| The Time Will Come | |
|---|---|
| Author | Brightknightie |
| Date | 28 September 2016 |
| Where posted | AO3 |
| Rating/Warning | G |
| Genres | ficathons, drama, futurefic |
| Format | short story |
| Archive Location | |
Story Recap[]
Twenty years later, Janette runs a company in which the Enforcers are a little too interested. With the Syrian refugee crisis as backdrop, Aristotle brings her a proposition that could change everything.
Notes[]
Written as a gift for Merfilly/sharpest_asp in FK Fic Fest 2016 (released 28 September). The story was beta'd by Batdina. Length: 2513 words.
Written to the prompts: “Gen. Janette. "The flower that blooms in adversity is the rarest and most beautiful of all."”
Quotes[]
Leaning back in her desk chair, Janette stared through the night-mirrored windows of her corner office, past the sparkling city lights, toward her operations hub at Vancouver International Airport. She remembered when she’d first had the idea for Nocturne Enterprises. She’d felt enthusiastic, energized… and not a little vengeful. Her first attempt to fly by airline after 9/11 had been a nightmare of deprivation, temptation, and closed circuit cameras. With the then-new restrictions on liquids, there had been no way to carry in bottled blood.
Author's Notes[]
- Works consulted. I read many newspaper articles about the admirable Canadian efforts to take in Syrian refugees, including the feature “A Canadian Welcome for Syrian Refugees” (July 2016, New York Times), and listened to several podcasts, including the documentary “Hotel Limbo” (May 2016, The Doc Project, CBC). I also read the book The Morning They Came for Us: Dispatches from Syria by Janine Di Giovanni (2016, Liveright Publishing), from which I borrowed the phrase “the beautiful people stop coming” for Janette’s use here.
Comments[]
- "So awesome! One of the best first lines ever, and then it built & built into beautifully put-together story. Terrific!" — comment by lastscorpion on AO3
- "Damn! This could have been a nice little story with an easy conclusion where we could have said "isn't that nice" and gone back to other things. Now, you go and invent a whole new series which seems like the opening chapter of a much longer, involved story -- a novel if you will -- with Janette as the protagonist." — excerpted from comment by WaltD
- "I see you've managed to work in your Pokemon Go hobby. *g* Hunting pocket monsters round the office! Delightful. Alma can certainly be a most entertaining vampire: I'm glad that she's still with Janette after so many years.
Aristotle is another favourite of mine. I can see how, of all vampires, he would be one to best appreciate Janette's situation. There must be a lot of blood-bottling outfits nowadays; but anyone to come up with a truly unusual solution to a recently emerged exigency in modern (vampire) society would indeed be closely monitored by the Enforcers, wouldn't they? It means that the more useful they prove themselves to be, the less freedom they have to move on to a truly new life. Whatever their cover, they'd still be required to maintain their "Community career", if I may call it that. Or, to put it another way, the Enforcers would not be happy to see Janette quit Nocturne Enterprises to open another Raven. [...]" — excerpted from comment by greerwatson