Welcome to Gaia! ::

Yaaay! Thanks for the comments!

@beginning: Yeah, these are always tough. Maybe I'll tweak it if it really bugs a lot of people--thanks for bringing my attention to it in the first place.

@jump stations: I'll admit that I can't resist the opportunities to explain my work. Plus this is kind of more for me anyway, so I've got it set down and won't forget things. I dunno. If you find a better spot for it later on point it out.

@Shatner: Yeah, that's why I didn't do it. Although the Shatner comment made me giggle because in the original idea Hugh was Kirk. *lawl*

I look forward to further crits--this is great!

It didn’t take the press long to leap onto this new angle and scramble up it with any foothold they could find. The Trial, Starbitten, Linear Dusk; newspapers and tabloids, news radio and talk radio, television and websites. (The exception again being the National Enquirer, who was a step behind and just running their story on the newly-discovered half-shadraxi girl.)

“Bird-girl flown the coop!” Linear Dusk proclaimed. “Eight-year-old girl kidnapped,” the Trial announced in bold capitals and a modicum more modesty. Starbitten even ran a special edition dedicated to Glitch; columns guessed at how she came into being and who her shadraxi parent was, with the former amazingly missing the truth and the latter remarkably spot-on.

Every media outlet begged anyone who knew anything to go to the FBI with their information; any sightings were to be called in to a special hotline.

Hugh contacted his superiors and requested and duly received time off, and used what leverage he could with the authorities to get as much in the loop as he could. Anasqil called him every evening for three days and they exchanged any new information they had gotten along with wishes of good luck.

The intruder had entered the house using a still-experimental portable telejump lock, indicating an accomplice controlling the jump variables elsewhere. They had gone upstairs and encountered the gynoid Janet; there had been a scuffle and the unit was stabbed to break the protective skin and then tasered, once in the arm, once in the neck. The harddrive was, thankfully, recoverable if a bit damaged, and was in the process of being installed into a new unit, a long and intensive operation.

The intruder, having disabled the unit, went on into the child’s room, picked her up, and activated the telejump lock to leave the house. The good thing about a telejump lock, the authorities added, was that it took an immense amount of power and there were only a few public places that had that much power.

The telejump lock itself had not, the creators said, been stolen, and neither had the plans. They didn’t know where the intruders had gotten it, but it wasn’t theirs.

The place it had been plugged into was found three days after the kidnapping, a public telejump station that had experienced a slight power malfunction three days prior around midnight. Apparently, the two kidnappers had come in, paid their fare, and hijacked a booth, plugging the telejump lock into the system and temporarily rerouting all power to make the jump into the house. The power had been rerouted again to bring the first kidnapper and the child back to the station, where the equipment was quickly dismantled and put away, coordinates for a station across the country put in, and the kidnappers and their prize whisked away.

The police hit a dead end here. The operators for the station across the country said that no one had come through at midnight and yes they were absolutely positive.

Most of the media lost interest at this point and after the trail went cold returned to mainstream news and celebrity news, although Starbitten stubbornly continued to run columns wondering what had happened to the poor girl.

The fourth evening Anasqil called him, Hugh had made up his mind.
“I’m going after her,” he said.

Anasqil didn’t even blink. “Of course you are. I will arrange transport for you and my go-between and I will allow you to charge any large,” he ruffled his feathers, “mandatory charges to my account. I will take over your position with your FBI as much as I can without being there and will try to keep you updated while you are gone.”

Hugh allowed himself a moment of shock. Of course Anasqil would have a plan of action.

“When do you intend to leave?”

He ran a hand through his hair. “I’m not sure. Tonight if at all possible, or early morning. As soon as possible.”

“Then you had better pack, and try to pack light,” Anasqil said shortly. “I will arrange as much as I can and call you at,” he turned his head to focus on a clock behind Hugh, “your one-o-clock. You have two hours, Hewwww.”

“I’ll be ready. Thanks.”

Anasqil disconnected with a curt nod, as usual, and Hugh started racing off to pack; a small suitcase was lugged out of the garage and crammed with changes of clothes and various books, while his overnight duffel bag was hastily emptied and repacked with a few more clothes, a couple of books he thought he might need at a moment’s notice, and a few personal effects. His laptop was already in the satchel he used for work, and he emptied the bag of papers and started putting in various things like empty notebooks, a flashlight, and a few shoelaces he pulled out of a drawer.

