Thursday, January 27, 2005

Question

Question for everyone: should I just keep writing and revise everything when I'm done, or should I revise chapter twelve now and post a hopefully more exciting version? Please give me feedback on this.
Now I will attempt to hone my skills with an irrelevant practice action sequence:

Mortimer looked down from his flying gazelle at the herd of attack Guinea pigs who were pursuing the Queen's 1967 Ford Turino. He knew she would not last very long if they caught up with her. He had to act. He urged the Gazelle forward. He could feel the wind on his back as he closed in on the guinea pigs. Suddenly, one of them caught sight of him. It squealed a blood-curtling squeal and jumped into the air. The other oversized rodents turned to face him, hunger burning in their eyes.
They all began to jump into the air. One of them grabbed the gazelle's hoof. His mount furiosly beat it's wings, trying to escape, but it was caught fast. Mortimer looked down at the ground moving below him. I wasn't that high up. He could probably survive the fall. Another guinea pig gabbed the gazelle's hoof. Under the combined weight it plummeted to the ground.
Mortimer jumped off it's back, drawing his peanut-butter-covered mace as he hit the ground. The sticky bludgeon felt heavy in his hand, and the smell of Jiffy (tm) mixed with the smell of blood in the air. Mort looked around. The gazelle was struggling to free it's legs while trying it's hardest to impale one of it's assailants. But the rest of the creatures were fast closing on the queen - and getting away from him. With one last glance at his embattled companion, he hoisted his peanut-buttery weapon into the air and ran towards the herd of guinea pigs.
He was running faster than he had ever run before. He could barely breathe now, but all he could think about was keeping those monsters from getting to the queen. Finally he closed on the guinea pig at the back of the pack. With a final burst of strength, he threw himself onto it's back.
The confused animal looked around, trying to identify it's attacker. At the same time the peanut butter was doing it's job - it's enticing smell had begun to lure the guinea pigs away from the queen. Turning away from their pursuit, they approached him, slowly, letting off low, menacing purrs. Seeing himself hopelessly out-numbered, Mortimer realized he had only one option. He removed the small, avacado shaped projectile from the top pocket of his vest and hurled it with all his might into the air.
As the avacado flew up, time seemed to slow. He could see each guinea pig breathing in and out. He could see exhaust slowly emerging from Her Majesty's tail pipe. And as the avacado reached the apex of it's flight, time stopped. The fruit opened up, and out stepped Franklin Pierce.
"Hello, Mr. Lima Bean," said the former president, with a snicker, "I see you've finally taken me up on my offer. I just hope your prepared to pay the price!"

So, give me specific feedback on that, and I will improve it accordingly. Then I will try to apply that knowledge to my story. Since it will entail many major action sequences in the near future, I felt this was a neccesary step.

