Wheelchair boy needed to invest in a good-old Shakespearean insult book, because he ran out of taunts and threats in less time than it would take for Ellipse to explain the layout of the Fold Terminal. Thus, she stood in front of the open elevator, trying to keep her knees from locking, and feeling like that awkward person who walks into a meeting late expecting everyone to be angry, only to find they do not care. Also, the boy was reciting chemistry facts. Ellipse did not know why.
“Speaking of Seaborgium,” he said, “did you know that it’s the only element on the table to be named after someone who was alive when it was named?”
No one cared about hecking Seaborgium. Ellipse wiggled her fingers a little and pulled her face into a tall, bug-eyed expression of alarm, but no one walking by seemed to notice. Then again, none of the passersby were earthlings, and therefore probably did not recognize earthling body language. Maybe they thought this whole scene was performance art; Ellipse had certainly seen weirder.
“The most common hydrogen isotope used in spacecraft fuel is deuterium,” the boy continued. “We use this isotope because it eliminates a step that stars have to take in nuclear fusion, which is adding a neutron so that the protons will act-
“Shut up, bro,” Ellipse hissed. “And put your taser away.”
He was silent for a moment, and she didn’t dare turn around to check on him. Instead, Ellipse shot a pleading glance at the siren, who was not even looking her way. He was too busy watching out for wheelchair boy’s parents, calculating the right moment to unleash his vocal attack and flicking his tail fins like a scheming cat.
“I can’t believe you just called me bro.”
Ellipse could not believe this boy was so rude. “I am allowed to use slang,” she replied.
“I know, but like, it was surreal. You don’t think about people with accents using slang.”
He clearly had never met someone with an accent. Stifling a groan, Ellipse rubbed her temples and wished she was being held at knifepoint or something. That would actually garner some attention and get this stupid bounty hunter off her. She stretched upward, careful not to let her knees hyperextend, and listened for the soft crack of loosening joints.
As she moved to stretch out her triceps (which were remarkably large; scrubbing toilets built some serious guns), Ellipse noticed the siren start to wiggle backwards, his tough belly scales scraping against the concrete floor. Wheelchair boy had resumed reciting facts, though this time he picked earthling history.
“The War of Titan Independence is pretty embarrassing for the US. It bears incredible parallels to the American Revolution, like the long-distance travel and difficulty in communication. Really, if the US had at least tried to minimize immigration to the moon from other nations, then maybe-
A screech sliced the air, and Ellipse leapt forward. She pivoted on one heel and found wheelchair boy snarling, knocked off balance by the shock of the sound.
Little known factoid about the gato: their hearing range was pitched slightly lower than that of earthlings’ which meant that, while Ellipse and wheelchair boy could tolerate the siren’s piccolo noises, the gato found them excruciating. Out in the crowd, wheelchair boy’s parents had presumably hunched over, paws over their bear-ears, and lost all ability to concentrate on bounty hunting.
In front of the elevator, wheelchair boy tottered on his stumps. He really did have a lightning stick, which looked like a cross between a taser and an unnecessarily large seam-ripper, and he wielded it like a knife. Ellipse would not have an easy time getting that away from him.
She lunged forward. Wheelchair boy would not come to her, not if she was too far away, and so if she wanted to subdue him, she had to attack first. She made to punch him, right in the nose, and he swung his taser straight for her.
Ellipse pulled back, hoping the boy would topple, but he caught himself and sprang back up. He wiped his mouth and grinned.
“You think I haven’t encountered that little trick before?”
Shrugging, Ellipse crouched for another leap. “I have literally zero combat experience. How would I know what you are capable of?”
“You could try using your brain,” the boy retorted.
Asteroid, jerk, nasty piece of trash. Ellipse almost thought an expletive at him, and then gave herself a stern mental reprimand. She was better than that. “Are you trying to rile me up?” she asked, forcing her voice out calm and airy and even.
He gritted his teeth and inched back towards the elevator doors. “If at first you don’t succeed,” he mumbled. He placed a hand against the wall for balance, and a plan popped into Ellipse’s head.
She took a long, languid step towards her siren friend, bent over, and picked him up by his armpits. He wrinkled his snout at her and gave her a long, threatening look at his teeth, but somehow, his screeching kept steady. A number of aliens simply continued on their ways, unable to hear the droning pitch, but others stopped and stared and then tried to walk away as if nothing was happening.
