Excerpt: PAPER MOON

Okay, so Kerry / @uppington talked me into growing a pair and doing this. Those who know me know I’m a little sketchy about posting stuff from WIPs here, though I don’t really worry about the random one-off snippets I do for writing exercises. For me it’s a bit strange to post something from a draft that might change completely by the time I finish and edit it. But I haven’t posted in over a week and it’s either this or a long rant from editor-Adri (who spent this morning buried in the slush pile and is too cranky after the past week to say anything helpful) about knowing your genre, so…I guess I’ll be posting a chapter from the rough draft of PAPER MOON.

It’s dystopian, YA, fantasy – not swords-and-sorcery or urban fantasy, but just a darker world. To be blunt, it’s a gender-swap story that takes place in a totalitarian future regime with strong flavors of Paris under German occupation, and it explores gender perceptions by completely swapping male and female roles with the understanding that it’s not considered strange or abnormal in their society, nor a reflection on their sexuality, but simply part of daily life. To them the roles aren’t reversed; this isn’t cross-dressing, and there’s no fetishization of the reversal.

It’s something I’m really enjoying writing, because by placing men and women in opposing gender roles without trying to justify it based on preconceived notions of masculinity and femininity, I’m discovering a lot about common gender perceptions in society and my own thoughts about them. On LJ, it sparked a really interesting discussion about how certain characters are perceived, certain assumptions made because they don’t act the way they “should” for their gender. Might be a little heavy for YA, but the classification fits with the story progression I have outlined for my 16-year-old protagonist.

But I should probably stop talking about it and let it speak for itself. So…yep. Chapter.

Prologue – Perilous Men

These are no longer the days of perilous men.

Think about it. Look around you. Look at your house, your job, your significant other. Any minute, any second they could be taken from you, these creature comforts that make your life soft and complacent, that drive you in the same rhythm day after day. Would you fight for them? Would you give them up for something that mattered more? Or would you take the safe way out?

In 1877, thousands of men walked off the line in the great railroad strikes. They raised torches, burned buildings, destroyed locomotives, made their voices heard. Dozens died–and when they died, their deaths meant something. What will your death mean? Will you go down fighting for something that matters to you, or will you rot away in a nursing home somewhere, waiting for someone to change your diaper, mourning the lost years when you could have done something, anything?

I’ll tell you the choice I made. I chose to look the other way, chose to keep my mouth shut. And here I am, shitting my pants and waiting for Nurse Clara to sponge my ass dry and swap out my Depends. I can barely see this goddamned laptop, the cataracts are so bad. I should have died years ago. I think I wish I had, but I can’t die. If I die, everything’s forgotten.

And some things I can’t stand to forget.

I wish I stood for something. Once, I did. We all did. There were four of us, then. When there were only three, we asked each other what the hell it was all for.

I’ll tell you what it was for. It was for glory. For honor. It was for the magic that comes when you stand for something, when you truly think you can make a difference–because sometimes you do. It’s a risk, it’s a gamble, and we’re not a gambling society anymore. We’re all about the safety nets, the savings accounts, the padded walls that cushion the impact of life.

But sometimes you gamble, and you come up gold. We were gold, I tell you. We were gold.

This is the story of four boys who walked the wire. We thought to be perilous men. Maybe we were never a danger to anything but ourselves.

But for a while, we were beautiful.

——————————————

Not really sure what this is, where it’s going, or if it’ll go anywhere at all. Believe it or not, it popped into my head while I was watching the new Star Trek movie and thinking about how the message of the original show affected not just one generation, but every generation that followed. How it struck a chord with man’s need to explore, to adventure, to experience the unknown – to “boldly go where no man has gone before.”

And somehow that led to thinking of how most people don’t do extraordinary things anymore, wouldn’t even dream of it–because extraordinary things would jeopardize the promotion, the mortgage, the steady paycheck. And suddenly I’m seeing four gangly older boys in long, patched peacoats, scarves swaying, kicking up snow as they walk down a narrow street and rattle two-by-fours against rusted tin trash cans. And thinking, “These are no longer the days of perilous men.”

