The Plan

A desperate Beth works hard to make her escape plan become reality.

 

 

The Plan

 

This base was home, the only home we had known for the past several years.  Two weeks from now, I and my friends would be free.  That was the plan.  Freedom from this jail like home was our ultimate goal.  Freedom from the testing, training and military missions.  Freedom from the pain of being human guinea pigs, freedom from live ammo fired over our heads while we became the best fighters on the planet.  All we wanted was freedom to be girls!  I wanted freedom and all my friends wanted freedom as well.

            I had a small bag to throw a few personal items into when the time came.  Nothing big, and nothing fancy.  I told everyone to travel light and go to ground when we got outside.  I would find each of them, and we would keep moving as far away from this place as we could.     

            My stash of personals was very small.  A small photo of my mom and dad; a picture of me and my best friend from the outside world.  The date on the back of the photo was November 15, 2015.  My father took that photo on my fifth birthday.   There was another small photo and all my friends from the inside Dr. Menedoza took for me on my twelfth birthday.  Carefully noted on the back was the date, November 15 2028 and it had the names of each of the twenty girls in the picture.  Mandy was dead now.  So were Ally and Missy.  Amie was in the back.  Her eyes practically glared at me from the photo.  Her reptilian looking eyes bore cold holes right through me.  We had once been best friends, but that was before Mandy died. 

            Melissa and Lindsay were on either side of me in that photograph.  Lindsay was missing.  She had been missing on and off for a couple of years, but at least six months ago, she disappeared during training and they never found her.  Lindsay was the sweetest kid you would ever meet.  She was extremely smart, very clever and had a charming personality.  She also had the most beautiful features of any person I had ever seen.  We were very close competitors, but seriously, after you get past the genius thing, how do you measure intelligence that is off the charts?

            I know, the dates don’t make a lot of sense do they?  They slowed my aging process when I turned ten years old.  I now age at a fourth the rate of normal human aging.  We found the gene that controls aging and we tuned it to allow us to age more slowly.  This is June of 2032, so in a few months, I get to be a teenager. 

            Slowing the aging process had some complications at first, but Dr. Menedoza and I worked some long hours to fix them.  We did a lot of stem cell research and that enabled us to heal very quickly.  Based on cardiac research from 2006, we used a constant flow of stem cells to regenerate skin and other tissues when they were damaged.  As a result, we can heal very quickly, age slowly and even re-grow an amputated part if we are given enough time.

            The rest of my personal stuff I had safely stashed in my escape vehicle.  Toothbrush and other personal care items that a girl has to have were all part of the survival gear as well as food and water.  My escape vehicle was a part of Project Hummer, but I did a clone of her and stashed the real vehicle in a cave six miles outside this facility.

            Before I went to bed that night, I took another trek through the narrow passageways beneath the labs and behind the walls of the testing facility.  These hidden areas kept me up to date on most of the news they did not want the test subjects to know.  I had also planted listening devices and shielded them from the bug detectors.  My knowledge of machines and electronics was then and is now above normal human comprehension.

            I turned up my headphones and listened for any news on the closing of our project.  Too many accidents and too many deaths brought about too many questions.   Dr. Kaitlyn Menedoza was still trying to keep our site open.  She did not want us terminated.  Dr. Menedoza was very adamant about our importance to the world.  I love life and I love being alive.         

Reviews

[Greg Close]

This has a really cool sci fi esthetic - I like the utilitarian but descriptive prose. The first person voice really works well for this too. I was completely drawn into the character and the near-future setting you've created. My biggest complaint was just that the chapter ended rather abruptly. I was expecting a little more, and then... it ended! Of course, worse things could happen. Despite wanting it to be longer, evidently it was "long enough' because I am about to click on "next chapter" to find out more.

[F.R. Eileen]

Ooh, good attention gripper! So, quick thing- is she writing this down later, or are these her internal thoughts? It seems like she's directly addressing the reader. 92/100. :)

[Rylan Batten]

this story has great great great great great potential, the idea, the storyline, the way you've set it up, you could do exciting, spectacular things with it. You do a good job including all the elements to set up your story here, but just a suggestion, flesh it out some. Don't to so much telling, do some more showing. If you show it well, no one will mind that the chapter is longer.

Good start, and good luck!

