picture of Doctor J (cameras appear at will for super-hotties) and even more dramatically put the portrait into a bejeweled locket, which she kissed before dropping into the recesses of her sparkling gown.
“RIP StanMan. Couldn’t’ve done it without you.”
Jay’s new standing: 326.
* * *
This story has very, very little to do with my books, but I hope you found it fun.
To learn more about the “real” Echoes of Past Lives series, visit re-johnston.com.
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