Young Writers Society

I have no major project in the works (after I decided The End of Time was in its current state beyond help...sigh), but I'm a firm believer in "write even when you don't feel like it," so shopping around for a project I came upon my Zenith Cycle from two years ago (some of the first novel is posted on this site, but is utter dreck so don't read). The entire six novel series has been in my head for a long, long time, and I plan on it being my magnum opus. I know I don't have the experience and skill to do it justice right now, but I've done a lot of plotting recently. And that includes writing snapshots/snippets of scenes I think I'd like to see in the books, regardless of chronological order.

This one thread I will continuously update with snippet-scenes, at least until my interest in the Zenith Cycle runs out. Therefore there will be no chronological order, though I'll try to give some (non-spoilery) context. By nature some scenes will spoil storyline elements, though I won't post any endings. There will be science fiction aspects as well as fantasy, somtimes one genre more than the other. Overall, I suppose the science fiction element is so soft (especially when the multiverse is concerned) that fantasy is the best overarching label.

The following snippet (whew, I'm done babbling) comes from the fifth book, Polaris. It would probably take place around the third or fourth chapter, very early in the novel.

--------------------------------------

Jim met Aline at the old intersection, which his grandparents continued to call Playhouse Place even though the last theater had shut down at least two decades before Jim had even been born. They still remained standing, crumbling stone buildings weeping cracked plaster embellishments, but the old days—his grandparents’ days, when couples would gather in a line snaking across the block, waiting for a chance to hear the sweeping arias of the most talented performers—had fled with the rest of the city’s former grandeur. Once Western City, when it was known as Imperial Mount, had been the center of the continent.

And now look, Jim thought, sweeping his eyes around the intersection. Taking in the little stalls and bodegas watched by rusted guardbots, clinging to the sides of the abandoned playhouses like barnacles on a ship. A couple of dirt-streaked children splashing in the dark puddles left by last night’s rain, their knees scraped from tripping over cracks in the asphalt. The few drug dealers and hookers beginning to creep out like worms after a rain, hesitant to leave the shadows while the bloody disk of the sun was still hanging low in the sky. Young men in hoodies and jeans tromping in aimless wavering lines across the intersection, swearing at hovercars that honked at them and making obscene gestures at the bodega guardbots that cocked their guns as the youths approached.

A typical scene on a given evening in the city. Where is your ‘glory born from progress’ now, New World Order?

The only bright spot in the entire sorry tableau was Aline, standing on the graffiti-streaked sidewalk across from Jim. She wore her trademark holey cardigan over a cotton summer dress, and a huge smile on her face.

“Jim!” she called when she saw him, hopping onto the balls of her feet and waving. “You’re finally here!”

“Finally?” Jim said, waiting for a hovercar to pass before crossing the street towards her. “I came just on time. Six PM you said, right?”

“But knowing you, you’d usually show up at six thirty,” she said.

“Aww, not my fault that old Barnett always makes us work overtime,” Jim said. “You’re lucky, working in the sewing machine factory—”

“I am not lucky at all,” Aline said, pulling a face. “All those girls, you wouldn’t know, all they do is yammer and gossip about whatever this celebrity’s doing with that other celebrity and who in the neighborhood is doing who and who has the best hair and best shoes. Honest, you’d think they’d have better things to talk about, and while they’re working, too!”

Jim smiled a little; he was used to Aline’s complaints about her coworkers, since she always swamped him with them every time they met after work. He supposed it was only fair given how often he ranted about Barnett to her.

As they made their way down the sidewalk, taking care to avoid the deepest cracks and widest puddles, the sun sank lower into the sky, until it was nothing but a dully glowing band on the horizon. They crossed a few more streets and took a few more turns, until the old intersection was a distant memory. The further they plunged into the narrow and winding streets of the inner city, the more visibly nervous Aline grew: her stream of silly coworker stories sputtered out and faded like a faucet being shut off, and she hunched her slender shoulders together. Jim sudden longed to hold her hand and reassure her everything would be all right.

