Horrible Sci-fi/mystery writing... A Chapter from my latest novel...

Discussion in 'Writers Forum' started by DrC, Mar 19, 2014.

  1. DrC

    DrC Member

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    This is the middle chapter of a dark sci-fi novel I'm getting ready to publish in a month or so. I'd be tickled pink to see what some folks here think of my writing.

    The synopsis thus far:

    Climate change has really caught mankind with their pants down in 2024. In 2017 a renegade physicist launches a submarine expedition to plant explosive charges intended to set back the clock of magnetic pole reversal and give the planet another seventy years to stop climate change. The professor suddenly becomes prime suspect for a series of murders in the 60's, so, to protect his project, the sub, called The Tchaikovsky, is launched ahead of schedule. Both the US feds and a Russian sub, the Rif-C, chase after it to stop the attempt to correct the planet.

    The chase ends in the haunted waters of the Kerguelen Plateau where some ancient creatures are unleashed and invade the Rif. This chapter starts about there...

    Any feedback is welcome, but mostly I'm wanting to see what you like or don't about the story, the writing and my style.

    Thanks in advance.

    - Dr. C.
    ________________________________________________________


    Chapter Seven


    Kerguelen Plateau, 52 deg S. Latitude, 62 deg E. Longitude, Entry:May 19, 2017


    The plateau as a whole continent was vast. Why the professor had bought only a chunk slightly over two square kilometers at a depth barely over a kilometer, didn't make a lot of sense. It didn't have to. All the Rif's captain needed to know was where the Tchaikovsky would be. Originally, Phillips found it an amusing coincidence that the Russians already had knowledge of the professor's titles to the many undersea properties. Although it was mere luck the research sub had been set adrift within fifty nautical miles of the Russian carrier, after the effects of the tsunami, Phillips found herself grasped by a subtle fear of being merely a pawn of the Russians' scheme.


    It was bad enough the Russian captain had that knowledge well ahead of American sources. Now she had to face her subservience to their plan to capture the Tchaikovsky. That plan had been developed long before the MPB in Chicago had cause to suspect Hanks of the fifty-two year old disappearance of a beloved professor so mockingly dubbed 'Scouty.' Aside from the need to begrudgingly swallow the Ruskies superior intelligence gathering, she could recover her throne by reminding the captain that the US had the only rights to be in the professor's waters.


    Professor Hanks owns this entire area, Captain. We are serving a warrant now on any and all of his assets. Welcome home friends and neighbors.” Phillips' deceptively pleasant, lady-like, happy face had betrayed her dark side by weaving itself into two evil little slits for eyes and a pirate's smirk.”So what is this plan you have?” The captain had timed their interception to allow them at least 30 hours to deploy and test their peacemaker before the Tchaikovsky would show up.

    “We taze them a little bit.” Interjected Poruchik Vladamir Pinsky having a wild look in his eyes.



    I thought we were going to take over the Tchaikovsky, not destroy it. If those bombs go off and we are too close, we could be destroyed as well.” Phillips didn't understand why the Ruskies hadn't explained this earlier.


    Not to worry.” Captain Z'oldovich explained that the field would essentially short out transistors and capacitors. “We could deliver pulse from reactor main and turn hull into plasma... if we want to.”


    If I say not to do this?” Phillips was realizing she was not the driver but the passenger.


    It doesn't matter. We are just as fearful of the worst should their expedition succeed. We don't want this to be suicide mission.” Z'oldovich was truly being fair. “We give you ride so when we take Tchaikovsky back to Kamchatka, we deport their team into your custody. We give you ride back or Essex is allowed to pick you up.”


    I'm guessing my having limited cooperation with the French government means diddly. We couldn't go within a certain radius until we are certain he was doing something wrong to humanity or we violate French waters”


    Are you so certain the French will agree with what you think is wrong or a violation?You forget we are not the USA.” Z'oldovich had said they would beat them by at least thirty hours. “We are at Kerguelen Plateau now while Tchaikovsky is at Crozet Island. They are almost forty hours away. We deliver. You must justify to French.”




    ******************************************************************




    Bouver Island Norwegen waters region, 5 deg E., 50 deg S., Entry:May 20, 2017, 12:00 noon


    Some assembly required” showed up even in the best designs, little different than Bradley needing to sneeze during a delicate phase of a chemical reaction. Whether it could be attributed to subconscious human effort to fail or irony being to blame, the sub's reactor was failing. It barely allowed enough power to purge the ballast tanks, returning the Tchaikovsky to the surface before it began to warn the crew of a meltdown potential. The good? The scram mechanism worked, shutting down the reaction. The bad? To conserve on battery power, the submersible would need to shut down the cloaking matrix. Even in the friendly water of Norwegian researchers, the CIA's Keyhole satellite could watch their every move.


    Johnny?”


    Yeah, Boss Man,” Johnny yelled back.

    Progress report?” The good Doctor Johnson's voice didn't hide his impatient concern.


    Hey, Daryl. I think we can have the reactor back on line in a few more hours. Dr. Gay has it isolated to an internal loop sodium failure. There's a build up that has the core shorted to both input and out put. He's working at the short with the robot arm core servo.”


    That probably explains the draw on the batteries.” Daryl's faith in their skills was more than what he had in the Almighty. “If we get within a quarter of reserve power, I'm pulling the plug.”


    Daryl, I have your back.” Samson seemed to know when he had to fight for a cause worth fighting for. “We found their bug. It's on its way in Little Ann to drift toward one of the Crozet Islands. It's uninhabited. She guides herself onto shore. We pick her up and leave the bug there behind us.”


    I think you have eight good hours at this rate.”


    We'll be long gone by then.” Samson reassured.


    You know what you're doing.” Daryl thought of the twins back in Chicago and his family life. He would pull the plug if needs be. He had to get everyone home. “Just remember, you're the only one on board who speaks Norwegian.”


    Norwegian?” Doctor Gay's thick, boisterous laugh could be heard throughout the sub. “I speak Finnish. Worst case scenario? Clara can likely sketch a picture of a beer if we have to bail out to the island.”


    Do you suppose there's a Dunkin Donuts on Bouver?” Johnny interjected his own wise crack to liven up hope.




    ************************************************************




    Kerguelen Plateau, 52 deg S. Longitude, 62 deg E. Latitude, Entry:May 20, 2017 3:00 PM GMT

    Midshipman Limi Tradnov kept having a bad feeling all the while the poruchik was checking over her JIM suit. The Russian design suits were interwoven with titanium cloth to withstand the depths, rivaling the professor's world record. Unlike the US, Russians sometimes allowed women to serve duty in a submarine. For the very reason the US made coed submarine crews forbidden, she made no secret that her affections were placed with her subordinate, Dimitri Krakov. Doing so afforded her some safety from other advances, especially during missions closer to the extreme four month duration. With Amy Phillips along she was one of two women aboard the Rif with its skeleton crew of twenty-four, exclusive of the agents.


    Limi had no choice but to venture out in the deep sea diving suit. She had to keep the ship's men in line. That meant being a little tougher than they were. “Okay, Comrades,” she barked as the water bubbled up around them in the air lock. “We take scooters to four far corners of property. Set electrode in place. Push button. Core screws into seabed.”


    Seaman Ivan Borovich emerged into the lower floodlights of the Rif, dropping onto his scooter. “What we do then? Stand back and watch?”


    Of course.” Limi seemed so matter of fact. “We do this before in swimming pool. Electric field doesn't come near us. Remember?”


    This is much bigger field, Limi.” Ivan seemed to have his reservations about the idea, too.


    Same principle applies, Ivan.” She dropped into her own scooter, glancing at the propellers to each side.


    The Russian crewmen might well have been riding three meter wide spools of high voltage, undersea cable because the spools were noticeably larger than the undersea scooters. Enough to stretch out a mile and a half in either direction, so life support needed twelve hours to be safe. The professor's JIM suits could only last ten hours. That alone made the Russian design better... in the eyes of the Russians. An end from each of the four spools leading into the Rif, this forlorn hope rode out a couple hundred meters.


    Aboard the Rif the agents and Russian crew in the control room could see and hear whatever came through the suits' sensors. “Limi.” The scientist, from an earlier, abandoned academic pursuit, awoke in Amy Phillips, who may as well have been stuffed into the JIM suit with the diver. “What are those?”