Halfway through this he stopped and stared at the thick white laces he held, wondering why he was doing this, and something absently floated to the top of his mind: a bit of string never hurt. And after that, a towel. Hugh shook his head and stuck the shoelaces in, running off to get a spare toothbrush, paste, and a razor to pack into his duffel, and as an afterthought a towel as well.

An hour passed while he packed, and the second hour oozed by as he fretfully double-checked everything to see nothing was missing. It was a relief to hear the chimes sounding him to the study.

“You are packed?”

“Yeah, yeah. Just checking over everything.”

“I have sent my agent to your location—make sure that you are ready when she arrives.”

“She?” Hugh sat down to catch his breath.

“Midhawra. She’s a freelancer and a private detective. And Hewww, make sure that you tell your employers you are leaving. It would not look good for you to vanish into thin air.”

“Oh sh—how soon will she—your girl—how long will she get here? I still have to call them—and speaking of calls, you’ve got my cell, right, in case I can’t get to my laptop?”

Anasqil nodded. “Yes. And you have ten minutes at least, so make the most of them. I will talk to you later.”

“Thanks.”

“Good luck.”

Hugh stared at the suddenly-black screen for a moment, then called IO to leave a message detailing that he was going to be gone for who knows how long—it was a family emergency—and could they just cover for him so the press didn’t leap all over this? Confident that he had told them everything he needed to, he turned off the netcam and computer, double-checked everything once again, and sat down to wait.

1:14 heralded a sharp rap on the door, which turned out to be a dun-colored shadraxi dressed in practical clothing altered to not cover the feathers on her arms and shoulders. Bizarre sandals were on her bird feet and the pants she wore designed particularly for the backwards knees of the alien race.

“Midhawra?” he asked. She nodded, an odd bob of the head.

“You’re Hugh, then? Right, come on, let’s go.” She grabbed the suitcase that Hugh had put by the door, letting him take the duffel and satchel. “Don’t forget to lock the door, we don’t know how long you’re going to be gone.”

A taxi was waiting outside for them. Midhawra took the suitcase down and put it in the boot, then came back for the duffel bag as Hugh fumbled with the door key. He paused after he locked the front door, staring at the townhouse that loomed up out of the early morning darkness, then turned and joined Midhawra in the taxi.

She was sitting like a bird, her legs folded beneath her on the seat of the cab. Watching him with keen black eyes, she said quietly, almost a croon, “I’m sorry to hear about this. Anasqil filled me in on the details and what I’m going to be doing, and I’d like to get a start on the investigating aspect but first we’re going to go to my boat and put your stuff away. And,” she bobbed her head like a pigeon, “I hope you’re not too offended if I ask you to stay there while I go take a look.”

He raised his eyebrows. “I’m not offended, but I’m not gonna stay there either.”

She bobbed her head in an almost shrugging manner, although it may have simply been the cab lurching to a stop at a red light. “Never hurts to ask.”

Yay comment!

@previous writing: I still haven't finished that, you know. And what I'm posting is at least a year behind what I have written. (also wrong title but whatever.)

@talking birds: Those are the shadraxi. They're birdlike aliens. I've got notes if you want to see them.

@Janet: She's a robot--the proper term for a female android is gynoid, and she's bald because that's how she was manufactured.

@Miracle: Ahh, the million-dollar question. I doubt I'm ever going to bring this up in the story, so I will gleefully ramble about it here.
Even if it is a long story. Hm. Let's see.
Maybe I should PM you it instead. I don't think I can make it short. *frowns*

4laugh I'll put it up, then.
Lessee. Anasqil and Hugh had been working together for a year (give or take a month or so) and were sightseeing on Earth a little bit before a conference--they had been assigned the gynoid Janet to keep track of time and make sure they got where they needed to be, and were in a bit of a hurry when they 'jumped to the conference.
There was a minor bug in the system, or a power surge, or something--there was some unexplained variable during the jump, and bits of genetic material got mixed up and put in the most logical place--which was the fully-functional Janet. (Hey, it's soft SF, I can do what I want.) She developed fairly normally and was born on Earth, and lives with Hugh and Janet.
That's why she's called Miracle (because to unmarried Hugh she is) and nicknamed Glitch (because, well, she is). You can see it in her surname--Shalad is Anasqil's surname and Evonovy is Hugh's.


Yep.


