one more draft…

Witness, Book One of All Prophets Are Liars, by yours truly, has been officially published!
(Find it at Amazon[and Borders], BooksAMillion, Barnes & Noble, and, of course, iUniverse)

There should really be a lot more fanfare to this, or at least more consideration on my part, I believe, but it’s late and I’m tired, but it’s a happy tired. It’s real, and it’s out there, thanks to a number of people who have supported me without break. I can’t thank you enough, but I will continue to try.

I’ll post a summary of my experience so far with iUniverse, but that will have to wait until after some shuteye.

Here’s to many more!

The food is cool, as I expected. A few minutes in the microwave will do the trick, but that doesn’t stop me from biting into an aromatic samosa on the way to the kitchenette. Standing at the counter while the machine counts down, I busy myself with the breakfast and lunch dishes. It’s Patrick’s chore, but I’m feeling guilty for snapping at him earlier. That gets me wondering at my behaviour. Sometimes, it just feels like I can’t help myself; I start saying the exact same things I hated hearing my father say, in that same holier than thou tone, as if I’m genetically programmed to repeat them, no matter what.

Patrick deserves better. He deserves better than this cramped economy condo. He deserves better than the one-size-fits-all treatment the public school system is forcing down kids’ throats nowadays.

I catch myself dodging the blame again, and I wring my frustration out on the dishrag. What Patrick really deserves is something better than a dad who manages to be home all day and never around enough.

It processes for a bit, the counter spinning uninformatively. Security keys always do, I know, but it doesn’t stop the moment from feeling a little anti-climactic. Not sure exactly what I was expecting, but this apparently wasn’t it. Something other than this totally normal process, I suppose.

The pretzel bag is empty when I reach for it, reminding me, and my stomach, of the Indian food waiting downstairs. I consider the spinning counter for a few more moments, and argue with myself over the virtues and vices of a watched pot.

I’m jumpy now, though, a bit anxious, and I know the best thing to do is to do something else, so I pull myself up and head downstairs, though not before stopping at the doorway for another look, just in case. In vain.

What the heck? I’m making a mountain out of a molehill, here. This is silly. I mean, they sent all this nonsense to me, right? It’s all logged on my account, anyway, who sent what to me and when. It’s entirely legitimate, from my side. I’m just another report grinder in the freelance pool trying to do his job.

Right?

As I drag Madhav’s key over to the satellite feed prompt, I consider the option of calling Francis to let him look at what I’m looking at. Then I let it go.

I ping Patrick’s headset. It buzzes, but he doesn’t pick up. He’s at Barry’s. It’s 7:30. They’re probably eating. I’m already dialing Barry’s house before I realize what I’m doing.

I need to get a grip. It’s dinner time. There’s cold Indian food downstairs, waiting to be nuked. Think about this.

But he mentioned Patrick.

Not impossible to get off the net, though. Legally, too.

But why? Madhav and I have never talked. He’s sent requests, I’ve done the reports and sent them back. That’s it.

The satellite feed is still blinking its security key prompt. I look at Madhav’s key. It’s impossible to tell from the key attachment itself whether it will work in the feed. What am I thinking? Why would the two be connected?

It doesn’t make any logical sense, but given what I’m looking at right now, it seems to fit. Or it seems like it would fit, if I just entered the key.

Tapping that one open, I feel less surprised than I imagine I should be. There’s no text, just a security key. I breathe for a moment and chew the inside of my lip. My eyes bounce from the clock to the counters running on all these open requests cutting down on my bonuses to the satellite feed prompt asking for the key to the list of names and times on this evening’s requests.

Shaking my head, I open his first request. This one reads like a note from an out of touch friend. How am I doing, how are things going, what have I been up to, how’s Patrick?

Madhav’s a professor of urban development in India’s university mega-system, based in Kalimpong. His requests are always pretty simple material, and I turn them back without a hitch. We don’t converse.

And I’ve never told him about Patrick.

I’m chewing the last few bits of pretzel from the bag before I remember the Indian food waiting downstairs. But something’s not right. A 30 year old satellite is sending me a report request that needs security clearance? A bunch of almost identical requests from totally different people?

That reminds me of Madhav. His icons are the only ones left in my queue, the little planets still spinning away. The second one has an attachment.

The precious ice cubes clinked against the chilled mugs and pitcher as Sima, one of Adijan’s servants, set the plate of cho leaf drinks down between the two men.