    The diving team stopped. The fields of sponges seemed to go on forever, still the central group seemed to have a core with marine life capable of producing their own light. Amid banks of tube worms, these gregarious colonies of some phosphorescent underwater species had collected into a sort of pod nearly as big as the spools of cable.


    They are all eggshell perfect colonies of choral.” Limi expounded on her assessment of the blue glow. “Beautiful. No?”


    Yes, they are.” After a few seconds Phillips regained her professional composure. “I have enough footage. You'd better get on with what your captain has in mind.”


    Limi broke her gaze from the glowing elliptoids that looked big enough to crawl inside. “Da. Okay, seamen. Let's get this done before that professor blows us all to hell.”


    In a couple minutes after affirming directions, the four scooters headed away from the Rif. Two went north. Two went south. Before long the scooter headlights could barely be seen in the distant depths. Ivan Borovich accompanied Limi to the end of her cable. Once they both had her quadrant electrode installed, she dropped her spool. The two proceeded for the extra half mile west.


    We are finished over here.” Seaman Dimitri Krakov could be heard loud and clear through the underwater radio gear.


    Okay.” Limi was connecting the last water tight plug on their end. “Now I will leave Ivan here. You stay put, Dimitri, while Igor and I go back to the east electrodes.”


    Ivan watched as her light diminished to a tiny glow beneath the layers of deep blue. All four had green, hand held beams, distinguishable from the yellow headlamps. Once everything was checked again, the four beams pointed upward gave the ready signal.


    Okay. Poruchik Hyanov.” Limi stood back from the electrode that was nearly her height. “Start test.”


    The poruchik made the simple motion of pressing a key on his computer keyboard. “System energized. I bring up power in ten seconds. Stand back.” He reached for the dial on an autotransformer. “eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one. Power up!” A faint, cyan blue light stretched between all four electrodes. As quickly as it began the test was over. “Okay. All works well in here. Fifty Million volts.” Hyanov looked at the dials, being certain they read zero again. “Everyone is coming back to Rif, now.”


    The first to return to the air lock were Limi and Ivan. She wondered what was keeping the others, but slowly perceived the headlamps of the other scooters making their way toward them. “Dimitri? Is everything okay?” There was no response. “Igor. Report.” Still no answer. “Seaman Igor Traksky! Report.” She was becoming anxious. “ Dimitri Krakov! Report!”


    Maybe radio is damaged by high voltage.” Ivan's voice could be heard loud and clear.


    The four scooters approached, then alighted on the seabed near the Rif. Both of the silent seamen seemed slightly labored while taking their buoyant steps in the sand. Their helmets seemed dark and badly crazed somehow. The two crew members faces could be vaguely made out beneath the distressed, thick plastic helmets. As the airlock closed behind them, the two kept their backs to the outer hatch all the time it took to pump the seawater back where it came from.


    Limi stepped through the inner hatch first, followed by the other divers. Helping Ivan unlatch his helmet, she received the same help in return. “Georgi, we need to get suits off Dimitri and Igor immediately.” She turned around, noticing both the damaged JIM suits were leaking. Not just seawater. There was red mixed in with it. Had the test gone wrong somehow? She remembered reassuring the men that it was safe. Both she and Ivan scrambled to unlatch the helmets.


    There. Dimitri? You okay?” Suddenly she screamed upon noticing that her on board lover's face was gray and encircled by a jagged edge of blood. The eyes behind the face's orbits seemed to glow like those of an animal in the dark.


    Ivan found Igor in the same grotesque shape. He reacted, taking a fearful step back. Neither of the two faces moved. The two normal divers let the plastic helmet faces crash to the diving deck. All three of the remaining crew found themselves rooted to the diving deck.


    What was once Igor's face fell away revealing the gaunt, gray-green face of the creature beneath, followed by the one covering the other's beastly face. Where there once were human lips, purplish skin hugged the gaping, cavernous jaw beneath. Jutting from the crusty mandible, carnivorous fangs with teeth that could crack bones, revealed the voracious blood thirst driving them. Thick spittle dripped from what must have been a tongue. From deep within its throat, the amphibian released a menacing growl.


    The suits began to vibrate violently enough to be felt along the immediate deck. Finally Limi managed to take a few steps back. Hyanov, already mobilized, had the hatch open, beckoning her and Ivan to follow him. Jim suits and all, save for the faces of their helmets, they clambered toward the only way out. Hyanov and Ivan both pushed Limi through the opening, the sides of the Jim suit scraping the sides. Once through, she nearly toppled over. Next the poruchik pushed while Limi pulled to get Ivan through. The odor of blood dominated the air in the diving bay.


    Hyanov turned, putting his back into the effort. Somehow the other JIM suit went through easier. He watched the creatures as they licked the human blood from around their mouths. Although callous and bony, the faces seemed a bit humanoid. Flowing from their scalps was hair. Caked with microscopic marine life and sand, it was nonetheless hair. They had gills. They had nasal bones reminiscent of a gorilla, if not a classic concept of some Gothic demon. What had happened to their ship's mates? How did those things get into the JIM suits? Maybe the creatures couldn't get out of the suits now. Could they be that lucky? Hyanov's energy was dispersed between awe, fear and the need to get Ivan out of his only means of exit.


    No sooner had that though crossed his mind, when he watched the sides and shoulders of the suits coming unglued. The amphibians were stronger than the pressures of a kilometer's depth. Enough to shred highly compressed titanium cloth and polycarbonate? The poruchik felt his heart trying to explode out of his chest. From each disintegrating JIM suit emerged an arm, then another arm, then a leg. Once the JIM suits were practically unrecognizable, the creatures seemed to expand in all directions till, two heads taller than a human they stood, needing to crouch a bit to endure the low ceilings in the Rif. Each made use of its four arms in a final explosive effort to break free of the last entanglements, shattering the diving gear for which they clearly had no further use. They were free. The means to satisfy the hunger was just ahead.


    On four legs, the first creature was on Hyanov in a flash. That action proved the additional push that sent Ivan reeling into the corridor, almost atop Limi. Snatched back by the first creature, the poruchik barely had a chance to scream his last when his head was ripped off his shoulders. The creature cracked open poruchik's brain pan like an eggshell. Immediately Hyanov's arms made their last autonomous movement to feel for the lost head, while his brain and spine disappeared into the creature's webbed, though apelike, hand moving up its inner surface like a large snake swallowing a small dog. Moving away from the hatch, both creatures voraciously tore the rest of the poruchik to pieces, sucking down the blood and sinews, devouring their first meal in more than a thousand years.


    Out of her JIM suit, Limi saw the creatures' diversion as her chance. She reached into the diving bay to grab the hatch. As she swung it shut, the creature nearest her began its four-legged trot to snatch her into it's webbed claws. Too late. The result was a short lived tug-o-war against the mechanism of the hatch. Limi won that battle with speed and knowledge of how the latch worked. Ivan, also out of his suit, had grabbed a long wrecking bar from the utility bay across the hall. He jammed it through the locking wheel and against the hatchway frame. Safe... for now.


    Leering at the meal through the tiny, thick glass window in the hatch, the ravenous howl of the amphibian could be heard in the corridor beyond. The wheel wasn't going to turn... for the time being.




    *****************************************************************


    Crozet Islands French Waters, Entry:May 20, 2017 7:00 PM GMT


    The Tchaikovsky bubbled up to the surface near the Crozet Islands. There was no need to go outside. The thick glass facets of the navigation windows in the nose were high enough that they came above water when the sub was fully floating on the surface. The telescopic view in the tail used sophisticated digital optics, so finding the Little Ann was child's play. On short order, a dinghy was on its way to one of the uninhabited islands to retrieve her.


    Gary Godlove was first out of the boat in hip waders pulled over thermal wear. “Jeez! This water's cold as a witch's tit!”


    Winter is starting in these regions. That's why we have on Carhartts plus the waders.” Skip Walden always seemed to think it was his duty to explain the obvious to Gary; the classic chronic complainer. Skip climbed out of the dingy to assist in walking it to the shore. His own complaint confirmed that of his ship mate. “Damn! These waters are cold!”