Saturday, January 22, 2005

Revival - Chapter 12: Teresa's assignment

It wasn't a fair fight. The guy was bigger, stronger, and had the element of surprise. I ducked out of the way just in time to avoid being bitten, then sort of spun out of his grip. Whatever I did, it worked. I managed to get away for a moment. I ran towards the house. I wasn't sure what I'd do when I got there, but I figured I'd decide that later. Unfortunately, it didn't come to that. I got maybe five feet before he grabbed me again. He didn't chase me, he just sort of glided over to me. I wrestled with him as best I could, moved my neck around as he tried to bite it, but there was no way I could last very long like that. I thought I was done for.
Interestingly enough, it was about then that it occured to me that the guy was probably a vampire. This might seem really slow of me, but you have to remember, back then we still thought they were extinct - the last vampire was supposed to have perished sixty years ago in the war. I remember realizing that if a vampire bites you, it starts a chemical reaction in your blood that turns you into a vampire within a week - I'd done a report on it for my biology class last year. The knowledge that a fate worse than death awaited me was enough to inspire me to one final attack. I used one of my legs to kick his leg out from under him, trying to knock him off balance. He didn't seem to notice.
I was out of tricks. I could feel his cold hands on my shoulder and arm, as he pulled me in towards his mouth. Then suddenly I heard roar coming from behind him. Two golden, scaly claws grabbed him and pulled him rather forcefully off of me. As soon as I was free, I ran the opposite direction as fast as I could. I turned to look and saw the battle.
My rescuer was about the size and shape of a human, but the resemblance ended there. It was covered in bright, golden scales on it's arms, legs, and head. It's body probably was too, but it was covered up. Oddly enough, it was wearing a blue halter top and jean shorts. It had a lizard-like head with a mane like a lion, except made of very thick strands of hair - almost like tentacles. Two large, leathery wings were folded on its back. It was breathing a stream of fire onto my assailant. The flaming vampire took off and drifted away towards the moon.
The creature walked towards me. It moved very gracefully, in a feline sort of way. As it moved, it transformed. The wings sunk into the back, the leather scales flattened themselves into the skin, and the head seemed to morph itself inward. Standing before me, by the time she arrived, was a perfectly normal looking human woman, probably in her mid-twenties.
Well, not perfectly normal. Exceptionally beautiful. Her ethnicity was hard to pinpoint - there was definately some Asian, but also hints of Hispanic. She had shoulder-length brown hair, round, full cheeks and a very well-formed body. She was not smiling- in fact, she looked rather upset - but I was so happy to be dealing with an attractive young woman instead of a scaly monster that it didn't seem to matter.
"Umm... thanks?" I offered.
"I warned you not to do any exploring, Skyler," she said contemptuosly. "The enemy doesn't waste time. Now that he knows you're under protection, he'll be sending a more powerful force soon. And I might not be there to help,"
Suddenly it dawned on me to whom I was speaking. "So you're Dragon girl," I said, "It fits,"
"The name's Teresa Willard," she said, holding out her hand, "No 'H'"
"Skyler Woods Brimmer the sixth," I said, then added after a moment, "Although I suspect you already know that,"
"Yes," said Teresa, "I've had my share of dealings with the Brimmer family. Believe me, this was not my first choice of assignment,"
"Who assigned you here?" I asked.
"All in good time," said the woman, "You'll find out soon enough. Right now I have to figure out what to do about you,"
She started walking through the woods. I followed.
"What do you mean?" I asked, when I caught up with her.
"The enemy now knows your location, and probably suspects you're trying to develop your powers," she answered. "Furthermore, he knows you have a fully trained draconic protecting you. Next time it's not gonna be single vampire. It's probably going to be a dragon humter to deal ith me and four or five tougher vampires or just general thugs, to make sure you get taken out of the picture. You may have to get away for a while. Is that managable?"
I thought about it. Leaving right now would be darn inconvenient; it was the beginning of a new semester, I'd probably have to make up a bunch of school, and if I didn't take the test soon, my driver's ed credit would expire. In retrospect all that seems pretty insignificant, but at the time, It mattered a lot more.
"I'd rather not," I answered.
"Well, It may prove unavoidable," said Teresa, "But I'll see if I can get you increased protection. Stay on your guard, and try not to be out after dark. And I'd start carrying a wooden stake. A cross necklace wouldn't be a bad idea, either. YOu go to church?"
"Usually," I said, "But my dad owns a funeral parlor. There's religious stuff all over the place,"
We came out of the woods by a road. A small blue Mazda was parked on the shoulder.
"Need a ride home?" she asked.
I told her it would be nice, and I climbed in. Teresa reached over, picked up a large trash bag, and threw it in the back. The cars interior smelled heavily of garlic.
"There's some extra stakes in the back," she told me, "I'll get you one before I go. Not that I'm going far,"
"How long have you been following me?" I asked her.
"Since you typed 'Lisa Brimmer' into a search engine and set off our alarms," she answered.
"Why am I important enough to assign someone to watch me?" I asked. "For that matter, why am I important enough to send someone to kill me?"
"You're name makes you important enough," she answered, "There has never been a 'Skyler Woods Brimmer' who didn't cause they enemy major problems. I suspect the thought of getting the next one before he could defend himself would be quite tempting,"
"So my grandfather -" I began, but she cut me off.
"No more questions," she said, "I've already told you more than I'm authorized to. I'll answer your questions once I've cleared them through my superiors,"
"Okay," I said. There was a long silence.
"So what are you allowed to tell me?" I asked.
"Strictly speaking," she answered, "I've already told you too much. You like Journey?"
"What?" I asked
"The band," she answered, "Journey. Most of what I have in here is either either techno-punk or Broadway, but you seem like more of an eighties music type to me,"
So there was no more talk of draconics or vampires. The rest of the trip was spent listening to "Don't Stop Believing," and singing along. I got out of the car holding a wooden tent stake and a small bag of garlic, along with a small piece of paper containing her cell phone number. I had had enough excitement for one night, so I crawled into my bed, and went to sleep.

