Here’s a glimpse at the first draft of Book 2, currently titled Planetscape. It’s a very (very) rough draft, as you will see, and I’m going to post a bit today and a bit next week and so on…
It’s chilly in San Francisco on a winter’s morning. My link says it’s 13 degrees Celsius. Of course, my partner and his father are sporting hoodies and long-sleeved shirts. I’m the only desert-planet-born alien in the group and I tug my woolen cap lower over my ears.
Tel and I have brought his father into town to show him the sights, as he’s never been here before. We’re still staying at the colony at Shadow Mountain, though, since the matriarch isn’t positive that there aren’t a couple of rogue agents still out there from Project: Backlash, the organization who’d tried to kidnap a few aliens for nefarious purposes.
The project’s science team is settling in fairly well, from what I can tell. Our cover company, Darksyde Enterprises, literally bought them out, offering them essentially the same jobs they’d done for the U.S. Government, but at a higher pay grade and with better living conditions. And this time, since they know there are aliens on Earth, they get to actually communicate with some of us, though on a limited, “top-secret “basis. I’ve been working with Dr. Sean Arwood, their prosthetics expert. I’ve been cautioned not to reveal more than he and his team already know about the biogenic Augmentation they had from the Roswell crash back in the 1940s. They’ve already reverse-engineered a good deal, of course, though they’re nowhere near ready for nanites and true biogenic technology.
But today is a rest day, so no talking Augmentation or cybernetics. The three of us will just wander around the city, then spend the night at The Inn at Union Square since our actual apartment is housing our look-alikes, there to fool any Backlash rogues. Of course, they might also fool some of the band’s fans, which might be a good thing. Rumors have been going around that the very public kidnapping attempt actually succeeded and one or more of the band has been abducted and replaced with a body double. Letting any nosy fans see “us” in our apartment’s windows periodically can only help our case.
**The bits I’ve bolded are my way of noting for myself areas I want to take a harder look at. In this case, I wanted to think whether or not I need this backstory or if it is more of an “info dump,” which I definitely do not need. More to come next week…