    Daryl always seems to stick us with these no glory projects.” Gary frowned as they pulled the boat ashore. They hauled the strong, acrylic tow line with them. The line stretched all the way to the Tchaikovsky, some two hundred meters west of the island. “Y'know this tow cable nearly scuttled us out there.”


    Your impatience is more like it.” Skip splashed to Little Ann's stern, snapping the tow hook into it's waiting hitch. “You can't push a dinghy like that when even a lightweight cable is dragging the seabed. The faster you go, the more of the cable's weight affects the back of the boat.” He sloshed back toward the submersible's overhead hatch. Lifting it, he retrieved the Russian bug from the arm-sized airlock. “Here.” He handed it to Gary. “Take this further up onto the shore.”


    Why do I have to do the grunt work?”


    Because you seem to have problems knowing what to do next.” Skip clamped the hatch back into place, seating its seals. “Gary, you're the only one on this expedition who thinks it's some kind of big joke.”


    I just needed a job. Working on a research submarine sounded exciting.” Gary rolled his eyes. “I don't believe much in global warming. I mean look at these last five winters.” He gestured toward America. “Three of them, this last winter included, have been record breakers. Freezing!” He placed his hands on his hips. “Where do you get global warming from that?”


    Skip grabbed the bug back from him, giving it a solid toss that landed it into some bushes where the waves wouldn't reach it. “You don't know the difference between weather and climate. Don't you ever listen to what the professor tells us?”


    Yeah. I listen. I just don't buy it.” He shook his head. “Like I said... I just needed a job. Lucky for him I could change my life around to suit his wants.”


    It would have sailed with or without you.” Skip opened up his walkie talkie. “Hey, Dr. Johnson.”


    Here, Skip.” Daryl's voice came over the palm size radio.


    We're ready.” He looked at the submersible. “Go easy.” He started sloshing back to Little Ann's stern. “I'm going to bounce the back end a little so the propellers don't drag. There's a lot of pebbles here.” As the tow line tightened, he moved the sub just a bit. “Gary! Will you help please?”


    Unenthusiastically, Gary sloshed into the cold water. He was not a weakling. Slacker? Maybe. Weak? Not at all. Between the two they lifted Little Ann up enough for the tow line to drag her safely away from the stones then out to sea. Skip waded out further to unhook the tow line.


    Okay, Doc.” Skip spoke into his palm. “She's all urine, Pee Pee!”


    Daryl and Clara could be heard laughing over the hand held. The Little Ann bubbled down beneath the subtle waves, on her way again by tow. From there, the two low men on the T-Squad's totem pole, only needed to motor back to the Tchaikovsky. Skip knew he could have climbed into the ROV's single passenger seat to pilot it back on his own, but he was concerned that Gary might have some problem crop up and he'd have to waste time rescuing him.




    *****************************************************************


    Kerguelen Plateau, 52 deg S. Latitude, 62 deg E. Longitude, Entry:May 20, 2017 12:00 Noon Local Time


    Spattered with the blood of their shipmate, Limi and Ivan had hustled to the control room, shutting hatches along the way, locking the ones in bulkheads. It was not ship's protocol to crash into that area unannounced. The act was more forgivable in the presence of the midshipman.


    Captain, Sir, creatures tear up Poruchik Hyanov like rag doll. They eat Georgi, Sir” Ivan was livid with fearful hypertension.


    Captain, Sir, they tear up two JIM's from the inside out.” Limi's lower jaw was trembling in fear. “I don't know how long hatches will hold them, Sir.”


    Maybe this is what this professor wants to hide.” Z'oldovich was thinking aloud.


    Either way, Captain, that isn't our immediate problem to solve.” Phillips was trying to calm the divers. “Well, Seth...” She checked the bullets in her side iron. “Any ideas?”


    Nobody fires bullets in submarine.” Z'oldovich held up his hand.


    Then what?” Brogan also checked his side iron.


    We can use harpoons safely.” The captain stated. “Only desperate person use bullets in a sub,”


    Well, I'll keep mine just in case I get real desperate.” Phillips wanted to express the Russians' control, as host, had its limits. “Same for my agents. We aren't stupid, Captain.”



    *****************************************************************


    Hanks Estate, Entry:May 20, 2017 11:00 AM Central Time


    Have you or any of your affiliates performed any research on the Kerguelen Plateau or the islands?” Sanford always seemed to be the one asking questions. Inter-agency cooperation had him working for both the MPB and the FBI from Miami just then. The skull, the badge and the vintage Colt 45 had to be analyzed, so it would be quite some time, if ever, before evidence could be known whether the cranial specimen belonged to Professor Hankey or Henkle or whatever name turned out to be the Chicago University's long lost faculty member and Illinois' beloved scoutmaster. The agencies had traced the gun's registration to someone who had also been reported missing around the same time as Scouty.


    I own the entire plateau, Agent.” Hanks wasn't inclined to give him the time of day. “The French pay me rent whenever they want scientists on the Islands.”


    That isn't what I asked you, Professor.” Sanford fingered his chin. “If you keep being evasive, I can get you to make a deposition in more than one way.” He stared right at the professor. “I'm going to level with you. The Russian sub, the Rif-C, is out there chasing your team around the Antarctic.”


    Antarctic?” Hanks looked at his watch. “They shouldn't be in the Antarctic yet.”


    Well, they are. We think they were pushed off course by the Tsunami in Brazil. You might not have known that while in a holding cell. The Russians tracked them and determined their route.”


    At least they have made it.”


    We're not sure except the Rif was to intercept the Tchaikovsky at the plateau.”


    My plateau!” Hanks was as adamant about his rights as any angry, ninety-four year old man could be. “You're trespassing!”


    The Rif has sent up a distress buoy in that area.” Sanford was thinking that telling the old professor this was just asking to end up begging him for help. “Professor, if you help us we'll help you.”


    Help you do what, Agent?” The professor knew what problem they were having. “Spite the haunted sea?” He sat back in his leather office chair, looking up at the agent. “They can hear us if they want to. But we can't hear them unless they really want us to.”


    So, we can contact them?”


    Like a note in a bottle, Agent Sanford.”


    Will you help us?”


    Quite a few French researchers have gone missing in the plateau area.” Hanks threw Sanford a bone. “Now that I own the plateau and the island, there should be nobody there. It's my property. It's also a sunken volcanic area, so a key weak spot in the mantle. This also is the reason for the loop around the Antarctic Continent. As I've shown you, I have demolition permits for these areas.”


    I meant will you help the Rif?”


    The Rif?” Hanks almost looked delighted, like the inventor of a perfect mouse trap. “The plateau is considered haunted, if you believe that. Many ships that go in there experience problems. A few... well, let's say I believe the French Missing Person's Bureau is one of your counterparts that is very puzzled. A thousand years ago, hundreds of ships and smaller vessels went missing there. The Tchaikovsky was built with the idea that this was a dangerous area. She is well armed against nature. She is also well equipped as a research vessel. As you have seen, the sub survived a tsunami.”


    Can you help the Rif, Professor?”


    Nobody can help the Rif, Agent Sanford.”




    *******************************************************************


    Kerguelen Plateau, 52 deg S. Latitude, 62 deg E. Longitude, Entry:May 20, 2017 2:00 PM Local Time


    The American agents had only a cursory experience with the workings of a Russian submarine. Conventional ships were one thing, but a sub has more concerns and limitations. If one's fear got the better of them on a ship, they could commandeer a lifeboat or even jump overboard. In a submarine those weren't options. In a submarine nobody can hear you scream.


    Agent Lichten's German heritage feature's were more pronounced than ever. The nerves in his face tightened the skin around his cheekbones. He felt like a dead man walking. The stench of blood and bile was nearly overwhelming as the air beyond the hatch leaked from the vents. “They're out of the diving bay, but we have them shut down between what appear to be two bulkheads.” He looked through the site glass in the water tight hatch, then turned toward Brogan. “It looks like they've been in both the maintenance shack and the engine room. There are crew members in there! We've got to get them out of the engine r...”


    LOOKOUT!” Brogan yelled to warn his partner upon seeing the creature's face through the glass.


