Piercing the Veil (FOR RATING BY COMMITTEE)

[Fortis]

I'll use the second post to say a few things about the story and what not.

It was a world of cold concrete, steel, and rain at the corner of York and Hudson where Kate Taggart huddled under a striped, black and white umbrella. As the rain pelted at her umbrella, she hoped that the man she was meeting could help her, could tell her what was going on. What were these images flashing in her head that didn't belong to her? And how did this man she was meeting know what had happened only a few hours before? These questions chased each other around inside her head. Then, an image of a mind-bending mathematical formula pushed all the questions aside, as if they were no more than questions about what to eat on a Wednesday night. As the image flickered, her original thoughts crashed back into her head, drowning the image under their weight. She couldn't make sense of anything. She felt scared and immensely small as she looked through the rain and across the black asphalt at the towering white granite building across from her.

“Concentrate,” she told herself, “think about something else, anything else. Just get a hold of yourself.” She pushed past her exhaustion and peered west from under her umbrella, down York street searching for a mental anchor. If she strained her eyes, she could just see the outline of the Freedom Tower across the choppy expanse of the Hudson river. Normally its windows shone white in the sun, but now it loomed up, black under the dark sky, out of the mass of buildings that was downtown Manhattan. Looking at the Tower rising above the rest, she let out a sullen excuse of a laugh, “I know how those other buildings feel,” she reflected. “No!” she told herself, “get control, focus on something. When was the Freedom Tower finished anyway?” She had visited it once, to get information for a paper when she was an undergrad, that had been three years ago. How old had it been then? “Eight, no, nine years old, so it must be twelve years old now.”

She played with the number in her head, “if you switch the order you get twenty-one. If you split the two up you get one and two. If you add one and two together you get three. If you add three and twenty-one together you get twenty-four.” The faintest smile flitted across her face, she would be twenty-four in three days. Funny how numbers work she thought. Someone can get them to do just about anything if they try hard enough. Yet they were clear cut, defined, they added up or they did not. Like things should. She had learned that while getting her degree in computer information systems.

Numbers also have a way of causing havoc from the shadows. All but one decimal in the corner could be right in a whole system, and that one wrong decimal would spawn another, and then another, until it eventually spread through the whole system manipulating the key figures. That she had learned very quickly from her job as a computer systems administrator at Fiss Pharmaceutical Equipment Inc. Today's computer fiasco just proved it further.

Undergrad, degree, job, today. It was like she was being drawn forward in time, to the eventuality of the last few hours. “Maybe I can think about it. Maybe I have enough control now. Maybe I can try to make sense of it all.” It had been the craziest and the longest day she had ever had the agony of living through. Something had been affecting all the computers in her section, and instead of the normal three administrators, there had only been her and James Bascom, a new junior administrator, because it had been Sunday evening. “Day, or night, of rest my eye,” she thought bitterly. She had been so busy and so harassed that she had kept forgetting to take her insulin. Then when she had finally remembered, thanks to minor pain in her abdomen, she had been nearly annoyed to death by some testing lab peon who pestered her relentlessly to get his analysis station back on-line while she had taken her shot. But the pain had persisted and started to become sharp a hour later. She had assumed it was because she had put it off so long and that it would get better with time. But she needed to focus and knew she wasn't close to overdosing so she had taken more to hurry things along.

FPE Inc. was really well connected in the pharmaceutical industry, so it got insulin and syringes for her directly from the manufacturers. She had to use a disposable hospital syringe and draw the insulin from a bottle like a nurse would at a hospital, but it was worth it because she received it all for free from the company. That was a perk of the job.

The night had gotten better after the second dose of insulin, her pain had subsided and, despite James seeming to vanish, she was able to have the majority of the computers functioning properly by the end of her fourteen-hour shift when the Monday morning computer administrators took over.

