Chapter 1: The Abandoned Drafts Rescue
“Jesse, two more drafts just arrived. There’s still half an hour before our shift ends; let’s give them a quick read. I don’t want these poor characters stuck in unread envelopes for the whole weekend.”
Jesse slowly lifted his head. Normally, Theodore didn’t allow interns to nap during working hours. Today, however, they processed 103 drafts with multiple characters each. Both of Jesse’s brains deserved a break.
“How come there are so many of them? I thought the majority finds their closure elsewhere,” Jesse murmured. A shadow crossed his face, as it always did on busy days.
“They still teach that at the University, don’t they?” Theodore raised his eyebrow. “Times have changed. It has become much more hectic here since the digital revolution on Earth.”
“How come? You’d think humans didn’t change much during the last centuries,” Jesse responded with a clear voice. He was awake and ready to work again.
“Humans didn’t, but their reality did.” Theodore took a deep sigh. “In the past, the writers had to invest in paper and the whole typesetting setup. It was not cheap, nor was it easy, so they treated it seriously. Nowadays, writing is effortless. Everyone can type anything they want in their mobile apps, and call themselves writers. It costs them nothing to abandon a story, so they do it more often than in the past. It’s that simple."
Jesse nodded without a response. His mind wandered to all the characters with unfinished arcs, who would reach their mailbox over the weekend and suffer. The human writers had no clue how deeply they hurt their protagonists, villains, and even secondary characters each time they abandoned a story.
He’d tried to volunteer for working extra hours in the past, but he was refused. The Abandoned Drafts Rescue was closed during weekends and holidays, and there was nothing he could do.
“Ready to ease some of the pain of existence?" Theodore’s voice yanked Jesse back to reality.
“Yes, let’s help some souls. What do we have this time?"
“A classic fairy tale for you and something eerie for me. Let’s do it fast to clock out before closing time.”
Jesse looked into Theodore’s eyes while taking the envelope from his hand. Without words, they understood finishing on time wasn’t going to happen—overtime was inevitable that night.
Both specialists opened the envelopes and started reading. The hope of every abandoned character brought into existence on a whim of its creator could be felt in the air.
“Theodore, can you give me a hand? I really don’t know what to do with one of the characters.”
“Of course, the report can wait,” Theodore said, getting up from his chair.
“Report? Does that mean you’re already done with your eerie draft?” Jesse raised his eyebrow as he was asking the question.
“Yes, I got lucky—it was an easy one.”
“Of course it was easy, you’ve been here a millennium longer than I am!”
They both chuckled. Theodore had started his internship on the same day as Jesse did—exactly 1000 years earlier. This inside joke always brightened the room when the mood got too gloomy.
“Show me what you’ve got.”
“Okay, listen to the opening,” Jesse said, and immediately started reading it out loud.
Once upon a time there was a handsome prince. He lived in a wealthy kingdom ruled by his father—a wise and rightful monarch. The prince, however, didn’t respect the people living under the governance of his parents.
A mighty witch from the outskirts didn’t like the idea of him ruling the kingdom one day. In her 300 years of experience she had learned that ignorant kings tend to hunt witches based on superstitions. She couldn’t help being a witch—you don’t choose your species after all.
The current king understood it. He even let her magic contribute to the kingdom! The witch was content with this arrangement. She just wanted a calm, purposeful life, just like everyone else seemed to have by default. She believed this would come to an end, if the son replaced the father.
The witch decided to act. Under the cover of night, she cast a spell that turned the prince into a frog. The curse could be undone only if he changed his attitude.
You must know that the magical technology advanced significantly since her predecessor had cast this spell for the first time. The original target, known as The Frog Prince in the witchcraft course book, kept his personality. Nowadays, losing it was a part of the punishment.
The handsome prince didn’t remember the kingdom, his parents, or even his own name anymore. He looked, felt, and behaved like a regular frog.
Jesse paused and exhaled heavily.
“That’s our troublemaker, the frog,” he said, running his fingers through his hair. “I don’t think he belongs to the Humans section. For the rest of the draft he only jumps around in the pond, without any sign of regaining his humanity. I believe he has to be treated as an animal—initially, at least. He needs it to properly develop his sense of self in our rescue.
Fantasy Animals section, however, is overfilled. I can’t find anything that would fit his needs, not a single enclosure,” Jesse’s voice broke. So far, he’d never failed at finding optimal conditions for a character.
“A frog who doesn’t realize he’s a human? That’s something new. You’re right that he shouldn’t be forced to humanity, not if his arc cuts off before he grows any suspicions. I think I have an idea of what to do with him, but first tell me—did you distribute all the other characters among the appropriate sections?”
“Yes,” Jesse responded, “even the entire royal army got a big enough enclosure! So did every villager who joined them in searching for the lost prince in later chapters.”
“Outstanding job. You managed so many characters right after an extremely busy day. Not every specialist can handle such a shift, really well done.”
