Week Two Begins

Well, NaNo continues. It's one week in, and I've got 12,004 words down, 37,996 to go.
 If you look over to the right on the main page of this blog, you'll see my little word counter. Once it fills all the way up, my 50,000 words will be done, though not necessarily my entire novel (my first NaNo is now about 70,000 words...).
But again, I feel obligated to toss up another day's worth of writing. I skip around among scenes when I write, so this isn't chronologically the next bit. But basically, it's just Julius and Sarah (my two main characters) arguing while they prepare Sarah's interviews for her editor.
This is a bit more than 1,667 words, but I just put up my writing from the beginning of the scene I am working on until the point that I have written up to as of right now.
Just another reminder, it is a very rough draft. Even more rough than my last piece, because as the month progresses, I tend to get lazier and lazier about scheduling enough time to actually think about what I'm writing.

Chapter Five: Off to Annabelle's

Julius grabbed my arm and tried to drag me from bed. I groaned and waved him away.

"I'm getting up, I'm getting up," I said, burrowing my cold hands under my pillow and burying my face into the pillow.

"Come on, Sarah," he said, nudging me again.

"Why? Isn't our only interview today at two?"

"Yes, but we also have a meeting with Annabelle at noon today," he said, pulling the blankets off of me. I immediately retracted into a ball, trying to pull as much warmth as I could from the fitted sheet around my mattress.

"That's at noon," I whined, looking at the clock, which blinked 7:00AM a few times to me.

"Have you written up all of the stories?" Julius asked, pulling the pillow out from under my head. My head fell softly onto the mattress.

"No, but--"

"No, but you need to get out of bed and get to work," he said, nudging my side. I groaned and rolled onto my back.

"I will go get a bucket of ice for you, Sarah. I will," he threatened, crossing his arms, “And you know your bed was damp for a month after.”

I rolled out of bed into the pile of my blankets he'd made.

"Will you remake my bed?" I asked, pulling myself from the pile to put a sweatshirt and sweatpants on over my shorts and tshirt. I was still cold.

"Will you get to work?" he asked.

"Yes," I groaned, pulling my hair into a tight bun and grabbing a pen from my nightstand. I tucked it into the bun and went to the thermostat.

"Julius, have you been messing with this again?" I asked, rubbing my arms.

"No, the heater is broken remember? And you won't let me call a repair bot. Because you keep saying you're going to get to it. Even though it's been a year," he said, giving me a stern look.

"Alright, alright," I said, throwing my hands up. I'd only insisted because I'd been feeling particularly stubborn last winter. I didn't even know how to fix a heater. Or anything really.

I made my way over to the wall of papers and began to gather scraps and photos and tickets in a pile in my arms. I shoved one of the chairs into the corner, and hefted up the table before dropping it with a slam.

"Oh for the love of..." Julius started, dropping the pillow onto the newly made bed before coming into the room where I was trying to shift furniture. He grinned at my glare, but picked up the table easily and shifted it.

"You know you have a desk right?" he said, gesturing to the beautiful wooden desk in the corner.

"And you know something is wrong with your android brain? You're not supposed to be this sarcastic," I said, dropping the pile of papers onto the floor. They billowed out in a bloom of fluttering papers.

"Ugh. Something is wrong with my brain..." Julius muttered, making his way into the kitchen. He began to brew coffee. It was the one human food, well drink I guess that he liked. Loved actually. If he was human, he'd constantly be wired up, given how much coffee he drank. I think part of it was that my father drank too much coffee as well. And despite what people said about companion robots, Julius at least was basically raised by my parents. So he'd picked up the habit of drinking way too much coffee. And drinking it too strong and too black. So when he brought me my cup I poured in half the bowl of sugar and at least a cup of milk. He made a disgusted face, but I just went back to piling up the papers I'd dumped on the ground.

"So you haven't done anything to prepare for your deadline with Annabelle?" Julius asked, settling onto the couch and taking a sip of his coffee.

I looked up at him without lifting my head.

"Does it look like I did?"

"Humans," he said, rolling his eyes.

"Aw, come on. It's not just us. I'm sure there are procrastinating robots," I said, tapping my pencil on the floor at a rapid pace.

"You'd be surprised," he said.

"And will you stop that? I keep thinking you're trying to tap out Morse code," he said, rubbing his temples.

"What?" I asked, still rapidly tapping my pencil. He pointed at it and his eyes flicked to the left, so he definitely was trying to translate what I was tapping into Morse code.

"You're saying "AGHEDKJEOSAJGEFDDFRDIIBOE" Please stop," he said, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes .

I chuckled a little bit, but stopped. When I looked back up, I started backwards. He had a panel on his arm open, and was fiddling with some of the mechanics in his forearm.

"Stop, stop, stop. If you can tell me not to do something because you don't like it, so can I," I said, covering my eyes.

"You don't listen to me half of the time I tell you not to do something," he said, continuing to fidget with the wires.

"Ouch!" he cried out. I looked up, and shifted towards him.

"Are you okay?" I asked, reaching forward to tip his open arm towards me.