@infodump: Okay, I'll try trimming it if it really is that bad (which I suppose it is). And let's face it--for some of the description I was just padding in hopes of reaching my 1k daily goal. *sheepish shrug*

@shadraxi: You want my notes, PMS?

It didn’t take them long to get to the telejump station, and she got everything out of the boot while Hugh paid the cabbie. They went in, paid fare, got a cubicle, and went through the always-unnerving process of jumping. He heard Midhawra let out a crooning squawk once they landed, and he tentatively opened his eyes and was surprised to find himself looking at the telejump room walls of IO.

“IO?”

“Closest place to dock,” she replied, picking up his suitcase and leaving, walking along the corridors in the peculiar bird-like gait that all shadraxi shared. Hugh hurried to grab his other bags and follow her. “Tried to be as efficient as possible. Do you like coffee?”

“What?”

She paused, waiting for him to catch up, and looked at him with one eye. “You look like you could use some. How long have you been awake?”

“Uh.” He thought back through the day. “17 hours. It’s not that bad, really.”

“Hope you don’t mind if I have some when we get to my boat.”

“Um, okay.”

Her “boat” turned out to be a Sparrow-class starship, named for its small size. It was snug but clean, all the minor components and objects that might float loose during flight secured away in little cabinets; Hugh stored his luggage away in one such cabinet.

“His name’s Malakaminrana,” she said, pulling a packet of cocoa beans from under a console and popping a few in her parrot-like beak. “Flies smooth and quiet, registration and weapons licenses are in order, and clean as—you say—a whistle. Best I’ve ever had.”

Hugh made some appreciative noises. It was a nice little ship, he could see that. Midhawra crunched a few more beans, then put the little packet away again and left; Hugh chased after her.

“I’ve already figured out where we need to go,” she said, leading the way through the brightly-lit corridors of IO. “The station they went to first was 32, then—supposedly—five, and that’s where the trail goes cold. But these people are smart. Wouldn’t leave a trail like that. They probably input one or two fake destinations before actually leaving, although how many they did depends on how much of a hurry they were in—probably only one. So we’re gonna go to station 32 and get a look at the records, follow up on that lead, and see where it takes us.”

They passed by someone; Hugh vaguely recognized them and nodded as they passed, the other person smiling in return. They were, thankfully, the only other person Hugh and Midhawra saw until they made the jump back to Earth.

The operators at station 32 were reluctant to give records out, but relented when Hugh pointed out that his daughter was the missing girl and yes, Midhawra really was a private detective.

Two jumps had been made after the one logged to station 5. One jump was to station 15, the other to station 30; Midhawra made clicking noises as she thought.

“Split up, obviously,” she finally said. “One of them slipped into another booth and they did this to muck up the trail. Your FBI is pretty stupid, Hugh, and it would have been a lot nicer if they’d been able to track this down before we did because now we’re going to have to trace their trail all over the place and waste time.” Her gaze went from the records to Hugh. “And they’re most likely in space by now, too.”

“What?” He blinked and she blinked in return, then thanked the operators for their cooperation, slipped them a couple of bills, and headed back to the nearest cubicle; Hugh chased after her.

“It’s the vaguest endpoint,” she explained carefully. “Even if they jump all over the country—the world, even—they leave a trail. They can be traced that way. But if they jump up to an outpost where they’ve got their ship docked, well—there are a lot of ships to pick from. Or,” she let Hugh swipe his card and they both fell silent for the telejump, Hugh squeezing his eyes shut and gritting his teeth; two jumps in one day, one hour even, were more than he was used to. Midhawra, unfazed, picked up her train of thought effortlessly.

“Or they left the telejump system. Jump a few stations, meet back up, leave—just walk away into the city streets. But that’s not the real problem,” she added abruptly. “The real problem is how did they hide her? They can’t just say that she’s their daughter or niece or little sister or anything, because she looks like a human but she also doesn’t and someone would notice, right?”

“Um,” Hugh walked alongside her in IO’s corridors, pausing briefly to sort out what she was saying.

“Transportation, that’s the thing. Probably a box or something—a whole bunch of boxes. So my money’s on a jump up to an outpost— maybe even this one—with a load of crates—bringing maybe even a third person into the equation, or preplanned where the boxes were going to be, in which case this was remarkably premeditated, then onto a transport,” she paused to let Hugh into Malakaminrana first. “I’m guessing private, large enough for three people comfortably and a bunch of boxes, gonna have to run that against various types…” she finally trailed off and looked at him straight on.

