Aim For The Heart

A short story I wrote as a Secret Santa gift for a member of the Absolute Write forums. Special thanks to dempsey for the terrific idea.
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"Captain Mollytibbles, we have a situation."

I looked over the mounds of paper on my desk at Lieutenant Twinkle standing in the doorway. The bells on her red-and-white-striped uniform jingled merrily, but worry made her green face lime, and her pointy ears quivered above her red hair.

I swallowed a sigh. I was hours behind on the days' lists already, and it was still morning. "What is it, Lieutenant?"

"We lost half the crop in field seventeen last night."

I leaped to my feet in shock. "The teddy bears?" Not the bears! They were only two days from harvest.

"Yes, sir."

My gaze fell on the blue-coded stack of papers on the left side of my desk. The "nice" list. Thousands of children on that list were supposed to receive those teddy bears. "How did this happen?"

"I don't know, sir." She fidgeted with the bells on the tips of her pointy shoes. "We had soldiers at every point, like you ordered, and we've been laying concertina wire as fast as possible. After what happened in field twelve, we didn't want to take any chances."

"Please don't remind me about field twelve." That day haunted my nightmares, and I often woke from my sweat-soaked bed with the images burned into my eyelids. I would never be able to look at nesting dolls the same way again. "Do we have any clues as to the identity of these terrorists yet? Have they made any demands?"

"I don't know, sir. I don't believe so."

Sergeant Squeegle burst into the room behind her, his uniform bells playing the first strains of "Jingle Bells." He skidded to a stop and held out a piece of paper. "Lieutenant Tooby wanted you to see this, sir."

I waved him over and took the paper. It was a still image from our satellite. Dark shapes moved among the field of teddy bear ears poking through the ice. I squinted at the photo. "What am I looking at, Sergeant?"

"Sir, according to Lieutenant Tooby, they're...penguins."

My ears twitched, and the paper fluttered to the desk. "Penguins?" I must have misheard.

"Yes, sir."

"This is the North Pole. We don’t have penguins."

"Apparently they've migrated, sir."

Lieutenant Twinkle piped up. "Perhaps it's some sort of arctic fox. Or a polar bear."

"That's ridiculous," Squeegle said. "Ma'am."

"No sillier than migrating penguins, Sergeant."

I picked up the phone. "Send Lieutenant Tooby to me."

While I waited, I studied the photo more closely. Now that I knew what to look for, the dark shapes did indeed look like penguins.

Another figure appeared in the doorway. At exactly three feet, the elf in question was almost a full two inches taller than everyone else in the North Pole Defense Force, and his ears jutted well above his short red hair.

"Reporting as order, Captain," he said.

"Penguins, Tooby?" I held up the photo. "Do you want to explain?"

"Gladly, sir." He held his arms behind his back and stared down his long nose at a point over my head. "At 0600 yesterday IntGat discovered a coded message on Arcticnet. The message was decoded as follows: 'Tuxedos rented. Appetizers done. Moving on to soup course anon.'" He briefly met my eyes. "It was the 'anon' that provided IntGat with verification that the penguins were behind it."

"No one else would use such a pretentious word," I said. "Very good, Tooby. Do we know how they're reaching the crops?"

"We believe they're tunneling up from the ocean."

I rubbed my chin. "Do you think they might be willing to talk to us? Negotiate?"

"No, sir. When the fur seals of Antarctica tried to end the Flipper Fur War with talks, the penguins sent the negotiators' pelts back in the form of coats."

I pressed my lips together and considered our options. "We'll have to capture one and question him."

"Yes, sir. Are we authorized to use enhanced interrogation techniques?"

"Yes." The paperwork was dreadful, but the alternative was too horrible to contemplate. Already we'd lost a quarter of our crop. What next? The building blocks? The toy soldiers?

"You're dismissed," I told all three elves.

When I was alone in my office, I flopped back in my seat and blew out a sigh. Christmas was only weeks away. Even when nothing went wrong, getting everything done in time was a race to the finish line. And every year it got just a little bit harder.

***

When Lieutenant Tooby returned that night, I'd still only made a small dent in the piles of paperwork.

"We captured one, sir."

I set my quill down and rubbed my eyes. "Where?"

"He was scouting field twenty-three. We believe he was part of an advance unit."

"Twenty-three...twenty-three...."

"The talking dolls, sir. When you pull the string on their backs, they--"

"I know what the dolls do, Tooby."

"Yes, sir."

"Have you interrogated the prisoner yet?"

"We're just starting."

