04 – Power Piece

It’s been eight months since I wrote more on the Bishop storyline, also known as the Body Rentals sequel. I worked in Adan Ramie’s Word-a-Week, and Thom Gabrukiewicz’s #3WW into these 1000 words:

Teresa continued to stare in the direction “Mister Knight” walked before the crowd swallowed him. She glanced around the room for Candace, but she had likely already left with her target. A squawk in her ear indicated she had an incoming call.

She pressed the wireless device in her ear. “This is Teresa.”

“Teresa, it’s Lance.”

“Colonel?” she gasped. “Where have you been?”

“Indisposed.” There was finality in his one-word answer. Despite her reporter instincts, Teresa decided not to press. “What’s your status?”

“I was on assignment, but I think my target left with her sleeping partner.” A croupier watched from a card table. Teresa turned her back to the man and continued in a whisper. “I met someone calling himself ‘Mister Knight’.”

There was a pause while presumably, Colonel Bishop considered a response. “Tell me about it at headquarters. We’ll be there soon.” He disconnected the call.

We? Teresa thought as she headed for the door. This just gets more and more interesting.

* * *

Still in her evening gown, Teresa arrived at headquarters intent on getting to Bishop’s office. She paused when she passed through a room and a young girl her own age was sitting next to an older woman, deep in conversation. She tried to place either of them, but keeping track of who was who was a tedious job, even without the ability to switch bodies. She continued on her path to Bishop’s office.

Headquarters was arranged in a narrow row with the multi-purpose room near the hidden entrance, followed by living quarters, then the analysis room. In this room she stopped and watched for a moment as computer screens compared a photo of a college-aged girl to surveillance cameras around the city. Whoever this girl was, the team was expending enormous resources to locate her.

Teresa scowled, and wondered if they were using the same amount of resources to pursue John Michaels. She knew he had something to do with the president, and as such was nearly untouchable, but she wanted her revenge. A tech looked over his shoulder and pressed a button on his console, darkening all the screens. She rolled her eyes, and walked down the hall toward Bishop’s office.

When she arrived, she peeked in and saw Bishop examining himself in a mirror. His wrists were raw, and thee was caked blood on his face and shirt. “Mister Knight would like his tie pin back,” she said walking into the office.

Bishop spun and stared at Teresa. “I know why the caged bird kills.”

03 – Candice

#FFC52 #3WW Let’s see, Eilidh’s 50th TiV prompt, the 405th 3WW prompt, and this week’s Wednesday and Thursday prompts from The Victorious Writer. Hey Jason, how about numbering your prompts by the day of the year? Be sure to check out Jason’s site for daily writing prompts. Here’s another 523 words for the Body Rentals sequel:

* * *

Everything about Candice was fake. The blunt nose she sported when she was younger had been tweaked to look the same as a popular actress. She had other augmentation so she would fill out the Escada Goldny Gown correctly. That is, if the Escada wasn’t also a fake. The nude tulle and silk lining perfectly elongated her figure. The slightest train was stunning, but sadly it was the wrong color. The Gianvito Rossi Rose embellished Court was a fine skyscraper stiletto, and the crystals glittered in the low light, but the heel tip was the wrong color. The Wallace Crocodile was a perfect match for the rest of the outfit, but Nancy Gonzalez would’ve voluntarily exiled herself if the stitching on the strap had come from her own line.

Even the lethargic swagger Candice adopted was purchased from the internet. She played the drunk Aristocrat, but she had been nursing the same daiquiri for the last four hours. She flipped her dyed, permed hair as she laughed at a presumably funny comment. She slapped her paramour’s shoulder. The lingering contact and Botox smile were straight out of a romantic comedy. Even the person inside the body wasn’t real.

The only thing real about Candice was her purpose for attending the party. Teresa made eye contact with Candice about an hour ago, but there was no recognition in her eyes. Teresa was only supposed to observe and report back, but she hadn’t seen or heard from Colonel Lance Bishop for more than a week. Teresa was resolute in her desire to ‘take down’ Candice, but she wasn’t authorized to do so. Only the Colonel held any authority in their organization.

“You’ve been busy since we last met Teresa.”

