The Echo Chambers, 37

Dan was already plugging him in and booting up the diagnostic program. Not fast enough, Ji thought as Cale rolled to his side and retched, reaching blindly for the trashcan Ji had placed there.

He shifted to stand beside Dan. “Take care of the nausea first,” he murmured in the redundantly named American English. He spoke conversationally, as if commenting and observing instead of directing in case, by some miracle, Cale could notice details in his current state. Even as he spoke, Cale moaned and retched again, sweat beading on his face and spreading in damp patches across his back. “That’s the worst. Turn off the gag reflex, the abdominal spasms.”

“I remember,” Dan murmured back, though he sounded frustrated as he stared at the flashing codes and images that finally lit the screen. And maybe he did, but he was slow at it, hesitating and halting as he tapped in commands, clicked and dragged images. When he spoke again, it was more to himself than to Ji. “I didn’t think I’d ever have to do this again.”

“SD-401 through 33,” Ji said. “Ease it off. Don’t just drop the levels. Then the pain receptors. QRL, that whole group. Slowly. Stop about halfway and ease his optical receptors down about twenty percent. Drop non-vital involuntary muscle function completely. Then go back and turn off pain receptors completely. He’ll need a few minutes before—”

“Would you shut the fuck up?” Cale said in Prism. He dropped the trashcan as Dan worked through the process, wincing when it clattered to the floor. He rolled onto his back, his legs jerking, his arms twitching even as he flung the right one over his eyes and grimaced.

Ji pointed at the screen when Dan hesitated, showing him the muscle groups to turn off, the cluster of images that monitored and controlled Cale’s heart, lungs, and brain activity pulsing only inches away. When Dan clicked and began to turn the proper group down, Ji lifted a hand and spread his fingers, bouncing his palm as if patting the air to tell Dan to slow down.

Within moments, Cale’s body relaxed into the unsettling stillness reminiscent of the dead. Silence settled as Dan and JI both waited. “Son of a bitch,” Cale said, his arms still over his eyes and his voice cracking. “Haven’t you found my profile yet? Put me the fuck out already.”

Ji’d forgotten about the profiles. He’d been instructing Dan based on his own experience at the other end of the process, when he was the one in agony on the transfer bed. He turned to the console and brought up Cale’s personalized transfer protocol. After a quick scan, he discovered that Cale suffered from severe and persistent transfer sickness. He didn’t wait to instruct Dan, but simply made the adjustments.

Dan turned to Ji as Cale’s body went completely limp, his head listing to the left, his breath leaving in a long, slow sigh. “What’d you do?”

“Knocked him out.” Ji returned some his muscle function, just enough to let them work through some of the lactic lock without disturbing his sleep. “He’ll be out for at least twelve hours. We’ll have to wake him up, check on him again. But from what his profile says, we’ll have to keep him like this for at least 24 hours. Average is 38, longest recorded is over 80.”

Dan glanced at the screen and grimaced. “I’d forgotten about these.”

“So did I. The process I know is my own. Never considered anyone else’s.”

“Symptoms can last that long?” Dan asked, still reading.

“Apparently. Mine never last more than a few hours, but Cale—” He shook his head, wondering whose transfer symptoms were more atypical: his or Cale’s.

“No wonder he wanted to be put out,” Dan said, glancing back at the villein prone on the narrow bed. “You know him?”

“I do.”

He paused, took a moment to close Cale’s profile and pull up the bio monitor. “Is he trouble?”

“Yes,” Ji said, weary. “He is.”

The Echo Chambers, 36

Their hushed conversation fell into silence and then a shadow passed beneath the fitting room door. Ji. He made no sound when he moved, a realization that Lyssa found disconcerting.

She sat, waiting until she heard Clare go by, and then counted to thirty before she stood, eased the latch open. The clothes Ji had settled on still lay piled on the bench between the men’s and women’s dressing rooms. She hefted it into her arms and left, heading for a checkout.

Clare came up behind her as she was passing men’s shoes. “There you are! I’ve been looking all over for you.”

“I was putting some things back.” She let Clare take half the load. “Where’s Ji?”

“Oh, I told him that I wanted to go look at shoes after, and apparently that was the straw that broke him.” Her laugh would have sounded a little forced even if Lyssa hadn’t expected the lie. “He called for a rescue.”

“He just left you to pay for all this? That’s rather inconsiderate.”

“I offered,” Clare said as they reached the counter. She dropped her load and smiled at the painfully thin woman behind the counter. “Hi, how are you?”

“I’d have thought you’d jump at the chance to harass him some more.”

“I didn’t have the heart. Poor boy looked stricken.”

“Those, too?” the sales clerk asked, gesturing at the clothes in Lyssa’s arms.

“Oh, yeah. Sorry.” She added to the mix, and both she and Clare watched the clerk sort and scan.

“Twenty-nine thirty-eight,” the clerk finally announced, “and fifty-two cents.”

“Whoo,” Lyssa said in a low whistle.

Clare handed the clerk her credit card.

“You’re paying for it?”

“Ji’ll pay me back.” Claire fiddled with the clasp of her wallet, opening and closing it with soft clicks.

“Didn’t you just meet him?”

Click—click—click. “He’s family,” she said with another laugh. “If you can’t trust family, who can you trust?” She signed the slip, and they each grabbed a couple bags.

“When are you going to tell me what’s really going on?” Lyssa asked as they walked toward the exit.

“What are you talking about? Nothing’s going on.”

“Uh-huh.”

Clare propped the door open to let Lyssa pass into the cool September sunshine. “Paranoid,” she said, her tone teasing.

“You didn’t stop to look at shoes.”

“What? Why would I—” she stopped short and looked at Lyssa from the corners of her eyes. “I told you, he looked stricken. But he still has to try them on. I’ll just wait a couple days and haul him back here.”

