Chapter 1 (Second edit)

Two teens in the far flung future plan a heist.

Fourteen and a half years later.

Another rainy night on another tarry rooftop. Though, this time, far from being cold, it was a Chyunda summer rainstorm petering off on its last legs. The transition from downpour to misty spray was well underway. I wondered, if we really had the best climate on Centaurus after all, or if it were another faux-platitude repeated by Chyunda's self-congratulatory masses.

Everyone comes here for a reason! As if that explained why Chyunda, landlocked city state, had swelled to become the largest, densest city on the planet.

Truth is, with the magnificent nighttime cityscape glowing down on me from on high, I didn't want to be anywhere else despite the city's numerous flaws.

Leaning over the edge of the building and looking into the alley below, I held up my wrist, activating my mobi-comm bracelet with the motion. 

The thin layer of blackmirror plastic wrapped around my wrist, pulsed with seams of soft white light. I swiped two fingers across the band’s length. A display lit up on the blackmirror, and a second swipe outward blew up the display as a hanging holo-projection over the band. Pointing a finger at a camera icon in the display, the white pulse paused as I double tapped air over the icon. Aiming the mobi’s concealed microlens into the backstreet, an image of the alley was relayed to the opaque holo-display. 

In the alley stood a tall and wide shouldered security goon, guarding a steel door with rust stains at its base. The scene was illuminated by a hanging pot lamp attached to the brick wall.

“What’s taking so long,” I whispered to no one, and zoomed in on the bouncer for a better look. The man was unfamiliar to me, though, with his head covered by the hood of a maroon synth-leather trench, I couldn’t quite be sure without a better look.

Zooming closer still, I sized him up and down, and felt flushed. He was a burly, chesty sort of man's man to be sure, with a tasty upper body even through his grey poly-flak vest. His lower half, powerful leg muscles bulged under black nudenims with rigid creases. I tried for a better look at his face, but could only make out a brickish underbite, chiselled and clean shaven from under his hood. 

“Yes, please,” I joked to myself, feeling warmth around my neck. Imagining what he might do to me.

The door swung open with a bang, and I snapped out of my mid-gush trance. 

Out strolled a blue-grey furred kaval boy, with shaggy white hair on his head, and the sides cropped to a fade. Far removed from the simplicities of his mountain tribe, he wore loose human attire, unseamed black windbreaker, grey canvas pants, and dark brown boots. The kaval made a bullish nudge past the foot taller bouncer, staring him down with his long ears curled back.

The much bigger man whipped off his hood, revealing a dark brown fade and military crew cut. Between them, they exchanged an excited flurry of pointed fingers and flapping mouths that boiled up in indiscernible echoes.

Great, I rolled my eyes and jumped over the edge of the building. The wind rushing upward with my descent, I turned back to shoot the dart of my grappling-hook gun back up at the ledge. It found purchase, thwacking into brick. The microsilk line went taught with my weight. Boots impacted wall, and I rappelled down the side of the building, landing next to the kaval. I declined my head at the slightly shorter boy.

He returned the look with a wide grin, parting navy lips enough to reveal sharp canines in his mischievous smile. His twitching tail, however, betrayed his anxious state 

“We were just leaving, right Erk?” I tried at ending the altercation.

Erk turned his attention back to the bouncer, and flipped the white hair out of his eyes with the motion. “Just one more thing,” he snapped in a tenor voice.

“What?” The large man stepped forward, and the lamp cast a shadow which revealed a scar across his nasal bridge. “Well, mutt?”

“Your name?” Erk followed through. “What is it?”

I felt the tension, which spilled over into a twisted feeling in my throat as the thug snickered. Inclining my head at him, a few green locks fell out of my hood with the motion and flopped playfully across my eyes. I fought back the urge to bite my lip. Big, and strong, but not pretty. A rugged, rough sort of handsome that I wanted to imagine in other circumstances

“Hadley,” the thrum of his baritone voice resonated. “You were leaving, right Erk?” Repeating my earlier suggestion with a snide timbre.

