(Thanks for your patience and kind messages, everyone. Three nights in a row of 103+ degree fever convinced me to go get a Covid test, and I've managed to stop by the office on the way home to post this. Fingers crossed it's just a nasty bug! With a little luck I'll be feeling better and able to ...
2022-10-27 15:46:13 +0000 UTC View PostCrimson Hydra’s battle up Canal Street was brutal.
For all that James was an unstoppable force within the Hound, he was but one speck of resistance in a sea of slaughter. People thronged, pushed, screamed, and were killed. Nem3’s were everywhere. Leaping off buildings, charging into whe...
2022-10-25 12:00:07 +0000 UTC View PostVirtue: Justice
Understanding flooded into James and his mind blanked before the enormity of what was revealed. The four virtues were conduits, means to connect with beings that were exemplars of each concept.
A way to summon an avatar of Justice and embody it.
...
2022-10-24 13:13:59 +0000 UTC View Post“Here we go,” called Serenity. “Got the official countdown. One minute.”
The crowd was eating out of Kimmie’s palm. She kept hitting them with Inspire every fifteen or so minutes, boosting them up, reinforcing their will, getting them focused and ready for war. Now with the moment...
2022-10-21 12:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostEverybody was crowded around. Crimson Hydra. Star Boy, Hackworth, officers, operators, Fabricators.
Gawping. Gaping. Unable to process what had just happened.
James understood where they were coming from, but impatience was building up within him.
It was time to roll out.
...
2022-10-20 12:00:07 +0000 UTC View PostJames stepped back as the War Engineers got to work. This involved moving into a circle around the War Hound and raising their Mechanicus tools, each of which was distinct yet formed in the shape of a complex metallic wand. Eight Engineers got into position, and then Jessica completed the circle ...
2022-10-19 12:00:09 +0000 UTC View PostJames awoke to the sound of his phone buzzing. Serenity was gone. He rolled over, grimaced, then sat up. Cindy.
“Hello?”
“Good morning!” She sounded insanely chipper. “It’s your 5 a.m. rise and shine call. Are you ready for the apocalypse?”
“Cindy?”
“So...
2022-10-18 12:01:01 +0000 UTC View PostWhat followed was a bunch of meetings. Hackworth and his command folks, meetings where other generals were pulled in, folks from the NSA, the local leadership, Emergency Management.
James sat through them all, steeped in thought.
Barely heard what was said. Answered monosyllabically w...
2022-10-17 12:00:10 +0000 UTC View PostThey loaded Joanna’s body onto the Chinook and flew back to Fort Hamilton. People were giving commands, there was plenty of activity, but James felt like the hollow center of the storm, the quiet eye of the hurricane that spun up around them as they were returned back to New York.
An over...
2022-10-14 12:01:01 +0000 UTC View PostJames stepped inside the veil of fire. He moved slowly, warily, watching the horde of Nem3’s before him.
They’d been milling about, turning their heads blindly from side to side as if questing for an elusive scent, and with James’s arrival they finally found it.
And so a hundred...
2022-10-13 12:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostThe Anima found them a trio of Nem3’s stalking down the center of an avenue as if they owned it, dragging their sword-arms behind them and tearing up the asphalt.
James observed them from sixty yards up, the others arranged just behind him. “I think I’ll take these solo.”
“W...
2022-10-12 12:01:00 +0000 UTC View PostHow do you process that much carnage? How do you understand, in your bones, that millions have died? To wrap your mind around that number. To visualize it.
Ten dead, sure. A hundred dead, yeah, you can picture an intersection full of bodies. A thousand? That’s an entire subway train. A hu...
2022-10-11 16:49:18 +0000 UTC View PostThey cruised out to their intersection, the same one as the day before. Kimmie kept looping around on her Wing then apologizing, while Kerim had a stunned smile that just wouldn’t go away.
Funny. James was already taking the Wings for granted. Amazing how quickly a body could grow used to...
2022-10-10 12:00:11 +0000 UTC View Post68 Days till Pits Open
Might as well have been a lifetime. James dismissed the countdown as the elevator doors opened and he led Crimson Hydra out into the parking lot. Jessica had worked through the night to set up a new system, and each squad was to pass through in order ...
2022-10-07 13:31:14 +0000 UTC View Post69 Days till Pits Open
James dismissed the count-down as the elevator doors opened on the Marriott’s Presidential Suite. Emerging into the entrance hall, the Anima hovering just behind his shoulder and Kimmie and Kerim in tow, James realized that the whole top floor of th...
