TITLE: Kitsune
GENRE: SF
MC realizes the guy who snuck into her hotel room is not who he seems and he situation might be a whole lot worse when someone else knocks on her door. This takes place towards the end of chapter 1.
My eliminator knocked again.
Had I f-ed up that badly without even knowing it? The truth was, yes. Yes, I had.
Unlike the hotel's other patrons, I never had visitors, clients or otherwise. No one ever came to my hotel room. Except that sexy man. No one even knew where I was staying. Except Scorpio. But there was no getting around the subcutaneous microchip implanted between my shoulder blades, compliments of the Scorpio school system. When we were trained to disguise ourselves so well that not even our own families or loved ones could identify us, Scorpio needed a way to keep track of us.
If that system, if the Scorpio Database had been hacked . . . If one non-Scorpio could find me, there was no telling how many others knew where I was. Or how many other Scorpio had just been given away. I needed to get out of there, my communications assignment be damned. If I didn't, I'd be dead.
Eliminated. Wiped from the records, like I had never even existed.
I'd be the same as my brother.
Nothing I could change about what already happened. All I could do now was contact Scorpio about the system breech and let them take care of it from here. I was in the middle of sending the message to Scorpio when there was another knock on my door.
I could run. Take the emergency exit window. Use my silkwire to swing up to the neighboring roof. Since these hotels were only five or six stories high, had flat roofs, and were practically built on top of each other, escape would be easy.
Ooh, sounds very exciting. Take what I say here with a grain of salt - if I'd read from the beginning there might not be much of an issue.
ReplyDeleteI found there was a wee bit too much exposition in so few words. Perhaps you could spread some of that info out? Like maybe move the microchip stuff? Intersperse with more action?
Your mc seems to be reacting to her imminent danger rather leisurely. I think this whole passage is between knocks. Why not escape (since it's easy) and send the message afterwards?
I thought Scorpio was a person at first, but I suppose I wouldn't be confused if I'd read up to this point.
The sentence: "Nothing I could..." is grammatically incorrect - you might be doing that intentionally, but the meaning isn't clear.
This reminds me of the Gallagher Girls - which I love - but slightly darker.
ReplyDeleteYour second sentence: No one ever came to my hotel room. Take out hotel. We already know she's in a hotel. Then you have Except...No one...and another Except. It's repetitive and confusing. Is the sexy man Scorpio? Except indicates there is one exception. This sounds like there are two.
If she thinks she's about to die, shouldn't she make her call while she's running away? It feels a little too casual.
Why is she so sure she'll die? Wasn't she trained for this kind of situation?
There's a lot of repetition in the first large paragraph. You don't need to say the character never has visitors, if no one comes to the room. And "no one" gets repeated. Also, subcutaneous implies implanted.
ReplyDeleteA leaner version would be: No one ever came to my room. Except the sexy man. Only Scorpio knew where I was staying -- the microchip implanted between my shoulder blades was compliments of the Scorpio school system.
Then the information in the last sentence about disguises could be worked in later.
Sorry, I should've added the stand-alone line about the brother is good. That makes it more personal.
ReplyDeleteThis was good but I'd definitely have her act, then all the exposition. As a reader, I was waiting on the knocks and thinking the visitor ahd a lot of patience!
ReplyDelete