As promised, here's an attempt to do something on Steemit that can't be done nearly as well anywhere else: tell a story where the readers choose the path. Read Carefully.

I'm an author with some credits. I've published four books and several shorts, I've been featured in four anthologies, and I get consistently paid to write fiction (every month, actually, for more than two years), so this isn't my first rodeo. I write prolifically and regularly, and I'm hopeful that Steemit is a place where this kind of writing can do very well.

Below are the first and second scenes of the novel Now You Don't. If you look, you'll find that there is another post with an almost identical title to this one, only that one is Episode 1Z, where this is 1A. Behold the power of Steemians.

The first scene is exactly the same in both 1A and 1Z versions of this post. But the second scene is different. Your task, should you choose to accept it, is to upvote the one you want to see continue. If you'd like to see BOTH continue, you can upvote them both, but unless something really awesome happens, I will only be continuing the highest vote-getter.

Voting closes Tuesday, Midnight EDT. For this round. Then there will be a new one, with a new fork. New episodes twice a week, barring the radically unforeseen.

Let's get started.

Now You Don't Chapter One, Episode 1Z

The big man slammed a meaty fist on the center of Abbet's desk. The crash reverberated across the floor. All conversation died. Abbet himself simply sat there, as if this kind of thing happened all the time. Because it did.

"You could have stopped them. You were a block away. Even you could run there in fifteen seconds. We had them," the man said, leaning down to bring his face even with Abbet's. Spittle flecked the corners of his mouth, and some jetted across to speckle Abbet's nose. He didn't wipe it off. That would only make it worse.

"I was on a case," he said simply, as if noting the time.

"You. Were on. A case." The man's fist punctuated each word, the desk rattling. Abbet's pencil earthquaked off the edge, clattered to the floor and rolled away, fleeing the scene. "You and your useless cases are the reason we have a drug problem in this city in the first place. That man was carrying fifty sticks at least. Next week there are going to be ten more kids hopped up on that trash. Ten more lost kids. And you just sit there. You don't even care."

Abbet knew he could say, "I do care," and it would be the truth, and it wouldn't matter. Fisk had to rant. Abbet was a target. That was part of his function. So he didn't say it, instead gazing steadily back at the huge cop, his dark uniform stained darker by the wet at his armpits. Abbet didn't cringe at the foul breath in his face. He put all the concern he could onto his face, though Fisk had never been the sort that could read it.

After a long, tense moment, Fisk blew a smoke-stained breath into Abbet's eyes and straightened up. "Unbelievable," he said. Abbet saw the muscles bunch in Fisk's right forearm, and knew they were very close to the moment he might have to do something. Fisk was cocking his arm back when another voice cut across the room like the crack of a whip.

"Fisk!"

Fisk paused, but didn't put his arm down. He kept his eyes locked to Abbet's face, and Abbet could see the effort it cost him not to let his jackhammer fist fly.

"You don't want to do that," the voice said. Captain Subramanian, probably the only man in the building that could keep this from getting ugly. Uglier.

"Yes, Cap'n, I surely do," Fisk said.

"My orders, Fisk, are to put that arm down and leave Detective Abbet alone. It's not his fault your perp escaped."

Fisk took a three-count, then let his arm dangle. He gave his head a small shake. "How do you even sleep at night?"

Subramanian checked something on his clipboard and said, "Abbet, that murder suspect you brought in is singing like a bird. Will you get down to lockup and take his statement so we can try him and hang him?"

Abbet reached down, recaptured his pencil, and mated it with his spiral notebook. He rolled his chair back a few inches and stood, bringing his eyes even with Fisk's. "I don't sleep, Lieutenant," he said, his words clipped and precise.

He made sure he was out of sight before he ran his hand through his graying hair and let his long-held breath escape.

"I thought he was really going to hit you that time," Subramanian said, steepling his fingers under his chin.

"It was a possibility," Abbet said, perching on the edge of the wooden chair on the other side of the desk. "I think one day he probably will."

Subramanian shook his head. "You provoke him on purpose."

"I absolutely do not."

"Just your existence is enough," Subramanian said. "I should have fired you a long time ago. I might have a minute's peace."
"You can fire me whenever it suits you, Chief. I won't protest."

The Captain guffawed. "Sure. And you know, one day I will fire you. One day your famous hunches won't come in, and then..." He cracked his knuckles. "That will be a good day."

"Today is a good day, too," Abbet said, "just in a different way." He slid three sheets of paper across the desk. Subramanian picked them up and began to read.

Abbet said, "He killed four of them. Told me where the bodies were. I'm going out to check the locations right now, but he was telling the truth. I'm sure of it."

"Four?" Subramanian flicked a stare up over the top edge of the papers. "We have six murders out there to solve."

Abbet nodded. "He told me he knows nothing about the other two."

"And you believe him."

"I do."

"Maybe I should send Fisk and Twersky in there to ask him again."

Abbet shrugged. "It won't do any good. He's told us all he knows. I'll just have to keep working the other two killings."

The Captain winced. He nodded toward a stack of folders to his right. "I need someone working this new one."

"I have this case already. Get Abraham or Gerhart."

Subramanian closed his eyes, shaking his head. "Not this one." He said it as if he had swallowed something repulsive. "It's got you written all over it."

"Well, then. That's something I don't hear every day."

The Captain glowered. "I wish I didn't have to say it. But the witnesses... ah, geez, Abbet, what the hell is this?" He stabbed the papers, creasing them. "He killed one with a click pen?"

"So he says."

"Get out there and find out. This is horse crap." He shook the papers back to attention.

Abbet smoothed his pants and stood up. Subramanian plucked his smoldering cigarette off the ashtray at the corner of his desk and took a long drag. Smoke wreathed his head like London fog. "Don't dig up the bodies," the Captain said, still reading. "Let the boys in forensics do that."

Abbet didn't pause on his way to the door. "Wouldn't dream of it."

Not anymore, that was. He'd already done the digging he needed to do.