On the surface of Earth, an oceanic caravan goes slightly off charts in an effort to save a couple days of travel.
Around them, battering waves rise up to the heights of old world skyscrapers. Living salt leaves impromptu circuits across the keel of a dozen of their ships. Somewhere nearby, a defense station...
2022-05-16 08:13:18 +0000 UTC View Post“How we spend our days is of course how we spend our lives.” -Annie Dillard, The Writing Life-
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The Red Lion hotel was slightly less of a mess inside than it appeared from the parking lot.
From the front, it looked like a series of a few three story buildings, divided up into hotel rooms, w...
2022-05-14 00:12:07 +0000 UTC View PostI've been getting a lot done this week. Let's continue to hurtle toward wherever this story is going
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My sister has been down here for a very long time.
No matter what she’s done, the station has always had some form of security or containment measure to keep her from leaving the reactor deck, a...
2022-05-12 02:55:53 +0000 UTC View PostIt’s one thing to feel like you’re being held back by an increasingly convoluted series of bureaucratic madness and technical limitations. It’s another altogether to realize those things have been weaponized against you.
Ennos showed me the command access logs from our recent bout of democracy. Not all...
2022-05-11 05:39:21 +0000 UTC View PostOkay, the break didn't help much, but this chap
2022-05-07 02:42:54 +0000 UTC View PostThis one is short, different, and mostly just me messing with formatting in a way that I suspect will read better as part of the story and not on its own. So I apologize for that, but also there will be another chapter soon and I'm writing faster than normal anyway, so I counterbalance that apology.
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&g...
2022-05-06 18:24:08 +0000 UTC View PostTaking a break didn't really help but here are some cat things anyway.
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I’m out of grade two groundstriker rounds.
This isn’t exactly a huge problem; they’re not hard to fabricate, and it was one of the things I’ve leaned on a lot over the centuries. One of the first things I figured out h...
2022-05-04 21:19:48 +0000 UTC View PostOkay, I put a note about this at the front of last week's public chapter, and then completely forgot to put anything *here*. I'm taking this week off, there won't be chapters of anything this week, but I'm not dead. Expect more of everything to continue next week.
Also, big apologies for not actually remembe...
2022-04-29 10:54:14 +0000 UTC View Post“Strength does not make one capable of rule; it makes one capable of service.” - Brandon Sanderson, The Stormlight Archive -
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Getting into the building had been an experience.
James had forgotten that the company had gone back to an ‘everyone in the building’. He wasn’t entirely...
2022-04-23 06:27:24 +0000 UTC View PostThe nanoswarm cat and I have been staring at each other for about an hour now.
This is becoming increasingly awkward for me, and I *think* it’s awkward for them too because I’ve noticed the nanoswarm shifting back and forth on its vaguely stable paws.
Dyn has decided this isn’t her department, and has starte...
2022-04-19 04:02:46 +0000 UTC View Post“The sky above the port was the color of a television, tuned to a dead channel.” -William Gibson, Neuromancer-
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“So you just have to think about it, and you get a sword?” Morgan asked, feeling a little silly as he said the words. “I mean, that sounds cool, I guess.”
The ...
2022-04-16 04:52:22 +0000 UTC View PostThe airlock hissed as it cycled. I mean, I assume it hissed. My suit was a lot of things, but I’d actually forgone high fidelity external audio feeds for the engineering suit. I’d needed the space to fit a backup control node inside the sealed cat shaped armor.
But it made Dyn nervous, so I assumed...
2022-04-16 04:12:12 +0000 UTC View PostI think I like this chapter? Yeah. I think so.
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Two days ago, during a bit of downtime where I needed to shoot something on the surface but the station hadn’t gotten into the right orbital position yet, I ended up lounging in the gunnery crèche and talking to Ennos while I waited. Which l...
2022-04-11 03:02:20 +0000 UTC View PostI had fifteen other things I wanted this chapter to be, but then it got long, and I still like it so here it is and I'll put the things in the next one.
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“Good morning Hank it’s Tuesday” -John Green, Vlogbrothers-
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“Alright, let’s go over the whole thing again.” The...
2022-04-08 20:40:58 +0000 UTC View PostJust some casual slice of life stuff in this one. Because even Lily deserves a break sometimes.
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“Orbital insertion HuKs ready for launch, bays open.” Ennos’ clipped and technical voice chimes in my left ear.
“Kessler Syndrome opening in twenty seconds.” Glitter adds, voice a...
2022-04-04 22:27:26 +0000 UTC View PostEnnos was grumbling at me.
