I finished my rough draft… anyone interested?

@freedomwriter76 @folith-feolin @microphage6032

Sorry it’s taken me so long to post this… I’m a procrastinator 😐

Anyway, here’s chapter one:

One

The woman that sat across from him was the definition of perfection. Her stunning eyes glinted and brought out her beautiful hair. With unnatural grace, she reached forward to grab her glass and brought it to her lips. The woman took a sip before speaking.

“Thank you, Nolan, for taking me here. Bonduelle is such a lovely place. I do not think I-” the woman paused before cautiously continuing, “Could I go off-book for a moment here?”

Nolan gave her a blunt look, “You could ruin the experience.”

She rolled her eyes and took another drink. From behind her a server appeared and placed various plates of food on the table. Ignoring the food, the woman proceeded with the conversation, “Anyway, I love the atmosphere here. I heard that the back patio will be used as a venue for a local band next week. Maybe we could go?”

Yes! Nolan almost blurted out before a better choice showed itself. “I would love to. You said it is next week?”

“Yes. On Wednesday.”

He let out a small chuckle, “Maybe we could skip a few days in between.”

The two maintained their conversation throughout the rest of the meal, their dinners being taken away and replaced with desserts. They finished making their plans for the next date and split the bill. Nolan got up and grabbed his coat from the back of the chair, the woman following behind him. They exited the building, an illuminated sign saying Bonduelle above them. Nolan raised a hand, calling a cab. The two walked across the sidewalk to the car and climbed in the back seat. The woman leaned forward and gave the driver the address of her apartment, then sat back down beside him. Cars and neon lights flashed by their vehicle as Nolan allowed himself to relax. He was just starting to zone out when a notification popped up.

Morning alarm in five minutes. Proceeding with slow wakeup.

–

Milo Trone woke up in his Synthesis Pod, groggy after spending his night living in the Teclor Simulation. He clumsily reached out his hand to open the latch, a puff of air releasing as it opened. He swung his leg over the small rim and stumbled across the drab, metallic room over to the washroom. Milo focused on his reflection. Why did he look so tired? Big bags sat under his brown eyes and his blond hair was a mess. He flicked the tap on and splashed his face with water, hoping to wake up a little more. Milo dried his face and looked back up at the mirror. The bags were still under his eyes. He went through all the motions mechanically, exiting the washroom, then his bedroom with the Synthesis Pod as its centerpiece, and into the hallway.

Once he was dressed in his drab work clothes, he stopped by the small kitchenette and poured out a few small, blue pills from a bottle. Milo kept one and dropped the rest back in, carefully downing it with a glass of water. He grabbed his phone and dropped his portable Teclor Synthesis into a bag. At the door, he shrugged on his coat and threw his satchel over his shoulder. He looked down, checking for notifications on his phone while he walked down the hall. One stood out to him: Personal Maglevs out of commission due to snow. He would have to take the train.

Milo stepped out into the frigid air with a shiver and waited a moment for the heaters in his coat to adjust to the cold. It was a short walk to where he would usually have called a personal Maglev, but the train station wasn’t much farther. The tracks for the Maglev train were the priority for snow clearing, and so a nice, personal Maglev all to himself was unavailable. Snow was piling up fast, already burying his feet and penetrating all the way to his cold, wet socks. He really should have worn his boots. ‘Should try a summer simulation,’ Milo thought, ‘Sweltering, hot, and on a beach. Maybe even a cruise.’  He joined the stream of people heading toward the stairs that led up to the Maglev train station, getting jostled from every angle as the crowd rushed.

Milo made it up the slippery stairs and into the station, the humming coming from his coat faded out as it once again adjusted to the temperature. He walked past the many vendors looking for customers in the warmth of the station and made his way to the Maglev train gate. Milo pulled his phone out of his satchel and held it over a small screen on the gate. A quiet ding sounded from the installed app and the gate opened for him.

Walking through, Milo made his way over to the Maglev train and the steady stream of people entering the long, metallic vehicle. He stepped through the door and headed down the slightly padded walkway, already itching to grab his portable Teclor device. He eyed one of the seats, imagining getting comfortable on the cushioned seat and losing himself to the world he had left earlier that morning. After a long moment of fidgeting, Milo was able to sneak around someone packing a bag into the overhead storage and steal his seat. He checked his phone to make sure it would notify him when he reached his destination and went to grab his portable Teclor device from his bag. He greedily powered it up and was about to take the headpiece out when a sound interrupted him.

From the row across from his, a loud groan sounded. Milo glanced to the left and saw a short woman with ridiculously frizzy hair held back by a bandana on the seat across from him. He fingered his portable Synthesis, trying to bring his attention back to it. The sound of rummaging brought his gaze back up to see her digger through her bag. Her dark brows were furrowed and her lip was caught between her teeth. With a deep breath, he turned and asked, “You lose something?”

The woman jumped, clearly not having seen him. She turned toward him, still grappling around in her bag. “Ah, I can’t find my portable Teclor Synthesis.”