"I'd like to be there." I hopped off my chair and rounded the desk. "Lead the way."

I followed the taller elf through a series of corridors decorated in a slew of pastel colors. The uniform bells filled the concrete hallways with a roundelay of "Jingle Bells."

While I'd never say it aloud, I sometimes grew tired of the song. Why not "Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer?" It was our national anthem after all.

Tooby hurried down the stairs to the fourth sub-floor, which was painted a bright sunflower yellow. It struck me as wrong to have our interrogation chambers painted such a cheerful color, and I made a mental note to have it repainted next year.

As we closed in on the room, a high-pitched squawking reached my ears. A voice rang out, "My name is Emperor James Lafferty. I will speak only to Him." Another squawk.

Another voice, elfish, rose over the noise. "Why are you here?"

"My name is Emperor James Lafferty. I will speak only to Him."

"He won't even tell us his rank," Tooby said, his hand on the door. "He insists on speaking to--"

"Him," I said grimly. "Yes, I heard." I nodded for him to open the door and readied myself for what I was about to see.

He did, and I had to will myself to step into the room.

A coppery, fishy odor wafted over me. Streaks and splashes of red had turned the walls a sickly orange. The interrogator, Lieutenant Smibbles, wore an apron over his uniform. It, too, was splattered in red.

The penguin squatted atop the interrogation table, held in place with enough chains to secure a polar bear. Its chest heaved, and its beak drooped open, foam collecting at the corners of its mouth. Despite it all, a defiant gleam remained in its brown eyes.

"Captain," Smibbles said. He held something in his hands I couldn't identify, but it gave me shivers to look at it.

"Have you learned anything, Lieutenant?"

"No, sir. But I'm confident it won't be long."

I turned to the penguin. "Emperor Lafferty, why are you here?"

"I will answer questions only from Him."

"Are you trying to ruin Christmas for the children?"

His beak opened, and a sound emanated from his throat. It took a moment to realize it was laughter.

"You find that funny?" I said. "You like to see children suffer?"

He made a sound like a sneeze. "Not as much as your boss does, from the looks of things."

Smibbles made a move toward the prisoner, but I held up a hand. "What are you talking about? We--He brings joy to all the children of the world?"

Emperor Lafferty rolled one swollen eye at me. "If you call being mired in the nineteenth century joy. Your toy crops?" He made a rude noise. "Toy soldiers? Nesting dolls? Open your eyes. Today's kids want video games. Electric scooters. Stuff like that."

"But those things don't grow here. The electronics freeze." Why was I explaining myself to a prisoner? We didn't have to justify what we were doing. We'd been delivering toys to good little girls and boys for centuries.

I decided to try a different tact. "Why do you keep attacking our crops then?"

"I'm only allowed to answer questions from Him."

"He...is busy. I'm the best you're going to get."

His beak opened and closed in a thoughtful manner. Finally he said, "We believe it's time for new leadership."

"New--" I sputtered. "You want Him to step down?"

Tooby and Smibbles exchanged glances, but I didn't look away from the prisoner. "Who would take His place? You?"

"Of course not. I'm but a loyal soldier. Our leader would step in. Emperor Emperor Maurice Paddington the Third."

"How does destroying our crops help that?"

"When the children find out they're no longer receiving even the awful toys you're offering, they'll be primed for our advertising campaign." He tried to raise a bound flipper. "Does disappointment fill your heart every Christmas? Tired of receiving lame gifts from a fat old guy out of touch with today's youths? Something new is coming this Christmas. Stay tuned!'" His eyes glittered.

"That's it?" I said. "That's a terrible ad."

"We're still hammering out the kinks."

I started to lean against the wall and remembered the blood. Running a hand over my face, I said, "This needs to stop. I want you to deliver a message to your leader."

"What message?" he said, narrowing his eyes in suspicion.

"Your ideas are not without merit, but this isn't the way to resolve our differences. If the two leaders meet and discuss this at the table, maybe we can come to some sort of arrangement agreeable to both parties. Can you tell him that?"

He bobbed his head.

I waved a hand at Smibbles. "Release the prisoner and escort him outside the perimeter."
"Yes, sir," he said.

Tooby followed me back to my office. "Your orders, sir?"

"You know what you have to do?"

"Yes, sir."

"When you have the location, gather the NPIS and meet me in the sit room."

He nodded and dashed out.

I shut the door and shoved my desk aside to reveal a small safe. A scanner glowed softly in the center of its door. I rested my right ear against the screen.