I dropped my chin down to look at Erk, and was relieved to see him nod ascent. He then made an abrupt turn down the alley, tossing two disc-shaped objects out from his opened jacket. The objects levitated and expanded into larger discs, which then tethered to one another, forming a footprint indentation on either disc.

Erk jumped onto the indentation, and the board bounced in air, adjusting to his weight. Sheathed daggers sagged at either side of his hip with the motion. From each of the footholds, a polycarbon mesh wrapped around his boots, and secured him into position. He then looked back at me with a smile and wink, another hair flip, he beckoned me with a sweeping hand gesture to hop on.

Jumping up, the craft wobbled again, and adjusted to my added weight. 

Erk slammed a fist on his mag-belt, and I did the same to mine. Our pelvises yanked into one another. It was an uncomfortable arrangement, not just on account of me being taller than him, but also that the positioning was not dissimilar to spooning. And. He was practically my brother.

“Hold on,” Erk said out of the corner of his mouth, turning his head by degrees. His suggestion boiled up anticipatory excitement at the prospect of dangerous-fun speeds in our near future.

I wrapped my arms around his open coat and shirtless belly. Through fingerless gloves, I felt his fur to be soft, and slightly damp from the now withered rainfall. And he was warm. He was always warm, which, I suppose is why he never wore a shirt beneath the jacket. I turned to the bouncer, leaning cross-armed against the wall, who half smirked at my double take. He nodded, and I forced myself to look away.

Next time get his number, Erk.

Erk leaned forward on the board, and the levitating device accelerated, whipping up water droplets and pebbles as we shot out of the alley, and into the neon glow of the nightlife street. 

The street was packed that night, as it usually was, and it took a bit of maneuvering for Erk to get off of the pedway and into a lane. But, once on the road, it was easy enough for him to weave in and out of the numerous mechanized land-busses.

Sensing our movement, the city’s street level monitors projected a holo-display. The flickering holo followed in front of us as we moved, reading, ‘You are now on Edge Street, mind the right of way.’ The holo disappeared back into its projection port, and we were once again on track, surrounded by hundreds of people on the pedways, busses at either side, and the vibrant rainbow glow of the Quarry’s Edge district splashing down on us like a waterfall of neon light.

“What’s the rush!” I strained to yell against the wind.

“The mod we need,” Erk yelled back, “is on the move.”

“Oh?”

“Kringle says it might be our only chance -- NaiTech is dropping the development of SAMS weapons systems.”

“Well,” I shouted back, “they aren’t licensed.”

Erk nodded, and I jolted my head back as his hair whipped up into my face. With the jerk, my hood flew back and the wind yanked out my green braid, which trailed behind as we rocketed onward.

“What was that thing with the bouncer about?” I shouted.

“Kringle hinted that he was a spy or something.”

“A spy?” I laughed a singular burst.

“Or something,” he continued, “Kringle said tonight was his first night. He noticed the guy’s entire getup was off-the-shelves, brand-spanking-new. His pants were even still creased from how they’re folded in the store.”

“So what does that mean?” I yelled.

He shrugged, the motion wobbling us as it pushed against my shoulders. “Sorry,” he half-turned his head to say, readjusting. “You’re the one good enough for the Academy. What do you think?”

I sneered at the self-deprecation implied in his compliment, and looked up at the sky cars racing above in the lanes. What did I think, I wondered, considering why hired muscle would have to scrounge up regular clothing on short notice. "He’s trying to look a part. Whatever it is, he's dressed like half the thugs in Chyunda.”

“Well,” Erk chuckled. “I didn’t hear any accent.”

“You think he might be a foreigner?" I recalled my Emlish classes, but nothing about other dialects sprang up in my immediate memory. “Let’s table this for now.”

“Right!” Erk laughed, in his usual high spirits. “Let’s finish the job. Hangin’ on tight?”

I squeezed my grip around Erk’s waist, on cue that one of his ‘Hangin’ on tight’-moments was about to keep my gag reflex in check. I tensed my abdominal muscles, hoping to Surd-knows-what that I wouldn’t lose my lunch.

