z

Young Writers Society


12+

Survival: The Escape, Chapter 3.6

by KateHardy


The three of them made their way towards Mrs. Kane's room. It was a little bigger than what the two of them head, but by design it was identical. A circular room with a single door set into the drab reinforced concrete walls. There were now windows, and just one singular light at the center to provide all the light.

Directly below the light was the bed, a flat metal sheet raised about a foot off the ground on thin legs. The room was essentially devoid of furniture besides that, the only other thing being a small metal cupboard set into the wall and filled with the few clothes they were allowed to wear. On top of the cupboard lay the few extra possessions that Mrs. Kane owned.

The three of them made their way to the bed in the center and sat down, Aria and Harry settling down on either side of their mother.

"So where do we begin?" said Mrs. Kane, "I suppose I'll tell you about the operation first. So as you guys it was called Trash Dive, which is a pretty accurate and self explanatory name."

"You sent people to dive into the trash chute?" asked Harry.

"Well, in a way yes, but not just into it, as you two should know, the trash chutes either send things off to recycling or instantly incinerate the things you throw in. Besides, I'm not talking about the regular trash chutes anyway, those just contain our junk, we wanted to get our hands on their junk, and around the beginning of last year, we found out where that went," said Mrs. Kane.

"How?" asked Harry.

"That's not an explanation for tonight," said Mrs. Kane," I'm telling you the short version here, ask me about that some other time. Essentially the alien's trash was connected to our own, just quite deep down at a point they thought we'd never get to, but we managed to tunnel in and sneak three people into the alien's recyclable trash."

"Soo.." began Harry, but Mrs. Kane held up a hand.

"Wait a minute, lemme finish Harry, I'm getting to the part you want to know," said Mrs. Kane,"so, we got people into it because we wanted to salvage some pieces of the alien's equipment."

"And you found a drone?" asked Harry.

"No, Harry, of course not, it was the trash, we gathered pieces to use for the drone, mostly just a frame and power. And a camera. We couldn't do too much else. That's one reason we can't truly explore everywhere in safety, the drone is basically a robot that needs to be programmed beforehand, we couldn't find the parts needed for a remote, or even a stabilization system for the camera, hence all the ridiculous shaking."

"Well it is impressive for what it is," said Aria, shaking her head. She hadn't imagine there could be any more surprises left in the day. To think that the device that managed to do the impossible was essentially a mashup of pieces from the trash.

"Yup, its built on a very simple concept, and I think this is what you two really want to know," said Mrs. Kane,  "so, this was actually an idea brought up by Frederick Myers way back in the day, one that Alex improved upon and perfected. I won't go into too much detail, but the gist is that Fredrick hypothesized that the laser system worked based on identifying certain materials, more specifically it would vaporize all organic matter and any materials that were not in the current alien tech. He thought the fact that some of our technology from the 22nd century and beyond had some materials in common with the alien tech supported this theory because as you guys know, we only get 21st century or earlier tech to work with in our tasks. He believed this was because the laser system was programmed that way."

Harry gasped. "So that's how."

"Huh?" said Aria, still confused.

"I think Harry is onto something," said Mrs. Kane, "so yeah while Frederick back in the 2140's had no way of acquiring alien material, we did with the discovery of the trash chute so Mr. Summers managed to come up with a plan to build a robot of some kind using possible items found in the trash and well, as they say, the rest is history."

"Ohh," said Aria, nodding along. "That is a lot."

"Yeah, well, time for bed then, you two, you've got a job to do," said Mrs. Kane, standing up.


Note: You are not logged in, but you can still leave a comment or review. Before it shows up, a moderator will need to approve your comment (this is only a safeguard against spambots). Leave your email if you would like to be notified when your message is approved.







Is this a review?


  

Comments



User avatar
178 Reviews


Points: 34
Reviews: 178

Donate
Sat Sep 25, 2021 6:35 pm
View Likes
MaybeAndrew wrote a review...



