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Lex Chapters 3-6

Here are chapters 3-6 of my "always in progress" cc-by-sa novel "Lex." Some pieces of these chapters may have been featured here perviously (that was a typo, but I'm leaving it, it fits too well, lol). With that said, fair warning - depending on your definition, this story may not be worksafe. Don't read if you or your boss is made squeamish by R->NC17 rated material. This story is going to be as gritty, vulgar, sexy, and real as I can make my twisted version the 25th century come across.

Since it's been quite a while since the last Lex post, here's the previous installments:

Chapter 1 (pdf)

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

I awoke in a bed for the first time outcity.

My face was throbbing, swollen and bruised from the falls I'd taken learning on the stripwear. My ribs hurt, too, and I could feel the dirt clinging to my body, crusty in the scabs and caked blood where my body had met the ground.

The stripwear, sensing I was awake, began to organize itself and I could feel little breezes as it swished through the air above my skin, lifting itself ever so slightly away from my body and unweaving itself from the blanket it had formed while I slept.

I know I shouldn't marvel at the technology, we're surrounded by so much of it now. I guess the thing that's different about stripwear is the marvelous gumption of it. Most technology today attempts to hide itself, to become part of the organic landscape, disappear out of conscious recognition.

This house was certainly a perfect example of that. Every detail of the aging mansion was no-doubt meticulously kept up by nanosystems and smart materials. The only evidence of this was the slight shimmer to many of the cracks in the ancient wood. Nearly invisible, you could just make out the spider-web like nanotube linkages in the way they splintered the sunlight as it passed over them. I could imagine the little machines, applying their microscopic wires to keep the structure stable and keep the wood from crumbling away.

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Lex - Chapter 2

This is the rewrite of Chapter 2 of "Lex" - bound together from the vignettes I posted here while writing with some significant clarifications, additions and subtractions.

Once again, fair warning - depending on your definition, these may not be work-safe. Don't read if you or your boss is made squeamish by R->NC17 rated material. This story is going to be as gritty, vulgar, sexy, and real as I can make my twisted version the 25th century come across.

Chapter 1 (pdf)

Chapter 2

I awoke cradled in my new stripwear, comfortably nestled in its many arms, just outside the gigantic shining surface of the outside of a city node.

It's amazing how wakings can be so symbolic of change. I'd awoken twice now in unfamiliar settings in the outcity - both times in situations so far different from the staid life I'd lived until so recently. First inside the sleek, silver mobile doctor, feeling rebellious and anxious, and now here, in the waving grass and sun and wind of the wild, feeling calmer than I'd ever remembered feeling.

I began to rise, and the stripwear languidly gathered itself back around me, matching my slow, sleepy movements. I rubbed my eyes, and then my naked scalp, wondering idly when I'd dosed off. The last thing I really remembered was my guide taking me over the edge, and then... It was a blank to me. I chalked it up to my exhaustion, and the relief at the completion of my task. Both my guide and I were free of the Citiverse. Free, and permanently self-exiled.

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Lex - Chapter 1

I've completed a re-write and edit of the beginning of the Lex vignettes series and bound it together as "chapter 1." Hopefully this is the start of a trend for me, as I have more than enough material for chapter 2 ready if I can just get my butt in the chair long enough to edit it together. I'm pretty happy with this re-write as I feel it gets many of the pieces of the plot which were obscure across much more clearly.

Once again, fair warning - depending on your definition, these may not be 'work safe.' Don't read if you or your boss is made squeamish by R->NC17 rated material. This story is going to be as gritty, vulgar, sexy, and real as I can make it.

My eyes opened to pure feedback.

Bright, stark, white.

It was that blinding type of white which washes out everything else. I brought my hand to my face, pure porcelain, as if the contrast on the world was up too high. I moved my slender fingers in front of my groggy eyes until I was able to make out the edges of my hand, slowly coming into focus before me.

Instinctively, I reached up to run my hands through my long black hair. The amplified sensation of my hand on my bare scalp woke me from the remaining haze of the quicksed which had put me out.

Read the rest here

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Lex Vignettes 9

I lay in the field of corn - not far from where I'd spent hours huddled just a few nights before, looking up at the stars.

It's amazing how the subtle value of silence escapes you when you never truly have a chance to appreciate it. Sure, Many places incity are technically silent - but it's a sterile silence, brought on by noise canceling transducers and sound-proofed materials.

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Lex vignettes 8

"Lex"

My eyes snapped open to the pitch blackness in my room at the commune. My guide's voice was not something I was accustomed to hearing in my ear while I slept, and my heart was already racing.

"what is it?" I subbed, not daring to break the silence. If he was waking me now, something was very wrong.