Erk leaned hard into his knees, and we accelerated in-between two vehicles. Cutting a bus off by a shave, he turned down an alley, at an unreasonable and dangerous speed. Weaving between discarded trash, and the dumpsters that they should have been in. His legs flexed, and he pivoted into a jump.

The disc-board landed thruster first onto the top of one of the dumpsters, and Erk pivot-jumped again, this time flipping us upside down and back around to bounce off of a fire escape. Springing then to another fire escape, and trying to make for a third such jump, the force of the thrusters pulled the last fire escape out of the wall with a creak of twisted metal. I looked up, and in slow motion, saw that we were flying head first into the window of the opposite building. 

Twisting into his hips, Erk released the disc-board mesh in time to boomerang the device into the window before us.

The board shattered a path and we tumbled through the window, both tucking so as to avoid shards of glass. Erk then reached out toward the approaching floor. With picture perfect precision, he cartwheeled us back onto the disc-board, mesh wrapped back around his boots, and the thrusters tilted forward to slow us to a halt.

“Missed the mark,” Erk laughed out loud. “I was aiming for the roof.” He flinched, audibly snapping his jaws shut as if to stave off a jolt of sudden pain, and then inspected his wrist.

“What’s wrong?”

“I think I broke something.” He rubbed at his hand, while looking around the room. 

I took stock of our surroundings as well. The room was in a state of decrepit squalor, with torn paper, and antibacterial food wrappers strewn about. I gagged at the notice of a putrid smell, and looked over toward the standalone sink. Black sludge bubbled up from a clogged drain. I hated places like that. They made me feel icky, and gross.

Plugging my nose between two fingers, I asked with a nasal timbre, “Where do we go from here?”

“The front of the building.” Erk stopped rubbing his hand, and pivoted so as to move our body weights into a turn toward the door, before zipping out of the room. “The mod chip is in a NaiTech transport van, heading down Vector Street,” he shouted as we flew out into the hallway, kicking up dust behind us.

While we bulleted toward a window at the far end of the hall, I took a moment to soak in the grunge of the abandoned building. The bleach smell of tricone forced a wince. The smell of the street drug implied that we were certainly in a squatter den. Taking stock of some of the suites we passed, peering either through collapsed walls or broken in doors, I saw a worn mattress in one, and a sleeping bag in another. But all of the rooms were scattered with groves of refuse.

“Shame,” I almost whispered with a sullen drawl. “People living in this.”

“Yup.” Erk stabbed in an abrupt note. “Coulda been me if your dad didn’t bring me in.”

Even though I often thought about what Erk would have become if he hadn’t come into our lives, I didn’t want to think about it. It was a dreadful thought, that brought an emotional, visceral pain whenever I considered it. I'd lost too much family, and like I said earlier, he was practically my brother. My best friend, and I never wanted to think of what life could be without him.

We slowed to an approach at the window, and hopped off the disc-board, which Erk then drew back into the hiding space in his jacket. He spread his palm flat against the window. “S**t, everpane.” Then tilted his neck forward to look down the street. “There!” His pointed claw pinged against the unbreakable glass. “That van headed this way, I think it has a NaiTech decal!”

I edged up to the glass, but couldn’t see as well as Erk. “You sure?”

“I think… yes, yes I am sure. I can see it clearly now.”

Erk took a step back, and flourished the two graphene daggers out of the sheaths on his mag-belt. Spinning the matte black daggers around, he sliced up at either side of the window, sectioning the framing. He then jumped up, digging into the wall with the tip of one dagger, and hoisted himself to cut horizontally across the top of the window frame. Following through with a two-legged drop kick, the everpane flopped forward, sagging out into the open air. It stopped at about a forty five degree ramp before some of the framing’s remaining structure kept it from falling out completely.

