As recompense, here is an excerpt of a scene from my current work in progress… but let me very quickly set the scene for you:
A privately contracted extraction team has been sent to the site of a recent biosecurity breech in order to recover the bioengineering company’s property - research and researchers. They’ve just been informed that the second group of survivors from the lab have a new, unexpected member of their party.
Sighing, Mendez returned to the command table.
Harding was reading a tablet. Riley returned from his patrol and glanced over his captain’s shoulder.
“Lining up a date for after the mission, sir? Very pretty. Didn’t think you went for pretty.”
Harding scoffed, but ignored him.
Joseph and Grindel roused themselves and jostled for a glance at the tablet.
“Sir,” Grindel said, grinning viciously, “he’s beautiful, sir.”
“Yo,” Richards said as he passed by. He stopped and grinned when he spotted the picture of the young man on the tablet. “Who’s the twink?”
“Connors,” Harding mused aloud. He handed the tablet to Mendez, who took it and was met with a young, slender, strikingly handsome man with blonde hair and blue eyes smiling up at him, wearing a Cedarwood City Police uniform.
“Agent Sebastian Connors,” Harding continued, emphasising the word Agent. “Survived Cedarwood City.”
Mendez stared at the file, noting the birthdate and making a quick calculation. “Jesus. He was just a kid.”
Harding grunted. “Continue to read the file, if you wouldn’t mind Javi.”
Mendez obliged. “Following the Cedarwood Incident, recruited by redacted. Trained at redacted, four years. Close combat specialist. Firearms specialist. Sniper… Jesus, what doesn’t he specialise in? Seven missions… All of them redacted.”
“Read the mission statuses, if you please.”
“Okay. Operation… redacted. I’ll just number them. Mission one, objective complete. Mission two, objective complete. Mission three… four redacted objectives, all complete. Five, six, seven… all complete.”
“A soldier with that kind of record would be so decorated he’d need an exoskeleton to walk. Yet I’ve never heard of this guy.”
“So,” Mendez said. “Highly trained. Not military.”
Harding grunted.
“This is a good thing, no?” Riley asked. “Someone like that can help us get out of this city.”
“That depends entirely what kind of man he is,” Harding said. “Right now, he’s an unknown. I fucking hate unknowns.”
I’m a little more organized with this one. I’m creating character, monster, history and location profiles as I go. I think that maybe I’ll offer snippets of those to my newsletter readers. Nothing that spoils the story, but enough so they’ll get to know the characters and world a bit better before the manuscript is complete.
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Right, I have to finish lunch and write a little more while I have time.
Ciao!