Friday, August 14, 2009

Hot off the press - What I'm writing right now

Well, I've had more time to write lately. Thought I might stick up some of my raw output that I've just done. It's the latest chapter from my new project - Tower.



MC couldn’t stop looking at the statue. He looked through the viewscreen at it, remembering every facet every curve that he had crafted. He had been utterly inspired, it had been a labour of love. Looking at it now made him feel like that again, he wanted to destroy it, to sweep it away, but in that statue was everything he wanted, everything that he could aspire to.

What had begun as a few idle comments that had met the right ears had lead to his spear heading the restructuring of the government. It had been his idea for there to be an Emperor or Empress, somebody that everybody could follow over the usual elected government. In the current climate it worked perfectly and everybody was happy with the safeguards that were in place to prevent any abuse of power.

MC hadn’t always been an advocate of theocracy but all the changed with he met the future empress. There was a power in her that he had never witnessed before, an overarching order that MC at once was swallowed up by. MC’s Empress did not represent any great powers in the universe, she was one herself. When MC met her she was a Senator, happy with her position. Such was MC’s mind however that it instantly saw the great things that she was capable of. They had been close for a few months, while things were being put into place. But MC had wrought his own destruction, the position of Empress was to take all her energy, all her power. There was no time for anything else, there was no time for MC. That had forced him to find other ways to go forward, inferior ways.

MC looked on the statue as if it was the best part of himself. As if it was a lost part of himself that he could never really join with again. The statue was a crystallisation of his better part and all that was left was now sitting in the colossus. Possessing unlimited power in that moment but no direction to turn it to. The last thing he could do now is put an end to that, he needed that part of himself now more than ever.

But what did that leave him with. He was now stuck, his plan half completed. He didn’t feel free, he felt like a monster. The colossus had just become like the tower, it was a place for MC to hide in. It had to go.

“Empress, they found Klinb.”
The Empress turned, fixing an authoritive gaze on the messenger. A gaze which said, tell me all you know and then disappear.
“They did, where?”
“He was running from the colossus.”
“What did he tell us, was it MC?”
“Apparantly not, Empress. He said there was some kind of malfunction with the colossus, that he was trying to fix it but failed, he said he gave up in the end and decided to escape with his life.”
The Empress touched her chest, the hand guided by emotion long since pushed into the subconscious, into the area reserved for parts of her not required for her purpose.
“So it is still a danger.”
“I’m afraid so Empress, but it hasn’t moved for almost an hour now. Nobody knows what to do.”
“Send somebody up to MC’s tower, if he’s not involved with this then we could use his help. To my understanding nobody knows more about the colossus than he does.”
“Of course Empress.”
The messenger turned gracefully and walked quickly from the Empresse’s office, leaving her alone again. Her table was strewn with reports and scribbled notes, nothing of any use. She wasn’t looking forward to seeing MC again, there was something about him that antagonised the Empress so much. In her opinion, he was an agent of disorder to his very core and unrepentantly so. The soft spot she had for him was just another useless fact of her personality, something that she had no business feeling.
She looked down at her desk. In one of her drawers, hidden away, she had a picture of herself with MC. She didn’t feel she could bear to look at it again, it was another time, now far behind them both.
“Empress.”
She looked up sternly, with a mix of rage at having been torn from her thoughts so abruptly and embarrassment at having had those thoughts at all.
“What?”
“The colossus is gone.”
“What do you mean, gone?”
“It threw itself into the ocean Empress. It’s gone.”
The Empress looked down for a moment. Allowing her mind to relax, allowing her time to fully absorb the information that she had been given. She stood up and out the door, passing by the messenger as she walked to the main meeting room and found Gertrand with a group of his cronies.
“What happened Gertrand? Did this have anything to do with you?”
Gertrand in his untouchable self confidence but shook his head.
“No, I wish it did. But it sounds like whoever took the colossus had other plans.”
“So one of our neighbours is going to have control of that thing.”
Gertrand looked around, avoiding the Empress’s eyes as he calculated an answer.
"Potentially, yes. But we will be prepared.”
“There is only one thing we can do.”
“What’s that, Empress.”
“We’ll have to build something bigger. Get me MC. We don’t have any choice.”
“I’m sorry Empress, but is having one more colossus in the world really going to make us safer.”
“Look, Gertrand. Right now we have nothing. Your little foam plan was a disaster and frankly there is nothing else that can stop that thing. If it falls into the wrong hands we are as good as done for. We can start thinking about alternate solutions when we have something bigger and more dangerous, until then we are at the mercy of providence.”
“What do you want me to do.”
“Gertrand, take your lackies and find me MC. Something in my gut tells me he won’t be in his tower.”
“He hasn’t left that tower in years Empress.”
“Yes, but something tells me he has now, I certainly wouldn’t want to be found after my creation had just run amok. We need to find him, fast. In the mean time bring me Klinb, maybe we can work on some kind of deterrent until we can put something more permanent together.”

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