"Troub - ble , le ex get out ge et ou u" his voice stuttered.

I was already moving by the time I heard the first stutter. I'd only ever heard his vocalization engine fail once before when he was facing off against another guide AI in newnet.

We had been playing hard, and he knew I wanted to win. At my request, he had given the game process almost real time priority. It was like watching someone have seizure, and there was no hiding that it hurt him to do so. I've never called on him to use that much mental capacity again, and here he was doing it for me of his own will.

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It all comes full circle.

Years ago I found a few pictures of a band called "flesh for eve" which was produced by vampire technology. I never really thought much about the two groups, but now almost 8 years later they're selling the designs which I'd collected pictures of, and they're still freaking amazing.

Many of these designs and the general aesthetic influenced the world that Lex takes place in, especially the Burton-esque stripwear.

Vampiretechnology.com

1:48 am | permalink | /fiction/lex | 0 writebacks |

Lex Vignettes 7

I awoke for the first time in the outcity in a bed.

My face was throbbing, swollen and bruised from the falls I'd taken learning on the stripwear. My ribs hurt, too, and I could feel the dirt clinging to my body, crusty in the scabs and caked blood where my body had met the ground.

The Stripwear, sensing I was awake began to organize itself, and I could feel little breezes as it swished through the air above my skin, lifting itself ever so slightly away from my body and unweaving itself from the blanket it had formed while I slept.

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11:33 pm | permalink | /fiction/lex | 1 writebacks |

Lex Vignettes 6

There's not that many places to hide anymore.

It didn't take long to find my first bit of trouble, all things considered. I knew that I was going to rustle some feathers with the stunt I had pulled to get outcity, and that my political grandstanding hadn't made me many friends even when I was incity. But at that point I was just a kid with an oldnet blog - by definition obsolete, reveling in my own lack of relevance to the very culture around me. I was pissing a few people off, sure, but I wasn't a threat.

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Lex Vignettes 5

For those of you just tuning in, I am in the process of writing a series of short Vignettes from what is eventually to be a full length novel. See the fiction section for the other Vignettes.. Fair warning - depending on your definition, these may not be work safe. I feel like slapping one of those parental advisory stickers on here.

Oh wait.

There we go

-------------------------------

I awoke cradled in my new stripwear, comfortably nestled in its many arms, just outside the gigantic shining surface of the outside of a city node.

It's amazing how wakings can be so symbolic of change. I'd woken twice now unfamiliar settings in the outcity - both times in situations so far different from the staid life I'd lived until so recently. First inside the sleek, silver mobile doctor, feeling rebellious and anxious, and now here, in the waving grass and sun and wind of the wild, feeling calmer than I'd ever remembered feeling.

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Lex - vignettes 4

Continuing from: Lex - Vignettes 1

"i know... Let's go fix that."
my words echoed strangely in my ears, maybe because of the perfectly smooth, curved walls of the inside of the doctor, or maybe the last of the quicksed was still wearing off.
either way, the words sounded... Prickley.

Like my skin felt, naked and free of my harness for the first time in my post pubescent life.

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lex - vignettes 3

 

3 years earlier

 

Lex awoke in the dream

 

Put more correctly, she became perfectly aware while still asleep - much like a lucid dream.

 

She'd only had one or two of those before, yet she knew something was profoundly different this time. she'd never been this aware that she was dreaming. the world around her lacked definition - not that it was a blank white canvas, just undefined.

 

As soon as she began to look around her, her mind began to fill in the blanks. she must have been mistaken. She was in her room all along. of course. Dreamlogic was beginning to fill in the logical gaps as well.

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Lex - Vignettes 2

 
I can't help but wonder how many times she's caught me staring at her.
 
I know theres been two times i can think of... Other than just now of course. This is the first time she's said anything though.
actually, I think this is the first time she's spoken to me period.
 

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12:27 am | permalink | /fiction/lex | 0 writebacks |

Lex - Vignettes 1

 
Her eyes opened to pure feedback. It was that blinding type of white which washes out everything else. She brought her hand to her face, pure white, as if the contrast on the world was up too high. Finally, as she moved her slender fingers in front of her groggy eyes she was able to make out the edges of her hand.
instinctively, lex reached up to run her hands through her long black hair.
The amplified sensation of her hand on her bare scalp woke lex from the remaining haze of the quicksed which had put her out.
she closed her eyes and rubbed her naked scalp, luxuriating in the intensity of the feeling.
She began a tactile exploration of her body, searching for the telltale signs of post-op.
her fingers traced down to the metal plate behind her left ear, then to the ear itself. 1 2 3 4 5 piercing. Big gauge impracticalities which would render all the standard earpieces useless.
She didn't care...

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