--Rylan

[Patsy]

I like this! I'm going to have to read all of the chapters now! Captivating story...

[None]

You set the stage well here and I like the story details. It looks like you did quite a bit of research and planning with this. I'm looking forward to reading more soon.

[Raef C. Boylan]

Now that I've read all of the chapters posted so far, I think this chapter is the least gripping and interesting. Like Chris Zahar [below] says, your introduction needs to draw the reader in and make them want to read further on.
I think it's the tone in which this is written. Without wanting to be offensive, it reads like a first draft; quite factual and stiff, like you hadn't got into your protagonist's head yet and were building a backbone for the story. I reckon that's the nature of genres like this: the balance between keeping characters believable while providing enough information for the reader to understand what's going on is a tricky one to maintain.

That said, it's definitely intriguing; you provide plenty of details which help us realise how unusual a situation this girl is stuck in and how urgently she wants to get away.

I suggest hyphenation of these phrases:
"Freedom from this jail like home" [jail-like home]
"Her reptilian looking eyes bore cold holes" [reptillian-looking]

"There was another small [photo and all my friends] from the inside Dr. Menedoza took for me on my twelfth birthday."
['another photo of myself and all my friends'?]

"We had once been best friends, but that was before Mandy died."
[If you could show us this rather than telling, it might help us warm to your narrator as a real person. If she reflects on an event, the way we do in our heads a lot, rather than stating this, it'll make her more human for the reader. If that makes any sense?]

"I know, the dates don't make a lot of sense do they? They slowed my aging process when I turned ten years old." - this is good, a bit of direct interaction with the reader; however, be careful because doing this can change the style in which the story needs to be written; is Beth giving an official account/ remembering for herself/ telling it to a specific audience/ simply narrating the story in her own words...etc?

"My knowledge of machines and electronics was then[,] and is now[,] above normal human comprehension."
[comma suggestion]

"I turned up my headphones and listened for any news on the closing of our project. Too many accidents and too many deaths brought about too many questions. Dr. Kaitlyn Menedoza was still trying to keep our site open. She did not want us terminated. Dr. Menedoza was very adamant about our importance to the world. I love life and I love being alive."
[the final sentence is a bit abrupt - not in an urgent or passionate way, just in a way where the two things don't seem connected. Although they are, I suggest you either set this sentence apart, or add a little more to it in order to link her thoughts up to Dr Menedoza's opinion]

Interesting work.
Thanks for posting it.

[Chris Zahar]

This is my honest opinion: It was good. Not great, but good. You certainly paint a very clear picture of what's going on here. This may not seem like a very big deal, but so often, beginning writers want to pack their stories full of so much information, that they just end up not only confusing themselves, but confusing their readers as well. You certainly don't do that. The focus in this chapter is like a laser beam and the clarity is like an azure sky in deepest summer (to quote one of my favorite movies, "A Clockwork Orange"). The reader knows that we are talking about a girl from the future who is escaping from some type of research/military facility to live a life that is "less like a human guinea pig". Again, this might not seem like a big deal at first, but there is nothing more irritating than reading a confusing story; so reading a confusing novel is just torture.

Now, the bad parts. I just didn't feel like the first chapter really grabbed me of pulled me in. I'm a little curious to know what's going to happen to our protagonist and what was the nature of the fight between here and this mysterious, reptilian-eyed woman, but I certainly can't say I feel pushed to find out. Perhaps you could've benefited more from not telling the reader exactly why she was escaping. You could show this girl packing her bags, a look of anxiety on her face and various other visual description to illustrate that she is trying to escape from this place, without directly telling the reader that she's trying to escape, or, for that matter, why she is trying to escape. You would've kept the reader guessing what she was running from and I think that would've pushed them to read the second chapter, third chapter, and so on down the line.

However, on the upside, this is definitely a very workable novel with a very marketable story line. I could very easily see myself watching this in the form of a movie and enjoying it. But even if it never made it that far, your talent as a writer is certainly a force to be reckoned with. Good job.

[Raef C. Boylan]

Could you make the font a little bigger? Please. This was straining my eyes from the first couple of lines.
Sorry. I know smaller font can make work seem more professional - I get tempted myself - but it makes it hard on the readers.

Thanks.
If you do, drop me the link in a messgae or the comments box and I'll come back.