Avy pushed the door open silently and blew out a breath of relief. She had gotten past security and into the warehouse. From now on it would be a breeze. She could run in, get the blue prints, and get out without getting caught. She slipped her ear piece in and started listening.
“Okay Avy, you’re going to have to be in and out. This is a three minute job. Guards rotate patrol between here and the courtyard every three minutes.” Gerald’s voice came through the small ear piece. Avy said nothing in return but started running. Her footsteps fell silent despite the length of her stride and speed, another subconscious result of her extensive training. Gerald’s voice came again. “Watch out for the lasers. You might have to get up high to avoid them.” About halfway into the warehouse, thin red lasers blocked multiple aisles and covered the floor in a grid-like pattern. Avy braced herself and jumped, soaring above the lasers. She landed on a table with a dull thud. She used the added height of the table to jump onto a large pile of unshipped cargo. From there she could see the back wall, where the safe was supposedly hidden.
“Almost there.” She whispered into her ear piece. She slid down the side of the cargo stopping about three feet from the ground she braced herself to jump over the last few lasers. She pushed off and tucked into a tight ball as she flipped over the remaining lasers. A short sprint later, and she was at the back wall. Most of it was covered in cargo, but there was a small empty portion near the corner. “Gerald, I see the blank space but there isn’t a safe. I think it might be in the wall. Could it be behind a panel?” She whispered to him.
“It’s possible. Check for any hollowness or loose backboards.” Gerald instructed. I know… Avy thought sarcastically. She may have been only nineteen, but she knew how to do her job. She slid her hands along the wall, silently listening for any hollowness and feeling for the slightest wiggle. She grabbed the end of the panel, which had been slightly bent. It slid easily away from the wall and Avy smiled to herself. The safe was gleaming silver, and didn’t look traditional. Avy pressed a small button in the corner and a small square of it lit to life. A small set of unusual letters glowed on the safe. A puzzle. Avy slipped out her ear piece and began pressing the symbols, which began to form a shape. Soon a small 2D feather glowed on the screen and the safe hissed open. Avy reached inside and pulled out a tube of papers. They were the blue prints, alright. This technology could be revolutionary, and now, it was in Avy’s hands.
Suddenly, a single light flicked on. It caused a pale yellow light to spread through some of the large warehouse. Avy slipped in her ear piece and flipped around, her long hair whipping her as she did. A tall young man stood by a table, staring at her with his arms crossed. His raven hair was perfectly smooth, and his green eyes pierced Avy. She knew him. She couldn’t help but remember.
“Honey,” Avy’s mom said, walking into the kitchen where the five year old was coloring, “This is Mr. and Mrs. Sharp. They’re friends of Daddy and mine. Say hello.” The little girl looked up, her pig tails bouncing.
“Hi!” She said excitedly, before turning back to her picture.
“Avyanna, this is Keagan.” Avy stared at the fourteen year old boy. He waved at her and smiled. She waved back.
“Hi Avyanna.” Keagan said. He sat at the table with her, “Boy, what a pretty picture. What are you coloring?” Avy smiled shyly at the boy.
“It’s me and Libby.” Avy said. She continued to color.
“Libby is her imaginary friend. She doesn’t get to play with other kids very often.” Avy’s mother explained. Keagan nodded slowly.
“Avyanna, why don’t you play outside for a little while?” Avy’s father walked into the kitchen and lifted the little girl out of the seat. “We have grown up this to talk about.”
“Otay daddy. Keagan, come play outside with me!” She grabbed the boy’s hand and they walked outside.
“Keagan.” She whispered softly, bringing herself back to the present. She hadn’t seen him for almost four years. She couldn’t remember why he had left her then. She rose to her feet and ran into his arms. She latched onto his neck and he welcomed her readily.
“Avy.” He said.
“I thought I’d never see you again” She whispered as she tightened her hold around him. “I thought for sure you had gone.” She laughed as a tear rolled down her cheek. It slid from her cheek to Keagan’s and he smiled.
“Of course not. Chicago is my home too.” He loosened his hold on her and held her at arm’s length. “How long has it been? Three years?”
“It’s actually been four…” Avy said softly, “Where have you been?” She couldn’t help the hurt showing in her voice.