Thursday, January 20, 2005

Revival - Chapter 11: The Heist

The next day was Friday, and it was time to get the plan underway. Jason had made sure Marissa would be waiting for hime around 7:30 - quite how he'd accomplished this, I wasn't sure. Regardless, this gave us about an hour and a half, after the Anderson's had finally left with Fay and Zhong, to find the keys. Jason and Fay had told me what they knew about their parents' standard hiding places, from similar experiences over the years. Jason had then gone to search their room. I felt a little uneasy searching someone else's house, but on the other hand it was kind of exciting. Plus, we were just trying to get back something that rightfully belonged to Jason and Fay. It's not like we were trying to steal anything.
I was in the basement, digging through various boxes and things. Not actually opening them- apparently the Andersons would never hide anything small in a large place, because of when Mr. Anderson lost his Social Security card. But apparently, there was precedent for them hiding a fairly flat object by taping it to the bottom of a box, although Fay doubted they'd try something like that twice. Still, I figured I'd check all the boxes.
As I removed one box from the side of the wall, I was given a bit of a scare by what appeared to be a full suit of medievil armor. I resolved to ask Jason about it. I finished the rest of the boxes and went upstairs for my next assignment.
"Hey" said Jason, as he rummaged through a kitchen drawer. He looked up and hald up a small, but normal-looking key. "I think this is the key to the shed. Go check it while I look for the other one,"
"Sure," I answered. he handed me the key and went back to his work. I turned to go, then stopped and asked him, "Why do you have a suit of armor in your basement?"
"A suit of what?" he asked, somewhat startled.
"Armor," I responded, "Like, old medievil stuff,"
"You're kidding," he answered, "Where?"
"Behind some boxes, I'll show you later," I turned to leave.
"Great," he said as I walked out.
The key fit the lock on the old shed perfectly, and, after a little coaxing, I managed to get it to turn. Actually opening the door was harder still, but eventually it slid open without major incident. Inside was Harvey, and a helmet, along with some tools and a few cans of gasoline. I walked over to to Harvey. It - he? - seemed like so much more than a common vehicle. Noble, somehow, like a trusty steed. I could see why it had such a pull on Jason. In fact, I was having trouble pulling my eyes off of it myself. I was still standing there when Jason came in behind me.
"Hey," he said. It startled me - I hadn't noticed him coming in. He was wearing a leather Javket and looked pretty much ready to go.
"I found the key," he said. "I'm gonna go. Lock the shed behind me and leave the key in my mother's left bathroom drawer. Thanks for your help,"
He puled the helmet on and jumped on Harvey's back. Maybe it's just my mind jumbling it with the armor I'd just seen, but something about Jason on that motorcycle seemed very knightly.
"How you getting home?" he asked
"Bus," I said, "I've got faire,"
"Sure you don't want a ride?" he asked.
"No," I answered, "I'm good. Good luck tonight,"
"Thanks man," he said. He zoomed off.
I locked up the shed, put back the key, and I was about to start off on my walk to the bus stop when I noticed the track left by the motorcycle tires on the snow. It was getting dark, but I didn't want to risk leaving such an obvious sign. Besides, I'd always had an especially high tolerance for cold. I selected a large branch from the wooded area behind the house and tried to do that thing people do in the movies, where they cover their tracks with large branches. It didn't go especially well, but it did look better than it had before. It was quite dark by the time I'd finished. I took the branch back to the woods, and had just set it down when I fet something. Two cold hands had set themelves on my shoulders. I turned around just in time. The guy was trying to bite me. He was freakishly strong, to - I could barely turn around. The man had pale white skin and dark hair, and glowing red eyes. His mouth was open, revealing two large fangs. And he was pulling me towards him.

