After last year's fiasco that ended in drenched clothes, bruised ribs, and broken PINpoints, Gale is determined to make this year's holiday go a little more smoothly. Maybe. His idea of a romantic outing this time is still two, maybe three parts Unconventional to one part Potentially Hazardous. But this is something he wants to share with her ( Read more... )

"Which information do you wish to view?"

"Locate all data available on the Atma, Dissemination Machine."

"Processing . . . No results were found for Atma." The last, unfamiliar word is a recording of Gale's own voice, played back, albeit tinny and electronic. The hologram shivers as a list of possible amended queries roll into place. Atomic bomb, ( Read more... )

It's late evening in Brooklyn, the shadows have thankfully lengthened, partially concealing the arrival of an Atma in an empty alley. He places his companion gingerly against a wall, then, in a flurry of movement, begins pushing a dumpster along the wall until it obstructs the door they just passed through...and anything else that might follow them ( Read more... )

Gale pauses just outside the stadium, looking up at the clean, swooping lines that make up the architecture. He's reminded of the bases in the Junkyard -- a looming hulk like Anahata, albeit this would be more easily penetrable ( Read more... )

Gale finds a good-sized cardboard box and a few bags, and begins loading them with supplies. The jar of spare writing utensils on the desk, a few legal pads, the prototype Atma suppressant (as well as the tools to compress it into tablets), one or two changes of clothes, ammunition, his Beretta, and his Junkyard assault rifle (which he wraps in a ( Read more... )

FWUMP! FWUMP! A dusty fog drifts across the room with a shake of the sheets.

( 'Nnngch!' )

For those of you who keep up with the Embryon, a lot of their activity for the next while is going to be shifted over to mad_mart, for the sake of keeping plotty things contained. Roughly speaking, it's going to serve as the "DDS world and the events therein ( Read more... )

(( Nexus, LOL -- this takes place in the same day that Gale tests the Atma supplement, so his sight is still wonky. ))

So this was Roland's world. Fred's world. David's world. The world beyond the Junkyard. It seems . . . dark. There's no wind here. The air is stagnant, but for sluggish drafts that prowl around the angular forms of buildings and ( Read more... )

( He needs to write this down. )

( ...And the hazards of. )