Erk spied a look out of the space formed by his handiwork, and then spun his head back at me in a hurry. “It’s coming, quick!” He scurried up the edge of the pane,  and with his impressive Kaval athleticism, reached down to pull me up as he hung onto the edge with his other hand. “Ready?” He smiled at me, the wind flicking his bangs around, and I nodded, smiling back.

Yanked up, I waited for a few moments to be sure of the van’s trajectory before jumping out. Falling for the second time that night, I once again shot my grappling hook dart out at another building, sweeping onto the van’s roof with a shin splintering thud.

“F**k!” I shouted, cursing the sharp pain in my lower legs. I retracted the dart, and looked back up toward the window. 

Erk jumped from one ledge to another, with practiced acrobatic ease. Before long, he was somersaulting onto the van, and sliding to a halt with his claws screeching across metal to find purchase. 

“Surd’s sake, that sound.” I winced, and shivered goosebumps.

“Sorry,” Erk laughed again. “Can’t help myself.” His long, pointed ears twitched back, also discomforted at the sound of claw scraping metal. “You’re up.” He gestured toward the back end of the van, and we slid across the roof, to where he could lower me down to the bumper.

Erk jumped down beside me, and we exchanged adrenaline fuelled, wide-mouth grins. This was the excitement that we lived for, I thought, wanting to tell him that he was my best friend. 

“I love nights like this!”

Erk rolled his citron-yellow eyes, and wiggled his porous dog-wet nose. “Aww, Jade’s having a moment,” he teased, and I laughed. “Okay gal, the door!” He gestured to the square panelled electronic lock, which kept the swinging doors bolted shut. 

Pulling out the little multitool I kept hidden in a small belt pouch, I flipped out the knife and pried off the panel’s casing. The plastic shell dropped into the street and dribbled behind. From the panel, wires were exposed, with various electrical guts underneath.

Pricking a length of white ribbon wire between two fingers, I formed a loop and sliced upward, sectioning the wire in half. The latch Erk was hanging onto plunged down, and the door swung open, flinging him off of the bumper with it. Oops, I laughed internally, and jumped into the van. At least it wasn’t me.

Once inside, I held on tight as the van screeched to a halt. We’d finally been made. 

“Quick Jade,” I mumbled, as I ran up to one of the numerous shelves, shining my mobi-comm’s light over conveniently alphabetized drawers.

Skimming over the labels starting with A, I stopped a finger under one of the three letter and five number serial codes. ACQ. That had to be it. The mod was a SAMS weapon protocol for acquired targeting systems; the five numbers didn’t matter. It was the only one starting with ACQ. I tugged open the drawer, and yanked the lone chip out of its protective foam casing.

“Score.” I laughed, feeling the rush of being almost there, and turned to hop out of the back of the van.

As I planted my boots on ashenpave, I recoiled at two bright lights shining against my eyes. “Stop! Don’t move,” a baritone voice yelled out.

Holding up a hand to block out the intense flashlight beams, I squinted, straining my eyes to resolve the two figures before me. My struggling vision traced two masculine silhouettes behind the bright lights. From somewhere behind the light, audible clicks sounded -- safeties.  

“Oh, hey boys,” I droned a sarcastic tease.

“Drop the chip,” one of them barked.

“Sure, catch,” I said, and tossed the chip between them. Panicked, they jumped after it, nervous at the possibility of damaged goods whose value they didn’t know. Damaged goods that they were supposed to be transporting. 

The chip didn’t matter anymore. I already got what I needed.  My mobi-comm made a copy, scanning the data remotely as soon. Before even tossing it away I would already have a perfect clone of the protocol. And with the transport goons distracted, wrestling to get back up off the pavement, Erk had circled round on his renewed disc-board. 

Picking me up with an outstretched arm, he slammed a fist on his mag-belt. Looking back at me with fangs bared into a wide smile, he leaned low, accelerating the disc-board to getaway speeds.

On the way out of Quarry’s Edge, we laughed the kind of laugh that friends who’d grown up getting in trouble together did whenever they got away with things.

Author's Note

Please note if you enjoyed the read — what parts were boring, or clumsy. Any other constructive criticism.