“Odd things certainly had happened,” she thought. The system wide fritz, her first shot of insulin not seeming to work, and the new guy, James, disappearing in the middle of their shift. But none of that added up to make what had happened after she got off work make any more sense to her.

She had gone to get something to eat at a shabby donut shop before heading back to her apartment to crash, not out of preference but because it was the only place open so early in the morning. While nibbling on an apple fritter there, she had received a call from work. The chief administrator, Micheal Kaur, wanted her to come back in to help with a problem, which she told him was ridiculous. Not only were there three other computer system admins there at that moment, but Human Resources had already run right up to the legal limit of straight work hours with her fourteen hour shift. Kaur still pushed her to come in, but when she asked what the problem was he did not give her a straight answer. It was “just important that you come in right away,” he had said. That seemed odd to Kate. He was usually such a stickler for detail and even more so for the rules. It was a couple of minutes after giving in to the demand that she had had her first flash of memory that did not belong to her. It was of a double helix spinning lazily next to a triple helix. When it had happened, she dropped her fritter and knocked over her little carton of milk. At the time, she had chocked it up to being exhausted. But the second time, an image of a small piece of the triple helix splitting off and attaching to the double helix, made her rethink her initial assumption.

Then, there had been the second call. It was from a man who spoke urgently to her, “Ms. Taggart, my name is Denton. I know what is happening. I know about you being called back into work. Ms. Taggart,” he paused, “whatever you do, do not go back to work. You'd be lucky if you were killed the second you walked in the front door.”

Kate had been dumbstruck, which had quickly turned into an angry fear, “Wh-who. What. What is this?! Is this some kind of prank? Don't call again!” She hung up.

Her left hand had found its way to her mouth, covering it, in some unbidden gesture trying to hold herself together. Her cellphone's text message tone had chimed at her. She looked at the screen. There was a message: “Your first shot didn't work, did it?” Followed by a second message a minute later: “York and Hudson. 20 minutes.”

And so she stood there, at the corner of York and Hudson, waiting for the man who called himself Denton. Shielded from the rain by her umbrella, Kate was glad that she had gone over the events that had led her here. At the very least she had pieced together some shreds of rational thought and at the most she believed that meeting Denton made sense. He seemed to know something about what has happening, and she was certain about one thing; something about the call from work simply did not add up.

A cab pulled silently up to the curb in front of her. The faint whirring of its electric engine masked by the patter of rain. The back door popped open to reveal a man leaning across the back seat and motioning at Kate to get in the cab. She hesitated a moment, suddenly unsure this really was what she should be doing. The man leaned further forward and tilted his head to peer up at the blanket sky. His eyes returned from the sky to look at her from under raised eyebrows. They seemed to ask: “would you rather stay out there?” Kate replied by moving forward and the man retreated back across the seat to allow her to get in. He settled himself half against the back of the seat and half against the driver's side passenger door. Kate closed her umbrella and then the door behind her. She set her umbrella between them and mimicked the man's position, finding reassurance in the few extra centimeters of distance it put between them.

She surveyed the interior of the cab from her corner. It was a standard cab; gray carpet and artificial leather upholstery, and a sound proof divide separating the driver's cabin and the passenger area. The divide had a speaker built into the middle of it. Kate caught intent eyes in the mirror. The driver, a white man in his forties wearing a baseball cap, quickly looked away and started to drive when Kate met his stare in the mirror. Something in his eyes was unsettling to her. They had a grayed over and disconnected look to them, as if something behind them was looking clean through them at her. She shrugged her unease off with a mental, “it's only the rain playing tricks on me.”

Finally she turned her inspection towards the man sitting on the other side of the cab. He looked to Kate to be in his mid to late twenties. He had slightly receding black hair combed straight back, mellow eyes, and what Kate thought might be a muscular body hidden under the full length woolen coat he had drawn around him. The man wore a slight smile on his face. “He is not at all bad looking,” Kate thought to herself, and the fact that she had made that observation surprised her. “If I can be making observations like that, maybe I really have gotten control of myself,” she thought.

