Novel Journey Critiques ~ Week 9

Remember, our suggestions are just that—suggestions. The wise author will use discernment and pick up what works for him/her and ignore what doesn't. We've each been edited/critiqued by professional editors, best-selling authors, etc. and no one has been tougher on us than us. Our hope is you and this author, who bravely subbed his/her work, will benefit.

Our critique code is as follows:
( ) = suggest deleting
[ ] = sugges adding
** = comments
gws=goes without saying
rue=resist the urge to explain
im= interior monologue

Original Chapter

Captain Montana Sinclair stared at piles of useless seismic data collected over the last few weeks. Multicolored folders and bulging files lay in unruly piles stacked a foot or so high on every conceivable work surface. Her eyes darted across the overflowing workspace as she chewed on the end of her ponytail. "Something's not right..." She grimaced, spitting out the hairs she had gnawed through. The answer is here. I know it's here.

She had second-guessed herself at least forty times in two weeks. Have you lost your edge, ol' girl? It felt like the finely honed instincts she had developed over the last ten years had evaporated like wet cotton candy.

She wiped a sweating palm along the thigh of her jeans and kicked the leg of the seismograph spool rack. A wide metal reel clat­tered to the floor, leaving a trail of stark white, ribbon paper in its wake.

Montana rolled her eyes as she hopped off the stool, picked up the half-empty reel and sat down to rewind it. Her hand flipped it over and she glanced down the length of the tape as she smoothed the wrinkles out of the paper.

The seismic pen had drawn a straight line down the tape for about fifteen sec­onds. Then it jumped in a high spike. This pattern repeated for as far as she could see down the length of unrolled tape.

Her stomach tightened.

The Earth ap­peared to have developed a heartbeat.

Montana connected the interface, linking her laptop to the lab seismograph computer. With rapid keystrokes, she coupled the system data to the diagnostic software she had created.

She stared at the screen.

"Huh? That's my...this is impossible!"

Montana typed several com­mands for verification.

"How can this signal be coming from the moon?"

She popped a CD in the lab computer to burn a data copy. She gnawed on her bottom lip, tingling with excitement.

A grin framed her lips. I've got you, McKay!

She reached for her glass of soda water. The surface of the water vibrated in miniscule concentric waves. Her mouth went slack as she pulled back her hand. Montana glanced behind her.

The rumble came from deep within the bowels of the earth, working its way up, jerking and separating the strata layers as it came.

Montana turned, absently thinking she'd be able to see the source of the echoing growl. Temblors were a normal, unpleasant fact in California.

She slipped from her stool and into the adjoining office doorway, figuring that by the time she got to the arch, the shake would subside.

The still evening air exploded. Percussion from the shockwave rolled through the seismology station with a deafening roar. Montana jerked her head. Glass splintered. Metal crashed. Computers jolted off the shelves.

"What in the..."

The evacuation sirens roared to life.

The black and white checkered ceramic floor tiles in the lab erupted. The floor twisted like a rope of licorice. Montana stared, not comprehending.

Her feet caught up to her brain. She hop scotched over heaved sec­tions of floor tile and sprinted for the front door at the other end of the long laboratory. Plaster silt floated down from the vibrating beams.

Under the rumble, the earth groaned, sounding like a tremendous grinding of splintering wood. The steel equipment rack opposite Montana's station jack-hammered itself loose from the anchor bolts, hanging precariously at a forty-five degree angle.

"The disk!" She skidded to a halt before the front exit and darted back down the aisle to her station. Over the siren, she could hear people yelling to evacuate.

Where she had drawn up short, a tall bookcase crashed across the aisle, hanging up on a desk as it fell. A chain of dull thuds and plops emitted from the rows of books sliding from the tilting shelves. Equipment smashed to the floor. Knobs and dials scattered under the desk, rolling across the aisle.

Montana reached the computer. She fumbled with the CD tray but it wouldn't open. She re­peat­edly pushed the eject button, then frantically pried at it with her fingers.

The near end of a five-foot fluorescent light fixture crashed to the floor near her. She jumped out of the way. Still attached by wires to the ceiling, the light danced like a marionette in the trem­bling room. The acrid smell of fluorescent ballast drifted up from the smashed end of the fixture.

"Open! Open!" She clawed, pounding on the front of the tray. It slid open. She grabbed the disk, shoved it into the pocket of her jacket, and ran.
The building buckled in from the ceiling. Another light fixture smashed to the floor. Elec­tricity arched from the broken, swinging wires.

She ran toward the toppled bookcase blocking the path to the door. Among the thunderous growling, an ominous cracking sound rolled along the length of the room. Welds on the roofing sections snapped and raf­ters twisted free from the building.

Montana dove under the bookcase, crawling through the debris of books and equipment, emerging on the other side. She scrambled for the open door as she heard the ceiling roar down behind her. She didn't stop. The billowing cloud of cement dust filling the room, trailed her out the door.

Hugging the wall, she felt her way down the long, darkened hallway. She had been here for several weeks but her perception of where she stood was skewed by the fallen partitions and wiring.

Montana coughed and wheezed, gasping for air. Her lungs filtering only small wisps of oxygen from the enveloping dust cloud.

She tripped, lurching forward with her arms spread out to cushion the fall. Her palms skidded across the rubble-strewn floor, and her chest slammed into the hard surface, knocking her precious, little wind out of her.

Montana lay there disoriented, her brain fogging from lack of oxygen. Suddenly a pair of arms wrapped around her waist and jerked her roughly to her feet.

"I've got you ma'am."

She heard the tense voice above the din.