Jesse smiled. He needed a compliment more than anything. Somehow, Theodore always knew the exact moment to lift the mood in the room.
“Now, let’s focus on the frog prince from your story,” Theodore directed the conversation back to the elephant in the room. “It’s not ideal, but I think we can pair him with the character from the draft I handled. My guy needs a pet, and yours needs to be treated like an animal. This way they both get what they need, and we can safely allocate them in the Human section.”
“Is that even allowed?” Jesse blinked twice, unsure if he’d heard correctly. “They’re from different drafts!”
“Indeed. Typically we don’t allow cross-drafting bonds, but times are tough. Until the higher-ups solve the issue with lack of enclosures, we have to get creative,” Theodore paused to observe Jesse’s reaction. He knew what the kids were taught at school—always obey the rules. This, however, was the real world. The real problems can’t always be solved by following the rules.
“Okay, I see where you’re coming from. I guess the Collective Characters enclosures also used to be new some time ago.”
Theodore let out a laugh. Even when tired, Jesse was an exceptionally clever intern.
“Good conclusion. When the earthly society developed, the writers got more courage to think big. I wouldn’t like to be in your shoes if you had to assign every soldier from the royal army separately!”
A smile spread across Jesse’s face.
“We’re lucky to serve them in the current times, aren’t we?” he said, glad to see Theodore mirroring his expression. “Why do you think your character would benefit from bonding with my frog?”
“Let me read you the opening of this draft and you’ll see for yourself,” Theodore responded, grabbing the envelope in question from his desk.
The world had been in trouble before. This time, however, it wasn’t going to end well.
An evil mage planned to destroy the entire planet—he made sure his annihilation sequence was impossible to stop by any local hero. At least not individually.
The only missing link was a pet. The plan could work only if the mage had a devoted pet that trusted him implicitly.
This bond was yet to be developed. The mage had to start with the basics—finding a good candidate to tame and revealing his own name to it.
Theodore folded the manuscript and looked at Jesse again.
“That’s the whole excerpt?” Jesse stared blankly at the pages, as Theodore slid them back in the envelope. “It sounds risky to assign them together based on only a few paragraphs. The manuscript seemed like a dozen of pages! What if the mage meets his real pet a few chapters further? It would cause an identity crisis.”
“That’s true. You should never assign anyone anywhere without knowing their full story. That’s why I’d already read the whole draft,” Theodore gave Jesse a friendly wink. “The rest is full of purple prose—the mage’s appearance, his house, his garden, the weather, the hills on the horizon. Pretty good world building, but no action at all. We’re safe in this sector.
The mage got assigned to enclosure #95, 4th door in the 1st alley of Human sector.”
“Great. I’ll quickly do the paperwork and we can close up. I’ll check on our experiment first thing Monday morning,” Jesse said and hurried to his desk.
Theodore’s lips curved into a smile. He’d never had a more devoted intern before. He was sure that when he retires, The Abandoned Drafts Rescue would be in good hands. Provided that Jesse would like to take up the position, of course.
“All done!” Jesse yelled, waving to Theodore from behind the file cabinet.
“Hey, kid. You forgot something,” Theodore called, as Jesse was leaving the room to grab his jacket.
“Did I?” the boy froze in the middle of taking a step. “I printed two copies of each manuscript. Then I placed them in the archives and in the pocket outside of the enclosure door, so that anyone from the staff can see the story. I wrote the names of the characters on the whiteboard on the enclosure wall.
Well, to be exact I wrote the Frog who doesn’t know he’s a prince and the Evil Mage with the sequence of annihilation—we didn’t learn their actual names from the drafts. I think it’s clear enough, though.
Then I double checked the climate and design of the enclosure—all the factory tests passed with flying colors; the characters will be safe there.
After that I pressed the buttons to materialize them, and locked the enclosures wing. Both walls are brought down and secured; there is no way for any character to get outside if something breaks during the weekend.
All by the book. What am I missing?” Jesse shrugged, waiting for his mentor to point out the mistake. His eyelids were almost closing, but he was determined to correct whatever he did wrong, for the sake of the characters from both stories.
“Wow, you really need a break. That’s exactly why they invented weekends,” Theodore chuckled. “Your procedure execution is spotless, as always. You forgot to take your stasicase.”
“Oh yeah. I keep forgetting about it since they invented portable stasis. Using the wardrobe-size one required much more planning. Now it’s so easy to transport a spare brain that you don’t even think about it anymore.”
Hearing such a philosophical thought made Theodore smile. For a split of a second, he wondered what Jesse’s generation would do before stasis was invented at all. Back then, it was impossible to just swap a tired brain with a fresh one. Everybody needed good, old-fashioned sleep regularly, just like the humans do.
“You’d better find a way to remember. Wiring a new brain is very expensive. You don’t want to lose them too often.”
Theodore gave Jesse a friendly pat on the back as they walked towards the exit.
The rescue closed for the weekend. Now the characters were on their own.