2022-10-06 12:00:06 +0000 UTC View Post“I’ve really fallen down the rabbit hole here,” said Cindy, smiling up at James from where she sat at her computer. “But in many ways this is still simpler than running fantasy conventions. No prima donna Hollywood guests, no switching schedule, and dealing with a few thousand people inst...
2022-10-05 12:00:10 +0000 UTC View PostSouth Beach, Miami, USA, 3:17 PM EST
“Yo dude, pump it, pump it!”
Chris spun the wheel as they came tearing off the intercoastal causeway, sliding down the McArthur at over 120 mph into the Alton Road intersection. His boss’s prized BMW M5 G-Power Hurricane RRs...
2022-10-04 12:01:01 +0000 UTC View Post“You did what?”
James stood straight in the small conference room. His heart was pounding, and in his mind he saw Bjørn widen his eyes just as James aimed the gun at his face.
Recounting what had happened felt like letting off a depth charge deep within his soul.
...
2022-10-03 12:00:07 +0000 UTC View PostBecca tore her gaze from Bjørn to glare at James with such horror and shock and outrage that her voice shook from the intensity of her emotions. “You murdered him.”
James swung his leg over the Wing’s saddle and sat. “I did.”
The rest of the crew was staring at him...
2022-09-30 12:01:04 +0000 UTC View Post“Bless Green,” James said as he eased the Wing around. The blessings boosted his stats even as he scanned the intersection. The triangular median. The subway station building.
The crowd shifted, uneasy, like deer that have caught the scent of wolf.
A Nem3 appeared inside a sandwic...
2022-09-30 12:00:09 +0000 UTC View PostJames descended to the Marriott lobby, his Animus hovering just above and behind his left shoulder, and when the elevator doors opened he emerged, already painfully aware of how unusual a figure he now cut.
The lobby was full of folks. Staff, assistants, operators, military folk from Hamilt...
2022-09-29 12:02:00 +0000 UTC View PostJames awoke at the crack of dawn, his alarm beeping mildly by the side of the hotel bed. It felt weird to wake up; he’d grown used to burning Aeviternum over the past couple of weeks to keep going at all hours.
A luxury they could no longer afford.
For a moment he just lay there, ar...
2022-09-29 12:01:01 +0000 UTC View Post“There’s only one thing we need to determine, and determine tonight,” said Major Duffy. “How are we handling the Second Wave?”
Everybody was gathered in what had come to be called the war chamber, the conference room just large enough for twenty. Hackworth and his command, along w...
2022-09-28 12:01:59 +0000 UTC View PostInstinct caused people to look up as he descended upon the crowd, and a ripple effect took place, upturned faces spreading as more noticed and looked up in turn. The crowd parted before him, allowing him to dip down enough to pass into the garage without having to skim beneath the top of the entr...
2022-09-28 12:01:01 +0000 UTC View Post(To see Trigger Warning, scroll to the bottom of the chapter.)
James flew out over the ocean, his speed slow, his thoughts in turmoil. She was fucking with him. This was a test, a trap. There was no way she’d come through with any promise. But then again, she’d sworn to give him proof h...
2022-09-27 12:01:59 +0000 UTC View PostJames brought the Wing around to face the approaching Monitor, because what else could it be? He was out of Aeviternum, perilously low on divine power, alone and a hundred and fifty yards up in the sky.
Maybe he should have bolted.
But he knew that was never in the cards.
The Mo...
2022-09-27 12:01:00 +0000 UTC View PostThe command center was tense, filled with admin making calls, connecting different units, coordinating forces, overseeing their two Groups and working on bringing them home.
James crossed the ballroom to where the ASOCC was located. It had been mightily augmented these past few weeks. Monit...
2022-09-26 12:01:04 +0000 UTC View PostIt took five minutes to cover the ten miles north. It was a beautiful drive. The suburbs north of the city were swank. It’s where the rich folk who got tired of living in Manhattan but couldn’t quit the day jobs on Wall Street went to live. Treelined highway most of the way, with the occasion...
2022-09-26 12:00:12 +0000 UTC View PostHow you guys doing? Happy Sunday. I hope you've got your coffee brewing and nothing but good things planned for your day.
So look, I've been writing like a madman these past two months. Since August 1st I've written 194,323 words for Dawn of the Void, and sometimes it feels like I'm sprinti...
2022-09-25 12:27:19 +0000 UTC View PostIt took ten more minutes of bloody work but they cleared the last of the Nem3’s. Having four Black Hawks in the sky helped like crazy, though they almost lost one when a Nem3 wheeled and loosed a harpoon straight up at is undercarriage. The bird wheeled away at the last second, the harpoon miss...
2022-09-23 18:45:25 +0000 UTC View Post