Ellipse reached the elevator doors and stopped, careful to keep herself and the siren out of wheelchair boy’s range. She looked down and over and beamed. “Hi,” she said, trying to sound like a charming outlaw.
Wheelchair boy squinted at her, incredulous. “I’m not letting you through.”
“Oh, I know that. Do not worry.” She eased the siren back onto the ground and pulled her cheeks higher and her smile wider. “I do not intend to give you a choice.”
The boy rolled his eyes and twirled his electro-stick between his fingers. “Try me,” he spat.
Try him Ellipse did. She took one tiny step closer and put her fingers to her chin, thoughtful. “You know that thing about Elliot Bei? I can tell you right now that I am not her, and there are documents to prove it.”
Tentative, the boy nodded.
“But I think that when you look for her in the databases, you will find something terribly interesting.” Ellipse grinned, repositioned her legs, and dropped into the splits. Her foot collided with wheelchair boy’s stumps, and he tumbled to the ground. His taser skittered away across the cement floor. Ellipse popped back up, gave the boy a firm kick so he would not block the elevator doors, and waited for the siren to flop into the pod.
The boy propped himself up and glared at her. “You’re lying about something. I know-
Ellipse pressed the button for staff housing and lifted her eyebrows. “You want to know what that interesting thing is?” she asked. The elevator doors began to slide shut, and the boy’s parents finally emerged from the crowd, their limbs sluggish and their shoulders quivering.
“What?” the boy spat.
Oh, if only she could stick around for his reaction. Ellipse bet it would be golden. She felt herself straighten with confidence.
“It is nothing much,” she said, “just that Elliot Bei never even existed
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
Are you sure you want to delete this comment? This cannot be undone.
Mark this comment as a review? Points will be awarded to the poster.
Your comment was posted, but it wasn’t long enough to count as a review. Reviews need about four complete sentences (at least 250 characters). Try writing another review that explains your thoughts in more detail — the author will appreciate it, and you’ll earn points for it.
125,005 Literary Works • 672,804 Reviews
Salutations, Buggie!
I have returned for yet another review. You know, Fox and I talked yesterday, and during the conversation, your novel came up. We both disputed your claims of eventual quality regression. Like, I seriously doubt it will be as bad as you think.
Ah, back to the story. It seems the siren's plan had failed, since... oops, I can't remember his name. *goes back to previous chapter* Right, Tejal! Since Tejal was escorting Ellipse away. Hmm, or perhaps the plan hadn't been enacted yet? I'll probably only know for sure after I've read more. Aaand I just did, so never mind, they haven't actually moved. I'd forgotten Ellipse was trapped shortly after exiting the elevator.
Yip, nobody I've ever met or will ever meet is even vaguely interested in Seaborgium. All the interesting actinides are named, but it's a good thing I decided to consult my periodic table, since Seaborgium isn't even one of those. Honestly, the last row in the table is easily the most boring. Much of it is radioactive and/or synthetic, which is rather drab when compared to everything else. The deuterium bit is slightly more interesting, but Tejal must be even nerdier than both you and Fox combined if that is his choice of banter. Ellipse's response is perfect, and Tejal's reaction to that is priceless. It's painfully obvious that he doesn't get out often.
Humans are pretty pathetic in most ways when compared to other animals, but yeah, having meh hearing is definitely useful for avoiding sonic-induced paralysis. That the siren can screech for so long and despite Ellipse's moving him is quite impressive! Then again, he's a siren, so I suppose that's a given.
I love the exchanges between Ellipse and Tejal. He's trying his best to be taken seriously, while Ellipse is just so polite and cute. Using the siren to get closer to Tejal and then doing a split to knock him over is so unexpected, it's perfect, and it's absolutely something only you could come up with. Then again, you have a disabled boy taser-sabre-wielding boy standing on his stumps to apprehend his target, so nothing about this was expected to begin with. That makes it all the more charming and amusing to read.
My reviews are short, but when I can only gush, there's not much I can do about that. Oh, but I guess I could point out that there's a full stop and quotation mark missing at the end of the chapter. (Even if that was intentional, so as to indicate the pod blasting away, I doubt an editor would allow it.) Now that Ellipse has escaped from Tejal, I can't wait to see what will follow.
~ Hunter
Just wait apparently character interactions aren't even the best part. I've heard it's all in the world building.