“This is the sort of thing that we should tell Anasqil, isn’t it?”

“And the FBI,” he agreed.

She nodded. “Right. I think it’s probably best that you stay out of sight—I’ll call Anasqil first, then your FBI, or maybe even let him do it if he can remember everything. You have a laptop?”

“Oh, yes!” He crossed the small room to stare at the metal cabinets. “In my workbag, wherever that is.”

“Get it out and start cross-referencing my ideas to a list of ships—remember, large enough for three people at least, transport or cargo ship, then run those against a log of boats docked here, and don’t forget to add that it’s private.”

Hugh started opening cabinets to find his workbag, saying, “How do you figure all this stuff out?”

“I could explain but that would just waste more time,” she replied, ducking into the cockpit.

*

Glitch liked songs. Loved music. She wasn’t used to this sort of reverberation, though.

The man in the staring wooden owl mask glanced over at her. She stared back and wiggled her fingers tentatively. Her wrists were bound together with something the color of aerogel and the consistency of glue, and this substance was smeared all the way up to her elbows down to her fingertips. The man wiggled his fingers in return, then turned back to the console and turned the music up a little more.

The national anthem of the long-dead Soviet Union assaulted Glitch’s ears and made her bones vibrate, and she made a small whimper in the back of her throat inaudible to her captors. The other man, in a wooden raven mask, was sitting in the other chair and making motions as if he were conducting, and for all she knew he very well could have been. He certainly looked like he knew what he was doing.

With a roaring crescendo the voices and music ended, and the man in the owl mask reached over and turned off the volume. He turned in his chair to face Glitch, and when he spoke his voice was a low monotone.

“Now, wasn’t that nice. Nothing like a good bit of music to lift up the soul.”

The other man spoke as well, although not in a monotone; either he wasn’t as good at it as his companion was or he simply loved the rise and fall of his own voice. She got the impression he would have sung along to the various anthems they played if he knew any of the words. “What would you like to hear next? Perhaps some rock and roll?”

She shook her head. They had listened to ear-shattering drums and electric guitar yesterday, and Glitch had come to the conclusion that she didn’t much like rock and roll.

“We can keep listening to national anthems, if you like. Here, I’m sure there’s a Radshadraxi one on here somewhere. Are you Radshadraxi?”

She blinked. Her father Anasqil had spoken Radshadraxi to her before—it was full of clicks and hoots and she had never quite gotten the hang of it. Wietzl was her preferred language, consisting mainly of whistling. She liked to pretend, on Earth, that the birds were speaking Wietzl and she would always try and figure out what they were saying, but Anasqil had told her, when she asked, that they spoke a different dialect.

After a moment she shook her head.

“Not Radshadraxi, huh?”

Ravenface made a little note on a pad he carried around. It was one of his distinguishing features, as Glitch had noticed they liked to trade masks to confuse her. The man currently wearing the raven mask was thinner than his companion, who was more muscularly built—a fact they masked by wearing dark colors like black and dark brown. They also wore gloves and hoods; she had never seen any glimpses of skin or hair.

She shifted slightly, her legs stiff from sitting, and leaned her head against the wall. It was a large enough cockpit, with both men in chairs and she on the floor just behind them. There were two other people, a man and a woman, wearing black and bizarre parrot masks, but they tended to stay in the cargo hold with the crates. Both had tasers.

Owlmask probably had a taser too but Glitch had never seen it, not in four days.

Ravenface got to his feet and stretched luxuriously, leaving the cockpit with a cheery whistle. “Time for dinner, then. What would you like?”

Owlmask didn’t respond. Glitch whimpered again and he looked at her, the same way he had looked at her when he had first appeared, wearing the raven mask and a horrendous hooded jacket covered in black feathers, a terrifying mockery of the shadraxi. She remembered it mostly as a blur, except for his eyes, completely shadowed until he had moved close with a rag to put over her mouth and nose.

Color had been indistinguishable in the darkness, iris and pupil blending together in a mass of black; his eyes had been wide, showing a ring of white all around the black, and they were a bold white as if they were glowing.

Ravenface returned, tossing a packet to Owlmask who caught it deftly. Without another word Ravenface vanished again, and Owlmask gave the packet a brief glance over before setting it down and looking at Glitch.

