Patricia Wilson
Stories
10
Chapters
3,347
Words
163.4 K
Comments
0
Reading
13 h, 37 m
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A few thoughts occurred to Truth at high speeds. The first was that never in his life would he have associated the words “lax security” with anything Starbrite actually cared about. The second was that he had gotten The glowing, growling, shaking box disintegrated. The sound had been infrasonic, below his range of hearing, but he could sure hear it now. And see it. A sphere of utter blackness emerged, faint blue-green worms of electricity crawling over it. Truth could feel the cosmic rays in the room…-
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Truth was looking over at the guarded double door. It was kind of creeping him out. On the one hand, they had to set up hundreds of these enrolment centers all over Jeon. There was, realistically, a limit to how secure they could make them. There was also a limit to how secure they would feel the need to make them. He got sworn in at a stadium. It was the most common place for it to happen. Not like the process was a secret, exactly, just the results. Truth didn’t trust it. Two guards? They weren’t…
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It was time to report in. There was just too much going on, and the window of time to act had shrunk from “about a year” to “about a month. Siphios Intelligence, or whatever shadowy bunch Merkovah was part of, had been playing spy games with Starbrite and Jeon intelligence for centuries. To say they knew each other’s go-to moves would be an understatement. Still, there are some methods that, by their very nature, are almost impossible to detect. Truth went out and bought a postcard. This turned…
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Truth found the news with a bit of trouble- the old joke about eight thousand performances but nothing to watch seemed to be getting truer by the day. Eventually, he found a local news performance being broadcast. The presenter was, of course, shockingly beautiful. Her every feature was perfectly symmetrical. The tone of her skin was set to the most fashionable and flattering color. Her eye color was adjusted to contrast nicely with her skin and the delicate blues and lavenders of her hair. Slender pearl…
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Truth didn’t pride himself on being decisive in combat. He never hesitated in a fight, so quick decision-making didn’t seem impressive. The current situation was, therefore, new on several levels. He propped his elbows up on the wall, looking down from the top of the garage. It was a pretty ordinary city street. The street next to a multi-story garage near the city sanitation headquarters will never be lively, but it wasn’t dead either. Gwaju was a dense little city, so the street was covered in…
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The countryside in Jeon felt different than in Siphios. Truth couldn’t put his finger on it, but it was different somehow. His usual loathing of farms did trigger, but none of the people he saw triggered his loathing of farmers. It took him an embarrassing amount of time to connect the dots. He didn’t hate the farm laborers he met back at the Garage in the Free State. They were really great. And these poor bastards doing the harvesting didn’t make him feel anything but sad. They weren’t…
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“Mr. De’Ponte! Sweet ride, that new?” The Green Tiger boss ran over to greet the “big shot.” “Just out of the shop! The stock interior was trash. Daddy needs his upgrades.” De’Ponte’s smile was bleach white, with a blue tint to his mirrored sunglasses. A crisp white shirt tucked into sharply creased slacks. The tattoo of a one-legged crane seemed to shimmer and move on the side of his neck, almost flying out of his collar. The red blaze on the top of the bird’s head looked like an…
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“I don’t give a fuck! She knows I can provide. You can't!” There was a hard slap sound from outside. Truth came out of the shack where he was resting. The Chief was lowering his hand, a Level Zero sprawled, bleeding in the dirt. “Little bitch. That’s why “your” girl eats with It was a slum. It wasn’t just a rotten fishing village, Truth realized. It was a slum. In every house, there would be a conspiracy underway. Every Level One would be carefully making alliances, feeling each other…
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The boats were working in a zigzag pattern, their lights sweeping the water for the drugs floating in the polluted waters. Truth was wedged uncomfortably in the prow of one of the reeking fishing skiffs. On the other hand, given his organs seemed to be held together with spit and good wishes, wedged in a semi-reclined position wasn’t too bad. The letters scrolled across Truth’s vision in stately majesty. Truth smiled faintly. This awful little boat suddenly didn’t seem so bad. Truth happily…
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Starbrite’s waste filled the oceans like a latrine running into a well. One bit of Starbrite branded industrial waste was currently in agony. This did not make him unique. Lots of Starbrite’s leavings had agonizing deaths. Every minute of every day. Still, this particular bit of trash had no less than three destinies upon him. He was down now, but he would rise. He was coming home to the land and people that made him. Truth bobbed in the water. Some tiny muscles in his eyes had sheared, and he could…
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