Still not loving the title. Also, I changed the name of the fighter in the party to ‘Anton.’ Not sure if I’m going to stick with that, either.
If the storm drain leading to what the map called ‘Cove River’ had had some kind of First Republic smart-tech filtration / security covering, it wasn’t working after a hundred and fifty years’ worth of post-apocalypse; or maybe it was always just a plain metal circular grate. Jill sniffed at it a little, then shook her head. “Nothing on it,” she said. “Not even electricity.”
“What does electricity smell like, anyway?” said Anton. “Like a lightning strike?”
Jill looked at him, confused. “Nah, that’s, what’s the word, oxide?”
“Nah, it’s ‘ozone’,” said Jack.
“Yeah, that,” said Jill. “Anyway, electricity smells like, you know, electricity.”
“Never mind,” said Anton. “I don’t have your nose. Safe to apply the Mark One?”
“Ain’t no traps on it I can smell, Anton. Dunno why anybody’d bother to trap a storm drain, though.”
“You never know.” Anton set himself, spun, and kicked out with one leg. The grate popped handily over the impact. He straightened. “Mark One Boot, successfully applied.”
“Very good, dear,” said Susan, peering outward as her hands glowed. “And, oh, there’s nothing vile out there ready to eat our faces, either! How nice.”
“If there had been, it’d have just gotten a face full of steel bars, love.”
“Fair point,” conceded Susan.
Title’s too much of a giveaway .. Universal may have gotten away with making the monsters into the stars of the show, but that doesn’t mean you should.
.
If this is an ongoing thing, or if these characters will pop up again, then consider stealing from A.C. Doyle and go with “The case of” or from Bright, Kauffman, Crane and “The one with/where ”
.
If, of course, the monster *is* the star .. then the title is fine.
.
As far as Anton’s name goes .. two thoughts.
.
If Anton is going to survive more than 50 pages, write a scene where he talks about his parents, then pick a name based on what they would have wanted for him …
.
If Anton is short-lived and/or otherwise not significant, then .. consider making “your name on a character” a Kickstarter pledge level, with authorial negotiations and fiat rights, of course.
.
Surely some of us your fans have both vanity and money, you can monetize that!
.
Mew
Hrm. This story is likely to be a single-time one — I have about a thousand years’ worth of history to draw from — so the ‘name on a character thing’ might be something to do.