There was a pounding on her door.
‘Nurg,’ Stef muttered as she knuckled the sleep from her eyes.
The sound got louder.
‘Gods’ – pound – ‘damn’ – pound – ‘it,’ – pound – ‘newbie!’ Pound. ‘Open up!’
She pulled the blanket back over her face.
‘Are you even awake?’ Pound. ‘I know you’re in there!’
Go away; go away; go away.
Pound.
‘Go away!’
The voice laughed. ‘So you are awake. Open up!’
She curled up more in the blanket but required the door open.
‘Up!’ Curt said, as she heard the door close behind him. ‘Come on, newbie. Up.’
‘No,’ she said.
‘I was nice. You didn’t wake up at six; I gave you a break, half an hour more to sleep in, but you’re out of time. You don’t want to be late,’ he said, stressing every word. ‘Taylor’s gonna hate you enough. Do you really want to add tardiness to that?’
The volcano-in-a-suit rumbled in her head, and she pulled herself from the blanket.
‘Huh,’ Curt said as he looked at her.
‘What?’
‘You…slept in your uniform?’
‘I’ve only been asleep for three hours,’ she said.
He leaned against the wall. ‘I told you about training.’
She swung her legs off the bed and hung her head, trying to drain the sleep from her body. ‘And I can’t change my sleeping pattern overnight.’
‘Still, I’m not gonna be late. Orders are orders, but nothing in what Agent Ryan said covers getting on Taylor’s radar. People who are on his radar tend to be thrown from windows.’
She required a coffee and let her head hang over it. ‘So artificially high mortality rate, then?’
‘No, the building has a really good security system. Anything that falls – be it a recruit or a house plant – is caught and shifted back inside.’
‘Huh. Good idea.’ She emptied the cup. ‘So can I go chuck stuff off the roof to try it?’
‘Sure. Later. Can we go, please?’
She set the cup on the bedside table. ‘Is there any way I can get out of this?’
‘How attached are you to your kneecaps?’
‘So that’s a no, then?’
‘Coming?’
‘Fiiine.’
She stood, tilted for a moment, then stood straight.
‘Require a training uniform. No arguments.’
She sighed and required the training uniform – blue BDUs over a blue T-shirt. She looked to her feet, glad to see that her sneakers had popped into existence rather than heavy boots.
‘I still like the suit better,’ she said.
‘Yeah, well, I’ve never even seen Taylor in a suit,’ he said as he opened the door.
She followed him down the hall, past mingling recruits – some fully awake and dressed, some in pyjamas sucking on coffee and energy drinks. They walked into the large gym, where some recruits were already stretching. He fell in a step closer. ‘Let’s try to find somewhere in the back.’
They found a patch of wall behind some of the other recruit. He began to stretch his legs, so she took on his role of official-person-leaning-against-the-wall.
It’s not even seven, what am I doing awake?
I told you TV Tropes was a bad idea.
I was only going to read a few pages.
That’s what you always say.
‘Newbie?’
‘Hmm?’
‘Could you please make a token effort?’
Stretches had been easy a decade ago. Ballet under the tutelage of a mad perfectionist had meant twisting her body in lots of weird ways or facing the wrath of a riding crop.
She bent over and tried to touch her toes.
Her back ached, and her fingers dangled well above her toes, so she straightened and copied the easy-looking lunge Curt was doing.
As they swapped legs, he bowed his head. ‘Okay, don’t make any sudden movements, but look up. The girl walking in now is Magnolia.’
Stef pressed both hands down onto her forward knee, counted to ten, then looked up. She closed her eyes, then looked again.
A pretty girl in a dress stood barking orders at dawdling recruits. A pretty girl with white hair yelling at recruits, wearing something that definitely wasn’t a uniform: a black ruffled skirt and tight-fitting corset over a white shirt with more ruffles.
‘Huh.’
‘See? You wouldn’t have believed me if I’d told you.’
‘Is that cosplay, or does she always dress, like, in goth loli?’
‘That’s what she looks like every day. This is actually tame. There’s no lace.’
‘…And she works for Taylor?’
Agent Volcano with the growling and the death glares and the–
Curt grinned. ‘Welcome to the Agency, newbie.’
‘Training sim first,’ Magnolia said, addressing the assembled recruits. ‘Groups of six. Split!’
‘What do we–?’
‘We’re the leftovers, newbie. We wait. Hey, there.’ Curt walked towards a tall recruit, who stood on his own. ‘Red?’
The recruit nodded.
‘Okay, now we only need three more.’
‘Red?’ she asked as she looked up at the really, really tall recruit and his dull red hair. ‘Your parents were strangely prescient.’
‘Rollingford Isben,’ Red said. ‘They call me Red. I don’t argue.’
‘He can set things on fire,’ Curt said, ‘so they call him “Red”.’
