Chapter 10 Process
I’m at chapter ten of New Frontiers and feeling a bit lost about what should happen next. When that happens, I know I need to:
A) Take a walk and think of some cool stuff.
jorge says
zehra finally. your honoer and madam ambssador i am pleased to see you re well.
xxx
the special police had learned how to deal wth people who could temporarily revoke the conduction of electrons. these people walked. and they hurled their robots at us like grenades.
xxx
i am so glad we found you safe. if you feel you are in danger here perhaps we could discuss things in the safety of amazonia zone.
ooh can me.
i m afraid not
then if you allow me to accompany you …
he looks at me.
he s looking at me as if i can help him. is his expression pleading? what does jorge want?
what all of us want. the power to protect ourselves.
power embodied in alien technology.
and he thinks i can do something about it.
hey i say. i hate to ask this but can you let me see your crystal ball before you go?
this one
well yes. take it harry you know it might do you some good.
the bubble dims and floats away from the oonkhs. when i touch it i feel nothing but the bubble pops. i jump
look at your index fingermy fingertip glows with a pinprick of twinkling light. when i press my thumb to it the light expands back into a bubble which floats over my head.
B) Write down all the people in the scene and figure out what each would want in this situation.
C) Add cool stuff to that diagram (see below)
D) Transfer it to the computer and put in all the other snippets I wrote in my original outline for this chapter.
JORGE GOES TO ZEHRA
jorge says
zehra finally. your honoer and madam ambssador i am pleased to see you re well.
SOLDIERS TRY TO STOP HIM
Xxx
the special police had learned how to deal wth people who could temporarily revoke the conduction of electrons. these people walked. and they hurled their robots at us like grenades.
THE OONKHS USE CRYSTAL BALL to DE-ESCALATE
JORGE IS GRATEFUL TO HARRY
ZEHRA:GLAD TO SEE YOU BOYS GETTING ALONG
YAMASHITA SAYS WE SHOULD TAKE THIS TO THE EMBASSY
JORGE SAYS LET’S GO WITH OONKHS
OONKHS SAY HE CANT
jORGE TURNS TO HARRY
i am so glad we found you safe. if you feel you are in danger here perhaps we could discuss things in the safety of amazonia zone.
ooh can me.
i m afraid not
then if you allow me to accompany you …
he looks at me.
he s looking at me as if i can help him. is his expression pleading? what does jorge want?
what all of us want. the power to protect ourselves.
power embodied in alien technology.
and he thinks i can do something about it.
hey i say. i hate to ask this but can you let me see your crystal ball before you go?
this one
well yes. take it harry you know it might do you some good.
the bubble dims and floats away from the oonkhs. when i touch it i feel nothing but the bubble pops. i jump
look at your index finger my fingertip glows with a pinprick of twinkling light. when i press my thumb to it the light expands back into a bubble which floats over my head.
HARRY ASKS PLAMEN ABOUT THE BALL
OH, THAT’S A PANOPTICON
F) Consider those big plot points (in all caps) and write some stuff explaining them. Put these chunks of text in the right places and massage them until they meld with the rest of what I wrote.
E) Read through it and make the changes that seem natural. Rinse and repeat until the chapter is a chapter and not an outlined mess.
I nearly collapse right there on the pavement as the apartment building’s big, blacked-out doors swing open and Zehra emerges. She’s riding the New Ambassador like a houda on a baby elephant.
“How long have you been waiting to make an entrance?” I mutter.
She’s a dozen yards from me on the other side of a military cordon, but her voice hums in my earpiece like a purring jaguar. “Since before you showed up. Forward, sir.” That last is directed at her mount.
The New Ambassador has grown. He towers over his owner-wives and the human soldiers, who do their best not to break ranks as he whip-cracks his tentacles at them and trumpets gleefully bloody threats. “Make way for my harem, unparalleled on all the plains under all the clouds of all the skies within the Wave Front. Make way or be ripped apart!”
He stomps toward us, the head of a wedge driving back the arc of soldiers. “All right, you eunuch athletes, game’s over.”
“We’ve enjoyed your displays of prowess, but it really is time for us to leave.”
Plamen’s voice has shifted to a higher register. It’s not quite as convincing as when he has a voice synthesizer to help him, but I recognize the female voice of the Technology Liaison. She’s standing behind her husband-pet, holding aloft what looks like a soap bubble the size of a cantaloupe.
“What’s that thing in its tentacle?” Whispers Yamashita. She’s sidled around next to me.
“Her tentacle, and I don’t know.” I say. “I call it the Orb, and I wouldn’t advise pissing these people off.”
“As if I had any—“
“Greetings,” says Jorge. “Your honor and madam ambassador, I am pleased to see you’re well. Zehra, my dear, I should never have worried about you.”