Tuesday, January 18, 2005

Revival - Chapter 10: My first mistake

For the next few days, it looked like I might have a normal life. No startling revelations, no mysterious IMs telling me what not to do, no unidentified voices - I was actually starting to forget about things.
Thursday afternoon, as I was thinking over all this, it occured to me that I really knew very little about draconics, the MFA, or any of this bussiness. I decided to just do some basic research. I had barely typed "Draconic" into Google when I recieved an IM.
dragon_gurl'01: Skyler, what are you doing?
It was her again. I was sick of this. I wasn't going to let her stop me. I ignored her and clicked on the first link.
dragon_gurl'01: Get off that site right now, Skyler
dragon_gurl'01: We talked about this
We hadn't talked about anything. In our last conversation she'd done nothing but repeatedly tell me to stop looking up my mother. I typed my reply:
The6th: No we didn't
The6th: I still don't know who you are
dragon_gurl'01: I'm a friend, ok?
dragon_gurl'01: The enemy isn't tracking you nearly as closely as we are, but he might have filters for some keywords
dragon_gurl'01: We can't take any chances with you
The6th: who is this enemy you keep talking about?
The6th: and why are you tracking me so closely?
dragon_gurl'01: I'll explain that all eventually, but for now you have to trust us
dragon_gurl'01: Get off that website, ok?
No one likes being kept in the dark. I was fed up with this. I decided to use the only card I had.
The6th: Tell me who you are and what's going on, or I'll type "I am Skyler Woods Brimmer and a powerful draconic" into Google!
dragon_gurl'01: Don't be an idiot, Skyler
dragon_gurl'01: He has eyes everywhere, and he'd like nothing better than to catch the heir to the Brimmer family unawares and with no powers
dragon_gurl'01: Now you have two options: Do as we say and live a relatively normal life, or keep looking for answers, and some morning very soon you'll wake up dead
She was right; I'm not stupid. And I wasn't going to risk that she might be telling the truth. I signed off of the internet and, just to be safe, deleted my history files. Before I signed off of IM, though, I sent a final message.
The6th: You sure there's nothing else you can tell me?
dragon_gurl'01: All in good time. For now the less you know, the better. Trust us, Skyler. We'll keep you safe.

I was still a little uneasy about the whole thing, but there wasn't really much I could do. I signed off and went to do some homework.