“Now,” he said, “if you decide you want to be good, I’ll take that stuff off your arms.”

She hesitated, then nodded. The past few days they had fed her themselves, and after she scratched up a spoon on the second day—she had refused to eat the first, until they assured her that the packets were unharmed and they would even open them in front of her—they had handfed her, and then she nipped Ravenface on the finger yesterday and hadn’t gotten breakfast. It would be a relief to be able to eat by herself again.

He moved forward and crouched in front of her. “Hold out your hands.”
She did and he started up at her elbows, taking the utmost care to dig his fingers under the putty and roll it forward. There was a bit of trouble around her wrists, where the putty was stuck together, but he finally tugged it off her and watched as she stretched her arms. Then he got up and gave her the packet.

Sausage and baked beans. She would have been glad of toast to put it on but contented herself with eating with her fingers. She held the packet out when she was done and licked her fingers, wiping them carefully on the shirt they had given her.

Gratuitous dorky addendum . . .

About those Geiger counters. . . why, exactly, is radiation part of the telejump process? What's it doing, and what are they trying to pick up? It's okay if you don't have this part down, since people will take it on faith that cool, futuristic technology might involve radiation, but if you want to make it more nitty-gritty, here's some stuff to consider (much of which you may already know):

Geiger counters are about the same thing as "Geiger-Muller tubes," or "GM tubes" for short. They are a member of the general class "radiation detector" or "radiation meter," or, more specifically, "contamination detector/meter." (I'll explain the "contamination" part in a minute, bear with me.) Not all of which are entirely interchangeable, but close enough for your purposes. Most of your readers don't know that any of these terms are current, rather than cool and futuristic, so you can slip any of them in instead of "basically Geiger counters," and gain not only cool points from the uninitiated, but geek-love points from those of us who do know the terms.

However, this all hinges on whether telejump radiation is anything like regular radiation. Radioactive materials give off one of three different types of radiation: alpha, beta, or gamma. Alpha particles (yes, particles, not waves) are basically helium nuclei: relatively large with two units of positive charge, since they've got no electrons. They are given off by heavy radioactive elements like plutonium or uranium, Alphas are relatively harmless, as long as you don't eat them snort them, or inhale them. Because they interact with matter really easily: a piece of paper or the layer of dead skin on your hands will stop them, but if you get them on your mucus membranes or into your blood stream. . . ow.

Beta particles are basically flying electrons. They're not too hard to stop, and often aren't very high energy, but shielding them is kind of funny. Usually, people think of lead as a radiation shield, but that's actually one of the worst things you can use to stop betas. Betas interact with the lead in such a way that while the betas may go away, they generate a whole bunch of gammas. You stop betas with a layer of wood, plastic, or paraffin. Basically, lightweight, low-density kinds of things. Many GM tubes have a little plastic shield in case you only want to detect gammas, not betas.

Gamma rays are pretty much electromagnetic radiation. They're not necessarily more harmful than the other kinds, but they are very penetrating. It takes a fairly dense material to very effectively shield gammas. They're given off by a lot of things. (Find an online copy of the "Chart of the Nuclides" to get more information about the emitted radiation of all kinds of radio-isotopes than you ever wanted.)

The most important question, though, is whether or not you're looking for contamination. Contamination just means "radioactive material where it doesn't belong." So, when you're looking for contamination, you want to pick up any radiation, no matter how low-energy and harmless. GM tubes are great for that. Whenever any radiation interacts with the fill gas in the detector, the whole chamber ionizes, which sends an electrical pulse through the circuitry. (Also, just to clarify, when I say "detector" and "chamber," I'm talking about a little bubble inside the casing, not the big rectangular box.) The needle jumps, and you get that iconic "CHNK" noise, or, on some models, "GLEEP" or "BLIP." What you're measuring is "activity," in CPM (counts per minute), which is related to "decays per minute," but has nothing to do with the energy of the radiation.

So if what you're thinking about is a scattering of radioactive dust that isn't too dangerous, but is identifiable as resulting from a telejump, GM tubes are what you want. (Basically, "Aha! The distinctive droppings of the telejump! . . . I had better not walk through here or I will track this stuff everywhere.") This may be especially cool because you can stick a sample of the dust into a special detector (we usually used a gamma spec) and find out based on the specific energy of radiation emitted exactly what isotopes are in the dust.

