Tin Man Dark excerpt 2.3

      The August family newsletter is done! I just have to get it printed and mailed. Then I will do the September next week! And after that, the December. Yes, we're doing December before October and November. I wanted the December issue to come out in December since it will be Christmas-themed. At least, that's the current plan. I still need to do Christmas cards somewhere in this.
      And how is NaNoWriMo going, you ask? It's going okay. I'm slowly getting up to where my word count should be. I hope to be caught up and even get a little ahead this weekend. We'll see how it goes.
      As for how I feel about Tin Man Dark, hmm. The story has become increasingly violent and dark. I don't really like Dark, which is new for me because usually I like my characters, even the villains. But Dark has strange twists in him that frankly appall me. And some of his decisions, what he's done in the past, and what he does to survive, well, I don't think I like him running around in my head. But he does have a spark of humanity, and weirdly enough, Tin Man Dark has turned out to be a love story and even a redempetion story. But I still don't think I would have written this story if not for the pressure of NaNoWriMo to write something new.

Excerpt from Tin Man Dark

From Chapter Two: Of Zombies and Kings

      No one meant to create Zombies, of course. What the whitecoats wanted and promised to the Govs was the perfect soldier. Fanatically loyal with unquestioning obedience and enhanced strength, speed, and endurance. But the interaction between the chempack and the human nervous system proved more complicated than expected. They lost several volunteers just learning how to implant the chempack. But worse was to come. Half of Wave One died due to seizures, heart attacks, and strokes. The Govs nearly terminated the Wave Project, but Corelan had a few senators in his pocket.
      They dialed back the chemicals, particularly a potent synthetic hormone known as HE-713. After trial and error and plenty of corpses, soldiers started surviving the implantation and activation of the chempack. These new soldiers had incredible speed and strength. But after a couple of weeks, they simply stopped. They lost the ability to move by their own volition. They had completely lost their initiative. Some of them wouldn't eat unless told to do so. A few of them simply went to sleep and didn't wake up. They had enhanced strength and speed, but they lacked the will to live. They weren't soldiers. They were simply slaves, and not good ones. Most of them slowly died. Wasting away. Wave One was finished.
      Corelan gave the failure a spin. It was obvious, he argued to the Govs, that the project held merit. For those days that the Zombies functioned, they showed impressive abilities. The chempack could create the perfect soldier. The Project simply needed more time. More money. And more volunteers.
      I'd like to think that if Govs had know the slaughter that Wave Two was going to create, they would have shut the project down. But I know better. Seven once hacked into a secret Gov server and downloaded several files. One of them detailed a plan to create more Zombies as needed to take advantage of their two week window of functionality. The plan was deemed feasible. It had never been implemented, but it had also never been rejected. It was simply pending.
      A handful of what everyone now call the Zombies still survive. As long as they're supervised, they can handle simple tasks, like sweeping a floor or emptying trash. Before I became a Tin Man, their empty stares and always gaping mouths used to make me shudder. Now they're just furniture. A distant reminder of a mistake, but one costly only in the sense of time, money, and the lives of the Zombies.
      Wave Two would be costly beyond a madman's dreams.

Copyright 2006. All rights reserved.