Francesca shared her office with a perpetually peppy jock. Every morning at precisely five minutes to eight, Winona Alvarez burst through the door, smelling of sweat and exercise and energy. Her smile was the dawn, and her swinging gym bag swished and banged like a riot. She always arrived in running gear, and as soon as she dropped her purse, she hustled off to the bathroom to change into office clothes, leaving in the same whirlwind way she came.
Today had been no different, and now, Francesca sat, blinking in exhausted bewilderment at the empty doorway. She lifted her half-eaten taro bun to her mouth and then, chewing like a cow on cud, swiveled back to her computer and tried to remember what she'd been doing.
Her computer screens stared back, neutral. She had a single application open, but the window had been minimized, and only her blank, blue background remained. Right. She'd been checking her hexes. She'd best finish that before Winona came back.
With a final glance at the door, she pulled open the CAD program she’d used to draw her aether conduits. She slid her cell phone from her pocket and dialed her office number, watching as the circle lit up, not from the computer screen, but from the spray of used aether. The dial tone droned in her ear, and the target of Francesca’s hexes picked up.
A long, donkey-honk groan echoed from her phone speakers. “Francesca. The day just started. Whatever it is, I haven’t looked at it yet.”
“Oh please,” she bit back. “It’s eight o’ seven, and you haven’t opened your inbox? Your game is at six tonight.”
George eked out an awful wailing noise, and Francesca could see in her mind’s eye his hopeless, dead-eyed stare and boneless neck, all slumped over his desk in a pity puddle. “But I just got my coffee.”
“Repaving submittals wait for no man.”
“Ugh. Bye.” He hung up.
Good. City hall’s single wizardry expert still hadn’t found her hexes. She closed her CAD program and found a random number generator to pick the number of days until her next test. And by the time she finished, Winona had returned in her usual fashion.
“I have had coffee,” she announced, posing in the doorway. The billowing sleeves of her blouse dripped from her arms like honey, and her toes just barely peaked out from under wide, flat slacks. “The day has begun.”
“The day began fifteen minutes ago,” Francesca groused. She had never seen Winona wear that outfit before. How did other people have the time to find nice clothes?
“Awww,” Winona crooned, creeping up to wrap Francesca in a friendly, one-armed headlock. “Is Cheska having Monday grumps?”
God, she was so peppy. Francesca slid out of the hold and almost onto the floor. “You have a soccer game at six. Do your work.”
“Oh, I will.” And Winona, ever full of you-know-what, tossed her long, princess-curled hair, and settled into her seat. Then she turned to look slyly over one shoulder. “Your grumpy act is cute, but we all know you love to cheer for us.”
Francesca furiously clicked on a set of documents waiting for approval. If she acted mad enough, no one would see the flush on her cheeks. “Work!”
Winona cackled. “Ten bucks your face is red as a tomato.”“Work!”
“I am working. Some of us can multitask.”
Obviously the captain of the City Hall Ballers soccer team could multitask. But some people on this earth were mere mortals. With an aborted grumble, Francesca tried to ignore her officemate and lose herself in work.
Her to-do list she kept in a color-coded notebook on the left side of her keyboard: every construction permit approval in orange, active project duties in blue, the occasional design assignment in lime green, and every so often, a line of lavender text that read ‘George Check-In.’ And because today would be the best Monday ever, and not a horrible, paint-drying nightmare, her list was all orange. Sighing, Francesca polished off her taro bun and settled in for a few hours of quiet.
She’d made her first pass on a permit submission for some apartment project in El Vinedo–typical stuff for the area, since the property values had hit the sweet spot for redevelopment–when Winona lolled her head back over her chair and decided to be distracting again.
“So,” she said, drawing out the vowel until it scratched and stuttered in her throat, “are you getting put on that big old brownfield development in South Centro?”
“No, George got it,” Francesca mumbled. “I’m just support until Jon gets back.” She zoomed in on a pipe in the drawing. What idiot thought a three-inch was big enough for an entire floor’s sewage riser?
“Oh man, that one-month seniority he’s got really holds you back.”
Francesca dragged a big, red circle over the pipe and kept clicking through pages. “Don’t I know it.”
“You got a wizardry minor, right?” Winona asked, with a very elegant subject change.
“I was two credits short,” Francesca replied. “I realized too late that wizards piss me off.”
Winona scoffed. “Okay, but you get brunch with one every Sunday. Anyways, do you know why there would be conduit circles in a structural detail?”
Screw the apartment in El Vinedo. Francesca swung out from her desk like a slingshot and shoved Winona’s chair out of her way. “What? Where?”
“Right there.” And sure enough, once Winona had wiggled her way under Francesca to point at her screen, there was the little conduit circle detail, blown up from a call-out in the middle of a beam. A pink-grey watermark reading ‘NOT FOR IFP’ covered most of the circle, but the little Francesca could see was intricate. The wizard’s style curled and coiled like wedding invitation calligraphy, looping through a series of symbols that she could barely read, let alone piece together.
Tilting her head, Francesca considered the options. “I’m not sure. You know more about structures than I do. It could be for fire protection? Maybe earthquakes? Those are probably conditions that could trigger an unmanned conduit.” Francesca’s hexes activated at the zip of a couple electrons, after all. There were a lot of possibilities.
“I think I saw circles in the architecturals too,” Winona added. “I don’t get why. Isn’t it expensive? This site is supposed to be low-income housing.”