“Step away from the extraterrestrials!” A shout from the EU block and a soldier in blue and gold approaches the New Ambassador. “All respect to our alien guests, but you are interfering with delicate, and internal, human affairs. We would appreciate greatly the removal of yourselves.”
“Why didn’t he just speak French?” Plamen grumbles, before he clears his throat and gives the Technology Liaison’s reply.
“We depart shortly. In the meantime, I do hope you continue your conflict-ceremony.” She waggles the Orb, which glows warmly.
The captain flinches away. “We must insist that you return to your embassy.”
“And we insist we do not.” Her ears flap, and I catch a warning whiff of cinnamon and gasoline.
“But,” he looks to Yamashita, then to his men, as if hoping someone will provide him with orders he’s capable of following. “But you obeyed our interdict before.”
“When someone puts up a do not cross sign, you tend not to cross it, even if it’s printed on tissue paper,” says Zehra. “Captain Pavić, order your men to withdraw.”
His head tilts up, probably so he can give her a scary expression. I could have told him not to bother. “You don’t give me orders.”
“By the time this is over I’ll outrank you, I’m sure.”
“Our orders are intended to keep you and your owner-wives safe,” Yamashita says.
It might be a good point, but she directs it at the New Ambassador, who only says, “that is so sweet of you.”
“You are under no obligation to us,” says the Technology Liaison. “And I can’t think of any way for you to fulfill it if you were.”
“Not all of us humans are totally helpless.” Jorge grins at me. “Don’t worry. I picked up some extra toys in the safe room. You heard the Pristine Ones,” he raises his voice and waves at the soldiers, who stiffen, “go away now!”
The soldiers are no more amused by Jorge than me.
“Stay where you are!” Shouts Pavić. “Stop moving and disarm yourself, terrorist.”
Jorge hooks his multibranched fingers into claws. “Zehra, clear away these impediments.”
Pavić’s face turns crimson. “We accept no orders from her or from you and we have a very extensive protocol for dealing with extralegal entities armed with alien technology.”
Jorge chuckles. “The ones that worked so well last time?”
“Guys?” says Plamen, “P’whapm has started swearing.”
Pavić assumes an aggressive stance, feet set wide, shoulders back. “You are targeted by weapons you cannot comprehend. Stand down immediately or face destruction.”
Maybe one of them makes a threatening move on some metaphysical outtech plane. Either that or the Euro soldiers’ definition of “immediate” is very strict indeed. Soldiers spread their hands and Jorge reddens, blurs, and shrinks.
He springs back into focus, only a foot to the side of where he was standing before. Dust swirls around him, crackling with sparks, before it is blow away in a wind I can’t feel. The asphalt under his feet bubbles and the air around him crystallizes into rainbows of impossible color.
“We have to stop this.” I am less worried about Jorge being killed than being scared enough to summon his beezles to protect himself. His alien orphan prostitute slave ring needs to be exposed, but maybe not in front of fifty heavily armed soldiers.
Jorge takes a step forward, fractal hands raised. Wind gusts from nowhere and silent, dark lightning flickers over the soldiers. But they’ve learned how to deal with people who can temporarily revoke the propagation of electrons. They hurl their robots like grenades.
The fat blue hexagonal bodies stick to the air as if to a magnetized surface, encasing Jorge in a spinning cage.
How can I deescalate this situation? I thrust aside mental images of dancing naked in front of the soldiers. Half of being a kink might be weaponized seduction, but the other is getting help from the people you’ve already seduced.
“Oh, New Ambassador,” I shout, “they’re hurting my friend! Oh it’s so dreadful and threatening.”
“You’re scaring my harem. Stop at once.” Tentacles writhing, the New Ambassador lurches toward the nearest soldier, who responds by summoning what looks like a splash of silvery water out of thin air and drawing it into a sheet between him and the oonkhs.
“How dare you block me, you troglodyte?” He rears onto two massive legs, honking like a goose with operatic voice-training.
“Harry,” Zehra clutches his hairy, bucking dome, “you idiot.”
But the Technology Liaison is already in front of the frothing male, petting his legs and cooing.
“It’s all right,’ she says, “nobody is going to hurt anybody.” The glowing orb over her head rises and brightens to orange. “Isn’t that right?”
The soldiers draw back. The cage of robots drops to the re-solidified asphalt. The laws of physics settle back into their grooves and we all wait for someone to make a mistake.
Agent Yamashita is the first person to break the silence. “I am glad that cooler heads are prevailing. Let me take this opportunity to invite captain Pavić to join us all at the American embassy for…” her words die in her throat as the technology liaison turns the Orb in her direction “…or whatever you would like to do, Technology Liaison.”