“I’m sorry. It’s been much too long.” Keagan said, dropping his arms and looking down for a moment, but then looking Avy up and down. “Wow. You really grew up didn’t you?” He laughed a bit and wore a quirky smile and Avy felt a blush stain her cheeks. Keagan grew serious after a moment, looking concerned. “What are you doing here, of all places?” He stared into her eyes for a moment and she couldn’t answer. She could hardly think straight. He looked at what was in her hand and the crest on the sleeve of her thin, skin tight jacket and shook his head and his hands went to his pockets. “You’re still with FALL, then.” It wasn’t a question. Avy nodded. FALL was the agency Avy worked for. It stood for Fight against Losing Liberty. Its name had a clear meaning, but the acronym was misleading. As was the case for their enemy corporation, TRUST.
“I didn’t really have any other options.” She admitted. She looked down, embarrassed that it was her only option since she was alone.
“And I see that they haven’t changed at all.” Kean growled, “Sending they’re youngest and most talented spy for petty theft jobs.”
“I actually asked for this mission.” She said, blushing again. She needed a reason to get away from HQ. She was glad she had, too.
“That really is a shame…” He said, looking around, “Where’s your partner?”
“I don’t have one.” She answered easily, “Never wanted one.” The loneliness showed in her eyes. Keagan pulled her to his side and draped an arm around her.
“So the old man just let you do that?” Keagan raised an eyebrow at her, trying to lighten her mood. The old man he was referring to was Chief. He was usually a stickler for rules and regulations. His word was law to most. Avy and he had an unspoken agreement. If she can get the job done she can do it however she wants. No rules really applied to her.
“Chief doesn’t like it, but if I can get the job done, he won’t stick me with anyone.” Avy replied. Keagan nodded and he seemed impressed with Avy. She felt butterflies in her stomach. “But I might be on probation if I don’t leave right now.” She forced herself to step away from Keagan even though she enjoyed how close they had been.
“I can’t let you leave, Avy,” Keagan said; a pained look on his face, “Especially not with those.” He gestured to the papers in her hand. She pulled them to her chest defensively. She couldn’t let these go, no matter what.
She saw the look on his face. He was glaring. Why was he glaring at her? “Why do you need the blue prints?” She asked cautiously.
“Well, you see… They’re mine.” He said with a crooked grin. It would have been attractive, except the way he wore it, it was menacing. “I kind of drew them.” Avy looked at the papers in her hand and unrolled them. Sure enough, there was Keagan’s small signature in the corner, claiming them as his.
"Did TRUST steal these from you? Is that why you're here?" Avy asked slowly. She hated thinking about the many possibilities why he made the blueprints.
"Not exactly." He said with an evil grin. Avy stepped back and shook her head. Keagan was with TRUST? Impossible. He would never do that! Would he? Avy shook her head as if to clear it.
"You work for TRUST?" She asked. She stared at the ceiling studying the vent above a tall Tower of large boxes. She didn't know what to do. Suddenly, she tensed. She couldn't do this. She had to take the blueprints, no matter what. As Keagan slowly nodded in reply to her question, Avy began backing up and tightening the blueprints so they would slip up her sleeve.
"Avy, be careful. Don't make me your enemy." Keagan warned. He took a step towards her.
"You already were." She said in her own menacing voice.
“Avy, I don’t want this to get ugly. Give me the blueprints.” Keagan held his hand out, an order to give him the rolled up papers. Avy’s throat tightened as she shook her head vigorously. “Please, Avy, I don’t want to hurt you.” His voice changed from demanding to pleading, soft and full of emotion.
“I’d get hurt either way.” She whispered. She continued to back up, slowly, deliberately.
“You’ll regret what happens if you take those, Avy.” Keagan threatened. His face looked stern and unforgiving, but his eyes were soft. Avy hated herself for doing this to him. His voice caused her to shake.
“I’m sorry, Keagan. But this business gets ugly if you don’t deliver.” She took off running and jumped onto a shipment of cargo. She ran across the top of it and jumped to another. Keagan was already yelling and chasing her from the ground. It became obvious that he couldn't jump high enough to climb the boxes. Avy stood under the vent and pulled out what seemed to be a laser pointer. She began cutting the vent cover out of the ceiling. She finished as guards began climbing the boxes she was on. She smiled to herself. They were too bulky to fit on the small opening. Avy pulled herself up, not even wincing as she cut her arm as she brushed against a ragged piece of metal. Soon she was in the vent, crawling away to freedom. Or in this case, a helicopter on the roof.
End of chapter
Continue to next chapter FALL - Chapter Two - BurdenedPoints:
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139,404 Literary Works • 672,552 Reviews
Heya, Eevee! Cassy here to review some more! No even half way done, barely a third of the way done, but oh well. Let's get to the review!
