Therefore…but

Therefore-Buts…

She comes in looking for more water but leaves having escaped a rape and getting her district’s water ration reduced.

Five options:
1) Therefore she determines to break into the pumping station to rig the timers, but she needs a magician who can hack the timers.

2) Therefore she determines to sell a family heirloom to bribe the mayordomo for more water, but he’s greedy and what she brings isn’t enough.

3) Therefore she goes to the mayordomo’s home to ransom him, but she finds him dead upon her arrival.

4) Therefore she must talk down an angry mob of her fellow Bel Avi upon returning home, but the city guard arrive to impose martial law before she can calm them down.

5) Therefore she determines to steal water from neighboring district, but discovers that district has been obliterated.

6) Therefore she shadows the mayordomo hoping to find blackmail material, but she’s caught and captured while snooping by the rapist guard.

162 words on day 947

In My Head

I wrote in my head yesterday while driving. Today I’ll try to transcribe those thoughts below.

The girl thinks Narkkid is her mother due to a scrap of paper with her military service number printed on it next to “Mother”. There is a “Father” section, but she was unable to locate any information on him.

This is when it gets weird: I do a whole clone thing and devise a situation where clones caused some social issues in near past and now all cloning is done via deceased DNA. Except in this case, Narkkid’s DNA got used. I manufactured a transposed number in the id sort of thing so that it might seem accidental that hers got used.

I try to leave the government contractor blameless in the end, but still seemingly the bad guy for awhile—they want to get the girl back too since they realize she’s proof they broke the law (how they find out I’m not sure). Or the real bad guy kills the main doc and pins it on the girl. Not sure. The technique for cloning renders the clone sterile and the cells themselves ‘self-destructive’ so that the IP is preserved. Thus the only way to make more clones is to have the original donor’s DNA which the main doctor destroyed (or so he thought).

The trouble with the clone thing is working out how successful and prevalent it is. There’s got to be some reason why the girl is special above and beyond her cloneness. Maybe this is where her inlaid bionics and cyber come in to play. Must be she’s the first/best version to accept the wetware, so they’d like to do more of her.

Then comes the accident which is no accident part and the real bad guy. I’ve done such a great job obfuscating the start-up that I still don’t know much about the RBG. I’m thinking maybe this is just some fellow officer who was a bit pissed about Narkkid leaving the service that he somewhat on a lark posted her DNA out there via the transposition and serendipity turned it into a great thing for him. Big kudos he didn’t want to lose face on when people found out it was Narkkid, which they would since she was popular enough. He’d been planning on killing her in some garage ‘accident’ but then the doc spoiled the germ cells and he had to now keep Narkkid alive. Even if the dates didn’t work out, in the military forgiveness is easier than permission. If Narkkid gets dead at any point it retcons the cloning.

Ultimately they (start-up and military RFP) didn’t anticipate the clone to be as self-directed and sharp as she was. They thought they’d get a worker bee but they got a queen. Which is what queered the whole deal. Maybe at some point RBG decided to cut his losses and kill them both. Plus there’s got to be some dealing with the paperwork. You kill the doc, but he’s got papers somewhere, right? Files?

Upon seeing Narkkid, the girl immediately realizes she’s a clone and not a daughter. She splits to protect the woman, whom she thinks must be hiding out or something since she’s not dead yet (the girl knows a lot, but not everything).

That leaves me with the question of the father on the birth cert. Is that just pure sham? Or is that a red herring. It can’t be a red herring if the girl knows immediately unless the girl doesn’t get back in contact with Narkkid before she starts her own hunt.

621 words on day 914

Better Than Nothing

So I thought I’d do a bit of plotting. I can’t get the Benhá thing out of my head and I’ve not plotted that ever. Too scared I suppose. Maybe I should plot it several ways. Pick one that seems best.

Setup: perfectly happy island girl discovers she’s got dermatographia.

Hook: the man who owes her money turns up dead in her normally peaceful village and she’s suspect número uno.

PP1: rather than stay to face mislead justice she decides to flee with a man she’s just met, a Solex monk.

Pinch 1: Roundmartin’s goons burn her home town to the ground looking for her.

MPT: Charming discovers she’s Roundmartin’s niece and that she has the same prophetic powers he did.

Pinch 2: Roundmartin’s thugs attack the monastery she’s staying at.

PP2: Charming discovers where Roundmartin is and goes to confront him and give him back his power.

Conclusion: having given him back his power she some how defeats him at the last minute.

164 words on day 729