%In response to all of this ridiculous whining, complaining, spamming, and
ridiculous whining and complaining about spamming, allow me to do some
actual C+C. While it might not be all that useful, at least I'm trying.
(Oh yes, and if you actually believed that the 'Revolutionary/PFML' joke
[and it was VERY blatently a joke] was meant to be serious, get help. You
are
far, far too naive for your own good. If you accused someone of something
potentially offensive on the grounds that you believed it was serious, you
should apologize, explaining that you are far, far too naive for your own
good ^_^.)
% Now on to the C+C. About time I got to this:
The Dirty Pair: Double Vision
Cycle 4:
"Yes, Doctor."
"Well, let's proceed then�Lewis, get the gravitic equalizer
charged, I don't want the cranial fluids washing over the screen again."
%That would be a bad thing.
"Aaaaaagh..."
"Spivey's hurt!"
"Just get him through the door!"
" Close the door, close the door, close the door!!"
<SHHHHHH>
"Okay�calm down people�the door's sealed. Orlando, who'd we lose?"
"Spivey's dead�so are two of the nurses. Lewis needs help, fast.
Doctor, is your arm okay?"
% Wow! It was just like an episode of ER. ^_^
at least openly. But Fisher was smart enough to never exercise such
power. He adhered firmly to the belief that power imagined was far more
intimidating than power displayed.
% True.
This was the primary reason that this man was known as The Fish.
When his eyes fell on someone or something, they never blinked or
shifted.
% Well, there was also the thing with the gills and the fins, but the eyes
were important to the effect to.
Fisher beamed and waved Sleet to a chair next to the person already
in the office. Sleet nodded, using the motion of his head to
surreptitiously check out who he shared Fisher's office with. A tall
young man, well built, but obviously rather skinny until recently,
% How could he tell it changed recently?
mind cunning and devious enough, not to mention sharp enough, to rule in
the BTR, where cunning and brilliance was almost commonplace. Trying to
keep his exterior calm, Sleet's mind worked furiously as to why he had
been called here, and to what end.
% Make sure there isn't a drop cloth on the carpet. (Hey, I've watched
Lethal Weapon II. You can never be too careful.)
Fisher opened his mouth, hesitated, then said, "Brother Sleet, I
must confess curiosity as to what steps you have taken to recover the
books the 3WA has taken."
after all...His face all seriousness, Sleet replied, "Father Fisher, I
have taken your advice and chosen a subordinate to assist me in the
recovery of these books.
% And therefore, someone I can use as a scapegoat should things turn out
ugly.
Fisher raised an eyebrow and motioned for Sleet to explain. Feeling
several more beads of sweat join the first, Sleet gave a brief
description of what he had sent Mary to do. At the end, Fisher wore a
disapproving frown, but showed no surprise. It was with a sinking heart
that Sleet realized that he had known beforehand what Mary was up to.
There was displeasure in his expression, but no surprise, no hint that
what he had just heard was unknown to him. I've been set up.
% Putting the last sentence in the first person reads oddly. I'd recommend
changing it to 'He'd been set up' or something similar.
Sleet fell silent as he concluded his report, mind racing. Fisher
resumed pacing, hands clasped behind his back. Sleet sat as still as
possible and furiously tried to form a contingency plan.
%Try 'running for your life'. Usually a good option.
wise course of action. I want...I need those books. But I cannot risk
an...incident. So here is what I have decided. You will call back Ms.
Latimer at the first available opportunity, before she can risk placing
both herself and you in a situation you may find it hard to remove
yourself from.
% Too late. Way too late. Just decide what you all want on your tombstone.
I trust you did not order her to do anything that could
compromise our current truce with the 3WA, yes?"
% Sleet: If I did, would it get me killed?
% Fisher: Most likely.
% Sleet: Then of course I didn't.
His voice was oddly hoarse, almost rough. The smile never reached
his eyes as he spoke either. Instead, his eyes remained utterly blank,
all emotion hidden behind a carefully constructed screen. Sleet smiled
back, and said with equally false sincerity, "If you're good enough to
be teamed up with me, I'm sure the pleasure will be all mine."
% Sounds like they deserve each other all right.
dried blood. Dalton grinned back, a mirthless retraction of his lips,
making his narrow face look almost like a skull. For a moment, Sleet saw
a glimpse of something in the man's eyes, a hot, glassy shimmer, eyes
that reminded him forcibly of Mary as she had assaulted...Oh shit. Sleet
realized where he had seen this man before. The day he had introduced
himself to Mary, right after she finished pounding Dalton into
horsemeat.
% Definitely not good.
Sleet stood quickly. He glanced at Dalton, who was looking straight
ahead again. Unconsciously rubbing the hand that he had used to shake
Dalton's against his pants leg,
% That was subtle. ^_^
he said, "Thank you, ahh...Father
Fisher. God be praised..."