Andrew here for a review!
Overall, this chapter gives us a bit of info, and is relatively well built. Honestly, sometimes these chapter chunks are so short I don't have to much to say that I haven't already said in other chapters.

"No, Harry, of course not, it was the trash, we gathered pieces to use for the drone, mostly just a frame and power.

poor harry, XD.
Okay, my biggest complaint with this chapter is it feels more like watching a scene than reading a book, I want more inside the characters, their feelings, described with metaphore and sensation, as well as just verbal thoughts.
But that's all just my two cents, hope it helped!
Andrew




KateHardy says...


Thank youu for the review!!

Hmm...this part is practically a info dump...its hanging by a thread there...so that's the nice way of putting it :D I'll look to add more thoughts, but hmm, feelings are a bit tougher. You gotta know how to put your own feelings into words before making characters have them..xD



User avatar
701 Reviews


Points: 49988
Reviews: 701

Donate
Mon Sep 06, 2021 4:49 am
ForeverYoung299 wrote a review...



Hey! Forever here with a review:

The three of them made their way towards Mrs. Kane's room. It was a little bigger than what the two of them head, but by design it was identical.

Aria seems to be a bit too excited that she has put an 'e' in had.

"I think Harry is onto something," said Mrs. Kane, "so yeah while Frederick back in the 2140's had no way of acquiring alien material, we did with the discovery of the trash chute so Mr. Summers managed to come up with a plan to build a robot of some kind using possible items found in the trash and well, as they say, the rest is history."

This sentence needs a break. It feels kind of a run-on one.

"Well, in a way yes, but not just into it, as you two should know, the trash chutes either send things off to recycling or instantly incinerate the things you throw in.

This seems to be quite interesting but I am a bit confused. How did the humans survive there without having any effect on them? It either incinerate or recycle. As the humans survived, I can assume it didn't incinerate them but what really happened to them? Were they sent to the place where everything was being recycled and got those things? Seems so. The description was actually a kind of gist and not what can be called very clear. Maybe we will get more descriptions in the future chapters.

So here we got the answer to the question how that drone survived. And also it seems like the footage was taken much later. I am confused about when it was exactly taken. Anyway, that was quite a revelation there. If they get hold of some more things of 22nd century, it will ease their process. But still we don't know about how much the Aliens have discovered. I can just sit here and hope they don't have spies and they haven't discovered much.

Something more which I wonder about is the independence of the humans. As you told, "now there were windows" it makes me think that they weren't there and have been installed recently. If so and if that is a sign of something good, I can assume that their independence has increased by at least a bit than before and that in turn makes me wonder about the reason behind this.

I suppose the job is with that door. It was quite a good ending to the chapter. It literally had 6 parts XD

Keep Writing!

~Forever




KateHardy says...


Thank youu for the reviews!!!

Hmm...you'll certainly see the recycling system sometime later...but umm here they actually tunneled into it from a different point through the part for recycling, you can survive that if you do a few things...uhh, this isn't something that comes up again in the story though, so if you want a better explanation, lemme know and I'll go look through my worldbuilding notes..xD

Also whoops that's supposed to be "no windows" not "now windows"...xD

Also heh...I think pretty much all of my chapters are around 3000 words, so they have about five parts. A few of them will be shorter than that I promise...and some will be longer, like this one was. :D





Also whoops that's supposed to be "no windows" not "now windows"...xD

Independence curtailed... O humans, I feel sad for you...



KateHardy says...


Don't worry, once you get far enough into the book, you'll start feeling sorry for the aliens ;)





I had a theory about that too. I wrote it in one of your chapters.I have forgotten in now tho



KateHardy says...


Oooh I remember



User avatar
1232 Reviews


Points: 0
Reviews: 1232

Donate
Sat Sep 04, 2021 10:19 am
View Likes
MailicedeNamedy wrote a review...



