Stretch your brain
Breaking every promise he'd made to himself, Grant found himself once again in the shining, shifting heart of the Temple of Seamless Iteration. The golden panels lining the long enclosure fluttered in their waving way, gracefully forming now a vaulted ceiling and then a dome of nested arches, always moving uniformly, symmetrically, and silently like… Continue reading Temple of Seamless Iteration
||Error S712: continuum rupture|| //Launching «backfire» subroutine /Analyzing\ ||Irretrievable chronology|| //Executing «retrojaunt» /Setting delta minima\ ||-1 minute|| ||Fuel: sufficient|| /Scanning jaunt chamber\ ||Lifeforms: negative|| /Triggering\ ||INSTABILITY|| /Override: authority «backfire»\ /Triggering\ ||Complete|| /Temporal preservation cooldown: trigger lockout\ «retrojaunt»\\ /Analyzing\ ||Stable chronology|| ||Lifeforms: positive|| ||Security breach|| //Executing «retrojaunt» ||Trigger lockout|| «retrojaunt»\\ //Executing security protocol «blue lambda» ||Antagonists:… Continue reading Subroutine
It looked like there were two bodies, but it’s always hard to tell in these cases. They were like cherry popsicles on the pavement on the Fourth of July: a sticky red mess you tried your best not to step in. I’d seen it before. More times than I cared to count. Perfect case record,… Continue reading Redacted
All the windows were boarded shut from the inside. Jacinthe didn't even bother with the front door. Instead she walked around the sun-scorched and weather-beaten house, expecting very little and generally having her expectations met. The midday brightness baked the earth. The heat almost seemed to rise up from the cracks in the yellow-white clay.… Continue reading Anachronic Lag
When Wynter came to the world was painfully bright. She didn't believe in a heaven, and she knew she couldn't be in hell; she'd just left there. White walls, white floor, everything glassy smooth and radiating golden white light. She rubbed her nose and her hand came away blood streaked. Some of it dripped to… Continue reading Neverwhere Nomorrow
Jules stood alone in the Proteus desert on Empyrean. He'd never been first before, not in any of the trillions of light cones. Good. He was at the front then, making a real change. He wouldn't be alone for long. But as the seconds dragged on he didn't know what to do with himself. Always… Continue reading Something to Fight For
The Empress of the SUGRA Skies sunbathed at a hangar on Eta Convex while Sawyer watched from the shadows. He stood to stave off the urge to sleep. He could rest when he was back on board, after the next jump, but not now. Not while there were hands other than his own touching the Empress. The… Continue reading Ghosts of Tomorrow
Petty Officer Lars Lamont helped get the clamp in position and then got out of the way. He didn't like it, but the Kid had to learn sometime. The whole cohort was at Lars' least favorite part of the training: practicum. He had to babysit while they did the wrenching on the Kólga's FTL drive. They… Continue reading Storm Shelter
He'd called it a bunker, but it was really just a series of empty square chambers carved out of the Tritonian ice, pressurized, and separated by heavy hatchways. Whatever you called it, he wasn't here. Leah could sense Captain West's impatience. "Give him a little time," she said. West snorted. "You'd think he'd be punctual… Continue reading The Time Slip Man
"Ma'am, with all due respect, am I to understand—" Admiral Canty dismissed him with a wave of a pixelated hand—the heavy encryption on the 'tangle feed tended to make the holos look blocky. "You aren't to understand anything, Captain." It wasn't often that someone could make Tanner's rank sound derogatory. The Amphinome, the ship under his command,… Continue reading The Worst Kind of Enemy
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