He didn’t say anything. Milo half expected the world to pause as it waited for her response, giving him a couple of ideas and examples of what to say. It did not, and so he stayed silent.

Across from him, the woman seemed to have forgotten about him, focusing on digging through her bag. Then she spoke up, “I was at an outstanding part! I had just gotten home from a date and was going to change into my pajamas and watch a couple of episodes of my favorite show. But, of course, I would never be able to concentrate even after such an incredible plot twist, because I was just so elated and happy and, and, well, because I had just had a wonderful time.” She took a deep breath and continued, “But then I woke up, and it was time to go off to fun, fun, work, but I still had my portable Synthesis so I could go back while on the train. But then, of course, I didn’t, because I think I have forgotten it at home, and here I am.” She was still going through her bag.

Milo didn’t say a word. He blinked and tried to take the barrage of words in.

The woman finally looked up at him, “Sorry, that was a lot, what is your name?”

He jolted back to the conversation and tried to remember what exactly his name was. “Milo,” he said slowly.

“I’m Cammie.”

I didn’t change much from my first draft, but there were a few things. The main question I have is whether it hooks the reader at all. I know that you shouldn’t start a book with a dream or something similar, but I wanted Milo to be in the simulation. So I did. Does it throw you off at all? Does the first chapter do a good job of hooking the reader?

Thanks!

@freedomwriter76 @folith-feolin @microphage6032 @esther-c

Hey… so I kind of completely ditched with WIP for a month and forgot that I posted chapters here (sorry). I want to get back to working on it! If any of you are interested, here is chapter two.

They both fell into silence after Cammie said her name and Milo tried his hardest to remember some of the prompts that would show up in the simulation. How are you? What is your name? What do you like to do for fun? What do you do for a living? Before he could stop himself, he blurted out almost harshly, “Where do you work?”

Cammie blinked. Then responded, “Uh, Teclor. HR.”

Finally, somewhere to go with this conversation. “Oh, I work at Teclor too. Maintenance.”

“Don’t they have bots to do that?”

Ah, that question. There was a reason he distanced himself from any similar job while in a simulation. “For the less fragile tech, yes. I fix up whatever they are not allowed to operate on.”

“Oh,” she spoke awkwardly across the aisle to him.

Once again, they were sitting in silence. Milo looked back down at his portable Synthesis before looking back up to see Cammie’s slightly fallen expression. Again, he grasped for conversation starters. “So, uh, do you usually take the train?”

Her countenance jumped back up immediately, “Yeah, I do. Every day, a force of habit I guess. You?”

“No, I take the personal Maglevs. Just not today with all the snow on their paths.”

Cammie hummed in acknowledgment before she turned back to her bag and opened another pocket, searching through it. With her distracted, Milo quickly snatched his headpiece from his satchel and was pulling the strap around the back of his head when his phone buzzed. He placed the headpiece down and checked his phone, seeing that the train was almost at its destination. It was faster than the personal Maglevs were. To his left, Cammie was also checking her phone.

Milo barely felt it when the Maglev train slowed to a complete stop. He dropped the headpiece back into his satchel as well as his portable Synthesis and stood up. He took one step into the aisle and bumped into Cammie, who had left her seat at the same time. They stared at each other for a few painful seconds before Milo shuffled back out of the aisle and let her walk forward. She did, and Milo followed her slowly down the aisle toward the exit of the Maglev train, several other people joining them at the stop. He fished his phone out of his satchel and held it in front of a screen beside the door, effectively paying for the ride, and exited the vehicle. He lost Cammie in the crowded station but was still headed in the same direction.  Part of the crowd was heading to one door, that had steps going down to the street, while Milo excited through another door that led to an overpass walkway to the skyscraper that held the heart of Teclor.

Inside, he passed by the front desks and to the elevators. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Cammie heading toward the pair of elevator lifts on the other side of the room. Refocusing, he placed his phone in front of the screen beside the elevator, granting him access as well as logging him in for the day. The clear door slid open and he stepped in as another employee exited.

The door closed and the elevator started journeying up, a view of each floor passing on one side of the glass elevator, and on the other side was the city, the snowy ground getting further and further as the elevator went up. Countless tall buildings were still in perfect view, though, many of them even taller than the Teclor skyscraper. Shifting his satchel behind him, Milo tapped on an app on his phone, his name and position, the high and exalted, maintenance worker, were listed on the screen. Below that was a list of tasks that he had to do today, the elevator already taking him to the first one.

He made his way out the door and down a hall and entered through a door that opened when he stood in front of it. Before him lay a long, sterile conveyor belt, mechanical arms along it at varying lengths completing the tasks required to build the tech that was going down the conveyer belt. Milo looked along the line toward one of the arms, which was moving up and down, empty-handed, and very clearly not completing its part of the job. He made his way over to it while scanning the belt. A row of wristbands were on the track, only partially made. The machine stopping up the line should have been inserting a small diode into the piece of technology.

