Published January 25, 2014
The silver moon sparkled off the serpentine fountain, shimmering on the terrace beyond. No one was about in that hour but two men, meeting on the veranda, drinking hot coffee. In daylight, there would be nothing conspicuous about the get-together. Yet in the dark, as the night obligates trepidation and anonymity, this reunion was nothing short of dirty money and the information it bought.
“So, Charles,” the first one waved his coffee cup in the direction of his cohort, “happy New Year, first off, and second of all, what’s the news on the Mountain?”
Charles sighed. “Geez, Thorn. A bit eager today, are we? But I have to say, with relief for once, that I don’t have any reports on the Aerocity, nor the Underground, and nada for the Groundtowns. Say hello to your lovely wife for me, and when you see your son, tell him we should go bowling sometime.”
“But what about the Mountain? Not the Underground, the government facility. Past the Aerocity and the Groundtowns.”
Charles took a sip of his coffee and didn’t speak for a long time.
“The Mountain,” he began, “is no affair of yours.”
“I’ll be damned it isn't! I'm the one who’s giving you the thousands and thousands of euros to continue this operation, as well as the manpower, and you don’t have the information. You told me you dealt in secrets. Now that you have one, you refuse to give it to me. Don't tell me you have nothing! You're lying to me in the whole sense of the word!"
“Kindly shut up,” Charles growled, arising the exact same time as Thorn did, but pulling a gun from his pocket as he did so. His coffee cup clattered from his hand and shattered on the pavement, “sit down, be quiet, and pay attention.”
Thorn complied.
“Now,” Charles began in an even voice, “I can tell you nothing of the Mountain. Why? I know nothing about it. I created it, Thorn! I created it! But they've taken it away from me, thrown me from the loop. I hold no authority within, save only for the money I bring in and the ideas I supply. All I can see are military calibre weapons going in and a stronghold that not even the Aerocity would dare to penetrate. No one on the outside knows about this but me and you, and,” -Here he lowered his voice to a whisper- “If you breathe even a word of this, I will personally fire a few rounds of lead into you. I don’t care where you are or what you’re doing. You squeal and I fire. Remember that, Mr. Thorn. I have eyes everywhere.”
With that, he took the gun away from the petrified man and stowed it away into a briefcase by his side.
“Have a good day, Mr. Thorn,” Charles smiled, his light demeanour coming out again. He crunched over the shards of the coffee mug as he left, and Thorn waited a few minutes before he was sure Charles was gone. Then he pressed the receiver concealed as a cuff-link on his sleeve.
“Did you hear all of that?” he asked into it, putting his ear up to the tiny speaker to hear for the reply.
Two beeps came through the other end.
Yes.
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Canary word: Present
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140,766 Literary Works • 673,687 Reviews
Very intriguing opening paragraph. The visual of the night sky you created is very calming, yet at the same time, very mysterious. Using the dark as a metaphor for corruption is quite powerful. This is interesting, to say the least.
Bowling, so what is this, GTA 4 x_x
Jokes aside, so the two main characters are Charles and Thorn. They're investigating something about a mountain or so, and apparently know each other quite well, or at least well enough for Charles to be close to Thorn's family.
The calm start turns dramatic rather quickly. Charles telling him "it's none of his business" just moments after this conversation was rather casual is quite alarming.
Ah, so this is getting intense. I'm wondering at this point if they're together in some sort of criminal operation, hence the "dealing in secrets".
I was half expecting Charles to start to argue back, but the calmness that remains within him tells the reader a lot about his character. The sight of the gun being enough to shut Thorn up tells the reader that Charles isn't to be messed with, either.
So the Mountain is some sort of military base? Hm, interesting.
"-Here he lowered his voice to a whisper-"
Huh, I'm not sure why you did this. It's out of place compared to the rest of the dialogue. "he said, in a hushed tone," would've suited this better.
"You squeeze, I fire." Charles is a cool character. Thorn was a hothead, but Charles just shut him up, just like that. Being generally polite, yet so intimidating. The "I have eyes everywhere." is icing on the cake.
The "Yes" should be in quotations, unless you meant for the narrator to be saying yes x_x
Really intriguing prologue. Charles is an intriguing character, the dialogue is entertaining and there's just the right amount of drama without giving too much too early. The plot has potential if fleshed out. Good start, I know this was written some time ago, but let me know if you ever continue it.
Hi, Crookshanks here.
First of all, well done. Like Flame, you left me hungry for more. I'd love to see you continue this plot and develop it into something more, because from what I just read, it does have a lot of potential.
Your writing was very well-done and since Flame covered the grammatical side of things, let's talk about the content. Like I said before, I like the plot that you have going on here. At this point in time, though, it's all very confusing -- the Aerocity and such -- because you haven't had the chance to elaborate on it yet.
I'm confused about what Charles meant when he said he created the Mountain (a mountain, created?) -- and if this means he created the other things as well -- but hopefully that will be explained in later installments (which you hopefully make). Just another thing I'm curious about is why Charles is doing dirty work if he's the creator of this stuff; just seems like he should be a little more important.
Anyways, I would love to read more.
Happy Review Day!
xoxo Crookshanks
Well-done. You left me hungry for more! I'd go so far as to request this be the start of a novella.
My only nitpicks concern grammar and spelling. The pacing was well-measured, the descriptions the perfect length, the dialogue varied. I also enjoyed the vocabulary you used--a deviation from the common YWS work.
Just quickly uncapitalize (is that even a word?) the beginning of each speaker's tag, since a speaker's tag is a continuation of a sentence. I'll just also point out a few technical mistakes:
You mean jeez? Or geez?
The message is a bit unclear here. I think that you're trying to imply that "Thorn" is overly forward, but this might be better as "eager to cut to the chase."
"With relieve" should be "with relief."
Getting slightly repetitive. Maybe "say hello to your beautiful wife for me?"
I've learned on here to never start a sentence with "and" unless absolutely necessary.
Just a "long amount of time."
This should read: "...and"--Here he lowered his voice to a whisper--"if you..."
That's all I have. Once again, fabulous work. Can't wait to read more of it! Oh, and...welcome to YWS? Ish?
Thank you very much for the review! I'm a bit new to all of this, so I appreciate all of this feedback and your kind words!
Thank you again!
No problem! I enjoyed reading it.