Hello, PenOfAtlantis here. This is my first attempt at writing a fiction story of any kind. "A Pearl Before Swine" is intended to be a longer, novel-esque style of story. The sexual escapades will ramp up a bit later on, but Part 1 only has a single scene. I am more focused on a character/story driven narrative, and the sex will be thrown in when I feel like writing it.
There are three main viewpoint characters (maybe more later when I feel like writing a chapter from their perspective), but the style is still mostly third person narrator. Once more chapters come out, you might be able to identify which viewpoint character each chapter will be due to the three different styles of chapter titles. The three leads are:
Pearl: A young vigilante hunting a dark organization while discovering her powers.
Evan Ray: An ordinary boy about to be caught up in a massive conspiracy.
Angler 3/Simon Woodson: A rising member of a organization with a sinister secret plan.
The setting is a futuristic near-utopia so affluent, that the city is a maze of aquariums and sculptures. A place where superheros "Powered", are mostly decommissioned. While there is some future tech, the setting is still fairly ordinary. The superpowers will ramp up later on.
This is my first story, so I appreciate any and all feedback. (Believe me I won't take it personal even if you try to make it personal). This is all just great fun.
Table of Contents
Covered in Part 1:
Prologue: Moonlit Jellies on a Restful Night
Chapter 1: A Ray of Sunshine
Chapter 2: It Stirs
Chapter 3: A Day of Confusion (R-rated)
coming up in Part 2...
Chapter 4: Tracks Revealed on a Peaceful Evening (R)
Chapter 5: It Beckons
Chapter 6: A Search for Meaning
Prologue: Moonlit Jellies on a Restful Night
The moonlight glanced off the marbled walkways and shimmering rooftops. The only sounds were the quiet and constant dripping and garbling of the magnificent waterways. No lights disturbed the night except the warbling reflections and refractions from the ripples and waves. There is peace in water, she mused as she observed the maze of boat paths, aquariums, and fountain structures that surrounded the city. In the daylight it would be busy with colors and activity, but in the cover of night, only the clean geometry stood out against the horizon.
The stony precipice at her feet, weathered and worn, was one of only a few indications that there was ever anything but the beautiful architecture of this city upon the land. The mossy cobble tower stood as a monument to darker times, darker than this night. As a historic structure, it was allowed to stand above the height regulations of this sector, although it was by no means the tallest building in sight.
No, she thought to herself in a grizzled tone, there are those whose power defies the law of the common man. The central nine sectors of the city reached to the sky with the innermost square having no height regulation whatsoever. The pinnacles there broke past the clouds, and as with all things in the city, carried massive displays of aquatic infrastructure with them. The centerpiece of it all was a massive water column miles tall and multiple blocks thick which simulated the depths of the ocean.
It was in these industrial sectors that affluence had led them astray. It was a space of closed doors, of secrets, of power, and of swine. The city still grew, and its people still prospered, but in the depths, she knew a darkness grew.
She stood at last, sloughing off her inner monologue along with her Neptune-Bag. If one was there that night, or indeed any night, they would have seen a girl disappear beneath the shade of the belltower and reappear ... as something else. Onto the tallest stone gargoyle strode something more than a girl, more than flesh, more than all the money in the depths, and certainly more than all who thought they could raise the shroud of darkness without opposition or complaint. Off of that precipice strode a hero.
Her slim form dressed in the opalescent colors of her namesake belied her hidden strength. The moonlight rippled off the subtle curves with brilliant yet muted shades of the rainbow. In the shimmering reflections from the octopus fountain, her form melted into a mirage. Even a city drunk on opulence harbors pockets of malfeasance, and from the murky depths, a Pearl.
A small Aurelia aurita or "moon jelly" floated by in an agricultural aqueduct. It almost seemed to dance.
Chapter 1: A Ray of Sunshine
Sunlight abruptly broke the serenity of the night. The windows, programed to open at exactly half past seven, illuminated the entire room in blinding rays. In response to Evan turning to shield his eyes from the glare, his water bed emptied, dropping him to the floor.
"Blistering kraken!" he sputtered as the emptied tank of water withdrew into the ceiling. Within seconds, the water had drained into the floor while an aromatic mist dried everything to a warm and fuzzy paradise.