‘Wouldn’t “Sparky” be better?’ she asked, then went back to looking at the floor.
‘You, you, you – join this group,’ she heard Magnolia shouting.
‘Oh, fuck you, Mags,’ Curt swore quietly. He bowed his head and leaned closer. ‘Newbie, do your best to keep your mouth shut.’
‘Huh?’
‘Quiet.’
She raised her head a little and saw Brian and two of his cronies approaching.
Magnolia walked up a moment later. ‘One, two, three, four, five, and negative seven. Okay, you’re good to go. It’s on randomise, so I don’t know what the fuck you’re doing. Get in there.’
‘Come on,’ Curt said.
Stef followed the group through a simple door and stepped into a forest.
Not a full, proper pine-trees-and-foxes forest, but a scrubby, open forest full of thin trees, leaves falling in preparation for winter. Which was strange, considering it was spring outside. A cool breeze blew through the trees, and she automatically hugged her arms around herself before realising that her body wasn’t cold, only her exposed hands and face.
Temperature-regulating clothes?
Entirely plausible.
‘Gather around,’ Brian barked as they moved into a clearing. ‘There’s no obvious goal, so we need to scout. Red, do your thing. Curt, go that way,’ he said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder. ‘And take the cannon fodder with you. Collins, Dawyer, with me – we’re heading south. Check in every five minutes.’
‘C’mon, newbie,’ Curt said as they walked deeper into the scrub and found a lightly-worn path.
‘How far does our jurisdiction go?’ she asked. ‘Do we have to look after the whole state or something? I’m not cut out to be a scout. I don’t like the outdoors.’
Curt crouched for a second and stared at the ground. ‘So, the reason you aren’t joining the tech department is…?’
Cause I want be around Ryan?
She shrugged, and slapped at a few small branches. ‘Techs don’t get to shoot people. I’ve always kinda wanted a license to kill.’
‘…That’s a little disturbing, newbie.’
‘What? It’s not like I ever tried making my own Death Note. Or attempted to invoke Shinigami. I mean, not more than six times.’
He stopped and looked back at her. The default sarcastic look stayed on his face for a moment before he shrugged. ‘Who hasn’t done that?’
She ran a few steps to catch up with him. ‘Wait, you actually know what I’m talking about?’
‘Picked it up via osmosis. There were a couple of anime dorks who worked at the fruit shop with me.’ He pushed aside a large branch and nodded for her to pass. ‘Seemed harmless. You want to put a real-world spin on it, though, write the names on scraps of paper and burn them; you might be lucky and get the attention of a bored ashreader.’
Her foot came down on something smelly. Something smelly and soft. Something smelly and soft which felt entirely too much like a person.
‘…Did I just step on a corpse?’
‘Yup.’
She carefully lifted her foot away and stepped to the side. ‘I didn’t see him. Don’t bitch at me for disturbing a crime scene.’
‘You’ve got tiny feet,’ he said, ‘I doubt you disturbed that much.’ He put a hand to his headset. ‘O’Connor to Brian.’ Pause. ‘We found one body.’ Pause. ‘Of course.’
She knelt and looked at the dead man. Casual clothes, covered in dirt and leaves and other bits of the environment.
‘He’s been dead a bit,’ she said as she stared at his skin.
‘Yeah,’ Curt said. ‘How’d you know?’
‘Corpses only stay pretty for a bit, then there’s rigor and gas and bloating and–’
‘I’m kinda glad you’re not freaking out.’
‘Meh.’ She shrugged. ‘It’s only a corpse. The dead have never done anything to hurt me.’
Besides, apparently I’ve been a corpse.
‘Most newbies do freak out at their first few bodies, though.’
He legs started to hurt, so she stood. ‘I’d wager most of them didn’t read Grey’s Anatomy at eight.’
She required a stick and poked the body. She knelt and wedged the stick under the corpse’s arm.
‘Don’t do that.’
She gave him a deadpan stare. ‘Do you think I’m doing this to be random?’
‘Then talk to me.’ He rounded the body. ‘Don’t just do random shit and expect not to be questioned. If there’s a logic to what you’re doing, I’m not gonna stop you.’
But I’m not good at talking to people!
Just imagine you’re talking to Ryan.
She pulled her stick back and tapped it on the ground.
She straightened her back a little, and tried to look half-competent. ‘Okay, so we accept that Mr Body has been out here for…a day, maybe a couple of days – exposure to the elements is going to speed some of this up a bit.’
‘Agreed.’
‘And obviously he was having a disagreement with the ground before he died. Or whoever killed him thought hiding a body with leaves was a good idea. Most of this crap is just stuck to him, and we could brush it off.’
‘But that’s disturbing a crime scene.’
