What did you like best about The Cultivated Girl?
a) The strong female protagonists?
b) The fighting, action and adventure?
c) Or the escapism as you immersed yourself in a different world?
d) All of the above?
If you picked any of the above you might want to try the latest book I've written: 'As Yet Unknown'.
Psst - scroll down below the cover, you can read the first bit before you commit to a messy literary affair away from Fantasy.
If you're into labelling you could shove in your dystopian box, maybe file it under sci-fi or just slide it straight into the action/adventure portal. Without further ado, sink into the world of our lovely, flawed action heroine, Ping.
EXTRACT FROM CHAPTER ONE
The year 2986.
From the moment I rolled into the Waitaks on my black Mantis and saw them, I felt a shift, as if the scab of the old, dead earth beneath me itched. Pakeha. They were real. The dead living outside the pure orbs of the Lotus Cities. This place, spoken of as if myth, manifesting like the rotted sunset.
I dialled my Domes full and waited, still as a hunting spider in the cracked moonlight, not that such a thing still existed. I was Nori and I could out wait anything living. They were scared, hiding behind the wounded eyes of diseased houses, ghosts shielded by mottled concrete walls. I ached to round them up, take them back to the Elders, proof that we must work harder to eradicate those that threaten our resources, our short lives. But I was Nori. I had discipline and so I held back.
The Dome600psi bulged from my face, projecting green stats only I could see into the air. They jacked into my senses so I could hear the pakeha whispers, insect, Nori, hide.
Still I waited, boots sprouting from the muddy earth, more solid than the rotting foundations around me. I leaned back on my bike, casually thumbed the release button at the base of my protective body-shell. Traditionally we Nori are genderless but I suspected these creatures would sense weakness in a female. That it would draw them out. The helmet smoothly slid backwards into the layered carapace and my hair snaked out.
Just a women.
What does it want?
Sex.
Hands down Glow.
Illegals - give them Jamie. A guffaw.
A girl slipped out behind a wall, skinny, blonde, dirty, like them all, eyeing me peripherally. I analysed her markings, mottled lemon on her pale skin. I pondered these words we used, archaic phrases from a world long lost. I'd looked up lemons when I'd first gained clearance for the archives and there it was, a bright yellow growth, like a tumour, nothing at all like the washed out imitation of Nori skin these pakeha displayed. Our gardeners had never been able to recreate citrus.
The girl hiccuped and disappeared. That got my attention. Found her, hidden in plain sight. Some trick of her stance, the light, made me want to overlook her but the Domes trapped her silhouette in a glow of green, heart rate slowed down and erratic. I pretended her trick worked, and waited some more. Any longer and this would get insulting. They knew as well as I did that I shouldn't be here.
We could steal it, strip it down, it would feed us for a year.
The response: No. That voice got my attention, dark and rolling, like I'd imagined the storms we could see but not feel inside the Lotus Cities.
After a respectable face-saving period of time, Weixiang sauntered up to me, unofficial leader of this grimy rat-pack, as dark and rolling as his voice.
"Hey bitch – what you looking for?" He enquired good-naturedly in TeJapMan. No offence was meant, this was the way you greeted strangers round these areas. His voice carried clearly in the chill night air.
"By the looks of things – you," I said, low and husky. More whispers.
She sounds like a man. I zoomed in on the girl, Jamie, still blending with the walls. Do I now?
"Oh yeah?" said Weixiang. A dramatic wink at the scruffy bystanders and tug at one of his mud-brown curls said it all. I wanted it, and he was ready – for the right deal of course.
"What you paying?"
"What you asking?" I said rapid-fire.
"How about those pretty sunshades sista?" He dipped his head at my Domes.
"What does a Sand Dog want with worthless shades? Do you need the protection?"
I don't know how he did it, looking around like his eyes weren't seared from the UV. I could read his body wanted to shrink, to run at the thought the Nori knew his gang's handle. He was in control though. Thought it through - I didn't think pakeha capable.
"Says the Nori." He scoffed loudly, waved his hands at me, wrapped in my tight body shell. Then lowered his voice, just for me. I almost shivered.
"Dome600psi. Developed to protect weak Nori from the all-seeing eye of the sky god. Built to see a man's soul."
I wanted to tell him the shreds of ozone left were the fault of him and his kind, that if the pakeha knew what the soul was they wouldn't have destroyed the planet, that he deserved to be breathing poisoned air and drinking toxic water. But I didn't. I was Nori and I wanted something bigger then revenge. I wanted a solution.
"I'm quite sure you know this isn't an option."
"And I'm quite sure you shouldn't be here," he imitated.
His message was clear – no goods on record. The Domes must go. A threat for someone who theoretically wasn't alive, offering illegal services in a technically non-existent area. Or, as an extremely valuable black-market commodity, must transfer ownership, naturally to him.
That wasn't going to happen, not after it'd tapped into my brain centres. He'd have access to the events I'd seen, real-time, my thoughts, impressions, analytical thought processes I was having during the experience. Buddha, he'd know my body had reacted to him, despite my training.
The dregs of humanity watching the show inched closer. They could sense pheromones. I suspected protocol meant they couldn't act until I had been totally discarded by Wei as a prospect but still they hovered like the flies that never died.
I squeezed my eyes shut. It only took a second to disconnect, unlike the weeks of blurred pain when I first connected them. The lens of the Dome changed hue from a blue tint to sewer black, effectively turning the recording device off.
"That's better." Weixiang smiled once the Domes had been turned off. Again I felt myself respond, reeled it in with disgust.
"So, what vice is it that a Nori wants so far from the Lotus? Single service – 50 yen; or goods to the value. Anything else, we negotiate."
As if I, a vestal virgin, of House Brinder, would ever let a filthy no-man lay a hand on me. His familiarity was a concern. Surely no Nori would come here? It must be the Citizens. The Elders must be told. I hesitated slightly then said "Information." It was a test.
He half turned. Spat in the dirt.
Right response. He shouldn't want to deal with me. Only turncoats part with their tribe's knowledge. I recited my lessons mentally; always be wary of the volunteers – they have ulterior motives or are outcasts. Don't trust them.
"So you are a true leader."
Weixiang raised an eyebrow so I went with the truth. "I'm a student at the Academy, and I'm interested in art – archaic style."
I could detect his interest even without the Domes, years of training detected his quickened breath, the scarred chest rising.
"Art" he scoffed. "What does a Nori know about art? I thought you superior types had moved beyond that."
"Perhaps, but I'm still interested."
He appraised me while he made up his mind. "Alright, what you want and what you paying?"
"You, and I'll pay per day." I used my fingers to indicate an amount which represented a small fortune to him in barter and cash.
Weixiang almost lost his cocky demeanour.
"Thought you wanted art?"
"I do – but archaic style. I want to globe a doci of the pakeha life. Day by day."
"Sista, that's forbidden – what you playing at?"
"I just need to do it – call it compulsion." I really was being honest. It surprised me. Perhaps he sensed this, along with the big cash-flow. He agreed. He probably thought he could liberate the Domes just before the agreement terminated, or that I'd be fed up with Pakeha life in a few days. He'd learn.
"It's going to be difficult – dunno how I'm going to explain a Nori feera to the others. You're going to need to change your style a bit sista. By Buddha, sex would have been easier. Gotta do some thinking. Come back in one week." He loped off as if if we'd never spoken.
***A/N: I'm going to enter this for the Wattys2016 so if you like it, please head on over to the story itself:
https://www.wattpad.com/myworks/66793834-as-yet-unknown-wattys2016
to find out what happens and vote and comment at will
(code for pretty please else Ping might get ya :-) ) ***