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This is the ongoing evolution of what I am visualizing as a graphic novel. Do you know anyone who might like to do the graphics?
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The story appears to be getting too unwieldy for this page. If you want to read more, click on the link above.
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Peace,
libramoon
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Acts of Desolation
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When the battlefield torn by mines is all the school or playground in which to grow,
how can the children be taught to know, to understand a lexicon of peace?
Bitter hatred permeates mother's milk and what there is of grain,
permeates the very rain, gathered in barrels since the wells ran red
with poisoned blood, since the holiest of sites became blackened
with pestilence and shame.
Rumors expand on who is to blame; not much else to go around..
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I like to walk the dark empty streets. Late at night, the city becomes its own. The smells, the silence, the stark black and white, shadows and streetlamps, without the people the city can become comforting, peaceful. But never for long.
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It was a cold night, early in January. It hadn't snowed much, but there were icy patches where puddles refroze after the hours of the traffic's warmth. She was huddled in a threadbare shawl, moving at a pace some compromise between care for the ice and keeping blood from coagulating to avoid frostbite. I don't like to get involved. In the end you can only lose.
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Sure enough, a large, somewhat threatening looking, guy appears, yelling after her.
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I keep to myself against the reassuring bricks and steel, and watch the drama ensue.
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But maybe I'm not as sheltered as I thought, since the next thing I know I am waking with a monumental headache in a far different place. Bright lights, loud noises, sterilized activity, I am propped up against a wall in an overcrowded ER, a place where my disheveled, disoriented presence is sure to cause no alarm.
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Then, I see her on a gurney. She is deathly pale, still. I am starting to wonder if this is all a dream, or some superdrug hallucination, but the sensory qualities are all too real, and distasteful. I hate when that happens. Now I'll have to deal with all this gross stupidity without the benefit of knowing what it's all about.
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A nurse's aide comes over with a form for me to fill out about insurance and next of kin. I motion, slur, get him to understand that I am concerned about the young woman on the gurney. He probably thinks she's my sister or girlfriend, and tells me she's lost a lot of blood, but they will be transfusing as soon as the right blood type comes up from storage. It may be touch and go, but she's in good hands. He tells me a physician's assistant will be calling me shortly to examine my contusions and lacerations, and I should tell her what drugs I am on.
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I see the guy from the street come in while we are talking. Should I try to hide or get away? Or is he just here because of her? I was just an inconvenient by-passer, after all. I can't get my legs to work under me anyway. May as well just let it play out.
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Sure enough, he sidles over to her, whispering something in her ear as the life drains out of her. Like I say, I don't like to get involved.
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I waited for my body to figure out how to cooperate, and got out of there. Back home, I'm hammering this out on my antique manual typewriter. There's no electricity here in the hole. Thankfully, there is a working fireplace, and places to scavenge wood.
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The city's got a million stories. I like to squirrel them away in these recordings I keep typing and filing. You can see them unfolding, refolding, just out there, everyday. The hard part is not getting sucked in, becoming the story yourself.
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#2
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There are some streets blissfully deserted in that magic time around dawn. Catching a pattern here? Living in the city, but not of it, or at least among the people. There are millions of souls in this city. I avoid them as much as I can. Souls can be really icky, especially the ones who don't know they are dead. A lot of the ones who do know they're dead can be just as bad. Wandering around with no future can be frustrating. Best to keep to myself, I say.
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I need to go out, to scavenge for my living. Around dawn, it's light enough without being too light. Anyone still out from the night before is too trashed to be much of a threat. Anyone starting their day has too much on their mind to notice me.
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But there she was, that girl, her ghost, from the ER, from the streets. No doubt she wanted me to help her get some vengeance on her murderer. I don't have the time for this. I mean, there are far too many ghosts needing vengeance. I have my own problems to work out.
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"But what if he finds you? What if you become a target? Isn't it better to know your enemy?"
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She had a point.
