Today is a treat for all Valarie fans as she makes a triumphant debut in today's Short Diversions! I know some of you have been waiting patiently for this!
Before we get to that though, let's deal with your regular, weekly dose of the Comic Tales of Brennan and Riz!
Comic Tales of Brennan and Riz
Here it is, the definite, absolutely, final part of the Wardrobe Confusion storyline. It's done, it's dusted, it is an ex-storyline. That being said, it's been good fun and allowed me to indulge in that small subset of Riz fans who like seeing him in different outfits. Though, there is plans for more outfits down the line!
What's next? More one shots that hopefully won't spawn multipart stories...
Daemon Soul Update
I'm almost finished my first pass on the requested changes to the manuscript. I'm expecting a little more work to be needed to sorting out the first chapter. Been great to work with these characters again, or more specifically, Cypher and Serena. While Serena has featured in a few short stories now, Cypher has featured in none (no, vss tweets don't count), and to be fair that is by design as this book is pretty much all about Cypher. Still, writing the two together is wonderful.
I'll only update on the story if I've got news so don't expect weekly bulletins...at the moment.
Short Diversions; A Day in the Life
Today's star of Short Diversions is none other than Valarie! Brennan's girlfriend and Riz's rival! She's an interesting character that cropped up from time to time in the short stories before making a big splash in A Boy and A Rat. She should have been the star in a three-novella-as-a-novel project (Valarie: In Her Words, a mock autobiography type thing) but that fell apart due to huge retcons that happened within a Boy and A Rat. In short, her whole origin changed. One day I hope to write about her redone origins and her more famous family (on her dad's side) but consider that your only hint as to what is really going on there!
Aside from that though, she did appear in her own short story that was published as part of Hope is an Act of Rebellion, so please check that out if you can.
Here's the story, enjoy!
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A Day in the Life
Valarie yawned as she wondered how much longer it was going to be before the line moved again. She had only meant to pick up something from Alice’s safety deposit box as an errand but had been left languishing in the queue for over half an hour already, and she was only fourth in line. Still, she was in good spirits and didn’t want a little setback like this to ruin her mood.
She’d woken up early that morning, and did her daily exercises. She checked every news app she could find over a cup of coffee before setting out for the day. Her original intention was to go and practise her photography, she’d been working so hard recently that she felt she’d been letting down her early passions so wanted to reconnect and see what she could see through the lens of her camera. As fate so often did, that was when she got a phone call from Alice, asking for a little favour. She didn’t object, it was literally a little favour. Valarie owed so much to Alice that she would have done it even if it was more demanding. In fact she amused herself while standing in that queue of a time where she did just that, jetting off around the world to take care of that particular task. In comparison this was merely an errand, the equivalent of asking someone to pick up some milk while they were out shopping. Ironically, Valarie had done that as well.
The line moved and Valarie looked around again, noticing three guys who’d entered the bank, doing their best to not look like they were together, despite wearing almost exactly the same thing. Her mood lessened to a sigh when she quickly pieced together what they were there to do, their attempts at hiding it undone by the silly looking masks that were stuck in their pockets. Predictably, they left the bank again, only to reappear wearing the aforementioned masks. Valarie’s eyes rolled to the back of her head and beyond, an apt expression, as it turned out, when they did every stereotypical thing they could do in a bank robbery. They yelled out their presence, telling everyone to get down while waving around toy guns, orange safety caps and all. It was at this point Valarie assigned a nickname to each one: ‘Tom’ appeared to be the ringleader, wearing a children’s teddy bear mask, next up was ‘Dick’ running around in a rhino mask with a laughably small horn. That left ‘Harry’ in a brown monkey mask. Valarie played along at first, as the ‘Tom’ got into the teller’s face and shared an impossible list of demands that one would only come up with if you based everything on old bank heist movies.
As if to prove this, ‘Dick’ started trying to frisk everyone of anything that even looked remotely valuable. When the would-be thief got to Valarie, he prodded the camera she was wearing around her neck. Even through the cheap plastic mask he was wearing, she could tell that ‘Dick’ was confused by it. If she had to guess, she figured he was stumped at someone who wasn’t relying on their phone camera to take pictures, like his buddy, ‘Harry’, who was trying to force a selfie with some of the bank staff that looked absolutely terrified.
Ever since the three men had started their idiotic attempt at robbing the place, Valarie had been musing ways to stop them. The moron staring in wonder at her camera was the perfect place to start. She put a hand up to his face, startling him, before holding the camera up, making it look like she was going to take a picture, except she’d made sure the flash was on. ‘Dick’ went to snatch it, like a baby reaching for the nearest, shinest, item, and she took a photo. Blinded, ‘Dick’ cried out, getting the attention of the other two, who turned their heads just in time to see their friend taken down with a swift kick between his legs. He hit the floor, clutching his pain.
With one neutralised, she turned her attention to the others, with ‘Harry’ running at her, mixing his words up as he shouted them all out at once, brandishing his ‘gun’ in the air. Now, this was the second opportunity that presented itself to her. She waited till he came close, closer than he should ever have gotten if he had half a brain, and simply side stepped him but caught his foot with hers. This sent him crashing in, and over, a chair. ‘Tom’ had been watching all of this, and was pulling his hair out, and unlike his friend, who had become entangled within those barriers the bank used, knew who to use the gun he carried. The fact that it wouldn’t fire, he must have hoped that Valarie wouldn’t have noticed that. ‘Tom’ made a beeline for her, never once moving the barrel of the gun away from her. He shouted at her to get to the floor, while also, paradoxically, keeping her hands where he could see them and not move a muscle.
As she had already summed them up, they were all idiots. She went to comply, knowing that this was the last pest to deal with and placed her camera on the floor, facing towards him. He glanced down at it, which was the biggest mistake he could make, as using her foot, Valarie snapped another photograph, the flash blinding another victim. He stumbled, giving time for Valarie to follow up by pushing a table towards him, and him blindly falling over it, ending up headfirst in a cleaner’s trolley that had been left out.
Despite their leader being incapacitated for the foreseeable future, ‘Dick’ and ‘Harry’ were back on their feet, and furious. Valarie didn’t quite understand what they thought would happen given the circumstances, or why they held the mistaken belief that no one would oppose them. The two remaining thieves both ran at her. In one fluid motion, she grabbed her camera and fired off a succession of photographs. Each one caused them to fall over, with hilarious results. By now, the police were outside, and with her attackers, sorted, Valarie casually walked to the front door and let them.
The police swarmed the place and ‘Tom’, Dick, and ‘Harry, didn’t put up much of a fight. In fact, considering how their attempts at robbing the bank had gone, they looked almost relieved that it was over. Valarie gave them a cheeky wave as they were hauled up to their feet, and taken away, they looked at her, and then did their best to get as far as possible away from her, ‘Harry’ practically jumping into the arms of his accompanying police officer. With all said and done, the police gave their thanks, as did the other customers and employees of the bank, though she turned down all the rewards she was offered. Instead she carried out the task she went there for, and left with a smile, noting that this was just one of those days.
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That's it for this week!
Till next time,
Keep on writing!
Peter James Martin
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