‘Yeah, yeah.’ She picked her stick back up and pointed at the corpse’s arm. ‘A bit of mould I could buy, or some fungi grow really fast. But – but he’s got grass growing out of his elbow,’ she said, letting panic slip into her last few words. ‘And that’s kinda freaky. And that’s why I was poking him, cause I wanted to make sure it was coming out, not going in.’
‘Put your stick down.’
She dropped it immediately.
‘O’Connor to Brian.’ Pause. ‘Looks like it might be nymphs.’ Pause. ‘We’ll keep in contact.’ Pause. ‘O’Connor to Red.’ Pause. ‘It’s someone who can mess with the environment. I think we’re looking for a grove. See if you can find anything? I’m going to see if I can confirm.’
He looked back to her. ‘Your first question is going to be “What’s a grove?” You first question can wait.’
Are you reading my mind?
That might not be a stupid question, Spyder.
You are not supposed to give me more reasons to be paranoid! Are you reading my mind?
‘Why can it wait?’
He grinned. ‘We’re gonna defile a corpse.’
[table id=15 /]
ok much much creepier then the original.
I had originally wanted it to be creepier.
Stef’s line in the original about it getting up and running away? …I did a version of the scene where the corpse stood up, grinned, then ran away laughing. But I couldn’t find a way to justify it, so I changed it.
Now that I’m comfortable being elbow-deep in my own mythos, I figured I could make it creepier while having it be entirely justified. ^_^
I’m really liking all of these new scenes. It seems much more… together than the original. GJ!
Agreed, the prose is a lot tighter. I can’t wait to see this bundled and for sale!
…but it just finally feels “right”. Everyone is acting like they should (even if Ryan is warming up to Stef’s wibble a lot sooner) – I know it’s shitty that it’s taken this long to be able to come back and finally do it right, but *shrug* better late than never.
that really is, to me, the HUGE thing about online serializtion, or online instant publishing, as the buzzword is.
You’re putting a story up as you write it, and letting things evolve the way they normally do when a story gets written, but with that instant feedback. The classic method, cookie as it is would have been written, then a few people would read and edit and suggest, and you would do a full rewrite on the back end before submitting to a publisher. It all was in the background. This way, the reader gets to see more of the bones of the creation process, and I for one LOVE seeing the bones. its more vicseral, and watching the evolution of story is amazing to me.
…I couldn’t have written this story if I was just writing it, showing a couple of people, then doing another draft. Want to know how I know? I have eighteen versions of this story before we hit Mirrorfall V1.0 (the current being 2.0, and Kindle being 3.0).
It was never right, it was never good enough, the characters were flat and the world was crap. Part of this, obviously, was due to my inexperience as a writer, but a bigger part, I think, is because this is the kind of story that can’t evolve in a vacuum.
I was always scared about how people would react to certain elements of the story, or how the story played out, that it was too different to be something people could enjoy, so I stuck to safer tropes and character arcs.
Mirrorfall didn’t work until I threw out everything except a couple of characters and a couple of concepts. Then threw those in a blender and just let loose.
Do you think I had any idea what the fuck I was doing when I wrote Magnolia the first time? Merlin was supposed to be a one-time joke character. He’s now going to be instrumental in changing the world.
I wanted the main dynamic to be a parental one, but I was so worried that it wasn’t what people would expect that it took me ages to even drop hints. Now…now Stef and Ryan’s daddy/daughter relationship is the whole heart of the series and everything else stems from that.
What I think I’m saying is this: I couldn’t have written it alone.
I know I frustrate the hell out of you guys by throwing in cliffhangers, killing Stef on such a regular basis that we can set our clocks to it, or by ignoring characters we haven’t seen for ages, but none of this would exist without this fandom.
You guys let me know what works and what doesn’t, I’ve had moments I haven’t been sure about, and you’ve loved them or hated them, so I know at least, I’ve gotten a reaction.
Look at the URL of this comment, it’s 14,000-something. 14,000 freaking comments (ok, hundreds of spam messages in there, but that doesn’t matter). This of course takes into account forum messages, and a bunch of other things, but it’s still a huge number.
And every one means something to me.
Sometimes I don’t have the best reply, or something sounded wittier in my head, sometimes I just forget, or want to say something and just can’t figure out a reply. Comments aren’t just my crack, they’re my fuel for writing.
When I make someone sit up all night reading, or make someone cry or laugh, every time, I still sit back and think “holy fuck, stupid words I put on the internet had an impact on someone”.
…wow, this turned into a bigass reply. Sorry. I just want you guys to know I appreciate you.
When I make someone sit up all night reading, or make someone cry or laugh, every time, I still sit back and think “holy fuck, stupid words I put on the internet had an impact on someone”.
…wow, this turned into a bigass reply. Sorry. I just want you guys to know I appreciate you.