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Still, I had more immediate considerations, like food. I have traps for the rats in the hole, but you have to cook them for hours. You never know where they've been. To have any hope of edibility, that means stew. That means vegetables, easily available outside of food stores and restaurants where they dump the not quite spoiled produce. In fact, there's a vast array of nearly spoiled food to gather. Then, in the doctors' office row there are pills aplenty not too far from their expiration dates. Rich party quarters can yield vast treasures of marijuana roaches and dregs of high-end wines and liquors. I am soon well stocked to bliss out through the approaching daylight hours, avoid the blaring sunlight and assorted psychic pain inherent in daily commerce. But that damn bitch of a ghost won't leave me alone. I am beginning to think whoever killed her might have had good reason.
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"Perhaps," she insists, "but that doesn't make you any safer."
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By now, though, I have ingested the proper mix of pills to quiet all the voices.
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Of course those dreams come again. The ones where there are sirens and blood and nothing makes sense.
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Then, I'm walking down the empty city streets, the ones that aren't filled with night life. There's no one here with me. No ghosts, no shadowy dream figures, no murderous demons, just me. I am walking these empty streets as if I am going somewhere, pulled along by fate. Then, again she appears. Not a ghost or a waif or a corpse, but as some divine messenger in the guise of a common streetwalker. Somehow I understand that she is both messenger and me. We have a symbiotic link. The important part is that an unspeakable evil has been unleashed into my city. It is up to me, in this twin form, to defeat this evil, as only I have the power to see it for what it is. And there it is, glaring at me. But apparently our battle is meant for another day, for it disappears without comment. No doubt it has more nefarious business to attend to.
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I had some thinking, and typing, to do. But first for some street theater to amuse and defuse me. I must venture over to the night life side of the city streets.
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It's the loud, insistent, deep rhythmic music that makes it possible for me to even be here. I can move myself into the sound and keep my distance in the crowd.
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"Share your body with me. Let me in." She was hovering all around me. Not as sexy as it sounds. She wants to take over my will and use my body for her own purposes. Well, maybe that is sex for some, but not me.
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"You know I can help you." So enticing. I can almost be persuaded, flooded by feeling of her concern, that she is so kindly offering me her soul. I know the rules. They can't get in without an invitation. Here, in the cacophony of noise, light, movement, I have the distraction to avoid falling into her psychic trap. Concentrate on someone else, someone I can in some sense relate to. There. That girl in the background, her costume just enough different from the rest. She is palpably alone, and enthused with a fear and excitement at being part of the scene.
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The ghost can see her, too. All that charming vulnerability, just waiting. This girl didn't have the experience I did. The ghost desperately needed a body. She had corporeal errands. I, so far her only psychic link, was not cooperating. If only she could manage an invitation from this lonely young woman who was looking for something new. I would be off the hook, out of this mess that was none of my business to begin with.
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Red and green spotlights were flashing across the stage. The band was revving up into banshee shrieks over an accelerating, hard-driving beat. Everyone was screaming, the dark, perspiration-dripping room closing in way too fast. I wound my way out of there, back onto the minimally quieter, darker, emptier street.
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It was raining, a cold January rain when it's not interested in snowing because that would feel pleasanter. Had it been this wet all night? I didn't remember.
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She was there, the girl from the club. I don't know if she was following me. Maybe the ghost had gotten to her. I looked her straight in the eyes, and I was lost. She was not the innocent I had expected. It seemed that potent forces were collecting here, and I seem to be vibrating in the center of an impending storm.
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#3
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Before I can gather up the necessary will to run off, she walks to where I am standing and takes my hand.
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"Take me with you," she says simply, quietly. "We have a lot to catch up on."
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We make our way, through the rain and icy streets, to the hole. I light a fire to dry us. As it turns out, she has a flask of very fine brandy in her pocket, which makes the warming up process far easier. In no time it seems like we were old friends.
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"That's because we are," she tells me, laughing gently as if remembering a private joke.
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"I'm sorry to have to tell you this. But, if someone had to, I'm glad it could be me." This does not sound encouraging.
