--- DB Sommer <sommer@3rdm.net> wrote:

You wrote:

-----

A lone chair floats above a ring of idly chatting computer

operators.

In the chair sits a woman apparently in her mid twenties. Her
piercing green eyes and perfectly tanned skin are set off by a
cascade of gleaming white hair. The beauty of her face is

currently

disfigured by a look of supreme boredom.

Urk! Drop this tense. It does not work at all for me, and the rest
of the fic isn't like it.

This is a hold over from when I was organizing the fic into volumes
as well as chapters. Something cute to tie them together. Now that
I've gone to simply chapters, it does kind of stick out there. I'll
drop it.

"Wow, do you really think so?" Skuld sounded hesitant. "Last time

you dumped the system on me... she thought back to the time Urd had
run off to Earth and left her alone in the heavens.

"Oh, come on. You were just a kid back then." Still are, but I'll
remind you later... after my vacation. "Besides, it's not like

there

are any looming issues or anything. The System practically runs
itself these days. It's time you got a chance to be 'Acting

System

Administrator', Skuld. Besides, you can always give me a call if
anything critical," translate that to 'interesting', "happens."

I have mixed feelings about the thought dialogue interrupting the
actual dialogue. Again the flow seems stilted and awkward.

I'll take a look at it.

"Well, I hope you have a nice vacation. Bring back some

souvenirs, OK?"

I recommend spelling out 'okay.' Always keep abbreviations and
acronyms to a minimum.

Actually, "OK" is the original form. If many people have trouble with
it, though, it's no problem to change.

-----
"What the...!?" Eric's head shot up as chaos enveloped him. "A

power

surge?" he asked as he scrambled to his feet.

[I have queried the apartment and there has been no power surge.]

"Huh? Then... wow, what's that?"

An incredibly beautiful woman had stepped out of the blinding

chaos

which had been his holovision. The expression of joyful

anticipation

which filled her face rapidly faded into one of confusion.

Heh. I see she's somewhat more disruptive with holovisions than
TVs. :)

I wondered about that, but Urd's transit does make TV screens flare
and in the case of Donovan's holovision the entire room is the
screen. Besides, it was fun to write. ^_- 

"Hey!" Urd yelled as she collapsed on top of the mortal. Her knee
caught him on the side of the head.

Heh.

Probably another reason she's a goddess second class. "Collateral
damage while exiting transport medium." 

She found one in the kitchen and dialed a number. "Hello... hey,
whaddaya mean I dialed a number that isn't in service?" she

barked at

the standard recording from the phone company. She dialed again

with

the same result before slamming her fist down on the disconnect
button.

Hmm.

There's a perfectly good explanation for this, really.

"Wow, the malfunction must be worse than I thought. This is

beginning

to look serious," Urd said, turning to the unconscious man on the
floor, "Maybe I'm lucky I ended up here after all. If the phones
don't work I can't expect any help from Heaven, so Mr. whiz kid

Whiz Kid (it's a proper name she's giving him, even if it isn't
his)

Good point. I'll change it.

he began

collecting his thoughts - not an easy task with a battle being

waged all around you. OK,

You are using that a lot. I'd cut back on the usage. You could drop
it here and no one would miss it.

Probably a good idea.
 

now, let's look at this logically. Could we both

be hallucinating? Could we have taken a massive shock from the
malfunctioning holo and now we're delirious?

What? Never experimented with acid? Could attribute it to a
flashback.

He doesn't even drink alcohol. There's a good reason for that, too.

[My diagnostics report proper function. Your brain patterns are
within normal parameters considering the circumstances. House

reports no malfunction."

Eric sneaked another glance at the impossible woman.

You already called her that. I would drop the 'impossible' here.

I agree. I think I've already edited that out in my latest rewrite.

"I'm stranded here on this primitive mud ball of a planet in this
backwater dimension! THAT's the emergency!"

"Dimension?" Why do I have this sense of impending doom?

That would be your intuition kicking in.

Got that right.

Something like steam rose from the autochef and immediately

condensed

into a peculiar looking little man, maybe 20cm

better off spelling it out here. 'Twenty centimeters...'

I can do that.

Can you verify this memory loss thing? Eric asked his AI.

[It will take some time to perform the necessary cross-checks.]

Urd:  Your AI can't help you. She gave orders to the troll running
it not to snitch on her as well.

Yeah, you aren't the first to wonder about the troll in Donovan's AI.
I doubt we'll see that troll, though.

Urd turned and gave him a level stare. "I'm not letting you out

of my

sight until I'm safely back in Heaven, Donovan. You could be run

over by a bus tomorrow, and then where would I be?"

Donovan: I don't know about you, but hopefully I'd end up where you
want to go.

It occurs to me, Urd can just kill herself and end up in Heaven
that way, right? :)

If Urd's home Heaven is *that* Heaven, sure.  

Urd stared at her room for a moment, then sighed. "This was

supposed

to be my vacation. I never dreamed I'd be spending it in a place

like

this."

"Well, Berkeley isn't exactly a vacation spot,

More like an asylum where the inmates were tuned loose. Yep.

Got that right.

over the cork which removed itself from the bottle then settled

onto

a counter.

She took a sniff and closed her eyes. "This is just what the

doctor

ordered. You got a... of course not," she added as a shot glass
appeared in her hand.

Hmm. I thought Urd usually drank from the bottle since she doesn't
share, nor does she not finish the bottle. :)

She rarely drinks straight from the bottle. 

What kind of discrepancy?

[I have no data and no cross references to events over a period

of 18

days in my past.]

Thought so.

Belldandy doesn't do spells half way.

Inside, Urd squeezed past the potato chips and beef jerky

Eh? They had so many she had to squeeze past the displays?

Good point. I was thinking of my local gas station grocery store.
This one's probably bigger.

"Eric, you have a gorgeous girl in your apartment! You can

impress

her with your physical prowess! Make her think you're really a

jock

instead of a no life geek! She'll love a day at the beach!"

"What do you mean, no life geek? Besides, she isn't that kind--"

"Beach?" Urd's voice came from beside Eric, causing him to jump.

Now she's gone and done it.

Insteresting little bit. Feels like a set up for more things in the
future.
Will look forward to more. Aside the okay thing, ran smoothly. A
bit minimal in descriptions, but that's okay.

I'm working on the descriptions part, and I'll weed out some of the
OKs. Thanks for the comments!

Brian Welch

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Faith Hill - Exclusive Performances, Videos & More
http://faith.yahoo.com

             .---Anime/Manga Fanfiction Mailing List----.
             | Administrators - ffml-admins@anifics.com |
             | Unsubscribing - ffml-request@anifics.com |
             |     Put 'unsubscribe' in the subject     |
             `---- http://ffml.anifics.com/faq.txt -----'