Across the line with more to come

Yesterday morning I crossed the finish line for Novel November and passed the fifty-thousand-word mark. It feels good to know I can still write at that pace. But the book draft isn’t done yet. 50K was just a challenge. I still have at least nine chapters to write in order to finish the first draft before the end of the year.

Now that the NovNov sprint is behind me, I’ll return to sending updates on alternating Fridays.

As a thank you for your support, I've included a sneak peek at a draft of the opening scene below. Think of it as a pencil sketch for the painting yet to come.

It never stops raining in Cascadia. Sometimes it changes from mist to drizzle, or from showers to downpour. But mostly it just rains. Constant and gray. Today, it was rain accompanied with an icy wind coming off the Pacific Ocean.

I tilted my head back and squinted into the rain to consider the tower looming over me. A dead body waited for me one hundred and forty-three stories above. Crownspire Tower disappeared into the clouds like it couldn’t be bothered with the lesser buildings. It was Cascadia's newest monument to maximalism. Four square blocks climbing 2000m to the sky.

I opened the back doors of the van to let my partner out. He unfolded himself to the full height of his seven-foot frame of scorched metal plates, skeletal frame, and overlong arms. He looked like every killer robot from the movies all rolled into one faceless machine. All he was missing was a giant machine-gun arm and some flashy red lasers. But he had none of that. Instead, I'd turned him into a walking, talking, automated evidence collecting crime lab.

Officially, he was listed as "Evidence Bot" on my assigned equipment list with the Cascadia Police Department. I just called him EB, and he was my partner.

“Observation,” EB said, his friendly tone at odds with his murderous design. “It is raining and your coat is not hydrophobic.”

“It’s wool, EB. It’s not supposed to be.”

“Correction. Wool is hydrophobic to a limited degree, but yours’ appear saturated.”

I sighed. “Thank you for your concern.”

He paused a moment, the faint whir of his internal processors rising in what I'd learned to recognize as confusion. "You are welcome."

The city's PR team hated him. The department tolerated him. I liked him, which probably said more about me than him.

The lobby of Crownspire Tower was a sea of polished concrete, dotted with a few small islands of beige sofas and plastic trees. On the far shore was a massive wooden reception desk made from giant Douglas Fir that had probably been a hundred years old before Cascadia was even a trading post in the woods. One of the last old-growth trees, now holding up name plates and coffee mugs; classic Cascadia.

We approached the front desk, and the receptionist behind the giant desk froze when she saw EB. It happens every time. People expect a humanoid robot to be sleek, friendly, maybe with a fake smile programmed in. EB didn't have a face and he didn't smile. Maybe the city's PR team had a point.

“Detective Bennett,” I said, flashing my badge to break her stare. “Cascadia PD.”

She tore her eyes away from EB long enough to acknowledge me. “Uh, right. The police... I mean the other police are already up there. You’ll want the elevators over there," she said, pointing to a bank of elevators.

I pulled a hockey-puck-sized drone from my coat and tossed it up. At the apex, it unfolded with rotors humming and settled into a steady hover. I adjusted its video feed on my slate toward us for calibration. The screen showed both of us: me with a damp ponytail, a soggy coat, and an expression that said bored; EB leaning in like he was posing for a selfie. Beauty and the bot.

The feed's auto-caption blinked green: Recording active.

I tucked the slate away and made for the elevators, the tiny drone following along. “Ready?” I said to EB.

“I have been ready since the end of my charge cycle at 0500 hours, Detective Bennett,” EB said. “You were the one waiting for atmospheric conditions to stabilize.”

“I was checking the weather,” I said. Not that it ever really changed.

The elevator ride was quiet for the first 10 floors except for the tap of rain against the glass walls that looked out from the building. We watched the city fall away beneath us, neon signs below blurred by the wet. From up here, Cascadia looked clean. It was a lie.

The elevator paused at 10 to let in a middle-aged lady clutching a leather portfolio in her arms. She greeted me with a smile that went slack once she noticed my partner. Making sure I was between her and EB, she turned to face the elevator doors and avoided any further eye contact.

The doors slid closed and we all watched the floor counter increase. Before we’d even reached the twentieth floor, EB started to let out a low hum. A moment later I realized it was a song. He was humming ‘The Girl from Ipanema.’ The elevator picked up speed, and I thought I'd be able to ignore him. But by the time we hit the sixtieth floor, I'd had enough. I turned and gave him the look, but the humming persisted.

When we reached the ninetieth, I’d had enough. "Enough."

He paused his humming. "Let me finish this stanza." And he continued before I could object.

When the elevator got to 110, EB had finished his song and stood silent.

Mercifully, we finally reached 143. This was our floor. The doors hissed open and I stepped out. EB ducked and followed me.

As the door closed behind us, I heard the lady pick up the tune and start humming where EB left off.

I turned and looked at him. "Do you see what you did?"

"Technically, Detective Bennett, I heard what I did."