“So you are Denton I take it.” Kate said.

The not at all bad looking man smiled fully. “Indeed I am.”

Kate glanced around the cab once more and found the driver's intent eyes in the mirror again. Nodding to the front of the cab she asked, “Is he with you?”

Denton frowned at the question. “Uhh... if by 'with,' you mean something other than the cab driver that picked me up when I called for a cab, then no.” His face brightened, and he added, “don't worry about him. The standardization of cabs under the state sanctioned monopoly makes cabs excellent places to meet privately. They are all the same. Drivers can only hear passengers if a passenger opens the speaker channel and,” he pointed to a small slit a little below the speaker that Kate had not noticed, “as long as that thing has a credit, debit, or prepaid cash card in it, drivers are perfectly happy to drive anyone around all day. No questions asked. As long as your funds or credit last that is. I recommend the prepaid cards, safer, more anonymity.”

Kate did not like his last sentence. It implied danger and cracked the fragile calmness she had built up while standing on the corner. “Safer?” she erupted, “Anonymity? From who? What is going on!?”

Denton's hands shot up immediately. “Wowowo,” he soothed, his mellow eyes going farther in calming her than his voice.

She paused for several seconds, and when she spoke again, it was slower and calmer than before, “How, how did you know about my insulin not working?”

Denton lowered his hands. “Good, calm is better.” Smiling he added too cheerily for Kate, “in fact it's a must. The questions are nothing compared to the answers. So it would help to be very, uhh, unexplosive. Can you do that Katheryn?”

“It's Kate, and can you drop the 'I'm a little too happy for the situation attitude?'” She added sarcastically, “can you do that Mr. Denton?”

“Ok, Kate it is, and just Denton for me please. As for the little too happy thing, I'm afraid not.” He smiled again, “I've been told I come off that way. But its a nervous thing. I can't control it. I swear.”

“Fine. Then get on to the answers that I need to be calm for.”

“Fair enough,” Denton said as he pulled out a palm sized display screen from one of his many coat pockets. “Here. Watch this.”

Kate was shocked to see herself on the screen. The video showed her preparing a shot of insulin while sitting on a table in a sterile white biology lab and being pestered by a testing lab worker.

“Where, how did y-.”

“Watch closely,” Denton interrupted. “There!”

Kate eyes widened in horror as she saw herself set the filled syringe behind her, right next to another full syringe she had not noticed at the time she had been there. The screen showed Kate gesturing wildly in an attempt to get the lab worker to leave her alone. The worker persisted and Kate threw her hands up and reached behind her for her syringe. She had quickly injected herself, but she had, unknowingly at the time, picked up and used the wrong syringe. Then the screen went black. Kate sat silently staring at the black screen.

“The reason your first shot of insulin didn't work is because it wasn't insulin.” Denton said flatly and returned the palm display to the coat pocket it had come from.

“What was it?” Kate ask quietly.

“I don't know all the details, but I think it was part of a project involving the transfer of memories from one person to another.”

“So what I am seeing is another person's memories?”

“Ah! So you are experiencing effects,” Denton commented.

“So I'm not going crazy?”

“No, you are in the real world I'm afraid.”

“Afraid?” Kate dismissed the idea. “They can fix it. I can go back. It was just a mistake. An accident.”

“No,” Denton said simply, “you can't. It isn't a mistake that you can go back and have fixed. You now have something desirable to a lot of people. Just knowing that this project exists makes you a target. Dead, alive, it probably depends, probably both several times over each way.”

“A Target? Why would a person want me because of this?”

