Yet A(nother) Year in Seattle – Foreword and Intro

Foreword

20 years ago, I created a character for a Shadowrun game – the idea was to take 4 writers – and let them play the game in text format and share the story with our friends and readers.  The problem with this was… getting 4 writers together while they’re working on other projects.  

When the fame fell through, I did what any writer would do with a character they loved – I let her tell her story in journal format – That was ‘A Year in Seattle’  which was quickly followed by “A(nother) Year in Seattle).”  Ten years after the first story I was looking for something to do as a New Year’s Project – I realized it was the 10th anniversary and with a week to go, I decided to write “Yet A(nother) Year in Seattle.”  

I had a year, and I had the characters and no idea what I would do with them – I had no ending in mind and just let the story take place – seeding things to come in the journal entries so future events could be traced back… it started with the following introductory entry…

Yet A(nother) Year in Seattle

Intro

They say the more things change, the more they stay the same.

I really don’t know who ‘they’ are, but sometimes I really want to wring their collective necks. Things do change, but people stay the same… if we’re lucky.

My nine year old daughter was working on a project for school and trying to understand why her uncle Nate was so solemn on ‘Shutdown Day’. She’s older now, and when I talk about the Archology and the black out she understands more, but she’s always had more of what Case calls the ‘cop’ mentality than my ‘medic’ brain.

I triage and treat, Case protects and serves and part of protecting is trying to prevent things from happening.

To help her understand I handed her my journals. Big mistake. First off, she did not like being called ‘the terror’ and secondly… I’d stopped writing after the blackout. That left a 6 year gap in my story.

She knew most of it, I mean she was already remembering things when the blackout hit. The blackout hadn’t been bad, but the aftermath… I learned first hand what a magically induced stroke feels like, I endured 3 months of physical therapy before a mage was found who could undo what had been done.

By then I’d fallen out of the habit of writing, and the next big crisis hit. This one didn’t just hit close to home, it hit home– and me… I ended up in a combination of protective custody (yeah we all know how well that works) and a kindly exile into the witness protection program… but who needs the witness protection program when the people on Council Island view you as one of their own?

Ethan has started college. It’s as if everything has changed, and yet everything is indeed the same.

Well, maybe not, the new year is upon us and so are the changes… Bri, this one’s for you.

Copyright 2010 – M.T. Decker