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"I know you're retired. I now you've been taking memory suppressants to help you stay truly undercover. I know why." This is more encouraging, since so unlikely. This must be another one of those dreams. Soon the sirens and jumbled images will take over unit I find myself suddenly awake, terrified, covered in sweat, with no idea why.
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"I am sorry. We have ourselves a situation. We need you. You are going to have to come in from the cold."
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Suddenly I am very cold indeed. Shivering uncontrollably, as tears take over my face, I still don't know why.
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So, it turns out I am part of a highly trained secret corps of empaths, developed by the Genetic Weapons Initiative during Cold War III. When the new Administration and Congress were voted in after the Worldwide Peace Convention, they dismantled GWI as repugnant to the conscience. We were sold to a secret mercenary group for ad hoc assignments.
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This is a lot to take in, and apparently the story gets weirder from there. Calinda, my new best friend, is also my old best friend and my biological twin, though several years younger than I. There was a mutiny against the mercenaries, a secret war between secret entities.
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"Dorie, I know you wanted, needed so badly, to get away. I know you just wanted a peaceful retreat." She hugs me as she speaks, holding off some of my terror as the visual memories ran scatter-shot through my inner view. What could they possibly need from me? I am nothing but broken, hiding in self-imposed ignorance.
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"You sleep," she decides. "I'll walk your dreams. It will all make sense when you awaken."
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I could feel Calinda's safe presence guiding me into the dream, the denied memory.
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When you grow up in a vat, created as an advanced biology experiment, any semblance of family takes on great significance. Especially for empaths, who are forced into intimacy relentlessly, having the security of well-known, bonded, intimates can be crucial.
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It was a small, efficient team: Reag, our revolutionary leader, his wife, Romy, Arden, his bio-twin, and me, his oldest friend. We had learned that the GWI labs were still in secret operation, churning out human weapons for the mercenary organization with which we were now at war. We were all linked in, both for strategy and emotional support.
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Arden and Romy were in the main lab building, setting the explosive charges in the embryo and accelerated growth vat rooms. The kids in the vats, undergoing treatments to bring them to physical maturity in months rather than years, could feel our presence. They were helpless. There was no way we could save them and destroy GWI. That would take resources far beyond anything in our power.
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Reag and I were in the communications tower, standing look-out while scanning and overriding the data stream to keep our actions from being monitored. Most of the lab's operation was automated, especially during the scientists' and technicians' downtime.
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We weren't prepared for the silent screaming. The vat kids knew why we were there. Their energy, a massive panic surging outward, set off the explosives before Arden and Romy could escape. Noise, light, pain, hundreds of young bodies ripped apart, still silently screaming. Arden's and Romy's screams coming through even stronger, with poignant, tragic intimacy. Reag and I managed to run, hide, get away.
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I awake secured in Calinda's arms. Gently rocking, gently humming a soothing tone, she quiets the panic in her empathic love. Still, I am not ready for this.
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"You're really not going to be ready for this, but it's imperative that you know." I am not thrilled by this build up, but still in too much shock to resist more unwelcome information.
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"Reag is out to kill all the GWI freaks. He's been looking for you."
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"All of us? But there must be tens of thousands! How can he think that's even possible?"
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"He's not thinking. He's insane."
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Sitting between us, a thought so faint, in our closeness I could not tell if it were hers or mine: "As are you."
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Or was it Reag's? Suddenly, I could feel his presence. Not here, in the hole, but close. The raw jumble of pain that was his mind sent tears streaming down my face. Now, I knew why.
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The ghost, I realized, was Nerice, another member of our crew. Was she working for Reag? No doubt he wanted to draw me out of hiding.
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"You weren't meant to survive the ER either. They had no idea you would disappear like that after all the drugs they forced into you."
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"Good thing I got my tolerance up, then."
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"Nerice was one of ours. Reag got to her through some cronies he developed among the criminal class here."
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He always was a persuasive leader.