“Twenty percent.”
“Yeah, yeah, twenty percent low-income housing.”
Francesca thought back to Tim and his weird wizard hype insanity. “Maybe the developer is hoping the other eighty percent will buy into the gimmick and pay enough to make up for both the premium and the low-income rent.” She glanced at Winona, but the other woman had her lips pursed, locking in whatever comment she wanted to make. She stared, serious and stony, acrylic nails tapping on the arm of her chair, before shrugging and pasting on a relaxed smile.
“I guess any housing is good housing.”
Maybe that was true. Most of what Francesca remembered from her urban planning class was Tim drawing conduit circles in the margins of his notes. That and the water system case studies. And the zoning petitions. She glanced at the circle one more time, and then caught the time in the corner of Winona’s screen. “The bento truck will be here since it’s Monday. Wanna go there for lunch?”
Winona pushed out her chair, catching Francesca under the ribs and nearly knocking her over. “Oh absolutely. And we can catch George there too. He and I need to talk strategy.”
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
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125,005 Literary Works • 672,805 Reviews
Hey Ventomology! Happy Saturday!
I've read the first chapter of this in order to review part two (albeit briefly) so hopefully I'm fully up to speed with the goings on of the novel.
I like the change of setting here, and I think Winona's character is a great contrast to Francesca's. It works well for character building, to show us who she is different to rather than simply describe her and makes for an interesting read too.
The worldbuilding here is also really effective, and paired with what you did in the first chapter, it works to show the integration of magic/aether into what otherwise seems to be a normal setting. I am intrigued to know how many people have magic though/whether it's just accepted as an everyday part of life. At the beginning of this chapter it felt like Francesca was keeping it secret from her co-worker but then Winona asks about her wizardry minor, and all the people in the previous chapter weren't overly startled by the events in the restaurant. I'm assuming this will become clearer with time, but just wanted you to know my thoughts!
The morning passed quicker than I realised here, given that they're planning on going for lunch by the end of the chapter. I think maybe a line about Francesca working through a permit or two, or something to indicate the passing of time might make this feel a little less jarring.
I'm liking both the characters and the setting so far and it's making for a mostly easy read. Looking forward to seeing where you take this one next!
Icy
Hi Ventomology! Lim again here with a review!
First Impressions
It’s interesting to see what Francesca’s job is here! Some of the technical language was kind of hard for me to wrap my head around, but I think I got the gist of it, and besides I thought it made the character’s connection to her occupation more believable. Like I love that you’ve clearly put a lot of thought into the details of being a civic engineer (?) in a world with aether. For instance I didn’t get “NOT FOR IFP” though I assume that’s some kind of jargon that Francesca knows! Her knowledge about the residency that I commented on in the previous chapter also makes sense to me now.
Setting
There’s so much cool worldbuilding stuff in this chapter! I like that there’s a good balance between the magic aspects and the more minute details of the characters’ world that we can relate to more easily, like Francesca eating a taro bun and the descriptions of her notebook.
I also like that you show the social aspects of the story’s setting. I thought this little workplace chat seemed interesting and helped make the world feel more ‘real’ to me. It also shows Francesca’s competence at her job (and the whole chapter shows this too actually) and how it is not recognized / put to use in the current time because of what seems to be age? I think that sets up the story for a moment of change where she has the chance to use that potential.
Descriptions
The descriptions in the first paragraph felt a bit more exaggerated, I think than the ones elsewhere. For instance “perpetually preppy jock” is already a very ‘big’ vibrant image, and then Winona is described as having “burst” through the door, and on top of that we are told that she can ‘smell’ of “sweat and exercise and energy”. I personally found it just a tad overwhelming – at least for a paragraph describing a rather ‘mundane’ event for Francesca, who is familiar with Winona. On the other hand, I do like how these descriptions contrast Francesca’s much more low-key behaviour like “blinking in exhausted bewilderment”, because on a second read it does highlight that the two of them are contrasting characters. I’m still a bit puzzled by a gym bag that “swished and banged like a riot”. ‘swish’ and ‘bang’ don’t really seem to describe related kinds of sound to me? Like swish seems a lot quiet. I also find myself wondering what she keeps in that gym bag such that it makes such a loud sound :0
I like this description though! Here the image feels ‘big’ but it’s kind of explained by Winona striking a pose. The figurative image “like honey” is also balanced out by a lot of concrete images that are easier to process like “posing in the doorway” and “blouse”.
Overall
I like that this chapter shows more insight into Francesca’s life and what she does for a living. I’m curious about those conduit circles, just as she is. I wonder if the conduit circles will have something to do with that aether-loved baby from the first chapter. Additionally, I find Winona to be an unusual but likeable character – I wouldn’t usually think someone who works with buildings and land also has time to play sports, but hey, Winona being an exception makes her more individualistic and memorable. I think it’s good that she contrasts not just Francesca’s personality but also Tim’s.
Hope some of this helps, and feel free to ask for more feedback! (and let me know if there's any specific thing you'd like more feedback on for next chapter!)
-Lim
Hii! Thanks for keeping up.
This should be the last like... pre-action chapter, so we can finally get into the real stuff. I know I can be a little heavy-handed... I think I'm just having a hard time settling into Winona's character? Maybe I'll get it soon.
Anyway. Thanks!