"Authorization granted for Captain Mollytibbles," the electronic voice intoned. "Ho ho ho."

I sat up as the door slid into the floor to reveal a triangular green card. Copper wires ran along the card horizontally, and tiny lights flickered here and there. I withdrew it and shut the safe.

All I could do now was wait until Tooby returned with his report.

***
Sergeant Squeegle arrived near dusk. "The lieutenant is ready for you, sir."

"Thank you, Sergeant."

I hurried to the sit room, nodding to the security cameras hidden behind glistening icicles made of glass. NPIS soldiers stood against the icy blue walls, eyes straight ahead, expressions blank. Their uniforms were solid white, iceberg logos sewn on the pockets. No bells hung from their clothes, and they carried knitted white caps to cover their hair.

I inserted the security card into the reader, and the door opened. "Ice Squad, enter."

They filed in around the table, an eerie quietness to their movements.

Lieutenant Tooby arrived last, a stack of documents in hand.

I motioned for him to speak, and he cleared his throat. "We tracked the combatant to a location forty klicks away. Triangulation points are field eighteen, the Donner Iceberg, and the Dasher Ice Shelf. We suspect they've carved out a base for themselves near the Rudolph Shelf."

One of the Ice Squad soldiers raised his hand. "Sir, are we to eliminate all enemies with prejudice?"

"Extreme," I said. "We expect nothing but one hundred percent success. This is our way of life at stake here." I looked around the room. "Lieutenant Tooby will fill you in on the details of the operation."

***
I returned to my office to work through the rest of the day's naughty lists when Tooby returned.

He set a stack of satellite photos on the desk. Even with the lack of detail and the graininess, the carnage was unmistakable. Much of the Rudolph Ice Shelf was cracked in half. "It's done."

"Casualties?"

"Coddybiggles sustained a severe laceration to her femoral artery. We don't know if she'll make it."

I nodded. "If there's nothing else, you're dismissed. Get some rest."

He hesitated. "Permission to speak freely, sir?"

"What is it?"

"Eventually someone is going to find out about Him. What do we do when that happens?"

"The same thing we've done since He died: more propaganda and a campaign of dissemination."

"Yes, sir." In the doorway he stopped. "How much longer do you think we can keep up this charade?"

"As long as we have to."

I would write a blog post about what Christmas means to me and all that other glurgy crap, but that's not me. Will be posting a short story soon.

I hope everyone has a happy and safe Christmas and New Year's.

I bought several books last week: a Pearls Before Swine collection, Ghosts/Aliens by Trey Hamburger, Too Many Curses by A. Lee Martinez, and I'd Tell You I Love You But Then I'd Have To Kill You by Ally Carter. I only went into B&N for Too Many Curses, but Ally Carter's book caught my eye during my search. Since it was now in paperback, I snagged it. Then I decided I also wanted a Pearls Before Swine collection and went hunting in the humor section. That's when Ghosts/Aliens caught my eye. The book is strange, absurd, and a bit stream-of-consciousness, but absolutely hilarious.

I also bought my first laptop this week. It hasn't shipped yet (come on, Dell!), and I hope it arrives before Christmas. It's not a gaming rig (that's what my computer at home is for), though I'm going to see if it'll play LOTRO, but it is a good machine and it was cheap. I wanted something that can play movies, connect to the Internet (duh), handle MS Word, play some casual games and so on.

It's not my intent to try to single-handedly save the economy, but damn it, I'm doing my best!

Also been watching season one of Jericho and Burn Notice. I like both shows. I was reading some old threads elsewhere about Jericho and some of the complaints people had was the way the town's residents were occasionally doing really stupid stuff, like using the electricity to power the tavern's jukebox. I feel a lot of these complaints have little merit, because I feel that in the first few months after something that apocalyptic, people would still not want to give up everything they had before. It would be very hard to comprehend the depth of the change that just occurred. And also, just being in full-on survival mode for too long isn't healthy. You can't just try to survive. You have to have more than that. So a post-apocalyptic society does need stuff that isn't entirely for survival, like alcohol (for drinking), art, music, dance.

Burn Notice is about a former CIA spy (named Michael Westin) who gets burned for reasons he doesn't understand. He gets dumped in Miami with no money, no information, and a bad reputation in the intelligence world, and he can't leave town. He takes odd jobs as a sort of private investigator/mercenary. The show is a strong mix of action, humor, and suspense, and the actor who plays the lead is perfect as the sardonic and often highly-amused spy who smiles the most when he's pissed off. You can practically read behind that smile, I could easily snap your neck right now. And sleep just fine afterward.