Reviews

[JayG]

You asked, but I'm not going to comment on liking or not liking the story. What I have to say relates to the reader's ability to do that, as influenced by the style of presentation.

At the moment, for reasons I'll get to in a moment, you're telling this story from the outside-in. A narrator is viewing the scene and talking about what's happening within it. And that approach has some inherent problems that hopeful writers aren't aware of and can't see.

• I waited outside the door, with a tall and grimacing bouncer.

The door? The door to what? What was this un-gendered person waiting FOR? Why were they there? WHo are they? What's going on? Unless the reader knows that this is just meaningless data that MIGHT become clear at some later time. But we have no assurance of that

First is that because this is a transcription of you telling the story aloud (something roughly 50% of hopeful writers do), when you read it, knowing how it should be performed, you place emotion into the voice of the narrator. You know the gestures you would use in a live performance, and so feel them as you read. Gesture, facial expression, changes in speaking intensity and cadence are all there...for you.

But does any of that make it to the page? only what punctuation and word meaning provide. And rather than what you intend, the reader has only what the printed words suggest, based on their background, not yours. To hear what the reader does, have your computer read this aloud.

A second problem is that because you know the story, every line acts as a pointer to images, ideas, and action, stored in your mind. But for the reader? Every line acts as a pointer to images, ideas, and action, stored in YOUR mind.

Look at the opening not as the author, but as a reader. Better yet, as an acquiring editor seeing this as a submission:

• A dark alley shuddered with the vibrations of electric stillnes

First. You don't identify where we are in time and space, other then the generic, and overused, "dark alley." Is it in ancient Persia? Modern New York? A fantasy world? It could be one of a million places, but unless you provide context it's meaningless as read. But is shouldn't be, because a reader doesn't seek to learn details of the plot. They want to feel as if they're right there. As E. L. Doctorow observed, “Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader, not the fact that it’s raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.”

next: The alley shuddered? You just told the reader that the buildings and the ground physically moved. And the only thing that can do that is an earthquake. Not what you intended, but it is what you said.

• flickering light filtered in from the street, caused by heated noble gasses, and strained by the fullness of a heavy rain.

You just told the reader that light is heated by gasses. But radiation is unaffected by temperature in that way. So I have no idea of what you mean, or why you're mentioning this. A reader is with you for story, and story happens in real-time. And as far as we know there's no one here who is noticing the heat or the alley.

This is one of the attributes of outside-in storytelling. The narrator reports what can be seen, rather than what the protagonist feels worthy of notice and response. At this point you're going on as if the reader knows where we are, and why. And because you know that, and see it as obvious you never give that to the reader.

So what does the reader have? Someone we know nothing about is talking about what they can see, not what they're paying attention to. That's detail, not story.

In the words of James Schmitz, “Don’t inflict the reader with irrelevant background material—get on with the story.”

Bottom line: It's not your fault. Like everyone else, you left your schooldays with a basic misunderstanding: Because the skill we're taught is called writing, and the profession is called, Fiction-Writing, we assume there's some relation between the skill we were given and the skill used for writing fiction. There isn't. The skills we're given as the set of general skills often called The Three "R's" are designed for the needs of employment. That's why we write so many essays and reports. But the skills needed for fiction are those of the profession of that name. And all professional skills are learned IN ADDITION to the skills we're given in our school days. And that's what you need to look into.

A scene on the page, for example, is nothing like one in film or on stage. And if you're not aware of what a publisher views as a scene, and believe that you already know, can you write one that will make an acquiring editor—or a reader in a bookstore—say yes? If you're not aware that on the page a scene ends in disaster for the protagonist, and why, will you do that?

See what I mean? It's not a matter of your talent or potential, or even the story. It's that like everyone else, myself included, because you don't realize that there's an entirely different methodology needed for presenting fiction, will you look for it? No more than I did when I started writing.