"No, it's fine. I just touched a live wire by accident," he said, putting the fingers of his other hand into his mouth. When he pulled his fingers out they were bright red.

“Let me get you some ice,” I said, using his knee to pull myself up.

I came back with ice cubes wrapped in a paper towel, and he pressed it onto his fingers.

"Close my arm for me?" Julius said, the panel on his arm still exposing the wires and mechanical bits beneath. I tried not to look into it as I clicked the panel closed. The edge of the panel blended in seamlessly.

"Why does that freak you out so much," he asked, still pressing the ice into his fingers. A few droplets from the melting ice darkened the rug.

"Because you look like a human and it's weird when I'm reminded that you're not," I said, and shifted back to sit crosslegged in the pile of papers.

"Wow, Sarah. You have my computer chip for my emotions tattooed on your freaking arm and you can still forget that I'm an android?" Julius asked sarcastically before climbing down from the couch to sit with his back against the cushions. He turned a stack of papers towards himself and began to sort through them. I paused for a moment to look at the complicated square of green and red and blue squares and lines that was printed on the inside of my wrist, then looked up. Julius was trying to extract a brown flower from between two sheets of paper.

"Careful with that!"

"It's a dead flower," Julius said, holding the crumpled blossom delicately in his hand.

"Be careful, alright."

Two hours later, my stomach was growling for the breakfast I didn’t have and we'd run out of coffee.

"I'm gonna run down to the diner. Want anything?" I asked, standing up to stretch out my back and legs.

"I'd like some more coffee," Julius said, lifting up his empty cup, then dropping it down onto the rug.

"Alright, I'll be back in a minute," I said, changing from my pajama pants into some old jeans. I decided not to tell Julius that I wasn't sure whether they were clean or not.

I grabbed my hat from the hook by the door, where Julius must've put it after I went to sleep. The elevator hummed as I waited in it, and examined my reflection in the mirror.

The city was strangely empty as I made my way to the diner, walking parallel to the mall. I pulled my hands up into my sleeves to protect them from the cold wind. But even the wind couldn't hide the fact that the city was silent. It seemed like the robot quarter it was so silent.

A tiny bell dinged as I opened the door to the diner. Immediately a wave of warm air that smelled of cinnamon and hot chocolate buffeted the wind outside and drove it away as I closed the door behind me.

"Kara!" I called as I approached the empty counter. A woman bustled out, her apron strings flapping.

"Kara, turn around, your apron is undone," I said, twirling one finger.

"Oh dear. You know, they told me when I was put into an android body I'd remember things better. But this mind is just as scatterbrained as my old one," she said as I tied up the back of her apron.

"I'm sure you'll be fine," I said, patting her on the back once I'd tied up the strings.

"And at least when I was human I still had you to remind me to do everything," Kara said. She started preparing my order, because she already knew what I'd want. And it's possible Julius had linked with her to tell her.

"Are you sure you don't want to come back to work here?" Kara said, brew up two cups of coffee. One so strong and thick I'm not even sure how she managed poured it from the pot, and one with a little swirl of caramel in it.

"And be the only human on the staff?"  I asked, picking at the unopened menu sitting in front of me.

"Oh, you know it wouldn't be like that, hon. We're the same people, even if we've got a few more wires and circuits now," she said, tucking some strands of her gray hair behind her ear.

"I know. But I've got my book to work on anyways," I said, taking the cups of coffee she handed me.

"Oh, I know, I know dear. How is that going by the way?"

"Pretty well, I'm up to about fifty stories, and I'm submitting three more today," I said, as she handed me a paper bag with two cinnamon  rolls in it. One for home, and one for the restaurant where Julius couldn't tell me not to eat it. I pulled it out, and she gave me a napkin to put it on. I'd convinced her to stop wasting plates on me after a month or so.

"Good for you. Say hello to Annabelle for me," she said. The wind picked up and rattled the blinds against the windows.

"Wild out there, isn't it?" she said, peering over the counter, "Looks like a storm might be blowing in."

"I heard it's coming later this week," I said, pulling my hat down over my ears with the hand that wasn't covered in icing from my cinnamon roll.

"It's quiet out there today. Almost sounds like the robot quarter. It's a bit creepy," I said through a muffled mouth full of chewy cinnamon roll, "Must be because of the storm."

"Must be," Kara said, handing me a wet wipe. I nodded thanks and wiped the icing off my fingers.

            "See you later Kara. This coffee is the strongest you can make? 'Cuz you know he won't drink it if it's not," I said, grabbing the coffee cups and laughing a bit.

"Of course it is. Tell Julius that if he doesn't trust me to make him a damn good cup of coffee, he can come here and show me a better one," Kara said, placing her hands on her wide hips.

"I will," I said, with a laugh, drawing my hood up over my hat and slipping out into the street.

So, there you go. I'm off to Written? Kitten, which I do believe is my new favorite writing site (for every 100 words you write, it shows you a picture of a cute little kitten).

Wish me luck, I'm getting some more kitten pictures!