Here is September's installment of The Adjusters, “Intermezzo: Cindy Caprese”, wherein Cindy Caprese gets something started without realizing it.
As usual, comments welcome.
I'll also remind you that we have a Speculation Thread available for general discussion. (A thread which I read but do not comment on.)
The Adjusters #54 - Intermezzo: Cindy Caprese
Cynthia Barnes pushed her chair back from the table and leaned back, letting the California sun fall upon her face. It was one thing she had missed about the West Coast in her time in New England: the yearly sun, and its particular warmth.
She had been born Cynthia Caprese, but she called herself Cindy, and expected others to do so as well. She had been Cindy Caprese until less than six months earlier, after the events at Darnell University, the events that had left a body in the smoldering ruins of Daniel Malcolm’s apartment, a body that would subsequently be identified as that of Cindy Caprese. Barnes was her mother’s maiden name. She had refused to take any other.
She looked at the napkin on which she had been doodling, an intricate pattern of circles and squares that had emerged from her subconscious and now nagged at her memory. She shook her head, and took a sip of her drink. A Cranberry-Lime flavored Smirnoff Ice, her one weakness. She had discovered the drink upon arriving at the University of California in Los Angeles, during orientation. It was devilishly good.
She stared at the napkin again, as if it held the solution to the problem she had been fighting with since the previous night. Her project for molecular biology was going well, but she had hit a snag—a particularly thorny protein folding problem—that might have benefitted from talking it over with her lab partner. The partner in question seemed to live on a different circadian cycle, unfortunately, and probably was still sleeping despite it being two in the afternoon.
Continue reading...
Next month: “Intermezzo: The Platinum Plan”.
Usual drill, folks: until the ASSTR replication servers catch up, you may need to refresh until you hit the story.
ReplyDeleteAlso: this could have used a further round of copy-editing, but I wanted to post it sooner rather than later. Spell-checking was fine, but word substitutions probably abound. Feel free to let me know and I'll correct them.
Wow is all i can say for now, let me read and reread this again but wow. Intresting to see that IE is watching Cindy. I fear that Cindy is going to get adjusted and hope that she is not.
ReplyDeleteFrom danny123
ReplyDeleteI wanted to comment while I had a few moments. This will cover Chapter 53 and 54 as I never got around to doing the former.
For the most part I liked Chapter 53. It was good to get a behind the scenes look at ADCorp and its operations. Especially a glimpse on how they do their programing. I find it useful to have some idea what kind of adversary Daniel is trying to penetrate. The reports at the end of the installment are also beneficial. How James took care of the lover may have gone a little too far only as much as the potential of getting the police involved. But it does fit into the character of James McGregor.
Chapter 54 was enlightening and a very fun read. The enlightening part was to begin understanding the mental processes of Cindy. She is a strong, independent woman, but there is this great need to be dominated sexually. That makes her very appealing to me. As a side note, I have been studying this need in real women. If you wish to discuss this further, please let me know. If I had any complaint about Daniel, as Cindy has pointed out, he can be too nice. But I do see some changes in this character. It is interesting that Bryan is a porno recruiter. I love how you set up a tease, at least for me, on who this medicine man is. He could be a special and is being watched by ADCorp or he could be someone from ADCorp. For some reason, I am leaning to ADCorp. It would be fantastic to see if Cindy still is not affected if she meets the Medicine Man. Her major weakness is the need to have someone uses “force” to allow her to be fully sexual. A weakness that ADCorp could exploit if discovered.
The Platinum Plan – Hum sounds very interesting. Wonder what the benefits are? As has become my ending line in these things, cannot wait for the next installment.
Not a big thing and I will comment when I have re read this several more times, but, the one thing that did hit me is that its the University of California "at" Los Angeles not "in" Los Angeles.
ReplyDeleteafter being gone a bit for work, i read a bunch of chapters in a row. really well done. wonder how its going to play out.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the feedback, everyone. Sorry it took me so long to acknowledge it.
ReplyDeleteDanny123 — thanks for the "analysis." As usual, it's pretty spot on. We'll get to peer into the mind of Cindy down the line, and I'm curious if my psychological perspective matches yours.
Judd — I've heard both "in" and "at" (officially, it seems to be University of California, Los Angeles, which doesn't quite flow off the tongue) and went with the one that just sounded better when read out loud.
As a Californian and although I went to USC its at not in or neither like you wrote. I enjoyed looking at Cindy again. I love that she has a brain but likes to play the airhead to see whats really going on. Also she saw or felt something to make her bolt which is the thing I find interesting. Need input, more please.
ReplyDelete