0077. Make-believe.

Autumn stopped typing. The rapid clack of fingernails on keys died away like rain, hissing into silence. She scrolled up, reading through past entries splayed on the screen like digital tattoos. Talk of homework, school, boys. Safe things. Things her friends could identify with, things healthy sixteen-year-old girls were supposed to care about. She never talked about her sessions with Dr. Horscheim.

She deleted the entry without saving, turned off the laptop, and went downstairs for dinner. The shadows watched her from the corners of each step, pooling and eddying against the walls, moaning at her in hungry voices. She’d long ago learned not to listen. By age ten she’d understood exactly why it was always the nice, friendly next-door neighbor who turned out to be the deranged serial killer, much to the neighbors’ shock. Part of being crazy is pretending to be normal.

0076. Hak Nam.

“When I was a girl,” Grandmother said, “I dreamed of the fall of the first Kowloon. A river of red water struck the walls and split the city in two; a great golden carp rose from the waters, its belly gleaming and round. ‘This is punishment,’ he said, ‘for hiding the face of Nu Kua from the Sun. Hak Nam, the walled City of Darkness, will bow to the will of the gods.’ Two days later, the Republic agreed with the Westerners to tear the walled city down.”

Hai strained forward. In the yellow candlelight Grandmother’s face was a browned wood carving stroked by fingers of golden flame, shining smooth. “Did you ever see the golden carp again, Grandmother?”

With a chuckle the old woman reached for him, her blind-seeking fingers like broom straw. Milky eyes glittered with laughter. He moved until she found his head and patted his hair, her skin like dry parchment against his scalp. “Why do you have me tell this story again and again, boy?”

“Because one day I’ll see the sun,” he promised. “One day I’ll climb to the top of New Kowloon.”

Grandmother laughed again, her voice as reedy as the creaking wood of her chair. “Such ambition for a strong young man. Be careful the Sun doesn’t strike you down for your arrogance.”

“He’ll be happy to see me.” Hai flung his arms wide. “I’ll stand on the top of the tallest building and say ‘Look! Hak Nam has covered the face of your love again, but I bring news of Nu Kua!’ Then he’ll reward me with a golden carp of my own, and I’ll ride it to the sea. I’ll take you with me, Grandmother. We’ll build a hut of seashells, and I’ll catch fish for you every day.”

“Will you, now?” She traced her fingertips over Hai’s brow. Solemnity bled the laughter from her voice, leaving hollow echoes to chase each other around the corners of the tiny, cluttered room. “Golden carps are not to be ridden, my boy. They promise great change. When I saw the carp again he warned of a cloud that would cover the world, three days before the black wind swept over Hong Kong. It brought death and sin with it. People grew mad, and began to build like frenzied and frightened ants. Hak Nam rose again, tier by tier, path by path, and Nu Kua turned her face away in shame and grief, for she could not find the Sun past the city and beyond the dark cloud. She mourns under Hak Nam, and waits for the day when the Sun will cleanse her earth again.”

“But if Hak Nam is cleansed, where will we live?”

“Where we are meant to, Hai. Beneath the Sun.” Grandmother cupped his cheek and smiled. “Now be a good boy and run down to the market. I’ll need radishes for dinner.”

“Mm!” Bouncing to his feet, Hai kissed Grandmother’s wrinkled cheek, caught up his sandals in one hand, and ducked out the window into the neon darkness of Kowloon Walled City.

0075. All the insides left cold and grey.

Gabriel Quinn died in the year 2039.

The meteor struck at 3:42 a.m. in the village of Adelphi, Ohio–one of the last places left untouched by the Palisthis invasion, if only because it had nothing to offer. A small population, remote location, and lack of resources ensured that Adelphi remained unmolested–provided they remained obedient.