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#4
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"So, what do we do now? Is there a plan?"
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"More of a hopeful strategy. We thought if we did a psychic intervention, calmed him enough, we might get him to see reason. But we haven't got enough strength among us to get past his walls. We thought, you've known him longer, deeper, have been through so much with him."
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It hit me, what she is asking, demanding really.
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"I can't. Look at me. There's not much left."
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"That's why we have to restore you first."
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I busy myself re-lighting the fire while she goes on. There's a facility with appropriate resources for de-toxing, rebuilding, perhaps renewing, a fallen agent. It's in the mountains, secluded, far from here. She would arrange the transport.
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"I see that you have secured this place from both conventional and psychic surveillance. We'll be safer with you here. I'll be back for you soon." I feel her warm embrace as she departs.
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Then, another, colder, one. Nerice had followed us back here last night and kept her presence hidden while Calinda was updating me.
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"I can help you," she implores.
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She still wants in.
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"I can protect you while you heal. Then, there will be two of us to bolster each other in battle."
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"No, I have to deal with Reag, myself."
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"What about the real enemy, the mercs, the ones you've been hiding from? What if Calinda doesn't return?"
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It's getting dark. I'm running low on firewood. I heat up some stew and choke it down. Best to be well fed before a battle. Who knows when I'll have the chance to eat again.
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I want to be out, walking off this nervous energy. I try going through old martial arts exercises, but I am clumsy, out of practice, musculo-neural pathways degraded by drugs. Calinda has been gone far too long. The fire has died. I am dark and cold, scared, undecided as to what to do.
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Nerice was right. The mercs are the real enemy. With my memory back, I am more vulnerable to being found by their empath agents. I can't stay shielded in the hole forever. Maybe I should go to Reag -- better to be killed by a friend than the enemy.
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"I can help you." Nerice's predictable insistence.
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Why am I so afraid to let her in? Maybe she can help.
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I close my eyes and see the raw, raging sickness of Reag's mind. Maybe I can help him. If we could join together again, against the mercs ...
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Nerice is dead. No one will be looking for her. Maybe she can help, if my will is strong enough to stay in control once we are joined.
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She sees me wavering.
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"I do have enough assorted pills to sleep through a very short future."
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I am so cold. I set my body twirling, turning all that fear into warmth.
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#5
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I feel Calinda approaching, finally. I open the door to meet her, but she pushes me, forcefully, back inside.
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"I've been trying to avoid Reag. He picked up my trail as I was on my way back with the robocar. It's parked a few blocks from here. I didn't want to get too close until I lost him. Are you ready to go?"
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We have mind-barrier techniques, but they take a lot of concentration which can only be kept up for a short while. Now that Reag is aware of Calinda's presence, we will have to keep our minds blank while hurrying to the robocar, until we get well out of this vicinity. Nerice, of course, follows us, never giving up on her chance to get back into the game. Her ghostly thoughts are too faint to be noticed unless she is actively working to communicate.
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We are not fast enough. Not far from our destination, Reag appears, stepping out of the shadow.
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"If it isn't my oldest, dearest friend, and her younger version. Take a good look at Dorie, Calinda. I remember when she was just like you. Of course, that was long before all that unpleasantness. Now, where are we going?"
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"Why don't we take him to the clinic?" I ask Calinda. "Couldn't they help him, too?"
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"Because, Dorie," he answers for her, "you have to be willing to be helped."
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He leaves a few beats of ironic silence, then bursts out: "Hey kids, I've got a crazy idea. Why don't we go back to my place? We could have quite a party, don't you think?"
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"I don't think we want to do that, Reag." Calinda was looking directly into his eyes, unwavering. I wanted so to hug him, squeeze the demons from him. Yet, I know too well, those demons are not so easily dislodged.
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The night is icy. Frost crystals form around our hair, our faces. White clouds of condensation appear with each breath. The street is empty of life, save for us.