    Lichten turned just in time to scream as the creatures powerful webbed hand shattered the glass to sink its thick, gray nails around his face. Poor Grant Lichten continued to scream as the thing pulled everything he ever saw in the mirror through the tiny glass window. A second hand reached through the shattered glass, deep into the agents skull. The hand took with it the agent's brain, facial muscles and a super-sized portion of his brain stem.


    Even with the hatch closed, Brogan could hear the smacking sound of a predator devouring its prey. The added smell of Lichten's blood suddenly made him heave. He watched while his partner's limp frame fell to the deck and yet another arm extended through the hatch to find the locking wheel... that wasn't locked.


    Brogan knew when to fold his hand. He shot through the upper deck corridor and through the next bulkhead hatch. Locked it. Pinned it. He looked in the nearest closet. With a little prayer in the back of his mind, he withdrew a hammer and bent the pin over hopelessly. Submarines have no shortage of fire fighting gear. The ax behind the breakaway glass looked better than bullets at that moment.


    As before, the hand came through the glass. As before it went for the locking wheel. Unlike before, it could not turn the wheel. Unlike before, it rose and fully extended, to what must have been a bicep or armpit, revealing its webbed hand. That claw enshrouded a mouth, with sharp teeth, and an eye. Unlike before, Seth had an ax to lop the hand off at the wrist.




    ****************************************************************


    Crozet Islands French Waters, Entry:May 20, 2017 4:00 PM Local Time


    TJ was only in the mini-sub maintenance bay with the idea of finding Skip. She needed a lab assistant for a while, so finding the one who listens seemed the best bet. Oddly enough, the hatch to the bay was open.


    Hello?” All she heard back was the sound of water dripping off Little Ann. She looked at the drilling submersible, Big Andy. “Skip? Are you here?” A sound of clinking metal came from the direction of Little Ann. The smell of decaying seaweed indicated the little sub hadn't been serviced yet. A bright mercury light on the other side kept the sub's foreground in shadows. She hesitated. Slowly she approached the single occupant sub. Ann's overhead hatch was open.


    Cautiously she climbed up the vessel's side. Funny. It didn't appear anyone was aboard. She looked into the hatchway. Suddenly two hands shot up, grabbing the sides of her face. She fell back, the scream seeming to come out of her in slow motion. A shape began climbing out toward her.

    Johnny!” TJ was sputtering. “You about scared the crap out of me!”


    Johnny grinned and reached out, still a bit shadowed. “Here.” He offered his hands. “Let me help you up, Miss TJ.”


    She rolled her eyes, then grabbed hold. “Yuck!” Her hand felt slimy stuff. “You're covered with grease!”


    Boats use lots of grease.” He grinned at her playfully. “Subs need even more.”


    Oh, c'mere my grease monkey.” She drew him into an embrace. “I was looking for Skip to help me on some lab experiments.”


    So what is our laser master cooking up now?” He kissed her leaving a smudge of oil on her nose.


    I want to see if we can adjust our laser cloaking system to sense anything touching the hull.” She pushed away. “Okay. I'll see you later this evening. For now, I need a finger to tie a metaphorical bow.”


    Skip and Gary are getting reamed by Dr. Johnson.”


    So, I'll find them in the bridge?”


    Yes.”




    ********************************************************************




    Kerguelen Plateau, 52 deg S. Latitude, 62 deg E. Longitude, Entry:May 20, 2017 5:00 PM Local Time


    Brogan had managed to trap the creature's claw in a plastic box from the maintenance closet the same as one might trap an insect. He placed the clear plastic tub over the hand, then slid the lid beneath it. He thanked international commerce for having sold duct tape to the Russians. Once the box was securely taped shut, he carried the specimen forward to the control room, setting it on a table with a thud.


    Hand is still alive?” Z'oldovich scratched his balding pate beneath his cap, asking his question while peering at the pentadactyl clutches within the clear plastic box.


    Yes, Captain.” Brogan pointed to the thick plastic box where it was being kept. “What's more it's regenerating. I cut it off at the wrist less than twenty minutes ago, but now it has half its forearm again.”


    We need to study it.” Phillips looked closely at the eyeball that appeared half awake. “We also need to find out a way to destroy those... creatures in the engine room.” She jumped back, letting out a stifled scream when without warning, the eye snapped open followed by the hand jumping at her face. Without its accompanying body, the bony claw had little force.


    We are not scientists, here, Agent Phillips.” Poruchik Pinsky checked the mechanism of his harpoon gun. “Comrades! It is time to show creatures who is boss.”


    Leaving the commanding officers in the control room to monitor the sub, the two remaining agents joined Limi and Ivan to search for the creatures. All hoped to find more of the crew alive as they stepped through the series of hatches along the upper corridor.


    The Russian harpoons were nothing impotent. Small as she was, Limi could handle one of them. She turned to Phillips. “Agent, if all goes wrong, go to missile room. Tubes are empty, but the four nearest to ship's nose are lifeboats.”


    Thanks, but we aren't planning to abandon your crew.” Phillips touched the midshipman's shoulder.


    You haven't seen what was on the other part of that hand.” Brogan was leading the party next to Seaman Borovich. “At least bending that pin has kept the thing in there.” He pointed out the damaged locking mechanism.


    Look further ahead, Agent Brogan.” Ivan pointed through the broken glass to the string of open hatches beyond that one precious barrier. “They have half ship. Nobody is alive back there.”


    Is there another way in?” Phillips was trying to form an attack plan.


    Limi was staying close. “Yes. This is reactor area.” She pointed to a hatch in the floor. “We can go beneath them.”


    What's to say they haven't been there already?” Brogan was quick to think of the opposition's potential moves.


    These are locked electrically.” Limi explained how some things on subs were designed as safety factors. “If the amphibians went there, they also are coming to control room. To go down, must be opened from control room. From below we can open hatch same as others.”


    Captain Z'oldovich.” Phillips spoke into the air. “Are all the lower hatches from the reactor room to the back of the vessel locked?”


    That's easy, Agent Phillips.” Z'oldovich's voice came over the PA. “All floor hatches are locked except for mess area.”


    Good. Would you please unlock the lower hatch in the reactor area?” Phillips had the beginning of a scheme.


    There.” Z'oldovich pressed a switch, seemingly devoid of emotion. “It is open.”


    One by one, the party descended the ladder to the lower level. It was plain to see the sub's new caterpillar drive occupied much of the chasm from stem to stern. Along with it were utility and electrical conduits connecting superconducting magnets. One advantage for the crew and agents was the small diameter of the hatchways. Where the JIM suits had some flexibility that accommodated the creatures, the hatchways were solid steel. It was doubtful a beast with eight limbs and such wide shoulders could get through one. That still wouldn't stop them from reaching through an open one.


    Much further aft, some of the hatches appeared to be dripping water. Limi knew that was not good news because the area above the hatches would have to be flooded for that to occur. So much for most of the crew needed to maintain the Rif's systems.





    ****************************************************************




    Hanks Estate, Entry:May 20, 2017 5:00 PM Central Time


    Sanford had just heard that the DNA results were back. “Well, Professor...” He closed his phone. “The skull is no match to your faculty member's family. The lab says this person's head was gnawed off. They found rodent DNA present. You are clear with us.”


    My lawyer is arguing redress.”


    Yes. I heard.” Sanford heaved a heavy sigh. “As I said, you are clear with us. This problem with the FBI is something else. Professor, if you want to stay out of jail, we can probably see to it you do, as long as you at least help us contact the Tchaikovsky. The more you help them in the rescue mission to the Rif, the more likely they'll just drop the charges.”


    I don't believe they have anything to charge me with.” Hanks laughed an old man's checkmate smile. “Your agents need to understand that the Kerguelen Plateau is my property. It might also interest you to know that the French International Authority has granted me permission to do this research on the plateau's ridge. I can get the French Ambassador on the phone if you like.”


    Will you help us with the rescue?”


    Yes.” Hanks became serious. “I'll expect the freeze ended as of that help's beginning.”


    I'll have to check on that.”


    Hanks leaned back in his office chair that made him look small and frail. “The entire plateau area is a dormant volcano that threatens the islands. There's a good chance we can cause a fracture with as little as a two megaton explosion. The Doppler data shows the dome is thick enough to stand on its own, so if we set off the explosions in the right sequence, a pressure relief fissure on the southern ridge will preserve the plateau and the islands. Do not forget this. The area has claimed more than two hundred and eighty ships prior to 900 AD.”