It's not all that herd to learn, though there is a lot to it. And you'll often find yourself saying, "That's so obvious, why didn't I see that?" And perfecting those skills to the point where you use them automatically is NOT easy, if for no other reason than that your existing skills are going to howl with outrage and insist that you're "doing it wrong," when you try to change.

But once you master it, you'll find you have so many more options than you did before, And your protagonist will become your co-writer. Then, you'll begin to write from the protagonist's viewpoint, from the inside out.

Why does that matter? Because how the protagonist views the scene is the mother of that character's actions. And so, if we don't understand the situation as-the-protagonist-does, we'll know what they do, but not what drives them to do it. And how can we feel as if the story is happening to us in real-timeas we read it if don't?

To better understand why viewpoint matters so much, try this article: https://jaygreenstein.wordpress.com/2011/09/22/the-grumpy-writing-coach-8/

And for more on inside-out writing, and why it matters, try this one: https://jaygreenstein.wordpress.com/2015/05/13/inside-out-the-grumpy-writing-coach/

For a book that will give you the nuts and bolts skills you need, I'm recommending, James Scott Bell's, Elements of Fiction Writing these days. It won't make a pro of you. That's your job. But it will give you the tools to do what with.

I know this was nothing like what you were hoping to see. And for that I'm sorry. But I know of no gentler way to break such unexpected news, and I thought you would want to know.

But whatever you do, hang in there, and keep on writing.

Jay Greenstein
https://jaygreenstein.wordpress.com/category/the-craft-of-writing/the-grumpy-old-writing-coach/

[JT Godin]

Not what I was hoping to see, no — but it was the feedback I wanted. I’ve been having false starts at writing other stories for many years now — I keep scrapping and rewriting the same projects. This particular story I’m writing specifically for the purpose of discovering what I’m doing wrong. I can *feel* when I revisit writing that it’s not being told the way I want it to be.

Thank you kindly for the input and resources.

[Wathanya.5KY3]

I read your new beginning and only skimmed through the rest.

I quite like the new beginning. It kind of warms readers up for the rest of the chapter. I also like the increase in font size and the spaces you put between some parts. Though some of the paragraphs have uneven spaces in front of them with no apparent reason (I think it's a formatting issue).

There was only one technical thing that stood out to me, so I'm gonna point it out:

"From the heights of the Toran quarter's towering skyscrapers, those monuments of corporatism, and the gathering places for financial brokers with dirty palms, black books and filthy secrets."

Although you have Oxford commas in other sentences, there's one missing before "and filthy secrets."

[JT Godin]

I'm pretty happy with the new opening, but will most likely strike out the first paragraph, and do some mild changes to the first sentence in the second paragraph. As an opener I like that I'm introducing areas you never see or even hear again in the rest of the story. I think it helps give an impression of exactly how big this city is, and maybe adds more perspective into how there could be an entire abandoned subterranean city in later chapters. The Quarry alone is home to 50 million people, then there's the much touted Midtown, and Uptown, which they just decided to build in layers on top of the oldest part of the city. Each of the major three sub-cities (which I decided to call burgs, with the rewrite) can be further divided into other groupings. I would say, this particular adventure really focuses on the social dynamics of the Underlow in particular. What I have planned for the sequel is going to open up more of the city, as well as the greater outside world.

[Wathanya.5KY3]

I think that's a good idea. The only thing you have to be careful with is how and how much you write about Midtown and Uptown. Done well, readers will not misunderstand that Midtown and Uptown are relevant to this story in particular.

[Wathanya.5KY3]

Oh, also, if you will make Jade and Hadley a thing, maybe hint that Jade finds Hadley interesting or cute or whatever in this scene, where they actually have time to talk.

[Wathanya.5KY3]

Quite a bit of change here! Noticeably the addition of Jade's and Erk's description, the enhancement of some of the dialogue, and the space the door leads to. We now know that it's the backdoor to Kringle's club!

I already told you how I felt about the plot (I'm still impressed with the graphene daggers, and rereading the chapter didn't make me less impressed at the slightest), so I'm going to cut to the editorial comments. You said you'd revisit this chapter to deal with your run-ons, so I'll turn that radar off and just comment "run-on" if there's another issue I will address other than being a run-on.