However, if what you're looking for really is "levels" of radiation, in the sense of "I don't want to walk into this area because I will get cooked," then GM tubes are a Really Bad Idea. You're probably still talking about radioactive dust, unless you want to suggest that there's a device planted in the house that is generating a field, but the detection requirements are quite different.

When I say "field," what I mean is an area in which there is radiation. Picture it as sort of like heat: as you enter a sauna, there is a certain amount of heat, and if you stay there for a given amount of time, you will absorb heat to a predictable degree. Radiation fields are measured in "dose rate" or "exposure rate," (units of Rem per hour or Rad per hour, respectively, at least in this country, abbreviated Rem/hr, R/hr). If you stand in a field of 10 R/hr for one hour, you have received 10 REM, which will make the government unhappy, but will not do any noticeable damage, and quite likely none at all. (I think the highest field I ever entered while at the reactor was about 9 mRem-as in, 9/1000 Rem-and I was only there for a few minutes at a time, and not all at once.) And the strength of the field diminishes considerably as you move away from the source.

Just for reference as far as dose severity: you get about 1 mRem every day just being alive. 100 Rem (within a 24 hr period) is just high enough that you might be noticeably affected-maybe your blood composition will be a little different, but you'll probably still feel normal. 300-600 Rem will definitely give you some kind of radiation sickness. Anything above 600 Rem is bad news, because I think that's about the LD-50, though you're better off if you get immediate medical care. Don't get 1000 Rem within 24 hours. Just--don't. But a 300 Rem/hr field might still be okay to enter, as long as you're in and out really quickly. It all depends.

Okay, sidetracked there. Detection requirements. On TV and in the movies people almost always use Geiger counters to detect radiation, no matter what, because they make that static-y sound. However, at a certain point, the detector is emitting so many individual clicks (which correspond to ionization events) that it "swamps." There's just too much radiation, so it basically gets stuck in mid-click. That's not safe.

Here's why:
You've got the thing turned on, you start walking in the direction of a radiation source, and it clicks faster and faster until it's clicking almost continuously. . . then it stops. You are standing with the thing basically dead in your hand, totally silent. You can walk around all you like, but you won't know whether the field is getting weaker or stronger unless you manage to wander out of it for long enough for your detector to recover. Even worse, you have no idea how dangerous the radiation is: it's impossible to translate cpm into Rem unless you not only exactly what isotope(s) are there, but have specifically calibrated that particular detector to read out dose rate for that exact isotope/combination of isotopes. And you haven't. Just trust me on this one. There are almost zero scenarios in which that's practical or likely.

If you have a field, what you want is a "dose rate meter." Those are a bit more expensive, but the design isn't all that different. They still have a fill gas inside the detector that ionizes in response to radiation, but the ionization is relative to the energy of the radiation coming in. There are a number of different ways to measure dose rate. The most common hand-held variety is the "ion chamber" (yes, that's its real name). "Compensated GM tubes" are also good for dose rate (I've never seen a detector that can switch from GM to compensated GM, since it has to do with shielding that envelops the entire detector portion-inside the casing,)

Field and contamination are not mutually exclusive. If you have a lot of contamination, and it's giving out high-energy radiation, then it could generate a pretty significant field. But fields can also be put out by "sources"-little chunks of very radioactive stuff. (Radioactivity is measured in curies. It's not the same as radiation, but this thing is already too long, so we'll just gloss over that.)

Anyways. . . way too much info. In case it amuses you, and/or helps with your story mechanics.

What do you think of the plot so far? The characters? The setting?

The plot overall is good, and I like the characters. The setting is fine...not too outlandish, which makes it easier to comprehend.

What do you think could use some work? Is there anything that needs clarification? What do you think is good?

I have been reading through the posts, and it's been holding my attention very well. The only thing that confused me was [the female bird agent...forget the name] chewing cocoa beans after asking Hugh if he wanted coffee...it just seemed random. Do cocoa beans serve the same purpose as coffee? Is it a personal vice?

I don't know that it really needs clarification, but I am interestedin the gynoid, Janet...just how human-like is she? How did she come into existance? Are there more like her? Maybe not relevant to the story, but I'm curious.


Does the beginning draw you in? Yes, it hooked me and I kept reading. Well done.

Did you see any typos? Spelling? Grammar? No, but I rarely do when I am reading at my usual speed...plus, you probably know by now spell-checking is not my forte xd