    How can we contact the Tchaikovsky?” Sanford was not interested in ghost stories.




    It depends on what their new course decides.” Hanks did not betray his sense of compassion even for his enemies.




    *******************************************************************




    Kerguelen Plateau, 52 deg S. Latitude, 62 deg E. Longitude, Entry:May 20, 2017 6:00 PM Local Time


    Ivan had swallowed his fear, insisting to be the first to venture through into the upper corridor. Limi followed behind. Shortly after, the escaping gas from their harpoons could be heard amid growls resembling that of a lion, followed by screams and a clamber of many running footsteps. Then there was silence.


    Brogan held his hand up to Phillips to do the manly act of going to the rescue. He checked the rounds in his Glock side arm and the spare clip in the cargo pocket of his fatigues. Taking a deep breath, he quietly ascended through the open hatch. In less than thirty seconds, the deep, predatory growls could be heard. A volley of shots rang out. A burst of three. Five. Eight. Is first clip was empty.


    Phillips looked down the left lower corridor, then shouted up through the hatchway. “Seth!” She waited, ready with ten big rounds of her own and a second clip of the same. “Seth? You okay?”


    A boot hit the rung of the ladder going down. “I got them both. Three bullets to the ear and they're done.”


    What about...?”


    Dead.” Brogan had splatters of blood on his fatigues and face. “Limi looks like the thing took a bite out of her neck and brain stem. Not moving. No pulse. Not pretty.” he wiped the slimy blood off his face. “It's flooding back there quickly. Won't be long till the rear of the ship falls out of structural balance. The Rif could break in half. We need to split!”


    Oh, no!” A worried look came over her face. She felt a sadness for the noble Midshipman who had essentially sacrificed herself so her guests could... “Run!”


    Why?” Brogan was satisfied the immediate danger was over.


    The Captain!” She motioned him to follow. “We need to follow his emergency protocol.”


    Right!”


    The two bolted through hatchways amid many bulkheads, locking shut as many as possible. Along the caterpillar engine they raced, coming back up through the mess area. They continued forward, only to burst into the control room finding blood everywhere. Both the Captain ad the Lieutenant Poruchik lay devoured on the upper deck, empty harpoon guns next to their remains. The poruchik had drawn a had gun but never had the chance to fire it. Both the men's skulls lay torn in half, the brains and spinal chords missing. Both face down, the back half of their flesh had been eaten down to the bone, fatigues and all.


    The harpoons had both apparently hit their mark in the plastic tub, but must not have done enough damage to stop the regenerating creature. Brogan looked at his watch, noting that they had only been gone for a little over an hour. It seemed they were the only ones alive on the Rif.


    A clamber of breaking glass and falling pans came from the corridor behind them. No. They weren't the only ones aboard.


    Both Brogan and Phillips turned to one another, saying the same words. “Missile tubes!”




    ******************************************************************
     
  2. Moonglow181

    Moonglow181 Lifetime Supporter Lifetime Supporter

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    Excellent!
     
  3. Jeff Doe

    Jeff Doe Member

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    This is a very solid page turner. However, the humor didn't work for me. For example, the Dunkin Donut and the "She's all urine, pee pee." lines.
     
  4. DrC

    DrC Member

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    Would those be a deal breaker, or something that you, as a reader, would forgive considering that another reader would laugh at?

    Thanks to both of you for reading this. Did you find it scary?
     
  5. fleamailman

    fleamailman Member

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    ("...it reads well..." went the goblin liking it, adding "...what do you intend to do with the work now, how do you see it reaching more readers than here I mean, for example what's the title, and you going to ebook it or blog it or both...")
     
  6. DrC

    DrC Member

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    Thanks for the read :)

    I'm planning to publish it through Amazon and B&N next month, if all goes well. I'm working on the cover now.

    [​IMG]

    The Title will be "Atlantic Blood." I still have a lot of work to go on the cover and one more edit.
     
  7. DrC

    DrC Member

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    Here are the next generation covers. What do you think? Which is best?

    [​IMG]


    or




    [​IMG]




    Here's the book's opening, just for the heck of it. See if that grabs your attention at the very first. You opinions are appreciated.

    __________________________________________________________


    Chapter One




    In 2024 Iron Mountain was renamed Iron Plateau because the Great North American Sea, the GNA Sea, has rendered it at 550 feet above the local sea level. Iron Plateau was in the temperate eye of an ongoing random cycling ice storm. An atmospheric lens zone. Around it was a zone that dropped rapidly to sub zero weather. Architecture changed to accommodate that violent change. The answer was strong insulated geodesic domes that were turned into there own lenses by filling their facet centers with water. The Boing private jet, carrying three dozen abnogens as if they were a two string football team and faculty, crashed through a node of those clear plastic facets.


    The Plateau Guards quickly subdued and destroyed them. Shortly after this word became common, many highland cities were progressively raided by the abnogenic cannibals. At first it was difficult to tell them from normal humans because there were so many fan followers of the so-called goth trend. Then those followers declined. Some disappeared. The smarter ones woke up and abandoned the idea once it ceased to be fun anymore. ATIP. Ahemo-Trophic-Induced-Pschopathy was the term given to the affect of the birth defect. One would never know one of them until they were so starved from internal blood assimilation that conjunctive hemorrhage or hematidrosis occurred... or both. Another way to identify one was a pelvic examination. Regardless of the dominant gender, their hermaphroditic genitals belied abnormal genetics, thus the portmanteau, abnogen.


    Surveillance cameras in the plane showed the bloody faces even before the crash occurred. From there, security was in place well ahead of the deliberate disaster. No abnogen was left alive. Geodesic facets were destroyed, but no humans were injured... or infected.


    The dome was repaired by summer's end, with some of the facets replaced by armaments. This climate so phenomenal was possibly the ultimate result of a gambit to reverse global warming gone awry through a cold case resurfacing suddenly, forcing the project's timing to be out of synchronization, or so Doctor Byron Hanks had argued in the courts going on eight years. For Hanks to lose could mean charges of a crime against humanity. Should Hanks win, the U.S. Government could be held liable for damages to a level unheard of before.


    He had been right. The debaters were running the planet off a cliff. He did something, but the federal US government argues his math was wrong. NASA naturally enjoyed being a funded agency. They had argued the blame against the rest of the planet for damages caused by Doctor Hanks artificial tsunami. The planet had some new land now, but that new minor continent had displaced a lot of water, but worse yet the arctic regions sprouted hundreds of small to giant geysers, causing new tributaries along the Cascades draining into the Hudson Bay on down to the Gulf of Mexico with a few peninsulas and many plateaus along the way.


    Hanks argued that had the Chicago Missing Persons Bureau not arrested him for nonsense, the project wouldn't have been moved up two months affecting its outcome. Hanks said his model called for the earth's alignment with the solar wind to be at a certain angle. Winding his original model back by those six months produced the catastrophes even including the tsunami. With one delay after another, the final outcome might depend on NASA's ability to reconstruct Hanks' original model, anticipating at least four additional years in a trial already rivaling the eleven year discourse of the Israeli trial of Dror Polchak and Menachem Bachinsky. Shaun and Sheila were asked to find out why Hanks was charged with murdering a faculty member in the first place and tell the world the real story.


    In the meantime the Plateau Guards would not get caught off guard by further abnogen attacks. If they could fly a jet, they could understand pretty much all of man's technologies, so were not stupid predators. They couldn't let them break the dome again. The Iron Plateau needed to know why the changes were being made and why the request for more Guards had gone out.


    Chicago was beneath 500 feet of water. A few skyscraper tops still rose above the GNA Sea. That was now. Where had it all truly started?


    Shortly after he debunked a twenty year old prediction over Freon propelled aerosols, a professor from Chicago University came up missing somewhere between Chicago and Honolulu. Like many faculty members, he also went by his doctorate title. Looking back sixty years, the same thing the twins' parents did for a living had a good number of adverse effects on humanity. It began during the years of The Beatles and Stones and The Beach Boys and The Who.