There weren’t many people in the street anymore. Most of the men were putting forth a tremendous racket inside the cramped hot bars spilling lines of golden light onto the dark streets; occasionally one of the hulking bouncerbots guarding the bars would whirr onto the sidewalk, holding a noisy drunk by the armpits, and deposit him none-too-gently in a storm ditch. On the other side of town, the streets would be lit by the harsh neon blaze of nightclubs and the glowdye in the clubbers’ hair, and hookers would be parading the streets in their gutter finery, competing with rubbery-skinned sexbots for attention. Jim was more familiar with that side of town, having gone clubbing with the gang countless nights, though Aline never approved of their activities. Now, after his falling-out with Rob, he doubted even he approved anymore.

Still, this neighborhood was unfamiliar and Jim didn’t like it. He said in an undertone to Aline, “This is a bad idea.”

“Why’s that?” Aline said, suddenly defensive. “I’m telling you, Jim, he’s not some tricked-up street charlatan or anything. He’s the real deal—it’s real magic, I swear. Not holograms or sleights of hand or anything.”

“And if it is?” Jim said. “So what? How’s that gonna help us?”

“You heard what Mr. Byrne was saying at the meeting,” Aline said. “It’d be great if we had a mage—”

“That was just a hypothetical, or whatever it was he said. Not something to take seriously. And even if this guy really is a mage, he won’t be of any help. You know what they taught us in school. Magic is strongest in the East, so that’s why all the mages live there. The further they get the weaker they are. All this guy does, I bet, all he can do is make a buncha illusions and shit.”

“Jim, seriously!” Aline hissed. She paused beneath the dull neon glow of a café sign; under the faint lighting, Jim was surprised to see how her face had contorted in frustration. “Stop this! I—I just wanted to help, can’t you pound that into your skull? You made me join this—”

“I didn’t make you—”

“Yes, you did. Don’t even lie. The only reason I’m in Polaris in the first place, risking my ass and knowing full well just what the IB is gonna do to me when they find me, is because of you. I figure the least I can do is be useful here. I found us a guy who might help us. What’s so wrong with that?”

Jim wanted to snap back that she was blind if she couldn’t see what was wrong with it, but the look of fierce resolve on her face made him pause. He only ever saw that look when Aline was dead set about one of her plans. He couldn’t stop her now.

And he supposed it wouldn’t hurt to find more recruits. That was what Mr. Byrne had said—Polaris needed more members if it hoped to achieve any of its goals at all. Someone who might be a mage would be as good a start as any.

“I sure hope you know what you’re doing,” Jim said at length, turning away.

“I know,” Aline said. “He’ll help us. And he’s a kid, our age, so he’ll be easy to talk to.”

“Aline…” Jim groaned. “Do you actually know this guy?”

“Well, I saw him perform once, if you mean that—”

“You’ve never talked to him.”

“No, but—”

“Oh, come on! And you made me think that, I dunno, you were actually friends with him!”

“We will be.”

Again Aline spoke with that clear-headed certainty that Jim just couldn’t argue. She was so small and her eyes were lined and tired (Westerner eyes, Jim thought with wry sadness), but she stood ramrod straight and with her mouth pressed into a firm line of conviction. Who could argue with that?

As happened so often, seeing her like that made his heart ache all the more painfully, and all the more lovingly.

“Well, we’re here anyway, so might as well come in,” Aline said, snapping Jim out of his thoughts.

“What? Here?” Jim turned towards the small café in front of which they’d stopped. It looked identical to every other café lining its street; graying graffitied cinderblock front, dirt-smeared windows, a flickering neon sign above the door. A guardbot, more rust than robot, stood to the side of the door. It was so old that it didn’t even carry a gun, but rather crossed two sabers like a storybook warrior.

Marcio’s Place, the sign said. A family restaurant. At least the café would be relatively safe, Jim thought. Much safer than the clubs he frequented with Rob’s crowd, where the parties usually devolved into copbots racing in and beating rowdy clubbers with nightsticks, or else a full-on, drug-induced brawl.

Clubs? Jim thought with some level of derision. He didn’t need to wander the streets aimlessly during the night anymore, roving with a gang of equally aimless young men. He had a purpose now. A group to which he truly belonged. A reason to act and channel his rage into something constructive. Polaris.