Sunday, January 16, 2005

Revival - Chapter 9: Plotting

The next day I couldn't focus on anything. There was just so much weird stuff going on - PreCalculus just didn't seem important. After school Jason gave me a lift over to Zhong's house to figure out how -and possibly if and why - we were going to steal Harvey. Zhong's mother opened the door, welcomed us in, and said something that was clearly meant to be in English but I couldn't for the life of me understand. I asked her to repeat it, but I was just as lost, so I decided to just let it slip. Zhong was apparently not home yet, and none of us spoke any Mandarin, so further attempts at communication seemed rather pointless. It was rather akward.
We were all rather glad when Zhong and her father showed up. Mr. Hua had about as much English as his wife. He muttered a few friendly, yet incomprehensible words to us then headed up stairs. It suddenly occured to me something Zhong had mentioned last night.
"You're dad gives presentations about his work, doesn't he?" I asked her.
"Yeah, he was giving one last night," she answered.
"Doesn't he need better English for that?" I asked.
"You'd think so," she answered, "Here's the thing. He can write in English just fine - it's speaking and understanding he has trouble with. So he memorizes the presentation, then when it comes time for questions, I translate. That's what I was helping with,"
"Ah," I said. It seemed to make enough sense.
"Well," said Jason, "Let's get started, shall we?"
There was a murmer of agreement.
"Ok," he continued, "Here's the plan so far: Faye is going to create some sort of diversion and lure the parents away from the house. Zhong, you can help with that if you like, it would keep you from being implicated if things went wrong. Sound good?"
"Umm.. sure," she answered, seeming a bit perplexed.
"Skyler, you and I need to spread out around my house and find two keys - one to the shed where Harvey is being held, and the key to Harvey himself. Since nothing else is kept in that shed, we should be able to remove Harvey to a new location and have use of him for sometime before the parents suspect anything. I take him, you lock the shed, then hand me the key and I'll go to a locksmith's and have copy's made. That way, I'll be able to get in and out whenever I need to. Any questions?"
"Umm," I raised my hand, "Just one. Why are we doing all this again?"
"Marissa," Jason answered, "She swoons over guys with motorcycles. Trust me on this, okay? Her friend Haley's single. I could set you two up if this goes well," He winked.
"No thanks," I answered. Haley was clearly out of m league and I didn't really care. I had more pressing matters to think about.
"When are we doing this?" asked Faye, who had been unusually silent up until this point.
"That depends on two things," answered her brother, "When we're all free, and when Marissa is free. I trust your diversion is flexible?"
"Oh definately," said Faye, "You know how good I am at sweet-talking people. I can keep mom and dad driving around for hours. You just leave that to me,"
"Ok then," he said "Anyone have plans Friday afternoon?"
"Are you kidding me?" I asked. I hadn't had a date since sophmore year - hadn't really wanted one, to be honest.
"It's settled then," he stated, with finality, "Friday after school, the heist begins,"
Since we still had some time before had to go home, we hung around for a while. We played doubles Ping-Pong in the garage, but Jason and I kept losing- Zhong is freakishly good at that game. A while later I had to go to the bathroom - the downstairs one was in use, so I headed upstairs. As I walked past an office, I heard an unfamiliar voice.
It wasn't saying anything unusual. Just a lot of yes's and no's - the boring half of a phone conversation. The voice was strong, male, and unnaccented. It sounded vaguely familiar, but I couldn't pinpoint from where. I asked Zhong about it when I got downstairs.
"Hey," I asked, "Is there anybody else staying with you?"
"No," she answered, in her frequently perplexed manner, "Why?"
"I just heard a voice, that's all," I said
"Must have been the ghost," Faye joked, "This house is built on an old Dakota burial ground,"
"Maybe it was just the radio?" Zhong suggested.
"Probably," I answered. I might have been the radio. It was possible, I supposed. I decided just to let it slide. In an hour or so, it was time to go home. I severely hoped I wouldn't find things too much stranger than when I left.

Saturday, January 15, 2005

Arrghh!

Ok. So I decided to go see Amy's concert instead of going to my Grandma's birthday dinner at Olive Garden. It was unfortunate, but it was a decision I was ok with - missing my Grandma's birthday for my girlfriend's concert. Accept, it didn't go that way. Instead, spent my evening standing out in the cold waiting to be picked up for that concert, while my family was all enjoying there meal at olive garden.The concert's been going on for twenty minutes now. Amy's gonna be upset I wasn't there, and I feel like I've wasted my day.

Saturday, January 08, 2005

I want to apologize to everyone I've been an ass to over the last few days. I don't have any excuses, but you wouldn't want to hear them anyway. I apologize and I admit that I was wrong about a lot of stuff.

And Sarah: Thanks for talking some sense into me.

If you're not one of the people I'm talking to, ignore this.