    Doctor Hanks portrayed the desperate environmentalist back then. The other professor advocated consumption and industrialization, usually falsifying Hanks claims. Hanks eventually did make some successful public campaigns advocating the probable side effects of aerosols in the atmosphere. He also made some idle threats. Called the other professor Scouty to disparage his passion for scouting. While Scouty was out giving lectures in those days, Hanks had started his own outside enterprise in demolition and explosives.


    The twins, Shaun and Sheila, had to piece together what happened from approximated entries out of a number of different logs. At all costs, even in the middle of research and writing, they still had to be a part of blowing away abnogens. Shaun was the one who would ultimately put it all to words that would tell the story. That was tougher when the journalism attempted to recreate the roles of the dead. By the time he had pieced together the biographies, setting it all to words, it was confirmed that the abnogens had been hunted to extinction.








    ************************************************************
     
  8. fleamailman

    fleamailman Member

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    ("...keep feeding me, you're doing fine now..." went the goblin ever one to encourage someone to write for that bookworld there, but remaining more into the livewriting scene himself, adding "...curious, so tell me now human, how do you intend to go about finding those readers then, I mean you've started well so how are going to get readers to follow you from here to there then, don't worry I have no book nor blog, it's just a idle question where I'm just a goblin like any other I suppose...", but that was just the goblin for you, he found that humans often forgot themselves for their works)
     
  9. DrC

    DrC Member

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    LOL!

    I'm doing the final edit and should publish the entire book next month. When I did my search for writing forums, this one came up, but it seemed more of a hippy type site, which of course IR1, so fit in about like Timothy Leary.

    As for marketing, it'll be through Amazon and B&N, but I'm planning another approach as well. The cove art is in Blender and I'm already experimenting with animating the sub for a short video trailer for YouTube.

    Beyond that it'll be word of mouth.
     
  10. fleamailman

    fleamailman Member

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    ("...well yes, there are some of the best livewriters here but this is not a writer's forum per se, though I'm on few writer's forum, and alas banned from many more, where no doubt another google search will turn up those writer's forums for you, just a lot depends upon what you want from writing..." ventured the goblin, quickly adding "...so another question if you like while we're at it here, I mean just for fun then let's suppose that the forum is like a venue where the thread is its stage and where the each poster is an act of sorts, so tell me now, how would you go about advancing your book towards these reader around you here, I mean without looking which of the other usernames do you remember at this point, and if it is not the username you remember them by what's the first thing most people remember instead...", at which point the goblin just smiled to the whispered words "...ah yes, more readers across forumland today than most elsewhere where I would very much like you to become known by your posts...")
     
  11. DrC

    DrC Member

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    Hi Fleamailman,

    I didn't quite follow some of that, but mostly the last. In some ways, I find some ideas in what others say.
     
  12. fleamailman

    fleamailman Member

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    ("...are you asking me to explain to you why there are more readers across forumland here than in that bookworld there, the 3% of the populous who still read books that is, or asking me how this online is marginalizing that bookworld out of readership, much like it does towards most medias today..." asked the goblin who too had faced this same dilemma a while back, restarting "...first, please don't think that I am against your publishing anything, no quite the opposite in fact in that it is most commendable in itself, only that I'm a realist too where you yourself have experienced those months of your written it down and editing it through before coming across that impasse that you then have to sell it as a download for 99cts meaning that working in mcdonalds would be more lucrative and would have avoided being up against millions of other authors too, so now that you see that I'm on your side here, shall we start with some questions like why these reader turns up upon forumland then, why and how the reader then notes some posters but ignoring others, and also what those readers do once they have taken an interest in a certain poster, btw you're a persona here, we all are now, yet you didn't tell me what persona you are...")
     
  13. DrC

    DrC Member

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    I'm not certain what you mean by persona. That I'm an independent scientist battling for acceptance? Somewhere there's an intro for me here.

    In the meantime, see if this entry has a better hook?

    ___________________________________________________________________


    Chapter One


    You know having children is banned.” My wife would always be the one to remind me of the fallacy of fantasy. “I'm not having my tubal ligation reversed, Sweet Cheeks!”


    There's less than three billion people on the planet now.” I knew she wanted a biological heir as much as I did. “We have our own estate and medical help. Who would know?”


    I'm sixty, for God's sake!” She made conversation knowing it was just a fancy. “Even if I could pull off a healthy delivery, who the hell are we to defy laws we had a part in making?”


    Who am I? Who am I married to? That just doesn't matter at the moment. Even the fact that I'm well known as a scientist, even better as an inventor, doesn't matter just now. I have a mundane job to do; tell a story. Just call me a journalist. A brutal one, nonetheless a lowly writer. By today's standards, one shouldn't need a dictionary to follow what I write. If, by some quirk of fate, one reading this needs to have one handy, enjoy the privilege. Using one very well is the best means to fit in.


    Was it that so-called plague of all plagues? As usual, the elitist minority catered to the vulgar majority with the usual barrage of drug sales oriented acronyms, selling it as DBS, meaning Dry Bones Syndrome. By 2020 as many conflicting opinions about the syndrome flooded the minds of humanity as the equally critical matter of an unsympathetic, catastrophic change in the planet's climate. The clathrate gun turned out to be more akin to a snapped off fire hydrant. Previously undetected ice beneath the crust often expanded with the force of a hydrogen bomb. Geysers erupted, one after another, in the arctic regions. Often tundra exploded in the southern foothills of the Cascades and other northern mountain ranges. Some considered the events a fascinating display of Mother Nature's juggernaut of creation. Most saw it as an apocalypse, driving people to higher ground and forcing the bit of new energy and food sources. DBS, in sharp contrast, had fewer friends than AIDS.


    Seemingly inseparable, same as many twins, Shaun and Sheila Johnson had grown up in a plentifully creative learning environment, fed from golden spoons. The adage that demanded such abundance needed greater expectations to maintain, had landed heavily on their shoulders when their famous parents grew to become worldwide pariahs. They had a vast means in the accompanying legacy. They could buy a whole county, let alone a medium sized city, yet not without major collision with expense. They catered to the responsibility of survival. Was that really all that lucky? Some thought it was too lucky.


    Expected, one of the so-called final battles to reduce the population became known as “Illiteragedon;” the end of pseudo-fundamental memes. Why was it a battle? Same as always. Have versus have not. One cannot steal, buy or even give understanding. One could sleep or buy their way to a diplomatic piece of paper, but that was just a con job. If crime had become a fool's occupation, would fraud escape that? Demonstrated scientific know how was worth more than gold, regardless of how it was acquired. Anyone who could grow food in a test tube would almost certainly be guaranteed a place among the educated. Illiteracy met a brutal demise.


    In 2024 Iron Mountain was renamed Iron Plateau because the Great North American Sea, the GNA Sea, has rendered it at 550 feet above the local sea level. Iron Plateau was in the temperate eye of an ongoing random cycling ice storm. An atmospheric lens zone. Around it was a zone that dropped rapidly to sub zero weather. Architecture changed to accommodate that violent change. The answer was strong insulated geodesic domes that were turned into there own lenses by filling their facet centers with water. The Boing private jet, carrying three dozen abnogens as if they were a two string football team and faculty, crashed through a node of those clear plastic facets.


    The Plateau Guards quickly subdued and destroyed them. Shortly after this word became common, many highland cities were progressively raided by the abnogenic cannibals. At first it was difficult to tell them from normal humans because there were so many fan followers of the so-called goth trend. Then those followers declined. Some disappeared. The smarter ones woke up and abandoned the idea once it ceased to be fun anymore. ATIP. Ahemo-Trophic-Induced-Pschopathy was the term given to the affect of the birth defect. One would never know one of them until they were so starved from internal blood assimilation that conjunctive hemorrhage or hematidrosis occurred... or both. Another way to identify one was a pelvic examination. Regardless of the dominant gender, their hermaphroditic genitals belied abnormal genetics, thus the portmanteau, abnogen.


    Surveillance cameras in the plane showed the bloody faces even before the crash occurred. From there, security was in place well ahead of the deliberate disaster. No abnogen was left alive. Geodesic facets were destroyed, but no humans were injured... or infected.