“Not a person Kate. We're not talking about one man. One man can be killed, one man can fail, one man eventually dies. Though Simon Rathe seems to be pushing that rule to its limits,” he added breezily in small talk fashion. “No. Organizations Kate. An organization is hard to kill. Organizations rarely fail. They only have setbacks. Organizations can last forever. Look,” Denton said in a slow tired voice and sighed, and for the first time Kate found no trace of latent happiness, intentional or not, on what she now saw to be Denton's over-lined face, “what I'm saying is that there are groups of people out there, groups that most people don't even know exist, groups with agendas, groups that will come after you because of what happened to you.

“Maynard Fiss, the man that owns the company you work for, is part of one and he, they, they will kill you before letting another group get its hands on you. They would kill you just to keep what they are working on a secret. It is like an underground war. Government officials, company managers, military leaders, secret societies, all mixing and matching into factions based on agendas and ideologies. All of them fighting for secret supremacy. Everyone of these groups will have a reason to want you, some dead, some alive, but not a life that is worth living; you'd be lucky to end up like crazy old whats-his-face down in Miami.” he added more to himself than to Kate. “You can't just go back. There is no back to go to. Once in, by choice or not, there is no getting out.”

A lot of what he said did not make sense to Kate. Some of it would have sounded down right crazy to her if she was not seeing memories that did not belong to her. But what Kate found craziest of all was that she believed him. She did not want to believe him, but she did. Somewhere deep down she had prepared herself for something horrible, maybe even for something like this, ever since the first flash of memory that was not hers. Denton had just brought this resolve to her conscious thought and given the situation some clarity, though at the expense of sparking even more questions than she had had before. “What should I do?” She asked. Her calmness shocked her.

“I need to ask you a question first Kate.” Denton looked squarely at her and asked, “do you seek the truth?”

It seemed like a simple question to Kate. But when she looked into his eyes, she knew it was not. His eyes were fixed on her. They burned with how important her answer was; they were hungry, afraid, hopeful, and expectant. Hanging on her answer.

“Yes,” Kate said, “I seek the truth.”

Denton became all smiles again. “Good! Excellent! Uhh, fabulous! Go up to your apartment and pack a bag while I make a call. We'll talk more afterwards. Be quick. Grab all the cash you have and leave your cellphone.”

“My apartment?”

“Yes, we are here. We have been for five minutes,” he pointed out her window. “Get out and be quick.” He pushed her out the door into the rain without her umbrella. She looked back at the cab and saw Denton starting to dial a number on a newly produced cellphone. He waved at her to get going as he put the phone to his ear.

Kate turned and found that she was indeed in front of her apartment complex. She ran into the lobby. She heard a high pitched whoosh from outside, and then, BOOM! Glass shattered all around her and she was blown forward and off her feet by a shock wave. She looked back and saw the cab in fiery slag. Kate picked herself up and ran. Ran out of the shattered lobby entrance. She ran into the gray world.

[Fortis]

Originally I was thinking of this story along non conspiracy lines, but I decided to take it both ways. Hopefully it works.

I thought the perspective of someone accidentally stumbling into the middle of the conspiracies would be a cool place to start for people new to the setting. I figured I should be vague with this and then make a very short story (a conversation between people in the know usually) for each faction that ties each to this story and to introduce more of the characters. Kind of a collect all the pieces idea. If this is any good that is...

I'd really appreciate as much feedback as I can get! Cheers!

[Foreman]

Paragraph 2
"As the rain pelted all around her..."
-I think that you should specify what the rain is pelting in this sentence

Paragraph 3
“I knew how those other buildings feel.” should be "I know how those other buildings feel."

Paragraph 5
"she had kept forgetting to take her insulin. Then when she had finally remembered, thanks to minor pain in her abdomen from having low insulin"
-I think you could leave of the last 4 words since it should be apparent what the pain is from because of the previous sentence.

"had took her shot" should be "had taken her shot"

Paragraph 12
"The motion and his eyes that returned to look at her from under inquisitively raised eyebrows seemed to ask"

-This sentence is a bit hard to follow.

