WIP: Seventh Update – Sneak Peek!

WIP: Seventh Update – Sneak Peek!

After a long wait, I finally started writing this week! I’m excited, but there is an air of caution; it’s so easy to become distracted and never finish, or get stuck on the never-ending roundabout of editing and rewriting. I haven’t set myself a time limit…well as long as I finish before I kick the bucket at least!

I was driving to work on Monday when the first word and scene popped into my head. I was pumped, as I finally had the opening sentence, but I couldn’t write it down! I almost ran from the carpark so that I wouldn’t forget. After writing out the first few sentences, I now have the opening scene written out.

Now, there has been a lot of debate about whether or not to share your writing online and I prefer to err on the side of not. That’s also probably linked to why I always write out my original work by hand, then transfer to the computer – I know that I wrote it (well that and because I don’t want my computer to crash and lose all my work). However, I have decided to write up the first few paragraphs.

So without further ado, here it is!

“Ungh” Edison muttered; jumping up as scalding hot coffee soaked into his suit pants. Grabbing tissues and cursing, he began mopping up the mess before it seeped into any paperwork. Edison lifted his head upon hearing a knock at the door.

“Ten minutes boss” filtered softly from behind the frosted glass door of Edison’s office.
“I’ll be there, hang on.”
“Hope these bastards are easier than the last batch” said the fuzzy figure.
“We shall see” replied Edison as the door began to close.

Striding back to his desk, he finished mopping up the rest of the coffee, grabbed the stack of files, loaded video files from his computer onto his chip before pulling it out and plugging it back in his arm.

Edison greeted people quickly as he slinked down the granite hallway toward the briefing room. The briefing room – better known as God’s Kitchen – was full of hi-tech gear paid for in part from the various contracts they were tasked with by governments and security forces from around the world. The rest came from sources that the employees of Social Safety Inc. did not know and did not want to think about.

Edison stepped onto the I.D. mat and looked blankly ahead as he was bombarded by lasers wanting to prove his identity. Back in the early days of online identities, everyone relied on usernames and passwords to guard their personal information. As time went on and cyber crime increased, the focus shifted to finger and eye scans. This was fine – as long as the thieves needed you alive after stealing whatever it was they were after. Anyone could go to the local store and pick up a pocket-size plasma cutter; severing hands or extracting eyes was so easy that even the most decorated soldier or trained assassin could be taken out by a pack of rogue twelve-year olds. 

Nowadays it was extremely difficult to hack into anyone’s details as it was made law in 2327 that every individual had to have their personal data stored “in their person” rather than in a wallet. Gone are the days where providing identification required an array of cards – all you had to do was walk in the door and you would be greeted personally. Even if someone managed to split Edison’s head all the way down to the brain stem, by the time the thieves had extracted his chip, his heart would have stopped beating, rendering his chip invalid. Edison found this a cold comfort as he wondered if the I.D. lasers were slowly killing his brain cells like elcohol did for the unclean, or perhaps they were just giving him cancer.

“Welcome Mr. Tavana” echoed across the Kitchen as Social Safety’s artificial intelligence confirmed his identity.

That’s where I will stop as I haven’t written anymore for one, and nothing has happened just yet. Give me your thoughts – What do you think the story will be about? What do you feel towards Edison? What about the writing itself? Let me know!

Submeg

writing, my writing, WIP