    The dome was repaired by summer's end, with some of the facets replaced by armaments. This climate so phenomenal was possibly the ultimate result of a gambit to reverse global warming gone awry through a cold case resurfacing suddenly, forcing the project's timing to be out of synchronization, or so Doctor Byron Hanks had argued in the courts going on eight years. For Hanks to lose could mean charges of a crime against humanity. Should Hanks win, the U.S. Government could be held liable for damages to a level unheard of before.


    He had been right. The debaters were running the planet off a cliff. He did something, but the federal US government argues his math was wrong. NASA naturally enjoyed being a funded agency. They had argued the blame against the rest of the planet for damages caused by Doctor Hanks artificial tsunami. The planet had some new land now, but that new minor continent had displaced a lot of water, but worse yet the arctic regions sprouted hundreds of small to giant geysers, causing new tributaries along the Cascades draining into the Hudson Bay on down to the Gulf of Mexico with a few peninsulas and many plateaus along the way.


    Hanks argued that had the Chicago Missing Persons Bureau not arrested him for nonsense, the project wouldn't have been moved up two months affecting its outcome. Hanks said his model called for the earth's alignment with the solar wind to be at a certain angle. Winding his original model back by those six months produced the catastrophes even including the tsunami. With one delay after another, the final outcome might depend on NASA's ability to reconstruct Hanks' original model, anticipating at least four additional years in a trial already rivaling the eleven year discourse of the Israeli trial of Dror Polchak and Menachem Bachinsky. Shaun and Sheila were asked to find out why Hanks was charged with murdering a faculty member in the first place and tell the world the real story.


    In the meantime the Plateau Guards would not get caught off guard by further abnogen attacks. If they could fly a jet, they could understand pretty much all of man's technologies, so were not stupid predators. They couldn't let them break the dome again. The Iron Plateau needed to know why the changes were being made and why the request for more Guards had gone out.


    Chicago was beneath 500 feet of water. A few skyscraper tops still rose above the GNA Sea. That was now. Where had it all truly started?


    Shortly after he debunked a twenty year old prediction over Freon propelled aerosols, a professor from Chicago University came up missing somewhere between Chicago and Honolulu. Like many faculty members, he also went by his doctorate title. Looking back sixty years, the same thing the twins' parents did for a living had a good number of adverse effects on humanity. It began during the years of The Beatles and Stones and The Beach Boys and The Who.


    Doctor Hanks portrayed the desperate environmentalist back then. The other professor advocated consumption and industrialization, usually falsifying Hanks claims. Hanks eventually did make some successful public campaigns advocating the probable side effects of aerosols in the atmosphere. He also made some idle threats. Called the other professor Scouty to disparage his passion for scouting. While Scouty was out giving lectures in those days, Hanks had started his own outside enterprise in demolition and explosives.


    The twins, Shaun and Sheila, had to piece together what happened from approximated entries out of a number of different logs. At all costs, even in the middle of research and writing, they still had to be a part of blowing away abnogens.


    Shaun was the one who would ultimately put it all to words that would tell the story. That was tougher when the journalism attempted to recreate the roles of the dead. By the time he had pieced together the biographies, setting it all to words, it was confirmed that the abnogens had been hunted to extinction. He and his twin sister had played major roles in that hunt. Neither would finish the story. Someone, nonetheless, would.


    How did I get the job? Just lucky, I guess.
     
  14. DrC

    DrC Member

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    Thought I'd post the rest of Chapter One for courtesy's sake.


    _________________________________________________________________



    Honolulu – Entry:May 21, 1963

    His title contained Doctor. He traveled as Doctor. He was a professor of Chemistry. All had gone without a hitch. Both 707's had left and arrived right on time. Yes. That smell of the sea was enough all of itself to charge up a professor's confidence come time for giving his lecture. Approaching the Sheraton on Waikiki Beach, all seemed suspiciously perfect. Something just had to happen.

    “I don't have four hours to wait.” With growing frustration, the doctor ran his fingers impatiently through his sandy, blond hair, drawing the clerk's attention to that worry with his furrowed brow. The pleasant euphoria of the smell of seawater and sound of seagulls quickly burst. “If I can't get checked in and changed, I'll be late to my lecture at the college.”

    “Mister... Hanks” The clerk looked at his list, growing perturbed as well. This was the fourth reservation where he had to deliver bad news. The reactions were similar outrage. That was getting old as of the second person whose rooms had been torn up.

    “That's Doctor H...”

    “Okay, okay.” The clerk rolled his eyes and interrupted the thin, angry man who was having enough fits simply holding onto his suitcases. “Doctor... Hanks...”

    After setting down his luggage, the scientist rubbed his chin. “You have my name missp...” He was immediately interrupted again by the clerk before he could explain they had his name spelled wrong.

    “I've told you, the room won't be ready for at least three hours, Sir.” The clerk was clearly becoming agitated.

    “I know...” the normally jovial doctor shot the clerk a disgusted look. “The rock band tore up the room...”

    “Sir, I'm terribly sorry.” The clerk wasn't exactly showing any genuine sympathy. “Those people standing just outside the entrance?”

    The doctor glanced briefly toward the entrance. “Yes. I saw them on my way in.”

    “They are in the same sort of situation.” The clerk pointed to a chunky man who appeared to know how to dress like an Hawaiian. The golfer's hat, luau shirt and lei. “That fellow is here on some very important business, too. I implore you, Sir, do the same as I recommended to them. Go charter a touring boat for a while or see some of the city.”

    “With these suitcases?” The doctor realized he was going to have to wait it out while the Sheraton Princess Kaiulani cleaned up and made repairs in the wake of the rock band's long night of partying after their performance. With all the modern conveniences of 1963, one would think these sort of problems would be a thing of the past. He started to say something, then decided it was useless. Remembering Aristotle's saying how birds of a feather flock together, he gathered up his suitcases, clutching his brief case in his armpit. Perhaps the rest of the disgruntled guests had some plans already.

    The stocky man in the Hawaiian shirt was commanding the conversation. To the well seasoned doctor of chemistry, the man was only wanting to hear himself talk. Harvard eloquent, the man expressed how the inconvenience was holding up an important transaction he was to make that afternoon. The doctor's eyes widened as the businessman opened his suitcase, momentarily exposing its contents that must have been no less than five million dollars in cash. Was this man in some sort of trouble?

    That question would be answered soon enough. Two men, one extremely thin, one clearly overweight, stepped out from the shadows of a nearby cluster of palm trees. The men made no delay or secret of their intent as they approached the group. The heavier man in the islander jacket had one of his hands hidden in a pocket, possibly holding a gun.


    ************************************************** *****************


    Chicago Missing Persons Bureau - Entry: May 24, 1963

    “Harry!” Director Galloway's Oxford dialect stood out distinctly from the rest who worked in the bureau. At least in Cramer's office area, the agents cringed when hearing it. Harry's presence was like that of an editor in a newspaper. The agents with their own private offices were his work horses, so edgy at times. The man was not as quiet as he could be.

    “What?” The dangling cigarette nearly fell out of Cramer's mouth. His first instinct was to shut the blinds of his office windows when he first heard Galloway's voice in the hallway. He tried to appear too busy to look up and acknowledge his often annoying boss. Nonetheless, he did respect the man for doing his job.

    “University of Chicago has filed a report.” He flipped through the manilla file in his hand, then used it to fan away the nasty odor of cigarette smoke.. “Professor Hankey didn't show up for his lecture at University of Hawaii a couple days ago.”

    “Never heard of him.” Cramer glanced up briefly.

    “Now that doesn't surprise me.” Galloway tossed the file on his agent's already cluttered desk. “According to the university, he never checked in at his hotel. They gave me the name of this student that the professor made repetitive complaints about. The kid's not exactly the model student. Constantly harrowing the professor during quite a few of his lectures. Making threats.” He tolerated Harry Cramer's sarcastic attitude because, as agents go, he was a top notch cop.

    “Mike Daniels...” Cramer shuffled through the file. “His whereabouts?”

    “Not far at all.” Galloway pointed with his eyes toward the right. “Perkins picked him up for questioning.”

    “I get the honors, of course.” Cramer stood up, grabbing the file.

    “Of course.”

    The un-sub was a former boyscout explorer. Professor Hankey had been at the Springfield scout camp jamboree two nights prior to his flight to Hawaii. In the back of his mind, he wondered if there was any connection between this professor and the disappearances of those girlscouts from Camp Widjiwagan. One had gone missing about the same time as this Professor Hankey.