Gabriel woke at 3:41 and fifty-two seconds as light flooded through his windows, reflecting in a flat plastic sheen from the faded, curl-edged posters on his walls. His mother screamed from somewhere downstairs. His father’s curses silenced her. A roaring filled the night, its cry a palpable thing that scraped over the fine hairs on Gabriel’s arms. He flung himself to the floor as the walls began to shake. A small porcelain elephant fell from his shelf and shattered against weathered wooden floorboards. He’d had it since he was a child; his mother had bought it for a quarter at a flea market in Dublin.

Throwing himself under the bed, Gabriel stared into the light, white and all-consuming. It reached through the window with grasping spears; he threw his arm up to shield his eyes, and screamed as it burned into his flesh. Pain flared, seared through him–and then eclipsed, as he ceased to exist.

Dawn flooded over Ohio hours later, and the smoking crater where Adelphi had been. By then the Palisthis had come and gone; the bodies piled high in aerial barges, broken and lifeless and good only for scrap iron extraction.

Daylight found only dust, and the shattered remnants of a hundred lives.

By morning, Gabriel Quinn lived again.

0074. Rift.

Vice stood at the edge of the rift, fighting the pain that scoured through his body like wildfire. Blood slicked his fingers, making his grip unsteady on the hilt of his blade. Across the rift, Delian smiled at him, hateful and cruel. The light from the split in the world’s skin shone blue and silver against his face, turning him into a sharp-edged sculpture of stone and night.

“Still standing, little boy?” Elegant fingers swept out and curled against the air; the pain in Vice’s limbs knotted, threatening to rip him apart fiber by fiber, bone by bone. He grit his teeth but held his ground, his knees shaking, his breaths rattling cold and harsh down his throat.

“I’m already dead,” he spat. “You can’t kill me again.”

“I can enjoy trying.” Delian’s laughter flowed across the chill concrete rooftop like cracking ice. His fingers tightened into a fist, and Vice’s legs buckled as agony crippled him.

He fell to one knee with a snarling cry; the long, slender sword slipped from numb fingers and clattered to the roof, its sigil-marked blade gleaming like liquid moonlight. Vice stared at it blankly, struggling to breathe; his reflection stared back, washed pallid by the silvered surface. “Y-you…you w-won’t…”

“I won’t?” Delian echoed, mocking and cruel, and laughed again. “You’re an idiot, boy.” Vice closed his eyes against the sudden surge of light as the rift pulsed, swelled, its power hot and electric on the air, on his skin, choking with the scent of ozone and magic. “I already have.”

“No!” Vice gathered the last of his strength, grappled for his sword, and lunged.

Delian’s laughter rose, a physical thing that slammed into him like a shockwave. Still Vice fought even as the pain sang through him, playing every note in his body until it shrilled in vicious, debilitating harmony. Step by step he dragged closer to the rift, his steps scraping on concrete, his mind filled with the livid pulse of feral magic as he drew upon the last of his strength. Power poured from his fingers, rolled over the length of his blade in sizzling arcs of crimson light. He raised it with trembling arms, thrust it towards the rift–

“Not this time, boy,” Delian hissed, and breathed a word that shook the very anchors of reality with each forbidden syllable. The rift thundered, crackled, howled and shivered with terrible magic that sent ripples pouring across the plane of matter, warping the very world before Vice’s eyes. Time slowed, seconds ticking by in eternities as he flung himself at the light-bleeding chasm, saw with terrible clarity as it expanded to fill his world, felt its light tearing at his flesh and burning down to the bone. He thought he heard a drum beating, thick bass distant and sonorous and slow, measuring out the last few seconds of his unlife.

“It’s over,” Delian whispered into that last frozen moment. “I win.”

The drum beat one last time, a crashing, cracking roar that tore outwards in a rippling blast of light. Time moved again, quickly, too quickly; Vice threw an arm up to shield himself and raised his voice to speak his own words of power, words of salvation.

The light tore his voice from his throat, his breath from his body. It poured over him, senseless and hungry. White eclipsed his vision, drowning even the pain. The triumphant, reverberating bellow of unleashed magic filled his mind, shattered him, broke him.

The last thing he heard was his own anguished screams.