First off, I just want to say, what an interesting way to introduce facts about your world by having the boy kill time by reciting them to Ellipse. I'm not exactly sure why he would, but neither is Ellipse, so that makes it okay since it's in her POV haha. I also love how you reinforce that Ellipse is a good person by pointing out that she didn't even want to THINK about thinking an explicative towards the wheelchair boy. You did a great job overall by reinforcing all the little tidbits you gave us in the first couple chapters: the fact that she has an accent, that she is a custodian, that gato are cat-like creatures and therefore have a different hearing range, etc. I loved all of those little reinforcements, they really added to the overall picture of who Ellipse is and what her world is like.
The only thing I would say needs more work would be the actions. Just like in the elevator scene before, your description of the actions is just a little fuzzy. I got the gist of what was happening, but it just wasn't completely clear. The clearest parts are when she does the splits, and when she grabs the Siren by the armpits. But I'm not quite sure what wheelchair boy is doing when she and the Siren get into the elevator. Also, wasn't the original plan for the Siren to get into the wheelchair so she could wheel them away? If that happened, it wasn't clear at all. It seemed like they just got into the elevator and wheelchair boy couldn't do anything about it for some reason.
But, nice cliffhanger! I love how this chapter ended. It definitely makes me want to continue reading more!
Funny story: I didn't realize my two-hour lab was cancelled today so now I'm derping around until my next class. So, looks like I'll be reviewing two chapters today to kill some time.
First up, let's (very quickly) talk about the action scenes. Looks like other reviewers said that it can be a bit muddy sometimes, so I'll just echo that. I can also be confused about where they are, if they're near the elevator, where they're going, who's doin' what, and so on lol. Last I remembered, Ellipse was being held hostage and siren was waiting to sing his plan, but now the boy is saying interesting facts and they're just chillin'. Were they going somewhere, or waiting for something? Some clarity could be added here.
I liked the last action scene, though! When the boy walked over to the elevator, I was like, "omg PRESS THE BUTTON!" and was relieved when Ellipse did that. *thumbs up*
Oh yeah, and scene changes! I realize now what you meant in your comment about chapter 3 being a flashback of sorts. I was coming into the chapter expecting a continuation of that, but nah, we're back at the present. So ignore what I said about it being like a movie. XD I'm probably really late about changing your set-up, but I recommend making the 'flashbacks' more obvious, which can be as simple at moving the italicized "The story of [blah]" to the beginning. That way, readers don't start the chapter like, "Wha? What happened to Ellipse and the fight scenes?"
(Nitpick: don't forget to end quotation marks here, and at the end of the story! Small punctuation mistakes like this can be a jarring way to take the reader out of the story.) Now, for a random remark! I am intrigued that nuclear fusion is accomplished in this space-age, and for spaceships!
I'll have to keep that in mind.
HAH. Good ol' US of A, tellin' people where to go and live... which, in this case, is the moon.
That's about all the notes I have! I liked the escalation in the end and how Ellipse was all smug about her plan. She seems to be confident that Elliot Bei never existed. Does that mean she knew about the name before, or is she making it up on the fly? SO MANY SECRETS. Or maybe, she was Elliot Bei all along, and had no creativity for a new name and replaced the "ot" of her name to an "pse" to become "Ellipse." lol. Maybe, she just wants to settle on her new life as a spaceship janitor. TO THE NEXT CHAPTER!
~Carina
;-;
Yay, Chapter 4! A good chapter in which I learn that wheelchair boy is almost as interested in facts as I am, Ellipse is surprisingly (curiously) good at improvisation and talking/fighting her way out of trouble, and Elliot Bei...never existed? ...???! Well, now I'm both confused and intrigued, so I'd say this chapter is a success. Everything leading up to that moment is equally impressive; the pacing is smooth, the back-and-forth between Ellipse and wheelchair boy is both snarky and awesome, and I'm happy to see that her plan has succeeded and she's escaped, even if it meant indirectly hurting the gato parents. Yes, after the chapter, I still heavily like them, and so reading about them in pain does pull at my heartstrings a little bit, though it was essential for Ellipse to be able to evade capture.
At this point in time, I'm going to guess that Elliot Bei was an alias. It's possible that the two siblings were actually one person masquerading as both, but that seems too challenging to pull off if you're extraordinarily famous. Hence, I'm going to guess that Elliot was someone with a strong enough resemblance to the other Bei, whether through surgery or otherwise, who was using a new name as a public cover to hide her true identity or attempt some kind of shady activity. Somebody got enough details on her to crack at her facade, so she fled and went into hiding, presumably becoming Ellipse in the process. This leads me to believe that, beyond the records at the Fold Terminal, there are no solid records of our protagonist that aren't forged. My only question is, why? Perhaps she's related to someone involved in crime, or went into crime herself, or there's something particularly special about her that is or is not related to crime? In such a case, I'll admit that the story has definitely piqued my curiosity and made me eager to read more, though it appears I won't be getting answers anytime soon. Still, you've done one of the best things you can do as a writer - keeping the audience's interest.
