Issue 101 - Undeleted Scenes
Welcome to 500 Words.
I'm doing a final edit pass on my novel Liberation. That means that I have to delete scenes that don't serve the narrative. It's horrible work, like committing murder with a computer, so I've decided to share some scenes that refused to be deleted. It's the characters' fault: They demand to be heard.
When you read the book, you'll recognize these people, and you might think of these scenes as a kind of parallel universe. The deleted scene I'm sharing with you now depicts things that do not happen in the book. It is an independent branch of reality.
Here is the first undeleted scene from my upcoming novel Liberation.
SOMA'S WAY
Soma was waiting for the transmission to come through and then, suddenly, it did. His comms unit crackled and there she was: the one and only Kat Keeper. His Mom’s only friend. His Mom heard the ping, saw Kat on the screen, and hurried over.
“It’s you!” his Mom said. His Mom's name was Emily Cloudfactor. She had adopted him as her son and he had become Soma Cloudfactor. His Mom never talked about having a partner; Kat was the closest thing to being one for her. But Kat had to go to the westcoast suddenly, leaving Soma and Emily by themselves on the eastcoast.
Kat, on the comms screen, laughed. “How have you been?”
They talked over each other, their words blending, each asking if they had enough water, if the climate controls were working. Kat got around to apologizing to Emily for making a sudden departure.
“I forgive you,” Emily said right away. Of course, she forgave Kat; Emily had no other friends.
“You should come out and visit,” Kat was saying, and by the way Kat phrased it, Soma believed that Kat was never coming back to the eastcoast.
“Mom, we should go,” Soma said. His voice was a little too plaintive. His mother winced but otherwise ignored him.
“I don’t know how long the glidepath will work,” Emily said to Kat, not addressing Soma at all. “What if the glidepath stops in the middle?”
Soma imagined that his Mom was thinking of the glidepath, a high-speed coast-to-coast transport, giving out somewhere in the former Kansas, where his Mom was from. He knew that his Mom never wanted to go back there. Too many bad memories; his Mom was also adopted, but she had run away from her replacement parents.
On the comms screen, Kat looked disappointed. “We have to be reunited.”
“Reunited,” Emily echoed, and nodded, but there was no sign of agreement in her tone, which caused Kat’s face to go unfocused with unprocessed emotion. It only lasted a moment before Kat forced some bright words. “Soma, convince your Mom to come. Work on her.”
Kat was sincere, she was always sincere, but Soma sensed something else in the background static of what Kat was thinking. Soma could sense that Kat wanted him to come to the westcoast so he could deploy a skill he had. He could expand his personality to protect Kat’s house on the westcoast and everyone in it. This special skill was a protective resonance, part sound wave, part personality field. It was powerful.
“So you’ll come?” Kat asked again, and Emily tilted her head as though she might actually consider coming, but Soma knew she wouldn’t.
They signed off soon after, promising to stay in touch. After the comms unit went dark, the housing unit seemed especially quiet to Soma. Lonely. “Can we go?” He tried asking one more time.
“It won’t work to go,” his Mom replied.
“I can go by myself then,” Soma said, to which his Mom responded only with a harsh look and went off to make dinner.
But in a month, Soma was going to turn twelve and that meant a new kind of freedom was available to him. He was modded, which meant that his mind had been enhanced with a silicon implant. He had learned how to update his own software. That, he knew, was the solution to the westcoast problem.
After the month passed, and Soma was ready, he ran the program to age up to thirty. He looked the same, but his mind was more mature. He received certification in an email, independence certification, as it was called, stating that he was capable of making his own decisions. He bought a ticket on the next glidepath headed west and was excited about seeing Kat.
Soma asked his Mom, one more time, “Will you come?” She said no. Soma liked to consider all angles in a situation, so before he left, he switched off his mother.
This was also done via software. Emily had also been modded, and Soma knew how to update her. It just took a little research to switch her off like a debit card that he wanted to put on hold. He loaded her into a cryo-container for shipping and sent her via a reliable freight service to join him on the westcoast. When she got there, he’d thaw her, and she’d be angry as hell, he was sure. She could have a look around, however, and make her own decisions. One thing was certain: She wasn’t going to make any other decisions for Soma or on his behalf, now that he had his independence certification.
Thanks for reading 500 Words this week. I’ll be back next time with another installment of INTERROGATING AI, and soon, another undeleted scene.
Lee
This is a weekly letter about indie publishing from Lee Schneider. Author of the novels SURRENDER, RESIST and the forthcoming LIBERATION. Creator of the audio dramas MISSION OF THE LUNAR SPARROW, YOUR PERFORMANCE REVIEW, and PRIVACY POD. Working on many things. Nice to see you here. 500 Words is a publication of FutureX Studio.