“I’m surprised and gratified you’ve all decided to come to your senses,” the oonkh says. “And our wish is to leave this planet as soon as possible.” She waggles a tentacle in my direction. “Come on, Harry.”
“You can’t—“ say both Pavić and Yamashita, but the Technology Liaison flicks a tentacle at her Orb and they fall silent.
What is that thing? Do Yamashita and Pavić know, or are they just wisely assuming that whatever they don’t understand can kill them?
“We leave momentarily,” says the Technology Liaison. “Harry and Zehra, your passage is paid for, and we would be happy to accommodate Mr. P’whapm.”
The pnamn knots himself. “Oh thank goodness.”
Plamen coughs and speaks for himself, “Not that I’m eager to go blasting off into outer space, but how will you communicate without me?”
“Inacceptable,” says Captain Pavić. “Zehra, get off Mrs. the ambassador and tell these people that no human is permitted to leave.”
“Captain, I think you are in need to a distraction,” says Zehra. “P’whamp, sweetie, I think these human law-enforcers should hear all your complaints.”
She doesn’t shout, but Plamen relays the instructions to her alien sex-thrall, who says, “Oh, with pleasure. You there! Officer! Are you aware the gravity on your planet is only two thirds what it should be? And why is it that you allow air resistance to continue to exist? Air resistance, of all things. Oh, and you might want to decontaminate the suburb I irradiated. It’s over that way somewhere. You’ll have to ask my native guides for directions.”
Zehra gives more suggestions, and the New Ambassador ambles through the dissolving cordon to tower in front of me. “Harry,” he booms. “Let me get a good rendering of you.”
Ears fan wide and I imagine ultrasonic pings bombarding my body.
“You’re thin,” says the New Ambassador. “Have you been eating? And I’m not sure I like the look of that prostate.” Bristly manipulators coil around me, and damn if it doesn’t feel just a little comforting. Comforting and repulsive, but still.
“Nice to see you, sir.”
“Nice to have my harem back together,” he harrumphs. “When I heard you’d been snatched by that reprobate Junior, I didn’t know what to think.”
“It was…” I gloss over three potential Armageddons…”stressful. We owe our lives to the help of Mr. P’whapm, and” before he can butt in, “Jorge of course.”
“Jorge?” the huge alien cocks an ear and releases a suspicious cloud of goaty fish scent. “That smarmy amanuensis for Bubba? Always struck me as a bit of a shyster.”
Jorge glares at Plamen, who shrugs.
“Jorge wants the same thing as all of us,” I assure my client, “even if he has different ways of getting it. We’ve come to an understanding.”
“Oh really?” Zehra leans over to look down at me. Her smile tells me she knows exactly what I mean. “I’m very sorry I missed that conversation.”
“I was in the autodoc at the time,” says Plamen. “Remind me never to get in your way, Harry.”
“Are you kidding?” I give him my sexiest smile. “You wouldn’t know what hit you.”
Yamashita makes a strangled noise.
“Uh,” I can guess what she wants. “Where exactly are you oonkhs going? And why?”
“Deeper into the Light Cone,” says the Technology Liaison. “We can’t transmit all of our findings by proxy. “She twiddles a tentacle and the Orb shrinks to pea-size. “Besides, it’s too dangerous to stay here.”
“Don’t let them leave,” hisses Yamashita.
I shoot her an exasperated look, but speak to the oonkhs. “What do you mean dangerous? The crisis is over.” An absolute lie, and the Technology Liaison knows it.
“Even if you had found and somehow brought to justice Bubba’s murderer,” she says, “the crisis…the war…has only begun.”
“Excuse me?” says Yamashita. “What war?”
The New Ambassador releases a cloud of melancholy wet-dog-smell. “The unfortunate fact of your astropolitical situation, unfortunate for all of us, is that your species is so weak.”
“If you were strong,” the Technology Liaison elaborates, “we could pursue a policy of mutual deterrence, promising to obliterate each other in the event of armed conflict. Unfortunately, you possess no weapon that could possibly be considered a threat to us, and the reverse is far from true. We could smash you in a heartbeat in a fair fight, and so could any other technological species within the Light Cone. This creates an incentive for you to make the fight unfair by attacking us first. However, knowing as we do that this incentive exists for you, we would be wise to launch a preemptive strike against you, and so on.”
“You’re talking about a Hobbesian Trap,” says Yamashita.
“You see? Even you people have a word for it.” The oonkh flaps he ears. “The stable equilibrium here is a war that would drive the human species extinct. And indeed such has been the rule for most of the low-tech species engulfed by the Wave Front. We all work, and must work constantly, to prevent the seeds of war from taking root until such time as your species has reached technological parity with us.”