Thus, all in all, well done! My only issue is that I find "forcing her voice out calm and airy and even" sounds extremely awkward, and I would recommend something like "forcing out a voice that was calm and airy and even" if you want to keep the general format of the sentence intact (which I'm fine with, because the last part reads smoothly and is rather unique). Nevertheless, thanks for this wonderful chapter!
Since you don't want nit-picks I'll just go straight into the overall bit.
Nope, I can't resist:
I think I'd have expected something stronger here.
At what point did it become clear he was a Bounty Hunter not just some random person who has come across some criminal he wants to take this nice opportunity to try and capture?
Despite getting cut off, there should still be closing speech marks here.
Wouldn't some of the passersby be affected by the draw of the siren's singing?
You forgot the punctuation at the end of the last sentence.
Overall:
The only thing that really pops out at me as being a problem is that Ellipse's idea doesn't seem like something that would occur to someone who makes a point of the fact she's never had combat training. It's fine if it miraculously springs to her, but you need to make it clear that this is surprising to her, since it's surprising to me as the reader.
The dialogue is really fun to read and Ellipse's monologue is adorable as always. Your plot is advancing at a nice pace and I'm really really intrigued to read on.
Sorry there wasn't actually that much to say for this one - it was really good,
Biscuits
Buggie!
While this contained some nice lore and a good plot twist and shock, it also was difficult to get through due to the slow pace and hard-to-chew, clunky actions.
Like Africa, I felt confused in regards to the elevator and the second ( ? ) escape -- but your clarification made it all good. I suggest there needs to be tighter interaction here, tighter and maybe more activity. I think some awkwardness comes from the lack of thought or exchange from the elevator folk. Surely they have reactions to all that's going on!
The parents don't seem very whelmed to be with their son again, or maybe I'm reading into this wrong? Perhaps they're approaching him as speedily as they can given the siren's wail--but this isn't clarified, and the boy doesn't give a reaction. So I generally feel there's an awkward lack of reciprocation of detail in this installment. Otherwise, good job, as always.
Hope this helps,
Ty
Yeah... my action scenes in general need some work. And I hadn't thought of the reciprocal emotions thing. That's something for me to keep in mind as well. Thanks for the pointers!
Okay, so even after going back to the beginning to read everything, I'm a little confused about this chapter. Well, at first it was my fault, because while reviewing that other chapter I forgot the siren had, in fact, already told Ellipse the plan, so when I got to this chapter again and she's just kind of standing there, I was like, "Um...why aren't they escaping, again?"
Even so, I feel like the bit prior to the attempted escape goes on for a bit long, considering the whole deal was that the boy made it sound like his parents were right there, but as it turns out there was kind of plenty of time for them to escape another way, really.
Although then I guess she would've had to carry the siren or something. Hmm.
Also: why on earth IS the boy talking chemistry facts? To distract her from the escape attempt she's not making? I mean, it was amusing as heckles, don't get me wrong, but I've no idea what the point was. Unless he did get a concussion in the elevator, after all.
Wait, have they actually be in the elevator the whole time it's been stopped? I thought they kind of fell out of it and created something of a pile-up in the hallway, which the customers, being customers, totally ignored.
Same notes on "wheelchair boy" apply, which was actually the only thing I really had to say about this chapter the first time I read it. In criticism, anyway. Obviously I'm enjoying this way more than I usually enjoy sci fi (i.e. at all).
(This chapter: Shakespearean insults.)
I know I have more to get through first anyway, but can you please tag me when you post more?
Blue
I have no idea what I was doing that week... but it is really confusing, and I will have to fix that someday...
And also I can't read, because someone with a username the same length as yours also reviewed another of my works today, and I definitely thought it was you, hence the thing where I would thank you five times in a row.
And of course I can tag you! Should I do that in the weekly LMS thread or on your page or what?
So now: thanks so much! It means a lot to have someone consistently following my work.
Really either way will work! As long as I notice, right?
And in fairness to you, I did actually read four chapters today, anyway, so you *almost* had five comments and/or reviews from me...