    ************************************************** ****************


    Chicago Missing Persons Bureau – Entry:April 4, 2017

    Max Sanford leafed through the photographs of the skull the scouts had found imbedded in the crotch of the old willow. The file included a long transcript from the case now fifty-two years cold. He shoved a couple of the pictures at the aging physicist. “Anything look familiar, Mister Daniels?”

    “You really have a problem with that Doctor title.” Daniels rolled his eyes then shot a disgusted look at the agent. He glanced at the blinds in Sanford's office windows, noticing they appeared to be the same yellow stained ones he'd seen fifty-two years earlier. The office still wreaked of all that third hand smoke. Even having been educated in the 60's, he found his racist roots begging to reply with a slur to this know-it-all cop. “If you want me to cooperate at all with your questions, I suggest you learn how to say that word till the day someone revokes it from me.” He made the demand for simple respect. “When might that be? Mmmm... never.”

    Sanford's dark forehead shined a bit as his brow furrowed into the Greek omega character. “Okay... DOCTOR Daniels.” Max's workload had been piling up over the past month and this one needed a quick closure. “If you're lucky enough to escape the death penalty, that title won't mean beans in your prison cell.” He held up a plastic baggie, sealed and stamped as evidence. In it was a decayed red and blue ribbon from which a badly tarnished Explorer badge remained attached. “Whoever murdered all those kids and that professor lost this.” He laid the baggie on the table. “Fifty-two years ago the bureau had you pinned at the Camp Illinek area during every one of those murders, but you weren't a scout anymore or a leader. All we lacked was the evidence of your presence near one of those shallow graves. Now we have it.”

    “That's not my badge.” Daniels didn't really study the badge. “I still have mine in a box at home.”

    “If that's true, you'd better give it to your lawyer.” Max fingered his chin. “We know you were booted out of the scouts for peeping on the girls at camp Widjiwagan in 1961. We know it was Professor Hankey who caught you and you had it in for him ever since. Showing up to disrupt his lectures and stalking him to torment him at his home in Skokie.”

    “At least you could get his name right.”

    “Huh?”

    “Scouty's name isn't Hankey.” Daniel's shook his head with a smug look that drove right down his nose into Sanford's dumbfounded face. “Professor Hanks was his nemesis. Scouty always dismissed his tirades about air pollution as nonsense. Hanks threatened the beloved scoutmaster as much as some of his students... including me of course.” He stood up. “Of course you know that from those transcripts of my statements back then. I was in no way involved with Scouty's disappearance then. Same goes now. Are you charging me with something, or do you mind if I go dig up that old badge?”

    “Don't leave town.” Sanford nodded toward the door.

    “You don't need to worry. I'll come back with the badge... and my attorney”.


    ************************************************** *****************


    Hanks still taught at the university even though he was over ninety. Originally Daryl Johnson was the first prodigy he felt worthy to travel beneath his wing in thirty-years. The last one had failed him because, top end boy scout or not, he couldn't keep his fly zipped. Nearing the end of the 20th Century, Daryl was completing his Master's Degree in Chemical Engineering. The course interleaved with more than one of Hanks' own classes in Applied Physics, yet their deeper connection did not originate in the sciences.

    When Hanks first met him, Daryl and his newlywed wife, Clara, had funded much of their own tuition and life's expenses through their music at folk clubs, coffee bars and beyond. Hanks, ironically was a well accomplished concert pianist, contrasted to Daryl's contemporary renditions of his own favored Tchaikovsky pieces through synthetic orchestration. The Chemistry student and the professor had a rapport right from the beginning. Daryl's thick, shoulder length, auburn hair would sweep across his broad shoulders each time one of his oversized hands would flash across one set of keys, leaping to another keyboard orchestra in back of him. In another flash, he'd be on to another set of keys on an instrument or computer.

    Clara completed the husband and wife act keeping the emotional foundation flowing while straddling her cello, or doubling with a violin, bass or one of a variety of guitars. A colleague of long standing tenure took on drums and percussion.

    Hanks saw marketable talent. Hanks had connections.

    Eighteen years later, two graduating zygotic twin children and, an academic career nurtured in Hanks own lab at the university, Daryl was not only due for his second doctorate recommendation, he was deeply convoluted into his aging mentor's quasi-ethical pet project. Professor Hanks was right. What was political anathema, nonetheless, was humanity's most ethical gambit.

    Hanks was also an academic black sheep. The university had rejected his ideas for ending pollution fifty-two years ago because of the voice of his contemporary he grew to know as “Scouty.” In 2005, even with the blasted scoutmaster no longer around and assumed dead, the university had rejected his proposed research to correct the planet's misaligned magnetic axes with high tech explosives. It was too desperate... too absurd.

    That was okay. Now Hanks had a well seasoned genius in his corner. The genius had a recording contract with Hanks named as the middleman. Hanks had a team of a few other budding brainiacs from his recent students and a few from years gone by. He had tenure at the university. He had stocks and bonds. He had a multi-billion dollar explosives manufacturing corporation that catered to excavating tunnels around the globe. He had a growing research project and a giant leap of a head start toward getting it done.
     
  15. fleamailman

    fleamailman Member

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    ("...the persona is just the image one creates of oneself while posting, that's all, where often it reflects an alter-ego behind it..." mentioned the goblin thanking the independent scientist for his time, and enjoying that read too, immensely even, and then continuing "...so as a scientist how did you get into this writing then, and if you were to adapt this work for a forum audience it, how would you go about...", somehow the goblin's wondered if the victorian age had not returned by way of this interaction here, adding "...episodes with cliffhangers then, btw keep an eye on your hitcount here for hitcount equates to readership, yes I'll help you where I can, but it'll be you feeding your readers here, where forum readership is readership but it works our slightly differently to book readership...", and with that the goblin thanked the scientist again for he could well be a livewriter without knowing it)
     
  16. DrC

    DrC Member

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    My take is that you like the writing I'm purveying. You might be surprised at some of the critique I've received elsewhere. As for hits, I've never interpreted those as a gage for how many actually read the work. I could be wrong, but who knows?

    As for my persona, beyond the scientist, I'm a word grubber who thinks everyone should be one too. I think writing offers the chance for the reader to take up the "sword" of their dictionary and the "shield" of never ending learning.

    Are you enjoying what you are reading enough to do a chapter deeper into the book?
     
  17. DrC

    DrC Member

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    Hi Fleamailman.

    Saw you at another writer site. Not sure if you recognize me. Of course today I really feel like the dumb one :(

    I think I have a DVT in my right leg, so I'll be heading to the ER later today. If the absolute worst happens, I wanted you to know I appreciated your feedback. Right now if the goblin gnawed my leg off, it would be a favor.

    Later... I hope.
     
  18. fleamailman

    fleamailman Member

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    ("...it puts the book on hold a bit I guess,, and hold on firm there, you'll be back to it in no time..." mentioned the goblin supportively, thanking the scientist again and not sure which other forum now, adding "...anyway I'm glad you found me, and when you're better we can chat upon why a persona is important towards one's online readership, after all, it's through the forums that many readers will first find you, where perhaps one's writing traits are what reader will note most, plus a persona of something or someone is far easier to remember than a username is...", in fact, posting was more like painting than writing, where each post had to be like a work in itself, whereupon the goblin just wished the scientist well again, as the evening was young and he still had many forums to cover)
     
  19. DrC

    DrC Member

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    The scientist is getting ready to embark on a painful journey. He plans to take his laptop to the hospital, so may continue.

    Thanks for the encouraging words.
     
  20. fleamailman

    fleamailman Member

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    ("...thanks, I wish you every success with what you face in dailylife, and I promise that I am reading all the books in this thread, all the livewrites too..." went the goblin who was often in need of the quick read, adding "...plus it might be advantageous too to use one username across forumland here, why, because then whenever someone googles your unsername, they will find you even from forums that don't allow you to place a link in your signature, so the trick is to have an easy to remember persona plus a unique username, I other words fleamailman finds me where the goblin slips into your memory...", "...oh yes, goblins are not to trusted now..." went the chorus in the background once more)
     

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