Earlier, I’d checked in with my AI friend to see how they were doing, and gotten what was obviously an abridged version of their quest to track down some piece of pseudo-living code in the depths of the station’s grid. Now, to be fair, we were actively in the middle of designing a lo...
2022-04-02 06:37:31 +0000 UTC View Post“I think it’s time we blow this scene. Get everybody and the stuff together. Okay. Three. Two. One. Let’s jam.” -The Seatbelts, Tank!-
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Gunshots rang out. Whatever grey lit magic the kid was doing to keep everyone trapped here, it seemed to keep sound in too; the...
2022-04-02 03:12:46 +0000 UTC View PostWake up, eat real food, talk to my friends, garden, study, play an increasingly complex board game with Glitter, eat fake food, play with Dog, build, salvage, sleep.
Repeat.
Repeat over and over and over, until the warm fog of memory holds nothing but the peace of the moment and the horizon of the past.
No o...
2022-03-26 03:30:34 +0000 UTC View PostI have torn out chunks of a thousand words or more and rewritten them at least three times on this chapter. I'm still not sure I *like* it, but it does what it needs to do. So, uh... narrative, go!
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“Fill my wounds with molten gold, and make me whole again” -Aisha’s Embrace, Destiny 2- 2022-03-25 23:31:51 +0000 UTC View Post
“And I’m not your protagonist // I’m not even my own. // I don’t know anything, // I don’t even know what I don’t know.” -Penelope Scott, Sweet Hibiscus Tea-
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Hours later, James found himself back at the Lair, wondering how it could have only been hours. Time felt wrapped ar...
2022-03-19 01:59:30 +0000 UTC View PostI am, for the first time in my life, sitting across a table from another organic being, as equals.
It’s harrowing, exhilarating, terrifying, vindicating, and also profoundly dull.
I may have chosen the wrong human. It’s been three hours, and she hasn’t said a single thing to me. Like she’s spen...
2022-03-18 06:04:25 +0000 UTC View PostI know I'm writing these slower than before, but I'm in an okay spot right now, so I'll try to get another chapter or two done this week.
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I am on a table of some kind. Or, maybe not a table. I am not supposed to be on tables, but I have been put here, so it cannot be a table.
It is metal, and smoo...
2022-03-15 22:11:11 +0000 UTC View PostAnd we're back
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“You have no choice you have to choose.” -Foo Fighters, Something From Nothing-
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The way the Lair was laid out was, originally, with just one floor, mostly three separate parts. The front, which was supposed to be a lobby or a check in area, the kitche...
2022-03-11 23:00:46 +0000 UTC View PostNot sure about this one, as always! But that's the fun of writing; building myself a reentry vehicle while midway through burning up in atmosphere.
I should remember that line. That sounds like a Lily line.
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At a certain point in my life, you’d think that I’d get used to...
2022-03-07 07:47:57 +0000 UTC View PostStill not feeling great, but at least the chapter is done!
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“At the end of the game, the king and the pawn go back in the same box.” - John Boys, Dean of Canterbury -
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James hit the telepad intake platform in a crouched position that didn’t make much spatial sense now tha...
2022-02-26 23:58:05 +0000 UTC View PostHey ya'll. I have become, in some way, *ill*. It's not great, I don't recommend it. As a result - and because whatever I wrote in my feverish sleep was typo filled nonsense and not actually narrative - this week's chapter will be delayed a day or two. I will also be taking next week off, to hopefully r...
2022-02-26 07:36:00 +0000 UTC View PostHoly shit, I've ticked over to four digit Patreon income. I don't... even know what to do about this. Do I celebrate? I don't know how to even feel. I make a living off of sharing stories with people. It's not a huge income, but it's mine, and it's from you, and I'm so grateful.
Thanks to e...
2022-02-21 07:28:25 +0000 UTC View Post“This place is not a place of honor... no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here... nothing valued is here” -Sandia National Laboratories, Long-term nuclear waste warning message-
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“You know,” James said from the back of the van that he was sitting in, “I actually expected my drama...
2022-02-19 02:39:35 +0000 UTC View PostThe fresh crisis comes as we’re just finishing our first ever weekly meeting.
For the last two hundred years or so, ever since I really started to get a handle on things, began understanding how to work with the station instead of just survive it, and opened up my paws and gunports to helping where I could, time has b...
2022-02-14 20:06:32 +0000 UTC View PostAnd our next narrative arc begins. I had fun writing this one, but it's also kind of a lot of setup? Also some ethics stuff. So, you know, prepare for that I guess.
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“Hatred outlives the hateful.” -Rancor, Magic the Gathering-
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An hour flew by in a real hu...
2022-02-12 18:38:14 +0000 UTC View Post
