WIP Wednesday - PK 32 and Perfect Sleep

WIP Wednesday is back in full swing now that the chaotic phase of moving has for the most part passed. (I live in PDX proper now! Exciting!) Today I'm giving you a preview of this week's Peacock King Friday update, plus another taste of Perfect Sleep, my novel-in-progress.

Check out the previous WIP Wednesday blog for the first part of Perfect Sleep, which is the story of a psychic insomniac trying to get by in a dystopian future. Here's the next bit of it!

* * *

Home's not so much of a thing I want to describe. I sort of live in a box. You laugh, yes, but for me there's just no worth in buying anything better than a Cube in the low-rent district. I've got enough room to sit and play the vidyos. That's enough to get me by. I don't need stuff. Don't want to try affording it. And the last time I got a pet fish, it killed itself. Yes, I know - my life is so hard.

All I'm really doing is staring at the wall-cubby that is my fridge unit and food preparation center. It's pretty amazing how it knows what to heat and what to keep cool. Sort of like a thermos. Except you can't keep cool stuff and warm stuff in the same compartments. Also like a thermos. I decide soup is in order. Food I can drink.

The lazy du jour. I'm a bit less motivated than usual to work for my sustenance right now. Couldn't imagine why. Couldn't at all be because I'd set my hopes on a sure thing and now that's gone.

You see, nothing's in my future. I just live day to day. I give the think tank power over the raywire network sometimes, I unscramble codes sometimes. That gets me credit to get by on. I can do it all from home-Cube, though sometimes I take a neural hookup and do it all during a walk in the park. Keeps my legs healthy, but it's a damn good way to get jumped. What can a guy do, though? I've gotta light up sometime.

Anyway, I'm not even looking forward to lighting up now. Reverie hit me that hard. What do I have to look forward to now? That girl's not gonna call me. I'm a rumpled-up nobody. Nobody wants me, not even other nobodies. The only people that would ever want a sod like me were, I thought, in the Reverie building.

They sent out fliers and ads, put out posts across the raywire. I know they're looking for our kind, I just know it. Looking for us special sorts that are always twitchy, can't stop our minds from wanting something, can't calm down long enough to catch a nap's worth of winks. We walk it off, most of us. Lighting up helps a lot. Vidyos are almost like sleep, you zone out enough in the right one and you might as well be counting those mythical sheep everybody else keeps talking about. But it's not enough. There's never any... well, literally there's never any rest for us!

And I know it's just not me, that there's others like me who can't sleep because their minds are moving like fucking lightning. I know because I can tell they see things too, hear things--

This is useluss. I could at least be racking up points in Zombie Rancheros. Five more sessions and I can buy a new raywire avatar hat. It's a pretty cool sombrero, and I've been aching for some respectable headwear. Attracts the ladies.

Three sessions in, there's an odd buzzing in-game. I ignore it, figure it's just some glitch. I tighten my knees around the horse I'm riding and urge it forward, pistols waving above my head. We charge over grasslands. There's another one now - one of them zombies has gotten out. Ha! I pick off the sucker.

Zombie Ranchero's an excellent game. Here's the plot: you're a zombie rancher. Not a rancher who's a zombie, but a rancher of zombies. Occasionally one of your shamblers gets out of the corral and you have to pick it off before it infects all of humanity as we know it with a flesh-eating virus of decay.

No, I don't know why you're ranching zombies at all, but they keep saying they'll install the backstory in a memory patch one day soon. Right now, I still am drawing a blank on it, though. Fucking developers and their empty promises.

My horse snorts and flicks its tail to brush off a fly. I can't blame that fly for hanging out - we sure smell like a bunch of rotting meat here. Comes with the 'cattle'. Still, there's more buzzing I hear. What the heck is that, anyway?

Oh, the fob in my pocket, it's--

My brain crashes as the self that's riding a horse over green pastures and the self that's sitting in my Cube in front of the vidyo terminal can't resolve. I mentally roll my eyes through the jumble of thought conflicts and give my brain a hard boot. Always happens. I never expect a call and I never turn the damn fob to silent. Damnit, I hate hard boots. It only takes a couple moments, but whenever I wake up I'm cold, there's a fuzzy wool taste in my mouth, and I have morning wood like you wouldn't believe.

Fob's still buzzing. I roll over, groan, and answer the call without checking the ID on it.

"Hullo?"

"...This is Milieu Ashling." The very end of the sentence lilts up like the barest hint of a question. I smile. Still unsure of what she's doing, even when she has my biz? Or maybe suspicious. I think she's a smart girl.

"Yeah," I say, "this is Kenneth." Man, I feel so relieved that she actually called. Didn't even know I was tensing up about it. We only knew each other for like, a minute. I don't get hung up on people that quick usually - don't tend to bother getting hung up at all.