1. I continued to stretched into my knees, and arched my back with a slight and popping twist, and adjusted my weighty mag belt and holstered grappling gun at my hips.

- I think you meant "I continued to stretch into..."
- run-on

2. Cold, dark, stale and damp, were words that came to mind.

- An Oxford comma is missing here. So: "Cold, dark, stale, and damp, were words that came to mind."
- Personally I'd remove the comma before "were," but that's totally stylistic so you can ignore this

3. Loose trash had been strewn about the edges of the alley and gathered into a heap by the haphazardly fenced plastic deadend in the back, but nearest to the street it was almost clear save for a couple of rubbish bins on the corners.

- I think you meant "...the haphazardly fenced plastic dead-end..." Or maybe deadend is a word I don't know
- "...but nearest to the street it was almost clear save for a couple of rubbish bins on the corners" had me rereading the sentence a couple of times. I suspect it's because there's no comma before "save for..."

4. Where I stood stretching - halfway down the alley and outside the back entrance to Kringle’s club - it had been as presentable as a back alley entrance could be imagined to be.

- "Where I stood stretching" already acts as the subject, so "it" shouldn't be there

5. It was likely filled with a stimulant like coffee, or isophenin tea to help the big guy get through his shift.

- I'm not sure what "isophenin" means
- the position of the comma confused me a little bit; it made me think "stimulant like coffee" was supposed to be one single phrase

6. He could have been an officer, and saw judging by the flawed brick of a jaw he could have seen real combat.

- there's a wild "saw" before "judging," or maybe it's Canadian?

7. Though, I was slightly tall for a girl - not much taller than average at 5 feet and 18 centimetres.

- it's the first time I'm seeing someone mix "feet" and "centimeter." Is there a special purpose?

8. On he outside Edge street supplied all of the legal vices, and neon plastered advertisements of such washed densely pedestrian street with a rainbow haze colouring the faces of would be clients, browsing the varieties on show in window fronts and high resolution monitors.

- I think you meant "On the outside...," "...would-be clients...," and "...high-resolution monitors"
- not a run-on, but quite long for a sentence; I don't quite understand the first part of the sentence either

9. I turned to a voice that barked behind a shining light in my eyes.

- the "...in my eyes" part at the end of the sentence is a little confusing; I thought the light was literally shining inside her eyes at first (it's high-tech science fiction after all)

----------------

Other observations on the added content:

The edit has added quite a bit of content, most of which I hadn't known before (I already took a peek at chapter 2). Revealing Jade's and Erk's connection to Kringles and adding slightly more of Kringle's observation of Hadley are excellent edits (shoes reveal so much about people, don't they?), so keeping them that way is a good idea.

On the other hand, while the duo's physical appearances are genuinely interesting and, for a lack of a better word, cool (I love Jade's green braids and Erk's fur in particular!), writing them all out in the first chapter makes it feel a little info-dumpy.

In Jade's case, for the most part, I think it's the right amount of information to get me started. However, the "Underneath, I similarly undid the plastifab shirt low enough to show the shadows of my pressed-together breasts held tight in the [form-fitting] black garment" didn't do well with me. This could be my personal preference, but I don't see a practical reason for Jade to show the shadows of her breasts. Or it could be that "...low enough to..." implies she undid her shirt in order to show her breasts.

With that being said, this is from someone who's fed up with all the women's b**b talk in literature by cisgender male authors.
Some of the worst that buzzfeed could use to write a whole blog with:
https://www.buzzfeed.com/farrahpenn/heres-how-male-authors-described-women-in-books

In Erk's case, I find it irrelevant to their situation, possibly because the description of his appearance and life story was put in between the dialogue between him and Jade.

In other words:
“We good?” I asked intently.
[life story]
“Yeah,” he shoved past the bouncer. “Scuze me big guy, uh, what’s your name?”

