A Day in the Life of Finris and Gwendolyn
“Indeed,
my Empress,” the president from Brazzaville and the prime minister
from Kinshasa pledged as one. “All the world’s eyes are focused
here.”
“Yes,”
she accepted in the dark as she accepted Finris Mau Abadan’s and
Gwendolyn Capyanna’s faithful obedience. Her manipulations through
the Uniforce of their ascension to the highest offices of their lands
at this time in history made the Empress smile. “All the world
will see when the Superstars and their ilk ‘crash’ the games and
justify their destruction.”
So
far I think President Abadan of the Congo and Prime Minister Capyanna
of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire) have my two
favorite names in the entire Progeny Cycle that I WILL FINISH THIS
SUMMER! And they even made a cameo in my first book Progeny
(you can get it on Amazon and Kindle, ISBN 1418499455), but I hadn't
named them then. Sometimes it takes writing out a passage to come up
with a character's full name -- incidentally, it's how I came up with
the Empress' real name later in that book. And the book that I am
finishing NOW, tentatively titled Victory
I've put off and put off and put off finishing, but not anymore.
Indeed, over the last few weeks as I've edited the text and figured
out what stays and what is needlessly repetitive, I am getting more
into the story. And I hate it, but I have to add to the body count.
“My
Empress,” President Abadan looked up with one eye from his
prostration, “the heroes are here?” With some trepidation and
disbelief, he apologized, “Forgive me, Supreme One, but my
country’s security precautions,”
“Are
not at fault, slave,” the Empress replied as she raised her hand
for silence. “Do you truly
think they’d have gotten this far without me allowing them to?”
Prime
Minister Capybana couldn’t suppress a chuckle even at her mistress’
feet. “Of course not, my Empress. Abadan’s a fool.”
But
on from this passage from chapter twenty-one (stylized 21)
of Victory,
one that my family has made is that our air conditioner is working
again! Oh, it's been running since it was installed last summer in
our post-flood house, but our dear electrician neglected to install a
220 volt outlet for it to be plugged into. And until summer this was
not a problem ... then it got hot and sticky (the weather here in
Minot is so changeable and lately we've had flood and tornado
warnings all around) but for the beginning of summer it's actually
quite mild. And we even got Sarah and Jeffrey to go to sleep with
standing fans running in their rooms after a few nights! But I can
appreciate the heat putting a lot of people on edge and this staying
indoors as much as possible is quite taxing. One almost feels an
agenda to it …
“No.”
The slave
caught herself too late. Then the Empress turned to Memnon who knelt
beneath her right hand, “Slaves, the Olympic Games will go on. But
you,” she pointed to
Abadan and Capybana, “will die for me.”
“As you
will, my Empress,” all three proclaimed as one and two died from
bullets to the brain. The survivor looked down at their forms and
knelt before the Empress. “You see all, you know all, Beloved
Empress.”
“I
know.”
Among
the three novels of the Progeny Cycle – Progeny,
Legacy,
and
the upcoming Victory
I'm excerpting today – I've grown quite a bit. When Victory
debuts by summer's end, I will have spent part of the last
twenty-seven years writing out this story, for the first chapter and
a half of Progeny
I started when I was a high school freshman (1986-87 school year) and
just let it sit until after I'd moved to North Dakota and met Martha
at the turn of the century. Now I'm married to her, got two wonderful
children whom we took out to dinner last night at our local Perkins
where THEY got to eat free with us, and I almost feel like I'm
raising my fictional children in their even tougher world. You really
think superheroes have an easy life? I think writing these books has
dispelled my somewhat idealized versions of them … but you tell me,
read them yourselves!
I'd love to hear
your point of view, David
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