“Please,” Adijan said flatly, raising a mug while his eyes followed the boy back out of the room. He’d bought the boy just before the rains this year, from the last trade ship to make port in Yvgia before the hurricanes. No more than 10 years old, the slight Hennish’s jatru were still emerging.

Rhennik did not notice the old man’s gaze as he took up his own mug. His pale brown skin was flushed and sweating in the heavy air of the forest, and he gulped the cool, sweet drink eagerly.

Adijan turned at the noisy sound. He grimaced behind his mug, as his narrowed eyes watched the heavier man shortly drain his drink and immediately proceed to fill it again from the pitcher.

“Oh!” Rhennik’s eyes snapped open in embarrassment and he put a bent hand to his inclined forehead. “My apologies, Adijan-azi. How rude of me. I am not used to this heat. I do not know how you can survive here.” He blinked quickly as he realized what he said, then looked at the floor, and finally at the full mug in his hand. “This drink is delicious.”

Adijan sipped from his mug, pulling a cho leaf into his mouth to chew on while keeping his eyes on the Tyik courier. “Thank you, Rhennik,” he said, leaving out the formal suffix. The man had to be clear about their differences.

Rhennik nodded with a forced smile, then immediately looked elsewhere. He still held his mug halfway between plate and lips.

Adijan closed his eyes in frustration for a moment. From across the yard came a staccato of heavy, muffled whumps and sudden crunches that left ripples in the air. Beside him, Adijan could feel Rhennik jump in his seat. Opening his eyes, he realized he’d misjudged the man. Instead of being spooked in his seat, Rhennik was standing upright and tense, his eyes wide as he stared at the sound.

“Have you not heard a winghammer before?” Adijan put as much condescension into it as he could. The Tyik was just another ignorant, superstitious plains-farmer. It kindled something in Adijan to think that he was actually considering work for these people, after all the time he’d spent trying to get away from those very people.

“No,” Rhennik breathed. “Never.”

The old man lifted himself from his chair and peered over at the mostly packed insectine cage where Rhennik was so tightly focused.

so I’m knocked down with whatever has been running rampant through my office lately (3 of my team were out on Friday, and the remaining 3 of us were heading south fast), but i still need to post here. no big deal, right? well, and yes, i know it’s incredibly minor and all that, but my monitor hurts my eyes, pinning little needles behind them and into my sinuses. it’s not overwhelming, obviously, as i’m still posting, but it’s noticeable. i’ve changed the brightness down a bit, but that makes things look funny and somehow harder to read.

anyway, my point in all this was to say how much i love pencils. no glare, no feedback, no sharp shooting pains (until the hand cramp sets in after a good day of writing, but that’s the pain of joy, really), always ready to use (assuming the trusty pencil sharpener is near at hand - and mechanical pencils just don’t count for me; they’re brittle, frustrating, and prone to difficult), and somehow tie me closer to my work than typing.

i love the handwritten word, and i do almost all my writing in pencil first. Even these posts, which are all done in the moment on the computer, have handwritten notes and references scribbled on scraps and sheets of paper around my desk. i have long appreciated the slower speed that handwriting yields, and i have often benefited from that extra time. my mind can move far faster than my handwriting and i have been able to identify problems before i actually writing them out. when typing, i don’t tend to have that restraint, and as such often find that my typed stories are less well thought out, clear, and effective than those i’ve taken the time to work by pencil.

Just to check, I pull up Ingrid’s request and yep, there they are. Or some of them, anyway. She didn’t have as tight a focus as the Aussie’s request, which I pull up next. Sure enough, the Aussie’s coordinates match Artie’s exactly.

Looking at all three requests, I’m starting to feel a little weird. I can’t tell who asked Artie for his report, but there’s no question that it’s the same content. The coordinates are just numbers, of course, but I can feed them into one of the public satellite positioning databases and have the answer.

I stare at the meaningless numbers, then at the time. It’s almost 6 pm. Why do I care? I should just send it back to Artie and get back to the rest of my work. None of my employers are big on questions. Not that any of them have ever had anything to hide, but it means slowing things down, and slowing down is less productive.

The doorbell chimes just then, and I jerk slightly. The delivery access hisses open, the food clunks in, and then the access hisses shut. I glance at the order timer: 18 and a half minutes. Figures. Outside, I hear a door shut and then silence as the battery-fueled delivery car slips away.

Without knowing why, I pull the satellite feed back to the front. The snoop program has found a match for the format, but now the feed is waiting for a security key. I doublecheck the original satellite request, but there’s nothing else in it. Just that ancient file.