“Yep, this is the place I’m sure,” Aline said, pointing to a fading poster masking-taped to the window. It seemed to have borne some kind of drawing at one point, but had faded in the subsequent soot and rain to the point of becoming a blur. If he leaned close, he could make out the largest block of text. Featuring the one and only, the magician extraordinaire, Vincenzo Romanski!

“That’s his name?” Jim said. Something about it tugged at him, but he was sure he’d never heard it before.

Aline didn’t speak; she’d already opened the door and was waiting expectantly for him to step inside. Flushing furiously, Jim followed her into the café. He should have held open the door for her, instead of the opposite way around…

The café was small and dimly lit by fading, cobwebbed light-strips inlaid in its low ceiling. Scattered around the scuffed linoleum floor were several forlorn round plastic tables and chairs that might have once been white, but had since faded into an unappealing yellowish color. The vinyl tablecloths were spotless and each place was laid out neatly, however; someone had even set a little vase of flowers in the center of each table. And Jim was pleased to see that he and Aline weren’t alone here—he’d have felt like a jerk if the only customers in a family café after sunset were two teenagers. A haggard young mother and her two children took a table in the far corner, and a fat man in a cardigan rattier than Aline’s had his feet propped up on the center table, a curl of smoke drifting from the pipe in his mouth.

And in the very front of the café was a raised area covered in a faded velvet carpet, which in the dim lighting Jim couldn’t tell if it was supposed to be dark purple or red. A stage. To accommodate the stage, the usual counter and cash register had been moved to the side, where it looked very squat and uncomfortable.

“Nice place,” Jim said in an undertone. Aline had already taken a seat at the table closest to the stage, and he quickly sat opposite her.

“Sir, madam.” The clanking of wheels and a clipped, metallic voice caught the teenagers’ attention. An ancient servebot came thundering up tracks laid in winding, maze-like patterns across the linoleum, swaying dangerously from side to side as it approached. Jim goggled at it. He had never seen a servebot than ran on tracks before; even in the West most servebots now employed magnetic hovering devices.

“Welcome to Marcio’s Place, the café of choice for families,” recited the servebot in a complete monotone. “May I be of service to you?”

Jim exchanged glances with Aline. He wasn’t used to servebots; most of his experience was with bartender androids shaped like attractive women, who never left their station behind the bar and spoke in dusky, seductive tones. Not to mention, he wasn’t sure if he wanted to actually order any food from this place. They had come here on a mission (it felt so very secret and official, thinking of it that way—a Polaris mission), and that mission was to get this mage Vincenzo Romanski to join their ranks, and that only.

“Sure…” Aline said. “I’ll get a coffee. One for him, too.”

“Anything to eat, sir, madam?” the servebot said.

“Umm, let’s get a chocolate bread. One for me and one for him,” Aline said. “And that’ll be all. Thank you.”

The servebot clicked in acknowledgment before thundering off.

Jim and Aline spent what felt like several hours, but was probably less than half an hour, sitting opposite each other and sipping at weak watery coffee and chewing on their half-stale chocolate breads. Neither spoke. Jim had never been more conscious of the sheer awkwardness of their situation. Here he was at the same table as a girl his age, facing her, and in a café to boot. Hell, they were even eating the same food! His nerves were wobbling like loose strings on a guitar. It didn’t work, telling himself that she was just Aline, just his best friend since they’d been babies. Everything was different now, because she was…Aline.

Thinking these thoughts only made him more embarrassed. Did his father, while on official Polaris missions, ever start thinking mushily about his wife? No. He was certain a Polaris member would be firm and focused solely on the mission at hand, restricting his thoughts of women to the kiss he would receive as a reward once he completed the mission successfully.

Whatever kind of mission this was, though, Jim thought, forcing himself to take another sip of the vile coffee. All they were doing was lazing around in a family café and waiting for some ridiculously-named stage magician to show up so they could recruit him. If he hadn’t felt like an idiot before, he certainly felt like one now. Worse, the servebot was clanking in the near distance, making it impossible for him to think clearly.

-------------------

The magician Vincenzo Romanski makes an appearance and does crazy magic in the next part.

Critique if you want to. I'm not terribly concerned about grammar as I am about the ideas and characters. Those will most likely stay constant and end up in the final product, seeing as in ten years I'll have scrapped every single snippet because my writing was so bad.