Thursday, March 29, 2007

*SAMPLE: PERDITIONS GATE*


WRITING SAMPLE: "Perditions Gate: Escape from New Eden."
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It was a dreary day out, which in England was not an uncommon happening, but for Jason it was one of his worst days. Having to bury his closest friend was as depressing an event as he had ever experienced. The London Necropolis, Brookwood Cemetery, was the final resting place of many notable people, but that provided no comfort.
There was no one there to mourn Jerome Brown that day, other than his special ops team leader, Jason Night. Four H8 robot counterparts worked the coffin into its place using a lift. They had been the pallbearers for Jerome’s coffin, yet they cared nothing for their deceased cargo.
Alfred stood next to Jason at the gravesite. He appeared as the late fifty-ish butler with graying, wavy hair and a suit with overcoat. A pair of wire rim glasses completed the look. Alfred actually seemed more interested in the robots working the site than anything else.
“A newer model, but still inferior,” said Alfred in his human guise as the dark knight’s manservant. It was a favorite phrase of Alfred’s. Jason often wondered if Alfred really felt the pride he exhibited over his own advanced modifications and obvious superiority. It couldn’t be anything more than the nuances of his special programming, he thought. Maybe that’s all that makes up my personality over anyone else’s, a few variations in the chemical reactions of my brain, a little different pattern in the firing of neurons. Maybe Alfred isn’t much different from a real man in that respect.
The plain stone marker simply said, Jerome Brown, died 2094. It seemed so empty, he thought as he stood staring at the tombstone—nothing about his friendship, his bravery in countless highly dangerous secret missions. Nothing was left to the world of Jerome Brown as a man. After all of his courage and loyalty, countless hours of hard work had only earned him a cold piece of granite and a hole in the ground.
To the public, Jerome Brown was the owner of a bakery in London. He had been on vacation in New Rome and was gunned down by a common street thief. This was his epitaph. It was all the world was allowed to know. Jason held the Vellum in his hand that showed the news article pulled from a local newspaper’s world wide mind portal. He wondered what the news would report when he died. Local, New Rome coffee shop owner dies, perhaps?
Alfred remained by his side, as always. “Sir, we should be going. You don’t want to keep Ms. Cross waiting.” Alfred knew what no person, other than Jerome, had known. He knew about Sarah Cross.
“You’re right, Alfred, time to go.”
They both turned and left the H8 robots to their work, filling in the grave. As they passed other markers on the way out, Jason caught the phrase, Rest in Peace, on more than a few. To him, it seemed more of a question—after all; did anyone know if they really were resting, did they have peace? These were questions he didn’t have the answers to and had no idea where they might be found. Seeing Sarah again would lift his spirits.

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