Warning: This work has been rated 18+ for language and violence.
In the blessed Gardens of Orchidaceae, there is the ghost of a maiden of heavenly beauty, who was born of war, and to sing a song to the oceans. They are the keeper of our people, a soldier who rises in between the worlds to rescue all who fall in trouble to the alternate powers. They are the light which guided our people through the darkness of war and threw us onto the mercy of the gods for their salvation.
Leo sat and waited for Harry to come back, thinking about his mother’s story the entire time. Sara (as the Earthen name his father referred to her) had come from some sort of royalty on Nerot and his father had been a royal guard. Or as the story sounded more and more, a sharpshooter kept around to kill off enemies before the king would come aware of their presence.
Everything about his family’s story was curious and he had hunted down Harry in the hopes of asking her. When he felt the shockwave run over his conscience just a few days ago, Leo knew that his father was dead. He had seen the death image. He had heard his father’s last words speaking out the name of who had killed him.
And when he got up that morning to go down to her offices, Leo had fully intended on thanking her, but still questioning her about the family. When his hand was on the door, some sort of energy had possessed his mind, reminding him of the Nerot traditions and how they must honor the dead. That he must ask for some sort of reparation for his father’s death.
Getting a job was reparations enough.
Harry returned sometime later with a gas can in her hand and a small torch in the other. Leo had been in the assorted businesses long enough to get the sense for Zinnia lightening, and if Beit wasn’t on the premises anyways, it wouldn’t be looking too suspicious to the cops.
“So I guess you know what we need to do?”
Leo nodded while collecting up his bags.
“Want me to go turn on the gas and let the lights run
empty?”
“Please do. How much have you touched
here?”
“I’ve worked here for the past three years.”
“Understood.”
She disappeared back into the main hallway, leaving a string coated in some sort of fuel behind her along the path. Leo crept back down into the basement, using his flashlight. There was a risk that lighting any of the electrical switches would send the whole place up in flames and that was not a risk Leo wanted to think about.
The gas control line was somewhere behind the portal frame, which was now gone and left only a charred mark on the wall behind.
“So that’s what she was doing down here.”
Leo said it a bit louder than he meant but there was no one to hear me. It was quick work to release the valves and get enough gas flowing throughout the house so that one match would do it. Harry didn’t even need her fancy torch.
“Leo, everything set?”
“Yeah. What do you want me to do next?”
Harry lifted a pair of keys out of her pocket and placed them in his palm ever so gently. He wondered if it was possible to create sparks from two keys rubbing against each other in his palm, and the thought only scared him more.
“Go out and start the car and be ready to drive when I tell
you to do so.”
“But Harry I don’t think I should leave you in here.”
“Go out and start the car, please.”
Leo waited a minute more until she had disappeared out of sight once more, this time into the safe room. He did silently wonder if she was going to steal anything but instead of snooping, went out to the car like he was instructed to do. Harry came out a few minutes later with no sign of any smuggled jewels but he also didn’t want to think about where they might be.
“No, I did not steal anything. I was just sealing it back into the fireproof
safes so that the mob doesn’t have one more thing to want to kill us over.”
“Oh.”
“You’ll learn to be more careful about protecting your thoughts, dear. Now drive up to the next block.”
Again, he followed the instructions without a thought of second guessing them. As he drove quietly through the neighborhood, Harry was dialing the mobile and took a small black box out of the glovebox. Leo couldn’t make out what she was saying but from the crackle coming out of the box, soon realized it must be a voice changer.
The mobile slammed together, and the slight noise was a startle.
“The police have been tipped off to the idea that there
might be someone trying to break into Beit Jewelry.”
“Why hasn’t it blown up yet?”
“The torch has a timer and it should go about in just about five minutes,
making it so the cops will be right around the corner when the motion goes
off. And we should be far enough away
for there to be little thought that we would have had anything to do with
it. Now kick the van up into fourth and
let’s get out of here.”
As Leo rounded another corner onto the clearer York street, the sound of the blast happened in the distance and the sight of the flames lit up in the rear view. He went to throw the car into park, out of the habit of investigating trouble in the neighborhood but met with the glare in Harry’s eyes.
They did need to get out of there.
The van rumbled back down the hill of York street and they eased into the highway, passing squad cars on their way out. It was a quick and quiet ride back to the offices. Leo wondered if every day was going to be like this and then it was all over, the van clicked to a stop inside of the garage. Her door slammed shut and in a similar fashion so did his. It fit.
Harry kicked against the tire and they both took their gear inside, leaving the portal machinery in the back portion of the van, gently resting under a blue tarp.
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
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125,005 Literary Works • 672,809 Reviews
Aaaand back again. I guess I'll just jump right in.
General Comments:
1. I didn't mention it before, because I hadn't seen quite enough of the universe you've created, but I love that even though you're writing sci-fi, you keep so many elements of plain old life on earth. Like, in how many sci-fi novels or movies do you see people physically rigging up a fuel line to blow something up? And they just drive onto a highway and on streets like normal people!
Those normal things, while certainly hilarious, also add a touch of realism that keeps us readers in our suspense of disbelief, like this is a future that is legitimately possible. It's not an aspect of sci-fi that gets explored enough (except in some dystopian fiction).
2. The action words you used for the driving bit of this chapter were great, but it struck me that I thought you could probably have clearer and more accurately-described actions for the rest of the scene as well. A lot happened, and I wasn't always entirely sure of why, or what it looked and felt like as it was happening.
Plot, Characterization, and Misc. Items:
Oooh, so for today I was just going to roll with not knowing what was happening, but it's super great that you brought in a little reminder of what Leo's goals are, and how they changed over the course of the story. Well-placed recaps are so good.
Not much else to say? It seems like this was a chapter in which some plan from earlier was fulfilled, and while you could have done some Murphy's Law stuff there, it's also not bad that you didn't make things get worse when they maybe could have (getaways are prime Murphy's Law spots). It'll be fun to see how the success of that goal will play into whatever happens next!
Until next time!
-Vento
Intriguing??? Like I still don't know who killed Leo's father or really why he came in guns blazing only to get a job instead of killing anyone, but this starts to shed a little light on the situation. Either he's getting a job to sabotage Harry because she really did kill his dad or else someone else killed his dad and he's using Harry to get at whoever that is.
Sometimes I forget that Harry can read people's thoughts, and then she responds to whatever they were just thinking, and then she says something like this, and I remember. But it adds to the humor to have her responding directly to what people think, so even if I'm not the only one who forgets about this periodicallyl I don't think it's a problem.
Unless people consider the possibility of a timer but also this is a good idea purely for safety reasons.
I know they're not stopping because of a red light, but all I could think of was: there are no red lights in a car chase!!!