The first thing I want to talk about is the length of the chapter. It's rather long. I mean, it is the same length as one of your short stories. Now, it isn't bad to have long chapters. But, it seems like you could've broken this up into two chapters and not have it hurt anything. Also, there's one part, in my opinion, where you could have used it as the prologue.
It would be an extremely short prologue, but would really cut down on the length of this. Kinda evening it out, so to speak. But that's just my take on it. You could even do a,"She remembered him," part, from three years ago. More dramatic that way. I mean, I am a fan of flashbacks. But ones this long put me off, since I have attention issues. But that's preference, there's nothing actually wrong with this.
The next thing is something I've said in a lot of my reviews. Dialogue. Now, a lot of dialogue is good for a play. But it takes away from the novel when you're letting the story mainly unravel through dialogue and flashbacks. I say cut down the dialogue a bit, but I'm mainly always going to say this.
I say don't capitalize trust, instead put an exclamation point with the question mark. Neater, and not as hard on eyes that hurt like mine. Caps are sometimes good, but when they can be avoided I say do so. I mean, I'm one to use a lot of caps if I'm talking to someone. But emotion isn't really portrayed through caps. But, it's your decision.
I'm guessing you meant,"in," right here. On doesn't make much sense.
In total this really grabbed my attention besides the length of the flashback and the dialogue. When I reread I focused on the important dialogue, where it made sense to have it and I also focused on your detailing of actions and the scenes. Over all it did draw me in, and I think your plot is good.
I hope this helped.
Keep on doing what you're doing, and keep on keeping on.
Your friend, Cassy.
I was hooked.
I love it, I'm going on straight to read more!
You had great visionary descriptions and I love the skin tight jacket.
I cant wait to start learning more about what TRUST and FALL and more about the outside society surrounding them; Is this set in the future?
When she sees Keagan again maybe instead of saying:
"His raven hair was perfectly smooth, and his green eyes pierced Avy."
Maybe change it to 'His raven hair was just has I remembered; perfectly smooth, his green eyes piercing my own as if he could see into the very depth of my soul.'
I can see that she used to have a crush on him and hope we see more of them; perhaps being forced to work with each other in the interest of both company's?
I'm fully addicted and can wait for things to heat up between the pair.
Hello, Rae! This is...er, Raye...reporting for reviewing duty!
And no one saw or heard this at all? And she managed to clear all the lasers in a single bound? I'm suspending my disbelief for a minute here, for the sake of the story, but I'm still left questioning if there aren't security cameras in this place. If they have guards and lasers on something, and it's kept in a high-security safe, and they don't have security cameras? Then these are the dumbest people ever.To start with, the first thing that catches my eye about this chapter is—well, its lack of eye-catching ability.
Let me explain myself: I'm sure you've heard of a literary device called a "hook" before. It's usually present in the first few sentences or paragraphs of a story, to catch the reader's eye and draw them into the story, as well as revealing something of the character, setting, voice, or plot.
A good hook doesn't need all four, but it needs at least one. Out of your first few paragraphs here, we get a lot of plot, but we don't know who Avy is, and as a result, we don't know why we should care about your character. Your first paragraph isn't really eye-catching except for making me ask why she's after blueprints, and your second paragraph feels like a dramatic "As You Know, Bob" conversation to fill the reader in, rather than something practical.
If your character is some sort of spy, why wouldn't she be debriefed on the security before she went on the mission? It's extremely dangerous for them to send her into unfamiliar territory and only when she gets inside the building—when they might not even know if she can get reception inside, since there might be a jammer or something the sort in there—tell her about the security measures. Wouldn't that be something they tell her before she goes on the mission, so she doesn't screw up three seconds in and be caught by the guards or lasers? If she didn't know the guards rotated patrols, how would she know when or where to enter the building?
If your character has been trained extensively, then instead of telling us "her footsteps fell silently...[because] of her extensive training", tell us what she's doing to make them fall silently. She should be thinking about what she's doing—making sure to land on her toes, shifting her weight so it's lighter on the leg she's landing on, whatever—instead of the narrator informing the audience "it was subconscious", because unless she's been doing it for literally her entire life, it wouldn't be second nature. If she has been doing this for her entire life, then you don't need to mention the extensive training—the reader will assume it's second nature if you just say "her footsteps fell silently".