"Oh, good," she says. She sounds a little weird, like she's trying to measure her words. "Look, can I send you a Courier? I'm sorry I waited on it. Was too relieved that I got into the program to think clear, I guess." She pauses. "You can email me. Whatever you like. I've got to go soon." Another pause. She sounds almost dazed. "The... thing, it's going really well. Better than I imagined." At that last part, some happiness creeps out. It sounds genuine.

"Great," I say, "glad to hear it." Hm. I wonder if she's not allowed to talk about it. We did sign all those forms, and I didn't read everything on 'em. Or maybe she's calling from their office.

"Yeah, us types know how hard it is to catch some sleep." That relief is oozing through again. "Look, maybe we can go... watch a vidyo or something out in one of the multiplexes. Maybe a private booth or something. You know." She giggles. "I think I'd like that. Why don't you email me? We can plan something out. I've got to go." And before I can reply, there's a beep signaling the end of the call. Then, the silence of my cube.

Huh. Did she just ask me out on a date? That's weird. And well, wouldn't you know - a soft glow from my fob and the message on the readout indicates that she has, in fact, sent me a Courier. A one-way link to send her email, without any hints as to where the transmissions go to. I think of them as condoms for email. Still, it means I can talk to her at any time now.

I know I should sound excited and all, but I just met this girl, she sounded pretty weird on the phone, and well... huh.

I just don't know. I look down at the fob. I could message her now, start setting things up.

I want to think about it first.

* * *

Next bit goes up next Wednesday. I won't post too much more of this to the internet since I'll be sending it to agents, but I wanted to give my current reading audience a taste. Anyone who wants to beta read the whole novel is welcome to contact me in the comments, though!

Without further ado, here's your taste of the next chunk of Peacock King!

* * *
Stevane
* * *

"What was my sister like?" It's a natural question. Strangely, brandishing weapons at Calyx while asking it makes it even more so.

He's rummaging through drawers of paper and references, digging through documents that are who knows how old. He seems rather nonchalant about the whole weapons-brandishing thng, but then his line of work probably makes that normal. "Just as pretty and dangerous as you. Xen really did give me a scare. For a moment, I thought he knnew she was still alive." He produces a compass out of all that mess, then places that with the quill and paper he gathered up. He's been adding things to the map already, but he wanted to keep things accurate. Already I'm impressed by how much he's marked on that thing... and curious as to how true it all is.

"Oh?"

"I'm the only one who knew. Everyone else where she's been holed up all this time has no clue as to her true identity. I agreed to sneak her out - she was very convincing about things, you see." He squints at his work, contemplates, then begins to fill out another section of the map. "Sneaky girl. She didn't warn me she wanted a baby."

He sort of ducks then, which shows he has good instincts - if I were my Father, I would have struck.

"Well, a lot of babies, but that first one was the big surprise. I couldn't let Xen have her then, of course. I got protective. I still to this day haven't gotten out of her whether she used that as her escape, or she really did want a child by me. My hunch is a little of both, but still, I wonder where the weight swings? She was a cunning girl. She was playing the role of an Armed who'd defected from Radia, joining our side, aiding Xen's research... then she seduces me, and then suddenly I've got a son on the way, and a lot more of my life determined for me than I ever thought. So we figured out that a place out in Radia would be best - she'd never fit in properly over here out on her own. That flaming red hair, that bearing of hers... not Audivan at all. She was more restrained than you, more willing to play Xen's games than be defiant towards him. Possibly it's what pissed him off so much about you, but well... who really knew, with him? He was just a real prick."

I want to sit down, because this is a lot all at once. I've got to stay on guard and alert, though, if only to make sure Daddy doesn't overhear any of this right now and come kill Calyx this moment. Because I am starting to like Calyx, in that would-still-set-his-head-on-fire-but-maybe-not-kill-him sort of way. "When did you know she wasn't a defector?"

He chuckles - not a sound I like, because it's foreboding something else I won't like. "Who knows if she really is, is the question? I could never really tell. Her loyalty is certainly, if it's anywhere, placed with the family she started with me. Beyond that, how can I know her mind? She's a woman, and a crazy woman, and a crazy red-haired woman. I don't even know what got into me... though I certainly know what got into her..." he grins as he writes. Then he pales a bit as the tip of a blade pricks the back of his neck.

"I certainly know what could get into you." The words are leaden and utterly serious.

"Pardon," he says, and that's enough for both of us. Crisanto and I back off, and he goes back to his map-drawing. It's quiet, for awhile.

* * *

That's it for today! Come back on Friday for the rest of the Peacock King chapter, and next Wednesday there'll be more WIP. Let me know if there's anything in particular you want a glimpse of - I may be able to oblige you!