Teresa spun and saw a man in a suit and tie. There wasn’t anything special or even noteworthy about the man other than a lapel pin shaped like a chess piece. Teresa paused for a minute to recall the name of the piece and to ascertain if she new the man. “I’m sorry,” she replied, “I don’t recognize you.”

The man smiled. “Oh, I wasn’t wearing this body when we first met.”

02 – Memento Mori

#FFC52 Last night I got a great email from Adan. She was reporting she really liked Body Rentals. I’ll quote her review on amazon: “I read the whole thing in a sitting, riveted to my chair as the tale unfolded.” Since a glitch or houseguests delayed the prompt until this morning, I decided to write a little taste from the Body Rentals universe. Here are 561 words:

* * *

Colonel Lance Bishop worked his wrists back and forth trying to loosen the rope binding his hands. Well, my hands for now, he thought sourly.

Danny Peterson watched from the next room. She was bound the same – tied to an exquisite wooden chair, secured to a radiator under a window. The foyer of the mansion separated the two.

The man in the suit descended an ornate staircase. He turned his back to Danny. “Marilynn is resting comfortably,” he called out to Bishop.

“I’ve taken down bigger fish that you, mister…?”

The man fingered the knight chess piece adorning his tie, walked to just inside the door and replied, “You may call me Mister Knight.”

“Afraid to give me your real name?”

The man took a step towards Bishop. “In war knowledge is power.” He straightened his tie with his hands. “In case you are unaware, Colonel Bishop, this is war.”

“I’ve crushed Doctor Mann’s organization.” Bishop smiled. “Only a few stragglers remain.”

“And remain we do. It’s a shame you won’t be around to see what we accomplish.”

“You aim to kill me?”

Another step forward. “My dear Colonel, you’ve killed yourself. I only need to keep you away from your own body until the tech kills you.”

Bishop shrugged. “Memento mori.”

Knight smiled and leaned forward. “’Remember that you’ll die?’ I think not, Colonel. Allow me to respond in kind. ‘Senza dolore, abbiamo potuto non apprezzare le gioie della nostra vita.’”

“That’s not Latin.”

“Latin is a dead. Italiano is a proper language.”

Bishop stared blankly.

01 – Bishop

I had some free time this morning so I decided to do the latest flash fiction challenge from Chuck Wendig. I had fun doing the last two, so I think I may try to do these regularly. This one finished at 1,052 words, but it could easily be trimmed down to the magical 1,000:

* * *

She was a fifty-year-old woman wearing the ravages of failed dreams and alcohol. She had a life lived not for love, but for money. She painted her face on each day, searching for wrinkles and other perceived imperfections in the mirror attached to the antique vanity that was part of her daily ritual. She always felt she looked too old. She felt it deep in the core of her being that she should look younger. But, her memory had been suspect for the last four months after she fell and hit her head on the marble staircase sweeping from the ground floor to the second of her immaculate home. Her husband had left early that morning – as he did every morning without fail for the last twenty years. They had spent nearly two decades together and he always seemed to disappoint her with the little things.

She didn’t think he did these things intentionally, they just had different ideas on how to prioritize those little things. She felt she often rated pretty low on his list of priorities. He would go on an on about acquiring pop culture objects, like a guitar owned by Jimi Hendrix. He provided her with the finer things in life, but sometimes those fineries only reminded her she was a prisoner of the life she was forced to live. She was contemplating that very life when she received the call that would change her understanding of everything she had believed in. She picked up the faux-antique handset of the telephone displayed next to a small stuffed animal on the dresser next to her vanity.

“Hello?”

“Marilyn, is that you?”

She stared at the phone in her hand, unable to respond to the familiar voice on the other end of the line.

Uneasily, she replied, “No one has called me by that name in nearly twenty years.”

“You may think it has been twenty years, but I promise you it has not been that long.”

“I think you have me confused with someone else, I’ve gone by Lynn for as long as my husband and I have been together.”

“I know this sounds weird, but can you remember your life before four months ago?”

She was filled with dread with that single question. The feeling consumed her so completely, she dropped the handset. It didn’t fall to the floor because the coiled handset cord didn’t stretch that far. As the handset swung lazily against the dresser, she could hear an urgent voice coming from it. She paid no attention to the voice as a flood of memories washed over her. She was having difficulty breathing as the new flood of memories contradicted everything she thought she knew.