To round out the cast, the other full time characters are his mother, his ex-girlfriend (a former IRA guerilla bomber), and his best friend, a retired spy (played by Bruce Campbell). Every episode generally runs an A-story and a B-story. The A-story is the "monster-of-the-week," the PI work he does. The B-story usually involves his attempts to find out why he received a burn notice.

The show is part McGuyver in that he often rigs up spy equipment and bombs out of common household supplies. But unlike McGuyver, the hero is a lot more hardcore. He will kill the bad guys, even going so far as just putting the gun to their heads and squeezing the trigger (though sometimes he just stands back and lets other people do the killing). I was a little worried after the pilot episode (where he popped two shots into the heads of a couple of bad guys) that they were going to tone down the nature of his character. In fiction, sometimes people just need killin', and I hate when the studios want to pussify the hero because they're afraid no one will like a protagonist who is cold and calculating.

I've seen about 8 episodes of season one, and while they might have toned him down a bit, he will at least set people up to die knowing that is the result of his actions (like handing over a firebomb to a guy to use against his crime boss and then watching to make sure it's used). And in fairness, they can't have him capping people in the head all over Miami. The body count would be rather obvious. Still, I hope there's no pussification of the character, or I'm going to be very disappointed with the turn of the show.

I just upgraded my Xbox LIVE account to a Gold account this weekend and discovered the wonderful world of Netflix's streaming video. We were able to watch the episode of Jericho we were up to on the disc, and we'll be able to watch the next episodes without waiting for the new discs to arrive.

I do believe physical media are on their way out for movies and TV shows. I think it's possible we might even see first-run movies available for streaming video soon, though I think we'll still have movie theaters; they'll just have to provide more of an experience than you can get in your home. As it is, I see very few movies in the theater. At home, I have a 100" projector screen, 5.1 surround sound, and the ability to pause the movie whenever I want. Plus, I don't have to worry about talkers, seat kickers, or overly-loud audio. Right now, the only thing the movie theater provides over my home setup is the larger screen and for some movies, the audience experience (let's face it: some movies are better with a crowd).

Anyway, have a great Thanksgiving!

The indisputably funny A. Lee Martinez gives the real rundown on the presidents, past and present.

Last week, while watching Season 2 of The Ghost Whisperer, I was struck by a thought on character chemistry. See, season 2 introduced Professor Rick Payne, played by Jay Mohr. Payne was supposed to be a character brought in for a short story arc and nothing else. But there was a problem. When Mohr and Love Hewitt were on the screen together, there was immediate, obvious, and fantastic chemistry between the characters. It was apparent to me as the viewer, and from the interviews I watched on the special features, it was apparent to the cast and crew as well.

So they brought him back. And I found myself looking forward to every episode he was in. I knew that every time he showed up on screen, the show got that much better. The funny thing is, after a few episodes, I was telling my husband how there was so much more energy between those two characters, how there was this slight sexual tension, even though Melinda Gordan was very happily married, and how her relationship with Payne was something she needed to contrast the relationship with her husband (who, let's face it, is a gorgeous lunkhead). The beautiful David Conrad isn't nearly as fun to watch on the screen as Jay Mohr, whose smile simply lights up the room. And then I watched the interviews with the cast and crew, and they said exactly the same things I'd been saying. That's how obvious it was from the viewer's side. The chemistry between Melinda Gordan and Rick Payne was "it."

Like porn, "it" is hard to define, but you know it when you see it. It's not necessarily sexual. In fact, in my latest book, I have a lot of chemistry between my heroine and her twin brother. It's definitely not sexual with them (ew!) but it is very real.

So how do you create real chemistry between your characters?

You can't. You won't even know you have it until you throw the characters together and see how they react. Some of the characters you thought would have real chemistry together don't. I had planned on my heroine having it with a former classmate she'd had a crush on. Turns out there was nothing there, but another character I never even expected grew into the one. All you can do is watch for it as you're writing. When it happens, go with it. Not all your characters will have this strong chemistry together. That's fine. They'll still be good characters to throw together. But keep a watch out of those characters who "pop" off the page. when they're together. The more of them you have, the better your story will be.

Yesterday was the release of Fallout 3. If that sentence makes sense to you, I don't need to explain how highly anticipated this event was. If it doesn't, you're probably not going to find this post all that interesting.

I took a vacation day yesterday. This may seem like a weird thing to say when you consider that I don't actually have a job. But I didn't do any chores (except go to CostCo, and that's because I was already over there), and I didn't write. I was back home and had the game installed by 12:30 and was able to start playing immediately.