"You do realize this happens every morning right?" a woman said in a playful tone from the other side of his door.
Evan sighed before rising to his feet and shedding his NeptuneTech issued respiraskin. "Yes mom." The thin transparent membrane of a suit that allowed underwater respiration was quickly thrown into the cleaning duct. As with nearly everything in the city, the duct was full of flowing water that quickly whisked the suit away.
After putting on his school clothes, he hopped in the waterfall to go eat breakfast downstairs. Diana was waiting for him with a warm caviar-spinach porridge. He remarked on the fact that she looked so much like him with silky blonde hair, thin bony face, easy soft smile, and lithe build. This was remarkable only because his parents died in the last Power War ten years ago along with her husband and newborn. NeptuneTech security forces had found her covered in blood with a broken leg dragging his eight year old unconscious body over a mile from the rubble. Hours later, she was still in a state of delirium, and the doctors had been unable to remove her grip from him even as they set the bone.
"You ready for graduation next week?" she said looking up from the paperwork strewn across the table.
"You do realize this happens every morning right?" he responded, mimicking her tone from a minute prior.
"You know I only ask because I care so much sunshine." Her papers were quickly cleared away for breakfast.
"I know mom" Evan grumbled before breaking down and grinning back at her. "Discovered any more forgotten relics of the past this week?" In a digital age, most documents had been converted into the digital archives, but the machines still struggled with varieties of handwritten scripts. Society had mostly disregarded the rest of the paper trail as beneath them, but Diana and her team dug into the scribbled depths to rediscover important pieces of information in many fields, earning herself many raises in the process.
"Henry worked out an old manuscript from an old Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan detailing some abstract mathematical process, and he thinks it could be novel enough to write another paper about. You should convince Marcus that it would be worth his time to get his name on another publication. It would look nice on a resume, and Henry does need the extra help."
"You know Marcus find that stuff eternally boring mom." Evan helped his best friend get a job with Diana's team, but Marcus had complained to no end that it was getting old. "He's got that internship at Neptune that he thinks can be turned into a job, and its not like a translation publication is high on their radar."
She raised her eyebrows and shrugged, "hey it shows dedication and professionalism, and there is a lot of technical work that goes into it that STEM companies like NeptuneTech are definitely aware of". Somehow her eyebrows were raised higher as she glanced back at Evan. "Speaking of which, any updates about your job prospects you want to share with me?"
He swallowed a bite of porridge before he spoke. "Leena and I might go to the convention in Sector 7 for the graduating classes next week. There are a lot of companies hiring there." Diana caught the hesitation but decided not to push it. Evan made a mental note to broach the subject to Leena before the next time his mom talked to her.
"Well I have to go sunshine. I've got to negotiate a trade of documents with Suros Energies. You would think they would be happy with the services we provide for free, but they just have to be paranoid about supposed classified technical information." The inflection on "supposed" made it clear what she thought of the quality of documents she was likely to get. "Don't get a job with them sunshine. Or do and feed me the real juicy stuff" she winked back at him as she exited the apartment.
Back in his room, Evan checked his messages. It mostly consisted of Leena bugging Marcus to go out with her and Evan for a night after graduation and Marcus using his work as an excuse not to. He messaged Marcus back that NeptuneTech has plenty of experience with young students and would happily give him time off. While packing his Neptune-Bag, one message caught his eye. It was from an unknown number, and the preview only had the word URGENT.
............................................
URGENT: This is a message for Evan Ray. If this is intercepted by my adversaries, go feed a bigger fish. I cannot use key words for fear of this message being flagged, so I hope it isn't too vague. I would have preferred to deliver it in person, but I have no alternatives left.
Your mother is swimming towards deeper waters. I tried to swim in her wake but swam too fast. I found shipwrecks carrying dangerous cargo, and those seeking to use it. The shoal of fish has been disturbed, and they are swimming to safer waters where I will be unable to find the treasure. I must swim in their wake. In their haste, they left scraps for me to pick through. I found a loose worm with your name on it. Things are more connected than they seem. I must leave you with a trail that hopefully you and only you can trace.
In the light where you were found, but mightier than steel.
From the nest upon the ground. Ten spins before the crash.