Fisher waved a hand dismissively at Agent Sleet without turning
from his inspection of the building-tops he could see from the window.
The Regional Director sighed quietly as the door clicked shut. With an
ease he didn't quite feel he
% feel, he
BTR. That he deserved it made him all the more important. But that
expression, the too-wide smile and hollow-eyed stare Fisher had seen in
the window was burned into his mind. A dangerous boy, to be sure.
Silently, he measured gain against loss, with
% I don't think you need this comma
*****
Kei, Yuri and Sakura returned to the ship laughing
% ship, laughing
quietly amongst
themselves at dusk. Despite the fairly grim information the Hamburger
Man had imparted to them, they were still excited to have a lead. Or
rather, Kei and Yuri were excited to have a lead, and Sakura was just
glad to be on such an important mission. As they walked back to where
Natsumi had "parked" the ship, they laughed amongst themselves,
% you already mentioned that at the start of the paragraph. I'd drop the
'laughing amongst themselves' here.
talking
of light subjects.
They stepped into the clearing where the lake had so recently been
and looked up at the Lovely Angel, the Dirty Pair's signature ship.
% I'm pretty sure you've mentioned that in previous chapters. No need for
anything after '...Angel.'
Kei
and Yuri frowned slightly when they noticed that the rear hatch stood
open, the ramp almost touching the empty lake's bank. Kei muttered,
"That little twit had better not have wandered off."
Sakura smiled and said, "I wouldn't worry about it. Natsumi may be
a bit air-headed, but she isn't the type to wander off."
% "Okay, but she better not have bled all over the controls. I hate it when
people do that too," Kei snarled.
various girls' rooms. The door to the hall was shut. Sakura, Kei and
Yuri looked at each other, a combination of apprehension and fear in all
of their eyes. Finally, Kei visibly firmed steadied
% I'd drop 'firmed' and just go with steadied
The buzzing in her ears increased in volume, and she realized it
was somebody screaming. She wondered who was screaming until her jaws
began to ache, and she realized it was her. It was her screaming, and
Natsumi was hurt. She closed her eyes, and felt like she was falling
down a well.
% 'a pit' might be a better comparison. Sounds more ominous, IMO.
Yuri tossed her a Cold-Pak compress, which Sakura snagged from the
air and pressed gratefully to the lump on the side of her head. The
black-haired Lovely Angel said, "You passed out. We carried you to the
infirmary, after we had gotten Natsumi into the stasis tube. You woke up
a few minutes after that and became slightly hysterical. When we tried
to stop you from opening her stasis chamber, you...got a bit violent."
Yuri fingered the bruise on her cheek. "When Kei finally managed to get
a good hit in
% drop 'in'. With 'on' right next to it sounds awkward.
done to Natsumi there as well. After watching it once with the volume
up, wincing at every scream, they had watched it twice more with the
volume down. After that, they had erased the entire section after
copying it onto a micro-disk, swearing that Sakura would never see that
tape.
% Good idea.
Aside from the terrible sadism
% I'd drop 'terrible' as being unnecessary.
Despite common beliefs that Kei was "The Dumb Angel", Yuri actually
considered her a rather sharp mind. After a moment of thinking of some
of the things they had done in the past, Yuri amended this to a
reasonably capable mind with a knack for noticing subtleties.
% Much better. ^_^
attacker skipped off the ship with a broken nose and soaked in blood,
smiling happily all the way. "But who the hell was that little monster?"
She asked.
% she
Standing in the doorway to his small kitchen was Mary, dressed in a
frilly pink apron with a nauseatingly cute cat emblazoned on it, and
apparently nothing else on beneath it.
% Horny from the blood and pain, obviously.
He noted rather absently that she
had a small white bandage across the bridge of her nose and a partially
healed bruise on her cheek. In her hands was a pan of something that
smelled reasonably appetizing.
% Probably the kidney of someone she beat up on the way over.
She smiled cutely as she resumed stirring
the pan's contents. "Hey Tiger!
% Hey, Tiger
Didja miss me?"
% Sleet: yes. But only because I'm a poor shot.
She winked at him and answered, "Yup! I cooked you dinner. Can you
guess what you're having for desert?"
% Sleet: Sand? (I think you mean, 'dessert')
She turned to go back into the kitchen. Sleet could feel his eyes,
and other areas, getting bigger as he watched her perfectly-shaped
buttocks move in a very attractive way, proving once and for all that
there was nothing under that apron. Sleet babbled something about a
status report, though he suspected it was mostly incoherent. In the
kitchen, she turned to look over her shoulder at him. "We can talk
later. Now, hurry up. Your dinner is getting cooler, and I'm getting
hotter.
% Heh. Cute turn of the phrase.