Yamashita holds her hands out, as if to an idol. “So help us do that.”
“It isn’t in our remit to help the subjects of our studies.”
“No,” Zehra gives the New Ambassador like a fly on the back of a rhinoceros. “You cannot leave my species to be driven to extinction by bad politics.”
I wince. Does she think she’s dealing with a pnamn? But the New Ambassador only exudes an amused scent and pats her. “Oh, don’t worry,” he rumbles. “We have a plan for you and Harry. Are you familiar with the term adoption?”
I manage to talk before anyone else. “How many of us are you planning to adopt? Zehra, Plamen, Jorge?” I take a wild leap. “The whole human species?”
The Technology Liaison strokes her husband-pet who is vibrating the oonkh equivalent of a nod. “I’m sorry, but we don’t feel comfortable sharing our craft with so many strange sentients. You’re one thing, Harry, we know you.”
“In the biblical sense,” says Jorge.
“But these other human creatures, fine as I’m sure they are, cannot accompany us all the way back to the frontier trading station.”
The New Ambassador fidgets. “But Liaison…”
“My word on this is final.”
Damn, I bonded with the wrong oonkh. But even if the oonkhs were willing, would I want to evacuate the earth? Do I want to escape? Does Jorge?
“No!” says Zehra. “You must stay here and protect my species.”
“Hush, now, little one. This is all very complicated.”
Zehra shoots me a look. She knows she’s screwed up, cast herself as an infant.
Jorge coughs self-importantly. “If you feel you are in danger here, perhaps we could discuss things in the safety of Amazonia zone.”
“Ooh,” says the New Ambassador, “can we?”
The Technology Liaison shuts her ears. “I’m afraid not.”
“Then if you allow me to accompany you…“I have money.”
“Real money?”
“I work for the beezles, of course I have…”
Yamashita, Pavic, and everyone else I can see squints and mutters something like “what did he say?” I look at Plamen, who’s gritting his teeth.
“Simultanized value-arbitrated signatures? Entangled worth-determining identities? Something like that,” says the translator. “I think we can expect another economic paradigm shift.”
“Shit,” says Yamashita, “again? I just got used to speed-segregated commodity exchange.”
“I’m afraid,” says the Technology Liaison, “that the sum you referenced wouldn’t cover your mass, let alone your adaptation surgery.”
“Wie bitte?” Zehra thumps on the New Ambassador’s domed upper body. “What kind of surgery?”
“You can’t expect to be able to breathe nitrox air in an oonkh habitat. Unless you want to be uploaded or to live in a terrarium…”
Jorge his looking at me. Is his expression pleading? What does he want? And why does he think I can get it for him?
“I do not expect to breathe whatever,” says Zehra, “I intend to stay here on Earth.”
We all cringe back from the New Ambassador’s wave of bleach-scented fury. “You ingrateful little monkey! I offered you my protection.”
I hold up my arms, making my profile bigger. “We have responsibilities to protect our species. It may be hopeless, but we have to stay. Our traditions demand it.”
The quixotic plea works and the New Ambassador doesn’t hurl Zehra into the nearest wall. He only plucks her off his back and sets her next to me.
“So you became a man while I was gone,” he says. Plamen doesn’t have to tell me the alternate translation for that: so you went insane while I was gone.
“Oh you stupid cannibal Westerners.” Jorge pushes past me and waves at the oonkhs. “Are you just going to leave Harry?”
“If it’s what he wants,” says the Technology Liaison, “and what business is it of yours?”
The New Ambassador spits out of his apical vent. “At least all these other humans have the decency to keep quiet.”
“You’re not even going to leave him with anything to remember you by?” says Jorge. “What if he reconsiders? Or by some chance survives and wants to talk to you?”
“Oh, yes, what a nice idea.” The New Ambassador turns an ear toeard the Technology Liaison, who releases a sigh of hyacinth and hot metal.
“I suppose so.” She holds out a tentacle, over whose tip glows the color-shifting orb.”Take it, Harry. Who knows, it might do you some good.”
The bubble dims and floats toward me.
“Take it, you idiot,” growls Jorge.
When I touch it, I feel nothing, but the bubble pops. I jump.
“Look at your index finger,” says the Technology Liaison.
My fingertip glows with a pinprick of twinkling light. When I press my thumb to it, the light expands back into a bubble, which floats over my head.
“I do wish you’d reconsider,” says the New Ambassador.
The Technology Liaison holds up a tentacle. “We don’t have time. Our ride is here.”
A rush of wind, and a shadow falls across us.
The soldiers twitch, but fortunately, nobody shoots the huge metal tripod that has materialized over our heads. Very fortunately.
“Hello, Harry.” Say the Moores.