With that being said, describing his clothing doesn't feel irrelevant because Jade was unfamiliar with his some-kind-of-leather-material belt and could have noticed his clothing as a result.

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That's my two cents.
Looking forward to your revised chapter 2!

[JT Godin]

Thanks again for the editing — really appreciate it. Will go through again later, but in the meantime there are a few questions I can answer.

5. Isophenin is a newish stimulant I’ve imagined for the purpose of the overarching universe. The societies in the story are very removed from the history of earth, but can’t shake their evolutionary past. There is no ephedra (the source of ephedrine) on the new planet, so people have altered existing organisms to produce similar drugs or precursors to drugs that existed on earth. Substances that are commonplace today such as caffeine, nicotine and marijuana still exist in their original forms.

A lot of the unrecognizable terms I came up with have explanations similar to this. While I absolutely love in-depth lore, I’ve borrowed from Brandon Sanderson’s theory that the explanation of magic and technology should be dealt with in more subtle ways. From the perspective of the narrators (Jade and Erk), almost everything that is foreign sounding to us is familiar to them. I hope to at least have enough familiarity in the names of the new materials/drugs/technologies that readers might imagine them as a spin-off of things we have or use in the present day.

7. I’m glad you noticed this. It was intentional. The society we’re looking at (the Chyundans) are spun off from an English-American dominant people. I wanted to imagine something similar to how here in Canada we use either metric or imperial depending on the situation. But, since this is not a Canadian dominant society, the way the English and American ancestors of the Chyundans incorporate metric and imperial has evolved differently. To stretch this out even farther, I’ve imagined that the language they speak can no longer be called English.

Other things:

Character descriptions — I think I might compress Jade’s self description in this chapter, as I decided to slightly lengthen the description of Jade through Erk’s eyes in chapter 2. But regardless of that, I’m not totally happy with the amount of description and backstory I decided to throw into the revised chapter. Between Jade, Erk and Hadley there is at least a page and a half of ‘this is what they wore and looked like’.

Kringle’s club — you were right to be curious of what was behind THE door. I decided to downplay the importance of the door. It is a club, but the meaning of club in the far flung future is not as straightforward as ‘a bar’. Without giving spoilers, the club is more than just a club, hence the ‘underground affair’. The key here is what constitutes the ‘underground’ in a city where people can walk around openly with weapons and drugs.

Jade’s cleavage — wasn’t going to include it at all originally, or if I did it would be from Erk’s perspective, since he’s looking at her from the lens of wanting to be more than an adopted brother. I guess in this instance I’m wanting to imply that there is a purpose. She’s wanting to get Hadley to loosen up after denying her entry in the moments before the story starts. But I think you’re right that it doesn’t belong in this instance. I imagine Jade as someone who will show cleavage if she can use it to her advantage, but I want to think that threshold is much higher than getting denied entry by someone she doesn’t know.

[Wathanya.5KY3]

That's a good lore for isophenin and also a good way to introduce unfamiliar terms. I think someone who often reads science fiction will get it right away in that context.

So there IS a special reason behind it. I think that's brilliant. Definitely keep it that way. And keep that conversion tab opened. ;P

One thing I learned from a fellow writer on this website is that when describing clothing and appearances, it's better to mention bits and pieces as the story advances. In practice, I'd say it's similar to this: "He slammed a fist against the buckle of his belt, and a mag lock tugged my own belt into his." We know that they both wear belts and that their belts can connect to one another from this single sentence.

You can add something to show or imply to the readers that Jade wasn't familiar with the material of his belt. Like what I have in my head is, "He slammed a fist against the buckle of his made-with-dark-leathery-material-unseen-to-me belt, and a mag lock tugged my own belt into his." But I'm sure you can write better than me.

The way you dealt with the door being its way to Kringle's club is brilliant. I am right where you want your readers to be right now.

Both describing it from Erk's Jade-is-my-crush/sister perspective and Jade being someone who uses her cleavage to get an advantage work with me. I will look forward to how you'll deal with it.