Monday, January 03, 2005

Revival - Chapter 8: magicasian89

The6th: Hey
magicasian89: Oh, hey.
magicasian89: what's the thing tomorrow about?
The6th: We're gonna steal a motorcycle
magicasian89: Harvey?
The6th: yup.
magicasian89: I think I might sit this one out.
The6th: understandable
magicasian89: he doing this for Marissa?
The6th: Who knows? His mind works in strange ways
magicasian89: you could say that about any of us
The6th: lol true.
magicasian89: brb.
The6th: k
magicasian89 is away at 7:15 PM
magicasian89 returned at 7:35 PM
magicasian89: Sorry that took so long
The6th: 's ok
magicasian89: My father needed help with one of his demonstrations
The6th: You run the projector or something?
magicasian89: something like that
The6th: Something weird happened while you were gone
magicasian89: really
The6th: This girl just randomly started IMing me
The6th: At least I think it was a girl
magicasian89: You know her?
The6th: no
The6th: but she seemed to know a lot about me
The6th: wouldn't tell me who she was
The6th: it was kinda creepy
magicasian89: sure it's not just your sister playing as joke on you?
The6th: I really don't think so
The6th: her sn bothered me too
magicasian89: what was it?
The6th: dragon_gurl'01
magicasian89: what was she talking to you abuot?
magicasian89: *about
The6th: stuff she had no way of knowing
magicasian89: like what?
The6th: I can't say
magicasian89: ah
magicasian89: listen
magicasian89: If you ever need someone to talk to
magicasian89: I know what it's like having something like this going on and not be able to tell anyone.
The6th: Why's that?
magicasian89: I can't say
magicasian89: I wish I could tell you Sky, I really do
magicasian89: I have to go
The6th: see you tomorow
magicasian89: bye
magicasian89 signed off at 7:51 PM

Revival - Chapter 7: A Plea for Help

I tried not to think about it. The whole bus ride home I tried to purge my mind of all of this - my mother, my genes, what would happen when someone found out - all the questions. When I got home I tried to focus on homework, but my curiosity got the better of me. I got on the computer and googled "Lisa Brimmer".
After sifting through several sites devoted to an Olympic tennis player and cast and crew lists for community theatre shows in the Chicago area (Choreographed by Lisa Brimmer), I finally found a link that might have applied my mother. Unfortunately, the link was broken. I found the imdb profile of a rather unsuccessful actress (possibly the same woman as the choreographer, I mused) and tried several other dead ends before giving up in frustration. I was going to need outside help. Fortunately, I knew just where to get it.
I had opened my e-mail box and was about to start composing my plea when I got a phone call from Jason. He was just calling to confirm that we were meeting at Zhong's house tomorrow night around four. I said I'd be there as soon as I could. The distraction would be a welcome one.
I sat down and began composing the e-mail, telling everything I'd discovered, and then...
I deleted the whole thing. Some information is just to sensitive to trust the internet. Maybe I was starting to give a little too much credence to Mora's "The government screens your e-mails" theory, but something was telling me not to commit any of this to writing. It would be like having a written confession - irrefutable proof. Unfortunately, I didn't really have a more reliable method for sending messages. Phone lines could easily be tapped, especially long-distance. I could write a letter in code, but I got the feeling that was the sort of thing that worked far better in novels than in real life. Still I figured I'd try. The worst that could happen was that Catherine would recieve a horribly confusing letter, which she'd probably ignore anyway. The code had to be subtle, yet obvious enough that she'd see it. I puzzled over it for a while then started writing.

Dear Catherine,
How are you? Really good, or just minorly good? I'm great here! Is everything alright with Vince? We are anxious to hear from you. Send me an e-mail sometime, you rarely do these days. Could you not write or call more often? Seeing as we -

I stopped and looked at I was writing. Far to obvious. Minorly good? It didn't flow naturally at all, and once you realized some letters were bolded you found the code immediately. Plus she'd broken up with Vince a month ago. There was no point in this. I didn't know why I was being so paranoid. It didn't matter. I was going to have to either wait until my sister came home for break to ask her about this or risk traditional methods of communication, neither of which I liked. At the moment though, there was nothing I could do about it.