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"Maybe you're right. The place is kind of a dump. Alright! Road trip! Let's get to that car and it's climate control! It's freezing out here!" Saying this, he grabs each of us under the arm and around the back, half carrying us along, to the robocar and its promised warmth. He doesn't seem in any hurry to kill us.
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"Dorie, my dear, I don't want to kill you. Well, maybe just a little, you know, to put you out of your misery. But first, we have some catching up to do."
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We are flying along the skylane enroute to the clinic, where the robocar had been preprogrammed to go.
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"I've not been seeking you out to kill you, but to reenlist you." Charming as ever.
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"Calinda believes you are out to destroy the GWI freaks, including me."
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"Of course! We are abominations! We need to be annihilated. But the mercs are the real enemy. We are merely a side issue. There's plenty of destruction to go around. First we save the world. Then we commit race suicide."
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He is dead serious.
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"Why do you need me? I've been long out of it."
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"Whom else can I trust?"
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"Any of the freak team."
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"They think I'm insane."
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"You are."
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"As are you." I feel the maniacal laughter rippling through him.
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Reag knows that the robocar's program can be overridden by manual control. We are still on course for the clinic. Quite a way from the urban lanes, the sky is dark, desolate. We are approaching the mountainous region of our destination.
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I feel Calinda, seated next to me, hand in mine, encouraging peaceful imagery to calm me. She ignores Reag's ravings, concentrating on my well-being.
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"Did you know, we intended to get pregnant, after everything settled down, after we won, after the chemicals finally were worked out of our systems. We would have the first natural born of us, start to become a real people. You know, they gave us those chemicals, in the corps and then the mercs, to keep their precious genetics program pure, to keep us controlled, intellectual property." He is remembering his plans with Romy, back when he believed in us, our rights, our cause, our people.
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"But what are we good for, Dorie? All we know is war."
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Maybe I can get through to him.
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"We have each other," I venture.
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"And what good has that done us, you and me? I tried, you know, after even you were gone, to be a good leader, to carry on."
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The car is slowing, starting to descend.
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"Here's your rehab, Dorie. You can go get sane. Or, you could come fight the mercs with me. We can hit them in ways they'll never be expecting."
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The car stops in front of the main clinic entrance. The grounds are quiet, dark. We know immediately, something is very wrong. Apparently the mercs have already been expecting us.
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As we feel their onslaught, Reag takes control of the car. We are up, moving away, over the facility power plant. Reag pulls an incendiary device from an
inner pocket of his voluminous overcoat. He ignites it, quickly opens the nearest door and launches it onto the power plant. Door closed, up and away. We hear explosions, see fireworks, as we speed into the night.
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"Way to go, destroying our clinic, Reag," Calinda says bitterly.
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The clinic had been a GWI facility that the mercs had no use for. Their treatment for a malfunctioning genetic weapon was a lethal injection and recycling of chemical components. Our rebel crew had revived the facility recently, as Calinda had told me during our catching up.
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"It's no good to you kids now that the mercs have come in. I have no interest in seeing more of our resources in their hands. What about you, Calinda?"
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She shrugs her tacit agreement.
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"Well, hey, kids, that was quite a party after all. Now we need to find somewhere to regroup and strategize."
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[to be continued]
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Comments: 10
The character is believable and likable, your description is great, and I am anxious to read more.
The only tiny criticism I offer is overuse of the word 'was', especially in chapter 2, the paragraph that begins with Red and green lights.
I was a little thrown at the beginning with, "She was huddled. . ." It 'felt' like a POV switch. I realize it isn't, and the confusion was probably my problem. If no one else mentions it, ignore me.
Again, I enjoyed this very much and am anxious to read more.
Haunting and darkly powerful story.
Good luck! I like the photo shop idea.
If you need an illustrator, may I suggest freelance.com? Put it in as a job I (no cost to you) and request a collaborator. That's where I found the artist who did my book cover.
I wish you the best of luck on this project...it deserves recognition.
Peace,
libramoon
Got jpg files? Send to libramoon42@mindspring.com