Lyssa realized that Clare wasn’t going to budge—at least not today. But that only made her more determined. With some poking around, she might not be able to discover the truth, but she could at least uncover a couple of the lies. She’d always wanted to play Nancy Drew. For now, though, she turned her attention to the sea of asphalt and metal. “Where did we park?”

 

The light in the Echo Chamber didn’t have a dimmer. Ji tamped down on his frustration and helped Dan dig out an old floor lamp from a storage closet in the hallway. They’d no sooner plugged it in beside the transfer and turned it on when Dan’s alarm sang the two long notes that signified an immediate arrival. Ji crossed the room in three strides and flicked the switch to turn off the overhead light just as the small rush of displaced air stirred the room.

Ji turned and bit back an oath.

Cale.

Why Romance?

I write romance. But I have to ask myself why.  Not only am I a bit of a cynic who’s distrustful of romantic gestures in real life, but I’m also a fiercely independent commitment-phobe. So why am I so charmed by romance in literature? Why the fascination with love and relationships? After a bit of pondering, I can only offer the following explanations.

Cynic Says: Love isn’t a one way ticket to bliss.
Writer Says: Yea! Conflict!

Cynic Says: I don’t believe in love at first sight.
Writer Says: So what draws these two people together? How can I show the evolution of their relationship?

Cynic Says: Romantic gestures are a defensive act often utilized to hide something.
Writer Says: Don’t rely on stereotypical ideas of romance. What gestures would mean most to the characters as individuals? Anyone can get flowers, chocolates, or a candlelit dinner, but what would make any of those actions unique or different? What would make them important?

Cynic Says:Long-term relationships require people to relinquish at least some degree of their independence, further complicating an already chaotic life.
Writer Says:I smell motivation mixed with an excuse to explore human behavior and psychology via the thoughts and actions of my characters. How do I convince not just the reader but my inner cynic that they’re better together than they are apart? 

Cynic Says: The power structure in relationships are too often one-sided.
Writer Says: Not this one. I can make damn sure that they both have to give up something.

Disclaimer: I do believe that loving, stable relationships are possible. I’ve seen enough of them to know better. I just question the general assumption that everyone (especially women) need such relationships to lead emotionally fulfilling lives.

Right Career, Wrong Genre?

Well, this came as a bit of a surprise. I took a quiz on “What kind of writer are you?” and out of the internet ether came this little nugget of wisdom:

You Should Be a Science Fiction Writer

Your ideas are very strange, and people often wonder what planet you’re from.And while you may have some problems being “normal,” you’ll have no problems writing sci-fi. Whether it’s epic films, important novels, or vivid comics… Your own little universe could leave an important mark on the world!

What Type of Writer Should You Be?

Hm… this might be a problem given my extent of science fiction is Linnea Sinclair. My friend Kate W is helping educate me a little further, so I have a couple more mainstream sci fi on my TBR shelf, but I guess if that’s the direction the Wise & Powerful Internet doth declare I take, then I’d better get crackin’.

Of course, I can’t claim complete surprise over the result. I kind of knew what I was getting into when I selected “Life in the future or an alternate universe” as the subject I’d be drawn to. Though, being nitpicky, that’s less of a subject and more of a setting. I just didn’t care for the other options. The most obvious, of course, would have been “a long, epic love story”, but the combination of “long” and “epic” sounds to me like “boring” and “depressing”.

Hm… Good thing I don’t take career advice from random websites.

A Word to Those Who Belittle Romance

I knew what I was getting into when I joined the Romance Writers of America and officially proclaimed myself a writer of romance. Despite being the most popular form of fiction, some people feel the need to belittle or denigrate the genre. I wonder what it is, specifically, that makes a small portion of the population feel the need to criticize. Is it the fact that so many of the authors and readers are women? Is it the regulatory Happily Ever After? The argument that it’s predictable is an outrageous criticism as all genre fiction is predicatble: mysteries get solved, bad guys lose, demons get sent back to hell, cowboys ride off into the sunset, and the planet Zebedar III is saved from imminent doom.

The argument of the sexual content is pretty null and void in my book, too, since so many other genres utilize it. And why wouldn’t they? It’s a natural function of healthy adults and an efficient way of progressing relationships within stories, no matter how graphic they may or may not be.

So many literary works could have easily been categorized as romances, especially if the ending is tweaked to make it happier. Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations could even have been classified as “Lad Lit”. Heck, the happy ending’s not even mandatory for that one. So is it the HEA that does people in? And if so, why does a sad ending automatically make a story stand above one with an HEA? Is something taken more seriously if it’s melancholy, bitter, or outright depressing?

Perhaps this is more the case. Perhaps some people think the idea of an HEA is ridiculous. Life’s not like that, they might say; it’s unrealistic. Well, yes, but come on. Some people may want to read about life and all its heartache, but others want to succumb to something safe and warm. Movies and television cater to this. Sports. Hobbies. They’re all an escape from work and responsibilities and the live-a-day life. Romance can’t be criticized for doing the same.

It’s certainly not the writing itself. Like every genre, romance has its good and its bad, and while the bad can be cringe-worthy, the good can be breathtaking. So many romance authors have crafted exquisite plots, beautiful prose, and profound characters. And what they really write about is the relationships between people, and not just between the hero and heroine though that is, naturally, the main focus. We write about how people relate to each other, and how those people grow from these relationships. Only our characters often benefit from the relationships as opposed to being injured by them, though many by no means are unscathed by the hurt people are capable of inflicting. Our stories are about healing and compassion. So why do they sometimes receive a sneer and snide comment?

It’s a sad, cynical person who doesn’t see the good in making another person smile.

My name is Nicole Reillan. And I write romance.