Milo crouched down beside the arm and slipped off a panel covering an array of switches and wires. He looked again at the arm. It was moving up and down, close enough that it should be able to reach the wristbands. It just didn’t have the diodes to insert into it. He moved down to the ball joint where it was supposed to turn to the left and grab one from a small tray that was waiting. Milo opened the panel on the socket, pulled out his phone with a flashlight on, and shined it into the open cavity. Two sensors were on the socket and the ball, letting it know when to stop and start. He moved the flashlight to the left to get a better look. The sensor was covered in grease. Of course, what was there to make it work better was what was inhibiting its abilities.

Milo grabbed a cloth from his satchel and carefully wiped the grease off of the sensor, then carefully closed the panel. A quick and easy fix. This one probably could have been done by a bot, too. Milo sighed heavily. Two floors up there were coders and designers creating the simulations he spent so much of his time inside. A few more above engineers were thinking up better Pods and portable devices along with a variety of other high-tech inventions. His job did, however, come with certain benefits. He got his heated jacket out of it and even his cheaper portable Synthesis. The Pod, though, had cost him a fortune, though it was well worth it.

Milo continued about his day, checking off each of his tasks until the clocks reached five and many of the employees started leaving. The elevators were barely keeping up with the outflux of people. Milo caught one and rode it down to the bottom floor. He made his way to the exit, ready to call a personal Maglev as he no longer had to use the Maglev train. Earlier that day he had gotten a notification telling him enough of the snow had been removed and they were working as usual. Something else was tugging at the edge of his brain, though; “Yeah, I do. Every day, a force of habit, I guess. You?” He glanced in the direction of the station but then remembered the weight of his personal Synthesis in his bag. Pulling out his phone, Milo called a private Maglev.

Once inside the warm vehicle, he grabbed the device he had been waiting all day to use. He quickly slipped the headpiece on and pushed the power button to see a large Teclor symbol appear surrounded by a grassy landscape, colorful flowers sprouting everywhere. The headset monitored his neural oscillations and then transmitted them to create the environment around him. He could only control so much of it, though, just his actions and where he was at the beginning; it felt just like real life.

Around him was his bedroom from the simulation. He was standing right in the middle, facing a closet. A notification popped up before his eyes: Your scheduled date is in half an hour.  He stepped toward his closet as Nolan Elsener and opened the doors. Inside was his collection of 21st-century fashion, the rest tucked away in his inventory. Nolan quickly grabbed some black pants and a light blue button-up and changed into them, then grabbed a pair of socks and black shoes and pulled those on. He calculated how much time he had in his head. It should only take ten minutes to get to the restaurant, but he should have some extra time, just in case. That gave him a good ten minutes to wait.

He flopped onto his bed, the mattress feeling foreign, and grabbed the remote on the nightstand. He started flipping through the channels, finding interest in the era’s cooking shows, dramas, news stations, and even cartoons. He loved immersing himself in the details of every simulation and stepping away from reality. Another notification showed up in the top right corner of his view telling him to get ready to leave. With his shoes already on, he slid off of the bed and made his way out of the bedroom. Nolan’s house was far more extensive than Milo’s measly apartment, with multiple floors and state-of-the-art technology for the time period. He made his way out the front door and toward his car.

He climbed into the driver’s seat and mentally ran over the instructions for driving a car. Nolan went through the motions that, while he had done them many times before, were still uncomfortable. He was about to back up when a notification appeared in blue; One minute to destination.

He sighed and felt around on the portable Synthesis for the power button, then pulled the headpiece off. Shoving them back into his bag, he got ready to exit as the personal Maglev turned onto his street.

Milo crawled out and hurried through the cold to his apartment building, his heated coat only doing so much. He quickly made his way to the elevator and traveled up, then down the hall to his apartment door. He dropped his satchel inside, grabbed a quick snack, and was about to rush to his Synthesis Pod when his phone started ringing. Milo deflated, snatched it from his satchel, and accepted the call. “Hello?”

A deep voice came from the device, “Milo!”

“Yes, dad?”

“Do you want to come over this weekend?”

“Sure, I think I’m free tomorrow.” Of course he was free on Sunday. It was the weekend and he didn’t have work. What else would he be doing?

“Alright. Your mom is calling me over for dinner, so I have to go. But we’ll see you tomorrow! Goodbye, love you.”

“Love you too, dad. Bye.” Milo quickly hung up and dropped the phone on the counter. Then, with a burst of energy, he dashed through his apartment to his bedroom – and the Synthesis Pod. Without thought, Milo pressed a button on the side of the oval-shaped device. Slowly, four panels unlatched at the top, sliding out and down to rest on the sides of the Pod. Milo sat down on the flat surface inside, swung his legs over, and lay down. The four pieces of the top hatch slid back up and closed on top of him. It wasn’t incredibly comfortable, but the dark and silent atmosphere inside the Synthesis Pod put him to sleep quickly. Milo closed his eyes and stepped into the simulation.

My main thing is the conversation between Milo and his dad… cause I don’t like it. Do you have any ideas for it?