Dr. Gransten Morris, surgeon and amateur golf champion, was on his
way to get some coffee when an explosion hit the lobby of the Mikhail
Swanson Memorial Hospital. After a moment of confusion, he realized the
"explosion" was actually a girl. Three of them, in fact.
Two of them, a young red-head and a girl of about the same age with
black hair were
% hair, were
The two other girls said and did nothing throughout this
interchange, they only stood and watched the pink-haired one cautiously.
Dusting her hand off, said girl pointed at Morris and motioned for him
to come over to the receptionist's desk. He decided that it was wisest
to humor her until the Peacekeepers could arrive.
% And end up as nothing more than chewed up bags of flesh. ^_^
The other two girls
wheeled the stasis tube over. Inside Dr.
% Inside, Dr.
Morris could see another girl,
this one primarily naked and soaked with blood now frozen in space by
the stasis field. He could see she had a number of rather nasty cuts in
her sides and on her face. He also noted that each one of the girls were
Luciens.
% What? Luciens have markings on them?
The pink-haired one pointed at the stasis tube as she fiddled with
something on her hip. "She needs help. She's hurt." She
% hurt," she
Dr. Morris looked back through the ruined doors. A Peacekeeper
personnel carrier lay overturned in the parking lot, belching greasy
black smoke. He swallowed nervously. From behind the desk, Nancy was
making whimpering noises. The pink-haired one pointed at the girl in the
stasis tube again. "Help her. She...she's dying."
Making an effort to make his voice comforting, Dr. Morris said,
"Miss, this hospital is for Osic upgrades only. There a number of
perfectly serviceable Lucien hospitals off-planet on the O'Neill
Stations that you can-"
In the blink of an eye, Morris found himself staring down the
barrel of a large pistol held in the fist of the girl.
% Sakura: Allow me to rephrase that. Help her or you will be dying too.
It was easy to
look most of the way down the barrel, as said barrel was less than a
half an inch from his eye. The girl's expression had not changed from
its rictus of worry and quiet grief since she had entered the hospital,
and it did not change now. Dr. Morris scowled at the gun and blustered,
"You can't threaten me, you little bitch!
% Too late. She already has.
first time, expression crossed her face, and it was cold, murderous
rage. "You pathetic fuck," She hissed, "I'm a 3WA troubleshooter! If you
don't agree to have my friend in an operating theater by the time I
finish talking, I will kill you and find another doctor. If he won't
help, I'll kill him too. If I have to, I'll nuke your shitty little
planet into dust. You people are expendable. She isn't. Clear?"
% Doctor Morris: Not really. Could you be a little less ambiguous?
*****
The only sound in the locker room was the drip of a shower and
Dalton's quiet breathing as he changed. He came to the gym to work out
late at night when nobody else was there. He liked it better that way,
not because it was quieter, but because he would have the locker room to
himself. He didn't like having to be naked around other people. It made
him feel uncomfortable.
% interesting aspect of his personality
do anything. He remembered the nervous boy, still reed thin and looking
like an unbent coat hanger with legs, going up to a pretty girl and her
friend. He remembered the boy asking the pretty girl on a date. He
remembered the way they had laughed at the boy, mocking laughter,
teasing laughter. He remembered how everyone else in the library had
laughed too. He remembered seeing the boy run out of the library,
mortified beyond belief as the laughter pursued him. He could still hear
the laughter.
% Largely in part because he had been laughing at the boy too. Good thing
he hadn't been shot down in public like that. It would have been
embarassing.
couldn't be him...she was a slut! A bitch, like all the others! No! She
was his ideal, the perfect, virginal woman. But she rejected him! She
was just another stupid bitch! No! She was perfect! Then why did she
reject him? It wasn't his fault, it wasn't his fault it wasn't his fault
it wasn't his fault...
% I guess BTR doesn't bother with psychologically screening any of their
people? Seems like everyone there is a major headcase.
Dalton screamed, a high-pitched keening noise. He slammed one fist
against the locker, leaving a half-inch deep dent. "BITCH!" He
% he
Kei cursed, Sakura paled, and Yuri murmured, "Oh dear..."
When Morris looked at them questioningly, Sakura said quietly, "She
hasn't had the official DNA sample taken yet. Natsumi and I've only
been troubleshooters for a week."
% Given fatality rates you think it would be standard procedure to have one
before allowing anyone to go out in the field.
lacerations and contusions from the chain you say as
% was
All three of the girls had paled at his matter-of-fact recital.
Sakura turned to Kei and said in a dead-flat voice, "I don't recall
seeing half of the things he was describing done to her on the video
tape."
Kei shifted uncomfortably and said,
% Spontanious breakage. Happens all the time.
*****
"That was...that was..."
"The best you ever had?"
% "Actually it was pretty darn crappy."
% Can't wait for more.
D.B. Sommer
--