A general rule of thumb is that if it's subconscious, the narrator doesn't need to tell the reader that it's subconscious. By making a note of it, it's bringing it to the forefront of the reader's mind—and because we're in third person, it's also bringing it to the forefront of the character's narration, which means they're very much aware of it and it's not subconscious at all.
Also, way to go with the action-movie choreography, as I read on. Why does she need to do flips? There's really no point, and it's simply exhausting her physical energy—a real thief (and she's not a spy if she's stealing something; she's a thief) would find the most energy-economical way to get over them, unless she had someone she was trying to impress. Seeing as she's alone, the only person she's impressing is the guy watching the security cameras, who's about to call for guards to rush and incapacitate the girl doing mid-air somersaults in a heavily-guarded area.
Moving on—why does she need to take out her earpiece to solve the puzzle? I would understand it if Gerald was being annoying and insisting on taking over, but he's been relatively silent this whole time, even as she does useless acrobatics. Does she have the code memorized? That seems rather useless, as that takes up focus and brainspace that could be saved simply by having Gerald read it out to her from his end.
Ah, another main character. I can tell from the "raven hair" and piercing eyes—in all honesty, if she was just seeing this guy and she was shocked, why would she (or the narrator) be describing him like that? Why wouldn't it be something more like "A black-haired man stared at her, and she knew she'd been caught out—she had to get out of there, fast"? The narration doesn't convey any shock or surprise at all.
And, of course, we go into a flashback. To be honest, I skimmed most of the chapter from this point on—I went back and reread it once I reached the end, and the effect was largely the same. Shock and horror, the new main character is one of the "bad guys", someone Avy knew as a child, same song, different chorus.
Actually, I feel the need to tell you that this plot development has left me feeling cheated of a good story. What could have been interesting has been turned into another James-Bond-esque movie plot, except set as a YA romance trope-filled jaunt through spy-ville. While I think the ideas you have here can be used in really good and interesting ways, you just played them straight—main character is stealing something, gets caught by someone they knew as a kid, romantic attraction, he's with the bad guys. I've read it a thousand times, and while cliché can be used and reused and still done well, this is just...flat.
I don't think the story is bad, I just think it's uninteresting and could use some serious love and elbow grease as far as the plot and characters go. The first chapter has totally lost me, and this is where you have to fight to keep your readers—if I find the first chapter this mundane, recycled, and boring, what incentive do I have to read the rest?
Overall, I don't think I'd be reading any more of this novel if I picked it up in a bookstore. I'd set it down and go "ah, well, another good idea wasted". Here? I can encourage you to keep trying to revise this and get better—please, do, just don't fall into the pit of endless clichés without adding your own twist to them. I get no sense of your voice through this work, no sense of what you're trying to accomplish as a writer, and that is ultimately what kills this piece.
Keep writing, and I hope to see more from you in the future.
Wow. I think this is the best review I've ever gotten. I totally see what you're saying. I'd love to hear you're opinion on what I can do to fix this, because honestly, I'm not the sort of person to write action so I don't know what to do to twist this into something good. I'm really strongly fighting the urge to say "oh if you read the rest of this, you'd be surprised" But I know you're right. You wouldn't read the rest of it, because this is flat. To be honest, this review knocked me flat and I have no idea where to go with this.
Overall, thank you, because I've had several people read this and no one has said anything except "oh its good". I couldn't figure out what made them seem so bored. I hope you'll read this after I try to fix it. Thanks again.
It's no problem! I always love trying to help people, and I'm glad you found my review so useful!
I'll be glad to keep reading this, knowing that you're trying to fix and revise it%u2014trust me, I know this kind of story. I mean, I WROTE a lot of stories like this. It took me a lot to snap out of that.
If you'd like, I can beta-read (edit and discuss with you) your chapters, maybe through Google Docs if you're okay with that?
Thanks for the offer! But I probably shouldn't due to privacy reasons. I really appreciate what you said, and maybe you could send me a message with any ideas you have. I'm going to edit this and maybe you could tell me if you think its better? Thanks and sorry
It's totally fine; I understand that privacy is an issue, especially on a global site like YWS. I'll gladly keep up with this as you edit, though!
There are some grammar problems but over all it's a great story. The foundation you build in you first chapter has to be strong enough to support the rest of your story. I think your first chapter is very strong and the story that will enfold with will great. Don't stop writing! Also please notify me when you publish chapter 2
I love the story. You have a great plot going there. Keep it up!