Paragraph 13
"Kate caught intent eyes in the mirror. The driver, a white man in his forties wearing a baseball cap, quickly looked away and started to drive when Kate met his eyes in the mirror. Something in his eyes was unsettling to her. "

- I think you could find another way to say eyes in one of these three sentences. Adding variety keeps it more interesting. (Maybe "met his gaze/stare" and "something in that look was unsettling")

Paragraph 18
"the cab driver that pick me up when I called for a cab"
- the cab driver that picked me up

Paragraph 37
“No, you are in the really world I'm afraid.”
-real world?[/u]

Paragraph 44
“I need to ask you a question first Kate. Do you seeking the truth?”
- Do you seek the truth?


Overall it is a good introduction to the world of conspiracy. I like the idea of having a diabetic character. I liked how she has some mathematical tendancies. It makes sense for a computer tech and adds some depth to the character.

I realise this is only a quick rough draft, so I tried to give some editing notes. I think you should read over the story and make sure that each sentence sounds good when you say them out loud (some feel a bit awkward).

I really liked the last sentence, and I have suggestion. It would be interesting if you add some details near the beginning of the story that show that this character sees the world in black and white. This way when the last sentence says that she goes into the grey world it shows that her whole entire view of the world has been changed in one night.

[Fortis]

Thanks for the feedback Foreman! I took care of the grammar errors you pointed out, I even found a couple myself along the way. You also helped spark the new reoccurring black and white umbrella theme. I also added a comment on the clear cut-ness of numbers (hopefully building a perception of Kate's/average Joe's view of things in general). I tried not to be as direct as making a statement that "Kate thought the world was simple or clear cut along right/wrong good/evil /black/white lines. Hopefully it worked.

Anyhow, other questions? Comments? Observations?

I've got a thick skin. If it or something doesn't, or does, do it for you let me know. Feedback is good! Though if you can say why, it would help

[Foreman]

Thanks for the feedback Foreman! I took care of the grammar errors you pointed out, I even found a couple myself along the way. You also helped spark the new reoccurring black and white umbrella theme. I also added a comment on the clear cut-ness of numbers (hopefully building a perception of Kate's/average Joe's view of things in general). I tried not to be as direct as making a statement that "Kate thought the world was simple or clear cut along right/wrong good/evil /black/white lines. Hopefully it worked.

I actually think the sentence at the beginning of the story takes away from this. It's better to keep hinting at the simile than to come out and state it. I think it would be good if you didn't describe the world as grey at the beggining of the story. If you actually described the things Katlyn sees (buildings etc) as black and white it could give the hint that she see's the world in black and white at the beginning. Save the reference to the grey until that last awesome sentence.

Another thing that I would like to see changed is to have some of the name dropping removed. It's OK for Denton to mention Myanard Fiss because he has some relation to the story (he owns the building). The mentioning of the old guy might be ok, but the mentioning of Joe Hawkins seems out of place like you are just trying to fit in a lot of characters just for the sake of it. This never works (Think Mortal Kombat 2 )

I decided to go through some of the stories again to see if we can get a little bit further on that front, and I really think this story should be submitted to the stroy commitee for aproval. (with the minor changes I suggested.) You have a good writing style and I would love to see any other stories you've got.

Hey, everyone else! Leave this man some feedback. Thank you.

[Fortis]

I actually think the sentence at the beginning of the story takes away from this. It's better to keep hinting at the simile than to come out and state it. I think it would be good if you didn't describe the world as grey at the beggining of the story. If you actually described the things Katlyn sees (buildings etc) as black and white it could give the hint that she see's the world in black and white at the beginning. Save the reference to the grey until that last awesome sentence.

Another thing that I would like to see changed is to have some of the name dropping removed. It's OK for Denton to mention Myanard Fiss because he has some relation to the story (he owns the building). The mentioning of the old guy might be ok, but the mentioning of Joe Hawkins seems out of place like you are just trying to fit in a lot of characters just for the sake of it. This never works (Think Mortal Kombat 2 )

I decided to go through some of the stories again to see if we can get a little bit further on that front, and I really think this story should be submitted to the stroy commitee for aproval. (with the minor changes I suggested.) You have a good writing style and I would love to see any other stories you've got.