Hey that’s me just about every.single.chapter.! as i said before, it’s like with good music – it may just be stupid words and random notes, but it resonates with someone somewhere in this world of 6+billion people. probably quite a few. and a lot of times it’s a very helpful reminder that “other people feel like this too”. but it goes both ways. we the readers aren’t alone in our geekiness and wibbliness, and neither are you, the author. i KNOW i’m not the only person who has cried the first time listening to a new song by linkin park (repeatedly. there’s at least one song per album that makes me cry first time i hear it…) but that also means that mike and chester aren’t the only ones who feel that way.
also, we appreciate you too. or we wouldn bother commenting. 😛
Its my pleasure being a part of that. And really, thats whats going to destroy traditional publishing in the next 10 years, interactive storytelling.
…with the ability to get instant (or instant enough) feedback from an author. 😀
wasn’t the original a little later chronologically in the story. like not-even-first-week later?
Nope, not really.
Stef was only a recruit for about a week before the Mirror falls.
Going back and checking, it indeed wasn’t much later, if any (though it started more suddenly, leaving it somewhat open to interpretation how much time had passed).
However, it was much later in chapter number and in what happened between recruitment and this.
In this version, Spyder was made a recruit in chapter 16, in the old one in chapter 15. This sim happens in chapter 24 in this version, chapter 36 in the old one. That’s 8 vs 21 chapters apart.
Between then and now (warning: potential spoilers), in this version we’ve seen the cafe, the follow-up, and some basic Agency life, while the old version had Enid, a trip home, the ice cream thing, info about Astrin/Mela/Dajulveed, the Coda, an Astrin mission, the interrogation and aftermath…
Basically, a lot more action happened, which is probably why it felt like more time had passed in the old one. Much of that action was simply dropped from this version, for various reasons, while other parts I assume we simply haven’t gotten to yet.
Oh, and… I thought there would be more, but across those 22 chapters in the old version, only 3 cookies were required on-screen. In the new version, the count is 7 (or 8, depending on the answer to my question on chapter 17). This is only the on-screen ones, of course; there are hints that some might have been required off-screen.
(Yes, I’ve got counts for each chapter… I started counting when I noticed Stormy appears to have forgotten what she said on chapter 2. I haven’t posted them before because I kinda wanted to be exact when I did.)
…because I sat down and looked at how much was happening on each day.
I wanted the new Astrin stuff to happen on day one, cause it made sense for that to happen with the follow up. Now…if I sent her home that night, then all the rest of that stuff happens, and that just seemed like waaaaaay too much for a twenty-four hour time span, our dear little hacker’s brain can only handle so much after all.
So now, we have the action during the day, but then a calm night, which means she gets a chance to breathe (before spending six hours on TVtropes…).
Starting the morning with the sim then, makes sense, because she’s got no valid excuse for missing training, and it shows her at least trying to get into the routine of Agency life – and not getting along with the other Field recruits will lead her to go investigate the tech floor, where we get more fun.
Then (*skips off to check plan*)
Then this night is when the ice-cream/phoenix stuff happens. It also makes sense for the phoenixes to happen on the second night, being the night before the mirrorfall itself.
Oh, and… I thought there would be more, but across those 22 chapters in the old version, only 3 cookies were required on-screen.
That’s because in the days, it wasn’t as much of a meme as it is now – nowadays it’s pretty much a central concept of the series, and an integral part of the heart and the humour…before I realised that though, it was just something random and a bit cute.
(Yes, I’ve got counts for each chapter… I started counting when I noticed Stormy appears to have forgotten what she said on chapter 2. I haven’t posted them before because I kinda wanted to be exact when I did.)
I is a baaaad Stormy. -_-
Do you volunteer to be the official cookie counter? (And dead!Stef/naked people counter?).
I pretty much figured it was something like that – it does make more sense this way. I didn’t really notice it at the time (that I recall anyway), but quite a lot did happen basically all at once there.
I is a baaaad Stormy. -_-
Nooo… you have enough to do anyway. (And I really didn’t mean criticism by it, it was just an observation – it’d be pretty hypocritical of me to criticise others for forgetting things. 😛 )
Do you volunteer to be the official cookie counter? (And dead!Stef/naked people counter?).
Errr… ^_^’ I should have known better than to say anything. 😛 🙂
I suppose I can be capable of cookie counting chapters carefully, seeing as I’ve already gotten started, so I can try. I might end up forgetting the other things though…
(You know what? I think I’ll just say that I’m going to try, but I won’t promise anything. My memory is somewhat sieve-like, after all.)
“I’d wager most of them didn’t read Grey’s Anatomy at eight.”
Grey’s Anatomy: TV show.
Gray’s Anatomy: book.
“He legs started to hurt,” unless theirs a character named he legs, I think that should be her legs.
I’ll fix. 🙂