And it was everything I'd hoped it would be. I can see the Oblivion engine underneath it, and I've seen on the official forums that the modding community has already started figuring out how to mod the game, even without an official construction set. So we should be seeing new content fairly soon. But even with vanilla Fallout, I'm loving the game. I upped the difficulty to Hard, because I found VATS made the game a little too easy. I'm also walking around with a ton of junk that may or may not have any use, plus ammo for guns I don't have and guns with no ammo. I've already become addicted to one drug (Psycho, I think), and I have a tendency to stay slightly irradiated. I also have a tendency to completely ignore the quest I was just given when I head in the direction of the building where it's located and then wander into half a dozen other places.

So far I've visited an elementary school, a water treatment plant, and a sewer, and I'm about to head into a grocery store tonight.

My consensus: if you liked Oblivion and like a post-apocalyptic game world, you'll love Fallout 3. If you hated Oblivion, but only for the fantasy elements, you'll probably really like Fallout 3. If, on the other hand, you hated everything about Oblivion, I doubt you'll like Fallout 3 at all.

As for me, I have an incentive to get everything done quickly today, so that I can get back in and try to survive the horrors of the wasteland.

Over on The Swivet, agent Colleen Lindsay's blog, is a guest blog post by Courtney Summers, soon-to-be-published author of Cracked Up To Be. Go ahead and read it; I'll wait.

One sentence particularly stuck out to me when I read her post:

"I decided the next novel I wrote was going to be a total uhm... balls-out experience and it was going to be everything I wanted it to be."

The reason this particular sentence struck such a chord with me was because this was exactly what I decided to do with the book that was eventually picked up for representation. I was afraid at first to make a heroine who was cold-blooded, efficient, didn't hesitate to squeeze the trigger. Much of the female-oriented action I'd read had heroines afraid of guns, or in the process of giving up the business because it bothers them, or very uncomfortable with the role they had in life.

But characters in movies often engage in acts of violence without remorse, without regret. I thought to myself, what if my heroine didn't hate her work? What if she knew exactly who she was and still liked herself? What if she didn't waste her time trying to avoid shooting the bad guy and just...shot him?

Would she still be a likable character? I still liked her. But would anyone else? I decided I didn't care. This was the story I wanted to write. This was a story I wanted to read. Even today, having read both Phaedra novels about twenty times each, I still like reading them. The books are dark, though often funny (well, they're supposed to be, anyway), but most importantly, they're books I enjoy.

I knew The Harrison Files (the novel I signed with Janet on) was the one. It was the first book I wrote where I felt it. It was my "balls-out" writing experience. It showed, too, and the book garnered much more agent interest than any of my previous efforts. It eventually led me to sign with one, and it told me there is a market for people who like their fiction hardcore, violent, and unapologetic.

If you find you're holding yourself back, trying to write a character a certain way because you're afraid other people won't like her, let yourself go. Take the gloves off. Let it all hang out and see if you don't make a character who comes alive on the page.

So this Saturday was our Rock Band party. We had a fantastic time with a great bunch of guys, and I hope we can have another one again soon. Besides me and Joe, we also had our gaming friends Pat and Mike, plus Joe's friend from work, Andy, and his roommate (David) and best friend (Eddie). I'd never met the latter three men before, so it was also great to meet cool new people. And they were, too! Not only were they nice guys, but they were also willing to get up there and sing.

I've been trying to play guitar on hard lately. (So the next person who chooses Disturbed's "Inside the Fire" as the last of a three-song set when I'm playing on hard gets popped over the head with a plastic guitar). I can tell it's working, because medium is starting to seem slow now. I'm missing easy stuff on medium because I'm not paying it enough attention. There are still some medium-difficulty songs that are a challenge ("Down With The Sickness" is killer), but I can tell I'm ready to move on for the most part. I never thought I'd be able to play hard before, which makes me think some day I'll even attempt expert.

Then one day I'll challenge Tom Morello to a real guitar battle, and he'll be like, "Whoa, do you know how to play guitar?" and I'll be like, "Yeah, bitch. Bring it. I can even play...on expert." And he'll be like, "No way, dude. Just take my money and go." Then he'll cry.

It has finally come to pass. Yes, that's right, ladies and gents. We have an honest-to-god oven again. And it's a beautiful thing: digital readout, buttons, the whole thing. It's like something out of a faerie tale. A modern, 21st century, faerie tale.

Gonna roast some chicken tonight. Envy me.