Hi HarryHardy,

Mailice back with another review! :D

Good thing I read this part right after 3.5. It was worth waiting a little while.

I was very pleased to read that the dialogue here took on a more relaxed tone compared to the meeting, where it seemed more professional. I think that's also because you're in a family environment and the mother is explaining things. I really liked the fact that Mrs. Kane was constantly interrupted by Harry and felt it was a great representation of his curious character.

Though again, I didn't think Aria came into focus a bit more until the end, and think it would be useful if you tried, even when she's in a kind of "idle" state, to portray or mention her so that people know that she's still currently the narrator, though.

I think we have received some interesting information here that will complement the info at the meeting. I especially liked the fact that some more specific questions were not answered, where Harry interrupted his mother. I welcome this indirect character portrayal. :D

Some other points that caught my eye:

but by design it was identical.

I don't know if this is a certain kind of stylistic device, but I like the way you write the sentence here.

cupboard set into the wall and filled with the few clothes they were allowed to wear. On top of the cupboard lay the few extra possessions that Mrs. Kane owned.

You can write in the second sentence “on top of it”

So as you guys it was called Trash Dive, which is a pretty accurate and self explanatory name."

I suppose here is a as you guys “know” missing.

Frederick Myers

I have so many names from so many different stories in my head, that I don´t know anymore, if this Frederick was already mentioned in your story, so I´m going to ask, is his name written correctly? Isn´t there an “e” missing in “Myers?

Have fun writing!

Mailice




KateHardy says...


Thank youu for the review!!!

I feel you on that one, when you review too many stories at once...yoou can never keep the side characters straight....hmm Frederick isn't mentioned before, in fact I think he's a one time mention...he's someone who's dead at this point. :D

Also umm...well Idk, I kind of randomly came up with that name....perhaps only Fredrick himself knows how its actually spelt. ;)



User avatar
659 Reviews


Points: 82352
Reviews: 659

Donate
Sat Sep 04, 2021 7:45 am
View Likes
RandomTalks wrote a review...



Hey Harry!

RandomTalks here with a review!

So we have finally reached the end of chapter 3? It is hard to tell sometimes!

This part was relatively shorter than the previous ones, so I feel like there isn't going to be much to review about. But I like how in spite of being short, it is still informative. I appreciate the little descriptions you included for the reader's benefit. Otherwise, it was going to get difficult to imagine the scenes taking place. I also like the idea behind the drone - putting the pieces of trash together and building something like that is actually quite brilliant and I liked the reasoning behind the laser system. I was wondering about it in the previous part, and I feel like you have come up with some brilliant ideas.

This part does feel like a conclusion though. Their day is finally over and it seems like they are finally going to be able to rest for a while, until of course they go to work again. This part flowed pretty well, and the pace was the same throughout.

A few nitpicks:

It was a little bigger than what the two of them head, but by design it was identical.

I think you meant 'had' here instead of ;head'.

just one singular light at the center to provide all the light.

The word 'light' used twice in the same sentence feels a little repetitive. Maybe you could use a synonym instead?

So as you guys it was called Trash Dive, which is a pretty accurate and self explanatory name.

There is a word missing after 'guys'. I reckon it will be 'heard' or 'know,' but still.

That's one reason we can't truly explore everywhere in safety, the drone is basically a robot that needs to be programmed beforehand, we couldn't find the parts needed for a remote, or even a stabilization system for the camera, hence all the ridiculous shaking.

This is a run on sentence and actually there are quite a few of them in this part. I would suggest looking into them and simplifying them down a bit, so that the dialogues flow better.

That's all. Until the next chapter, I guess!

Image




KateHardy says...


Thank youu for the review!!

This is definitely the end of chapter 3, and with it the sort of introductory chapters :D

Oh gosh run on sentences will be the bane of my existence when I'm writing draft 3 of this




Life is about losing everything.
— Isabel Allende