Hey, everyone else! Leave this man some feedback. Thank you.

Thanks for the revisit. I just let the story sit due to a combination of available time, at the time, and seeming lack of interest/feedback. Thought I have still been lurking around

I agree about the first sentence. I wrote it as I was starting, looking for direction/theme, and never really looked at it again. It needs to go for several reasons.

I can also play with the gray theme. At the very least it can probably loose its double prominence of first and last sentence in the first paragraph. And a little more black and white couldn't hurt.

Again I agree about name, or info, dropping when it is not needed (though I can't follow the mortal combat 2 reference ). It wasn't just a drop, not in my mind at least. I can kill Joe's name, but the reference was for the sake of giving Kate some goal or idea of where to go/what to do next (should there be a continuation). I can do a nameless reference (like "that crazy old whatshisface in Miami"). Opinions?

Anyways, I will look into actually implementing the changes plus another proofing tomorrow. I know I have one "for" as "fore" at the moment. I'll post again when it has happened.

As always, questions, comments, critiques, etc, all feedback is welcome.

[Foreman]

Again I agree about name, or info, dropping when it is not needed (though I can't follow the mortal combat 2 reference ). It wasn't just a drop, not in my mind at least. I can kill Joe's name, but the reference was for the sake of giving Kate some goal or idea of where to go/what to do next (should there be a continuation). I can do a nameless reference (like "that crazy old whatshisface in Miami"). Opinions?

That actually makes a lot of sense when you put it that way. Maybe the cryptic remark about Simon Rathe would be enough of a lead for her to follow. Good thinking.

The mortal kombat reference was a weak attempt to be funny, but that movie was terrible because they just tried to put as many characters as possible into one story. (Well that wasn't the only reason it sucked, but it was what I was refering to.)

[Psy-jedi]

Hey Fortis,

Great story. I agree with Foreman that when the tiny grammar errors are fixed, this will be good to go for becoming official.

Thanks!
PJ

[Fortis]

Ok, it is updated.

The major gray, black, and white changes are in there first two paragraphs (no gray for quite some time).

Joe's name is gone, he's crazy old whats-his-face in Miami now. Simon is still in there.

I caught a few more typos/grammar flubs throughout.

Cheers!

[Foreman]

She felt scared and immensely small as he looked through the rain and across the black asphalt at the towering white granite building across from her.

oops used he instead of she.

Funny how numbers work she thought. Someone can get them to do just about anything if their try hard enough.

if they try hard enough

At the very least she had pieced together some shreds of rational thought and at the most she believed that meeting Denton made sense. He seemed to know something about what has happening, and she was certain about one thing; the call from work had not been on the up and up.

Oh, what about saying that something about the call from work "didn't add up" (just a suggestion)

Everything else looks pretty good. Fix those two spelling errors and I will tell PJ I think it's ready to be official.

[Fortis]

She felt scared and immensely small as he looked through the rain and across the black asphalt at the towering white granite building across from her.

oops used he instead of she.

Funny how numbers work she thought. Someone can get them to do just about anything if their try hard enough.

if they try hard enough

At the very least she had pieced together some shreds of rational thought and at the most she believed that meeting Denton made sense. He seemed to know something about what has happening, and she was certain about one thing; the call from work had not been on the up and up.

Oh, what about saying that something about the call from work "didn't add up" (just a suggestion)

Everything else looks pretty good. Fix those two spelling errors and I will tell PJ I think it's ready to be official.

I corrected the errors you pointed out. I like the adding up idea too. I did a couple other things, nothing large, needed to move a comma, split up one or two paragraphs into two, etc. I don't think I introduced any more problems

Anyhow, there it is, version somethingoranother.